I took a moment in church today to pray for everyone in the room, and everyone I could think of who couldn’t be with us.
As I did, I was struck by all the needs, all the issues in the lives of the people in the room, myself included. And yet, here we all were, singing about how great and glorious God is.
Because He is great. He is glorious. And even though we have trouble, we have hope and joy through God.
Some people are under the impression that churches are for the holy, the perfect and proper. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Every church I’ve ever known is a building of and for broken people.
None of us float in on Sunday’s in clouds of glory. Most of us have to drag ourselves out of bed, limping in after another week of battling.
Life is hard for everyone.
Being a Christian doesn’t prevent trouble, but it does give us a place to bring our troubles
It does place us in a family to love us no matter how bedraggled we look or feel.
It does give us a Savior who grieves over our suffering and desires to walk with us through every hardship.
I’m not writing this today to persuade or shame you.
No, I want to reassure you that you aren’t the only one. You aren’t the only on who dreads paying the bills. You aren’t the only one whose chest tightens when the doctor calls. You aren’t the only one who just can’t bear to face even one more bump in the road.
There are a lot of us, and we meet on Sunday’s to find the hope and strength to keep going.
So, if you want to be amongst others who know what it’s like to suffer and struggle, if you’re for empathy and acceptance, if you’re for direction and a family to walk with, you know where to find us.