By Ronnie McBrayer

I am sometimes suspicious of how we employ our faith. Don’t get me wrong, faith is important to me, and I have given my life to it. But sometimes I treat my faith like it is a medicine cabinet or a pharmaceutical, going to it only when something is wrong, or if I am looking for a quick remedy.

“My head hurts,” so I go to the cabinet looking for a pain reliever. “I have a stomach ache,” so I reach in for a spiritual antacid. “I feel so uncertain,” so I explore my therapeutic options. “I’m feeling a bit anxious,” so I look for something that will serve as divine Prozac.

The faith that is peddled by many pulpits today is little more than a sedative. It helps people to forget their pain and suffering, helps them sleep at night, and keeps them hanging on for next week’s dose of tranquility; but it does very little to move people to a place of growing, spiritual health. Thus, we can easily succeed in converting our faith into a first-aid kit, only turning to it when something hurts, and leaving it in the cabinet otherwise. Yes, when life hurts I want relief. Yet, the real power of faith is not its ability to magically stop our pain or to provide a fix to get us through a rough spot. Faith simply doesn’t remove our troubles and worries, offering bubble-gummed-flavored baby aspirin and cartooned-band-aids.

Rather, faith offers us a new way to live, an opportunity to change our lifestyle. It does more than medicate our boo-boos or make us happy when we have been made sad. On the contrary, faith has the power to transforms us, to shape and fit us for life, making us whole and well. It would do us well to hear some of the earliest words of Christian faith, written by the Apostle James. He said, “My friends, faith that does not lead to change is a faith that is dead.”

It is possible to find great inspiration in our faith; to be comforted and reassured that or faith rests in the right place. Yet, if such beliefs do not have transformative power in our lives, then we do not have faith at all. Instead, we are addicted to a spiritual tranquilizer that blinds us to the reality of our world and the renewal God seeks to produce.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

Many people begin their walk of faith, and everything goes as they expected. Out of genuine conviction, they attend church, learn from the Scriptures, volunteer, serve, give, and become “productive, committed, faithful, Christians.” But somewhere along the way things go terribly wrong.
The orderly, stalwart faith that used to “work” for these true believers becomes a muddled mess. Yes, they once taught Sunday school, sang in the choir, chaperoned the youth group, chaired the Stewardship Committee, and had bullet-proof answers to all questions of faith. But then, all at once or over an extension of time, their faith splintered into a million tiny pieces. A divorce. A child falls deathly ill and heaven seems silent as a stone. An accident leaves the once healthy college student broken and mutilated. The circumstances come in variegated form, but the impact is the same.
It is more than a crisis of faith, more than theological bump in the road; it is an unraveling that robs people of their confidence and comfort. The once unshakable believer descends downward into the blackness of doubt. Adding insult to injury, sometimes the only thing the church or we ministerial types can say in those moments is, “Pray more. Just believe. Let go and let God. Try harder.” Not only is this insensitive, asinine advice, it simply won’t work. Those who have hit this kind of barricade feel so dismantled, that to keep doing what they were doing—only with more enthusiasm—is impossible.
Here is your choice: You can harden your heart and sweep the shards of your faith into the dustpan, giving up on God completely; or you can pick up the broken pieces, with bloody hands and heart, and reassemble faith on the other side of doubt. No, it won’t be the same faith you once had; it will be dramatically different. It won’t be an improved or updated version of the beliefs you formerly held; it will be a new construction altogether. This reassembled faith will not provide you with all the answers to all your questions; instead, it will help you to see the world, God, and people differently.
So if you find yourself crushed against what feels like the concrete and steel of disbelief, with not a drop of faith left, I understand. Don’t throw it all away just yet. In the breaking, you might find that faith has a new beginning.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” These are the words of Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ first disciples. And like most words put down on paper, these instructions have not always honored the intent of the author.
Peter wrote this during a time when Christianity was new and very often viewed with suspicion. Thus, a graceful and thoughtful explanation “for the hope that you have” was absolutely required. Thousands of years later, Christianity is still handled with suspicion by many. Not because it is a novel invention, but because a large core of its adherents have misapplied Simon Peter’s good words.
Having a prepared answer—a ready opportunity to dialogue and discuss beliefs with others—has been replaced with defensiveness, anger, and out-and-out hostility. Many have forgotten to read the second half of old Peter’s instructions: “But do this in a gentle and respectful way.”
Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Yes, I consider myself a Christian (on most days). Yes, there are a number of essential beliefs important to me and to which I hold. Yes, some of these beliefs are in conflict with the beliefs of others, and these conflicts are not easily dismissed. But my beliefs, as important as they may be, do not give me the right to be belligerent toward others who do not share my beliefs.
This may be the way the world works, but it is not the way of Christ. For Christians, if Jesus is who this thing is about, then things should be different. Our beliefs need not,  should not, cannot, must not be used to hurt or harm others.
Personally, I don’t think Jesus came to create an “in” group. I believe he came to create a “come on in” group, a crowd of fellow-journeyers who come to know God, experience grace, live life, and serve others together. But why would anyone want to come in to such a group if its representatives are constantly rude, arrogant, and unyielding?
Even if such a group had all the answers to all the questions in the world (and humility should caution anyone from making such a claim), it would be impossible to hear what they had to say, because it is simply impossible to hear the truth when it is communicated from a hard heart.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.  

