Finding Community

If you find yourself enamored with the idea of starting community, you'll inevitably control it and stifle it.  But if you merely love the people God puts in front of you, soon enough you'll find yourself in the midst of community without even trying.  Let Him take are of community - He knows we need it and it will happen.  If we lose yourselves, it is there that we find Him and we are cared for.

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat. You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for. You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family. -Matt 5 MSG

Lessons Learned - a Retrospective

In my work, we have "sprints" and at the end of the sprint, you meet and have a "retrospective" to discuss what we've learned.  This is a lessons-learned of sorts - a retrospective of the "beauty" of our last 3 years.  I can see the beauty and how it prepares us for the road ahead.

August of 2011, the people my wife and I were is so very, very different than from who we are today.  Praise God!  But it came at great cost.  We were naive, excited, and filled with home and expectation.  Had you told us then what would unfold over the next 2 years, we would have turned and gone the other way.

Your word is a lamp to my feet    and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105 ESV)

God planted the seed of living out "this day" and begin to slow down.  July of that year, He was speaking to us about how to relax into life as it unfolds at the same time, breaking our hearts with what breaks His.  And as we collectively do this - corporately - that's the church.

Second, he uses those situations in which you are challenged by need so great that you know you are powerless to resolve it yourself. Don't despise those moments or blame God for them. He doesn't create them. They simply result from a world out of synch with his desires that fall alike on the just and unjust. He will, however, use everything in your life, including your difficulties, to teach you how to trust Him more freely.

That's how Paul measured his troubles: "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even unto death...But this happened taht we might not rely on ourselves but on God...He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us." (2 Cor 1:8,9)

Taken from The Naked Church by Wayne Jacobsen pp.112-113

Momentary light afflictions.  The overcoming life.

Perspective and Truth

Nothing like a new year and a bout of unemployment to give oneself time to reflect.  I've been pondering many things over the past few days, trying to gain perspective.

So what exactly did Adam and Eve lose in the garden?  What if what was lost was simply perspective?  It says in Genesis "there eyes were opened."  Opened to what?  Their nakedness.  They weren't covered.  Fear.  What if all that occurred was that there eyes were opened to fear?  Instead of being totally enamoured with the goodness of God, they were now had fear, fully engage in the fear of lack, fear of evil, fear of God witholding every good thing....which that would be a lie, right?

Where does this battle reside?  The mind.  I believe that is why Christ died at Golgatha - the place of the skull.  Symbolic - His triumph coming by way of a cross at the house of the mind.   We must crucify our minds, taking our natural reasonings - our thoughts - captive.

Jesus said, "I am the Truth."  Reflecting on the events in our last couple of years, I can't help but ask the question, "What did I learn?"  A friend of mine said, "You'll see the beauty in time."  For the longest time I thought to myself, "yeah right," and told God to take a seat while I sorted things out.  But now - I can see it.  I can see the beauty.  But what exactly is that beauty?  I know the Truth.  The Truth was with me through circumstance.  The Truth carried me through circumstance.  The Truth has taught me who I am.  The Truth has set me free.

For years, I bought into a lie of thinking that freedom came by way of knowledge.  Sure, I dressed it up in a much more spiritually gorgeous cloak, but at it's root - I wanted knowledge about the truth.  In doing so, I missed knowing the Truth.  I would study scripture to learn the rules, understand the principals of the kingdom, then apply them to my life, thinking that if I abided by the truth, clung to an expectation of an outcome, things would work out.  See, my definition of this journey hinged on acquiring knowledge of truth, all the while not really knowing the Truth.  Faith meant conceiving an outcome that I desired, then clinging to that outcome and praying for it will all I had.

It left me empty, exhausted, and ultimately mad at God.

In time, I discovered what was at it's root.  It's no different than what Adam and Eve fell victim to in the garden.  Fear.  Someone once said to me, "Fear is faith for things you don't want."  Isn't that so true?  So why is it so easy to have faith in the things we don't want, but yet so hard to have faith in the Truth?  Every good thing comes from above.  He wants us to know how intimately He knows and loves us.  He wants to shower us with blessing!  The cross gets us back to the garden - no seperation.  So why do we still live in fear?  Why do we think God is trying to withold something from us?  Why do we think God is waiting for us to slip up, just to rip away a blessing?  Fear.  Wrong perspective.

Jesus said, "I am the Truth and the Truth will set you free."  He also said He'd leave behind the helper which would "guide us into all Truth."  Jesus didn't say, "I have a truth."  Jesus didn't say, "I have the truth/"  Jesus didn't say, "I know the truth."  He said it as if it were a state of being.  He *is* the truth.  Paul said we're dead and Christ indwells within us.    

So why is this so hard to understand?  I couldn't help but wonder, "How many of us are free?  Why aren't we free in the church?"  We're still afraid He'll keep us in the dark.  We're afraid we'll miss something and He'll withold some sort of blessing.  So to distract ourselves, we do all sorts of stuff - some "good", some bad.  But we fill the void with stuff.  All the while, trying to navigate that tightrope will of God....fear.  Paul said there are two forces - love and fear.  Which one rules us?

I'm begining to realize what Truth is.  I'm discovering who I really am in Him, peeling all the layers away of fear, seeing who I was created to be in Him.  I was created in His image.  He is pleased with me.  That's enlightenment.  That is True freedom!