Life is like IKEA.

                                                                              

                                                                      Have you ever visited IKEA?

Unless you have a mind numbing three plus hours to fill, rethink visiting in the near future. Also, drive a small car. So small in fact that it resembles one of those cars that you try to picture eight clowns POPPING out of but it just isn’t actually feasible. 

                                                                                       Why?

When you first enter the doors, a daycare is located at the front for you to check your kid(s) and there is a café located halfway through. Enough said, right?

For those that have been bear with me while I paint a picture for that that can’t say they have had this particular pleasure.

It’s laid out in a large warehouse with random walls sectioning “rooms” off like a maze. There are arrows on the floor to serve as a guide and so that you don’t grow bored as if it was the yellow brick road, the type of arrow changes!

·      Some painted a bright yellow

·      Others white, barely there faded arrows you have to look for

·      Continue onwards and you will find them illuminated on the floor with a light from above

·      This is where it gets exciting! Some of the lit arrows even pulse forward, as if to spur patrons onward to look at even more wonders. 

Each “room” if you will is designed with a different theme. Each person will have a different style that allures him or her, beckoning in. Some rooms have a modern and sleek design, reminding me of a hotel room in Europe. Others are dark and gloomy, almost reminding me of the axe murders man cave. A scene from Transformers seems to flash before you in the rooms with stainless steel covering every surface while yet another has glossy, shiny white that is just asking for muddy cleats and paws to destroy. 

          (The five hour project my dearest brother Brandon and my sweet friend Sam helped                                           me put together from IKEA. It looks awesome though!)

What room will you choose?

Personally, there is a room with floor to ceiling wooden bookcases with a comfy sofa and recliner that easily holds my attention each time until my shopping partner yanks me along.

It’s funny how experiences like this can relate to other areas.

I’m about to get a little Christian on you. For those that don’t like it, this is where you exit stage left. Or stage right. Perhaps you found the trap door beneath the stage. I don’t care as long as you do so quietly please. Actually, on second thought, don’t. I love to hear what other people think so read on and share your thoughts even if you disagree!

After each time I visit IKEA, I find myself relating the experience to the rat race of life. Each person moves at his or her own pace, stopping at different attractions and scurrying forward in search of different things.

As a child, no one explains to you what certain scripture means. They read it in church and you wonder at the logic of the statement. One of the most interesting pieces of scripture I remember from childhood is taken from Matthew 7:1-5

““Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. “

How can there be a log in someone’s eye? Certainly they would be in pain or dead right? As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to understand that in order for someone to condemn another, you first have to be sin free yourself. Who among us can claim that victory? I know I certainly can’t. Going back to my favorite room at IKEA, I know that I have my own type of arrows that attract me and my own bookcases in life that hold my attention. A flashy arrow in my life is seeing the happiness in couples. It causes me to become distracted and leads me to the room of fulfillment which is me dating guys that were never a good fit in the first place but I compromised.

What are your arrows and “bookcase” rooms? What attracts you and leads you astray? It’s so funny that if I asked this question to 100 people, I would probably have so many different varying responses. Some of the most common types of distractions that seem to be typical are:

·      Dating the wrong person

·      Failure to tithe

·      Lack of time daily with the Lord

·      Cursing

·      Immodesty

Should I go with what typical Christianity deems as the more controversial ones?

·      Sex before marriage

·      Porn

·      Homosexuality

·      Gambling

·      Alcoholism

Why is it that we seem to classify sins in different categories? I’m pretty sure somewhere in some part of the bible it says something about for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Oh right. Romans 3:23 says that. 

In fact, Isaiah 64:6a states “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

 

That’s pretty severe. All of us are unclean. Not just someone that watches porn. Not someone that commits adultery. Each and every one of us. So why do we continually point out each others flaws and then rate them according to society’s standards of which are more socially acceptable and which we won’t even discuss because they are so socially unacceptable?

All of us are not without flaw. Just because someone else sins differently, doesn’t make them better or worse than you. It’s time that as Christians, we stop making others feel like the Christian religion rejects them because they need to clean themselves up first before attending church and coming to Christ. 

Jesus ate with tax collectors and persecutors of Jews. He made them feel welcomed with open arms. It’s time that so called Christians start acting like it and stop judging others. Maybe then when someone is invited to church or religion is discussed, I stop hearing as much that they don’t want to be around some of the most hypocritical type of people they have ever met. 


**All pictures inserted are from Google image search**