Hey y'all.
Hmm... that isn't the accent that I normally speak with. How about...
Cheers.
Nope... that's not mine either. How about...
Hey and stuff.
Ya.
So... Hey and stuff.
About a week or so ago, I was having lunch with a couple of pastors. We get together every month to be a support for each other. It's usually just some food and chit chat and some "hey we did this recently" and just general sharing and the like.
He was telling us about this guy who goes to his church. This guy... we will call him "Ted"(not his real name), started attending my friends church not quite 2 years ago. Ted had been listening to a Christian radio station, one that will remain nameless, and had learned all the things that my friends church taught. When Ted came to the church, he was so excited to find a this church that was teaching all the things he had already learned. He was excited to have a place to worship and he was eager to be a part of what was going on there. He was going to be baptized.
My friend was pretty excited for Ted, but also for the fact that this was going to be easy work for him. Ted already knew everything he needed to know. He didn't have to teach the man anything. Ted was ready to go.
However, Ted is a smart man. He didn't want to rush it. He's a careful kind of guy. Wanted to attend a while and make sure this was right. After a while, Ted's excitement started to fade. He started skipping church. He sited all kinds of pressure from his family and from his job. He wasn't sure if this is what he wanted. He wasn't sure if he wanted to continue or not.
This was about 9 months or so after Ted had started attending.
My friend wasn't sure what to do. Ted already had all the information. He had already learned all the facts. He didn't know what else he could do to help Ted besides just continuing to pray for him.
One day my friend decided to try giving him another book to read. Well, a couple chapters from a book. Something that my friend felt was a really great sketch of who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
Ted read it. Then he read it again. After that, he read it again.
Ted came to church the next week and was on the verge of tears.
Why, you might ask? If Ted already new everything he needed to know, if he already had all the facts and information, what could that book possibly have said that he didn't already know?
If you asked that, then you asked a great question.
My friend asked him what was wrong. Ted replied that, he had been studying the bible and learning all this stuff, and trying order his life around what he thought was true, but until that moment, he hadn't understood that he was forgiven.
He didn't know that Jesus had forgiven him. He didn't understand that he didn't have to feel guilty. He didn't understand that he could come to Jesus, and that Jesus would accept him.
Now, if you aren't a Christian, then you are probably thinking, "so what?"
If you are a Christian, then you are probably asking "how can someone learn about God and the bible and not know that he or she is forgiven, since it's sort of the point?"
Both would be asking great questions.
We might ask, "What was he being taught? What was he learning?"
"Was it a failure of the teacher and teaching? Was it a failure of the student?"
The answer to those last two is probably "Yes" and "Yes."
In the last blog, I bored you a bit with talk about making sure you check the facts and not just trust anybody who is trying to teach something.
This time, it's the other side of it.
All the time Ted was studying, he found exactly what he was looking for. Information. Facts. The step by step list of how to be a Christian. You know those lists right? 7 Steps to Losing 20 Pounds in 2 Weeks! 5 Easy Steps to Becoming a Successful Person.
As most of us find out, this stuff usually fails. Just like it failed for Ted.
Because, Ted found exactly what he was looking for.
The problem is, Ted didn't know what he was he was looking for. Or at least, didn't know what was there to be found. And the fact that the teachers who had taught him hadn't taught it to him is highly suggestive as well, but I'm not going to go there.
Here is a truth. A person usually finds exactly what they are looking for. It may not be what they think they are looking for, and it may not be what they need to find. But it is what they are looking for.
The question is, do we know what we NEED to find? Do we know what we NEED to be looking for? Are we asking the right questions? Are we asking any questions at all?
What do we want out of life? Where do we want life to go? Do we even know?
Ted didn't. Ted was like everyone else. Wandering around, trying to be a good person, and trying to live with the guilt of his failures. Trying to atone for his life. Trying to create fulfillment in himself.
In the end, he finally realized that it wasn't something he could do by following steps. By learning facts and figures. It required a different type of learning. Not information, but meaning.
Now he understands that his life means something.
Even if you are not a Christian, this is still true. Everyone is searching for something. We just don't always know what. A purpose. A meaning. An answer to the question "why am I here?" "What is my purpose?"
Most everyone is trying to a fill a hole in their life. Some people try to fill that hole with facts and information. Whether those facts are religious or secular doesn't matter. Neither will succeed, usually. Information by itself does little for us. Information that leads us somewhere does.
Ted looked at the information and thought that IT was the destination. Ted is a classic Christian example. An example that is way too common. One that seems to happen more and more every time I turn around.
Here is how it works. A person learns something. Have you ever learned something and it made you a little excited? "Wow, I never knew that! That is so cool!" Or something like that.
