I recently read that Christianity is a crutch for people who can’t cope with real life. Of course the thought wasn’t original to that writer: it’s a slogan that’s gone around for years.
And I can only say, Wow. If you think that Christianity is like a crutch for someone with a twisted ankle, you don’t understand what Christianity is about at all.
Christianity is nothing like a crutch. Christianity is like a wheelchair for a person who is permanently paralyzed. It is like a heart-lung machine for someone with multiple organ failure.
If you think you’re basically a pretty good person, and you’ve got your life together, and God, if there is a god, should be very impressed with how well you’re doing, and the couple of little flaws in your life are like a twisted ankle in an overall healthy person, something you’ll quickly get over with a little time and rest, you’re not ready for Christianity. If you’re really that good, you don’t need Christianity. If you’re not really that good, you don’t have a clue why you need Christianity. And news flash: you’re not really that good. You don’t begin to appreciate how holy God is, and how far you are from meeting his standards. You are a greedy, selfish, lying, lustful, hateful sinner, like all the rest of us. You deserve to go to Hell. And you are totally incapable of fixing the problem. You are desperately in need of someone to come along and save you.
So just go away. Call us when you’re in prison with no idea when you’ll get out. Come back when you’ve woken up in a pool of your own vomit, for the third time this week. Or when you’ve watched the person you love most in the world walk out the door and you know they’re never coming back. Or when you’ve looked around your big house full of fancy toys and realized that this is the best it’s ever going to get, and it’s not enough. Talk to us when you realize that your life is a mess, that what you need is not a crutch to help you through this minor little accident but major surgery and multiple organ transplants to correct total system failure. Then you’ll be ready to hear what Christianity has to say. You may not like our answer, but at least you’ll understand the question.
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