“Each year at Reed* they have a festival call Ren Fayre. They shut down the campus so students can party. Security keeps the authorities away, and everybody gets pretty drunk and high, and some people get naked..”
Him and his other Christian friends (there were only 6 of them total) decided to build a confessional in the middle of this debauchery. You might be thinking they were doing it to take confessions of all the ‘sinners’ there. They did not. They made it so they could confess to the rest of the students there. Here is one of his friend’s words when they were discussing the idea explaining why they, the Christians were going to confess to the unbelievers instead of the other way around:
“as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for televangelists, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness, we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them.”
As a follower of Jesus, those words & the ones that followed hit me square between the eyes, so I decided to confess to you: believers, unbelievers, as well as GOD.
That I have failed to be Christ-like in situations where there might be repercussions for it.
That I turn the channel every time I see the commercials for feeding the poor across the world.
That I am careful to say and do the ‘right’ things when I’m around others.
That I don’t spend time with my family because I think they are not as ‘cool’ as my friends.
That I lash out instead of turning the other cheek when I’m offended or threatened.
That I think I am better than others because they don’t seem as smart, cool, or as happy as I make myself out to be.
For my mixed & ulterior motives for anything I do that might be construed as good.
For being quiet when I should speak.
For speaking when I should remain silent.
For not living up to the words I speak or write.
For only giving lip service or money to worthy causes.
For ignoring or looking down on people in need because they were not like me.
For standing in judgment of judgmental churches and people.
For being religious and not loving.
For feeling and thinking about worthy things, but not doing.
For assuming I know what other people are thinking.
For not even coming close to being the man GOD wants me to be.
For not following through on my good intentions.
For following through with my good intentions.
For my lack of courage.
For my arrogance.
For my insecurity.
For my pride.
For my selfishness.
For so much more….much more.
You may be wondering why I’m doing this; you are not alone in that because I am wondering the same thing. All I know is that I felt moved by what I read and I felt compelled to share it, call what you like; a nudge by the Holy Spirit, a blowhard with too much time on his hands, the ramblings of an extremely strange person or worse.
I believe Jesus is a person not a religion. He wants to have a relationship with each of us, an honest one, no pretense. He wants to hear from us; the good, the bad, the ugly, and the mundane. Forget the cliché’s and the things we think we should say or do. Get real with GOD and He will get real with you. That is what I believe. Christian or not try it out for a month or two, see what happens. What have you got to lose?
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_College
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