Jesus loves the little children...

I realized the love of God today (well, yesterday, while sitting in church). In Isaiah 55, the pastor was emphasizing the forgiveness of God – the sure mercies of David. He especially pointed out verse 7 that says He will abundantly pardon. David did so many things, on purpose things, but God still called him a man after his own heart. This stuff I already knew though. I was sitting there and thought of the verse in I John 4 that says that we love God because he first loved us. I just didn’t see a reason for my lack of self-esteem. God is chasing after me, wanting me to be closer to him, setting up circumstances so that all I have to do is walk into them and I will have all the love that I want. What got me about this is this is what I feel about Friend with Special Place in my Heart sometimes. I have done everything for him. I’ve pretty much been his girlfriend since we got back to school, but he doesn’t fully see that (he sees it, but he doesn’t see how it hurts sometimes when he puts up walls for no reason. I’ve given him no indication that I would betray him, yet he still believes that. It’s an affront on my character, which hurts that after all this time he doesn’t see who I am and how I feel about him. But that’s another story for another day). And I looked at what it’s like to be on the other side. Maybe this isn’t a good thing, but part of me was like, man, I give this dude a lot of love, and all he has to do is say yes, and I would give him even more. Wow, I really love this dude. But it was nice to realize that for once I was wanted. That if I made the effort, and it wasn’t even a really big effort, I could have all the love in the world that I wanted. God was just sitting there waiting for me, and it floored me to realize that he wants me. He wants the good and the bad of me, and is ok with my faults. He wants to gently change me, not rip me to pieces to break me down. I don’t really have to do anything to deserve His love. He accepts me for me. He loves my natural hair because he made it. My lips because he made them. My small hips and thighs because he made them. The things that he’s said about me will come to pass. If I stay with him, he won’t let me become a failure at life. I will do great things and affect people in a positive way. I can take for granted the things that he says, because His word cannot turn back to him void.

Can you overdose on church?

I was reading an article over on the Freshxpress.com (http://thefreshxpress.com/2009/02/high-christians-edit-in-progress/) and it got me thinking. For those of you too lazy to click the link, the writer Mike Scruggs is talking about the “I need me some church” phenomenon. People go to church to escape the hard things in their life, looking for uplifting songs and sermons that make them feel good for those 2-3 hours (or longer if you go to a Pentecostal church). Unfortunately, there are no real points or lessons that actually make it back to your house to help you change your situation. Church is simply a drug used to get “high.”
So I asked myself, if church is a drug, what does it mean when you overdose? This may be over-extending the analogy, but it’s something to consider. Is there a point when you get too much church? I frequently feel like I’ve gotten too much before. For those of you judging me right now for my heathen-ness, bear with me for a bit. I grew up in one of those strict Christian homes where we weren’t allowed to listen to any secular music, we attended service a lot (my dad was a pastor), AND I went to a Christian school. My entire life was church, church, and more church. I got tired of it just like any kid would, but it was life. There was nothing I could do about it, so I just accepted it and learned to deal with it. When I got out, I realized that all that stuff I’d learned was true – and actually useful. So I involved myself in campus ministries and ingrained myself at a really great church. But during one of the many conferences I attended with the ministry and church, I realized that I was sick of it. I was sick of being holed up in a hotel listening to powerful word after powerful word, and not being able to really do anything with it right there, instead making promises to God with New Years-like resolutions of how things would be different once I got back home. Believe it or not, during those times when I was surrounded by Christians 24/7, I prayed much less than I would if I was home. I was resting on the collective spiritual glow of everyone around me. For three days I lived off of a feeling of being close to God, the electric energy of the worship, and the fervor and earnestness of those around me. However, by the end, those fuzzy feelings had worn out, and I was ready to go. I was so filled up with the word, I literally felt like I wanted to throw up. Here, ladies and gents, is what an overdose looks like. You get so filled up with the word until it all becomes one long string of trite Church-isms.
So how do you detox? Get it out of your system. Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.” This may just be talking about the physical act of giving, but I think you can generalize it to giving of yourself. So if you’re getting so much word, you should find ways to live it out in your day to day life. Then, instead of living for a high from Sunday service, you get a steady dose of the drug and have genuine joy all during the week. Which I think is much better than having that crash after the high.