Pastor. Writer. Speaker. Jesus-follower. Light-giver. Sinner. Saint.
I am timber.
Cold, untapped energy
Waiting to be thrown into the communal fire.
Longing to be with my brothers again.
Ablaze in community
Laughter
Story-telling.
Lament
A seamless dance that only happens between aged friends.
I am made for this fire.
The exchange of energy.
The creation of light.
The warmth of the human soul
The release of untapped potential.
Damn the slow chill of lonliness.
I want to burn out in a blaze of glory.
I am still waters
Where rapids fade to quiet.
A moment of peace and depth
Where cluttered souls can rest
And listen for the Eternal Whisper
A pregnant calm
Before the stream grows
Shallow and noisy again.
I remember the first time I felt the twinge.
When I was probably about 5 or 6 years old, I found my sister’s Strawberry Shortcake wallet. She had left it open in our basement with dollar bills scattered over the floor. Again, I was barely out of diapers, so had no real need or use for money. Still, the temptation to double my savings account was more than I could resist. I quickly gathered my sister’s lost treasure and took it to my room where I could count my plunder.
My parents had taught me stealing was wrong, so I should have felt a twinge of guilt the moment I took the money. However, the joy of counting my new windfall seemed to dull this sensation. Later that afternoon, my sister returned to our basement to discover her money was “missing”. She frantically told my parents as I silently listened to the commotion. A knot began to form in my stomach, as I prepared to be found out.
However, the strangest thing happened. As my parents helped my sister look for the missing money, their anger turned towards her. They became upset at my sister’s carelessness and irresponsibility. Somehow, the missing money became her fault. And I, miraculously, was not discovered. For a moment, I thought I had pulled off the crime of the century.
But then I felt it: Guilt. Conviction. Conscience. The innate knowing I had done something wrong. The twinge.
—
I want to talk about the twinge.
Because I think a lot of people have felt the twinge, but do not know what to do about it. Some let it grow. Others suppress it. But few see it as a gift.
—
A lot of us feel a twinge of guilt when we make a mistake. But sometimes this twinge makes a home inside of us. And we end up living with it for a long time. And when this happens, it grows. And the twinge becomes something bigger. Like shame. Or inadequacy. Or self-hatred.
On the other hand, a lot of us have felt this twinge and suppress it. We did not like the feeling, so we attempted to desensitize ourselves to it. We make ourselves believe taking the $26 is not that big of a deal. And maybe it was our sister’s fault for being so careless with her money. So we reason the twinge just needs to be suppressed and ignored until it goes away.
—
But both of these reactions miss the point.
The twinge is conviction. And it is a gift. And it is for our good.
—
Conviction is the way God whispers to our spirit when we do something wrong. It is uncomfortable, but the discomfort is for our good. We should feel uncomfortable in doing wrong. So the twinge serves both as a warning sign and a catalyst for change. Without it, we are likely to continue down a road we should not be walking. It is a gift.
The problem is we usually misinterpret CONVICTION for CONDEMNATION.
Conviction is NOT condemnation. Conviction is a good thing. Condemnation is not. God convicts us, but he does not condemn us.
—
Today, a lot of people misinterpret the twinge. We wrongly assume the twinge means God is condemning us. And so we fight it. We suppress the twinge and avoid its wisdom.
This is dangerous because we need to know what it feels like to be convicted, and to learn from it. To let the twinge teach us and guide our actions. To understand that it is a gift for our good.
We need the twinge.
It is no secret that people are leaving the church in droves.
People are disillusioned. There is a deep desire in people for the church to be a holy place. A place where they can come and experience God. A place where the deep longings of the soul can be satisfied. There is a hope within us that the church should be impacting the world. Loving the unlovable. Softening hard hearts. Feeding the malnourished. Caring for the poor and vulnerable. There is a belief that the church should be a place absent of the world’s trouble. A place of peace in a world of anxiety. Hope in a world of despair. Joy in a world of stress. Love in a world of competition.
This is what we feel the church should be.
