myjourneyintojustice

First – my apologies. For some reason, I fell off the blog wagon but I am happy to report that I am still here, just a little delayed.

What does it look like to follow God into the unknown? I thought that I could have answered that last fall. It is mildly incredible to me that what seemed like the biggest leap of faith six months ago now seems like a baby step compared to where I am now. In two days, Chris and I and the Cunningham family will take off toward Las Vegas to begin the Spring Justice & Worship Tour. The interesting part? We really don’t have a tour.

For a variety of reasons that we still cannot figure out, we haven’t been able to get the bookings we expected. This is somewhat humbling to admit, feeling like we failed, running over and over again other ideas that we could come up with to get additional bookings. We’ve exhausted most of our resources and the door has closed on so many of them that we are left wondering what we did wrong. The oddest part about it all though is that we still feel like God wants us to do the Spring Tour, with or without tour dates.

Last Monday we spent some time praying about what we should do with Phil and Amy and felt that God still was asking us to go, bringing us the scripture of Abram’s departure from Harran in Genesis 12. Sitting around, waiting to see what panned out just didn’t seem right. Go where you ask? East, starting with Las Vegas. Then what, you ask? We are not entirely sure. We are trusting that God will speak to us as we step out in faith. We are doing this without the funds that we really need to support this tour and without tour dates to rely on getting any additional offerings.

It would be a lot easier to just say, “Oh well, this just didn’t work out like we planned so let’s give up” (especially for a planner like myself). In some moments, I am frustrated, wondering why God would not help us set up this tour the way that we had pictured it. Then I remember that God is God and His plans are better than our plans. We thought all along that this tour would look a certain way but God always has the best plan, even when we don’t get to see it. Sometimes, it feels a bit foolish to set out without really knowing where to go or what to do yet there is this part of me that expects to see God use us on this journey.

One beautiful thing that we all have talked about is that the flexible timeline can allow us to serve more in the cities we visit. This tour may present just as many opportunities to get our hands dirty in serving others as opportunities to do the Evenings of Justice & Worship. We are all a bit frightened, a bit uptight, and grasping tightly to the promise that God is going with us. So, another leap into the unknown with a wild, adventurous God? Our answer is yes.

P.S. I feel that it would be so much easier to save this post and share it after the tour, after God proved His faithfulness and I compiled stories to share, but that isn’t where these stories begin. They begin in the quiet evenings where we humans wrestle to lay hold of a deeper trust in God that moves us into action, despite all the earthly signposts tell us to pull back. Thanks to Phil and Amy for choosing to take this leap with us – we love you.

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

Proverbs 19:21

Two weeks ago, Chris and I had the opportunity to attend our old home church here in Indiana. For me personally, as the service started and worship began I felt a sense of homecoming and belonging that was so refreshing.  Larry, the pastor preaching that Sunday, talked about advent and the birth of our Savior. He brought the manger scene into today’s culture, painting a picture of the poverty and depravity of the place where Jesus entered into our world as a baby.

During the message, he used a phrase that has been stuck in my head ever since. He talked about how many of us sitting in the audience come from a ‘heritage of privilege’ which can make it difficult for us to really grasp the scene.  I have been meditating a lot on what that means and how this reality has shaped my world view and my expectations in life. It became really clear to me that I, in fact, do come from a heritage of privilege as do many Americans. I have noticed, since that sermon, how my tolerance for and acceptance of difficulties that come in my life is a direct result of the privileges I have been afforded (shelter, food, education, toys, clothes, cars, and on and on…).

I have learned or been taught to expect success, expect opportunity, expect respect, expect fairness in life, and expect comfort. I expect God to take care of me in certain ways, mainly, continuing me on a path of privilege.  Yet, there are so many people who work hard and do the right thing and life is not fair to them and they do not have comforts to enjoy. There are many advantages and benefits to having certain privileges but I am not sure privilege is always the best shaper of Godly character.

As Chris and I have tried to walk through the last few months embracing the difficulties and new challenges that have come, I needed to consistently remind myself that I chose to follow God into this. I chose to trust God a few months ago in leaving my worldly comforts behind and yet I realized that subconsciously I thought he would just replace them with other ‘comforts.’ I guess I didn’t really comprehend how difficult it would be to not have stability and security when I had grown so accustomed to these things.

