It’s 1:30am and I am nowhere close to tired.  Perhaps that’s because I slept in until 1pm after chatting with a friend into the wee hours of the morning.  I don’t remember the last time I was still awake after 4am, as was the case yesterday.

So I’m gonna write a bit, something I haven’t done nearly enough lately.

I still let Christians bother me.  On Sunday night I listened to a message where the speaker said something about how often times the longer a person serves God the further that person gets from the people He wants reached, and that is so damned true, isn’t it?  We get caught up in our iGroups, our church families, our speaking engagements… I remember the honeymoon days, just a bit over two years ago, when I finally encountered and surrendered my life to a living God I’d heard about all my life but had never truly met.  Those days were amazing.  Church politics was something I wanted nothing to do with, and would ask that people leave me out of such discussions.  When I went to this one particular church in town I was ignorant to the fact that almost every aspect of their ministry required the transfer of money, soon to even include paying to “volunteer” one’s service (can you believe that?).  The reason I was ignorant is because I simply went to church to receive from God, and purposely sat in the front so nothing would distract me from that end.  But now I let such things bother me.  Again.  I forget the fact that if God once used a jackass to deliver His message He can surely use money hungry clergymen, in spite of themselves.

I’ve seen myself become more “churchified” and less raw.  And raw, my friends, is where I want to be.  When I called my dad in September of 2006 to tell him I’d given my life to God he told me to remain true to myself as well.  I haven’t done the best job doing so, ’cause if I had I wouldn’t find myself watching my mouth so much, lest I offend the fragile sensibilities of Brother So-and-So.   If you’re one of those who has followed my blog these last few years you may remember the blog post I wrote about Christian Parroting.  Well my friends, the saints still go marching in, speaking an entirely different language than the rest of the world.  And Brother and Sister stick-in-the-butt still think that’s the way things should be.

And I get caught up in all of that.

Instead of ignoring legalism when it raises its head, I argue.  Instead of shutting out problems within the church, I listen.  Instead of spending time with God, I attempt to prove His existence to those who have heard the message and chosen to walk away from it.  And why?  Mostly because I’m argumentative by nature, a battle that wars within me which I’ve not yet won.

Seminary is great.  I’m learning a lot.  My mind is being rewired.  But God please don’t let me become just another typical Christian, wrapped up in my own little bubble world acting nothing like Christ, who is the  MASTER at reaching into the gutter pulling out the stinky and washing them clean with love.  I really need to get my hands dirty again.  May I never become “religious”,  instead simply love and pursue you intently,  letting that love change everything about me.  May I never forget the message that reached me.  May I stop arguing with people who have already been rescued over topics that aren’t reaching those who have not.  May I motivate myself to get off my lazy ass and walk that trail every single day like I used to do, rather than when it “fits my schedule”, because along that trail the two of us have some amazing conversations.  And from that place, all other aspects of life flow smoothly.

I do thank you, my Father, that you’ve placed amazing people into my life (especially BG, who really makes a lot of sense), and I also thank you for those who kicked my butt so much at the beginning of this journey.  May the butt kickings return.  They really did me a lot of good.

The author of Letters from a Skeptic (a book I HIGHLY recommend), Greg Boyd is a former atheist who surrendered his life to Christ in 1974. He graduated with honors from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary. Greg was a professor of theology for 16 years at Bethel University and is the founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church, an evangelical megachurch in St. Paul, MN.

I just finished reading his latest blog entry, where he contemplates the issue of a violent God in the Old Testament vs the loving God shown in Jesus in the New Testament. Great reading!

Click Here To Read It For Yourself