LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

I don’t have an answer for how one gets their heart to surrender to God.

One of those many verses that seems simple and yet isn’t, is found in Psalms 37:4. It makes so much sense and yet you can twist and turn with it like Chubby Checker and still now land in a place of understanding. I see so many people who are unchurched (in the good sense) that follow an ethical code much higher than many that are church-attending Christians, by definition. I’m reminded of Simone Weil who fits that category. Those that knew her personally said that she was a “great lover of Christ” and yet she never darkened the doors of a church.

She said, “If I had to choose between loving Christ and loving the truth, I would choose to love the truth, convinced that if I am truly seeking truth, I will eventually fall into the arms of Christ.” Personally, I am pained by that statement though I understand what she is saying. While I embrace truth, it is too cold and impersonal for me to put ahead of Christ. Christ was a human being and someone I can talk to. I can’t quite get to where I am having a conversation with truth.

But then, it doesn’t have to be an “Either-Or” does it?

How often do we hear the phrase coming from the lips of Christians stating that Christ is their “Lord and Savior”. I might catch one hour of Christian television a year, and no Christian radio. I hope you are okay with that, and I hope you don’t hear any codemnation when I say, my spirit just can’t handle the constant and repetitive use of the name Jesus and the extended pronouncments of Jez-sus! There’s a caution here, and in Matthew 7:21.

For me the name Jesus is a sacred name and while I don’t take it to the lengths that the Hebrews did in not being able to speak the name of G-d, and thus altering Jehovah to YVWH, it’s high on my sacred list. So, how do we, you, I get to the place that we reverence Jesus so? How does one surrender their heart to one so deserving? As I said in the opeing sentence, I don’t know. But this I do know, even if it is in the form of a question to you.

Isn’t that what this journey is all about? Are you on it?