Few Straight Lines

I recently had lunch with a friend of mine. She grew up in a different country but obviously now lives here. I really enjoy being with her not only because she is beautiful person but because although she has, as some would say, "accepted Christ into her life", she struggles with God, with Christian spirituality, with the American/evangelical agendas, with the scriptures, etc. She is honest and forthright, full of hard and sometimes convicting questions (toward me and the church) and, to be honest, doesn't know if she wants to be called a Christian.

Yet, I love conversations with her. I don't feel as though I have to get her to follow a straight path through a numbered sequence of steps. I sense the Spirit at work in her (and me) even when she doubts or seemingly throws out "foundational truths". She is drawn to God and yet, quite paradoxically, repulsed by Him at times - He irritates her (or maybe it's the church that irritates her). However, the pull is stronger than the impulse to throw it all away (although sometimes it takes weeks or months to realize it). She doesn't fit in with most American church-goers and yet, that makes me sad. I think most of us could benefit from some tough questions, from a different cultural point of view, and from the challenge to keep journeying on without all the answers.

So I came across this exerpt from a book, which reminded me of my friend.

"Take the pilgim Peter. Jesus calls Peter to follow him, but it's hard to know when Peter truly accepted the invitation. Was it when Jesus said, "Follow me."? When Peter said, "Are you the Messiah"? When Jesus said "Get behind me Satan"? Was Peter a Christian when he denied Jesus, or when Jesus said "Feed my sheep"? Perhaps it was at the point of Peter's worldview conversion in Acts 10, whe he realized Christianity was bigger than his cultural upbringing. Yet he slipped back into his old racist patterns in Galatians 2. Peter is on a pilgrim journey that has few straight lines, but it is always moving him forward, toward God." (Steve Taylor, The Out of Bounds Church)