Crutch

'God is just a crutch for people who cannot cope with life.'

I have heard this from many people, especially while I was studying the philosophy of religion. When people are saying this they generally mean it as a slight insult to point out the seemingly obvious flaw in religion - it is only for people who are messed up and if you are doing all right then it's essentially pointless - no healthy person walks around with a crutch, it's just wrong. The prime motive of religion is seen as resolving difficult problems  to which there is no real answer. It pursues these resolutions above the pursuit of truth and therefore the latter bends to meet the needs of the former. Thus making it null and void.

Many Christians have responded to this saying that it is not true, God is not a crutch, he is a loving father, a real, personal, powerful, active God. While I believe this sentiment is true I wouldn't respond this way.

What would I say? Well probably something along the lines of ...

Amen! I have tried doing life my own way and I have tried doing it Gods way and without a shadow of a doubt I can confirm that life without God is like trying to walk with broken legs. My legs are broken, I need a crutch. In fact I would say that a crutch is being far too generous to me ... If we are going to analogise God with a piece of medical equipment then he is a defibrillator! I am just a sack of meat and bones without him. Life is void, pleasure is meaningless and death is hopeless without God. The fact that the outcome of a life with God is a positive one is not evidence for the falsification of Gods existence, it is proof of it! To say that a system is fabricated simply because it fulfils the yearnings  of the parishioners   is an absurd use of predetermined logic.

More to the point however, when a person accuses God of being a crutch they omit a very important element of analysis. They do not reflect on their own lives. If they did so then they would very quickly realise that their legs were broken and what they really need is a crutch to lean on. A God to carry them through.  But, as a very good friend once told me 'No one is as deaf as the one who does not want to hear, no one is as blind as the one who does not want to see.'

God puts just one single condition on salvation. Acceptance. You have to accept that your legs are broken before you will be willing to take up a crutch. You have to accept that you cannot make it on your own, you don't have all the answers and you need the help of the one who does before you are ever going to take his hand and let him pull you out of the pit.

Jesus said that he did not come for the healthy but for the sick. What he meant when he said this is not that some are healthy and some are sick. He was effectively saying - I have come for those who are willing to accept the help. Those who recognise their sickness and decide to give it to me instead of just denying it, those are the people I have come for.

Hypocricy

I think many of us are familiar with the searing red hot burn that the innocent heart experiences in the face of hypocrisy. Authenticity is so often assumed (frankly why shouldn't it be - it is definitely the way things should be even if it is not the way things are. ) and the let down when the veneer peels off can be quite devastating. It can take some time to regain trust and the more times we are let down the harder it becomes to believe the hypocrite at all.

That is at least  how it starts - as we get older  and the veneer falls too many times we simply become disenfranchised, disillusioned and disinterested altogether. The norm shifts from authenticity to errancy. There are a few prime examples of this in our culture, the one that was most recently highlighted to me was that of politics.

Jeremy Paxman recently interviewed Russell Brand and the video went viral. Why? Because so many people can so readily sympathise with Brand. He is correct to say that my generation has given up on politics. So many are just so thoroughly  bemused by the hypocrisy of it all that they find themselves asking why bother? Why entertain a system that consistently produces the very antithesis of what it promises?

While I disagree with a great number of other things that Russell suggests in the interview I cannot fault him on how well he captures the despondency produced in people who consistently witness hypocrisy.

Closer to home for me however is the issue of the Church. For as long as politicians have been criticised for being hypocritical so have Christians - particularly church leaders. They are meant to be beacons of righteousness, paragons of purity, towers of truth! But we all know that if you look close enough (or wait long enough) you will inevitably see the cracks and often not little ones either - we are talking grand canyon here. You never have to wait long before you hear another story of a vicar who has been caught with child pornography or cheating on his wife. You can take one look at god TV and get blinded by the gigantic diamond ring on the hand of a man who is talking about giving sacrificially.

And this is just talking about things that get media attention, equally we will find the Christians that we know personally will uphold a moral standard with their mouth but they will live out a very different reality.

Just as it is with politics: the more you hear the less interested you become - church is a lie, God is a crutch and these people are either deceiving or deceived ... Or both.

But here is some good news...

First things first hypocrisy usually has far more to do with the expected standard than it does with the actual action. What do I mean by this? If politicians didn't make such grandiose promises while they were trying to win an election the fact that they messed up during their term would not be such a big let down. Equally if Christians didn't profess such a spotless moral code so the disparity would not seem so great in their lives. Now this is the bit where politics and Christianity part ways. The Bible is a compilation of 66 books written by messed up, broken people who were trying to follow God. The authors do not shy away from the fact that they get it wrong. Often. You can trace deception, murder, rape, adultery, pride, gluttony and just generally plain old failure throughout the pages of the bible. Christians don't (or rather I should say shouldn't) shy away from the fact that they are anything but shining examples of perfect people. Much of the disenfranchisement that people experience from Christianity is birthed from a misconception that it is about being perfect. It really isn't!

So the question then is not 'how come you fail?' everyone fails the question is more 'what does one do in the face of failure?' There is another misunderstanding here too.

To an onlooker it can be quite simple, you condemn the people who totally mess up and you pardon the ones who get it right. Simple. The problem with that is highlighted very well by Jesus himself - 'let him who is without sin cast the first stone.'. Somewhat ironically it would be incredibly hypocritical to pronounce such a judgement on anyone given that whoever it is throwing the stone will themselves have royally messed up at some point in their lives ... Who are they to judge?

