Many things swirled at the same time...
I had just come from teaching a course
on living a life that is true to our beliefs. I'll be honest I do
love Martin Luther's quote, when it is written that he said, “Be
a sinner and sin
boldly,
but
believe and
rejoice
in Christ even more boldly.” I love when Nouwen writes concerning
his beauty and his betrayals, I love when Paul writes about the
things he wanted to do, he did not do but the things he did not do,
he did.
In
my own place in life I am always so tempted to hide away the
limitations and weaknesses and put upon my best face and be strong
and walk in the giftings upon my life. But now, NOW... now; Now I
just want to walk. I want to be myself. I want to live joyfully, to
live my life joyfully, to live creatively, to live love, to live
rest, to live patience and that list could go on and on. The point
is I want to live. I want to live my life and not some life I think
I should live.
As
I emerged from that class I think I granted unto myself a great
permission. It was so freeing. I discovered how much I am thrilled
by teaching and mentoring people into the depths of true, interior
changing, discipleship... I gave myself permission to not live in
the shallows but to live....
There
have been two quotes that have been ruminating within my heart these
last weeks.. One by Brother Lawrence and one by Frank Laubach, both
of the same heart...
Lawrence's
speaks of “In these times of dryness and unclearness which bother
our souls, there needs to be fidelity to Him.” It has pounded and
pounded away at me. I receive it. I receive the conviction it
brings. The stirring it lands with, the discontent and contentedness
it births both at the same time. I WANT TO have within the depths of
me, within my CORE the reality of FIDELITY! Regardless of terrain,
regardless of success or failure, I AM HIS! Fidelity to Him must
rule and reign over my appetites, my passions, my wants, my needs...
Fidelity to Him has become my cry and it has become my all and I am
being made new...
No,
I can't do that because that would mean I am not walking as I was
created to walk, I will be walking in a place, accepting a place less
than what He ever meant for me. This is NOT religious adherence to
rules or doctrine, it isn't birthed forth from that place... It is
birthed forth from desire and passion for Him and to be rightly
situated before Him always...
Which
brings me to Frank Laubach.. Practicing each moment to ask for our
God to encompass each minute, each section of our day.. to pray and
invite the Lord into every aspect of our lives and to understand that
His grandest desire is that we would partake in Him and His presence
and He would reside and be with us... We sit in His shadow as He
overshadows us! We reside in the palm of His hand while He keeps it
open, ensuring that nothing will pluck us away...
All
of this brings me to this place where I paused and saw His heart for
community, for church... It was as if I saw a million pictures at
once, and we were all foster children running astray.
It
was heart breaking, convicting, and powerful. To both us as the
children and to us as people who attempt to lead within churches and
ministries.
Let
my mind be renewed, that the people I would serve are bearing the
very image of the God we worship. That in their mistakes, in their
sins, in their immaturity; they are not throw aways... they are not
people passing through front door to back door. They are the people
whose hearts we are meant to touch and they are the people who are
meant to touch our hearts, and lives.
Let
my mind be renewed, that I am not (even if I am ) just a stepping
stone in people's lives. We all need homes, a place that is safe and
to which we can belong. We are not foster children in the system of
God's church on the earth.
It
is hard to plant and remain planted within a Body of believers, when
something goes wrong, the natural tendency is withdraw, isolate,
leave... or maybe we abandon, neglect, discard... I can not say to
any other within this mystical Body of Christ upon the earth that
they aren't needed.
Troubled
and alone.. you are needed
Sick
and in bed.. you are needed
Successful
and prominent.. you are needed BUT not more than the homeless
individual you pass every day going to your corner office in some
high rise.
CEO,
Bus driver, Preacher, Nurse, Garbage Collector, Star Gazer, Dreamer,
Prisoner, Lunatic..... YOU are all needed... The hand can not say to
the foot it is not needed...
May
we have renewed eyes to see each other.. renewed hearts to receive
one another, renewed minds to comprehend the thoughts and intentions
of our God as we journey our individual and collective journey here
upon the face of the earth...
You
are loved and received.. There is no foster child in the kingdom of
God, may we all learn to live lives worthy of the depth of the
calling that is upon us as image bearers of the Lord Most High.
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2 comments:
My heart really resonates with this beautifully written & heart felt message. Thank you & bless you!
I realize that in pursuing heavenly things where Christ is seated, I lost some aspects of my own humanity. The heavenly realities are real alright, but they can’t be shared with many who follow on to know God. Jesus even said “If I tell you of earthly things and you can’t get it, how can I tell you of heavenly things”?! He lived in the two realities simultaneously, heaven and here. But in the pressing in to know these other dimensional realities and the freedom Christ can bring within me I got it wrong somewhere. I lost the warmth, the human side….something Jesus did not do. Not that I didn’t want the human side, it was just elusive, because what I was up against was longing for God in ways no-one could share knowledge of with me, but that I had experienced as real. Angels, yes, but more than that, other heavenly righteous beings we can interact with to do what God wants done and who are perceivably outside of ‘men’s breakfasts’ and the perfectly valid but limiting ‘team’ mentalities that try and get you to do stuff God’s not got for you to do. And so ‘people’, especially in what presented itself as ‘church’, were just a back-pull to a lesser realm for me. I couldn’t identify with what came over as their non-pursuit of a deeper awareness of God and also their obsessions with and satisfactions with earthly forms of religious (even prophetically religious) behavior. Many good and lovely people, but no real depth in Christ. No mentors. No nothing that way. Stark. Because I wouldn’t settle for less. Fellowship (if it could be called that) was only via internet meetings and that merely as a learning more how to discern. Now, however, God’s balancing me up, and I am grateful.
I’m being honest so I don’t expect to be judged! I can climb a mountain with you, or cook an experimental fish meal together, share a beer, tidy your garden when rubbish blows in from the street, or listen to you if you want to talk, and do my best to involve myself with what you’re interested in, and love you in as far as you’ll let me and as best I can, but don’t ask me to be involved with a solidified, closed churchy limited prophetic mentality, where so many ‘leaders’ are not real leaders leading into the new that can't be found in the system they lead. I’m out of it. I’m on my way into the ‘restoration of all things’, and to my pleasure I realize that a key part of that restoration includes my human side as well as traveling in heavenly dimensions. I can be a full human being on earth and at the same time still be developing into other aspects of what it means to be a new creature in Christ.
Actually God has kept me from being hurt worse, and spiritually stunted, and damaged perhaps permanently as a human being, by keeping me out of ‘church’! What a thought! He has pruned me and loved me in other ways though. He uses many things, in church systems or out of them, to get one to be His.
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