wood next to diamonds.

     Summer is approaching quickly!  I can say I am ready for these rainy cool days to pass so I can start to enjoy the sun and ocean again.  Only about a month until the rush of summer begins!  I am preparing myself mentally haha  That means I have to write about a couple of issues my heart and brain have been struggling to process for the past two years (yes, that is a long time y'all.)  With that said, if you are reading this post....finish it.  I will probably make some foolish statements.  Love me through those.  I am not saying I am perfect or an expert on these topics, but God has been doing a thing or two in my life to highlight these issues.  Let's go.
     If you know me or have read any of my blogs, I hope you have gathered that I am a Christian.  In this day and age that can honestly be a super vague statement.  I consider myself a Christ follower.  Meaning, that daily I am trying to serve and love God in a way that is glorifying to Him.  I hope to see His kingdom advance on this earth.  Being a Christian doesn't mean that I am just waiting for heaven...His work can be done in this very moment.  Does that sound unfamiliar to you?  I sure hope not.  But with how Christianity is portrayed today it might....sorry if this post is one large rant...but it has been a large rant in my heart for some time.
     1) Are Christians only trying to get you into heaven?  This question is a tough one.  We do want everyone to go to heaven.  If you truly love people wouldn't you want them to spend eternity with you and in perfect relationship with God? I sure hope so.  But this want can be majorly skewed in the Christian walk.  Are you loving to just convert?  I fear that many of us love with an agenda.  God has absolutely wrecked this mindset for me.  You cannot fully love out of a motive to get only what you want.  That is not love.  Love involves two people...two people who have dreams and pain to throw into the mix.  If you truly love you will not be able to guess the outcome, nor should you want to.  There isn't a formula for love, and there is a reason for that.  Genuine love is accepting people exactly where they are...but with that, you encourage them to be the best they can.  You see their flaws and love them through those.  You want them to overcome struggles/trials or whatever...but you cannot force it.  If we are basing our image of love off of God we understand that love involves pain.  It involves sacrificing, and it involves change.  Mostly, it involves listening and understanding people, for exactly who they are..and in exactly where they hope to be.  If you are loving based on an outcome that you want, you are completely missing the chance to love a human heart.  A heart that is a mess but has been beautifully paid for.
     2) Christians are super judgmental.  Yes, yes we are.  I'm not saying that judgment within the church is all wrong.  Christians have the call to judge those within the family to draw them closer to God...and to point out how we are harming our own hearts.  Just think about your judgement.  Please.  Who wants to join a family (the church) if it only means living up to rules and pleasing everyone?  Isn't that what we all deal with daily?  Shouldn't the church be a refreshing place for our souls?  What does the Bible even say about the church?  I have been a strange place with the church for some time now.  There have been weeks where all I wanted to do was give up on church and try to live out my walk with God alone.  That is impossible, and God corrected that thought through His guidance in the Bible.  Jesus died to save your soul and establish a way for you to have a personal relationship with God, but he also established a new church and way to live with others in community.  He died so that the old way of serving God (animal sacrifices and rules) would be dismissed.  Church should not seem like a place where people go to get things right with God for the week and then leave.  Church is a family of people who believe in the power of God/Jesus and want to see a community, a people, and a land completely loved and taken care of.  Jesus didn't die so we could be timid people that go back to our old ways of sin.  He died to establish a community of love left with His spirit to change and advance His kingdom in this very moment.  Have you experienced a church with this love?  I'm not saying that the church will be perfect.  It cannot be...it is full of flawed people, and Jesus did not die for our perfection.  But my prayer and hope is that the church would get it right in some ways.  That we would be a welcoming community instead of a condemning one.  Stop telling people they have to change when they walk in the church doors.  I promise if you love them where they are, God will get a hold of their heart.  I promise He will change them...and it will not be on your timeline.  How did you come to love God?  Was it by someone telling you that you were living in sin?  Was it by people pointing out your every flaw?  Trust me, they know their flaws.  Their hearts are hurting, stop making it worse.  The love of Jesus draws us in and heals.  It is a process, but it is one of love and that takes time.  Just like we learn our worth in Jesus, I hope people learn their worth in the church.  You are welcomed and invited to church.  Can we please make the church what it was intended to be?  Not a place of perfection and judgement, but a place where broken people gather to learn their worth and experience a new and different life.  There will still be hurt in the church, that is a given.  But can we figure out solutions of those hurts based on the teaching of Jesus?  I am completely looking at myself here.  I am not perfect, but as a Christian I am craving community that can only be found and lived out in the context of this church that Jesus died for.
   If you are a Christian and believe in the gospel that Jesus preached, are you excited about it?  I so often feel that I am not.  That it is some message that I have just grown up just knowing and therefore accept, but that I am fearful/leery to talk about with anyone else.  We should be excited about what Jesus declares as GOOD NEWS.  I hope to work through some of my heart issues with you.  The weight of the gospel is not always set on my heart.  I hope to explore this "good news" for the rest of my life.  And it starts with talking about it.  It may seem like I am attacking Christians here...but I really just want you to think.  I know thousands of churches who are doing amazing things to love people.  They are doing it well.  But I still cannot help but feel like an outsider sometimes, praying, and hoping that we can love people a little better.  Think about your relationship with Jesus, think about why you love him, and think about how your heart has been changed.  After you think, pray that God would help you to listen and love better.  A heart is changed by unconditional love.  Be that unconditional love for someone.