Stuck: 12 Symptoms - Mountain Ridge Church

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a baptism service. Several young men were baptized and we interviewed them on stage. They shared something stunning. They said, “I grew up in the church.” They continued to tell us that they felt like their lives fell apart. Life handed them unfair blows and wounded them. They ended up in drugs or alcohol or loneliness and two of them tried to take their own lives. So here is my question for you, “How does that even happen?” How does it happen that someone who grows up in church, around God, around all the beautiful stories, they have all the knowledge of God, and later in life, they try to kill themselves? These men grew up in church. How does that happen? I will answer that later today.

I want to ask you a question. I want to ask you; do you feel stuck? What I mean is, do you feel like who you are on the outside, the part people see, aligns with how you feel on the inside? Do you pretend when you are around people to cover what is really on the inside? Do you feel like, who you are on the outside is different than how you feel on the inside? And, do you feel like you have no idea how to change that? You’re stuck. Most people do feel stuck. And, most people who attend church don’t want you to know; but they feel stuck too.

I want to talk to you today about feeling stuck and what the solution is. I need to warn you though, the solution to feeling stuck is so simple, you will be tempted to ignore it.

Here is why we feel stuck. Our hearts are a mess. Another way to say it is, our souls are mess. To take care of our heart or soul is called being spiritual. It’s not a physical or material thing, it’s a spiritual thing. That means we know something is off on our inside and we need something to fix it.

You must understand, people, every day, are searching to fix their spiritual problem. Again, that feeling that says, “I need to fix my heart.” It’s why some people pursue success and stuff and accomplishment. Success isn’t wrong, actually I hope you would want to be the best at what you do. But, success doesn’t fix a heart problem.

It’s why some are rebellious, angry, and want revenge. It’s why some are feeding their appetites and addictions. It’s why some are gossips, jealous, easily hurt and on and on. It’s why some join churches, biker gangs, community groups and on and on. Everyone, every day, are searching to fix their spiritual problem. We are busy looking for answers in this world to fix our heart problem. This is an everybody problem, a human problem. Let me ask you, “Do you connect with this? Do you see this about yourself?”

Our lives are busy – right? You are busy changing diapers or getting kids to sports fields or watching your grand kids go all over the place. There are bills to pay, bosses to keep happy, marriages to work on, and church stuff to maintain. In all of it, your heart becomes dried up and beaten up. You just feel tired. You are on Facebook or Instagram and everyone’s life looks awesome. You compare your life with their life and you feel like you are falling behind. You may even have concluded that you are a failure or a disappointment, otherwise your life would be great. You struggle to engage your spouse or family or people.

This can result in two extremes. You would rather stay inside, drink wine and be numb. You’re stuck. Maybe you would rather be so busy, you would never have time to deal with the real issues of your heart. You’re stuck. We call that kind of living, a double life. What people see of you doesn’t align or match with who you are on the inside. It’s like an iceberg. 10% of the iceberg is seen by everyone but 90% of the iceberg is never seen. That’s us isn’t? People only see 10% of us; the good parts of us. The cleaned up part of us. But our hearts and souls however, go unseen. The junk in our hearts are still deep inside us. Untouched.

What makes it even worse is that church activity doesn’t seem to make it better. Church activity just makes us – busier. We think that we need more bible study, better worship, deeper teaching, new information on spiritual warfare, new ways to serve the poor, new church friends. We think, we need to hop and shop churches, whatever is new and exciting. Church activity might be nice, but none of it seems to transform us. Our hearts, our souls, our spirituality remains stuck. That junk in our hearts is still deep inside us. Then years later at a baptism service, we hear real people’s stories. They tell us that they grew up in church and they tried to take their own lives. What happened?

Do you feel stuck? Have you wondered why someone growing up in Church wants to kill themselves later? Do you connect with what I am saying? It’s okay to say yes because it’s a human problem. We all walk through this. I walk through this.

The problem with feeling stuck is that it shows up in our lives. That means our spiritual problem shows up into our physical reality. I want to give you 12 characteristics of being stuck. 12 ways to know you are stuck and you need spiritual transformation. 12 ways to know your heart condition is showing up in your real life.

Having little joy, feeling unhappy, frustrated, wanting to just disengage and feel numb. What makes it worse, maybe you grew up in church. So you have all the information and knowledge but it just hasn’t transformed you and you know it. You are 20, 30, 40, 50 years old and you are still stuck.