My friend H and I were walking home from a movie night and “being a safe place” was the topic of our conversation. H and I were talking about how some people always feel isolated, like no one is safe; we agreed that this was difficult emotionally and continued our discussion. H shared with me that his father had raised him not to trust people, one important lesson he’d learned was if someone looks like they might kill you, you should kill them first. H is from an often violent eastern European nation and so that lesson probably isn’t as exaggerated as it sounds.
We continued to discuss trust and “being a safe place” and I wondered aloud if God was a safe place? Christians have a bad reputation of being judgmental and therefore not safe, and it seems that we’ve passed that same reputation by association onto God. Do negative experiences of relationship with Christians cause the common person to assume that God is indeed unsafe? I wondered about this aloud with H.
I told H that for me God was the only being that I felt I could be 100% real with; even the love I may have for my wife or children could break, at least for a moment, but God’s love for me never ceases regardless of what I do. God has promised that it will never cease and God seems to be in the business of keeping promises. This un-breaking love is what I long to have. Some person once said, “The cry of every human heart is to be fully known and yet loved anyways.” This is where a part of God’s heart is, and I think this is where God wants us to be too.
Pray for me to live out my life as a safe place like Christ, pray for H as I know he desires to find this place too…
-G.B. (A NYC Catalyst)
We continued to discuss trust and “being a safe place” and I wondered aloud if God was a safe place? Christians have a bad reputation of being judgmental and therefore not safe, and it seems that we’ve passed that same reputation by association onto God. Do negative experiences of relationship with Christians cause the common person to assume that God is indeed unsafe? I wondered about this aloud with H.
I told H that for me God was the only being that I felt I could be 100% real with; even the love I may have for my wife or children could break, at least for a moment, but God’s love for me never ceases regardless of what I do. God has promised that it will never cease and God seems to be in the business of keeping promises. This un-breaking love is what I long to have. Some person once said, “The cry of every human heart is to be fully known and yet loved anyways.” This is where a part of God’s heart is, and I think this is where God wants us to be too.
Pray for me to live out my life as a safe place like Christ, pray for H as I know he desires to find this place too…
-G.B. (A NYC Catalyst)
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