August 13, 2010

• Some people are more equal than others

  2nd post of the day, as promised.

   

  The previous post was about how we are all broken people who are incapable of saving ourselves.  We are in need of a Saviour.  This does not change after we become Christians.  Christians are not superheros or sinless.  We have not overcome our flesh or our broken ways.  No.  We are still at their mercy whenever we stray too far from God.  It is Jesus who overcomes these things, and it is the power of the Holy Spirit in us that gives us victory.  When my heart and my thoughts are aligned with Christ, I feel like I can do anything.  But I know that it is not my power or my will.  My God enables me to overcome all things.  Without Him, I am as weak and broken as I was before.

  This realization brought me to one of my most significant ministry moments this year.  I have long identified with people in their hurts and their struggles.  Even if the specifics are different, the heart is still the same.  I fear and worry and stress and become angry and hope and get crushed just like anyone else.  In this sense, I am no different.  I am human.  Not superhuman.  This is not new to me.  But one day as I was talking with some people in small group, it dawned on me that they felt like (to paraphrase Animal Farm) we were all equal, but some people were more equal than others.  Even amongst sinners, they had regarded me to be of higher standing than them.  And they were too ashamed of their own sin and shortcomings to be real with me or each other.

  I would not have any of that.

  I took off my tie, rolled up the sleeves of my shirt, and said to them, “I’m not better than you.”  After a few minutes of explaining this to them, I proceeded to tell them how I had screwed up and fallen short, even that week.  I confessed my sins of that day in the center of that group.  Guys cried.  They prayed for me.  And we all took turns talking about how we had fallen short.  How we had broken promises and commitments and done things we didn’t want to do.  We shared from the heart and purged the shame from our souls.  We then prayed for each other.  And there was healing that day.

  If we are to believe, and remember, that we are all sinners… if we are to remember that we too have been forgiven much (and as a result, we ought to love much), then we have no moral high ground to stand on to be above anyone else.  Instead, we should be at the bottom of the valley with our brothers and sisters, pointing towards the man on the hill who can reach down and pick us up.  This is our place.  To be in the darkest depths.  Remembering how we once were, and remembering how we have been brought out and rescued.  And with our heavenly tether to Christ, we can dive back in, and become the rescue workers we are purposed to be.

  I saw a tweet from John Acuff the other day, who said that we should all give credit to Don Miller for setting the example of the “I’m not perfect” blog.  I responded back to him and said that if he set the example of “I’m not perfect,” then I want to be the guy to set the example of “I’m not better than you.”  If there is one blog I could write and provide material for consistently, that would be the one I would do.  To spread a message of universal brokenness, and that we, we, can look up to Christ and climb up that hill together.

   

  • 12:54 am
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