Do you attend the best church for you? Is it the best church? Do you understand the difference? The best church for you may not be the best church for everyone. Israel was divided into tribes, but was still one people and one nation. You may not think of churches as tribes, but do the same concepts of group identification apply? Belonging is a strong inherent human impulse. So is superiority. Can you see that one is innocent and the other is not? Support your church as the place that I have planted you for nourishment and growth.

Have you heard it said that anything you say can and will be used against you? This concept isn’t limited to those who are arrested. You know intuitively who you can trust with information that could be damaging to you, and who will use it against you. Yet if you don’t share it with anyone it will be damaging to you by keeping it inside. As a part of your own inner work you need people you can confide in. who can you choose? Start with those who are doing their own inner work for this puts them in a position to show empathy and mercy.

Have you heard of some churches being criticized for being too emotional? Perhaps you have done this yourself. Have you ever heard of a church being criticized for being too intellectual? The conventional view is that emotional responses are easy to generate in the moment but they do not endure. Then what is the best approach to bringing about enduring change in people? Emotions are a valid part of human experience, and if they are not engaged, then the whole person is not engaged. The more dimensions of the person that are involved, the better, and all contribute to transformation.

Would you rather trip over a rock or have a rock fall on you? Neither choice may be attractive, but one is clearly a lower risk than the other. This is true even though when I proposed these alternatives, I said that the one who falls on the rock would be broken. The choices were presented in such a way as to imply that these were the only ones available. Does this sound like a dilemma between being broken and crushed? Have you known people who were broken and yet lived lives that were full and abundant?