Life, Right Down to the Toes

Not everyone goes to church. I know that. Not everyone in America. Not everyone in my city. Not even everyone in my Christian school.

There was a time when I didn't either. Just didn't want to do the chit-chat with people I barely knew. Didn't want to sing happy songs when I was near tears. Didn't want to try to pry my eyes open through a pedantic sermon. I get it.

But I also know that those people who chitchat on Sunday may be Heaven sent to help bear burdens on Wednesday or to rejoice in victory on Friday.

And I know that it's ok to cry in church tears of pain, of exhaustion, of regret, of loneliness, of repentance.

And I realize that a hard lesson may be the very one I need to hear from the pulpit.

So Thursday, when my sophomores talked about why Hester Prynne quits going to church, they determined, "She feels like all the sermons are directed at her."

And I heard myself reply, "That's right. She thinks the sermons were all directed at her. But is that a reason not to go? Haven't you ever felt like she does? The preacher says something that really steps on your toes and you get all squirmy. And you don't look around because, if you make eye contact with someone else, he might know. And then the same thing happens the next week... and the next, one sermon after another. And you get tired of the preacher preaching at YOU, so you quit going. But what you don't realize, what Hester doesn't realize, is that lots more toes than just yours, than just hers, are stepped on. And, oh, by the way -- that's a big reason we GO to church:  to hear truth spoken, to have our faults uncovered, to let the Holy Spirit speak to us. That's not the time to quit going. That's the time to perk up and listen."

Feeling like a lone target is Satan's tool. His deception tells us we are singular in our sin because he knows that, hidden, that error still works for him but that, once it we unveil it, his deception is foiled. That's why he likes it when we wallow in our indiscretion and hide it from others and slink down in the pew to avoid detection or, better yet, stay home in bed.

None of us likes admitting our faults. None of us likes cowering down in a pew when the preacher targets our heart with a spiritual dart. None of us likes painful truth. And so we close our ears, close our eyes, close ourselves from healing fellowship.  But left to work, that truth brings Life.

And, Oh!, how I long for my students to find that Life, that most Abundant LIFE.

I wasn't in class with them today, but I'm praying now that the Spirit will embolden them to attend church this Sunday, to hear words of truth, to allow those words to minister and convict so that they might have life. Let it be. Amen!