For when it hurts..

Imagine you've just been shot. Are you going to fixate on who shot you and why they did it or are you going to go to a doctor and try to heal and survive?

Isn't it weird how we treat physical wounds so much different than spiritual or emotional wounds? When we get "shot" by people in the church we instantly turn to the shooter, not the Healer. 

Here's the problem. None of us are perfect. No, not one. 

None of us are Christ and few of us are Christ-like. So it's only natural that we fail each other. We sin against one another. We forget that we are meant to be a family and not merely a social club where we pay our annual dues, and attend a few meetings and call it a day. 

But a real family, defined by its beauty and imperfections–its messiness and its glory.

And the thing is that families fail us because people fail us. The church fails us, not because it is broken, but because we are broken. Individually, we are broken pieces, often consumed by our dysfunction and our past, our pain and our shame. Our sin and our hurts. 

Yet, in God’s family we are called chosen, redeemed, perfected, renewed, restored, healed, forgiven. We are not a soon-to-be or maybe-someday people of God. We are the people of God now. Today. Yesterday and Tomorrow.

The church is full of Gods glory and grace and is a perfect image or Christ and his bride. And yet, it is still comprised of people–people like me, who fail, who sin, who forget that we are members of the family of the Most High God. Adopted. Once orphaned, but now named.

And so are they…

The ones who hurt us. The ones who forget us. The ones who slight us, scorn us, judge us, sin against us. The ones who gossip, the ones who lie, the ones who betray, the ones who scorn, the ones who leave us out, the ones who don't care. 

So are they.

They too, are members of God’s family and while their actions cannot be excused, they cannot be used to keep us away. Because really, we cannot be kept away from church because we are the church.

We cannot allow the harm done to us by others to pull us, push us, move us, force us away from the church and our rightful place in it.

We cannot quit.

Because it is ours. It belongs to us, for we are His.

This beauty unspoken and not fully known. This mystery between the Son and His people. This glorious representation of Christ on earth–His hands and feet, His lungs and breath, His heart and mind.

Church hurts and it will hurt us. It stings and it convicts. It betrays and it forgets not because God doesn't know what he's doing or because it's a flawed design but because it is made up of people, imperfect people, longing people, lonely people, people on their way to looking more like Christ…

Just like us.

And if Christ didn't give up on us, then how dare we give up on them.

Because God doesn't get any glory when you shoot the one who shot you- he only gets glory when you give the forgiveness you've been given. 

Does that mean it doesn't hurt when we get shot? Of course not. Does that mean that we hide the wound and hope no one ever sees it? By no means. It means we show each other our scars, not to point fingers at the shooter but to bring Glory to the Healer.