Life Together with Christians in my New World

I haven't written a blog post in a while, although I've been writing a lot for my own sanity elsewhere.  I've started reading another book, just a short little one, but it is packed with a whole lot of things new to me in some ways.  It's really not new, but reflects the cry of my heart that I've done my best over the years to bind and gag and bury it deep so I can't hear it any longer.  The book I've begun to read is Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Enter the idea of Christian community and confession.  Why in the world would I read such a book?  I don't know, I suppose it has something to do with the things I've been wrestling with for the last few months.  In good ole IFB language these would be the things I would mention as "unspoken prayer requests" back in the independent fundamental baptist church I grew up in.  Thankfully I'm not in that world anymore, but I still don't quite know how to safely navigate in the world I find myself in today.  Life Together is given as an example of how we should live life together in our Christian community.  Therefore I find myself reading it to see just what that entails.

There is a great amount of tension between confession and daily community life that I see lived out before me.  How much of your story should be known?  What sort of things do you confess and to whom?  Who can handle the really big stuff, you know, the type of things that you do need help with in overcoming, the struggles that are too hard to carry on your own?  Not too many people fit that description.  And the incredible risks involved are enough to drive you back to isolation and denial.  That's a lonely and emotionally frozen way to live.  I want to be thawed out, but I'm afraid I may be "freezer burnt" and never be able to function as a normal person in the community I am now in.  The big things like major depression that cycles around to various degrees of suicidal thoughts all the way up to the point of deciding to attempt it or not is not something most people can deal with.

Of course the ones who are "trained" to deal with it are the ones who have no answers.  What kind of help is that?  Listening to the Godless drivel that comes out and yet is called help, is enough to drive me to really go through with it.  Talk about truly depressing!  Yet these are the people that I would be referred to in the throes of being suicidal because evidently pastors, who are thoroughly trained in the scriptures and theology, don't have the answers I am in desparate need of during the times I am suicidal. (Did you notice the sarcasm here?)

QUOTES from Life Together:

"The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer." p19

"The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians." p19

"The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God." p20

"He knows that God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all.  The Christian no longer lives of himself, by his own claims and his own justification, but by God's claims and God's justification." p22

"God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man.  Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him.  He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.  He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation." p23

Bear ye one anothers burdens. Who, me?

This is something I've been thinking about for a while, but couldn't put it in the right words until recently.

So here's what I've been pondering. Can people really "bear one another's burden" if they don't already have a similar one of their own? Is it fair of me to expect it or long for it? What does "bearing one anothers burden" actually mean?

How it actually works out in Christian life is this(as one who has been in eleven churches as either a member or regular attender in three states and timezones, I feel somewhat in a position to claim that this is how it works): You only have to bear the one's whose burdens are similar to your own, if the burden is too big; then you're off the hook and the person with the burden that is too great for you to help bear it, is on their own.

There are some exceptions that I've known, but then again the ones that help bear the greatest burdens, themselves have ones of similar weight. I know people who "bear" all they can bear of others burdens, but proportionally it's still not much. Still it falls on those of us who have the burden to be careful not to harm those who can/will "bear" in some degree by really allowing them to bear a painful amount. Most of the time the ones helping to bear your burden think they are really shouldering a huge amount with you. In reality it's like letting a 2 year old "help" you move a piano. They are working really hard but proportionally it's like they are bearing absolutely nothing. The one with the burden feels worse because he can't really say "thanks, but no thanks, you just aren't up to it".


I Corinthians 1:3-5
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
5For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.


Is it right to really think any affliction or should the focus be on the one who is able to offer the same comfort they received of God to those who suffer in a similar way or intensity?

So, are all called to offer comfort and bear burdens to any who need it? Are the ones who are like the 2 year old helping to move the piano, a weaker brother who needs to grow in this area? Or is this a differing of gifts, some can help to bear great crushing burdens, while others can help to bear the normal and acceptable tragedies of life, and others can help in the general burdens of normal life?

These questions are not just theoretical and something to pass the time with. They are very relevant to my life. I'm actively seeking answers to these questions.