The Same Old Church Story

I went to church this morning, like I have done probably over a thousand other times in my life, and I heard a message much like I've ever heard a few hundred of those times, if not more than that. While I've never had the best attention span to focus closely on every single word a preacher says to really fully understand what he's trying to stay, I'm pretty good at understanding the general purpose of messages pretty quickly.

This preacher was reading and preaching out of Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. If you're curious, you can read it here. There is certainly a ton to preach about from that passage, I mean you could talk about it for hours. You could come at it different ways, you could dissect it, read it from different translations and see what the different origins tell you, but most of the time it just comes back to the very elementary (and fundamental) idea that God blesses those who focus on Him first and not on their own desires. The pastor did a fine job, it was a good message with good delivery, but it still just reminded me so much of so many other messages I've heard in the past.

This was the real reason for why I left the church that I attended for the first 18 years of my life, because it was just a simple, overplayed message every week. Not that the message I'm going to describe is wrong or unimportant - it's incredibly important to hear - but at some point you just have to go past it. You have to accept the fact that it's a simple understanding of the Christian faith and search for more. The message is that God is there for you when you struggle. If you're having bad times, God will bring you out of them if you believe in Him. That our struggles here are nothing to be worried about because God has much bigger things planned, and our time on earth is only temporary. Trust in God first and everything will be fine.

That's a great message, especially for new Christians, or non-Christians searching for something, but I've been an in-church Christian since I knew how to talk and it just doesn't do anything for me anymore.

What about the Christians who aren't struggling with anything? Would it be so controversial for me to say that I don't have any struggles in my life right now? I have a job, an apartment, good health, a loving family, a lot of great friends, and a bright future. What's that mean? Does it mean God "blessed me" more than other people? Because the more I think about "God blessing us" in the way that most Christians think about it the more I realize that it doesn't make any sense. There's not enough time to talk more about that though.

What I'm saying is that Christianity cannot be all about getting in tough times and knowing how to get out of them. Because where do you go when you do get out of them? You just cruise until you get into more trouble? That message says absolutely nothing to the Christians who aren't going through any struggles at the current time - which is probably more people than not since our American problems most often aren't problems at all.

I'm all about trusting God and living your life based on what Matthew 5 says, but it's just a depthless message that I'm tired of hearing in church. There is such a thing as understanding something and moving on, and it just doesn't seem like many churches want to do that with us.