Risk Out of Conflict

I'm beginning to understand that the difference between religion and reality is risk. It all boils down to risk.

Right now, God is rescuing me from religion and wooing me into an honest reality and opportunity to risk everything. I thank Him for this, even though it is strange, sort of hurts, and reveals me publicly in embarrassing ways. Even as I type this, I'm a man bombarded with questions, doubts, frustrations, resentment, and wounds of my past and thus, all of it is somehow a beautiful indication that I'm no longer a man stuck in the mud of safety, predictability, and fear (what I call religion). Or at least my tires are gaining some sort of traction and I'm slowly but undoubtedly working my way out of the mud and back into the deep forest where I can explore life, interact with its creation and know the Spirit in it all.

I don't think many people in the church (the global church) realize that they are dying in a life that could be resurrected. I know this because I've been one... a paled-skin, lifeless, aching patient of spiritual cancer. I've lived under the attack of church expectations (which, by the way, is driven by fear). I've listened to the critics tell me how to be and how to think and what to desire- whether or not I can be barefoot on stage or use curse words to express my feelings. I've been frozen in the walls of what you "can't do" rather than roam freely in the possibilities of what I am meant to be.

And I am not just a victim; I'm a perpetrator, too. I have judged my brothers and my sisters and told them how they should live, rather than why they should live and not just live, but live abundantly. I've been an architect of Sunday morning church services that are stale, predictable, uninspiring, unmoving- all of this because I'm lazy when I feel worthless. I've ignored many of the conversations with people around me because I only live life within my own pleasure and time and not the pleasure and time of others. And I've held in my honest and raw thoughts so I won't "offend" anyone.

All of this to say, I'm tired of living this way because at its deepest foundation, there is no life in it at all. I can't fathom that God calls us to a safe journey where we escape from interacting with our deepest questions, doubts and fears- where we just patch everything up, like the church has repeatedly done for years. It is no wonder that the church body is looked at as an accessory to the world and not as an opportunity to find life, healing, imagination, inspiration, innovation and relevancy.

The conflict of my heart collides in the intersection of my thoughts. At one end I feel like I need to give up, move on, be pissed off at the church, and ultimately resent its faults and failures. At the other end, I simply hear the voice say to me, “Be part of the change.” This is hard for me, as I have continually attempted to escape from persevering through the ugly into the beautiful. I’m guilty of striving to find the easy ways out, so I don’t have to feel pain and rejection. But I guess that the joy is in the journey rather than a quick arrival.

I hope that we who are citizens of the church refuse to just exist. A dead squirrel on the side of the road can exist. And so can a dead church. Let’s be bothered in conflict. Let’s be so bothered that we are more than aware that we must make the choice to risk everything in order to be the hurricane of love in our wounded cities OR… stay quietly hidden on a hill, isolated from society, building upon routines and tradition in order to reassure our egos and safe, predictable lives.