I am not OK!!!!!!!!!!

“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

The time of mega-churches is upon us. Let us all come to the personalities. Let us all come to the beautiful building, landscaped to perfection to find a God that builds people up, to find a God that only wants to bless us, to find a God that wants to take us to the next level of success!! Let us all gather together and speak of the wonderful things we have done. Let us all gather together and look beautiful. Let us have the most majestic music. Let us have the best lighting, the right pews, the camera front and center. Make sure to record the sermon because the words of one could save the souls of many. Let us gather together as does the rest of the world, to feel better, to feel right, to be secured that God will provide!! Amen.
Please excuse my skepticism (and I pray it does not turn into cynicism), but no, I do not agree. I am not stating that the mega-church is an evil institution or one that should not exist. Praise God that so many are coming to Him. Let us not forgo meeting together. This is a beautiful thing. But I worry. Perhaps, in the fog of personalities and structure within the church, many have missed the central personality: Jesus, one who did not seek out crowds to be noticed, who made Himself nothing to save us, who only did the will of His Father. He was never “puffed up” with Christian pride. He only obeyed the command of His Father.
Are we directing people to Christ in our churches or are we simply directing them at us or at themselves or at false hope? I am disheartened by the loss of focus on the Gospel: we are sick and we need a doctor. We are not in anything new people. The struggle between good and evil has been going on since the beginning of time. Why do we keep looking around us for saviors? There is only one savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He saved us by becoming nothing and yet we believe that he died for us to become everything. Do we not?
I can tell you right now that there are many churches in America preaching a gospel that obscures the Truth of freedom in Jesus Christ. What have we become: a church where we go to feel good about everything that we have? The youth of our country are left searching for a Jesus that does not represent the comfortable middle class. I believe many in this country are searching for the true Jesus that is often obscurred by prideful strides to be the best we can be, to be successful.
Perhaps it is time for us to stop pleading with the Lord. What is your thorn? Do you struggle with intense social anxiety? Masturbation? Pornography? Alcohol? Drugs? Or maybe it is image? Maybe you are so concerned with the way you look that you just cannot seem to enjoy the beautiful things that are going on outside of yourself. Whatever, it is, have you accepted that you cannot fix it? Have you accepted that it will never fully be fixed on this side of heaven? Or are you still pleading . . . please God, take this away; or, if I just do this maybe it will go away. Perhaps, you are a recovering sex addict. Maybe if you just help enough old ladies cross the street, the thorn, the pain of the past addiction, or not being able to escape your struggles with lust, maybe they will just go away. Maybe there will come a morning when you will wake up and they will not be there anymore. I must tell you that if this is your hope, you are hoping in the wrong thing. If your hope is to have the thorn in your flesh removed, that temptation that you just cannot seem to escape, you are missing the point! Your hope must be only in Jesus Christ, who resisted all temptation and was crucified on a Cross for you! If Jesus had to suffer, why should you expect to escape suffering for Him?
In the midst of our pain and suffering as we desperately plead with the Lord, we hear the same thing from Jesus that Paul heard: “My grace is sufficient for you.” This is not the answer I want and I imagine it is not the answer you want either. I want the answer that gives me the American Dream of happiness. I want things to be easy. I want to be recognized for my gifts, not my weakness. I want to be recognized for my talents, not my wretchedness. But this is not the answer Jesus gives us.
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” The young people of this country, myself included, are looking for transparent leaders. We are looking for leaders who practice what they preach. We are looking for leaders who preach about their weaknesses. God does not raise up strong men to preach the gospel, he raises up weak men, men who find their strength in the Lord Jesus Christ, who find their security in God alone, not from their money, from their car, from their wife, from their wit, from their own personality, from their eloquence, from their morality, or so-called holiness. Power comes from God and God alone. Give me honesty, point me to the Truth of the Gospel, don’t point me to yourself.
What is the picture of a perfect Christian leader? Married by 25, seminary graduate, a large family, always smiling, project the qualities, project the faith. I am 24 years old, soon to be 25 and I can see right through projection. I can see right through it. I believe that my generation is a prophetic generation. One that will no longer tolerate the “everything is OK mentality.” We see this in the angst of much of American pop culture. I cannot recall the group (I think My Chemical Romance) or the song, but I remember hearing this lyric, “I am not OK,” being screamed by a guy in his early twenties, dressed in black, with black hair, and black eyeliner. Perhaps, this scream is more truthful than most of what is being presented in churches today. At least it is honest. We are not OK. We are sick and we need a doctor. Everyday, we need a doctor.
Let us not forget that the Gospel is one that tells us: when we are weak, then we are strong because Christ’s power is made perfect in our weakness. As our generation cries out, “I am not OK,” I pray that the message of the Gospel hits them at the core of their being. None of us are OK. None us are doing just fine. It is the realization of this everyday that draws us to Christ, our weakness, our inability to even just be “OK,” draws us to Christ. It is in that place that God tells us he wants us to be much more that just “OK.” He wants us to live as His sons and daughters, created in His image, a member of the priesthood of believers. It is the scream, “I am not OK,” where Christ steps in and speaks this to us, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20).”
In this instance, as Jesus speaks his words of truth to us, we no longer have to worry about being OK. We just live in His presence. We choose to live in the tension of the now and the not yet. The words of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us by Jesus Christ, are always speaking to us. We must learn to embrace the tension, not living in the hope of attaining some type of equilibrium in this life, but living in the hope of the resurrection: There will be a day when our bodies will resurrect and will spend eternity with God! We are creatures constantly given a choice to embrace the power of God and the hope of the resurrection in the midst or our pain or to run from our pain in a futile effort to feel OK.
To my generation: You are right. “We are not OK.” We are sick. America is sick. Our world is sick. I am sick. We all need the only one who can save us, Jesus Christ, and not on our terms, but on His terms. Repeatedly, the Bible calls us to suffer for the sake of Christ, to endure sufferings, to endure trials, to press on in the face of suffering, to run the race towards the prize. The pain of the “not yet” rips at our mind, body, and soul everyday, but we must endure, not because we hope to feel better, but for the sake of Christ! Amen.