Why Do Church?

Maybe it's because it's so long and so tiring.  Three hours is a long time to keep the kids walking not running, in sight, safe, occupied, focussed, decently behaved, fed, bathroomed, and generally pleasant in a public setting.  Also, it's a long time to be close to a bunch of people I like and would enjoy talking to, but always feel multi-distracted.

Maybe it's because the exhaustion and multi-tasking has been going on for so long.  I feel like I remember when it was enjoyable, relaxing, and energizing.  It was both socially and spiritually satisfying.  But that was a very long five years ago.  And the end of this stage doesn't seem to be in sight.

Maybe it's because I'm not involved enough to see the good stuff that is happening.  I remember when I used to know more of what was going on and why it was going on.  But it just isn't practical to do more in this season.

Maybe it's because it feels bigger.  It's grown and I don't know the people or the programs or the leadership.  I don't know what decisions are being made or why they need to be made in the first place.

Maybe I've been there too long.  Thirty-one years is a long time in the same place.  At some point does it stop being faithfulness and start being laziness?

I don't actually know what it is, exactly, but I'm starting to wonder if I belong at our church.  It scares me a bit to even think those words, because it has been so long and it is all I know and I do so love the community I have there.

But even on the good days, when the kids are contained and happy, when I get to chat with someone, and when I hear the majority of a sermon, I'm still not fully convinced.

And there is the conundrum that if I shy away from involvement I feel like the whole church experience does not have a lot of value.  Yet if I get involved, I so often feel disheartened.  Years of being turned down for music ideas.  Processes that move so slowly.  Repetition and predicability and so little vision or passion or excitement or change.  My spontaneity and my personality don't fit in.  Maybe I just wasn't made for church.  I don't want to bail, but I need to be reminded of why I am doing this.  Instead it just feels like another disappointment is on the horizon.

Give me grace, Lord Jesus, for my brothers and sisters.

All of Me

The phrases in my head and the sparks in my heart are all saying the same thing.  Abandon everything to Jesus.  Let Him reign in your life.  Give it all to Him.  Trust completely.  Withhold nothing.  Don't be lukewarm.  Hand over control.  Follow wholeheartedly.  Be all in.

Every which way I look, every book I read, and every song I sing keeps coming back to the drastic.  Die to myself and live only for Him.  The corners of my soul have their concerns, but I can feel the centre growing.  I can feel embers being stirred and the flames beginning to lick at the edges of revival.  

My logical self wants to know what it will look like.  What specific arenas of my life am I withholding?  What would it look like to give Him control in those places?  Really, concretely, what would need to change?

But the part of me that just loves Jesus for who He is, that part just wants to grow the love.  It doesn't want to worry about the consequences or the difficult things it may be asked to do.  It doesn't care about the details and it not fixated on the steps of growing or glorifying.  It just enjoys the moments, the whispers, the intimacy and wants to let the trickles of His glory turn to a deluge.  Just by loving, by listening, by breathing His goodness in and out.

Quote of the Day

Me: Niko, why are you still awake?
Niko: I'm not.

God of Deep Compassion

The things that make my heart beat faster with compassion are from you.  They make me feel that awful thing in my gut and at the same time get my excited to do something.  To help, to fix, to get involved.  They touch me deeply and my passion bubbles up from a sacred place within me.  That's what it feels like to be in the middle of God's will for me.

When S answered the question of what motivates her, it was so obviously of God.  I had never thought of truth as a motivator because it's not one that affects me that way, but she had barely started speaking and her voice got more firm, her words flowed more quickly, and she became more animated.  Authority rose up in her and it was easy to see her in the middle of God's will for her.

Adding that concept to my mental picture of Jesus, makes me see beyond the words of John 11:33 and into Jesus' heart.  "When Jesus saw her weeping...he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled."  I have a God of compassion, who feels to His very core.  His responses are not the calculated actions of someone uninvolved in the situation.  Rather he sees me, His child, and his heart is moved.  His breath quickens, his stomach tightens, his pulse races, his fists clench.  He feels with me and for me as I journey.  I have a God of deep compassion.

Filled and Overflowing

A weekend away from normal, hours of uplifting conversation, many laughs between girlfriends, the kind of sharing that connects people, worshipping with 9,000 women, and soaking in such great speakers have left me filled.  I arrived at the conference in "a pretty good place" with Jesus.  A place that seemed better and better every time I heard what other people are dealing with.