By Ronnie McBrayer

Five hundred years ago there was a group of Christians living in Europe known as the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists were “anti-baptizers,” scorning infant baptism and a heap of other cherished church doctrines. Because of this, and their refusal to join their faith to the ruling civil powers, they were violently persecuted by governments, Catholics, and Protestants alike.
One such persecution broke out in 1569 in Holland, and on a winter day a bailiff was sent to arrest an Anabaptist leader named Dirk Willems. He was charged with peculiar crimes: He had been holding secret religious meetings in his home and had allowed others to be re-baptized there. It was a crime punishable by death, so Dirk ran for his life with the bailiff right on his heels. Willems came to a small ice-covered lake and threw himself across it.
It held his weight as he ran, and he crossed safely to the other side. But the ice did not hold for his pursuer. The bailiff chasing Dirk crashed through the ice into the freezing water. Dirk Willems immediately turned back and rescued the man from the ice. For his kindness Dirk was immediately arrested, and after refusing to renounce his faith, was later burned at the stake.
Willems instinctively, reflexively turned and rescued his enemy, though he knew death would be the price he would pay. Here is the question asked by today’s Anabaptists: “Why did Dirk Willems turn back?” In the words of Joseph Liechty, “It was not a rational choice. It was not an ethical decision. It was an intuitive response. No combination of mental calculations could have carried him back across the ice…The only force strong enough to take Dirk back across the ice was an extraordinary outpouring of love, and the only love I know [like that] is the love taught and lived by Jesus.”
Can we reach a place in our walk with Christ, that when we encounter hate, suffering, injustice, frustration, or tribulation, that our immediate and reflexive response will be Christ responding through us? A place where we don’t have to think about it, we don’t have to plan a response, but supernaturally and instinctively, Jesus comes alive in our hearts?
Dirk Willems acted as he did because he had been so spiritually shaped and formed by the person of Jesus, that his response was the only response he was capable of making.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

by Ronnie McBrayer

A man went to his rabbi and complained, “There are ten of us living in one room. Life is unbearable! What can I do?” The rabbi answered, “Go home and take your goat into the room with you.”  The man was incredulous; but the rabbi was insistent. “Do as I say. Come back in a week.”
A week later the man returned looking more distraught than ever. “Rabbi, please, we cannot stand it. The goat is filthy!” The rabbi then told him, “Very well, go home and let the goat out. Come back in a week.” A radiant man returned to the rabbi a week later. His perspective had been astonishingly altered. “Life is beautiful,” he cried. “We enjoy every minute of living together without the goat—and there’s only ten of us!”
Jesus once encountered a group of ten, living together, with little for which to be thankful. These ten had more than a stinking goat in the room. They had leprosy. But Jesus did more than change their perspective: He healed them. They were physically well, and turned together from death’s door. Yet, they did not turn together toward their healer.
Only one came back to Jesus. He fell at the feet of Christ and worshiped. This was a thankful man. This was a man with perspective. Jesus was surprised by this. “Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asked rhetorically. “Then, where are the other nine?”
Why didn’t the others come back? Maybe one waited to see if the cure was for real. Maybe another intended to go back later, as soon as possible. Maybe one ran to the family from which he had long been separated or got so entranced with having his life back, he simply forgot to return to the one who had performed the healing. I don’t know for sure.
But I do know that we can become so absorbed in our happiness—in our blessings or good fortune—that we fail to consider the Source of those blessings. We do not maintain perspective, and can sometimes say “Thank you,” because we know that it is the proper thing to do, but saying it and feeling it are two different things.
During this holiday week, may the Source of every good and perfect gift give us the greatest gift of all: A grateful heart. In return, may we fall at his feet with thanksgiving.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

