You told me the gospel is what truly matters as you spoke and the 5000 listened but you’ve given us no loaves and fish. We are famished on the gospel you preach because this gospel builds wells in Africa and feeds orphans but it’s rude to the lady who works at the falafel stand, while you’re waiting on your spanokopita and greek fries, leaning on the counter with your world-changing friends.
And you don’t leave a tip in the little jar and you don’t look her in the eyes when she takes your order and you don’t even know you’re not loving people as you carry your swag bag full of books on social justice and advocacy, walking away in your well-worn Toms. You love people like projects.
You hand some wadded up cash to the grizzly faced man wobbling down the sidewalk. You don’t let the fact that he’s black or dirty or wafting drunk bother you. He tucks his cardboard sign under his arm and when he grins, half of his face slopes down as if it’s sliding off his stubbly cheeks. You love the poor, the homeless, the black man. You feel good about yourself when you walk away. You are a bridge-builder, a lover of all.
But you hate the church. Hate her so much. You don’t come out and say it but you cast your eyes about and dismiss her. She is the white woman, the suburbanite, the privileged. She is the business man, the feminist, the submissive homeschool mom, the republican. She is backward and wrong and embarrassing. She has bumper stickers you disagree with. You hate her theology. You are ashamed of her because she always says the wrong things and messes it up for the rest of us just trying to be like Jesus.
You’ve outgrown the need for church. You are changing the world.
You are the church you love.
You told me how to support nonprofits and to research balances and how much goes where and what it all does for orphans or homeless or pregnant teen mamas. You tell me the church should care about these things but you don’t trust her enough to drop money in the bucket. You don’t trust she’s God’s plan to get things done. When you say church, it’s autonomous and fluid, not faces and people and souls you rub up against in your life.
You told me people matter, but you never stopped to really listen to any of them unless they were saying what you say or you were taking notes to rebuke them.
You told me everyone’s words matter but then you call the small faithful as they plod along and the big influential and we all forget the faithful are the influential in this kingdom, big or small. But you tell us ones that are heard are world changers so everyone gets louder shouting over each other and polishing their words like shiny stones to sling and the mess is everywhere and when did we all get so important? Our egos are stifling and we’re all running out of breath.
We can’t even see Christ sometimes. We can’t even see Him in our open letters and our sarcastic blogs and we don’t even know we are the bully we’re rallying against. We all want to be righteous and brave and we’re all certain we are when we tell the truth about others.
You told me the unseen matters, that what you do for the least of these is the thing you’re carrying into eternity but then you show me glossy slides of all the things that matter and I see clearly you mean the tangible needs to be shot with a Nikon and filtered in Photoshop for the glory to really shine.
And when we’re talking, your eyes flit about looking for someone more important to grasp hold of because so many things piled up in eternity look like empty hands.
And you tell me we all matter but I don’t see all there. I see some. Only some.
And when you tell me to come and to change the world and to give my life away, I am already so tired.
Because I’ve forgotten that I already did.
I died the day Christ ransomed me. It is no longer I that lives but Christ in me. And I’m walking around in this grace, often a size too big for me, stumbling me as I grow into it.
And sometimes I wonder if we’re too busy trying to talk and be heard and collaborate that we forget that to die, we go lower each day, into cold earth and the old rots away and the process is ugly and solitary, done in the dark, a feast for worms.
We die like confession and are raised like testimony.
We reek flesh in the place in between and it’s only in rebirth we come squealing into new light.
I am born again, an infant babbling in syllables and learning the language of God, the way to stand and toddle and walk along grasping at the edge of Him for balance. When I let go I fall.
If I look foolish and weak in this infancy, it’s only because I am both of those things.
And maybe everything you said unraveled. Maybe I’ve tugged too hard trying to stand and they’ve spun wildly line by line and I’m naked and dizzy.
Maybe the only way to ever really cover myself is to begin to reknit the way I love Jesus and the way He loves me?
Maybe we are all naked in the garden, and Satan’s been telling us lies since the day he hissed we could be just like Jesus?
