echoes of redemption

If faith were about facts then hanging out only with people who agree with our list of facts would be beneficial. We could assimilate new people into our list of beliefs. Have them memorize outlines. Force them to leave beliefs that appear to contradict ours behind.

It would be neat. Clean. Simple.

But faith is about a personal relationship between a person and God.

And no two relationships are the same.

So when we experience God inside a community of people we run across different views of him. Someone has an experience they attribute to God that we have not had. Someone has a relationship with God that views him differently than we view him. Someone reads Jesus different than we read him in a passage.

So we have to make a choice. Do we discredit their view because it doesn’t fit inside our box? Do we allow their view to challenge us?

Finding God in community is about allowing other people’s experience and understanding to broaden our experience and understanding. About embracing differences. Showing grace to people with ideas that stand in contrast our own.

Faith is personal – but that doesn’t mean it’s private.

When we experience God in community we begin to view him differently because our views are shaped by the diversity that he created.

It’s easy to find God in places we perceive our need him, places that seemed prepared for nothing less than divine intervention.

It’s harder to find God in places we’re not used to looking. Which should make us ask ourselves, where is it I look for God?

Only where I’m ready for him (like Martha).

Where he fits inside my standard of living without challenging it (like the rich man).

Or where he plays by my rules (like the pharisees).

All of these people knew they needed God. All were, in some way, searching for him. And all of them missed it when he came.

He wasn’t the strong wind of change that Elijah thought he would be in.

And he wasn’t the earthquake that boasted its power as it shook the earth to its foundation.

Or the fire, consuming all that stood against it.

He was in the stillness.

And finding God in the stillness was enough to shake the prophet to his core.

Because when we live a life that finds God outside where we’ve been taught to expect him, where it is typical to search for him, we encounter him in ways we never imagined.

Of course, we might not be ready for what he has for us.

He might challenge us to the core of who we are and how we live.

And he might not play by the rules we thought he played by.

But it’s not until God has exceeded our expectations in every way that we’ve truly began to experience the divine.

We’ve spent 2,000 years talking about all the things Jesus accomplished. Yet Jesus didn’t seem to define himself solely off what he did.

He broke away from the crowds and found silence.

He took naps.

He observed the Sabbath.

Jesus had a rhythm of rest that seemed to both drive the depth of who he was and give him the focus and energy to live the life that he lived.

So go live Jesus-ly.