HOW TO COMFORT?

This topic has been somewhat on the back burner. When I started, Offend Me With Your Love, I was thinking about what it means to show love. Undoubtedly, I had in mind the ridiculous politically correct nonsense about everyone having a right not to be offended. Clearly, the goal is not to be offensive for the sake of being offensive. The goal is in some sense to take back what it really means to love from the narrow explanations. Of course, the inverse is true as well. What really constitutes hate? Both these terms either are applied too loosely or are too narrowly defined. The false, logically inconsistent, message says, “If it agrees with me or sounds nice it is love, if it disagrees with me or sounds harsh it is hate.”
Of course, Offend Me With Your Love came out of a much more personal place as well. I was going through the darkest time of my life and realized nobody loved me, at least not in a way I could really understand. I had an overwhelming desire to cut everyone out of my life and literally disappear myself permanently. The very few people in my life that cared about me would not say anything because they were afraid of offending me. This only reinforced the belief and the message, “go quietly; nobody cares.”
Who am I to say if they did the right thing or not? I am still here. I doubt ignoring a problem in the hopes that it goes away is a good general rule to live by. It may absolutely be the right answer to say nothing at times. I know I am a sinner and especially need tough love sometimes, although that is obviously not the answer in every situation either.  Paul writes,

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, KJV).

The word Trouble is θλῖψις (Transliteration: thlipsis) from <G2346> (thlibo); pressure (literal or figurative) :- afflicted (-tion), anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble.¹
There is So Much Trouble in the World. It would be great to know how to give comfort. Yet we have to be honest with ourselves as believers in Y’shua *(JESUS). When non-believers look at the church and its message, they are confused. We meddle in the affairs of others outside the church without really setting our own household in order. Obviously, we should start at the household of God. How are we to comfort each other?
In upcoming posts, I will talk about some specific situations and questions I have come to in my everyday life and through reading other’s blogs. In the meantime, check out the very interesting site Net-burst.Net for many articles of encouragement on a wide range of topics.

1 James Strong, Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary, (Austin, TX: WORDsearch Corp., 2007), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "2347".

Smoke and Mirrors —Religious Pretending Has No Place Amongst Saints

I have been following this blog —The Sexy Celibate: Making Sense of the Unexpected Single Life.  In this post -Why it Sucks to be Unintentionally Overlooked Part III (In Which Cinderella Wears a Power Suit),* the question was raised, why “Happily ever after” has to always be found in marriage?  This is from the perspective of someone that still longs to be married but the story has yet to turn out that way.  Adding to the pain is the prevalent notion that happiness can not be found in other ways.  Or the pain of being overlooked or undervalued (especially in church) because ones story does not represent the acceptable narrative.

My personal favorite Disney cartoon was Beauty and the Beast. Originally it was because I thought the songs were funny and the scenes in the Beast’s castle really tripped me out when I used and abused psychoactive chemicals.   Unfortunately, I can relate with the Beast; he was hopeless.  He was ugly because he treated people badly.  Belle was praised for her beauty yet ostracized in her community for being "strange".  Yet she was kind.  Of course, she wanted more out of life then she was experiencing and was intrigued by tales of adventure and the notion of "meeting prince Charming".  Instead of ending in marriage could it have ended with the Beast going to rehab and Belle pursuing inventing things with a generous grant from the guy formally known as the Beast?  I don't want to take Disney analogies too far because typically there are false messages included as well.  (I haven't seen it in awhile but an example that comes immediately to mind is that it is inadvisable for nice women to try to "save" total jerks through "dating".  I did a Startpage search for, "what is the main message of Beauty and the Beast" and the first answer I read was, "Treat others the way you would want to be treated". That is a good place to start. Of course, easier said then done!  Especially, when one is so depressed they wished they never woke up today.  This calls our usefulness into question which can further our despair.  Otherwise our wounded-ness can lead to bitterness and any number of beastly behaviors. 

Often our experience of church sadly is as a place of smoke and mirrors.  Even in small "Bible studies" people seemingly have to protect themselves and therefore speak so vaguely about things that what they are saying ends up meaning very little.   As Sam Cox so eloquently put it in the comments for the above video, "that great contradiction in all of us - we want to be seen, heard and understood for who we are on the inside and yet that very person is the same person who would misjudge others in the first place.”  The church should be as Ted Roberts puts it, “a  place of practical grace… a place where hope is the dominant theme, and denial, especially religious pretending, is nowhere in sight.”  In the church, amongst Christians, we should feel safe to bring all of our emotions to the light.  Jesus himself was the one whom Isaiah prophesied as, “a man of sorrows acquainted with grief”.  (Isaiah 53:3)   I think of the saying “the church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners”.   I get the gist, although it hits me the wrong way because it perpetuates a false notion of what a saint truly is, Biblically speaking. 

 

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*(this post has since been removed so it is a little unclear why i am still talking about it)
A funny example of over thinking Disney films— Beauty and the Beast’s Dark Delusion