Those are good moments. Some information you didn't have and now you do and you feel pretty good about yourself for having improved your status in someway. It brings an emotion high.
You keep learning, you keep searching, and each new bit that you learn brings with it another "ah ha" moment, and it feels good.
But what happens when the "ah ha" moments stop happening? Not much new is coming anymore, and with it, no more emotional highs. Everything becomes mundane again. No more excitement, no more higher joy. Just normalness.
It's because we tend to believe that the information was the goal. The facts were the destination. What we usually don't notice is that we never really do anything useful with these facts. They usually don't change us. We fail to apply it in the right way.
That's what Ted did. That's what the bulk of Christians do. It's what the bulk of non-Christians do, for that matter.
A Christian comes into a church so excited about what he/she has learned. But then, in about 9 months to a year, they realize that they really aren't learning anything new and the excitement is largely gone. They start to feel disenchanted and finally run out of reasons to keep coming.
Their hole never got filled. They didn't connect with anything.
Which, really, is the point right there. Every human has a desire to connect in something way with something more than just them. They need to feel important. Special.
Connected with something bigger. Something with meaning. Perhaps something full of love?
And the hard thing is that, finding that usually has very little to do with raw knowledge and information. It's not like trying to find the code to cracking a safe.
Ted's example is one that I see so much it's sometimes depressing.
I met with a lady this past week. Her story was just like Ted's. Ironically, the same radio station. Again, I won't go there.
She had questions. She doesn't go to church. But she knows all the stuff church teaches. All the rules, the rights, the wrongs.(or so she thinks... just like Ted)
Her questions, while important, were largely irrelevant. They were minor detail questions. Insignificant stuff that really has little baring on anything.
However, I could tell that she wasn't at peace. You interact with enough people and you start to be able to tell the difference very quickly when someone is happy and when someone is faking happiness.
She was faking.
But I didn't want to push her. I told her she was always welcome to come and talk to me and to come to anything my church had going on and I told her when all of our different meetings were, but I made it very clear to her that if all she wanted to do was talk to me, that was ok too.
She asked me if she had to come to church to be saved.
That is a question full of obviousness that is just waiting to explode all over.
I answered it. I said, "No." Cause it's the truth. Just so we are clear.
She said, "ok."
I said, "May I ask why you don't go to any church?" She had mentioned that earlier.
Her answer was that she didn't feel she was "holy" enough to go to church. Her life wasn't perfect. Not real bad... she said she hadn't ever done anything horrible. But it wasn't perfect. She still messed up and made mistakes. She didn't feel acceptable.
Well, the problem at this point was very obvious. So I asked the obvious question.
"Do you feel like you are forgiven?"
She turned away and started to cry.
The answer, again, obvious.
But she spoke, "Well, ya... I guess, well, I don't know... "
That translates as a "no."
I asked her if she had ever asked for forgiveness.
Her response was, "Ya... well, I don’t' know... I don't feel like I can. God won't want to listen to me. I'm not good enough."
Now, mind you she was "saved" when she was 15. Baptized and everything. And now she’s about 60.
Mind you, she's been "learning" all this good stuff from the preachers and teachers on this radio station. And while I could mock the radio station, the truth is, it doesn't just happen with that radio station. She had done all the official bible studies as well.
And, she and Ted aren't the only two. I'm am studying with no less than 6 people right now, who are exactly the same way. To put that in perspective, I'm only studying with 6 people. So, that's 100% of everyone I’m studying with outside of my regular group studies. And trust me when I tell you, many of the ones in those group studies are just like that.
I explained to her that none of her fears were true. I showed her from the bible, I explained it in analogy, I used stories, I pulled out every thing I knew to use. All of it just to help her understand that she is loved, forgiven, and that she doesn't have to feel guilty, and that she can go to God any time she wants.
Again, we can ask why it never dawned her to ask. Why it never dawned on her to look for that answer. Why it never dawned on those teachers to tell her. Why it never dawned on those bible study writers to teach that.
The point is, we need to understand what we are missing, before we can find it.
In the middle of trying to make sure no one is fooling us, we need to make sure we aren't fooling ourselves.
We can't fill our holes with science or religion. Facts or figures or information.
That hole is where meaning goes. Love. Connectedness. Purpose.
As a Christian, I would say God. But even if you don't buy into God, the principle is still the same.
We all want our lives to be about more than just existing.
I'll leave you with this.
Whatever your search is, whatever you are looking for, whatever you need... don't let yourself get lost in the details. Don't lose site of the forest because all those pesky trees keep getting in the way.
Find your perspective.
Find a way to be complete.
