Renewed: a la Europe: Religion

I debated posting this blog at all, for fear of offending someone, but I decided to do it anyway. After all, this is a blog about renewal and faith is a big part of my renewal process. Yesterday was a full day of sightseeing in Paris. We went to Versailles in the morning, walked the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, climbed the staircase of the Arc de Triomphe, and then ended the night in the home of Joy and Stephen, two American missionaries who have lived in Paris for over 25 years. If you were to take the beginning of the day and compare it to the end of the day you would never know that the two were rooted in the same faith. Versailles is the epitome of what it means to use a religion for the wrong reasons. King Louis XVI built Versailles out of jealousy because he wanted a bigger palace while his people starved. And he called himself a man of God. People have fought and died over religion. Horrible, horrible massacres have occurred in the name of a belief. It’s just awful.

And then there’s Joy and Stephen. This couple opened their home for us last night. They shared food and wine. They shared their story. This couple wanted to find a way to share God’s love….a pure, authentic, unconditional, un-massacres-ing love. No tricks. No hidden agenda. No bible hand-outs. No bull-horn. Just love. Just service. They’ve opened their home for believers, they’ve held business conferences for the mainstream without ever mentioning Christianity, they’ve given to the poor, the orphaned, the hungry without giving a lecture about faith. This is the kind of evangelism I believe in. I didn’t grow up believing in God. I was around the idea and toyed with it a bit, but didn’t come to accept it as truth until about two years ago. Since then I’ve come to know a God that isn’t judgmental and selfish, but kind, gracious, giving, and loving. And this is how I want to live my life. I want to be like Joy and Stephen. I want to live unselfishly. I want to rid myself of materialism. I want to give my time. I want to live like the one person who did this perfectly…Jesus. I will fail. I will have selfish moments, but I won’t stop trying. This is the religion I believe in. This is the God I believe in. And I’m pretty sure that’s how Christianity is intended to be. Humans just messed it up from time to time. We tend to do that a lot in life. Anywho…I wanted to share some of the photos from Versailles, because it truly is beautiful. But it was more than material beauty. It was a reminder of everything I don't want to be.