contemplativeI tend repeat myself when I explain my spiritual life so I won’t repeat myself here. It all has been said here in LiveJournal many times over the years. In summary my Christian life is a mystery to me. My Christian life is weird. I long for a Christian community of God lovers.
There was thing I did not day to brother Steve that I should have said. And that is we meaning all Christians fail. We meaning Christians fail each other. I have failed to love other Christians and they have failed to love me. There is no one to blame. We are all saved by grace and need to forgive each other our failings and seek to love one another as the world heads for destruction.
I am no longer afraid to acknowledge I am sick and need healing. The more a person approaches the light, the more he or she will experience his or her own imperfections. Teresa writes in the The Interior Castle: "Rather, let's strive to make more progress in self-knowledge. In my opinion we shall never completely know ourselves if we don't strive to know God. By gazing at His grandeur, we get in touch with our own lowliness; by looking at His purity, we shall see our own filth."
Also I do not think I mentioned to brother Steve that I do not think the present structure of a typical American evangelical church organization fosters spiritual intimacy with other God lovers. Also I think being an American makes it difficult to live in community. Americans are focused on independence/self-centered/rugged individualism not focused on community life. We live in isolated family groups or social groups like bowling teams. Americans are not wired for communities centered around a burning love for the Lord Jesus Christ.
I enjoyed talking to Steve even though I had no answers for his questions. It is lonely being a Christian in this messed up world/in American evangelicalism. All we can do is cry out to the Lord for grace to live for Him in this broken world.
Psalm 95
[1] O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
[2] Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
[3] For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
[4] In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
[5] The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
[6] O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.
[7] For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,
[8] Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
[9] When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
[10] Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
[11] Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.