Sat here feeling miserable.

Had a friend come over, and they've been telling me all sorts of bad things they've experienced at the hands of other good friends. Life was so much easier when everything was black & white and one either completely supported one side or another.

But life isn't like that. People do things from what seems to them, the best of motives, yet from another standpoint they seem to be crapping all over someone else. And sometimes people are insecure, threatened, detached or apparently aloof.

I know that when we moved from the last church to this we very definitely felt we knew 'the right way' to do things, and at times were not at all nice or subtle about it. And the irony is that we probably did, to a degree, and didn't know how to reign that all back in. But the problem is a little bit like working with an ugly person. You can look at them and say "my goodness, did you realise that you're so ugly" or you can get in there and work with them and learn to appreciate the good bits, maybe later suggesting they start washing their hair and stop wearing lime green and orange at the same time. We're still learning, but I need to see things humorously sometimes or I'll start to feel down about it.

But I wonder if this is what they (the first friend) has been affected by, a little. That and the way that we have a natural mis-trust of what falls outside our experience or our control. We're all so darn difficult, self-reliant, insecure and trying to live up to the standard that we know we should, yet failing and carrying the guilt that goes with that too. The more I look at most church leaders too, the more I realise than many of them simply aren't fit for the job, and certainly aren't the ones we'd have chosen. It seems to me that God is always looking for those workers who will come when He calls, and when they stand up to come He doesn't reject them, even though they're flawed.

And I'm still trying to work out what this means for me.