Thrift Store Theology

I was broke. Not the kind of broke where you skip a few coffees. I'm talking about digging through dumpsters, broke.

Bible college was just around the corner, and I owned one bag of clothes. A friend told me about a place where you could buy clothes by the pound. I filled bags with shirts, ties, and jeans. If something had holes, I patched it. If the pockets were ripped, I made it work.

One day, my favorite pants tore — a full blowout from the back pocket down the leg. So I grabbed a loud, patterned tie and stitched it right over the tear. That ridiculous tie ran down the back of those pants like a neon scar.

That whole season came flooding back to me as I reflected on the state of Christianity today. We're doing the same thing with our faith.

We're taking pieces of Jesus — some truth, some grace, some morality — and stitching them onto a life we've never actually surrendered. We're patching Jesus onto our brokenness, hoping it'll hold.

But it doesn't.