It’s Monday and the safety of the church walls and sanitized conversations are gone. The worship music has stopped and children aren’t in Sunday school. Our college group is back at college and our pastors aren’t within earshot. Oh no, what should we do? How now shall we live?
There’s a misnomer that church is the best place for us to be. Safe. Protected. Sheltered. But is it really?
I’m in Cancun, Mexico for a wedding of a dear friend. She chose a gorgeous location on the white sandy beaches of the pacific coast. It’s away from the tourists and surrounded by large walls and an ornate rod iron entrance. Safe. Protected. Sheltered.
But after three days on the Compound [as we've affectionately referred to it], life isn’t real.
Everyone walks around unscathed by the worries or threats of life. We have our next meal, we know where things are, we are living the life.
But are we created to live in the comfort of ease? Are we never to be challenged in our ideals or opinions?
There is something to be said of our struggles, our conflicts, and our bruises. When we are away from the safety of corporate worship or the smooth jazz sounds of Kenny G the hotel perpetually provides, do we still worship? When we are outside the walls, do we fight for our spiritual food or scurry back so someone from the Compound can feed us?
Church may be a retreat, but it’s not a resort. We go on vacation to vacate and recoup. Similarly, church can be our respite away from the world… but we aren’t intended to live within walls and be spoon-fed Truths.
I want delve into the discussion of suffering and “the world” this week. I’m hoping to tread lightly on the theological implications of suffering [mostly by Puritanical works] and how we ought to live in this broken world.
If you have any thoughts or concerns to shed light on the discussion, feel free to volley up a question. If you want to drop some theological knowledge on me, hook it up. If you want to remind me that in three days I will have to start making my own bed again, I’m all ears. I could get used to never cleaning my room again…
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