Fear and Loathing

Sometimes it seems as though these uncommon flashes of clarity break in upon me like a wave against the rocks, reality like a flicker of light in the darkness of my mind. The truth is… I see but am blind, I hear but am deaf. It is at these moments of brief clarity that the weight of my commission sets upon my shoulders, like Atlas I bear the burden. It’s almost as if during every other “ordinary” moment I walk around self deceived. This is frightening.
I continue with my life as if nothing has changed as a result of my calling. It’s only begun, and yet it seems like it’s been there my whole life. What exactly am I called to? There has always been a sense that something was wrong with the Church. I never knew what it was but it’s always been there plaguing me “like a splinter in my mind”… My frustration with the Church continues to haunt me. Even now this loathing almost contaminates my sermons. I’m not talking about the local expression of the body of Christ here but THE Church… I just want to see God truly glorified through an authentic expression of Christian faith and action. It’s as if the Church in the West has drifted into a consumer mentality where the pastor is like a check out clerk at a supermarket of religious ideas. I just want to scream at the top of my lungs… “The Father’s house is to be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” But… that wouldn’t be very loving of me, or sensitive to the needs of hurting people.