The Land of Make Believe.

The following is straight from my favourite blog, by permission of the author, Bill Huffhine. It pretty well sums up what I feel and think.

The Land of Make Believe

Every so often I go through seasons of introspection and longing. I've been in one of those seasons for about three weeks now as you've probably been able to tell from some of my recent posts. It's easy for me to look at the reality of my life, measure it up against what I wish for my life to be like, and enter into one of these seasons.

The seasons are usually marked by changes in my music preferences. As I write this I am sitting at Fountain City Coffee House in Columbus after coming in to work at 4:00 a.m., listening to the Celtic song Lascia Ch'io Pianga. I have no idea what that means, but it's a beautiful song that takes me to a different place.

These seasons are also usually marked by a more contemplative pattern of writing, as you've seen with my posts, Lamentations and Longings and Musical Journeys.

They are also marked by a longing for new scenery. There are geographic places that stir my soul, calm my heart and mind, and bring me contentment. Seasons like this make me long for those places. Someday, I pray, God will allow us to settle in one of those places and call it home.

This particular season is one of spiritual longing. As I sit here thinking about my own recent experiences with Christians, the church turmoil that is happening around our city, and the rapid descent into moral anarchy that is occurring here in the midst of this Bible-belt town, I am becoming convinced that Christianity as we know it in this time and place in history is little more than a game of make believe. Really. I’m serious.

I’ve incredulously shaken my head as I’ve listened to long-time, supposedly mature Christians talk about how they would be willing to help others in need as long as it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. I’m one of them. Last Sunday on the way to church Lynn suggested that we load the truck up with cold drinks and drive around town giving them to the several dozen people who sit baking in the heat for 8 hours every Sunday hawking newspapers. Immediately I began calculating how to fit it into my schedule for the day – making sure to protect my planned naptime in that schedule.

Others around me have talked about wanting to be in community with one another as long as they didn’t have to leave the house and drive ten minutes to do it.

I’ve witnessed church leaders speak passionately about being in deep, transformational community with one another, yet allow six months (and counting) pass by without coming alongside a fellow leader who is struggling and walking with him through and out of that struggle.

I am utterly perplexed by our tendency to distance ourselves from and isolate those who struggle instead of running to them, embracing them, taking up arms with them to fight by their side.

At least two major churches in our city are being ripped apart right now by controlling pastors and/or factions of selfish Christians who demand to have things their way. One of them is front-page news in today's newspaper.

Several churches have been planted in this city over the last few years. This is a traditionally Christian Bible-belt city. It’s August and we are two murders away from the total murder count for each of the last two years. There’s been a murder nearly every week since June. Are the Body of Christ and our message of God’s love and kindness having impact on this community? I wonder.

When I look back over history at the followers of Christ who have lived before us, and I compare myself and those around me to them, this is just a religious game that we’re all playing and I can’t help wondering, “What’s the point?”

We really have no clue what it means to be in selfless, Christ-centered, transformational community with one another. We’re playing a game of make believe.

We really have no clue what it means to give ourselves to the mission of inviting people who are far from God into the Way of Jesus. We’re playing a game of make believe.

We don’t know how to order our homes and families around the presence and purpose of God. We’re playing a game of make believe.

Not only do we have no idea what it means to suffer for the cause of Christ, we don’t want any part of it. Life in this time and place is too damn comfortable and we’re going to Heaven when we die anyway. Why suffer voluntarily? To hell with everyone else. Literally. We’re playing a game of make believe.

We don’t know how to live lives that outwardly demonstrate a deep, abiding, intimacy with and conformation to the person of Christ. We’re playing a game of make believe.

I wish I could stand next to John Wesley in the coal fields of England. I wish I could sit with St. Patrick among the barbarians of a newly planted missional community. I wish I could pray with the Moravians. I wish I could somehow experience Christianity as it was in 40 A.D. I’m tired of playing a game of make believe.

The motions we go through in our little game are wearisome to me. I think I could more easily experience the presence of God through sitting alongside a brook with His Word in my hands and writing out prayers than I can in most Sunday morning "services." Nearly every time I drive away from my “small group” I find myself wondering about the benefit of yet another “meeting.” I’m convinced that I could probably find deeper, more meaningful community in settings outside of most "small group" programs.

A fellow blogger asked in one of his posts if any of us long for something more in our spiritual and church life. I responded with the following thoughts.

Yeah, I long for more. A lot more. I long for a deeper, more intimate, more life-consuming personal walk with Christ. I long to know what it truly means for Christ to have total claim on my life. I long to have my heart and mind totally captured and ravaged by the love of God. I long for the experiences of the mystics who truly lived as though this place wasn't their home.

I long to be less selfish and more giving. I long to be known as a person of love and righteousness. I long to have the courage to truly suffer for the sake of the Kingdom. I long to be a part of a body of believers who truly understands what it means to be in loving, selfless community with one another. I long to see the Body of Christ truly spending themselves on behalf of the poor and oppessed. I long to see the culture of my city, my nation impacted by the Gospel in undeniable, observable ways.

I really don't know how any of us can get there. We've all spent our whole lives living in the land of make believe on the drab, battle-ridden side of the wardrobe door. I wish I could find a way out of Spare Oom.

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