I’m depressed.  No, this is in addition to my regular depression.  It has to do with my frustration with Christians at-large.  The music, the bookstores, the “hip” worship services, the billboards, church signs, TV programs.  All of it.  To me, Christianity in America operates more like an exclusive social club than a life altering faith.  I guess I figure that a relationship with Jesus—the one of the Bible (read the Book of Matthew for more details)—should produce a different kind of person than the ones I generally meet and hear about. 
 
I was relating all of this to Frank the spiritual mentor guy, and his response was that I was being negative.  He didn’t say that I was imagining what I’ve been seeing; he simply said my response to it was negative.  He told me to look for the bits of light, or hope, in the situations that I see.  I told him outside of my emergent circle, I couldn’t see much light.  Gee, I guess I am negative…
 
Then I was driving the other day, thinking about my depression about Christianity.  I was thinking that I have so little hope in the way others will behave, or portray Christ to those who don’t know him.  And then a small thought occurred to me.  Not a big, earth shattering epiphany—just a still, small voice kinda thing.  I’m wrong to put my hope in others.  My hope needs to be in God.  See, I know that God will get it right—that he will reveal himself honestly and lovingly through those that let him.  I know that he alone will change the unfortunate state that has become American Christianity.  And as Frank the spiritual mentor guy says, it will be through one person at a time. 
 
I will still be disgusted at much of what I see in Christian culture, and continue to roll my eyes at much of what I hear from certain followers of God.  But, maybe I can come out of my depressive state now.  I am putting my hope in God, because people are always going to let me down at some point.  God won’t.  If someone screws up (in their portrayal of Christ, however that may be), God alone can and will fix it when the time is right.  I don’t know how he’ll fix things; I just know that he will.