Living Messy

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. 1 John 4:7-12 (NLT)

Lately, I haven’t been writing on this blog as much. I am not really sure why that is but I think part of is it is that life has become so overwhelming. Not in a bad way. Overwhelmingly full with God directing all the goings on. There are so many moving parts, so much God is saying. I am trying to say focused on what he is doing and what he is telling me to do.....The journey is amazing and I’m loving it. But to try to put it into words sometimes overwhelms me.

As you know, I started the process to plant a church. And I am still working my day job. There are lots of terms for this: bivocation and covocation.. All of those mean different things but I like dual vocational because honestly, you are going head on in what feels like two different directions at once. Crazy also fits some days.

My day job has suddenly picked up. A LOT. And I have been working on the church plant. Then, there is life. Family which I adore. Wash to be done, bills to be paid, groceries to be purchased and the distinct call God has placed on all of our lives to reach out to people and love them where ever he directs that day. This is what I am learning is living a life called to serve Jesus. It’s not organized. It can seem very chaotic and honestly, some days it feels like a whirlwind where you are managing many completely different things as the same time.

Here’s the problem. I am a very task oriented person. While God has been teaching me to be more people oriented than task oriented over the years when I get busy, guess what I revert back to?

A week or so ago, I got really frustrated because something wasn’t working as efficiently as it should. I was talking to God about it and complaining and in general venting about the lack of communication and the problems it caused. In my venting, I usually get around to asking him about my part in this play. As I did, he asked me a question.

Were the lives of the people I used in the Bible efficient and well put together? Or were they messy? Are there any God stories that you know that involve people that run like a well-oiled machine? Including yours? 

And there was my “ah ha” moment. God is a God of order. I know that. But he is also a God that loves people. More than anything. My tendency to want things to work well, flow smoothly and be communicated fully is fine. They are good traits to have but, never at the expense of people. 

Above all else, we need to love each other. It is only in demonstrating that love are we are going to show Jesus’ love to a world that can’t see it (both in and out of the church by the way.)

I am still a messy work in progress and thank God, he is still using me. You see no matter how efficient I am, no matter how well I can make a project run (that’s my day job), compared to Jesus, I am still a mess. And his grace covers me. That knowledge should totally change the way I live my life and the focus of my days.

Reset

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

Lately, I’ve found myself really busy. My day job has amped up in activity and my other job of living life for Jesus has done the same. I say there are two jobs when in reality, it is one job. My job is to live my life with all the activity in it for Jesus. 

Frequently, we compartmentalize our lives. We have our families, our jobs and our spiritual walk but we keep them separate. It’s no wonder we can’t see God moving. If we keep spiritual things in a spiritual box, how do we expect to see God moving in our circumstances or in the lives of the people we live life with?

Whether I am attending meetings with hundreds (not kidding here) of people or I’m standing at a sink washing dishes, it’s all a life with Jesus filtered through it. If I am leading a Bible Study or working through a schedule with a team for a deployment, it’s all God’s work. 

And when we see it that way, God gets free reign to move as he wants whether it be in work conversations or in a family member resting because I am doing dishes. God wants to be a part of all of it, not just a one day a week event.

So how do you live life keeping God at the center? For me, it’s my morning reset. Each morning I get up and spend time with Jesus. What I do isn’t so important....and that changes day to day depending on how I feel, but each day I come. And I reset.

I reset from thinking about my list of things to do to the people I will see that day. I get a reset from worrying about a particular problem to remembering that God is in charge of it all and he’s got this. I reset from looking at my overly full calendar to a mindset that this day belongs to Jesus and it will be what he wants it to be so I can let go. Mostly, I reset knowing I am loved and a part of a much bigger plan. I get to look at each day with excitement waiting to see what God is going to do. 

Resetting my human agenda to God’s agenda is how I can keep the messy life I live centered with one purpose.....a Jesus purpose.

Why And Why Not?

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult. Matthew 7:13-14 (NLT)

When I was a little girl there was a popular country song that played on the radio. It was called “I Beg Your Pardon” by Lynn Anderson. (I realize that admitting that I know this song seriously dates me.) The chorus goes like this:

I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There's gotta be a little rain some time

We walk through this life and get frustrated because sometimes it just feels so hard. And we complain. We expected it to be easier. If I am following the Almighty God and he can do anything, why doesn’t he do something to make this better?

I wonder if God is saying “I beg your pardon? I never promised you a rose garden.” And he didn’t. In Matthew he tells the disciples clearly “But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult.” That gateway to life is the road we follow when we choose Jesus.

If you look at the people in the Bible, I can’t think of one who had a life that was amazing and free of difficulties. There isn’t one that chooses God, is blessed and then dies saying “That was easy.” Can you? Let’s face it. Stuff happens to everyone (that’s the effect of sin in our world.) We just think because we are Christ-followers it shouldn’t happen to us.

Instead of asking “Why?” maybe the question we should be asking is “Why not?” We are told we are in a battle. We are told that The Liar is trying to mess with us. We should expect that this life is not going to be easy. Then, we should remember that while Jesus said it would be hard, he also said “I’m in it with you. I’ve not gone anywhere. I’m right here. Trust me.”

I think as we contemplate the magnitude of His Presence in our lives, the gift we’ve been given, that would be the time to ask “Why?”

How To Share The Gospel

We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too. 1 Thessalonians 2:8 (NLT)

What do you think the difference was between how Jesus shared the Gospel and how we sometimes do it?  1 Thessalonians 2:8 is an eye opener.  Here it is in different versions.

Because we loved you, we were happy to share not only God’s Good News with you, but even our own lives. You had become so dear to us!  NCV

Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. NIV

We loved you dearly. Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts. And we did. MSG

What stands out to you in those verses?  Of course, the love that was felt for people. But, then the text goes on to talk about sharing life, giving of yourself. So often we Christians look at sharing the Gospel as something we have to do to check the box instead of an act of love. And no offense but I think it's really hard to walk up to a stranger on the street and say let me tell you about the Gospel and share love. You might be talking about God's love but you are not actually loving someone.

If God is calling you to a drive-by, then do it but Jesus' example was living life with the people he was trying to reach. He got into the messiness and the politics and the pain of it all and stayed there. He lived the love he knew and by doing that showed us how to do the same. Get into the messiness with people. Stay. Support. Reflect the love you know.

Inside-Outside-Upside-Down

“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. Matthew 5:3-8 (MSG)

Jesus gave these principles to a crowd of people sitting on the hillside. He was trying to explain how God saw things. This would still apply to us today.

We are so trained to make everything look good on the outside. We want people to see us as successful, financially stable, no problems at all. We only let people see what we want them to see, the good stuff. We hide the problems, the sadness and the messiness of our lives from everyone because we want people to approve of who we are.

But Jesus said in this sermon that all that messiness, all the stuff we are trying to stuff on the inside is the good stuff. It's in that messiness, in that chaos that God works. God doesn't care what we look like on the outside. He wants us to take a good look at what he can see on the inside. That's the good stuff. That is the stuff that will give your life meaning.

So, when you are at the end of your rope, when you feel like you've lost everything, when you just don't care anymore what people think -- then you are blessed. Because it's during the chaotic, messy, down-right scary times in life that God shows up and heals your heart.