They're celebrating in heaven!

I'm helping out Adat Shalom's VBS this week. This is Gillian's first VBS too. She is really enjoying it, and I've been so grateful to see her response to what she is learning. Yesterday it started raining just as we were about to get home from seeing a movie. She prayed that God would make the rain stop until we got safe inside. Just as soon as it started, it completely stopped while we got upstairs. As soon as we got upstairs, we heard it start up again! I always thank God for revealing Himself to her in simple answers to prayer like that. She knows that He doesn't always answer her prayers the way she wants Him to, but when He answers some of them so specifically like that, her faith grows leaps and bounds.

The teachers asked the group of kids if they had asked Jesus into their hearts yet, and I was surprised to see Gillian raise her hand. So I asked her about it this morning. I knew that she had talked with Ben about it recently, and that at that time she didn't want to pray with Ben about it. So this morning, I asked her if she had asked Jesus to come live in her heart, and she said she wanted to but didn't know how. So I explained that she needed to acknowledge that she sinned and needed Jesus to save her from those sins. She ended up praying to God for salvation! I'm not sure she really understands everything, but I have prayed that God would draw her into a closer relationship with Him and that what she understands now would just be the starting point to a life spent living for Him.

She does know that before Jesus came to earth, whenever someone sinned, they had to sacrifice their best lamb to 'cover' their sins with the lamb's blood. She knows that God sent Jesus to be our 'sacrificed lamb' whose blood not only 'covers' our sins, but 'washes' them clean off. And she knows that she sins and needs her sins to be erased before she can have a relationship with God and therefore needs Jesus to be her sacrificed lamb. At least she understands it as much as a 4 year old can. But she's heard it all several times and can repeat it to you.

Isn't that awesome? I LOVE being able to see these young kids grow in their knowledge of and devotion to our King. Especially when it's MY KID! I'm so grateful to be able to offer her an alternative from this rotten world and it's lies and deceptive, counterfeit priorities! I'm so grateful to be able to share the truth with her so that that hope can carry her through all her life's struggles.

I just thought I'd share my excitement with you!

Is this the church Jesus intended?

If you just read the Bible and had no experience with or awareness of the current state of the church, how do you imagine it to look like?

I don’t imagine it would be a place that people come once a week to feel connected to God because I imagine “church” as always being connected to God. It wouldn’t have to have a specific time for music and worship because you’d constantly be praising God in absolute awe at what He is doing in this world. I don’t imagine you’d have to get all dressed up in your ‘Sunday Best’ because it would be your heart that reflected your devotion to God, not your clothes. And you wouldn’t find any judgment of those around you who feel led to wear their best clothes as an act of worship either.

I don’t see church as a 1 ½ hour slot of time one day a week. I see it as a breath by breath awareness of our relationship with God and His family. I don’t see our lives being so busy that we don’t have time for our neighbors and friends and family when they simply want to drop in and visit. I don’t see chocolate stashed in the back of the closet somewhere because we think we’ll need it all to ourselves later. I see us bringing out our best food, best drink, and most treasured possessions when we have visitors. Instead of making meals for our sick friends, I see us asking them to stay with us until they are more able to manage their daily activities.

Church would look more like an extended family than a building we visit once a week, or once a month, or once a year. It would be like a family that prayed for each other, shared each other’s possessions, lived in united harmony with each other, repented and forgave one another, working things out without having to resort to lawsuits or acts of revenge. If you’re a parent, you’re always insisting that your children learn to work out their problems between themselves, so why don’t we do this with our brothers and sisters in Christ as well?

Maybe if the church looked more like this to a watching world rather than the judgmental, divided, agenda-driven hypocrites who drag Jesus’ sweet name through the mud, we might actually look like we serve a God who loves us, forgives us and helps us live a life worthy of being called Christ-followers. Maybe the word “Christian” wouldn’t seem like such a bad thing, but rather an invitation to join an extended family who takes care of each other, loving and serving each other out of a response to the love and mercy, forgiveness and grace that our Father first gave to us. To clarify, I don’t believe all Christians are judgmental hypocrites, but when I wasn’t a believer, these were the only ones I heard about.

Do I ‘attend’ this type of church? I still go to the building once a week. Fortunately for me, my particular ‘building’ is full of people who live more like the church I read about in Scripture than most congregations of which I’m aware. And forgive me if you’ve read this far expecting to hear my proposed solution to the current state of the church. I am just beginning to study God’s Word to see what He intended this fellowship of believers to be like. But from what I see, it would be nearly impossible to expect believers in our culture to be the church that I see described in Scripture. We are anchored to our jobs and schools. Our lives are maxed out with rehearsals, meetings and presentations. Perhaps we think we need to be ‘doing’ something because we don’t feel good enough just ‘being’ God’s beautiful sons and daughters. I don’t really know, but I am searching how to best serve God and His family. I want us to look like such a loving family that the world comes over for a sleepover and decides to stay.

I really think Shane Claiborne has got it right. But I don’t think it’s feasible for all Christians to live like he does. I wish we could. I wish I could, but I think my hubby likes his chocolate stash too much. Living as communities instead of single families requires a vulnerability and an accountability that I imagine a lot of us are uncomfortable with. We prefer our private place to stay private, to not have to be “fine” all the time. I know that if you all saw how often I can be found in front of this here computer, and how often I ignore the dishes in my sink, you might think thoughts about me that I don’t want you to have. Maybe that’s just what this family needs, to be honest.

Anyone want to buy an abandoned old building in the inner city with me and love our neighbors?

