I’m Not Christ

There we were standing in a small Mexican airport while we waited for our bags to come out. I overheard a conversation between an English woman trying to speak to an airport official about her lost bag. Having taken several years of Spanish, I went over and offered assistance to the woman looking for her bag. While we loaded our own bags and headed to the hotel I realised something astonishing…. Even though I understand Spanish, can speak it, and perhaps help someone with it, it doesn't make me Hispanic.

Why would a well-educated individual think that just because they know a language makes them that specific nationality? Yet over and over again I see people insist that because you speak Italian you are actually Italian. As a matter of fact, YOU do it all the time!! No need to look around, I'm talking about you.

A preacher stands on the pulpit every Sunday, opens their Bible and offers you translation. Each Sunday you go, you feel yourself getting better and better, you feel stronger and wiser, and then it hits….. You turn on the TV and there is your pastor, being arrested on some type of drug charge and the words fall out of your mouth, "And to think, he was a preacher…"; You think that just because he could translate the Word, and help you solve a problem you were having, he IS the Word. Is this not anymore foolish than believing the ability to communicate in Spanish, makes me Hispanic? Why is it that we have the habit of placing the messenger on the pedestal, not the message?

No one has a free pass to go out and do whatever they want without facing consequences, but just because God called me to help you doesn't mean I don't have my own struggles…. my own issues… There is no level of Christianity where your relationship with Christ is no longer a work in progress. There is always more of Him to fill you and more of that for you to with share others. But just because I speak Christianity doesn't make me Christ. The time must come when we separate the vessel from the anointing and allow people the ability to live their lives and have their own struggles.

It is inevitable that the moment anyone who is well known hits an obstacle in life, that we look back on their past and point out any and every thing that contradicts their stumble. If we were limited to only speaking on things we have mastered there would be a deafening silence…. I can share with you what I have learned, what I have observed, and what I have been taught but I have mastered nothing. I cannot be convinced that anyone has mastered anything. You may have figured out how to communicate with YOUR child at this stage in their life, but as sure as the day turns to evening, that child will grow and you will have to learn how to communicate with your adult child.

I know that many people have seen my beautiful scars and in the moments I start to feel shame I remember that just because you've seen mine, doesn't make yours disappear. I may not ever see your wounds but, I know that if you have air in your lungs and a pulse in your wrist they exist. I don't want to be your saviour, don't want to sell myself as your Christ, I just want to share with you something that may help make your journey a little easier.

The fact that I was able to help one woman, find her bag, in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from her home, doesn't insure that my bag would come out and my trip would be problem free. I may not be struggling with a lost bag, a broken home, a drug issue, a sexual addiction, or a sordid past but I do have a struggle, so does our President, so does your neighbour, so does the person who seems to have it all. No one is exempt from struggle; my ability to help you with something doesn't eliminate my own issue.

All I'm saying is if you put me in your glass house, put my life under your microscope, you won't have to look very hard to find something wrong with me. I speak Christianity, but I'm not Christ.

sarah d henson
sarahdhenson.wordpress.com

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All I have to say is 'you bet'.