I Offend Myself

Funny how I am stuck in my fear of offending. The truth is everything is offensive to everyone, inside and outside of a faith. If I am a Christian, I am offensive outside, a liberal believer: offensive inside my denomination, kind: people are skeptical, mean: I will offend. I keep looking for a clue as to how I should behave, but this causes me to panic. What is the answer for me to live my evolving faith, outside of my circumstances (or my surrounding fellow evolvers)?

I'm told that in the 80's there was this multicultural movement that encouraged people to see the world in relative terms and let go of personal convictions. Therefore, if you have a belief or a sense of one way over another, you are considered behind the times, archaic. Another political initiative around religion is to replace "freedom of religion" with "freedom to worship," to keeping expressions of faith inside churches and outside of public spaces.

I know that the strong voices in the name of a faith often cloud the truth. A billion people's harsh actions in the name of Christ get stuck onto me if I say I believe in Jesus. People will assume i'm for extremism, for an angry cause, anti-everything, all without asking. But, how does one ask? How does one speak at all without pre-judging or being pre-judged? Do I post anonymously, avoid dialogue, hide my thoughts in layers of my personal diary?

I am struggling to know how to live my days. I want to live and love and be an individual in relationship with others in the world. I experience God as loving and real and for me. I pray I can be strong from that place. I pray that I can love and forgive and seek other's good.

Guts on a Platter

Last Friday, as mystery reader at my son's school, I took in The Action Bible and upon David's choosing, read of Joshua story, where he leads the Israelites across the Red Sea towards the "Promised Land" and then about the Battle of Jericho. I introduced the story by saying there were various hero's in the book, David, who David is named after, Moses, and today we will read about Joshua. The rumblings of adults in the background during the story and then in hallways after and finally directly towards me three days after,  made my heart race. I haven't made many friends and I assume that each parent I say hi to is going to ignore me. 

My current mission in faith has been to take myself wherever I go, and to support my kids doing the same. All my life I had two lives, one at Church and another with anyone outside of that circle. I have kept my faith separate, rather then looking people in the eyes and seeing them as myself. Just this week I am trying to build relationships with people and be present there. 

Somehow it feels like a gift to be free to smile and engage. I pray that that will continue. I also step out in wonder about a few things:

1. How violent God's story is, even Jericho where they gain land at the expense of all the inhabitants of Jericho. 

2. How much I need to understand real loving. The verse that says, love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, doesn't delight in evil but rejoices with truth, is much different when faced with someone I am at odds with.

3. How I live as a servant of Christ.

4. What makes people hate Christianity so ardently.

I went back to the New Testament, to try and figure out what makes people hate stories about God, rather then just dismissing them as irrelevant history or make-believe?  The religious leaders in his time were afraid of him and how he stole people's attention/ imagination away from them. I suppose he was judgmental of their ways as well, the thing I fear people will be of me. But, if people know who Jesus in loving and healing and desiring relationship, why don't they want to know him? And. . . why don't I want to keep holding Christ's hand when others are going to disapprove?

I am thankful that parents will still talk to me, that I have a community of extended family in Christ and non-believers in friendship all willing to look me in the eye. I am both terrified and itching to talk about why people believe and reject Jesus, so please engage!   

Needy and Discontent

Some days start with someone hitting the overwhelm button where my kids go into “Needy and Discontent Mode.” I react by becoming angry drill sergeant saying things like, “sit and eat now, ““put these pants on, I can’t help you, because ____.” It gets worse as they try to wiggle free from My Ways with, “I don’t like this food" and "I don’t want these undies."

This morning I managed to flatten flying hairs with my spit, put out rain coats, collect my son’s library books to return, and include fruit on David’s breakfast plate. In the last week I have been memorizing Jonah 2 and it haunts me with both Jonah’s prophetic calling, his own running from that. God literally has a fish eat Jonah up and then Jonah in a very dark space, clearly sees and turns to God. I think that is my story too, as over and over I run and get swallowed and then turn again towards God. I love in Jonah’s prayer how his words go from a general God to a personal one!

