Trusting When It's Weird

Remember the former things, those of long ago;
    I am God, and there is no other;
    I am God, and there is none like me.
10 I make known the end from the beginning,
    from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
    and I will do all that I please.’
11 From the east I summon a bird of prey;
    from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.
What I have said, that I will bring about;
    what I have planned, that I will do. Isaiah 46:9-11 (NIV)

The other day my husband told me that the grocery store across from his work had a line outside to go in. They would only let a limited number of people in at a time and when you were in there, they monitored how close you were to other people. This just seemed so weird to me.

The next morning, I realized we needed some food for the house so I decided to go to a grocery store near our home. I decided to go early just in case they would only let so many in at a time. I got there before the store opened and there were 2 people in line ahead of me. We were spaced strategically apart. I started a conversation with the woman in front of me and we were talking about how bizarre this all seemed.

People continued to come and get in line. Everyone was more or less spaced out. Some more careful than others. Some joined in the conversation and some didn’t. Here’s what I’ve noticed most though during this time. People’s eyes.

As you walk around the store (or anywhere for that matter), people are afraid. No one trusts anyone. There are looks of fear as we glance at each other almost afraid to make eye contact. They wonder where you’ve been. They wonder if you are secretly carrying a virus. They wonder if you can make them sick. I wonder if I say anything or interact if it is against the rules. The warmth is gone. The humanness is missing.

As I pondered this on the way home, I realized it would be super easy to get depressed in this situation. I am a people person and I just want to go up to people and hug them and love on them. (I’d probably get arrested.) I want to let them know that God is in control.

And he is. I know during times like these that is hard to see. I know that it seems like he’s not if he is allowing this to happen. But he is. God is still God. He has not relinquished his authority over our world. He is still all-powerful and completely in control of everything.

I don’t know why he is allowing all this. I ask him to take it away. But, I do trust him. I trust his decisions and I trust what he allows. I know his plan is more complex than my understanding. Most importantly, I trust his love. How can I not? If I don’t, then I don’t trust Jesus either. And I think that would be more devastating than any virus.

Fishing with God

1 One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee,[a] great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. 2 He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. 3 Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon,[b] its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.

4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”

5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” 6 And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! 7 A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.

8 When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man.” 9 For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him. 10 His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed.

Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” 11 And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus. Luke 5:1-11 (NLT)

As I read these verses today, I had an epiphany. I act just like Peter in this story. It goes something like this.

I have been working hard. I’m tired and I want to go somewhere and sit by myself and not talk to anyone. Something comes up and I hear God say “Go. I have something for you to do.” I reply “God, I’m tired. Can’t you see how hard I’ve been working? I want to stay home.” Pause. “OK. I’ll go but only because you said to.”

I go. I experience the most amazing conversation with someone who wants to know God more. I am elated. I am so happy I went because I got to experience Jesus in the middle of my circumstances. I praise God and am humbled at the same time. My heart drops to a prostrate position and I am overwhelmed.

I am overwhelmed because that conversation where someone wanted to know more about God has just set me up to share that. I feel completely inadequate at this moment. How can I possibly do that and get it right? Can anyone truly share that in such a way that glorifies God as he deserves? I get scared.

And God say “It’s OK. I am here. This is not you but me working. Don’t be afraid.” And even though I am still scared, I go. Because fishing with God is way better than anything else I had planned.

Being

He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach Mark 3:14 (NIV)

Jesus came to this world to show us a better way. He came to reveal God to us. He came to a world that had religion so defined, there was no joy. There were lists upon lists of things to do. Everything was about what you were doing, how you were doing it and if you were doing it well enough.

And here we are today, somehow doing the same thing.

Jesus spent an entire night in prayer before he called the disciples (Luke 6). He was talking to and listening to His Father before he made this huge decision. I am sure there was some wrestling. I wonder if there was a lot of discussion about Judas. I wonder how he prayed over each and every person that was being considered. I wonder if he discussed their strengths and weaknesses. Gosh, I would love to hear that prayer so I could learn how to pray with the heart of Jesus.

He came off the mountain and offered the invitation to these men. But notice, he didn’t invite them to hone their skills. He didn’t invite them to use their gifts or work on their weaknesses. He didn’t even gift them a task at first. Mark says “he appointed the twelve that they might be with him.”

