Fantastible Reasons to Be in Christian Community- Part 1

I love inventing words, and this one says it all: Fantastible. It is a combination of the words “fantastic” and “horrible”. As a word, it mixes both meanings into one collective, emotional blend.

I use this word, because there is nothing fantastic about Christian community that isn’t, at the very same time, horrible. Depending on how last week went, most people reading this are going to agree with one word or the other – but few will agree with both. It is like looking at this drawing of the old woman/young woman. Some see the old woman, some see the young one. It is impossible to see both at the same time. When your experience of other Christians is “fantastic” it is hard to believe it is horrible. When it is “horrible”, nothing is going to convince you any time soon that it is fantastic. Let me give an example from my own life.

Momentary Pain or Future Agony

The man has a pain in his molar. He knows he should go to a dentist and have it taken care of. But he doesn’t like pain and he doesn’t like dentists. So he pops some Ibuprofen and goes back to work. Three weeks later, he has an abscess and an infected mouth and must endure a series of visits to the dentist, causing untold agony and obliterating any sense of well-being he had.

The teen girl knows the guy she is dating is bad news. He demands that she stop seeing all her friends. He won’t take no for an answer when they’re making out. She knows she should break it off, but she can’t stand the thought of what he will say to her when she does. So she continues to go out with him, smoking dope when she doesn’t want to, having sex