We can change the world, just as long as we start with ourselves first. Just as long as we start with the church or the homeless or Africa. Just as long as we start with racism and politics and abortion. Just as long as we start with our mission and our gifts and our purpose. Just as long as we start with our platform and our voice and our calling.
Because flesh can point ambition and purpose and our zeal for truth in a million different directions and we’ll never find grace that sets us free. And free changes the world.
The devil promises us we can change the world, just as long as we NEVER start with Jesus.
Maybe it will always be less about the ideas we have and the plans we make and more about the naked repentance that comes from admitting I told you things but I didn’t live them. I told you things but I didn’t love you when I spoke. I told you things but I never saw you. I told you things but I was wrong. I was never like Jesus when I did those things. I was starting in all the wrong places.
Maybe it will always be about the gospel’s extravagant grace saying, I am dying a bit more each day and coming violently alive. I am learning to love Jesus most.
Maybe that’s how we change the world.
I spent the weekend watching IF Gathering online. It brought up a lot of thoughts. These thoughts aren’t specific to IF, they were just stirred by it.
Amen.
Linking with
{Insert gushing comment here… and a bit of repentance, too!}
Love you so!
All I ever think when I see you online is MARCH!!!
Free changes the world… YES!!! I have been undone this weekend in messy and broken ways that are startling beautiful!!! YES!!! To all of this!!!
Love to hear about the stirring God is doing in your life and glad to be walking with you in it. Love to you, dear one.
This is beautifully written and with a broken heart I can feel. Trying to figure out His plan for repairing my broken heart looks as I step out, start moving, and trust that He will guide all of the steps.
I’d say a broken heart is a great place for God to work and for Him to reveal what He has appointed for you and in you. Thanks for coming by and sharing.
This is serious encouragement and an invocation for real change. I love the currents of your language as you share and reveal your heart. I don’t want to forget. I want to stay present here – building near the altar of God.
Yes, I loved when Shelly spoke on that. I’ve got more writing and thoughts about that concept coming. Building and dwelling.
Alia–these are truth words here. These are words of repentance to make a way for the Savior. You have nailed it in my heart, and I believe many. Thank you for speaking boldly & truth.
Thank you Kamille. I wish we could pull up a chair and get a drink and talk some more. You get me.
Alia…I love this.
Just wrestling through many of these thoughts with a friend last night.
You put my jumble into words…
Love, K
That sounds like a lovely conversation. Will you be at Faith and Culture Writers this year?
I’ve been struggling along this path for a few years now and trying to figure out how to fit all my broken pieces back together the way they belong. Satan hisses and distracts and I find myself having to start again. But each time I get a little further…a little “lesser” and bowing beneath the eternal More of our Great I AM… that’s really all I want; a continually repentant and teachable spirit. It would be a good thing to have lots and lots of company on this narrow and sometimes lonely path. Thanks Alia.
You do, friend. So many of us journeying together. The body moving together. Sharing God with each other and seeing Him clearer each day. Love being on this narrow path with you.
“We can’t even see Christ sometimes”- My heart breaks with this, because I think it is so true. And the truth is we can spin our wheels as much as we want and as hard as we can, but WE will never change the world! It is only Jesus and if we forget that it is only Him, we are missing it all- AND we are leading others astray. Woe to us!
But the good news? Jesus has overcome! He has already won! And we are overcomers when we trust in His victory!!! And when we trust in Him? THEN we will see God change the world (and He might even use us in that process!) All for His glory!!!
Oh, Alia- how I would love to sit down with you and talk all of this out!!! It is so exciting to see what God is doing in the hearts of His girls AND His men! I see Him at work in the blogging communities, the IF conference, the Desiring God conference that I attended this weekend, in your beautiful words. God is on the move!
I would love to sit down with you and have that talk. Someday we will.
This resonates with so much of what I’ve been struggling with lately, trying to find that right path. And so I’ll go back to the beginning again – back to Jesus – and let Him show me the way. Your words are beautiful, but your spirit even more so. Thank you for sharing this. 🙂
Yes, that’s the truth right there. Back to the beginning-back to Jesus. So much amen to that.