Before he sent them to preach, they needed to be with him. Before they were to cast out demons and heal the sick, they needed to spend time with him, learning who he was….who God was. They needed to live life together to see how his Kingdom worked. They would watch him love on people, speak into their hearts, heal them and lead them to God.

It was only after that, only after experiencing who he was, that they could even think about their calling.

Each one of us has been invited. We have been invited to “be with him.” Do we have gifts to use? Yes. I know lots of gifted people. Jen, is great at organizing things. Steve is amazing at orchestrating the flow of events. Roni is so creative when teaching children. There are so many people with extraordinary abilities. But that is not what Jesus wants from us first. First, he wants us to spend time with him. He wants our hearts. Nothing else matters.

When we spend time with him first, then and only then, are we able to truly live the life we are called to live. Only then will we make an impact in our world for his glory. Being a Christian is more about being than doing. Spend some time with Jesus just being. The doing will come. But when it does, it will be born from your heart, not your to do list.

Remaining

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. John 15:4 (NLT)

My husband and I were going away for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. I’d been traveling for 3 weeks and we decided we needed some time away. A family member opened up their home by a beautiful lake for us to use so we decided to take food with us to eat at the house. The morning we were going to leave, we decided to go to the grocery store.

We walked in and were shocked. Quite a few of the tables that normally were laden with fruits and veges were bare. Most of the staples we buy were not to be found. It was pretty disconcerting. As we walked around the store, we noticed the same in the frozen vegetable isle, the bread isle, etc. We adjusted and bought some other things and were on our way.

As I said, I had been traveling for 3 weeks so we were running low on some essentials. Don’t laugh but toilet paper was one of them. We were hearing all the stories of people hoarding toilet paper. Hard to believe during a situation like this that that’s what people are focusing on. Anyway, we were in the country so we decided to look there to see if what we experienced was just a “city” thing or a phenomena all over. We tried a couple of stores and they had food, but no toilet paper. LOL!

I am not going to even try to figure out the psychology behind that. I was however trying to figure out what I was feeling in my own head. I am finding this whole experience disturbing. In America, most of us have more than enough. Some of us have more than enough in our pantries to keep us fed for a long time. Yet, we are so fearful of being without. Granted, there are people who are not in that situation….and I bet they are not the ones in the stores hoarding food. As I said, disturbing.

As I prayed about it, I heard God say “Remain in me.” We are branches connected to the Vine of Jesus Christ. We need to stay connected all the time. During scary, disconcerting times. During hard times of sickness or job loss. During times of abundance and times of lean. During happy times where we get to celebrate good things. We always need to stay connected so we can, no matter what our circumstances, share the Jesus we know.

Nick and I have made a decision that we will share what we have during this time, no matter what. Even if we think we don’t have enough, we are going to be Jesus with skin on. We are going to reach out our neighbors and folks we know to make sure they are doing OK. We are asking God to show us how to help where we can. There are a lot of people trying to do this.

I think the harder thing is to really stay connected. To trust that God’s got this and he is in it with us. To trust that no matter what is changing in our lives, no matter how upside down it feels that we are still in the care of a loving Father. Remain. Stay connected. No matter what.

You Want Us Why?

Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends. Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (GNT)

One of the projects I was working on was supposed to end at the end of the month. I joined late and was working with the team to move it to completion. As time clicked by, the customer decided they wanted to extend the project. There were some complications that needed to be ironed out and they wanted to safely get to the roll out without a lot of disruption.

I talked to the head of the project (Project A) and told him I needed to roll off. I had another commitment (Project B) scheduled at the beginning of the next month and would not be able to focus my time on this particular adventure any more. He suggested I stay and attend some meetings to help out. I said I would as long as I could. 

As Project B ramped up, my schedule became more and more full. One day, I was sitting in on a meeting in Project A and there were some things said that made me pause. I really couldn’t speak into Project A anymore. I wasn’t around enough. As they had meetings and made decisions, I could not provide input, especially if I wasn’t there. Then I started thinking about my reputation. Folks knew I was added to the team to help course correct and while the team was doing an incredible job, I began to worry about what would happen if the project went south for some reason. Would people still respect my work if my name were inadvertently still tied to it?

