I’m Not Here As a Therapist
Or a preacher. Standing from a point of moral authority, with single-minded conviction to make your life better with a neat step-by-step plan.
Some say 10,000 hours of deliberate practice makes you a master. Fly a Boeing. Train for the Olympics. Surgery. That kind of consistency changes you. Breaking the chain takes twice the energy to restart.
By that measure, I’m not a master of much. Not 10,000 hours in laser-focused prayer. Not in devotion. Not even in joy, which, by the way, should be safely tucked under His care, but often isn’t.
Honestly, the only things I’ve done faithfully for decades are breathing and wearing clothes. Maybe eating. Oh, and procrastinating. Worrying.
We All Have, In Some Way
Invested decades in our brokenness without calling it an investment. We’ve built empires out of our fears and labelled them as personality.
Some have clocked thousands of hours living under guilt. Feeling it. Nurturing it. Polishing it until it shines like satin.
Others, years in shame so familiar, like stuff you stopped noticing in your house.
Betrayal. Abuse. Addiction. The slow acid of resentment. The gnawing emptiness of abandonment. From those we loved. Rehearsing old wounds.
And Many Today Have a Religion
For those who wear the Christian label, it’s easy to think we’re the exception. The right book. Hymns. The right gatherings.
Any religion can say that, but is religion’s purpose to give us better morals? Or is it to give us a new life?
A new life of surrender. Which means you have to stop blaming the world for all the darkness and admit that your own heart still prefers some of it.
Whatever the side you’re on, whether religious, or you believe goodness can exist without God, we suffer from the same brokenness. Every kind.
The Thin Lining Is This
Believers often carry more guilt than people who don’t even believe in God. Reread that.
Enough sermons to know the right thing to do. Verses from memory. The promises, the stories. But the power to live them?
Has the Gospel been nothing but a history lesson?
Theoretical, inspiring in thought, but not Good News, enough to rearrange our lives altogether to fix our damage?
Funny That This Guy Mentioned
It came from a letter, bro to bro, and opened with,
And it wasn’t trust me bro energy. It was the tone of an attorney. He’d already laid out his case. The facts, the evidence, the witnesses. Then, with all the weight of his argument behind it, he delivered a statement you can’t exactly shrug off.
And his closing line, the verdict he was convinced of,
“...having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
So Have We Traded Power For Appearance?
Are we on a monthly subscription called church? Transport money, offerings, tithes, more expensive than Netflix? Attending meetings, rosters, leadership, all costing us time and energy that could’ve built something real?
Has the Word actually changed us?
Or is it just a membership? Like being a Manchester United fan. Defend it when attacked, learn the chants, wear the shirt, but never actually play the game it’s meant for?
Even pastors get stuck.
Gospel work, but when faced with real brokenness, they’d rather send people to a counselor.
And sometimes that’s needed,but it’s sobering when counseling becomes the final stop.
Some Christian psychologists wrestle with this too. One hand holding Scripture, the other holding a therapy manual, both valuable, but struggling to tie them into a single knot.
Has The Gospel Been More Than Theory?
For you? Has it actually dismantled your shame? Has it touched the parts of you you don’t post about?
Has it rewired your thinking, or just given you Christian vocabulary to mask the same old habits?
Has it made you complete? That whole person you so wished to be in the brightest corner of your head?
That version that is not just happy in the good seasons, but steady in the storms? Humble when praised? Content?
Because if it hasn’t changed you,not just in what you know, but in who you are, then maybe you haven’t heard the full thing yet.
Or is it preached in your circles? Followed up with enough weight to turn a fisherman into a fearless witness?
Has it equipped you that you can stand before the accuser, not with theology, but with evidence? To point to your life as Exhibit A, to bring witnesses — people who’ve walked with you and seen the change — to testify that the Gospel is real?
