I’ve started doing this new thing where on Facebook I share some thoughts I’m having over my morning coffee. Some mornings are more profound than others, but most mornings there’s something cooking up in my 🧠 and ❤️ … I call them #CoffeeThoughts.
Once or twice a week I may share them here in case you don’t follow me on Facebook … and that will also allow you to forward it to your friends or family if you think that someone you know may find it helpful.
What do you think? Do you want these emailed to you sometimes or nah?
Reply and let me know.
✌🏻🤙🏻
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
I love this quote from Brené Brown and as I was dwelling on it this morning, I couldn't help but think about how the narrative detailing God and faith and Jesus and all the things that many of us were handed as children has done little more than to diminish our inherent worthiness.
Right?
I was told that I was born bad.
I was told that apart from God I could do no good thing.
I was told that my sin nature needed to be punished.
I was told that my heart is deceitful.
I was told that God sent Jesus to die for my sins.
I was told that Jesus took my punishment on the cross.
I was told that Jesus' blood dripping to the ground somehow satisfied God's anger.
I was told that if I believed in this I would go to heaven when I died.
I was told that if I didn't believe it then I would go to hell.
I was told that one day Jesus would return to take a few with him and leave the majority of the world to die a horrible death.
Many people subscribe to some form of that narrative today. It may look different here and there and it may be taught different in this school or that school, and sometimes the language is just as harsh or sometimes it's more mellow ... but whatever the case may be, there is a large number of Jesus followers in the world who insist that this narrative about God and us is 100% truth.
I think this is a dangerous story. Like Brené says, the most dangerous stories that we make up are the narratives that diminish our inherent worthiness. This narrative, I think, is exactly that:
It diminishes our worthiness.
AND.
We've made it up.
I was talking to my philosophy professor from college the other day and we were talking about how the God who demands a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins is a God that we've made in our own image. In other words, because ...
We believe people need to pay for their wrongdoing.
We believe that people need to be punished.
We believe that true justice involves doing some sort of time.
We believe in bombing those who bomb us.
... We've created narratives like sin nature, God's wrath, punishment, heaven, hell, etc, etc, etc not so much because they are "Biblical", or because we want to "preach the truth", but because these narratives give us a license to behave in the same ways that we believe God behaves.
In other words ...
If God is angry at sin.
If God punishes.
If God can hold a grudge.
If God can demand blood to be shed.
If God is going to war against his enemies.
If God has a torture chamber for wrongdoers.
... Then it's OK for me and for us to do the same.
This narrative is atrocious. Not only does it put the Divine in an extremely awful light and not only does it diminish the message of Jesus into a message about sin management and earning a golden ticket to heaven, but it chisels our own worthiness down to a ...
A sinner.
Someone who was born bad.
Someone who deserves punishment.
Someone who is deceitful at my core.
Someone who can do no good thing apart from an angry God.
Blah.
It's time to reclaim the truth. It's OK to let go of that narrative. Even if you aren't sure what the new narrative is that you want to subscribe to ... it's OK to begin by cutting yourself free of this one because this one is a lie and you deserve better.
❤️🙏🏻✌🏻🤙🏻