I was explaining all this to my husband and suddenly it hit me....I’m so glad God doesn’t think this way. We are here, doing his work and sometimes we give him a say...sometimes we don’t. I know sometimes I don’t represent him well. I may want to say all the things I know God wants but my heart betrays me and I stumble and mis-represent him. 

The Bible is pretty clear that we are here to glorify God. And that God wants us to participate in sharing Jesus with folks. And he lets us....even though sometimes I wonder if he cringes when we say and do the stuff we say and do. What kind of God would love us so much that he allows us to mess up, involve him in our mess and still invite us to participate in the story? 

Recognizing all this makes my heart overwhelmed. It makes me want to figure out a way to do this job I have been given better.....but I can’t on my own. Jesus needs to be calling the shots. He needs to be guiding my footsteps and he certainly needs to be in charge of making my decisions. I can’t do what my heart desires on my own. Only through staying connected to Jesus can I give God the glory he deserves.

Dear Jesus, help me to live today, listening for your voice, following your lead as you lead us in this big Adventure! Amen

The Best Provision

Finally Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not allow this conflict to come between us or our herdsmen. After all, we are close relatives!  The whole countryside is open to you. Take your choice of any section of the land you want, and we will separate. If you want the land to the left, then I’ll take the land on the right. If you prefer the land on the right, then I’ll go to the left.”  Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)  Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram.  So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain.  But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord. After Lot had gone, the Lord said to Abram, “Look as far as you can see in every direction—north and south, east and west.  I am giving all this land, as far as you can see, to you and your descendants as a permanent possession.  And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!  Go and walk through the land in every direction, for I am giving it to you.” So Abram moved his camp to Hebron and settled near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. There he built another altar to the Lord. Genesis 13:8-18 (NLT)

Abraham moved away from this home. He took everything he had. And he took Lot and all he had. Lot’s father had passed away so Abraham kind of adopted him.

As their flocks grew, quarreling broke out between their workers so Abraham suggested they separate their households to make things easier. Now Abraham, being older should have been the one to choose where he wanted to settle. it was his right as the eldest. But he didn’t. He asked Lot to choose. And Lot looked around at the fertile fields of the Jordan Valley and picked that space.

Abraham said OK. You take that. Lot took what he thought was the best. Abraham didn’t say anything. He didn’t strive to take care of himself. Instead, he served to take care of Lot.

I wonder as God watched what he thought. Was he sad because Lot looked at the best fields and chose that instead of looking out for Abraham? Was he proud of Abraham for putting others first?

Lot moves out and God moved in. He came to Abraham and said “Abraham, look as far as you can see. It’s all yours. I am giving this to you.” And Abraham worshiped. Lot moved to an area that was full of wickedness and later would lose everything.

No matter how hard we strive, no matter how much we work to take care of ourselves. It is not what we get that matters. It’s what God gives us that makes all the difference. God may not give us everything as far as we can see, but he will provide. What he provides for each of us is different; different yet perfect. Perfect for us. And his gifts, no matter what they are far outweigh anything we can accumulate on our own.

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.

Not Of This World But In It

“Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. John 17:13-20 (NLT)

Recently, I heard two stories that really bothered me. One was a post on Facebook by a friend who was sitting in a parking lot on the phone and a man drove up next to her, revealed himself in a lewd way and then drove off. It was a horrifying experience.

Then, a few days later on the news there was a story about a woman on a plane who woke up to a man groping her. The news said that the instance of women being groped on planes had increased 66% over the last three years.

As I sat there and watched the news, thoughts started creeping into my head. I am starting to travel more and these reports disturbed me. And I thought “I think I should just stay home more. Maybe if I don’t go out, I can avoid this horrible stuff.”

And then I realized that was exactly what Satan wanted me to think. If I shrink back from being in the world because I am afraid, he has won. 

Jesus is sending us into the world to make a difference. He is sending us to be a light in a dark place, salt to a world that is tasteless. We are to go and trust that God will be in every minute....even the scary and offensive ones. 

I am deeply disturbed for all the people who are experiencing the depravity of a world that has lost sight of God. I pray for the safety of everyone I know all the time. But God’s Word is clear. We cannot withdraw from what we are called to do. 

We have to engage. We have to “Go” and be Jesus here. We will only do that if we trust that God is bigger, stronger and present. He is present in a dying world because we “Go.”