“The Gospel is a harsh document; the Gospel is ruthless and specific in what it says; the Gospel is not meant to be re-worded, watered down and brought to the level of either our understanding or our taste. The Gospel is proclaiming something which is beyond us and which is there to stretch our mind, to widen our heart beyond the bearable at times, to recondition all our life, to give us a world view which is simply the world upside-down and this we are not keen to accept.” 

― Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh


(Photograph by Hideta Nagai, My Shot)

Quotes

3:29:00 PM

I remember growing up and being, like, silly over some actor or songwriter whom I found out was a Christian. I would become pretty obsessed with them after that. If I’m honest, even if I wasn’t 100% sure they were a Christian, I’d be okay with that. If they just said some semi-religious things, I'd jump on that wagon hard.

Looking back, I think it’s a pretty strange phenomenon. I mean, I get that I wanted to be represented in the larger culture, and that I wanted to get behind my bros and sis’s in Christ. But blindly supporting anyone that either says they’re a Christian or just spouts off spiritual-sounding things is not very discerning.

What’s more, I see full-on adult Christians doing the same thing. (Me too, sometimes.)

Never Meet Your Idols

I’m not a big one for naming and shaming. I feel like it separates more than it helps. So, speaking in general terms: there are a lot of jerks being lifted up as religious idols who claim Christ and talk a good game, but do some really crazy, un-Jesus-like junk.

As a follower of Jesus, a former pastor, and someone who works within a fairly large ministry, I meet a lot of “famous” religious people (I put famous in parentheses because outside of our Christian circle, honestly, nobody really cares). What I’ve discovered after a junk-load of idol worship is that I tend to trust people who don’t look all that ”religious” on the outside, but in whom I regularly see the love of Christ, rather than those who talk a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo (no matter how accurate) but act like jackholes.

I went through a lot of letdowns to get to that point. I’ve seen the dark sides of a lot of holy rollers and it’s not pretty. I walked away from the religious scene for several years because my idols (including the church) let me down. And that’s all I’m trying to do here: save you a lot of heartache from holding up television stars, politicians, and so-called religious professionals as the high water mark.

Idols Are Dangerous

I’m not talking about penny ante sins, or one-time moral muck-ups. I’m talking about ingrained evil. Continuous, non-repentant behavior like belitting women (or anyone!), showing disdain for the poor, racism, slander, narcissism, greed, etc, etc, etc. Often, people are really good at hiding that stuff, and can talk a good game, but the folks we hold up as religious royalty are often pretty obviously loco. So, why do we idolize them? It's because they have something we want, or are something we want to be, and we can’t see past our idol worship. So we defend those sucker’s, bad behavior and all.

Our problem is that we want a king. We want someone else to do the hard work of sanctification so we can emulate them. We want them to wrestle with the difficult sayings of Jesus so we can just implement what they say. We don’t want to think, because we’re busy, and thinking is hard. And I totally get that. But it’s still a really bad choice.

When you put anyone on a pedestal, don't be surprised when they dropkick you on the way down.

Your pastor, your favorite television show personality, political candidate or best friend isn’t perfect, and, no matter how holy they seem, are certainly not worthy of your worship.

By way of full disclosure, I screw up on a minute-by-minute basis, commit all of the sins I said those guys above do, and I’m such a jackhole that I’m not even sure you should be reading this blog! But I do know One who you can put your faith in that will never let you down, lead you astray, or say insulting things about your sister (Although, your sister…). He’s the only one that actually deserves our cheers and praise.

Christian Life

1:19:00 AM

I was talking with a friend today about the past. Not our past together, I mean the past. The dark places. The places with teeth. The dank, malodorous dungeons that we store our worst memories. The memories that are so bad we either pitch a tent there because we can’t look away, or turn from, close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears, and try to forget they happened altogether.

I’d had a really rough week, so this conversation hit close to home. Without going into a lot of detail (you’re so nosy), the experience I had is something that not only hurt a lot, but was one of those experiences that had happen so often you start losing the will to fight.

Thief

Like my experience, some bad things like to come back every so often to remind you that they’re still around. Others are so wicked and awful that they only have to happen once to make their sick point. Still others are attached to people we love or are supposed to love us, and every time we see them it’s like a poke in the eye.

All this stuff upends us. It changes us and confuses us—causes us to make poor decisions based on anger, fear or just plain ignorance. It causes us to doubt God’s love. It makes us bitter.

Hope

When my friend and I were talking, she brought up a really bad experience she’d just had, but said that—in general—she was moving in a positive direction. While she’d lost a lot, she had a lot to save and repair too. That God had provided her with so much.

Genuine trust and hope in the midst of pain. Why didn’t I think of that?

This opened something up in me. Like finally getting a stubborn spy glass to turn, and seeing the horizon come into focus. Perhaps it was… hope.

I had been so focused on all the bad, when there’s so much good in my life too. Often, God is standing right next to us and we just don’t look that way.

I’m bad about that: being so angry at the past for stealing so much that I waste the present.

My Story

In C.S. Lewis’, The Last Battle, Aslan the lion and the children find a group of dwarfs in a tight circle, facing one another, claiming to be in the dark, in a “pitch black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.” But it isn’t dark, and Lucy encourages them to “look up, look round, can’t you see the sky and flowers—can’t you see me?” She then picks some wild violets and puts them under one of the dwarf’s noses. He flinches, berating her for sticking filthy dung under his nose.

I don’t want that to be me. But, sometimes, well, that’s me. Perhaps I fear that any good I accept as reality would take away from my desire to feel bad for myself. So, I don’t see the good on purpose, like those stupid dwarves.  

“They will not let us help them.” Says Aslan. “Their prison is only in their minds.”

Yeah, the past can be painful. And that pain is very real, and we shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t exist any more than we should forget the goodness in our lives. But we can’t let it own us. We can’t let it define our reality. We have to, as Steve Brown says, kiss our demons on the mouth. And, if we allow him, God will define our reality with love—for Him, for others, and for ourselves—not regret.


-Chad West


photo by Justin Locke, Nat Geo Creative

Christian Life Pain & Suffering

10:36:00 PM