The Rubbish Conversion

I became a Christian, in the evangelical sense of the word, when I was in my mid-teens.    Then, throughout the years, I’ve gone through different phases ranging from full on commitment to outright rejection of my faith.   What it hasn’t been, in true Rubbish Christian style, is a steady maturing march towards the Kingdom.    Instead, it’s been more of a dizzyingly chaotic series of lurches from one crisis of faith to the next with stability glimpsed only in the passing during the inexorable swing from one extreme to the other.   So, where the reassuring certainty of the Lord Jesus ‘living in my heart’? I actually have a real problem with that sort of ‘living in my heart’ language. It’s all a bit girly and embarrassing; wot with me being a bloke ‘n’ everything.

Did you ever see the episode of the Muppets where Sam (the American Eagle) is asked to sing ‘Tit Willow’?   He’s reassured that it’s high culture, ‘light opera’.    So, with full defensive grandeur, he accompanies the singer by duly singing the lines ‘Tit Willow, tit willow, tit willow’ and the look on his mortified face shows that he does indeed, feel like a complete……willow….for singing it.   Perhaps then, in our western world, some of us let our hair down (I’m virtually bald so this is metaphorical) or express intimate emotions in some circumstances but not in others.

Whether rightly or wrongly, it does cause a few problems.   I don’t know; the phrase ‘accepting the Lord Jesus into my heart’ just sounds, quite frankly, mawkish.   I mean, think of it, you’re down the pub with yer mates, having just been to the footie (Soccer for my North American readers) or something and everyone’s talking about what’s going on for them: -

“So, what did you all get up to at the weekend guys?”

“Oh, I had a great night out with some old mates!”

“Yeh, I played in a Snooker/Pool/ Billiards competition and won”

“I sprained my back playing Rugby.”

“Great weekend. I was down the local community centre at my Boxing class”

And then, the Rubbish Christian has to pipe up. “Oh me, well, I invited Jesus into my heart”

Embarrassed silence and lots of, “Right, well, er, that’s nice, erm…”

It’s just sooooo, well, mawkish!

So, I struggle along, most of the time, happy to accept I’m a Christian but at other times I wonder.    Not having that ‘blessed assurance’ in my heart, I have to rely on hope.    Is that good enough?    Maybe I’ll just change my name to Thomas (but I ‘doubt’ I will).    Why does Christianity have to sound so, well, girly?!