A Hospital full of healthy People?

So I have been talking with a friend of mine on the Internet about a problem that a friend of hers had with their local church.  This problem, however, goes far beyond this one individual body of believers.  The problem is this:  the inability to develop personal intimate friendships within the group of believers.  This conversation has brought me to a place of really thinking about this area, because it is turning from a problem to an epidemic.  It's heartbreaking to think that we have gotten to a place that we feel that we must act like we have it "all together" and have no problems when we come together to worship.  The church is designed and given to us to be a haven of rest, a place for encouragement, and a place to be able to come and become "spiritually healthy"; but instead we come in put on a show and make everyone believe we are "a hospital full of healthy people".

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ^32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Lk 5:31-32, NIV)

Jesus' very own words.

How did we get so far away from this?  It's Irony at it's best.  Could you imagine going to the hospital, and patients are all sitting around denying health care, and saying I'm fine, just here to hang out, I'm not sick, there is nothing wrong with me.  Do you know we do that in churches every week, and let's be honest its called lying. It's one of the reasons why we don't develop these personal relationships in question.  There are several other reasons too, they are as i believe listed below:

1. Time:  For some time is really the reason.  Between career, family, and other lists of responsibilities they feel that it is virtually impossible to develop these new personal relationships due to time constraints.  You will find that most people in this category have more acquaintances than friends, because they can't put forth the effort to develop anything other than "shallow" friendships.
2. Socially Handicap.  Some people have just never really developed the social skills necessary to develop deep intimate personal relationships, they have never really been taught what it takes to build such mentioned relationships.  These individuals usually end up with very few friends and rely on family members as their "sounding boards".
3. Broken Hearts club.  Some folks have gotten used, burned, or run over in the past by being completely honest in the past.  They are the ones that have worked hard at developing those personal relationships, just to have the other party in the relationship break confidence.  These individuals usually recover over time, and are able at some point to begin building those intimate relationships again.
4. Fear.  This is the group to which I am referring to as the most common one.  Fear of what?  Fear of people finding out that we are not perfect, our families are not perfect, and our lives are not perfect.  Their afraid of people finding out that the smile they put on every week is fake, their afraid of the "I'm fine" they respond with every week being found to not be true, and their afraid of people finding out that deep down inside they are hurting and in need.  We are afraid of people finding out the truth. 

This is, in my own opinion, a vicious cycle that must be broken.  We are all in the same boat.  None of us have the "perfect life", and we quite honestly need to quit acting like we do.  We all have struggles in life.  If we could put the "masks" down for a little while we could find encouragement in one another.  It is refreshing when you can relate to someone who is dealing with similar issues in life.  It is also refreshing to be able to just to sit and have a healthy conversation about the good things in life as well.  We need it personally, socially, and spiritually.

The same God that desires for us to have a personal, intimate relationship with Him, wants us to have a personal intimate relationships with others while we are here.  With Jesus as the model, He spent time pouring His life into the twelve;  that is intimate personal relationship at its best.  I challenge you with this:  take the time to develop intimate personal relationships with people.  It does take time, it does take effort.  In the end it is worth every second of it.

Please note, I do recognize that not everyone at all times is doing this.  However, I do know from experience with dealing with people, that the vast majority are not as "ok" as they tell people they are.

Have a blessed day, Chris.

take a few minutes to watch video by the group "Casting Crowns"  it addresses this reality: