There's so many good analogies that describe life. I always liked the one that says, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."
I've certainly thought of life as being similar to playing cards. You have to play the hand your dealt.
And it definitely often feels like a game of Jumanji. Remember that movie with Robin Williams? You roll the dice & you wait to see what strange challenge will show up in the room with you!
But for me as a senior pastor & church planter, life has most often felt like a roller coaster ride! It's been a lot of up and down and up and down--ha!
Partnering with God to start and grow a church is definitely the hardest job I've ever had! It's also the most rewarding & thrilling thing I could ever imagine.
I doubt anyone can imagine it unless they've experienced it. One of the biggest challenges is to form & balance so many relationships with so many different kinds of personalities! It's often an impossible job. But I consider knowing that a positive---it reminds me of my COMPLETE dependency on God all the time!
In the message this past Sunday, I described sin as "a failure to love." It's a failure to love God rightly, and a failure to love others fully as God has loved us. And all of us have this failure to love thing going on in our hearts. We're either carrying so much pain & brokeness from the failure of love we've experienced from others in our lives, or we're living in the land of guilt and shame over our own failure to love.
Jesus clearly tells us that God created us to love & be loved. That's the purpose of our lives. That's the identifying mark of a Christian. That's how the world can know that we are followers of Christ, because of the love they see us giving to one another. And yet this is the place that the church continues to fall so far short of God's intention & ideal for it.
The church in this world is flawed because it's filled with flawed people. We're all still a work in progress---all still falling so far short of what God intends for us to be one day. And so the roller coaster ride of 'doing church' continues.
Sadly, some people ONLY will see the flaws & never go to church or be a part of a church because they're convinced the church is too flawed & couldn't possibly offer them what they need. I grieve for those people. I believe those people are missing the whole reason they were born!
They have no idea what they're missing! They don't understand that in the midst of the flaws, therein lies the power and presence of the Living God! God does live in His church. And I know it because I watch Him show up time after time & doing miraculous things in spite and because of all the flawed and wounded people.
In our weaknesses is where He is most strong! If we will only choose to look past the flaws, and wait and watch for God to show up, we will be completely blown away!!!
Oh yeah, it's a roller coaster ride! And I am so happy to now be in an incredible season of going up, up, up! It's exciting! It's fast & it's wonderful! I still see this 'failure to love' thing all around me & it breaks my heart the most to see people walk away before the ride is over. That is the biggest sign of failure to love in my opinion. The ones who get off too soon!
But for the ones who hang on tight, who are committed to the journey and committed to staying on through all the ups as well as the downs, those are the ones that I know will suceed in overcoming the 'failure to love' cycle. Those are the ones who are truly learning to love in the way Jesus has called us to love!
My prayer is that no one will ever give up on loving the church of Christ because that's where He lives! We are the Body of Christ and there is only ONE Body of Christ. We need to love the church as Christ loved the church---He gave His life for it! And He loved the church---us---with all our flaws in tact!
Blessed be the name of the Lord forever and ever in Christ Jesus we pray!
Love in Christ,
Pastor Lin :-)