Do Right Until The Stars Fall...

All through the years the Christian school taught us to "Do Right until the stars fall, but do right". (A Bob Jones saying).  Doing right meant to hold fast your religious convictions even if it meant going to jail, torture, or the destruction of all you hold dear. Women wearing dresses was suppose to be a preference, but was treated like a conviction. Doctrinal subjects like the Trinity, Virgin Birth, Baptism by Immersion, Creation, and the like were to be convictions that you were to die for. To help you decide what was "right", we had to read the book, "What Would Jesus Do?" This book was all the rage in Christian circles.

The book gave various scenarios with people on their jobs, confronted by something "wrong". The man or woman would then would ask, "What would Jesus do?" The man or woman would stand up against the bad thing whatever it was: swearing, dancing, drinking...etc. and let the consequences come even if it meant loosing their job. If you didn't hold firm and do the right thing, then you were denying Christ and in danger of going to hell.

While this sounds good on the surface it only served to create dysfunctional people. There are so many ways in which this is wrong that I will only hit upon a couple.

Who determines what is a conviction? Take dresses on women. Who decided that it was godly for women to wear dresses? Dresses as we know them are not in the Bible despite the adults lying and saying that they were. In fact, middle eastern men wear a sort of dress so why aren't the American men trying to be Biblical by wearing dresses? Think about that! Do right men! Wear Biblical dresses.... Who says if transubstantiation is a conviction or preference? So is it the preacher who decides? And how many preachers were skimming money from the offering plate, molesting kids, having affairs and being jerks...are they the ones to tell us what is a conviction?  

Say we find a list of things that are suppose to be convictions. In my life, I was the one who was suppose to determine what "Jesus would do" based on my flawed sense of righteousness. One day at work, I was forced to work on a job for a customer selling pants for women. I had to do the work or lose my job. I did my job, but not my best. The thought occurred to me that no one was going to say what a wonderful Christian I was for hindering the customer from selling pants. In a way, by not doing my best for the customer, I was actually hurting others. I could just hear my co-workers say, "Don't give her the job, she does horrible work. She calls herself a Christian..." The customer would go to another company and I would cause loss of revenue to my place of business and thus hurt the other employees & owner.  Another example is this: A blow out ensues over creation vs. evolution. We have all heard the arguments & mud slinging on topics such as this for holiday get-together conversations. It usually ends with anger, name-calling, and bad feelings. So you stood up for creation. What did it matter? All the standing up for righteousness did was to hurt people. What does it matter if God made the world in 6 days or 6,000,000,000? I wasn't there and neither are you. My point being, we stand up for God, and destroy everyone around us in the process...BUT WE ARE RIGHT!

That's when I decided that the "WWJD?" was a bunch of baloney. What this saying did, was to make me a god. I was the one who decided right even if it caused hurt and damage to other people. What did the Bible say? "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes..." This was the beginning of what I understood as SELF-righteousness.

This picture is me, in my 20s. I was on one of my Eastern mission trips. (This was an underground prison open to tourists that I visited while waiting to meet someone). I was a good Christian with my convictions. I was willing to die for my beliefs and hold true to Christ. I was poor and didn't own nice clothes. I didn't make good impressions. I only had a love for God to recommend me. The mission told me they didn't want me any more and it shattered my world. The mission people even told me that God didn't want me in the mission. In fact, the mission preachers couldn't say one nice thing about me. I couldn't "fix" the problem, whatever it was. I couldn't talk it out. They would not listen. They kept accusing me with lies and I had no voice that they wanted to hear. The mission decided what was right, but in so doing, they destroyed me. How is this godly?

When you stand on your "convictions" and you make your self-righteous judgments and blame it on God, how many people do you destroy in your arrogance? How many snotty remarks to tear someone down did you make? How many family members did you humiliate over the subject of evolution/creation that will never speak to you again? How many of you have family members who have children out of wedlock and you will barely speak to them because they sinned and you are standing upon your convictions? How many of you blame others just so you can feel good about yourself or get what you want?

When the mission looked at me, they saw someone they didn't like. They saw someone they could mock, bully, and joke about. When God looked at me, he saw a dear soul that was hurting and physically wounded. Someone who needed a kind word and a friend. A person who needed to be uplifted and helped in this world. Their hearts were too tiny to see or hear me. The mission wanted to reach the world with their beliefs and FAILED in their mission with the person God placed closest to them.

Broken Things...Broken People

Did you ever feel like your heart was fragmented like this window? Smashed! Shattered! Unfixable! Thousands of shards. You can't find all the pieces and however can you put them all back together? Every time you try to put the pieces together, the pain keeps cutting deeper. You feel so alone. You want to find God and wonder if he even exists. Maybe there is no God....but if there is no God, then there is no help. So you struggle on.

I know what that feels like. My husband & I were part of a small missions team. We met with Christians in the Communist countries to see what they needed. We made many trips bringing money, food, Bibles & medicine. We were a lifeline of support to these dear people. We would have continued in the work, but were forced to leave. Our mission & supporting church didn't want us any more. We were not able to live up to their image and we were accused with lies. What happens when the truth doesn't matter? What happens when you just can't measure up? We left broken. Broken heart, broken life, broken pieces.

I struggled for many years to make sense of it all. I wanted to serve God, yet the religious threw me out. God was able to break through the years of brainwashing from the Christian school & church. God unraveled the lies in my head. I looked at my precious kids, thinking about how much I loved them and it dawned on me. Why do I love my kids more than God loves me? Is it possible that I don't see God rightly? Is is possible that the Preachers that told me that I wasn't valued by God were lying? What if, in spite of all the religious training I had and all the truth I'd been taught, what if God was actually something more? And so began my journey....

Years later, we were able to go back to a church in Hungary. There was a visiting American preacher, preaching to the people. "God doesn't want broken people! God only wants you if you are successful! Look at how God used me!!! I'm successful!" Gag, Choke...Cough...I almost threw up! Talk about triggering anger. My temper flared. I wanted to scream at him, "HOW DARE YOU! YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A SELF-RIGHTEOUS POMPOUS PIG! You understand nothing of the breath & depth of the love of God" A song kept going through my head, "Only, only when we're broken, can be made whole, Only, only when we're empty, can we be made full".

After church we went back to my friend's house. Walking around the corner, I saw this broken, smashed window. I stopped and stared...............OMG!! Whoever broke it thought it was destroyed, but I saw something different. I saw beautiful shapes, different layers, colors around the spectrum, pieces fallen, pieces holding on refusing to let go, shards of beauty, sparkles of light, glimmers of hope, and a special reflection of beauty in it. Had this window been perfect, I would never have noticed it. I would not have taken this picture. This window reminded me of when I left. Physically & emotionally broken. God took what Satan meant to destroy and He twisted it into a victory. I felt abandoned, but I wasn't. He was there all the time, but I was blind and couldn't see Him.

In halting English, my friend asked me what I thought of the visiting preacher. I thought back on my broken life and the pain I went through.  I told them that God's love is much deeper and broader than we can imagine, and YES God does love broken people.