Shabbat Shalom - Rest and The Peace/Wholeness Of God
The air is fresh and crisp on this beautiful Saturday morning. And it happens every single time. Every time I read God’s words, I can’t help but think about what I read and there is desire for more of what I hear resounding loudly...the ring of freedom. And I question things;
“How do we continue to keep up the crazy schedule of our Sunday morning meetings we call church? Why do we work up so much energy to keep the hampster wheel spinning?”
How many of you have woken up on a Sunday morning, rushing to get ready...to wake up all your children. You rush to eat (or not even have time), you rush to get into the car. You rush to your seat. You are rushed through a performance and told when to sing, what words to be sung, when to clap, when to give, when to greet, when to sit, when to not get up until you are made to sit through something and hear what is said. Then if you haven’t been guilted into a commitment to work in some area of performance-need where you had to be there super-early, you slip out quite thankfully to finally get to enjoy the day. This may not be your picture or thought of regimented Sunday mornings. Maybe the culture we live in and the rush of the life here has made the way we view the way “church” is done, as a norm.
But dear friends, there is a life and creativity in the realm of God’s Spirit to be His church in the beauty of freedom and expression that He so desires us to have. We can meet with one another any day, any night, in any place, in any capacity to love and enjoy Him with one another. In the earlier days when Jesus Spirit was given, the lovers of Jesus “....practiced breaking their bread together in their homes, and eating their food with glad and simple hearts, constantly praising God and always having favor of all the people.” “And they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship with one another, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Acts 2:42, 46
(Interestingly enough, as I was typing that last word, my neighbors dog had gotten loose and was running past my porch. He heard me call His name and he ran up and jumped on my lap excitedly and sat with me for awhile before I couldn’t handle his young pup excitement and took him into my home and his owner brought the leash and took him back to his house.)
Oh how we need to experience the freedom as believers to know our God with one another and love one another in the context of this freedom life. Not many have had a chance to experience such life with others and they don’t know that there is another world out there. But I have. Once you’ve tasted something so good, you are never satisfied with a cheap knock-off or something that tastes dull and unsatisfying.
I desperately long for the freedom of life and expression that is ours to be enjoyed as believers! While maybe we are all waiting for someone else to initiate something we all deeply desire, some are already enjoying it and experiencing it. But what if I told you it wasn’t a hard thing to begin at all? What if it was just us....simply us as we are, opening our home to share food and taking some time to talk about our week with each other as we ate and gathered, praying for each other, hearing the sweet things God has done in/for us this week and also the hard things we’ve gone through? What if we just continued to be led by the Spirit in this context and one could bring an instrument they already love to play, use the gifts God gave us to share with each other? What if we involved ourselves in each other’s lives and helped in areas needed and gave to needs as they came up? Wouldn’t it be fulfilling? Wouldn’t we grow as we simply loved one another in the context of Christ in us? I so miss this!! I miss that no one wants to do this because it is dictated that we only do this at a specific place on a Sunday morning (and if you don’t, you are seen as someone who is falling from the faith and ostracized). When will we see the true and genuine life that is ours as God’s children? The world is waiting. It is waiting and waiting. I’m waiting. It’s in the quiet that we hear.
“How do we continue to keep up the crazy schedule of our Sunday morning meetings we call church? Why do we work up so much energy to keep the hampster wheel spinning?”
How many of you have woken up on a Sunday morning, rushing to get ready...to wake up all your children. You rush to eat (or not even have time), you rush to get into the car. You rush to your seat. You are rushed through a performance and told when to sing, what words to be sung, when to clap, when to give, when to greet, when to sit, when to not get up until you are made to sit through something and hear what is said. Then if you haven’t been guilted into a commitment to work in some area of performance-need where you had to be there super-early, you slip out quite thankfully to finally get to enjoy the day. This may not be your picture or thought of regimented Sunday mornings. Maybe the culture we live in and the rush of the life here has made the way we view the way “church” is done, as a norm.
But dear friends, there is a life and creativity in the realm of God’s Spirit to be His church in the beauty of freedom and expression that He so desires us to have. We can meet with one another any day, any night, in any place, in any capacity to love and enjoy Him with one another. In the earlier days when Jesus Spirit was given, the lovers of Jesus “....practiced breaking their bread together in their homes, and eating their food with glad and simple hearts, constantly praising God and always having favor of all the people.” “And they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship with one another, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Acts 2:42, 46
(Interestingly enough, as I was typing that last word, my neighbors dog had gotten loose and was running past my porch. He heard me call His name and he ran up and jumped on my lap excitedly and sat with me for awhile before I couldn’t handle his young pup excitement and took him into my home and his owner brought the leash and took him back to his house.)
Oh how we need to experience the freedom as believers to know our God with one another and love one another in the context of this freedom life. Not many have had a chance to experience such life with others and they don’t know that there is another world out there. But I have. Once you’ve tasted something so good, you are never satisfied with a cheap knock-off or something that tastes dull and unsatisfying.
I desperately long for the freedom of life and expression that is ours to be enjoyed as believers! While maybe we are all waiting for someone else to initiate something we all deeply desire, some are already enjoying it and experiencing it. But what if I told you it wasn’t a hard thing to begin at all? What if it was just us....simply us as we are, opening our home to share food and taking some time to talk about our week with each other as we ate and gathered, praying for each other, hearing the sweet things God has done in/for us this week and also the hard things we’ve gone through? What if we just continued to be led by the Spirit in this context and one could bring an instrument they already love to play, use the gifts God gave us to share with each other? What if we involved ourselves in each other’s lives and helped in areas needed and gave to needs as they came up? Wouldn’t it be fulfilling? Wouldn’t we grow as we simply loved one another in the context of Christ in us? I so miss this!! I miss that no one wants to do this because it is dictated that we only do this at a specific place on a Sunday morning (and if you don’t, you are seen as someone who is falling from the faith and ostracized). When will we see the true and genuine life that is ours as God’s children? The world is waiting. It is waiting and waiting. I’m waiting. It’s in the quiet that we hear.
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