No Extra Parts
As I said in my last article, I was very moved by Matthew West’s new song, “Truth be Told.” It spurs all kinds of thoughts about the church and life in general. The main theme of the song is that we Christians are not open and honest with each other. We pretend we are fine when we are wounded by the battles of life. The song recommends that we be more open so we may heal each other.
Over the years as I have worked on my cars. Nothing is more frustrating than taking off a part, putting the car back together and forgetting some piece that was supposed to go on. A good rule of thumb for mechanics is there should be no extra parts laying around.
I think Matthew is right. The car needs to be fixed but he forgot to put on a piece. The missing piece is not just my willingness to share, it is others willingness not to misuse what I shared.
Now we may be unwilling to be open because we are full of pride and do not want to let others know that we are struggling in life. But as I think about my willingness to share with people around me, it is not my willingness to be open, it is my lack of trust in what they will do with the information.
If you have been a human longer than 5 seconds, you have been betrayed by someone who used what you shared against you. We all have been betrayed by others and it has destroyed the trust we have in people. Truth be told, no innocent parties here.
I have been a believer for 45 years and have seen this in living color. The number of people that I would share most things with would not make it to all ten of my fingers. Certainly not to my toes. The number of people that I would share everything with is less than the piggy’s on one foot. I do not know if Martin Luther said this but in the 1950s version of the movie, Martin Luther prayed, “Lord protecting me from my enemies and my friends.”
Maybe my experience is unique, but my friends and family agree. They are careful about who they trust with their life problems because it will be used against them in the social court of law.
And although there is no excuse for this happening in the church, it happens there worse than any other place. I almost trust non-Christians more than Christians.
Church leaders get the brunt of this abuse. They are looked at with a microscope and any problems in their family are judged ten times more harshly than anyone else. Family members of church workers often grow up bitter and not serving the Lord because of this hypocrisy. If that has not been your experience, lucky for you. But I suspect most Christians would agree this is the case. And certainly, every church leader would agree.
The reason for this is simple. We are not spiritually mature enough to handle ministering to people. We judge and rebuke when we should comfort. We comfort those who should be rebuked. We do not know the Bible well enough to know how to handle the Word of Life in the lives of other people. And even if we did know the Word, we are too emotionally immature to be close to any kind of help. We are toddlers running the daycare.
When I was taking my counseling master’s, there were probably 70 people going through the program at different stages. I did not have near the insight I do now, but even then, I saw there was a good number of them that had no business being counselors. Either their personal lives were so messed up they were not going to be effective or their philosophes were so bad they were going to ruin people. I am sure some felt that way about me. I am not throwing stones.
Living on the edge of the Bible belt, every nonbeliever and ex believer has their, “I'm not a Christian because of Christians” story. In many cases I am skeptical because they may be upset because the church is holding them accountable and is not willing to compromise the truth of the gospel to accommodate them.
But I would have to say that more than half the time they were right. We were just abusing them for no justified biblical reason and patting ourselves on the back that we were being good Christians. We are not qualified to handle the Word of Life in our own lives let alone in the lives of other people and therefore we make them tenfold more a child of hell.
Matthew West is right; the church needs to have a huge dose of openness and honesty. But that openness and honesty needs to apply to the listeners as well as the confessors. We could all do with a good dose of honesty but like the old-time medicine my mother used to put on my cuts, it is going to sting badly. Maybe we need a complete engine overhaul and no extra parts.