Now, I am starting to get it. I am starting to learn how to see God in the difficulties and struggle, in the grunt work and the questioning and the….’who knows how this is going to work out’ moments. In thinking about these things in the context of my heritage of privilege, I realize God has to reteach me what is important to him. For me to have his heart for the poor he needs to bring new experiences into my life. I need to go back to the stable that was smelly and dirty and unsanitary and understand how that very thing connected Jesus to the people He came to save.

Imagine if the story of Christ’s birth had a different setting. Instead of a manger, what if he were born into a King’s house, stately and rich with velvet cloth wrapped around him and his own nursery to grow in. What if it was surrounded by huge walls and a gate? I wonder how the shepherds would have felt visiting him there, smelling of the fields and their sheep? What a different picture Jesus gives us of his heart by the choice to enter into our world through the lowliest method.

 I think the more I understand this, the less I will pray for God to fix everything in my life and pray more that he will continue to allow me to experience difficulties so that my compassion and understanding of others would increase.  I don’t want to just be waiting for the rescue, I want to be present where he has me and have the faith to soak up whatever it is he wants me to glean from the path he has me on.

Even as I write this, I have to laugh a little because this is an ongoing battle for me, as my flesh still wants the easy path but my heart wants the narrow one.  I want God’s character but I wish there were shortcuts. Unfortunately, character only grows through testing and it can be dangerous to ask for the testing.  It is even harder not to grumble when it comes, but this too, I hope, is part of the journey. This Christmas, I want to grasp the depth of Christ’s humility to leave his glory behind and enter our world in a dirty stable. I think then God can show me how to follow him in these steps, putting up my heritage of privilege for a little while and viewing life from a different angle, learning to find joy in the midst of uncertainty and embracing the opportunity to share in others struggles.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God,

He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;

He took the humble position of a slave

And was born as a human being.

Philippians 2:5-7

The past month has been a whirlwind. We have barely stayed in any place more than 2 days and it is amazing to find myself here in Vancouver at our northernmost stop on the tour already. God has been doing so much, and while I truly know that He has been doing something through us, it has felt a bit like He is more focused on doing something in us. After you make a leap of faith and follow God on what seems like a crazy journey, there comes a point where the ‘steam’ of pure adrenaline and excitement may wear out and you truly come to a place of utter dependence. I do not mean that things are less exciting but just that you really begin to find yourself choosing to either continue bucking up against all of the uncomfortability or embracing it, since that very thing is what God is using to build His character in you.

Chris and I have been having some great conversations as we have driven up the coast, about faith, about dependence on God, about living in relationship, about calling, and about how we go about seeking God’s direction in every decision. Some conversations have been a challenge, where we are really wrestling through something together and figuring out how to have the right response. I think by God’s grace, only one of us has been totally overwhelmed at any given time, allowing the other to strengthen and encourage. As I think back on this month, two things stand out to me that God has been developing in Chris and I that I want to share. Amazingly, both of the things I have written about before but am gaining such a deeper perspective on now.

The first one is gratefulness. We have found ourselves easily falling into a trap of complaining or grumbling about something that went wrong or that wasn’t working out the way we hoped. It can be so easy to feed these feelings and let them occupy so much space in your mind that there isn’t room left for much else. Early on, Chris began challenging us both to continually be giving thanks for things. Randomly now, one of us will ask the other to list off some things for which we are thankful.

I remember at one point, we were in Pismo Beach and were waiting to hear if our truck was going to need more major repairs (after the $3,000 we already spent). I was sitting on the couch and I couldn’t help but cry. I recall literally wrestling in my mind about whether I was going to trust and be thankful or dwell on the difficulties in front of us. It was one on the first moments that we really decided, right then, to remember how God has provided and verbalize it. The beautiful thing was that it was the same evening that we got to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and we were truly able to be grateful in the midst of uncertainty.

I am learning that gratefulness, for it to really transform you, has to be a constant alarm going off where you can’t let much time pass before you remember to give thanks.  Somehow in a season where we have had to leave jobs, homes, friends, comfort, etc, we have found more to be thankful for than ever before.

