Prodigal: My friend has been hurt.

Me: I am so sorry to hear that.

Prodigal: I think she needs encouragement.

This is from the book Reclaiming Your Heart: A Journey Back to Laughing, Loving, and Living. by Denise Hildreth Jones

For too many of us, church has been the very weapon that caused us to shut down our hearts. It is where we have been judged the most, criticized the most, or encountered the majority of our wounds. It is also where we might have seen the critical spirit modeled and developed a critical spirit of our own.

It’s been happening since the time of the Pharisees. People who are hungry for God come up against a version of religion that focuses most on what they do or what they look like and binds them with a collection of rules instead of freeing them to live out their hearts. This misguided view relegates the beauty of a relationship with God to nothing but a set of regulations, leaving people lost in a maze of negativism and criticism.

I am with you and have been hurt by the church and rules that are not of God. Don’t think this is God though. He has people all over the world that are still fighting for His truth and want to show how a relationship with God is more than rules of man. We don’t give up on doctors because there are bad doctors. We just find the good ones. Don’t give up on God. Find people who really have a heart of God.

Mark 2:2

And immediately many were gathered together, insomuch that was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org