One-Liners

Right now I feel so crammed full of thoughts and ideas that have been brewing in my heart today that I actually feel as though I could burst... or scream for the frustration of not being able to pin them down and get them to take any identifiable shape. But I guess thoughts and ideas aren't subject to the laws of physics, and while they are fluid, they are not required to take the form of their container. Or maybe they have no container, and so they float free and scramble around in my head until I feel tangled in them.

*sigh*

There is one constant that keeps surfacing in the midst of all of the thought traffic blazing through my brain, though. Maybe not the easiest to explain, as it is also a bit difficult to pin down. But it keeps showing its face, so I thought it would be worth diving into a bit deeper. I think I can sum it up in one sentence.

Christianity is plagued with catch phrases and cliche's that fall on deaf ears.

Uggh! Does that sound awful? Well, maybe it might. But I still think it holds truth. I find that I've heard so many truths so many times said in so many similar ways that I, even as a believer and lover of Christ, don't listen as I should. The familiar phrases just roll off, without having any real impact. These elements of profound and life-changing TRUTH and sincerity have been packaged in pretty little one-liners and served up en mass to the point that we have become completely predictable to the world around us. How can we hope to impact others with the lives we've been given, if they already know what we will say, and how we will say it before we're ever given the chance?

If a person is seeking real answers to a problem, but they already know how you will answer, then why - WHY - would they bother to ask?

Truth can only change a person if it resonates. And it can only resonate if it is heard. And it can only be heard if the hearer has not been desensitized to the reality of the bit of truth being shared.

Does this make any sense?

In other words, we as a whole need to lose the pretty packaging, stop delivering things that are all neat and tidy and perfectly pulled together to a world that is tangled and chaotic and not-at-all put-together. How in this lifetime do we expect them to relate to that? At all? We need to drop the pretense and be willing to be genuine, unpolished, and maybe even a little raw and edgy.

Beautiful truths, like "Jesus died for our sins" and "God gave everything so that we could know and love Him," instead of being allowed to hold the depth and duality of being so complex and yet so simple, are whittled down to quickly-dismissed slogans.

And it drives me nuts!

And it winds its way through my random thoughts and intertwines with other thoughts like a big giant twisted up ball of yarn. This one idea - that we may have watered down the truth to be received as little more than slogans and rote answers - touches and impacts so many layers of the way we are intended to live a Christian life. We are in danger of eroding the impact of the very reality and completeness of God and all He has done for us, thus weakening our greatest weapon in the battle that rages.

Give it some thought. And at least be wary of one-liners?.