There Is More

Proactive...

Redemptive... 

Restorative...

These are words that I am gaining a fond appreciation for.  I'm also growing to have a fond appreciation for process as well as the journey.  I was first introduced to seeing the life of a Christian as being more of a journey when I first learned of the book titled Pilgrim's Progress.  I'd have to admit I never did read the book but have thought that one day I'd invest in that read but I listened to some of what people were saying as they began to talk about Pilgrim's Progress and quote John Bunyan's word.

                    

This book will make a traveler of thee, If by its counsel thou wilt ruled be; It will direct thee to the Holy Land,If thou wilt its directions understandYea, it will make the slothful active be; The blind also delightful things to see.                                - John Bunyan

Tonight I went on a hike in the mountains overlooking the city of Kamloops.  I am convinced that I had a pretty close encounter with God and lived to tell the story.  As I slid down the path that nearly had overtaken me and looked down the cliff for miles with no rail in sight thinking of nothing but images of me falling down the cliff.  It was beautiful and majestic.  I love the nature and it was very relaxing to experience the period stops along the hike and listen to the running river in the distance.  And then to finally reach the lookout point at sunset was just absolutely amazing.

The journey is where it's at.  The life of a pilgrim, or a journey towards some unknown never experienced before land way off in the distance really takes a point of action, a point of faith, a point of decision.  It calls us into something we have yet to experience and have yet to know.  So often times we cut our Christian experience short because we stick to what we know and the unfortunate thing is, people are deceived to think that's it, that's all I'll ever know or that's all I'll ever be and the truth of the matter is somewhere along the journey they stopped.  Just before reaching the lookout there was this pretty steep hill I looked up at and while out of breath stood at the bottom of this hill just after being told home was in the other direction.  There was a part of me that just wanted to go home and another that wanted this one last climb to see the lookout.  I made the decision to climb up one more hill and did it.  The result was this absolute beauty.  A part of me didn't want to go on the hike because I felt a level of fatigue but then I thought a little hike won't be so bad.  Well, a little hike turned out to be a little more then just a little hike for this gal who rarely ever hikes through the mountains.  I'm glad I did because the end result is an entirely different experience and  perspective.

I spent the day in process of my church experience a number of years ago.  I look back with a level of ambivalence.  It was a season in my life I can be thankful for because there developed a good foundation in life, faith, and relationship with Jesus.  I can look back and see that there were moments that were great and then there were moments or seasons of nothing but pain, frustration, and disillusionment with the church.  In a conversation I told this one guy that the Bible College I attended in particular either lead somebody to cultivate a deeper relationship with Jesus or it lead to even greater disillusionment with the church and apparently I'm not the only one who became seriously disillusioned by the church following Bible College.  What I realize now was that it was simply just a lack of community, lack of relationship.  I say it's a lack of relationship and community because I was having to walk through this incredible amount of grief during the time I attended Bible College.  Everything in my life was falling apart at the seems as I began to lose the people closest to me.  I began to process such deep and intense grief that it hindered me from being able to do my school work.  I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't work on any of my papers, and I began to enter into a crisis of faith and it seemed like everything and everyone was against me and even today as some people just count me as unfaithful and a Bible College drop out they really have no clue as to what my journey was like and the crisis I walked through.  It was during that crisis I learned that the very people I thought could and would support me couldn't.  There were people who couldn't but for the most part they chose not to but rather to point their fingers and make their judgments against me.  

When I needed the support the most it wasn't there and that was the reason why I grew so disillusioned by the church.  About a month ago I sent out sponsorship letters to various people I thought might want to support me either financially or through prayer to go to this leadership training.  I sent out the letter for a couple of different reasons... the first reason was a way to test the hearts of people on whether or not they were safe people who generally cared about me enough to acknowledge me in one way or another other than the same way that they always have done before.  One of the major reasons why I left one church was because of the lack of community and the lack of support.  As I handed this sponsorship letter to one lady in the church she asked me if the church I'm attending today is supporting me.  The irony is, when I attended her church they never supported me and now they're trying to hold my current church accountable to support me which I felt was a little odd to say the least, or rather hypocritical.  I say hypocritical because they're expecting another church to be something to me they themselves were never to me.  I sent out that sponsorship letter to see if there existed a level of community for me to engage with.  After a few years away from the church I began to reengage with this church just to see if my experience and perspective altered because of my state of brokenness or if there existed another reason.  I wanted to see if my perspective really was the truth or if my brokenness had tainted what I had seen.  These are some of the questions I've had over the last couple of years as I've reengaged with some people and testing the waters so to speak.  I'm not going to jump into a relationship with people who have hurt me in the past but rather take my time.  That sponsorship letter was a good way to find out if I were to engage in community or if I were to just hit a muddy and nearly dried up pond of water and beaten up falling apart incomplete bridge much like the photo in this picture above.  

When I saw this wharf and nearly dried up pond I had an appreciation for what it represented.  It represented something that had existed in time past but for various reasons this pond had dried up and the wharf has outlived it's purpose.  There was life all around and there seemed to be possibilities all around and it begged the question why?  Why did the pond dry up? With the sound of the river in the distance and the water fall that we eventually came to told me that it was more then just a dried up little pond and condemned wharf.  There is more to life and more to adventure then what we see in the natural.  There is more to the church then what we see currently.  The more I see the brokenness that seems to pervade the church today the more I see  the heart of God for His Kingdom and for His People despite the hypocrisy, self righteousness, and the moral crisis that has been eating away at the very foundations of the church like a cancer.  

Yesterday I bumped into a friend at the Canada Day Parade.  We began talking about the church and in our conversation we also talked about Israel and her tendency towards idol worship but also her eventual repentance.  We can either focus on how easy it was for Israel to turn to idols or we can focus on the heart of God that always responded when Israel cried out.  God always answered Israels cry for help.  He allowed Israel to turn away and worship other gods, and also face the consequences of that but when Israel turned to God He drew near and never turned His back.  He answered, He always answered.