Keys to the Kingdom

I was struggling all day long about what to write about. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything. I mean, I knew I needed to write something, and I knew I was listening to something yesterday that I knew I wanted to write about, and tonight I finally remembered.

I spend a lot of time driving in my car. I mean a lot. I live in Ringgold, which is like 10 minutes from the Tennessee state line. I got to school in Kennesaw and I commute there twice a week, sometimes more. Anyway, I spend a lot of time in the car, so I listen to a lot of music. I also do a lot of thinking.

I was listening to Josh Ritter's The Animal Years album on the way home tonight. The first track is called Girl In The War and there's a line in it that says, "The keys to the kingdom got locked inside the kingdom." That got me thinking. Have we, as Christians and the church, locked ourselves inside the kingdom? Have we bubbled ourselves in with no regard to the people on the outside?

Have we created the Christian bubble?

I say we have.

There are many many people out there who sit in their holy huddle on Sundays and couldn't give a rats hindparts about actually living out their faith. They think arguing about some political issue at lunch after church is their duty to society. Teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and lousy education, these are beyond these people. I can hear them saying, "That girl has a kid and she's sixteen years old. Someone needs to tell her she's in a bad spot. What a slut."

I say no more.

Jesus says no more.

Go ahead, throw the first stone.

We can't live like this. It's not how Christ wants us to live. We need to branch out, and as for sinners like you and me, we don't continue to need someone to tell us what we're doing wrong. We know. However, there are some out there that don't recognize that what they're doing is wrong, and for these people, we have to have a little more tact than the church has had in the past, but teenage girls with kids have living proof of their mistake. Let's love them now, and tell them that there's a future that God is writing for them, and their child, despite their mistakes. Let's pop some bubbles and get the keys out where they belong: unlocking people's chains.