Toxic Lies

There seems to be a growing trend these days to give up on people. To throw in the towel on our personal relationships and justify it by calling other people toxic. Everywhere I look on social media, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, memes are posted describing the need to walk away from toxic people. The memes state that you either need to walk away or let them go. 

But what exactly is the meaning of toxic? How are these people toxic? 

Do we not live in a fallen world? 

Are we not called to love the broken sinner?

Spare Me Your Reasons

I hate the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason."  Somehow this overused phrase makes people feel better about the fact that life is hard. But if you really stopped to think about what it implies, it should make you feel even shittier than you already did. If everything happens for a reason, if every horrible thing is divinely ordained so that some good thing can happen, doesn’t that mean the God we serve is a giant asshole in the sky just messing with your life?  Can God make beauty from the ashes? Absolutely. Can He speak to us in our valleys of despair? Often times He does. Can Christ bring us peace beyond our pain and understanding? Yes.  But that does not mean that the trials we go through are purposed to bring us beauty, truth, and peace.  God is almighty and can bring us out of bad times in the most wonderful ways, but it does not mean the bad times had to be ordained to receive the good.