God is great and he has been leading me through a good amount of affliction in the past few months. Someone told me that “I have an already premade opinion and that I twist the bible to fit my opinion”. That was very hurtful to me, I interpreted it as I am my own god talking to myself disregarding the actual word of God. That lead me into a sever avalanche of thoughts and questions where I intensively prayed for God’s wisdom and knowledge asking him to not leaving me to my own thoughts but talking to me showing me his reality and truth. This person is part of the church I am right now, so I started seeing some similarities in the way of thinking of my church. I started to realize how much judgement there was feeling it specially towards me. I am someone who asks difficult questions and tries to disassemble thoughts to make them congruent and logical.
“You have an already premade opinion and that you twist the bible to fit your opinion…”
This intensified when I had to lead a bible study about 1. Corinthians 10. That passage talks about how Paul was calling out the Corinthians to not eat food for the Idols in front of others that might think that it’s a wrong thing to do. My point was that if the Corinthians would have put God and Love in the first place instead of knowledge about eating or not eating, they could have grown together in brotherhood instead of causing division and grudge between them by exerting knowledge above love. The fun thing was when I presented my chain of thoughts some people where expressing a defensive attitude and their posture and expression made me feel that they were judging me for not actually “knowing” what the passage is about. I had the impression that we were in the same situation that the Corinthians were in, instead of putting love and community in the first place we were judging each other for “missing the point” of the passage. Judging each other for not acting the “right” way.
Struggling now with the situation and having studied the passage of 1. Cor 10 I felt like I should not exert my freedom of teaching the passage and leave it completely. After a few chats with different people, I was encouraged to teach the passage but sadly the same happened and some people gave me the impression that I was completely wrong and talking unbiblically. There were several other occasions where I felt rejected and treated as “ungodly”. Specially because I disagree with some of the doctrines of my church. I even felt like I was a threat for the congregation by questioning things.
I was debating myself if I should leave church and seek a more accepting place for me. One day after a bible study where I was intensely holding myself back to not argue about a certain doctrine that was presented, I arrived home. Still having many thoughts in my mind, I stood outside of my front door and had a cigarette thinking about all this things feeling very emotional about the whole situation. I had my headphones on and this song started playing in my ears, Reconciliation by Adam’s wedding which goes like this…
A word of hate that lingers on
Close my eyes but it won’t go
Echoes in my heart
My mind it tears apart
Tell me where, where could I go
To where this plague won’t follow
Can’t it just fade away?
All this words in my mind lingering, not leaving, me closing my eyes and still thinking about the rejection I felt and the discussions prevailed. They teared my mind apart. Tell me where could I go, there is no church which will be perfect every church will have differences that I disagree with, there is no place this plague won’t follow. This plague of imperfection, sin leading to disagreements and disunity.
Like any fucking word I say?
Is it on purpose that we tear holes?
In each other’s souls?
Or is the rush of temper to blame
That led me to my crime and shame?
Every laughter, joy or melody
Will be mocking us wherever we may be
As long as we drift apart
And harden our own heart
I felt like every word I said, every question, every intention of actually trying to understand God just vanished. Through out all this discussion we just caused more and more hurt and holes in our soul and faith. “Every laughter, joy or melody will be mocking us wherever we may be” felt very real, some people started mocking me for not believing the same and making jokes about assumptions/judgments they made without knowing what my actual thoughts were. We kept drifting apart instead of putting love in the first place we exerted knowledge above love causing our hearts to harden. I saw that every time I spoke, expressions hardened instead of listening and genuinely wanting to grow nearer to god, we tried to defend some doctrine.
Let me love you my sister, my bride.
Let me engage again with you, the bride of Jesus, the church of God, let me love you as Jesus loved you and died for you. I felt like God was speaking to me through the simplicity of this sentence telling me to commit and stay in the church providing my part to the body of Christ even though it might be attached to hurt and sacrifice.
The deafened fool I was I despise,
I reach out to you and swallow my pride,
You stole my heart with one glance of your eyes.
I don’t want to be deaf, not listening to church family, not accepting that the Holy spirit is also in them, and God wants to teach me his word also through them. Hopefully through the same love they might realize that the Holy Spirit might also use me as a vessel of him to bring each other closer to God.
What could make us whole again?
Love, let me hold your hand.
Only by holding fast to love which is sourced from God, the definition of Love. He will make us whole again, He will reconciliate us to be his bride, His church, His body, His family!