Ain't no such thing as a squeaky clean human being

For those of you that know me well, you'll know the title of this entry is one of my favorite quotes from a fellow Georgetown alum, Allen Iverson (well, we're both not graduates from GU, but that's besides the point).

He was referring to another one of his 'failures,' but I've used his quote on many a Bible lesson because of its profound spiritual insight! A.I. might as well have been quoting the apostle Paul from his letter to the Romans. You know, when he wrote, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (Romans 7:15).

The reason I'm sharing this now is because I've been increasingly troubled by how critical I am. Case in point, this past Sunday my wife and I were visiting a church service in Little Tokyo, and it was truly painful. The service was so devoid of ethnicity, the pastor had ADHD and made no sense, and the church's ministry vision lacked any sense of local missions!

My wife and I left feeling pretty disappointed, feeling like we wasted our time.... and we carried on with the rest of our day.

But in retrospect, the problem wasn't the church, it was me. I was irritated at myself, that I would be so arrogant that I would look down on someone else's church... a service that unquestionably still worshipped God, that still brought people into His presence. I mean seriously, what's the point of hating on that?????

I take solace in that a critical heart is a common characteristic for followers of Jesus today. Two pastors that I've been podcasting for quite some time and appreciate to the fullest, Rob Bell and Jay Bakker, have been critiqued way more from their fellow Christians than from people outside the church. They've even been called heretics! (wow, at least I'm not as critical as those people, haha. Dang!)

It stinks that we as Christians are so good at reflecting the characteristics of the Pharisees than of Jesus. I wonder what it would take for us Christian folk to be recognized more for our reflection of the Fruit of the Spirit (joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control: Galatians 5:22-23)?

Maybe that's just another one of my dreams! But maybe a good starting point would be for us to think of ourselves with more humility, and in the words of A.I., acknowledge that, "there ain't no such thing as a squeaky clean human being (us included!)"

And then here's the challenging part. Treat everyone else with the same grace!