So I am thankful.  Thank you, Jesus, that we could afford the financial cost of the weekend.  Thank you that Bernie is such a competent father and was willing to look after the boys.  Thank you that each of the kids was in a place where they could handle me leaving.  Thank you that we were all at full health.  Thank you that we have so much family who can help out.  Thank you that Syl was willing to go with me.  Thank you for the pain and hurt you have spared me in my life.  Thank you for my roots.

And thank you for being with me in this place of goodness, where I can go and soak up truth and your story.  There are many snippets that are ringing in my ears still, but the underlying thread is your story.  I was moved to hear of how powerfully present you have been in so many people's lives - from the speakers to the music artists to the people I travelled with.  I was challenged to remember no matter where I am right now, every part of my life and faith journey is a season.  And that you are most powerfully present when you seem to be most apparently absent.

I feel filled, Jesus.  I feel filled from this weekend and I want it to overflow.  It is so easy and natural for me to overflow your love onto my friends, neighbours, and acquaintances.  It is easy to see their needs and acknowledge them.  That comes naturally for me.

But I want this filling to overflow onto my family.  The place where I am more stressed and less polished than anywhere else.  Onto my husband, who sees the worst of me.  Onto my kids, who see the most of me.  Onto the ones who are already predisposed to being annoyed by me.

Trust and God's Story

Of all the things to put my trust in, putting it in You seems most logical.  I want to stop taking back 'control'.  Of course, it's not really control I'm taking back, just the imaginary feeling of it.  But knowing I don't and can't ever have control, doesn't seem to stop me from pretending I do.  Having ideas.  Making plans.  Dreaming and scheming.  Good things, but my things.  On my terms, in my ways, with my timing.  To be counted as my accomplishments if I succeed.  And to be hidden as my failures if I do not.  Or perhaps, at best, to be learned from and improved upon as my lessons if I do not.  But even still, it's all so self-centered.  So natural, yet so very much missing the point.

God is weaving an incredible story in and through those who are willing to keep in step with His Spirit at work around them.  I want to be one of them.  I don't want to miss anything.  I don't want to walk right past an opportunity to be involved in God's story because I was preoccupied with my own selfish stuff.

Besides, my stuff is so pale and limp and lame compared to His.  I know how much God loves me, and I put my trust in His love.  The place where I couldn't be safer.  The place where my ideas and passions and dreams will be of Him.  The place where he can mold and shape the big hopes and the hidden corners of me.  Daily.   Hourly.  So that there is no 'my things' outside of Him, because 'my things' are already smack in the middle of Him.

God, the story of You and us is amazing and tumultuous and devastating and elating and suspenseful and altogether Yours.  Thank you for the intimacy you share with us, Your created.  Thank you for inviting me into the story even as You inspire me with it.  Thank you for what makes me uniquely me.  Lord, I want to find myself in You and You alone.  I want to trust in You and You alone.  The words I want to say are words I am scared-silly to say: Make me humble, make me dependent, make me only Yours.

Room for Baggage

You can't talk to him that way!  It's just not fair.  Not from your spot on the corner of the couch.  Not half-reclined with your arm across your chest.  Yes, he is emotional and full of outbursts.  Many of them are uncalled for and most are unnecessary.  Yes, he is rowdy and full of energy.  Much of it is explosive and all of it is exhausting.  Yes, his arms flail and his legs kick and his voice booms out of control.  Some if it is age and stage.  Some of it is personality.  Some of it is circumstances.  Some of it is choice.  Some of it baffles him as much as it does us.

But it doesn't even matter why he does it, what's going on inside, whether there was a legitimate trigger, or how you are feeling at that particular moment.  If you snap at him, your reaction is the same as his: you aren't controlling your emotions or acting in a polite and acceptable way either.  Sure, yours is less disruptive, less prolonged, less of a full-body experience.  But it's just an adult version of the same thing: uncontrolled and improperly expressed emotions.

And you know what else?  If you're not down there on the floor interacting, you don't have the right to react.  You can get annoyed and it can tick you off that it's noisy, rude, or otherwise unacceptable behaviour.  Totally.  It irritates me too.  But you're not giving him an idea of what to pretend.  You're not inviting him to join you in an activity.  You're not racing cars or constructing towers or setting up farms or playing super heros.  Unless you are right there with him, engaged and redirecting as you go, you don't have the right to bark at him.

Please stop.  Please show him the love you say you have for him.  It won't be too much longer before he feels the disconnect that I see.