Sometimes....I worry.

Sometimes....I worry.

Okay, I worry too much, about too many things. Which is partly due to my anxiety disorder...is partly due to giving into the sin of worry, and in all ways is very bad for my heart. Worry=stress=bad things.

But back to point...sometimes I worry.

I worry I'm too soft as I see Christians rail against this and that. I worry that I don't get angry enough over the things that so many people get enraged about. (But again..anger=stress=bad things for the heart. Plus...and more importantly, if God is in control...why get worked up over things He's going to use for His glory, in His time and in His way?)

I watch the line of angry people of faith (and they come in conservative and liberal Christian camps)...and I think....I don't have that anger most of the time. I mean, I get hurt and angry for those persecuted for our faith....but I just don't generally buy into the culture of the angry Christian.

I don't often see Christ in angry Christianity. And before you bring up the Temple and Christ chasing out the money-changers, I know that Jesus got angry. (Can you imagine if He stopped by some of the churches in America today? There'd be a lot of Christians terrified. And some pastors who would keep running till they hit the border, lol.) But you know, and I know, that wasn't how He went about most of the time in the Gospels. The "Angry God" of some churches would never have preached the Sermon on the Mount, or talked with the woman at the well, or healed the lepers, or dined with sinners.

Jesus, as shown in the Gospels, was accessible to the hurting, the lost, the broken, the vulnerable, the needy, the seeking. Yes, He taught stern warnings against sin, about tribulation and suffering, and about the hard cost of being His disciple, but it was all done in such a way that His love came through it all.

That same love that would bind Him to the cross for such sinners as we.

A love and grace so deep that we cannot truly fathom it. Mercy so rich we can bear but the lightest taste of it.

So maybe I'll stop worrying, on that point at least. Maybe I'm okay trying to focus on God's love, grace and mercy and showing those to the broken people all around me. (Cause we're all broken...you know that, right? We're all shards and shadows on the inside, waiting for love and acceptance, grace and mercy to bind us back into something whole.)

Somehow I don't think, when I stand before God, that I'll be yelled at for loving people too much. Or showing too much mercy. If anything, I'll realize in that moment, how much more love, and mercy...and grace...and compassion..and understanding I could have given.

But it'll be okay....because I'm a prodigal on this life's journey, and my Father will be welcoming me home.

-Beth Haynes Butler