Churches are like gyms

How does the adage go? Something like, you can't go to a gym until you are in-shape. Although a sad fact, it does appear to be mostly true. Many people go to a gym because they look good and want others to notice that they look good. I believe that churches are the same way.

You can only go to church if you have it together. Or at least if you pretend to have it all together. Not struggles or serious questions allowed. No questions like why do bad things happend to good people. No 'why did my kid die of cancer and another's was healed.' No question that is a true struggle of someone. If we question God, that should be done in quiet where no one can hear us.

There's a big problem with this. Fact: no one has it all together. Everyone struggles with something. Why is this? Why the urge to be fake? Where is honest community? Why can't we support each other in our weaknesses? Where is the gap?

Nobody wants to here that I feel like God has abandoned me and has gone strangely distant. They just want to hear that things are great. That God is good. We all the the reply...all the time. Well guess what...I don't feel that all the time. When I come close to be honest what is the answer that I get? The Bible answer. The answer that ignores my question and says that God is great.

That's not walking with each other in our infirmities. That is being fake. having it together. Like we are supposed to. You are depressing and a downer when you try to be honest. Well guess what? It is hard to be up after 21 months of no consistent job, no church community of friends and 33 years of singleness.

Sometimes life just sucks and I wonder if God actually cares. I think God is okay with that question. Why aren't we?

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” - MLK Jr.

I love this quote. We were made to be who we were made to be. Not Beethoven, not Shakespeare. But how often do we want to be someone else. How often are we not happy with who we are or what we do. Right now I am a tutor. It is not my favorite thing, but a good thing. Although most likely not what I was made to do for the rest of my life, it is what I am doing now.

I should do the best that I can. Not to keep the job, not to be popular. No, because he who made me is watching and loves my tutoring self.