This is Why People Dislike Christians, and I Don't Blame Them!

I picked up my friend from a local shelter for homeless men. We went to an Addictions Conquerors meeting (Christian 12 step) and then to a Christian function in town. It was a meeting of ministers, who were expressing a spirit of unity. After the service, a large room was set up for each mission to display their outreach materials. A table filled with cookies lined one side of the room.

After ten or fifteen minutes of visiting the tables, I found my friend near the door, eating a cookie and having some punch. He was standing away from the others, and I asked him to join me.
"I don't do crowds," he told me. But there was something more. After we spoke for a moment, he confided, "You know, I went over there and took a handful of cookies. Two of them fell on the floor, and I laughed and said, 'the ten second rule applies' and I picked them up. And this lady said if I hadn't been so greedy, they wouldn't have fallen."

I was stunned into silence. He went on.

"I had to go right before God and ask Him, 'God? Was I greedy or was I hungry?' I decided I was hungry."

He had a tear in his eye. "It hurt me," he admitted.

I was torn between going to the cookie table and smashing those snickerdoodles right into her face or falling on the floor in agony over the condition of this faithless flock we have become.

We both stood there, looking at one another. Both with tears. His shame; mine anger and compassion combined.

"But you know what?" he said, "This is a blessing in a way. I mean if I had been in the middle of my addiction I would have cussed her out..."

"You were the Christ-follower here," I told him.

"And another thing...I felt hurt!"

I looked at him, not understanding what he was saying.

"I mean, I FELT the hurt. You don't know how long it's been since I felt something like that. I've been hurt alot in my past...in my childhood...and I just stopped feeling. But now I can feel."

Our addictions cover our pain, keep us from pain, but in the end cause more pain. My friend is overcoming his addictions and is beginning to come to terms with all the pain bottled up in there...

We praised God together for using the unkindness of this "Christian" to bring a deeper understanding about how God is making changes.

Still, I am struck with the very picture of this lowly one, coming into fellowship with Christian bigwigs in the community, and being struck down. Had it not been for God's Holy Spirit keeping him clear-minded, it could have been just another sad story of relapse, at the careless words of someone who calls herself a "Christ follower",

And then I am struck with my own propensity for putting my mouth before my thoughts -- blurting out what I think before going through God's Holy Scanner. Note to self.