Unfortunately Mike Yaconelli died in a car crash a few years
ago. Mike was a great leader in the church of America for more than half a
century. His passion was working with youth and was a founder of Youth
Specialties and THE DOOR magazine. He was also a gifted writer and speaker.
Just the other day I ran across something he wrote in THE DOOR in the September/October
1994 edition. It was titled – Annoying Faith:
“Why does faith seem so life‑changing in others people's
lives and so inconsequential in our own? Why does the healing power of faith
seem so potent in theory and impotent in reality? Why does faith seem to make such a difference
in testimonies and books and so little difference in the real relationships of
my life? I have begun to understand the answer to those questions. I am
starting to realize that I have not expected my faith to make a difference in
my relationships; I have expected my faith to make my relationships easy. I
haven't wanted my faith to make me face the issues in my life; I have wanted my
faith to help me avoid issues. I didn't ask my faith to give the courage to do
what needed to be done; I asked my faith to do what needed to be done for me. I
wasn't asking for courage to do the difficult; I asked, instead, for the
removal of the difficult. I didn't want my faith to make a difference; I wanted
it to remove the need for a faith that makes a difference.”
Yaconelli’s dead and he is still challenging me in my
Christian walk. You just gotta love that guy. How often it is that we expect
our faith in God to make life easy for us instead of giving us the wherewithal
to meet the challenges in life head on as Christ would have us do.
Many of us were sold a bill of goods on becoming a Christian.
We were told that if we accept Christ life will become a smooth and easy road
through life. God will protect us; provide for us; make sure we are soothed and
satisfied; we will have no problems and if we do our problems we should pray
and those problems will just magically disappear. I believe it was Karl Marx
who said that Christianity is the opiate of the people. He was right about that
deceptive brand of Christianity that is still bandied about (read Prosperity
Gospel). If you believe becoming a Christian will relieve you of life’s
problems, and that were true, it would be the ultimate drug. But Marx was
completely wrong about the Christianity that the scriptures speak of.
Christianity is difficult and challenging. Being a committed
Christian has never been for the faint of heart. For centuries Christians have
been persecuted for their faith. While not a problem or challenge in our
country, it is still happening in various places around the world. Even without
suffering persecution, Christianity is challenging in the best of circumstances.
We are called to serve those around us; to meet their physical, emotional and
spiritual needs and doing that can be mighty inconvenient and expensive. Quite honestly,
making life decisions – where to live; what to do for a living; who to marry;
what to purchase and not purchase; how to treat others – all of those things
are simpler to decide without having to factor in: what does God want me to do?
I am intelligent and can make good decisions without God. But without God they
are not the best decisions I could make. It is difficult to deal with the
reality that God is “smarter” than and “knows” more than I. The other element
at work in including God in my life decisions it that God wants me to have a
better, more enriching, more fulfilling and more meaningful life than I want
for myself.
I “gave up” so much when I chose to become a committed
Christian. As a Christian I don’t have the freedom to hate the people who
offend me and hurt me: Though that hatred will poison me and eventually
spiritually (and perhaps physically) kill me. As a committed Christian I can’t
spend my money any way I see fit and buy myself lots of things I don’t need so I
can impress a bunch of people I don’t’ like. Instead I have the privilege of
investing in the spread of the Kingdom of God, the mission of the church and
the betterment of the people around me. As a committed Christian I can’t
exercise my right to throw a conniption fit and verbally vomit every time
something I don’t like happens or someone I know disappoints me. Instead I am
forced to treat people with the same respect, grace and kindness as I would
hope they would treat me.
You get the point. Christianity is simple but not easy. It is
simple because many of us humans are simple and God wants us all to know Him
through Christ. So the next time someone tells you that being a Christian is a
copout for those who want the easy way out in the difficulties of life, just
smile at them. You can think whatever you want. I usually think… wait, God
probably doesn’t want me to say something like that out loud. Geez, there is that
bothersome Christian thing again.
Copyright © 2014, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved.
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