Involved in the mess

In his book, God in the Alley, Greg Paul describes the journey he has been on as he learns what it means to be and see Jesus in a broken world. Over and over again, he is challenged - and challenging us as Christians to get outside the safe confines of our own comfortability, our own walls that we've erected and to truly engage in the messiness of others lives.

He says, "This kind of active, fully engaged presence requires tremendous discipline....How do I practice this presence among people who are, much of the time, engaged in activites in which I can't - don't want to - participate? When I think of trying to be the presence o fo Christ in this fashion, it no longer seems benign and faintly condescending. Instead, it seems risky, uncomfortable, humbling. Giving money to some panhandler is something I know I can manage; it can even make me feel good about myself. But embracing him as a brother, literally putting my arms around his smelly, drunken, psychotic, and possibly bug-ridden person, grappling with the concept that he, too, is beloved of God, precious, and made in his image - well, this provides an unnerving peek into my own soul."

I read this book with great resonation. This is what Christ really calls me to. Not some glossed over, show me what I want to see kind of engagement but getting involved with peoples lives on a gut wrenching soul level. All these concepts look good on the pages of a book...but how do they look in the midst of real life? My real life...

This is what I have been faced with over and over again this summer. As I am involved with students lives whose anger and hurt goes so deep that they are just as likely to curse me out as they are to hug me. As I am faced with brokeness and tragedy in students lives that ranges from physical, sexual and emotional abuse. As I see the way that has shaped a mindset that causes those very same kids to not value their own bodies and lives.

There are a hundred pat answers I grew up learning in Sunday school and yet those answers seem to fall short when faced with the multi-layered web of pain, anger, demoralization and sin.

The questions have rung over and over in my head..."did I really mean it when I said that I really wanted to know you?" "did I really mean it when I said that I wanted the real you?" "did I really mean it when I said I wanted to be involved in your life - even with all of its disappointments and disgustingness?"

The answer - yes, I think I do, but Lord, I feel helpless and am desperate for you to walk with me each step of the way as I venture in - past the pretty stuff into the reality of peoples lives.