This week has been a really difficult week. It’s been the type of week where you have to ask yourself how Christianity, or at least Christ, is the true and sufficient answer to the ugliness and depravity of a world that is so far from the promised Kingdom. I know it is. And it’s easy to apply the Word to my life. As I cry out to God, he calls compassionately back to me most often through his Word. But what about when someone else is the one in need of the answer? I have had to ask questions about how a pastor should respond to the girl aching through the worst type of hurt i can imagine. Christ died to rid ugliness and to make things whole and to bring purity and to be propitiation and to bring (and pay) restitution…but i have struggled so much with how i respond in light of that, on behalf of others. How can i help this girl to see that Christ is her expiation. How can i explain that God will make things right, and in fact, already has through Jesus…
I guess, I’m done reading scripture hypothetically…it’s a book about Jesus and the rubber meeting the road. In a world where Sunday School answers are little more than just that, the question remains in the minds of students…”Is Jesus here in the ditch with me? Is He beside me in the gutter and in the pain…?” But the question never stops with those. It moves on to the question, “What does having Jesus in the gutter with me offer me that no one else can? How does he improve my situation, or carry me through it…?”
Admittantly, one of the biggest struggles I face is making sure i’m not being a savior to my students, but instead pointing them to the Savior. I find myself often being the one that meets the needs in their lives, and i don’t know that i’m in the wrong by doing that…unless i forget that there are just some needs i cannot or should not meet. The later of those two is the hardest for me. I cannot rob them of the intimacy they need with Jesus. I cannot fail to let them hear the voice of God without my aid. I cannot birth within them a heart that reaches out to their King and Savior. But i can help them to know His promises and understand how to read His word.
I can try to help them to see the story of the whole Gospel, a life changing gospel and not a cheap gospel.
which is why i’m pumped by this video and so excited to read the book that goes with it…
