Have you ever had to leave a church before? I’m not talking about church hopping, trying a new place on for size or sporadically attending because you’re not sure if you have too many facial piercings to feel comfortable sitting next to grandma. I mean, leave, leave.
I mean leave like surrendering your favorite spot right in the middle (but still near an aisle in case you need to dash “to the bathroom” during the offering), canceling your usher rotation, turning in the kids’ pipe cleaner halos from the Christmas play, taking your phone number off the prayer chain group text and beating a path to the door letting the fire from your blazing bulletins light the way.
Have you ever done that? If so, you know it is not a pleasant experience for anyone involved. Inevitably leaving “the fold” is a weird, Twilight Zone experience where you discover that the friends and the life you thought you had was actually based very strongly on your shared experiences at church and staying close to people whom you leave behind becomes real work, if you leave with any friends at all.
You are now a social pariah and people are unfriending you on Facebook. Why does that happen? Can’t we all just get along? How can we pray for the peace of Jerusalem if we can’t pray for our frenemies? Whose side is God on anyway? Theirs? Ours? Why doesn’t God pick sides? He should, right?!
Life has probably shown you by now that everyone in a fight thinks their side is right and justified, but if anyone wins in a battle between Christians, it’s Satan. For real. Sometimes you are the tool that Satan uses to cause a problem within the church, sometimes I am.