           

Jonah 2 (NASV) 

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said,

“I called out of my

distress to the Lord,

And He answered me.

I cried for help from the

depths of Sheol;

You heard my voice.

“For You had cast me into

the deep,

Into the heart of the seas,

And the current engulfed me.

All Your breakers and

billows passed over me.

So I said, I have been

expelled from Your sight.

Nevertheless I will look

again toward Your

holy temple.

Water encompassed me

to the point of death.

The great deep engulfed me,

Weeds were wrapped

around my head.

“I descended to the roots

of the mountain.

The earth with its bars

was around me forever,

But You have brought up

my life from the pit,

Oh Lord my God.

While I was fainting away,

I remembered the Lord

And my prayer came to You,

Into your holy temple.

“Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness,

But I will sacrifice to You

With the voice of thanksgiving.

That which I have vowed

I will pay.

Salvation is from the Lord.”

Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

Utopian Living

I have recently compared a list of two world views to make my own brilliant point that one is clearly better, when it hit me that both are faulty. They come out of conversations about a group trying to form their own Utopia juxtaposed with my Church's Small Group. As I list them, it hits me that there is a third column that is more clearly in line with where I wish I could be!

Utopia 

- Dreaming
- Building a community, 100 to 200 hand picked people
- Self sustaining (using no resources outside community)
- Having no negative impact on environment
- Living outside of laws or restrictions
- Open relationships - everyone is a god or goddesses
- Me in control of me and my group only
- Closed loop, but with diverse people and many views

(My judgment of this:-fantasy, stuck, looses site of what is now and here, trying to quench unquenchable desire, losing sight of a larger view, once attained wanting more)

Church Small Group

- Playing nicely
- Happening in real time
- Humility/brokenness/ honesty
- Underlying trust/ desire for others good
- Awareness of sin and grace
- Telling harder stories – not happy or unhappy, but often hard
- Reality that God is in control/ - Ideally sense I can be myself around others

(My challenge heres is that I can become passive or rely too much on others for my faith.)

 A Christian Artist Friend

- Looking outside of what is seen
- Questions lead to more questions - uncertainties about what you thought you knew
- He is what people see -not pointing elsewhere as much as embodying belief
- In motion – real time/ -In control of seeing/acting/wanting
- Creating/responding actively outside of a community or inside (but not becoming the community, staying himself)
- Defining his space or being himself in relationships with others
- Seeing self as having a role to play wherever you are (though it changes with circumstances)
- Often in one on one or small group dialogues

(My fear here is that I want this view but I can't figure out how to be this way. It can be lonely and people can misunderstand and you can more easily be dismissed/rejected)

My goal is to link arms with people, like a friend who believes in healing, one working on fighting human trafficking, one who is fighting for hope amidst depression, one known as a profit. I see so much bravery around me and wish I could speak truth without fear. God give me a voice!

Psalm 131: Gods Words I Want to Make My Own

I am struck by Psalm 131 and the sense of silence that embodies these three verses. I wonder at the darker side of people feeling lonely and longing to fill the black hole that seems to unexpectedly knock on our souls as the nights grow longer and the cool winds blow the trees bare.

(English Standard Version)

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

    my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

    too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;

    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

    from this time forth and forevermore.

(The Message)

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,

    I don’t want to be king of the mountain.

I haven’t meddled where I have no business

    or fantasized grandiose plans.

I’ve kept my feet on the ground,

    I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.

Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,

    my soul is a baby content.

Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.

    Hope now; hope always!

The pastors of The Branch Church in Grand Rapids are preaching about God's Kingdom and the Worlds Kingdom colliding (or battling) here on earth and I can't help but wonder at how we receive and grow as children of a loving father and living out of that identity, safety and provision, while also contributing fearlessly to the work he encourages us.