a joyous journey

All semester in management Cyphers (my outdoor leadership professor) has been asking us what is the issue that makes you weep, makes you pound your fist on the table. It's a hard question. There are a lot of things that make me weep, there are a lot of thing I want to change. But well I've been learning lately that the issue that make me weep more than any other one is the Church being the church. As Gandhi once said us Christians are so unlike our Christ. His ministry was highlighted centered around love, condemning the religious pharisees of the day that lacked love, but we have become religious pharisees. Blaming our falling nature when we mess up ourselves, but condemning others when they mess up. We want so much grace, but we rarely give it to others. Love must become central, for as Jesus said are the laws and the Prophets hang on the commandment to love our God with our whole heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

What God cares the most about is our heart. Its why scripture tells us that  if we say we hate a man, it is the same as murdering him. There is plenty more examples. God wants to be our EVERYTHING. He wants to change us until we become mirrors of him to this lost, hurt, and broken world. We have to be his hands and his feet, above all it is our calling. We don't follow rules and empty ritual we follow Christ and we let him TRANSFORM us to be the people we were created to be.

T-Shirts
by Derek Webb
they'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they'll know us by the way we point and stare
at anyone whose sin looks worse than ours
who cannot hide the scars of this curse that we all bare

they’ll know us by our picket lines and signs
they’ll know us by the pride we hide behind
like anyone on earth is living right
and isn’t that why Jesus died
not to make us think we’re right

chorus
when love, love, love
is what we should be known for
love, love, love
it’s the how and it’s the why
we live and breathe and we die

they’ll know us by reasons we divide
and how we can’t seem to unify
because we’ve gotta sing songs a certain style
or we’ll walk right down that aisle
and just leave ‘em all behind

they’ll know us by the billboards that we make
just turning God’s words to cheap clichés
says “what part of murder don’t you understand?”
but we hate our fellow man
and point a finger at his grave

chorus
they'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear
they'll know us by the way we point and stare
telling ‘em their sins are worse than ours
thinking we can hide our scars
beneath these t-shirts that we wear