by Ronnie McBrayer

I love puzzles. Crosswords, brainteasers, and search-a-words; but nothing beats an old fashioned jigsaw puzzle with about gazillion pieces spilling out of the box. Right now there is a monster-sized puzzle strewn across our family’s dining room table. I have been persistently working on it for so long that I can’t remember the last evening we ate dinner at the table.
My family has learned not to monkey around with me while I am hip-deep in puzzle solving. Yes, assist me—I’ll take all that I can get—but don’t walk by and offer advice or a litany of critiques unless you are willing to give the pieces a try yourself. Time, patience, and the right kind of help: these are the requirements for solving puzzles, even puzzles of faith; because sometimes the puzzle doesn’t match the box we were given. Sometimes the pieces don’t fit together at all.
I’ve met a legion of people who begin their walk of faith and everything goes as it “should.” They go to church, learn stuff from the Bible, volunteer, serve, give, and become “productive, committed, faithful, Christians,” whatever that is supposed to mean. But then these good soldiers go through a divorce; or they are mistreated by a religious organization, or lose their career. Maybe their child gets sick or their spouse dies.
The result is much more than the proverbial crisis of faith; I have one of those every Monday morning. No, it is much deeper, more life-altering and foundation-shaking than that. The answers they used to rely upon, the faith that formerly sustained them, no longer works. The fitly-paired pieces of the puzzle go scattering in the wind.
What is the answer to these miss-fitted and missing pieces puzzles of life and faith? Time, patience, and a little help. Time and patience to keep working it out and to sift through the prefabricated pictures of what life once promised. Time and patience to ask dangerous questions and to listen for unexpected responses. Time and patience to curse, pray, cry, heal, and hopefully come through on the other side, even if a few pieces to the puzzle are never found.
So, if a friend is stuck trying to solve their puzzle, offer the right kind of help. Quietly sit down with them and dig in. Patiently sort through the pieces, and help put it together, whatever “it” turns out to be.

By Ronnie McBrayer

A century ago Leo Tolstoy wrote about a greedy farmer in his tale, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” This farmer never had enough and moved from town to town looking for greener pastures. On his journeys he heard rumors of a distant tribe that possessed more land than anyone could walk over in a year; and it was there for the taking. He went to investigate and found the rumors to be true. The farmer met the tribal chief who informed him that he could in fact have all the land he wanted.
“Pay a thousand rubles and begin walking in a circle,” the chief instructed. Everything within that circle, so long as the circle was completed by sundown, would be his. So early the next morning, the farmer began his acquisition of land. He began running, trying to make as large a circle as possible.
Late in the day the farmer began the desperate return trip. He ran with all his waning strength back to the beginning of his circle. Just as the sun was setting he arrived at where he had begun. The people cheered. Never had anyone acquired so much land in a single day!
In joy they bent down to rouse the farmer from his exhaustion, but he did not stir. He was dead. Tolstoy concludes: “The farmer’s servant picked up a spade, dug a grave, and buried him. Six feet from head to heels was all he needed.”
How much land – you can insert words like “square footage” or “cars in the garage” or “clothes in the closet” or “ gold certificates” here—how much of this do you need? Probably not as much as you think.
It is a lie to believe that having enough money in the bank, obtaining the most property, making the highest return, shaping the most clever fiscal policy, or acquiring the best performing stock will lead to economic safety, security, or peace of mind. Such thinking is a death-spawning run in a circle.
I readily concede that our hearts need something to pursue. To chase after the higher and better, to possess that for which we long and love is a part of our nature. The challenge before us is to seek what is right and best, to seek what will actually fulfill that search and quench the thirst. To do otherwise may cost us more than dollars.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

Near Mpumalanga, South Africa, are the marvelous wild fig trees of Echo Caves. Researchers have followed the roots of these trees deep into the earth, the deepest known root system in the world. These trees have survived and thrived in an arid climate for decades, wringing hydration from the deep, rocky soil. This is a lesson for life, as you probably know a person or two not unlike the wild fig trees of Echo Caves.
Their environment is harsh. They have endured the drought of loss, injustice, and suffering. Their circumstances have been oppressive. The soil that life has given them is rocky and hard. Yet, somehow, they thrive. Their roots must be incredibly deep.
But deep into what? Maybe the Apostle Paul gives the best answer in a beautiful first century prayer: “I pray your roots will grow down deep into God’s love and keep you strong.” It seems that those who flourish in the worst of conditions are those who have a connection to God’s goodness and grace, and refuse to blame God for every wrong that life dishes out. They have rooted themselves deeply in his love, rather than in bitterness or resentment.
Granted, bitterness is the easy route, the path of least resistance that sends shallow, malignant offshoots in all directions. Our resentment feels so justifiable, so satisfying, especially when we flip through the catalog of past hurts, regrets, ways we have been mistreated or harmed, and the conniving, unjust treatment inflicted upon us by others.
But bitterness cannot hydrate the soul. It can only poison the water and prevent love and grace from soaking in. If we are going to get on with life and blossom in the desert of our days, it won’t be because we keep going back wishing things could be different, bemoaning how life has been so unfair, or repeating and re-repeating how someone did us wrong. The only way forward is by going deeper, deeper into the love of God.
In the smallest rift, the smallest crevice or opening in the hardness of life, that is enough to find the depth of God’s love and for that love to take root. Yes, it feels like groping along in the dark. It is slow, pulverizing growth, sometimes millimeter by tiny millimeter, but it gives us the life we need, life so much more satisfying than the bitter shallowness that resentment offers.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

