Greetings All,
This week's 'thought' comes to you from Mike
Yaconelli's book, "Messy Spirituality." The book claims to be, "a stong antidote for the spiritual perfectionism in us all..." giving us, "truths
that can cut us loose from the tyranny of the ought-to's and open our
eyes to the deep spirituality of being loved by the God
who meets us and transforms us in the midst of a messy and
unpredictable life." It's a book that does live up to its claim. 
As I have told others, I love the way he writes and the true stories he
tells. There is an honest, humble and gracious undercurrent that runs
throughout the book, as
well as a repeated emphasis on the need to be liberated from the
pressure to "pretend" in our spiritual lives.
The following thought, in fact, comes from the section entitled, "Unpretending." And since I know that churches in particular can often be guilty of pressuring people to "pretend" -- and have even driven people from the church for being too honest -- I pray his words might heal and minister grace to you if that has been your personal experience. You
may even want to pick up a copy of the book for yourself and then pass
it on to others. His perspective really is refreshing. Enjoy.
"They were good in the worst sense of the word."
Mark
Twain
Pretending is the grease of modern nonrelationships. Pretending
perpetuates the illusion of relationships by connecting us on the basis
of who we aren't. People who pretend have pretend relationships. But
being real is a synonym for messy spirituality, because when we are
real, our messiness is there for everyone to see. 
The essence of messy spirituality is the refusal to pretend, to lie, or
to allow others to believe we are something we are
not. Unfortunately, people can handle the most difficult issues more
easily than they can handle the lack of pretending. When you and I stop
pretending, we expose the pretending of everyone else. The bubble of
the perfect Christian life is burst, and we all must face the reality of
our brokenness.... 
For a period of time, we were lucky enough to have a housekeeper. She
would come in once a week to dust, vacuum, and clean every little
out-of-the-way corner of our house. I dreaded the day she came, because
my wife and I would spend all morning cleaning the house for the housekeeper! We didn't want the house to be dirty, or what would the housekeeper think?!
We act the same way with God. We talk our way out of the spiritual
life by refusing to come to God as we are. Instead, we decide to wait
until we are ready to come as we aren't. We decide that the way we
lived yesterday, last week, or last year makes us 'damaged goods' and
that until we start living 'right,' we're not 'God material.' Some of
us actually believe that until we clean up the mess, Jesus won't have
anything to do with us. The opposite is true. Until we admit we are a
mess Jesus won't have anything to do with us. Once we admit how unlovely
we are, how lost we are, Jesus shows up unexpectedly. 
According to the New Testament, Jesus is attracted to the
unattractive. He prefers the lost ones over the found ones, the losers
over the winners, the broken instead of the whole, the messy instead of
the unmessy, the crippled instead of the non-crippled.... I want my
crippled soul to escape the cold and sterile spirituality of a religion
where only the perfect nondisabled get in. I want to lurch forward to
Jesus, where the unwelcome receive a welcome and the unqualified get
qualified. I want to hear Jesus tell me I can dance when everyone else
says I can't. I want to hear Jesus walk over and whisper to this
handicapped, messy Christian, "Do you want to dance?""
Being open,
transparent, and honest (that is, refusing to pretend) is frightening.
And the reason it's so frigthening is because we are always unsure of
how people will react when are (even close friends). It's scary to
expose your soul in a place where others will not. Yaconelli is right, the person who "stops pretending exposes the pretending of others," and
that can make those "others" every uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to the
point where they avoid that person who is not willing to pretend.
That's my subtle way of saying we need to stop pretending, but we also need to choose wisely whom we bear our souls to, since not everyone in any given church can handle it or respond to it with grace.
Sinners (even of the more "notorious" brand) felt comfortable and safe bearing their soul around Jesus (John 4). Yet, as far as we can see, being able to do so actually led to their conversion.
May we who are His followers -- called to imitate Him and His ways -- also make others feel the same around us.
To the greater praise of His grace, Pastor Jeff
