Category Archives: church

Seasons of Change

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a very distinct memory of mine. Around 15 years ago, standing on the right-hand side of the church we were going to talking to someone. At the time I had a 1 year old, 4-year-old, 6-year-old, and a 9-year-old. Then someone approached me and said, “I’ve been praying for you and I just feel like the Lord wants me to tell you, you are just in a season.” I’m sure they said more, but that is all I got out of that conversation. As I went home, I remember thinking to myself, “This is going to be the longest season I’ve ever been through. I just started and I have another 17 years before it’s over.” I didn’t think there would ever be the end of meal planning, dirty diapers, nursing, house cleaning, disciplining, etc. Everyday felt like another day in the movie “Groundhog’s Day”. Same thing over and over and over. What’s weird is how gradually it all changed. One significant milestone reached by one kid, then another, and another,… you get the point (some people just don’t know when to stop having kids, ha ha) It’s like this long spiral ladder of progress that feels like you’re going nowhere and then all of a sudden you look down and see how far you’ve really gone. Although internally I wanted to smack the sweet sister who told me “It’s just a season”, the truth is, it was. What seemed like forever was really a flash, and here I sit on the other side, pondering just how much things change, how quickly it does, and how I don’t even notice until I wake up on a whole new life time plane to figure out and maneuver within.

Today my husband and I went to church.  That’s been our mode of operation for the past 27 years. The difference was I didn’t have four little ones to try to wrangle through the worship service, and hope that they would stay in children’s church for an hour so I could get a break.  It was just me and him.  The oldest 3 are off doing their own thing in their own lives, and the youngest would prefer to sit by friends than us, not that I mind or anything.  I’ve hit another season… this one doesn’t seem like it holds as many challenges as the previous. But I’m fairly certain it does.  That’s kind of what seasons do.  In summer, the challenge is to keep cool, in winter, the challenge is to keep warm. In Spring, the challenge is to get everything planted in the garden.  In fall, the challenge is to get everything processed that you planted in the garden.  Life is kind of like that as well. I’ve awakened to a world where my husband and I are sitting in the same room alone quite a bit, the house is quiet, and the only ones I need to feed on the regular are me and him.  It’s quite a bit different than the world I just left where the only place I could get alone was in the master bathroom after I locked myself into my room and hid back in that corner of the house, or all I heard on the hourly if not more is “mom I’m hungry”, “mom what do you have to eat?” “Mom tell him to stop…” (you get the picture)

So, what’s a girl to do with this whole new gig? Especially since the past 8 months I’ve found myself with less and less outside commitments.   It’s pretty uncomfortable to not be “doing” when all you’ve known for quite awhile is “do”. 

I think every once and awhile God likes to get us here: At a place where “doing” isn’t what defines us, but “being” is. I know that I have a tendency to use a title to define myself, and like most, a title with a little umph behind it feels even better. But “who I am” is what means the most not so much what all I do, and maybe for a “season”, God wants me to rest in that.

It’s kind of like this sleepy Sunday afternoon with me and the husband in a quiet, practically empty two-story house. We finally have some time to just enjoy each other, sit next to each other and talk. Spiritually, God’s brought me here as well. I can enjoy God more, not the ministry, the busyness, one activity/ meeting to the next. Instead, spending time being His girl, listening to His heart, and letting Him prepare me for the next season whatever it may be like. Because where He leads is good especially since where He leads, He is.

Just Come

Posted on by
Reply

I tend to complicate things, and sometimes the image I present to you may become more important than the content of my heart. I want you to see the good things about me. Especially when I present it on social media. You would know I am having the worst possible day of my life if I posted a status of “having a horrible day, my life really stinks”. I reserve that kind of feeling and show for those closest to me, my inner circle. I want to put on a good show.

I believe that is how a lot of us approach God. We tend to base our relationship with Him on our external display of our piety. “Look at me God, I gave some money.” “Look at me God, I did a good deed. ” “Look at me God, I am sacrificing my time, talents, and abilities in Church programs to prove my devotion to you.”

Our displays of devotion are microcosms of displays that other “devotees” around the world put forward to try to “pay” the price to somehow make themselves right.

Years ago I was struck by images I saw of a group of Filipinos on Good Friday. They tried to show their devotion to God by literal self flagellation and ultimately crucifying each other. I was shocked at how the report said these poor people would crawl on hands and knees for miles to a church to offer their acts of penance to God in hopes of His acceptance of them. “Here I am God. Look how much devotions I have. I have beaten myself, crawled for miles and allowed those around me to drive literal nails in my hands to display my devotion.”

