From Zealot to Cynic

The Zealot I was at Twenty

At twenty, I was on fire. I had a Bible in my hand, conviction in my bones and an answer for everything.

I believed truth was simple: God was right, the world was wrong and I had been sent to straighten people out. I came preaching. I challenged sin, confronted compromise and pushed people -- sometimes people already carrying more than I could see.

I wanted to rescue the lost and build something big enough to prove God had chosen me and, if I am honest, to prove my own life mattered.

"I have lost faith in polished religion. I have not lost faith in Christ."

I know a few things now. People matter. Presence matters. A person’s word should mean something. Love without action is noise. I cannot save everybody. I tried that once. It wore me down and taught me that I was never the Saviour in the first place. That job has already been taken.

What I can do is show up. I can listen. I can pray without pretending prayer is a quick answer. I can keep my word when it becomes inconvenient. I can treat people as human beings instead of projects, converts or numbers on a ministry report.

The Road Still Calls

The Church must leave the building. Hurting people are not waiting outside for another program or slogan. If we carry good news, we must carry it somewhere—across the street, into the shelter, along the back roads and beside the hospital bed.

People matter to God. Therefore, they must matter to us. Christ is already out there. The road is stillcalling.

"I knew how to preach about grace. I had not yet learned how to give it."

I knew how to speak, but not how to listen. I knew how to call people to the cross, but not how to sit beside them in their pain.

I thought ministry meant bringing God into dark places. I did not understand that God was already there—in the shelter, the hospital room, the back alleys and beside the forgotten.

God did not need me to charge in and take over. He needed me to slow down, open my eyes, listen before I preached, love without needing to fix and stay when there was nothing left to say.

Zeal without wisdom can wound people. Truth without love can become a weapon. I was on fire at twenty, but I had not learned that fire can warm a person—or burn them. That lesson took forty years.

The Cynic I Became at Sixty

At sixty, I still do not have all the answers. I have learned not to trust the person who claims they do.
I have met too many people with clean hands, polished shoes and perfect theology telling broken people how to carry burdens they have never touched. So these days, I say, “I don’t know.”

I do not know why some prayers are answered while others meet silence. I have heard the explanations. Most sound better from a pulpit than beside a hospital bed.

After forty years of ministry, I have grown cynical about religious performance, church politics and people who talk about serving the poor but never learn their names. But I am not without hope.

BOOTS ON
Cross one street. Learn one name. Listen to one story. Keep one promise. Pray—and then go. CHURCH - GET OFF YOUR BACKSIDE. PUT ON YOUR BOOTS AND GO.