Messy Faith

J. Gregory A.

Description

While most of us trudge toward the cross with the best intentions, at times our lives just don't pan out the way we've planned. Messy Faith addresses the muddled adventure that we call "working out our salvation." It is being sure and unsure, whole and broken, warring, losing, and winning. It is being right and being wrong and having no clue, but believing anyway. And it is trusting in God to perfect the final product of our flawed, human lives.Author A. J. Gregory explores her own personal experiences, and those of a handful of flawed biblical heroes and others who have endured painful or simply ordinary realities in the journey to belief. This honest book will comfort anyone who has had a less-than-straight path to belief and those who continue to struggle.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441201942
• Langue: English

Extrait

MESSY FAITH
MESSY FAITH
DARING TO LIVE BY GRACE
A . J . GREGORY
2008 by A. J. Gregory
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gregory, A. J., 1976-
Messy faith : daring to live by grace / A.J. Gregory.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8007-3284-4 (pbk.)
BT761.3.G74 2008
234 .1-dc22
2008026153
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture marked Message is taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked NLT is taken from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
To all those who want to believe.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Wanted: Spiritual Masochists
2. Confessions of an Imperfect Christian
3. Conversations with God
4. Why Do I Judge?
5. The Gift of the Broken
6. Is God Going to Take Care of Me?
7. Forgive Us . . . as We Forgive Others
8. The Demons of Addiction
9. Is God Enough?
10. The Treasures of Darkness
Notes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to . . .
My family. Mom, you are a true survivor and have taught me how to be a strong woman. Jimmy, your talent has been the soundtrack behind many of these pages. Vivien, thank you for always believing in me and being my best friend (and having an adventurous spirit). Jordan, your faith that the sky is the limit is refreshing and always makes me smile. Uncle Steve, your faith is an inspiration.
My literary agent, Esther Fedorkevich. You are the best agent in the world. I am in awe of your persistence and your passion.
The dedicated, talented, and hardworking staff at Baker Publishing Group who helped Messy Faith happen. Jennifer Leep, thank you for believing in my writing and being the advocate for this book.
Doyline. For being there through all my messes. Never stop believing.
INTRODUCTION
I got a tattoo on my wrist today. I ve wanted it for a while. It says trust in beautiful script. My tattoo artist and I had it out because he was convinced the tattoo was for other people and so it should face opposite of me. I was floored. I wanted it to face me. I wanted to look at it because I needed to be reminded of it . . . all the time. It s the most incredible tattoo of all the ones I have.
Trust.
I ve needed to learn to trust in God throughout my faith journey. It has been a difficult thing to do for many reasons, and, at times as a result, my sojourn has been messy. Messy but beautiful. Make no doubt, the two are intertwined, and it took me a long time to really believe it.
I was watching the VH1 show Celebrity Rehab the other day, the reality TV show that filmed the recovery process of famous addicts. One of the big names on the show was Seth Shifty Bin-zer, the lead singer from the band Crazytown, who was addicted to cocaine and crack for years. A video clip showed him smoking crack on his way into rehab. On one particular episode, toward the tail end of the show, the group was out at a coffeehouse open mic night. Shifty performed a rap, and one of the lines he spouted out really struck me. I m dancing in the ashes of the riches I ve burned. I thought it was the most profound thing I d heard in a long time, and it reminded me of my life. Through my messes, past and even current, I feel like I m dancing in the garbage that God has transformed into beauty.
I ve had a strong faith in God for most of my life. My trust has been in God because there is no way I could trust myself. I m not saying I did the right things all of the time or that my faith was necessarily solid most times. My faith-sometimes looking like a speck of dust, other times looking as solid as the Lincoln memorial-has been there. Blurry and clear, weak and strong, full of passionate fire, a smoking ember . . . it has been present. I ve always believed in God because I couldn t not believe in Him.
This book isn t about me. I ve tried very hard not to make it seem like my story matters so much. Honestly, who cares about my struggles? Who cares about the journey of faith I stumbled through like a sloppy drunk? Who cares about the monkeys that lurked on my back? And who really cares about my revelation? These are the questions I have asked myself as I wrote about what I call messy faith.
