This summer I have been on God high. It started at Annual Conference seeing friends and enjoying worship. Then I went on a mission trip and got to see the youth experience God. Then Assembly where I got to hear amazing messages, worship freely and hang out with great youth. Now I'm back in the real world of church and I've crashed. The real world of church cannot live up to the God highs you get from all these fun activities that set you apart from the world. I'm having a really hard time with the crash.
Life in the church isn't the same as the community you created on these trips and retreats. The bottom line seems to be the most important thing discussed at meetings. You have to worry about money and how much things are going to cost. You have to worry about whether you've offended the people that give you the money. I can't help but think where is God in all this. Where is Jesus? Where is ministry in all this?
Discouraged and disillusioned, I wonder what is the point. What is the point in working hard on ministries when it is all going to questioned? What is the point when you are going to be criticized for who you are? Am I strong enough to continue on?
At first, I didn't think I was strong enough. I cried feeling a loss of the faith I had for a church I love. But then I think about the kids and the youth in the church. The ones I interact with the most. They represent optimism and hope. I think about God that I serve and the his grace and love. He has grace and love for all in the church no matter what my frustrations are. He accepts us all for who we are instead of placing the high expectations on our behavior that I do. That is the point. Serving God is not easy. It is frustrating and difficult. But life serving a gracious and loving God is better than one where you serve the world. I realize that I can't be preoccupied with what others are doing. I need to try to keep that high and live apart from the world daily. The problems I see in the real world church are my problems too and I'm not apart from them.
And he died for all , that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who dies for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one with a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:15-17