The second one is prayer. There are a lot of different reasons for prayer. We pray sometimes because we are desperate, sometimes because we need an answer, sometimes just to spend time with God. On this trip, God has been teaching us about praying without ceasing, like it is part of breathing. I am not claiming that I literally am praying constantly, but Chris and I are catching ourselves earlier in difficult conversations where we may normally talk the issue to death and we are stopping to pray instead. Each time, we catch ourselves a little earlier, and sometimes, we can quickly move to praying about it first. We are always amazed, although we shouldn’t be, about the way our conversations go after we pray first.

For me, one of the biggest ’aha’ moments on the tour is that following Jesus is really about the little moments that happen every day where we can choose to complain or give thanks, seek God or come up with our own ideas, love people or ignore them, obey Him or go our own way.  People may look at the big decisions we make to follow Christ and think, wow – they really are following God, but the true test of our commitment is visible only to those that get up close to us and see our walk, day in and day out. It is a lot of little decisions that move us forward and closer to reflecting the image of Christ.

“Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Yesterday morning, I was reading through John and came across the following passage in John 10:24-25:

The people surrounded him and said, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name.”

As I was meditating on this, I found it so interesting that as much as Jesus may have shared with the people that he was the Messiah, when he was questioned about this, his response was that the proof was in the work that he had done.  This seemed pretty incredible that Jesus, the Savior of the world, when asked who he was, stated that the answer was in what he did. Yes, he does tell people who he is but the validity of this truth is backed up by his actions.

As I thought about this, I considered a situation where someone may come up to me and ask, are you a Christian or a follower of Jesus? I could easily answer, “Yes, I am,” but that may or may not carry much weight. Could I say, as Jesus did, that the proof of my commitment to Christ is in the work that I do? Do the actions of my daily life clearly mark me as a follower of Jesus?

I can’t help but think that sometimes we define our Christianity more by what we don’t do than what we do. We can focus on the sins of commission and forget the sins of omission. I don’t lie, I don’t steal, I don’t use bad language, I don’t cheat, I don’t this or that. Maybe we add a few I dos, like I do go to church most Sundays, I do read my Bible occasionally, I do pray before my meals. I am not saying that any of these things are irrelevant but I am not sure that these things alone paint a clear picture of a Jesus follower. The I dos listed here – church, reading the Bible, prayer – are not the goal but the means by which we are equipped to know Jesus and to live like Jesus.

Jesus demonstrated a life of sacrifice, of taking care of the poor, the sick, the neglected by society. He poured his life into other people, fed them, talked to them, wept with them, and loved them. He had time for people. In today’s culture of busyness, every minute of my life is plotted. The other day, I was running errands and I was on a tight schedule. I made a wrong turn and had to make a U-turn. In the parking lot I pulled into, as I turned around, I noticed a woman with two shopping carts, sitting on the ground near the back, clearly homeless. For a second I thought, if I had time, I would like to go and talk to her. But I barely slowed down. I was back on the road within a minute.

I keep thinking about this woman and so many others that I have passed over in my life. It reminds me of the story in Matthew 25 where God separates the sheep from the goats, those who will enter heaven from those who will not. Those who cared for the lowliest of people, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick and imprisoned, to them Jesus says that will enter heaven, for whatever they did for one of these people it was as if they did it to Him. I feel like there is opportunity all around me to minister to Jesus and yet sometimes I just pass by, too busy.

I have been re-reading A Simple Path, which is a book about Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity. This book reveals the approach to ministry that the Missionaries of Charity have, to embrace suffering and poverty in order to empathize with those they serve. They do this in order to follow Christ’s example of embracing the suffering of the cross to demonstrate His love for us. Above the crucifixes in all of their chapels worldwide are the words “I thirst” as a reminder to the missionaries of the implications of their work. Part of their constitution states: “Our aim is to quench the infinite thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for love of souls. We serve Jesus in the poor, we nurse Him, feed Him, clothe Him, visit Him.” That just struck me, to be so focused on serving Christ through serving the suffering in our world. Their focus for their lives is to minister to Jesus through their ministry to the least in society. Just because I love it so much, I want to share Mother Theresa’s definition of the least in society. It is as follows:

The hungry and the lonely, not only for food but for the Word of God; the thirsty and the ignorant, not only for water but for knowledge, peace, truth, justice and love; the naked and the unloved, not only for clothes but also for human dignity; the unwanted, the unborn child; the racially discriminated against; the homeless and abandoned, not only for a shelter made of bricks, but for a heart that understands, that covers, that loves; the sick, the dying destitutes, and the captives, not only in body but also in mind and spirit: all those who have lost all faith and hope in life, the alcoholics and drug addicts and all those who have lost God (for them God was but God is) and who have lost all hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.

