Reality check: Many pastors and spiritual leaders do not experience what they invite people to enjoy.

Options:

1. Christianity isn’t as good as it’s been sold. Just as Jesus felt abandoned on the cross, we participate in the crucifixion and know this same feeling of abandonment. Hello disillusionment because you are here to stay.

2. Just keep hyping. Keep chugging along believing you will breakdown or breakthrough. But to this I say: Breakthrough to what? You will not slide into a renewed identity. You will not force your way into it either. A secure identity in Jesus is an experience of life you learn to receive.

3. We acknowledge there are deserts. There are disillusionments. There are seasons where we may feel abandoned by God. And we know we await a later greater reality. But we can have heaven. Now. Christ invites us to experience “times of refreshing” as Acts describes. This reality hinges on learning to experience who you are in Christ as your foundation. Your experience of your identity trumps the joy/pain of your mission and relationships.

I don’t know if you feel abandoned or not. One Catholic mystic said we all go through stages of: Wonder, Bravado, Disillusionment, Shattering, and then Glory. That seems to be true.

Your doubts are a part of you. Don’t stuff them. Invite Jesus into them. There is life on the other side of your disillusionment. Don’t believe the skeptics.

Comment away…