During our time in Kenya part of our ministry involved helping out one of the native tribes: the Pokot. We visited them two weekends of our month in Kenya. Saturdays we would arrive, set up camp, and cook some food for them. Sundays we would join them in church, share a word, pray for them, serve some more food after church, and then begin the journey back home.
Much of the preaching revolved around John 3:16 and our host always did a great job of emphasizing God’s love for them. These people had learned about God while Kenya was a British colony. The British connected with the Pokot and brought them supplies. However, once Kenya became independent, the supplies stopped coming and they believed God had abandoned them.
My initial reaction to John 3:16 being taught was to think of how cliché it was. This was the first verse I memorized from childhood and a lot of its meaning has been lost to me since. But for the Pokot this brought a message that they were not forgotten and instead they were loved by this God they thought once abandoned them.
Initially when Desert Rose Ministries began reaching out to these people they tried to run them ministry away with spears. Now they’ve built their own church with their own hands and materials where they can worship in Spirit and truth. They sing their own songs of worship and dance long into the night. Their pastor (pastor John) is a native and an amazing man who wishes to continue bringing God’s word to more of his own people. Experiencing this I believe I caught a glimpse of the church in its purest form and it also showed me something I knew was wrong deep in my heart when it came to my faith and how I related to God.
Whether we like it or not, I believe all of us have let parts of our Christian life become cliché. We even have a term for words we think have too much “Christian” value rather than Godly power: Christianeze. Verses we have learned from childhood are cliché. We fear praying for someone because it might seem too basic or “we aren’t good at praying.” We don’t volunteer to help in a certain ministry because so many other people volunteer there. Does this resonate with anyone else?
When I got home I had a friend send me a prayer over text. Later they apologized because it sounded like something they would pray over anyone else…
Something I feel like I’ve been learning recently is that going deeper in our faith doesn’t always mean making it more complex. I think in many ways it means making it more simple. Don’t get me wrong, it is an incredible privilege to be able to study God’s word to the depth we are able to. Yet so many times I think we overcomplicate the lessons He is trying to teach us and in our busy, hurried lives we make it difficult to even hear His voice.
Here is how I’ve been thinking about things recently:
- If you prayed for peace and comfort for 100 people and they all received it… what an amazing blessing!
- If you prayed for someone to receive the gift of faith like Abraham through a metaphorical journey through their dreams as they climb their own mountain… great!
- If God gave you a word for this season of life and that word was love… how great is it to bask in that?
- If God asked you to exegete the life of every king of Israel and relate that to how their lives apply to your personal story… it might take a while but there could be some awesome fruit!
- If God called you to serve in the nursery at church… that is such an amazing opportunity!
- If God called you to start up a high ropes course ministry in the middle of the Thai jungle… Frickin. Awesome.
When things become cliché in our life I believe we begin to limit God’s power to transform and our ability to experience Him in Awe. Some of the examples I gave above may be a bit extreme, but I hope you at least see the point. Don’t limit God in his ability to use John 3:16 to transform your life and the life of a tribe. Don’t limit the ways in which God will call you deeper or in how he can work in someone else’s life.
For some of you maybe these Christian clichés/Christianeze are a trigger. I’ve certainly fallen under that category, but part of going deeper for me looked like returning to these verses and concepts and rediscovering God in them (praise God!). If it is too difficult to connect to these concepts, then try putting them into your own words! For others maybe God has gifted you with an intellectual brain that can articulate theological concepts well and defend the faith with apologetics (praise God!). Or maybe music and art is more your thing and, like David in the Psalms, you’re able to express your emotions eloquently (praise God!). God is glorified in all of these, there is no “better” way to live, and on the journey of life there may be no limit to the ways in which we can experience God.
When we think of something as cliché, the tendency is to close off a part of ourselves to it, or to close off a part of its meaning. I don’t have a specific challenge for this week, but I would love to hear your thoughts! This is something God is still walking me through, so my thoughts aren’t quite complete. I’m curious to hear what you guys have to say on the topic! Feel free to leave a comment below.
Questions I’ve been thinking about:
-Would you say there are some clichés in Christian life? Do you think they limit the ways in which we relate to God and others?
-Does a verse lose its power if I think it is cliché to use?
-Do I start to close myself off to Christianeze topics? Is there something more God wants to show me there? How do I get out of that funk?
-Have I not acted in faith because I thought offering something simple wasn’t good enough? (prayer, ministry, etc…)
-Should I really ask for something so basic in prayer as 10 people receiving God’s love? Do I have the faith to ask that?
-Do other people struggle with this, too?
