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Distracted by Christians

I get easily distracted.

During law school I could not study unless I was locked in a room with no windows, sound or visual stimulation. I was never one of those people who could put music on and study. Put music on and suddenly I am thinking about the lyrics of the song, the meaning behind the song and why the songwriter wrote it. Basically I spiral quickly.

Someone once very nicely put it this way- I am super observant, which is basically code for someone who is closely paying attention to everything going on in the room but cannot focus in on one person when there are crowds of people… the kind of person who sucks at the typical after church conversations. I would need deer blinders to focus in on one person and actually listen or remember anything we talked about.

I spent most of my younger life resistant and suspicious of anything and everything Christian. 

When I attended church or youth groups I was hyper focused on the people there. I mentally picked them apart to pieces. My thoughts went something like this,

“Oh these people are Christians? They all seem super lame. Have they even ever dealt with anything difficult? Do they ever even have fun?!”

I looked around and could not see anyone who looked like they could understand my background and my heart. I thought every Christian I saw seemed too picture perfect and naïve. I thought that no one there could ever understand what I was going through.

I was the arrogant, small minded and judgmental one. 

I got distracted by the people of God and did not actually seek to encounter God, Himself. Because I could not see anyone who looked like they had my background there, I felt rejected by God, like I did not belong with “Christians.”

But God, did what only He can do. He showed Himself to me and how much He loved me with such clarity that it was suddenly impossible to get distracted by the people of God when I felt intimately connected with Jesus himself.

When I first started really going to church to hear about Jesus, this Jesus that loved ME and not just all those other “picture perfect” people, I sat in the front row so that I would not be distracted and looking at the people of God.

I wanted to deeply know God, my God, my Savior, Best Friend, Protector, Father, and Satisfier.  I sat and listened for months. Closed my eyes when I felt myself thinking too much about the people there.

Then a funny thing happened, I felt truth settling deep into my heart. I no longer noticed most of the people there. I no longer crucified the people there, when I had an actual Savior who crucified Himself for me. I started sitting in the back and loved getting to see how God moved people in the service.

Whenever someone tells me that they do not like Christianity because of the hypocrisy of Christians or the terrible experience they had with Pastor-So and so, I so get it. I get how easy it is to be distracted by the people of God and miss an actual relationship with God himself.

So often, we do not help. So many people in the church desire to be worshipped and willingly distract the people in church away from God to place all the focus on themselves. It makes me sick. But at the end of the day we are all sick and in need of Jesus. Only Jesus.

We need to stop getting in the way. 

Let God have His way and do what only He can do. If you hate Christians and do not relate to anyone you see at church, please do not be distracted by the people of God and miss getting to know God Himself.

The people of God are not and never will be a substitute for God, Himself.

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