"Lunacy.............................."

Shopping with my wife at Kroger’s yesterday, I wandered a few aisles over to search for something on my own list and bumped into my cousin doing much the same. That’s about the extent of our knowing each other in any sort of relationship, living within no more than a couple of miles apart, but basically in two different worlds in spite of such proximity. I like this guy, nonetheless, aware of at least a smidgeon of his history; and encounters are always enjoyed. His wife’s family were church people; he and she attended for several years; neither go anywhere anymore. In response to my inquiry, his excuse was “too many bad experiences incurred along the way, too much turmoil that he didn’t need in his life.” I can empathize. Yet, when he as much as reduced the Gospel, for him at least, to harmonizing the lyrics of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” with some of his buddies, a closing “hymn” regularly sung at the end of a weekly get-together held in his garage, it hit me as somewhat of a shame that we, the body of Christ, fail one another so often in so many ways. In erecting doctrinal totem poles without providing any real depth as to the meaning of the Word, we leave people clinging to illusions, nonsense, and the “Bible says it and I believe it; but don’t look at me expecting an explanation.” Before service this morning, a woman spoke to me of how much she liked to hear this certain preacher well known for his sermons on eschatology. When I shared with her my own lack of enthusiasm concerning him due to his delivery being so fast that everything merely went in one ear and out the other, my brain unable to capture anything at such speed, she strangely agreed, admitting to having the same problem with him! Then a short video was shown us during the service depicting Jewish soldiers, linked together arm in arm and chanting “There is no god like Jehovah! There is no god like Jehovah!” Listening as the phrase was repeated over and over, the congregation began to applaud and give praise; yet, if polled, it’s safe to assume that all there would be quick to condemn them to hell for possessing no belief in a risen Christ! To me, it all gets silly sometimes. Judgment Day will, no doubt, sort it all out; and what holds me here, what cannot be denied, is an anchor-line connection maintained in a prayer closet. In the midst of it all, He speaks peace……..