The Heavenly Man

I just finished reading the book The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun. I have never read a book like this before... it has completely changed what I think about suffering and Christianity. Lately (as I read the Bible and books like The Heavenly Man) I have seen more and more clearly that love and pain are intermingled... in fact, they flow so closely together that they are inseparable. What American Christianity has done so thoroughly is separated love from pain. And the result is.... well... look at the modern church. It is filled with "rule-abiding" good people who are deathly fearful, driven by the opinions of the world, weak, often addicted, and silently full of rage at a God who is supposed to alleviate their pain, but won't.

Pain and Love. Perfect twins, gracefully extended to us as a way to find wholeness through Christ Jesus.

Since working in a ministry that reaches weak and broken men and women, I have come to realize that the majority of the church (me included!) is weak and broken, too. There are few differences that separate them. It doesn't matter if it is a former gay prostitute (who is a good friend of mine) or a youth pastor who is addicted to not only his youth ministry, but porn too. In fact, the church does little to help this youth pastor. It drives him further into isolation, into his lonely prayer closet, into another leadership and integrity class, down deeper into his pit of self until he feels so spiritually dark and insane that he goes off the deep end, dives head-first into sexual immorality and shocks the Christian world. Then the church shakes its head in sad disbelief wondering, “What went wrong with that guy!”

I was reading in Colossians 2:20-23 the other day and found my answer to the problem above. It is so clear and simple that it is practically baffling! Read it.