By Pastor Mike
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ my brothers and sisters. I pray that this devotional finds you in good spirits and blessed health. Let me ask you a question, have you ever felt as though you were trying to do your best while the entire time you seemed to be right on the edge of sanity or composure? When we work ourselves to the edge of things, we often refer to working ourselves to the “fringe” or being on the “fringe” of things. A fringe refers to the style of having loosely threaded tassels on garments.
It has been utilized also to mean when a person works themselves into a precarious situation or to the point of great stress or inner turmoil.
Does this describe you today? Or maybe yourself at some point in your life? Have you descended into a constant state of hanging on the edge, feeling as though every second brings you closer to the inevitable fall?
What is amazing about this feeling is its diversity. It can come about from those dealing with tragic losses, health issues, employment problems, relationship fractures, financial woes, and or other cataclysmic events.
But it can also be caused by mounting problems that we leave unaddressed or ignore, pushing them to the back of our minds until they come roaring back like a Tsunami. To be honest with you, as I try so often to be, it is usually the small things in ministry that I have the most “fringe moments.” I thought that it would be the big things like heretical teachings, wide-scale persecution, or other momentous occurrences that would drive me to the fringes. But instead, so often, it is the petty squabbles, selfish pride, snarky comments, unabashed passive aggressiveness, and little moments of backbiting, amongst the church that
push pastors to the fringe. Now, to be clear, this type of behavior exists in all organizations because it is human, and we should expect nothing less from human beings. The question becomes how we should handle when we are pushed to the fringes. But maybe a better question is why we allow ourselves to be pushed into the fringe in the first place. What do you think?
I think the fringes of our sanity are the ledge we become trapped upon because we have tried to endure or strive without the guidance of God. We have made such an effort to create endeavors, projects, or ministries
without truly giving them over to God. We measure success through the eyes of profits, numbers, public support, or popularity, instead of peace and supplication from the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the true fringe exists because we have all too often tried to be “religious” without truly connecting with Jesus Christ. We sit in the pew, but we hear and do nothing to further our faith or trust in our heavenly Father.
Interestingly Jesus does reference fringes in the Bible (although not in the way we might think). In the Gospel of Matthew, he rebukes and challenges the religious leaders and self-proclaimed pious Pharisees in their actions in public. Jesus said, “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries (prayer boxes worn on the foreheads and arm) wide and the tassels on their garments long.” What Jesus is saying is that the religious leaders were only doing things for show, there was no real gravity behind their conviction. It was all inauthentic, the fringes of their coats were for show, and their actions did not match their faith.
Perhaps you are one reading this that is out on the edge right now in your life, or maybe you are simply coming off one. Regardless of your station you have at some point been on the edge before. I’m not naive enough to think that we can ever stop truly pushing ourselves (at times) to these places of extreme stress. But I do think we can include God in that journey. If you find yourself being ever drawn down into despair, then why not reach for the lifeline of truth that can be found in Christ Jesus? As Christians we have a connection to the greatest example of victory over cataclysms in the world, Jesus’s triumph over death.
Don’t dwell in the fringes my friends, Christ has already been there and back for you. Even in the darkest of moments we have the solemn hope that our Lord is with us in this life and the life to come.
Hopefully, that brings even a small moment of peace to us all.
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Pastor Mike McVey
Minister – First United Methodist Church, Fairfield TX
ACS Chaplain – United States Coast Guard, Station Galveston TX
Chaplain – Texas Game Warden Service, Freestone County