So sad!

This morning I have been reflecting on Matthew 6:5-6 NIV in my time with God.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Jesus spelled out in very plain words the way to approach Him: intimately as a child with their father in a private place, secretly. One on one.

There’s no set of rules, requirements, and expectations to be met. Simply come.

Come as you are afraid, doubting, and heartbroken. Trade these in, in the secret place for faith, boldness, and peace as you pour out your heart to Him. Nothing complicated or impossible. Simple humbleness before the One who desires to mold us and fashion us there in that secret place to be what He always intended for us to be.

I’m always awed by the size of a mustard seed. It is smaller than the font I have chosen to write this blog. Yet that is the size of what Jesus said our Faith could be and still move mountains. We are the ones who tend to complicate. We do so, so much that it sometimes paralyzes us to inaction. “I can never be enough for God so why try?” All the while He is waiting for us to Just come. Come with what little we have to that secret place with Him. Open our hearts to Him so that we find there the intimacy He literally died to give us.

No need to complicate things. No need to present an image to Him. He already knows. “Just come”.

“Lost the Plot”- How Did We Get Here?

Posted on by
Reply

A few days ago another prominent Christian came out as questioning and denying his faith, Marty Sampson of Hillsong in Australia. For some reason the ins and outs of his Instagram confession have been reverberating inside of me. My own questions arise: As the church, how have we missed it that we have not addressed the issues he struggled with: “Preachers fall”, “Miracles don’t happen”, “Bible contradictions”, “a loving God sending people to Hell”, “Judgemental Christians”, and “Just Believe it- never doubt” ?

I think most of these questions are rooted in a much deeper issue than one of an individuals “crisis of faith”. I believe they come from a disillusioned parishioner of a well oiled, performance machine/ business that we commonly call “the church”. It’s an oh too common scene in our modern church world. How can we get more people, build larger facilities, create a more exciting atmosphere, have the best programs, be the “church” that has a name everyone knows? In the meantime the ones within the machine bear up under the weight of trying to be producers and workers instead of what we were meant to be “the bride of Christ”; a “family”, instead of a multi level marketing scheme that we buy in on in hopes of creating some kind of profit in our own life- the benefits of association I guess…

My heart aches for this man that I don’t know. Because all the questions he listed are questions that many struggle with and instead of reaching out with loving answers, we point our fingers and doubt the sincerity of all the years he tried to be what he says now he is not. It is sad to me that the weight of the lies he has struggled to overcome have now outweighed the truth in his life and now he finds himself on the outside of the church and his relationship with God and he is “fine with that”.

The Newsboys released a song in 1996 called “Lost the Plot”. The lyrics are a haunting reminder of where we land as a church:

“Out among free-range sheep

While the big birds sharpen their claws.

For a time we stuck with the Shepherd

But You wouldn’t play Santa Claus

Sigh.

Let’s be blunt.

We’re a little distracted.

What do You want?

Once we could follow,

Now we cannot.

You would not fit our image,

So we lost the plot

Once we could hear You.

Now our senses are shot.

We’ve fogotten our first love.

We have lost the plot.”

Is the gospel really reduced to an hour/ hour and a half production on Sunday that we can come in, go through the motions, and then go home, having checked off the box that we went to church on our “What Christians Do List”?

“We’ve forgotten our first love. We have lost the plot.”

I’ve been looking at accounts of the early church in Acts quite a bit lately. Trying to sort out in my mind and heart what we, as the church, should be looking like. I guess a lot of the picture I had in my mind of what it should be has become what it should not. Like the people in the time of the Tower of Babel we’ve ignored the order to go out and influence the entire world by multiplying in it and spreading out. Instead we’re content to build ourselves a tower and make a name for ourselves. We don’t want to be scattered we want what’s comfortable and convenient. Once again, we’ve “lost the plot”.

I keep wondering if there was some place and time in Marty Sampson’s life where his “religion” was more about “relationship”. Not only between himself and God, but between sincere believers that lived as family and not a business. That maybe within that time there was a seed planted of what it is we were supposed to be by now. Not all the trappings of a performance, music label, organization, etc. But an organism a living, breathing body that exists for so much more than building a name for itself, but as the bride, to know her groom, Jesus, in the most intimate way possible; as a family to laugh with those who laugh and cry with those who cry; as Jesus body to glorify God, not ourselves, in all we do with humility and love.

God grant us the grace to return to our first love.