I get easily distracted.
During law school I could not study unless I was locked in a
room with no windows, sound or visual stimulation. I was never one of those
people who could put music on and study. Put music on and suddenly I am
thinking about the lyrics of the song, the meaning behind the song and why the
songwriter wrote it. Basically I spiral quickly.
Someone once very nicely put it this way- I am super
observant, which is basically code for someone who is closely paying attention
to everything going on in the room but cannot focus in on one person when there
are crowds of people… the kind of person who sucks at the typical after church
conversations. I would need deer blinders to focus in on one person and
actually listen or remember anything we talked about.
I spent most of my younger life resistant
and suspicious of anything and everything Christian.
When I attended church or
youth groups I was hyper focused on the people there. I mentally picked them
apart to pieces. My thoughts went something like this,
“Oh these people are Christians? They all seem super lame.
Have they even ever dealt with anything difficult? Do they ever even have
fun?!”
I looked around and could not see anyone who looked like
they could understand my background and my heart. I thought every Christian I
saw seemed too picture perfect and naïve. I thought that no one there could
ever understand what I was going through.
I was the arrogant, small minded and judgmental one.
I got distracted by the people of God and did not actually
seek to encounter God, Himself. Because I could not see anyone who looked like
they had my background there, I felt rejected by God, like I did not belong
with “Christians.”
But God, did what only He can do. He showed Himself to me
and how much He loved me with such clarity that it was suddenly impossible to
get distracted by the people of God when I felt intimately connected with Jesus
himself.
When I first started really going to church to hear about
Jesus, this Jesus that loved ME and not just all those other “picture perfect”
people, I sat in the front row so that I would not be distracted and looking at
the people of God.
I wanted to deeply know God, my God, my Savior, Best Friend,
Protector, Father, and Satisfier. I sat
and listened for months. Closed my eyes when I felt myself thinking too much
about the people there.
Then a funny thing happened, I felt truth settling deep into
my heart. I no longer noticed most of the people there. I no longer crucified
the people there, when I had an actual Savior who crucified Himself for me. I
started sitting in the back and loved getting to see how God moved people in
the service.
Whenever someone tells me that they do not like
Christianity because of the hypocrisy of Christians or the terrible experience
they had with Pastor-So and so, I so get it. I get how easy it is to be
distracted by the people of God and miss an actual relationship with God
himself.
So often, we do not help. So many people in the church
desire to be worshipped and willingly distract the people in church away from
God to place all the focus on themselves. It makes me sick. But at the end of
the day we are all sick and in need of Jesus. Only Jesus.
We need to stop getting in the way.
Let God have His way and
do what only He can do. If you hate Christians and do not relate to anyone you
see at church, please do not be distracted by the people of God and miss getting
to know God Himself.
The people of God are not and never will be a substitute for
God, Himself.
