Jake, if you listen to nothing else I say, listen to this: Don’t use our conversations to try and change others. I’m only trying to help you learn to live in God’s freedom. Until they are looking for the same things you are, people will not understand and you’ll be accused of far worse. You’re trying to live what I said without letting God make it real in you. It won’t work that way. You’ll just end up hurting a lot of people and hurting yourself in the process… It’s natural for us to deal with our own emptiness by trying to get others around us to change. That’s why so much body life is built around accountability and human effort: If we could just get everyone else to do what’s right, everything would be better for us.
I’m not talking about different things being true for different people, but about people discovering that truth in different time frames. If we hold people accountable, they will never learn to live in love. We’ll reward those who are better at putting on a front and miss those who are in the real struggle of learning to live in Jesus.
Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman
So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, Windblown Media, 2006, 62-63
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