But this book isn t about me, really, it s about all of your stories. It s about your journey with God. And it s about trying to reconcile your pains, your doubts, your questions, your imperfections, your vices, and your lapses with faith in an invisible God. While I don t diminish my personal and unique circumstances, my hope is that whatever I share is at least transparent enough so your story is visible.
Messy Faith addresses the muddled adventure that working out our faith in God can sometimes look like. It is being sure and unsure, whole and broken, warring, losing and winning. It is being right and being wrong and having no clue, but believing anyway. And it is trusting in God for perfecting the final product-our flawed, human selves.
We are all searching for the right way to live out Christianity. And while we have the Bible as a handbook, there are some issues, questions, and challenges that it does not directly or thoroughly discuss. While the appeals to just believe and go and sin no more and love your enemies seem obvious enough, why does it feel so difficult, if not impossible, to practically engage them into our lives?
How does the alcoholic, for instance, instantaneously snap away the addiction with his trembling fingers? How does he arbitrate his love for God when it is constantly playing fatal war games with his need for a drink? How does a young lady deal with a temptation that she has furiously prayed about but just won t go away? How does she reconcile her want to serve God with the beckoning breath of the forbidden? How does a long-time Christian, who believes the message of the gospel to be convicting not condemning, still suffer from the shackles of legalism? How does he fall into and rest in Love s open arms when his flesh shrieks of unworthiness? These are the folks to whom Messy Faith speaks.
Messiness does not only appear in individual circumstances that spark combat between our spirits and flesh, but in life s daily bustle and doldrums-in our communion with others, in our office complexes, in our homes, and in our prayer closets. What does faith look like when people bore us to death or are simply annoying? When work stresses have pillaged our sense of wonder and joy? When dealing with our five-year-old twins has turned our hair prematurely gray? When prayer seems more like a burden than a sanctum?
Within these life-areas is where the challenge of being a Christian falls-being carriers of the presence of God and accommodating Him in broken, clay pots of flesh and blood, tissue and muscle. And while God, through his spirit, enables us to live according to his good purposes, we must not forget the shells of our humanity. They exist; they do not vanish when we become believers. And they usually interfere with our false illusions of the perfect Christian. Let s be honest. Ours can be a messy faith. While most of us trudge toward the Cross with the best of intentions, our lives, at times, are not played out that way. We all fall short in some area and, therefore, need to rely on Christ to perfect us in his image. This is what Messy Faith explores-the bedraggled and unkempt shadows of the journey of belief. While in our eyes our faith may look bandaged, scraped, bruised, and busted, in God s eyes, and because of him, our faith is made whole.
It is my prayer that you find your resting place of trust in a God you cannot see. That you keep believing in him when everything around you tells you not to. That you keep hoping he will work in your life so that even that trash you may have sown becomes a treasure beyond your deepest imagination. I don t care how messy your life is right now, know that if you keep your faith, whatever it may look like, you will dance even in the ashes of the riches you may have burned.
1 WANTED : SPIRITUAL MASOCHISTS
In life as in dance: Grace glides on blistered feet.
Alice Abrams
I used to be a spiritual masochist. I would have rather gotten whipped by God than freely received the foreign gifts of mercy and grace. Every time I messed up or did something stupid, I wished to hear a booming voice from heaven-appropriately accompanied by a trembling iron fist, a soundtrack of roaring thunder, and sharp flashes of blinding lightning-bark at my frailties and literally scare the living daylights out of me. I hoped for some visible evidence of punishment: a slap on the wrist, a kick in the butt, maybe even a broken leg from a car accident. I imagined it was necessary to make reparations for my messy journey of faith.
For many years I took refuge under an umbrella of fear. My spirituality wasn t healthy. I was mainly afraid, among other things, that my life would be ruined by one wrong move. Or a b