I haven't blogged in months. Months and months. Let's not delay any longer...
I'm in the air at the moment, sat in a seat really high up above Wales. I'm headed back to Belfast via Dublin after a wonderful wonderful trip home. My soul needed it. I fell in love with Switzerfrance again.
Somewhere amidst all the beautiful food and scenery and weather and faces and car rides and wedding fun, I had stunning conversations. I'm going to tell you about a couple of them now.
An old friend and I were walking around a park with fenced off grassy patches because the Swiss like to fix things that don't need fixing and grow greener grass where it's already greener than most grass. As we were doing this, she was telling me about how she couldn't deny the existence of a powerful being anymore. She described how large and vast yet intimately linked with everything the being had to be in order for the world to be as it is and function the way it does. She said she can't call the being God. The being is too big to be the God of the Christians.
A couple days later, on the drive through the alps back to Geneva from the spa we had spent Tash's hen do at, our carload talked lengthily about the scars Christians had left them with. About the unloving, alienating nature of churches so far removed from the message they preach. The desire they all had to be loved was not met by what Christians had to offer.
Both these conversations initially blew me away, and then they upset me. Disturbed me. This is what the world thinks of our loving God. Our beautiful, grand, almighty, powerful God. They see a weak and careless being. One that has limits. One that falls short. That will disappoint. They're being fed lies. They're being fed lies because we are failing to show them our God.
The Jesus of the bible left heaven (which probably wasn't a very easy place to say goodbye to), came to earth, did a whole load of loving, conquered death, and then went home leaving Christians behind to represent Him until His return. We've been left with the HONOUR of wearing His name, carrying his flag, illustrating who He is with our lives. From the conversations I've had this week, it is pretty evident the real Jesus is not known. His reputation is being influenced by cheap tabloids. It is tarnished. It is wrong.
So now I'm headed back to Belfast. Rumour has it we are due 1 month's worth of rain in the next 24 hours. People often ask me why I live in such a place. I have spent most of my summer asking myself the same question, trying to figure out the purpose of my life in Belfast. I still have no real answer. Instead, I now have a new question. How can I be an ambassador for Love? Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing. How can I paint a true picture of who God is with my life?
I refuse to live in a world where my God is not known as the loving and almighty being that He is. I'm willing to endure the rain for Love.
