After two weekend church gatherings, I’m always amazed at how God surprises us. There is no way to ever predict what He will do as we gather to focus on Him, let Him have His way, and simply worship. The one essential that we seem to bring, other than hearts seeking, is the willingness to not know: to just let Him be God in our midst and not try to fit Him in to an agenda or plan.
We use structures-of-sorts at various points, mostly so that humans will avoid the temptation of taking control of the gathering. But we want to come with hearts not-knowing so that we make room for the Mysterious God to reveal Himself.
Saturday night, He showed up as a ministering angel to a young woman who recently lost a brother to suicide. She had never gathered with us before, but how privileged we were to be able to be “one another” type believers and simply be there with her. And how awesome to see God just bring what seemed to be the right words, songs, and prayers to really touch the deep pain this woman is carrying. No plan. Just come, Jesus, and be with all of us. We didn’t know what He would do, but He just seemed to bring such a sweet spirit of comfort and closeness: we felt close to Him, to this woman and her pain, and to each other.
Then, He showed up powerfully through this woman as she spoke to us and shared her new awareness of how important the people in her life are, particularly those right in front of her. The ones that are so easy to take for granted. She spoke of not wanting to waste any more time doing superficial relationships! It’s just too important that we connect, really connect, with the people in our life! Her authenticity and pain caused all of us to reflect on how we are relating to our own friends, family, and others. God was speaking to all of us!
Fast forward to this morning… another church… another gathering of people “not knowing” what God would do. Many wonderful things took place, but I was especially impressed at how He led the group into an awareness of Christ as Burden-bearer. We each began to express the specific burdens that we were carrying: fears, worries, concerns, people, problems… and then as we shared them with each other we were empowered to let them go and allow Him to carry them. Very freeing. We left lighter than we came!
I love it! Church in which the Kingdom of God intersects people where they are living their lives. Isn’t that the Good News? The Kingdom is near, now, here, and God is actively at work in and amongst us in love and in power.
Comments
3 responses to “Not Knowing Is Essential”
Thanks for sharing those things. It is so hard to find people sharing stories about these things. The story about the lady who lost her brother really touches my heart.. Bless you
Thanks for sharing. We know what it feels like when a loved one chooses death over life. My wife,(Bonnie’s) mother committed suicide two years ago on St. Patrick’s Day. If this lady ever needs another woman to talk to about it let me know and she can call my wife. That is one of our ministries to the body.
Peace
It seems that this type of gathering is going to be taking place very soon here in my hometown. I have visited with several others who have the same kind of leadings in their spirit that something new and different is about to come here. So we’ve been talking about getting together to see what the Lord would want and see where He takes us all either as a new group or as people being sent out or placed into different areas of our community.
The main thing that we are all getting from these discussions is that we don’t know what the Lord would want to do in or through us, but we are making ourselves available.
Very encouraging post Roger. Thanks and peace to you.