Ronnie McBrayer

by Ronnie McBrayer

Near Mpumalanga, South Africa, are the marvelous wild fig trees of Echo Caves. Researchers have followed the roots of these trees deep into the earth, the deepest known root system in the world. These trees have survived and thrived in an arid climate for decades, wringing hydration from the deep, rocky soil. This is a lesson for life, as you probably know a person or two not unlike the wild fig trees of Echo Caves.
Their environment is harsh. They have endured the drought of loss, injustice, and suffering. Their circumstances have been oppressive. The soil that life has given them is rocky and hard. Yet, somehow, they thrive. Their roots must be incredibly deep.
But deep into what? Maybe the Apostle Paul gives the best answer in a beautiful first century prayer: “I pray your roots will grow down deep into God’s love and keep you strong.” It seems that those who flourish in the worst of conditions are those who have a connection to God’s goodness and grace, and refuse to blame God for every wrong that life dishes out. They have rooted themselves deeply in his love, rather than in bitterness or resentment.
Granted, bitterness is the easy route, the path of least resistance that sends shallow, malignant offshoots in all directions. Our resentment feels so justifiable, so satisfying, especially when we flip through the catalog of past hurts, regrets, ways we have been mistreated or harmed, and the conniving, unjust treatment inflicted upon us by others.
But bitterness cannot hydrate the soul. It can only poison the water and prevent love and grace from soaking in. If we are going to get on with life and blossom in the desert of our days, it won’t be because we keep going back wishing things could be different, bemoaning how life has been so unfair, or repeating and re-repeating how someone did us wrong. The only way forward is by going deeper, deeper into the love of God.
In the smallest rift, the smallest crevice or opening in the hardness of life, that is enough to find the depth of God’s love and for that love to take root. Yes, it feels like groping along in the dark. It is slow, pulverizing growth, sometimes millimeter by tiny millimeter, but it gives us the life we need, life so much more satisfying than the bitter shallowness that resentment offers.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

Ronnie McBrayer

by Ronnie McBrayer

I’ve made a habit lately of studying the Amish. The Amish (and their cousins the Mennonites, Brethren, and a few other groups) are lovers and active makers of peace. They value simplicity above almost any other thing. They love their families and community, and they have a profound trust in God. This trust, employing a good Amish-German word, is called “Gelassenheit.”
“Gelassenheit” is usually translated as “submission” or “to yield,” but it is so much more. It is a total letting go. It is a relinquishment of the self. It is a “thy will be done” kind of life – not a blind, hopeless fatalism, but a defiant and restful faith in God. One Amish farmer summed up “Gelassenheit” saying, “We don’t pray for rain, but we are thankful to God when the rain arrives.” This perspective gives the Amish a completely different understanding of “the will of God” than most of the Christian universe.
Many of us have been taught that “God’s will” is this magic be-all-end-all, which, if discovered, can end all the angst and indecision of life. So we chase after and fret over what God wants us to do, thinking there will be complete and total disaster if we miss the secret plan he has for us. We twist and writhe in the anguish of our decisions, never feeling good about any choice we make.
Maybe we can take a cue from the Amish and neutralize the mystery of finding and doing God’s will. Maybe we can learn to simply trust God with our life and our circumstances. Maybe, if we keep hitting the wall, we can stop, listen, and trust for a while. Maybe we can learn to yield our own wills, or at least stop using God’s name to sanction our decisions.
Here is the thing the Amish can teach us: Rather than trusting an exact path and direction for your life, just trust God with your life. After all, God is bigger than your plans, stronger than your failures, and never fails to reward those who seek after him. You can find peace by quit trying to figure out what to do for God and simply rely upon God.
Meister Eckhart wrote: “God wants no more from you than you letting go of yourself. Then you can let God be God in you.” If that’s not God’s will, then I don’t know what is.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.