Living Unloved

I have been reading, experiencing, and contemplating numerous things in the last few weeks all with good intentions of sharing some thoughts here, but time hasn't been my friend lately. I have found myself using the few extra moments to soak up time with Claire and Charlotte, which is definitely a good thing. Perhaps this week I will have some time to catch up on my blogging. I did want to share one story that I read in e-mail preaching journal sent out by Walter B. Shurden, Minister at Large, Mercer University. Buddy Shurden was the chair of the Christianity department when Cyd and I were at Mercer. He holds a special place in our hearts as a teacher, a mentor, a pastor of sorts, and a friend. The following is actually his response to a section of The Shack. His thoughts on living unloved spoke to me when I opened the e-mail last week. I have already used a variation of it twice in preaching and teaching, it's that good!

Years ago when I was a very young pastor, I encountered a college student who had been sent my way “for counseling” by a member of my church who was also the dean of students at the local university. I know of no other way to describe the college student: she was a wreck of a human being.

For an hour I made absolutely no access to her soul. But as she grabbed the door handle to leave, I said, “Let me ask you one more question.” “Shoot,” she arrogantly shot back. In as pastoral a way as I knew how, I quietly asked, “Who loves you?” “That’s a stupid damn question,” she countered; “Why do you ask?” “Because,” I said, “My business is to tell people that they are loved.” I pressed the issue: “So tell me who loves you.” Long, long pause with obvious pain and then sadly: “My brother . . . maybe.”

When we live unloved lives we end up overreaching like Adam, lying like Eve, manipulating like Jacob, being fearful like Saul, living unbuttoned like David, amassing like Solomon, denying like Peter, boasting like Paul, and killing ourselves like Judas. Living unloved, we end up puking in alleys, bed-hopping, living self-destructive lives, buying till it hurts, climbing ladders made of others’ heads, building barns too big to live in, confusing ambition with vocation, hoarding rather than sharing, hating folk who don’t look like us, driving by Lazarus, and using rather than serving people. To tell the truth, we end up on trash heaps on the southwest corner of Jerusalem. They called it Gehenna. We call it Hell! We end up as waste, and we waste the only life given to us. That is hell: waste.

But here is the Good News: God is for you! God loves you! You don’t have to live your life hating yourself! To believe all of that is much harder for most people to believe than doctrines of the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, etc. God welcomes you! God accepts you! And Fred Craddock closed his sermon on this theme with: “Can you BELIEVE THAT?”

Powerful thoughts indeed!