Prayer: Part 1

There once was a woman who opened her refrigerator and found that the only thing in it was an empty jug of milk. She closed her eyes and said under her breath, “I need money. Please just let $1000 fall out of the sky or something.” She closed the door to her fridge, opened a can of corn and poured equal amounts into three small cups and handed them to her three hungry children.

The next day, she opened her mailbox and was astonished to find a check for $1000 as her share of an inheritance left by her beloved aunt upon her death. As she hadn’t even known about her aunt’s passing, much less that she was about to receive money from her, the woman started to wonder whether her “prayer” to the empty milk jug had anything to do with it.

A few months later, her youngest daughter got sick with the flu. The woman knew she couldn’t afford the medicine she would need to treat her child. In desperation, after the children were in bed, she quietly opened the refrigerator and looked at the jug of milk. She had cleaned it out and kept it just in case it actually had anything to do with her receiving the thousand dollar check. “Milk Jug,” she started. “I know this seems ridiculous, but my daughter needs medicine, and I can’t afford it. Could you either send another check or heal her or something?” As time went on, no extra money was sent, but the daughter did slowly improve without the medicine until one day, she was completely healed. The mom figured the milk jug perhaps, as absurd as it seemed, had cured her child. So she thanked the milk jug and kept it in her fridge.

Sometime later, the woman found herself unable to pay the rent anymore, and she started praying everyday to the jug of milk for a miracle. Two months later, she was evicted. She had heard once that prayers were answered with a “yes,” a “no,” or a “wait.” So she figured that this was just a “no,” and when she packed up her belongings, she made sure to bring the empty jug of milk with her.
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You’re laughing at this woman, aren’t you? You find this “praying to a milk jug” absolutely ludicrous, right? This is exactly what some non-believers think of Christians. Why? Because we also tell people that God answers our prayers with either a “yes,” a “no,” or a “wait,” just like the woman in this fictional story had been told. Think about it: “yes,” “no,” and “wait” can be statistically applied to ANYTHING, but unfortunately, doesn’t do anything to prove the existence of a loving God who has the power to answer our prayers.

Why do we try to explain God? We can’t, and in our attempts, our limited understanding is being exposed for what it is: human. Not divine, not supernatural. Which then makes Christianity seem man-made and flawed, and our prayer life seems useless and pitiful.

I absolutely believe that prayer changes things. Not only does praying give me a sense of hope, I believe my prayers are heard and considered by God. I'm just trying to figure out how to explain that to non-believers. All I've got so far is "Look at me," which is pretty effective at promptly ending the conversation since no one can argue that there's been a dramatic change in my life. They just want to attribute it to me growing up and making better choices with my life, not from the answered prayer to the God of the universe.

Prayer: Part 2

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer because I recently found a video on YouTube where this guy compares praying to God with praying to a jug of milk. I can't disagree with this guy's presentation that “yes,” “no,” and “wait” are statistically foolproof. And that would be really sad and shake up my faith if I actually bought into the belief that prayer life can be summed up formulaically with "yes,” “no,” or “wait." There's more to prayer than that, fortunately. It's about having a relationship with God and trusting our lives to Him. It's having a conversation with God; expressing our fears and concerns and wonder. It's about asking for our will but being ok, regardless, with God's will. (Which some say is a cop out, but I have faith that God knows what's best for me. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really fly with someone who doesn't believe that God has their best interests in mind).

So can we have hope that our prayers change things? – Absolutely! I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Very specifically. I know of a family who is adopting a young girl from China and needed to raise $25,000. They received a check for $12,000 from a person for the adoption. That left $13,000. They had a new accountant look over their taxes this year, and he determined they hadn’t been listing their ministries’ expenses correctly. After all was said and done, a check arrived from the IRS for $13,060! Furthermore, this same family had been told that if they didn’t get their paperwork to China by a specific date, that it wouldn’t give them enough time to process everything before the girl turned 14, making her ineligible for adoption. They sent out mass emails to people all over the world asking that we pray that the paperwork would be finished by the specific date. The people in charge of processing the paperwork had told the family that there was absolutely no way that they would be able to finish it by then, that they needed at least an additional two weeks. After praying, the family received a phone call the next day saying they had processed the paperwork THAT NIGHT. How can that be coincidental? Plus, it's documented in the Bible that the prayers of Lot changed God's mind. Can you imagine how powerful praying must be!

It’s a little frustrating that Christians have come up with these cute little answers for deep questions like this. There is more to answered prayer than God telling us “yes,” no,” or “wait.” I'm sure millions are reassured by these thin answers and perhaps many have come to faith because of them. But it doesn't always work to accurately portray the reality of our walk. To boil down the Christian life to a nice and neat formula is to make it seem hokie and made up. The people that are having a hard time grasping why to have faith in an invisible God are the same people who are going to see right through those formulas and deduct that there's nothing real about it. There needs to be mystery to God, but that's erased when we narrow Him down to three or four bullet points that fit on a tract. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have simplified answers for those who need simple. But we need to also have the ability to explain these concepts without being too simple, to allow God to be as big and intricate as His is. If He was actually that simple, people wouldn’t have a problem believing. God is incredibly complex, and our explanations about Him should reflect that. For us to assume that we can explain Him with simple statements is prideful and foolish. Plus I, personally, need to believe He knows MORE about me and this world than I. Otherwise, I could rule the world.

Oh NOOO! The horror! But you see, I don’t and couldn’t rule the world. Not that I’d want to anyway. I believe God controls the world, knows more than me, loves you and me, and will make decisions based on what is actually best for us.

So to the guy who made that video and all those who buy into what he is saying, I will be praying that someone will one day cross your path who can admit that there aren’t always easy answers to trusting God and that they’d have the sense to realize that formulas and cute sayings can’t explain the God of the Universe, nor should they.