“And sometimes I wonder if we’re too busy trying to talk and be heard and collaborate that we forget that to die, we go lower each day, into cold earth and the old rots away and the process is ugly and solitary, done in the dark, a feast for worms.”
This, right here, this is what I have been babbling in my deepest heart space for a while now. Like a gutted melon, I have felt this on the inside, hidden from view. In my time away from writing (on my blog) I have heard a din, of sorts, rising. Even from people that I have loved reading and following all along. This sinister call to grow brighter, louder, more seen… and I’ve watched folks falling in line, walking the walk, doing the deed, only to be rewarded (in number of followers, book deals, recognition of all sorts). And all of it has left me reeling. Where do I fit into all of this ridiculousness?
Thank you for penning words to the groans of my spirit, Alia. Thank you for offering hope for the work being done in the dark. It’s all that really matters anyway.
Somehow you got caught in my spam folder so I just got to see your beautiful comment.
I don’t know how we find balance in it all. What writers doesn’t want to be read? When I write it all out and push share I want my words to be seen and read. I write to know I am not alone. I crave connection and some of that will be in the yes, me too of the seen posts.
But I died a bit each time I posted and no one saw or read and it’s all a crazy game we play in Christian celebrity and I want no part of it. I went quiet a lot here, because I need to find my true north and I can’t do that with everything pulling me. That’s not great for growing a blog but it’s amazing for growing in spirit.
I want to be faithful. Put before me the things I am supposed to do and shut the rest out. Because the loud of the internet often leaves me cold. I find I’m most drawn to quieter spaces. Often relatively obscure blogs, friends plodding along in their corner of the internet, telling the truth day after day.
The work done in the dark. The faithful.
Beautiful Alia! I love what God is doing in your heart! Your words are so encouraging!
Love you sis. I’m better-ish. We should get together soon.
I’m learning to love Jesus most too. It’s a hard road some days…made hard only by my own wandering, but it’s posts like yours that reminds me to get back on that road! Thanks, Alia.
Yes, our wandering hearts. Sigh. Grateful for a God who continually seeks out the lost.
“The devil promises us we can change the world, just as long as we NEVER start with Jesus.” – because if we do this we win! I’ve wanted to read your thoughts on the IF gathering and beauty you just took my breath away. oh girl…”filtered in Photoshop for the glory to really shine.” I’ve always loved your writing. So grateful we’ve connected so that I can feel free to tell you so. You bless BIG!
Thanks friend. I kind of like you. 😉
You preached my heart here Alia. I want Jesus more than all the other stuff. I say that and then he reveals another idol I’ve made for myself. I watched online too, wondering what God is up to in all of it.
Yes, over and over laying down things. The idols I find these days within my own heart always seem to be wrapped in such good things. But I’m with you, I want Jesus more than anything else.
Good thoughts, Alia! Thanks for sharing and right there with you!
I just made my hotel reservation this a.m. where I’ll stay one night. Looking forward to the Faith and Writer’s Conference. Can’t wait to meet you! (did you get my messages?) Hugs!
Hi Becky. I’m excited to meet you. There will be quite a lot of friends there new and old. I did get your messages and emailed you back my number a few weeks ago. Did you get that one? If not, my email is aliajoyh@gmail.com
So many yeses here. I feel I’ve been all these places. So many threads in my life seem to be coming together along these lines…I feel like willing repentance is something the Lord’s whispering to me.
So much yes, it just always needs to start there or we go in circles. Start with repentance, start with Jesus. He’s whispering it to me too.
Wow. Just wow. Words often fail me when I read the Light that shines out of you onto the page. Thank you Alia. Thank you.
Thanks for reading and sharing, Vickie. I appreciate it. Hoping to see you in March? (maybe)
Too much to digest. I’m in love with your blog, but I’m going to be coming back to this particular entry multiple times. To say this is “good” is such an understatement. It’s hard. It’s real. It’s needed.
Thanks Sam! So fun to get to know you online. Love linking arms with all of Lisa Jo’s dreamers and join in to raise money for this. Thanks for your voice in this as well, your post was beautiful. Glad you jumped in.