The bible offers an alternative to condemnation in the face of failure. Grace. A second chance. Redemption. So while Christianity is littered with people messing it up throughout the ages it is also full of the same people being given another chance to try to do better next time. Sadly the 'trying to do better next time' is often communicated in a very judgemental way, listing off things that we all do and saying 'these are all wrong!' It gives the impression that you can't 'join the club' if you do these things. That is not the case at all... It is more saying look at all these terrible things that we all do yet seem incapable of stopping - we need to join the club to rescue us from those things!

So next time you see a Christian who sets their standard as perfection and falls short of that standard, don't leap to the conclusion that they are a hypocrite, perhaps realise that they are trying to be a better person but that it doesn't happen over night.

So what am I saying here - Christians always have a perfect motive but they are just not the best at executing the plan? No. I am not even saying that Christians are not hypocrites... Just less than they are accused of being. I would say that to be a hypocrite is to be human. No, hypocrisy is not a good thing but it is a common thing among all people. So if you have problems with Christianity because of the hypocrisy of Christians then you should feel welcome, they are not so different from you after all.

Finally I would address the distinction between a hypocritical person and a hypocritical system. Sadly for us all there are some Christians who don't just set standards for themselves but for everyone else as well. It is one thing to set perfection as your own standard but to hold other people to account on that standard is quite another thing. this is what gets us really hot under the collar. When someone is 'Holier than thou' and pronounces everyone else sinners as though they themselves were faultless, all the while trying to cover up their own shortcomings. While there may be people who call themselves Christians who behave like this it does not change the fact that this is anything but Christianity. In fact it is this group of people who Jesus most strongly opposed. The Pharisees. If people had arch enemies Jesus would have picked the Pharisees to be his. They were the religious elite who made ridiculous rules that were impossible to keep so they could puff themselves up and be 'holier than thou'. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs and a pit of vipers. Sadly there are still some Pharisees around today but try not to let them put you off Jesus even if they profess to follow him. 

Capacity

Lately I have been confronted by my limitations. This might seem quite proud in itself - how are you ever not aware of your limitations? Well perhaps it is pride that puffs you up enough that when you catch a glimpse of yourself you are shocked at just how deflated you really are.

Anyway, lately I have been confronted by my own limitations, but first some background. It is now approaching 2 years since I handed in my resignation, left my job and my home and flew off to South Africa (things have never been the same since). Before I left for South Africa I was not doing great, somewhat disillusioned, lacking drive to really do anything I was in serious need of some focus in life. Well, I certainly found it. It is amazing how much more we find ourselves able to do when given the right drive. When you find that thing that you know you can do, that you are good at doing, that you love doing and won't ever get bored of doing it can be ecstasy.

I found I was able to push myself for longer, live louder, bigger and stronger. Naturally this was not so narrow as to be limited to my work in South Africa. It spilled over into my social life, Prayer life, exercise , eating, breathing... Everything had more depth, life was just more full. My capacity was significantly bigger. I was far more busy in those 6 months than I had been in the previous 6 yet I had more time for people, more time to listen, more to invest.

This increase in capacity was much more than perhaps meets the eye. Finding that thing that you are good at ... Finding your thing is much more than discovering something about yourself. It is discovering what God has placed in you. And when you start living in line with Gods will using those gifts for his purposes it changes everything and that is good news.

It is good because that thing, that gift, no longer terminates on you, it is for a higher purpose, a deeper meaning, a fuller expression. That gift is for God, for his glory as an expression of part of who he is. It is good because the pressure is no longer on you. Let's take one example. How many men have found that they are naturally gifted in business? And how many of those men have felt that the success of their business is such a reflection of them, so dependent on them that they are willing to sacrifice so much to make it thrive ?... How many marriages has that destroyed, how many families has it torn apart? But when that gifting is recognised as being about God, rather than the man, how releasing is that? He no longer has to prove himself as the most successful business man out there, no longer has to compare himself to how everyone else is doing, no longer has to sell himself and his life and his families lives into his business because it is no longer his, but Gods.

I am not saying that recognising the gifts God has given you is permission to be lazy with them, on the contrary how much more would you want to nurture and train in a God-given skill. Neither am I saying that  God is simply a tool for getting a good work/rest balance, plenty of people do that without the help of God. What I am saying is that all your skills, and in fact every breath you take is a gift from God, not just a human function and the difference of those perspectives is like the difference between shadows and real forms.

So ... Why did I start with talking about limitations? Because the year since coming back from South Africa was one very long kick in the stomach. Because despite the fact that I had tasted and seen and lived life to the full for a time did not make me impervious to royally messing up. Being in line with God's will for your life is a matter of choice and just as being in line results in life to the full so being out of line results in chaos.

Now It is very important that you do not read what I am not writing here. I am not saying 'follow God and your life is going to be all rainbows and sunshine.' Some people would have you believe that and they are simply wrong - anyone with any amount of life experience can testify to that. Neither am I saying that if you don't follow God your life is going to be one long train wreck. - That is also perfectly possible with God.

What I am saying is that your outlook on life (irrelevant of whether your life is hard or easy)will radically change. Your talents, pleasures and laughter will have a greater capacity - because they are no longer limited by you. And your tears, aches and mourning will not be hopeless because your hope is no longer limited by you or those around you.

And yes, when you have been through a season of serious trial you still come out the other end feeling beat up and very aware of your limitations. But the good news is that whatever your limitations you can know a God who is limitless, with whom all things are possible. So I want to be honest, following God doesn't necessarily stop the storms of life and it doesn't remove the opportunities to make stupid choices. It does something far better. God can take your joys, talents and laughter and make them less hollow. And He can take your anxieties, limitations and helplessness and give you hope.

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