Things I learned this week...

It's far easier for me to keep my faith around non-Christians than it is around Christians. I think it's partly because the atheists and agnostics I know are the most loving, caring, beautiful people and God's goodness shines out of them. It's also partly because they seem to have their priorities straight. Something about striving to be a good person just to be a good person and just to love those around you seems more genuine than a forced Christian niceness. It's more of a reflection of a changed heart, even if that heart doesn't realize all good is from God. It's what is truly godly, in my opinion- to love for the sake of loving rather than through obligation or as the fulfillment of some sort of set of rules.

But by the grace of God am I saved and consequently, I can't know who is saved and who isn't. In consequence, those I might use as role models might not be what God wants us to strive for at all.

Is a Christian who makes me loathe Christianity a Christian at all?

Or am I just soft and expect God to conform to my standards?

All I know is when I share the goodness of God with people who don't know Him at all, my faith is restored. My faith is restored by the challenges they give me, by having to prove why God is God.

When I talk shop with Christians, it tends to stray away from that and focus on me. Am I good enough for God? Am I devoted enough? Am I Christian enough?

Well, Christians, no, I'm not. I'm none of those things. I never will be. But that's ok because God loved me before I even tried. God's goodness poured out of me before I even knew Him.

If an atheist plants wheat, the wheat will only grow in the way God intended it to grow. The atheist's wheat is still sacred. Everything is sacred. Everything is of God. There's no division between us and them. If this canyon between Christians and non-believers is filled up by one sentence uttered at an alter call, is that really an eternal divide?

Or is it in our darkest, most alone moments, when even the atheist feels God?

If no one enters the kingdom of heaven but through Jesus, and Jesus healed and taught the dregs of society, then what difference is a few words when He knows our soul?

Christians tend to be afraid of universalism and that's fine. But even if you think some get in and some don't, maybe it'd be wise to be a little less certain of the criteria and a little more certain that you're not loving those around you enough.

We're all broken. We all have baggage and betrayals and traumas and hurts. But if we are selective and protective in the way we love, we aren't truly loving at all. If you can't pray for your enemy, or for a person who just icks you out, that's the divide right there. That's the heart that Jesus knows.

Alter call words aside, are you ok with Jesus knowing who you really are?