Can I get real for a minute?

(Sensitive viewers consider yourself warned. This post may be spiritually explicit. Not suitable for spiritually immature viewers.)

Why is it so hard to convince folks in the church of Christ that God wants a personal relationship with him? Hm? What's up with that?

The balking, the cringing, the whispering... the dead silence in my class was enough to shut down the most experienced of teachers.

I didn't teach apostasy, blasphemy... so what's the deal?

Or is this news to us? That God actually desires more from us than a punch in and punch out card that's perfectly filled...

C'MON!

What kind of church have I associated myself with that cringes at the thought of having an intimate, delight filled relationship with it's creator? What is so foreign about that? You gotta tell me that wasn't meat... puleeeze tell me that was milk and they just got it down the wrong pipe! They were choking on it! How on earth have they made it this far in their spiritual warfare without a personal relationship with their redeemer! What have they been doing for the PAST TEN YEARS?!!! Ugh. I'm so thoroughly frustrated.

Mind you... it wasn't the whole class. But teaching it was akin to swimming upstream in molasses.

Naturally, I have one heckler. A whisperer. She's above it all. This is all beneath her. She "doesn't need this" she tells me every class. And, yet she shows up every week. I suppose God has her there to keep me humble? I silently prayed for her right in the middle of class. We'll see what happens with that.

I can't even begin to explain to you how difficult it is to teach a class... a bible class... when you know you are right in the middle of a spiritual assault. NO... a loooong spiritual battle. I feel so incredibly weak... vulnerable... unqualified... I have come a long way from leaning on my own understanding and strength... but during these latest weeks my personal strength has run dry and I am strictly surviving on spiritual fumes. Certainly aware that I am not the best qualified for the job. And yet... no one else will step up. Hopefully when I am done, this will change.

I am baffled by this realization that wanting a closeness with God makes me a liberal nut to my obviously "conservative" sisters... Mm Mm. I never considered myself liberal or conservative... and I don't know what this make me now.... or makes them.

I'll forge on as long as God requires me to...

Signing out unapologetically...

-Jennifer-