One of the most troubling trends in our nation today is what appears to be a mass exodus from the church. From people who claim to be deconstructing their faith to people leaving the largest denomination in the country over abuse by leaders and the cover-up of that abuse by other leaders.
As the saying goes, it’s a hot mess right now.
And if I’m being honest, I would rather not clean it up because it’s not my mess. But lately, the Lord has reminded me about all the times when I would show up on a job site with a painting crew to put the finishing touches on a project. Not only would we clean up the mess that we made, but we’d also clean up any messes that other crews had made. My boss would simply say, “We’re the last ones here. Whether we made the mess or not, the owners will assume we did, so let’s clean it up.”
God could literally have anyone on the earth right now. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Peter, Paul. Even Jesus. But in all His wisdom and sovereignty, he chose you and me to be a part of the final crew. We’re the ones who are alive at a time when there are messes to be cleaned, and God intended for it to be that way.
How do we begin to clean up messes that we didn’t make? Do we blame the church people who ghosted the body? Do we look at a woman abused by her pastor and shrug our shoulders as if to say we’re sorry, but it’s not our problem? No. We do what Daniel did when he prayed in the ninth chapter of the book that bears his name: we take ownership of the sin, and we lead God’s people in repentance.
If you’ll read verses 4-19 of that chapter, you’ll notice something very interesting. There are numerous collective pronouns used, but what you won’t find are any “y’alls,” “yous,” or “yous guys.” Daniel prayed, “We have sinned. We have rebelled. We have been wicked.”
But he hadn’t done any of those things. He had stayed true, even when being true could have gotten him chewed up by lions. And yet, he took ownership of the problem, and as a result, he was used by God to help lead a nation to the solution.
