There are lots of people who use church like a shrink. We will call them Piranha's. They come, feast on the flock, and go home. For those people I would like to explain the following: THE CHURCH IS NOT HERE TO LET YOU DEVOUR US. In the church, and this make shock some people, there are real people. Real people with real feelings and real lives. When you do a drive-by feasting on one of these people, they will also then have a real response. They will have feelings generated from that experience. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO DO DRIVE-BY's IN CHURCH.
You are entitled to have relationships at church. You are entitled to make friends and deal with people. This is a foreign concept for some people, so let me explain. You can start a conversation with someone and find out about them. This means that you do not always talk about your "horrible" life, but you honestly care about the other person who is listening.
Why might I have to say "honestly care"? Because there are lots of Piranha's circling at church. They are looking for a caring person to take a bite out of, so they can feel better. The problem with Piranha's is that they leave a gaping hole in their prey. The caring person, will then have to go home and lick their wounds for the week.
There are two ways to correct this:
1. Not care.
This is fairly easy, but seems stupid for a church.
2. Have each other's back.
This is a much better option.
Once a Piranha has been identified, alert the others.
There are people that are good at dealing with piranhas, because they have skin like a tank. The piranha can unload on this person, and the piranha will get exhausted and swim away.
The main reason that I am talking about this is, the love of my life came to me in tears because of this Piranha.
A Piranha has been after her repeatedly. It came to my attention, after she finally told me she was ready to never come back, that I needed to deal with this. I take great offense to people who openly will attack my wife. Especially people I have helped.
For you to go after her, is just like attacking me. I will not take anyone going after her. I know why you do it. My wife is an easier target. She has been hurt many times before, and it is easier for you and your parasitic ways to effect her. But know this, you are no longer my problem. Once you attacked her, that removed you from my list. You will now have to go find someone else to "help" you. Good luck with that, since now the other weaker fish have been told about the Piranha in our mist.
1 comment:
Well said and I really understand where you are at with this. Piranha are small and yet very dangerous animals. Once the they bit it they just keep going and going untill nothing is left.
Jesus dod not come to feed Piranha, he came to touch and transform them so that they could live and function better because of knowing him and others within a healthy relatsionship.
Anytime we reach out and touch a hurting, messed up person there is a chance thart we will be attacked in a unhealthy way (either the fish itself or other fishherman). We can not throw them back... that would be un-Christ like... but we don't have to live with the nipping and cutting into us.
We must release them and yet let them know in real ways that we love them.
The good thing is, that many will be transformed and it will happen in a realitive short amount of time. Others... well we can only do so much. They must want to change, do their part and allow the Holy Spirit to really work on them inside and out.
The trick is knowing when to "cut bait" and when to "try one more time."
Grerat posting Captain!
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