These people are all around us, in our neighborhoods, on the streets of our cities, in the foster care group homes, in the AA meetings, in the break room at work, in the local bar. They are in the red light districts in Amsterdam, in the rice fields of Cambodia, the brick kilns of India, the brothels of Thailand, the war fields of Africa, the cholera beds in Haiti. The challenge is when we see them, the individual faces that surround us, do we want to serve them, suffer with them, and fight for them as Jesus did? Will observers be able to say of us, Christians, and the church at large, that the proof of our faith is in what we do – that we are set apart, marked as a people that cares deeply about the needs and the sufferings of others, so much that we would be willing to sacrifice our own comforts, time, and lives for their sake?

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about walking and I may be slightly infatuated with it. In all of my athletic endeavors, I hated running, especially longer distances. I always wished that I could embrace running as so many people seem to love it, but for some reason I never really could get into it. When I am running all I think about it running. As I have gotten older, walking has become near and dear to my heart, not just as a means of transportation but as something to be enjoyed. The last week or so, I have been thinking about what walking has taught me and thinking about how often the Bible uses walking to describe our relationship with God.

First, I was thinking back on the day in May that Chris and I drove downtown and got out of our cars to share some food with the homeless in San Diego. The act of walking the streets where they lived, forcing myself to enter their world, meeting their eyes and building relationship changed everything. When we drive by in our walled cars it is very difficult to have any human connection. Our cars can be some sort of bubble, blocking out the sounds, smells, and even sights of what we drive past. Walking into their lives changed my whole perspective.

I was also thinking about the walks that Chris and I have grown accustomed to, which have produced a time of regular prayer between us that we never had before. The truth is that we could have prayed more inside of our house, but we just didn’t. There was something about stepping outside into the open air, away from common distractions that allowed us to listen and interact with God in a new way. Honestly, it always reminds me of how Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden of Eden. I am certain that I would not be on this Justice & Worship Tour if these walks had not become such a regular habit with us.

I am glad that God asks us to walk with Him, because when I sit, I get fidgety and distracted and when I have to run I get weary and frustrated. Walking though, I can do. Walking is a strange thing because it is exercise but it is also restful (unless you are one of those power walkers, which I am not). I imagine the disciples and Jesus  had so much time to talk, learn, and build relationships as they walked from town to town. Walking can be slow sometimes, but I may my awareness is so much more heightened to the things around me.

Last weekend, in the services at Church of the Living Christ in Simi Valley, I shared that sometimes the first step of a walk is the hardest. The getting out of the car and the getting off of the couch, but in the end, you are always glad that you moved. I want to apply this to my walk with God. I know that being stationary and comfortable does not benefit me and does not advance His plans on the earth so I have to keep deciding, every morning, to put my feet on the ground and start walking.

I was reading Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Walking (and yes, at this point you may be thinking I am obsessed with walking) the other day and when I read this part, I loved it:

“We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return– prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again–if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man–then you are ready for a walk.”

I loved this because I feel like this is what God asks of us if we want to walk with Him. It is a journey that costs so much but offers us everything. I do feel like this journey that Chris and I started, to work with Steps of Justice and share God’s heart with people, is walking forward in faith without really being sure of the destination (literally and figuratively).  Starting any journey with God requires a complete letting go of the former things, giving it all up for the sake of following Him. It also means continuing to take steps, even when we are asked to walk through valleys and when we are asked to climb mountains. But I am sure that walking with God, I will see and experience more than I could ever imagine.

