Abiding in the real...

October 28, 2012

 

One of my favorite (if that’s the appropriate word for this) passages of Scripture is found in the first chapter of Colossians.  It became more significant in my life of worship several years ago when we were having an extended time of fasting at our church.  We had noon worship during that season and one day as I sat in the sanctuary my eyes came upon this passage and it was so fresh and new and it almost seemed like it was highlighted.  It’s Colossian 1: 15-22.

 

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can’t see – such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body.

He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead.

So he is first in everything.

For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him

 God reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

This includes you

who were once far away from God. You were once his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 

Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.” (NLT)

 

Last week at the soul healing prayer conference as several of us sat in the prayer room, this passage again came to my mind.  We had taken turns reading passage aloud.  There is something so powerful about hearing the Word together.  The truth of this passage seemed to just hover in the air and we could breathe it in and out together.  The healing and restoration so clearly presented in this passage speaks with such clarity of the wholeness of God and the reconciliation that offers wholeness to us and it’s totally, completely REAL!  I find so much hope and joy in this!!!  It’s sooooo incredible to just sit and consider this!  As we sat together last week, all of us were deeply touched and a little overwhelmed by God’s goodness and loving intent toward us.  The sufficiency of Christ feels so safe and complete.

Potter’s Wheel gathers Sunday evenings at 5:00. We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US! For more information, please feel free to contact me.

 

God’s Peace,

Mary

 

Wondering about worship...

I was sitting and thinking back on my week and I came to a place of real gratitude and as I was letting that roll over in my mind, I found myself in a place of worship. I’ve been thinking about worship recently and as I consider what that might really look like in my life as Christ-follower. It’s easy to let my heart, mind and spirit slide into worship when I’m feeling grateful but what about when I’m not?

 

So often, I let my emotions dictate my heart of worship. When I find myself light and joyful worship can seem as spontaneous and effortless as feather flying on the breeze. When life feels so hard and overwhelming it feels like a drowning person in desperate need for air. What about those other times? What about those times when the mundane dailyness of life just feels relentless. What about those times when there is an oppressive quality to what’s going on and I just don’t know what I think about God and I don’t understand what is wanted from me and my mind and my being are just confounded by it all and there is a sense that since I can’t get myself around it all that I’m just going put it off until I can. The next thing I know I’m going through the motions and my heart is nowhere near it. Sometimes when we find ourselves in this place it’s easy to slide into the oughts and shoulds of faith and the next thing, we know we’re smack dab in the middle of legalism. It seems like it ought to draw us nearer to God. We want to draw nearer but as I’ve experienced it, in reality, it does just the opposite.

 

It’s been interesting in this season, there have been so many times when I get to the point where I just find myself at a place where I’m just flummoxed and I’m not at all sure what the next thing is and worship seems to be a distant thing because I can’t seem to get a grip on things. What I’m learning is that this is actually a great place for worship. When I’m in that place where I sense the Lord nudging the question, “What’s going on Mary?” It’s just fine for me to say…. “I don’t know.” There’s usually an underlying reality that is embedded in that statement. Where am I looking? That’s where the worship happens. Right there in the middle of ordinary life. In the midst of the mundane and the mayhem. That’s where worship happens. I may be in a place where I’m absolutely confounded and I really don’t have a clue about what I think about anything…how do I respond to that question… “What’s going on?” Where will I look? Whom do I choose to trust? As I answer those questions…that’s where worship happens.

 

In the Old Testament there are two books, 1^st and 2^nd Chronicles, that essentially look at the history of the people of Israel over lives and generations of 16 different kings of Israel and Judah. There are all kinds of ups and downs of daily life with all the drama and boredom that go along with it. Kings and common people get confounded over and over again; sometimes in the incredibly ordinary and sometimes in huge struggles and battles.

 

In 2 Chronicles 20, the people are just about to be attacked by a huge army of two nations and on the face of it; they are going to get completely creamed. In that kind of moment there’s that question again, “What’s going on?” and the underlying one, “Where am I looking?” The people in that moment are just so incredibly human and respond, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chron 20:12) I love that declaration of worship but even more is the very next sentence. “All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord.” (2 Chron 20:13) They didn’t know what the answer would be. What they did have was the opportunity to decide where they were going to look. That’s worship. Every time we make the choice of where we’re going to look, we decide whom we will worship. In the huge and the small, the horrible and humble but also in just the incredibly ordinary, worship happens, every time I make that choice.

 

What I’m continuing to find is that God is very willing to take me right where I am. When I’m blissfully peaceful, when I’m totally panicked and when I’m just in the middle of life and don’t feel like I have a clue. I’m learning that that is exactly what a life of worship looks like. I don’t have any idea what to do Lord, but I’m going to look to you and I’m just going to wait and move, slowly and intentionally, into the next thing you put before me no matter. It’s there, in those moments and in the next that we see God and as I look back, I see the Lord’s fingerprints all over my life.

 

Potter’s Wheel will gather again this Sunday at 5:00pm on the courtyard at Second Church at 55^th and Brookside. We’ll enjoy a potluck meal and continue to share the journey together…on the Potter’s Wheel. COME JOIN US! If you need more information, please feel free to contact me.

 

God’s Peace,

 

Mary