Here I Go, Apologizing Again

Found myself having to apologize on behalf of all Christians again today.  This seems to happen a lot at Teen Challenge.  I get a little tired of it, honestly - wishing Christians didn't say so many stupid things and treat people so unlike Christ.  Still, I'm humbled through self-inspection every time, knowing there are many ways in which I, too, contribute to the misrepresentation of Jesus in our world. 

There is one particular student right now that is especially challening me.  She is honest, authentic and raw - and I adore her for it.  She refuses to fake it.  She admits she does not believe in God - that sometimes she wants to, other times not, but that she is just too bitter and resentful to open up to even the idea of Him at this point in her life.  I wait for that wall to come tumbling down, yet every day, every week, we baby-step toward freedom, as I search for glimmers of hope that her heart may be opening to Jesus.

I asked her today to help me understand where this wall was coming from.  What was the source of this bitterness and resentment?  She gave many reasons that I personally could relate to all too well - loads of times the Church has disappointed her and common questions about hell, the goodness of God, etc.  But today I was punched in the heart by a teenager who wants nothing to do with God or Church or Christians for one main reason.  She put it this way:

"Well, they say that Christians are supposed to show you what God is like, and if Christians are what God is like, then I'm just not interested in that God.  And I know, Christians aren't "perfect," either, but...if Christians aren't like Jesus, then who will be?  Atheists?"

What more could I say?  I feel the same way.  I struggle with the exact same frustrations as a girl who wants nothing to do with God, the Church or Christians, because it's true... we are such a far cry from who Jesus really is.  I felt shamed into silence for a moment, because she was right.  I know she's right, and I ache because she's right.  I ache because I can't make other Christians get it right every time.  I ache because I can't make myself get it right every time.  And in moments like this, desperately hoping to bring light to her darkness, I realize God is still desperately hoping to bring light into mine.  To awaken me to the oxymorons of the Christian culture - the hypocrisies and parades that keep putting on the wrong show - our show, not His. 

I'm thankful for this student who challenges me to be more like Jesus.  Unknowingly, she awakens me more to Him each day, and I pray that slowly, through counseling sessions and conversations, through jokes and tears, through living it out one day at a time, she will let the walls crumble.  I'm privileged to walk this road with her, to ask these questions that we both share, to be equally challenged by one another as we walk into the Truth.

I saw something today.  An agreement, an understanding that we get each other.  That although she's not "there yet" in embracing Christ, she's willing to talk and to listen, and so am I.  We'll say it's ok that we don't have all the answers, that we're frustrated with the way things are and we long for more.  I'm finding that the honesty of an "I don't know" and a "Me too" go a long way.  Maybe people are not so hungry for our answers as they are hungry for our honesty.  During one of my many apologies on behalf of all Christianity today, I think a light turned on.  A dim light, perhaps, but a light nonetheless.  And, "though we see dimly, we will see Him face to face..." 

Bring her - bring me, Jesus - face to face with You. 

Help us to look away from all that will distract, to Jesus.

Make me more like You...