But then we drive down the street, park our car, walk into a brick building, and enter the REAL church. It is nice enough. And there are glimpses of the church we envision. But if we stick around long enough, our grandiose visions of church slowly begin to die. Sometimes worship is mundane. The church loves and helps folks, but is hardly transforming cities. And the troubles of this world- the worry, and conflict, and tension- live inside the church, too.
The church in our dreams does not seem to match the church down the street. Some of us try our luck at a few more, hopping to and hoping for something better. But at the end of the day, no church we attend ever seems to fulfill what we think the church should be like.
And so we become disillusioned.
A good friend said this to me recently that he had finally become disillusioned with the church. He had been a pastor, director of a jail ministry, and most recently a hospital chaplain. So his words immediately saddened me (especially since he had been attending my church for the past few months).
But he went on to explain how his disillusionment was a GOOD and FREEING thing. To be disillusioned, he said, is to literally lose your illusions. And it was his illusion of church that kept him discontent and unable to embrace the real church.
I thought this was profound.
Too often times our vision of church is an illusion. It is a make-believe thing in our head. It is not real people, in real towns, honestly trying to follow and serve Jesus. And so when those real people do not look like the illusions in our head, we give up on them.
Our illusions are the problem.
More of us need to become dis-illusioned with the church. To let the illusions die so we will be able to (maybe for the first time) embrace the real church. Which, by the way, is the body of Christ. Is where we can find the presence of God. Is impacting the world, caring for the poor, loving the vulnerable, and hospitable enough to make room for sinners like us.
To be honest, the REAL church is impacting the world more than your illusionary one.
So be careful with what frustrates you. And here is to disillusionment.
Frowntown was a city, that was gloomy and grey
Where people wore frowns on their faces all day
No one was happy or laughed out loud
Every day in the sky was a dark, grey cloud
At the start of each day everyone dragged out of bed
Without a “good morning” or anything said
They ate toast without butter and stale, old gruel
Then waddled to off to work, the kids off to school
All the adults thought work was tiresome and boring
And the children got through school by sleeping and snoring
When everyone got home they went right to the couch
To watch their favorite TV show, Frown Clown the Grouch
When the sun set at the end of the day
Nobody knew because the sky was so grey
They just got ready for bed and laid on down
And closed their big eyes above a great big frown
But then one day it happened, something totally new
It was such a surprise, folks didn’t know what they should do
A man with a smile came walking on through
Whistling a song Hum-dittly-dum-ditty-doo.
He was happy, and friendly, and bright as can be
And stopped in the middle of town to make this decree:
“Frowntown is a fine place. I like it a lot.
I reckon I’ll build a house in this very spot!”
So he gathered some hammers, nails, and wood
And built his house on the spot where he stood.
But the folks in Frowntown were not sure of this fellow
They dressed in black, and he dressed in yellow.
He baked cookies and brownies and anything sweet
And gave them away for everyone to eat
He was cheerful and nice, happy and fun
And he acted this way towards every last one
But most shocking of all was his great big smile
Which seemed to go on for mile upon mile
Some even said it shined like a light
Making grey Frowntown a little more bright
For the first little while the folks all stayed away
From the odd, happy man who smiled all day
But the light in his smile was appealing to some
Who were tired of living in the gluck and the glum
So they asked the man if he would teach them to grin
And help them undo the frown they were in
“It’s easy,” he said with a twinkle in his eye
“Just show me your teeth and lift your cheeks to the sky.”
It was tricky at first, to the folks with a frown
For their cheeks to go up, when they usually went down
But after some practice and help from their thumbs
They were smiling all the way up to their gums.
And so for the first time in a very long while
Some folks in Frowntown learned how to smile.
And just like the man whose smile gave off light
Their smiles, too, made Frowntown more bright
Then something happened, something totally outrageous
The light from their smiles became highly contagious
And spread throughout Frowntown just like an infection
Completely transforming peoples’ facial complexion
Soon Frowntown was filled with laughter and singing
People all playing, dancing and swinging.
The greyness and clouds that made life quite bland
Turned to bright colors in the sky and on land.
So Frowntown became quite a colorful place
Where smiles could be found on everyone’s face
All because a man came walking on through
Whistling a song, hum dittily dum ditty doo.