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

2 John 1:6

Right now my heart is aching. I just found out that some good friends of ours just discovered their 6 month baby girl not breathing in her crib. I haven’t been able to stop crying for them, for their loss. There is no possible way for me to imagine the pain and suffering they must be experiencing in this moment. I am so sorry to have to share this heavy burden here, with all of you, but I am wrecked. Sometimes, as Christians, we want to respond to things like this with hopeful, ‘God has a greater plan’ type answers. Tonight, I just can’t get there.

With the promise of being open and honest, here is a glimpse at my conversation with God over the last hour:

Tonight it is hard to accept.

I am struggling to understand your hand in the death of a child,

struggling to comprehend how something like this can be allowed, even ordained, by you -

you, who came to the earth to know our pain and yet

you allow us to continue experiencing it.

I know this may sound angry, may sound wrong, but I need you to hear it.

It is frustrating that I cannot understand your ways, your providence.

It is discouraging to have to try and reason out that this is for your glory.

It is beyond my fragile, human thinking to accept it, although I know that I am told I should.

Here at a crossroads, I know there is a choice before me.

I can choose anger, confusion, and despair and forsake your promises

or

I can choose to trust you.

But right now, I cannot get my feet to move in either direction.

As part of a response to move toward trust, if you would, please join me in the following prayer for this beautiful family:

Lord God, who makes each and every one of us, we cannot begin to understand your plan. I am so thankful for this family, for their service, for their love for you, that it is beyond my ability to accept that they must experience this heartache. But, as it is in your will for them to walk through this valley, I beg you for strength on their behalf. I beg you for comfort. I beg you for peace in the midst of such loss. Will you please show yourself faithful and true to them tonight and every day hereafter? Will you please give them an understanding of your plan? Will you be patient with them in this season of deep affliction and pour out your love to overflowing? We have nowhere to turn but you. Come Lord Jesus.

My lesson of the day – following God into the unknown is not a promise of easiness. It has become a subconscious expectation in my life that my commitment to Christ should gain me a life where everything goes the way I want and nothing difficult or bad happens. This may be a bit of a generalization but I think that many Christians can relate to either hearing this message or believing this message about our faith. Flip on the TV and most of what you hear from preachers fall in this same line of thinking. The Bible, however, predicts a different future for us. It seems the thing that sets Christians apart is not a lack of difficulty; it is (or should be) the response to our difficulties.

Today, Chris and I hit a bump in the road. Although this was not a literal bump, it could have been, as we discovered that one of the tires on the truck we just purchased is leaking air, and quickly. We hoped and prayed that a patch would fix the issue, but after 2 hours of waiting at the service shop, they said we would need a new tire. Ugh. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we got this news at 8:30pm and all of the tire shops were closed. This is our only vehicle right now, so the thought of not getting it fixed today could mean a tow in the morning. That is the last thing we wanted to hear. This news just seemed to deflate our spirits as well.

It would have been nice if there never was an issue with our tire, or if, as we prayed, it would be an easy fix. But God isn’t always as interested in the easy, cheap fix as we are. Why is that? It would not have been that hard for Him to fix.  Certainly, as Chris and I take this huge leap of faith, leave jobs, homes, and community to share a message that He laid on our hearts, He could at least help us out financially with not needing to buy a new tire, right? How easy it is for me to jump to this place. But, this the beginning of a long line of tests that I think God is going to give me so that I can really understand what His provision means.

Earlier today, we received a phone call from someone who wanted to give us a one-time gift of support. It was incredibly encouraging to have some friends step out and help us do what we feel God is telling us to do. My mind (remember, I am a planner) easily found a use for the money in our budget and I may have plotted out the best way to put it to use, but now, as I think about it, it is pretty incredible that this gift is more than enough to pay for a new tire. Sometimes, we get caught up in the frustration of having something go wrong that we miss how God already provided an answer.

So I will rewind and try a different response to our need to purchase a new tire. Thank you to all the friends who have shared of their resources with us. You truly are God’s provision in our time of need.  And, thanks to our Father, who knows our needs and meets them. Today, he met the need before we even knew we had it. Tonight, I am grateful for the little, sometimes irritating reminders that point me to the faithfulness of my God. He provided for my needs today, and that is more than enough reason to be thankful.

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

Matthew 6:31-32