longing for belonging in a community of love

"Then I said, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." Isaiah 6:5 KJV

"And when the day of Pentcost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting....

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance....

.... Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the  gift of the Holy Ghost,

.... and all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."
Acts 2:1-2,4,37-38, 44-47 KJV

Please pardon the archaic language, but I just love the poetic beauty and depth of these phrases:
all with one accord in one place
filled the house
filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak... as the Spirit gave them utterance
all things common
continuing daily with one accord
with gladness and singleness of heart
And the Lord added...

Who is there who does not long to be part of such a beautiful, selfless, caring, vibrantly loving community?
Filled with God and love for one another?
Filled with praise and thanksgiving and hearts to give to any and all
Mouths and hands moving to his impulse of love, care, give, share

These are not just beautiful words, these were actual people, a real community that God formed.
They were not in heaven where all had been healed and transformed and all lack was overcome
They were people just like you and I...
rough and tough, possibly crude fishermen with calloused hands
teenagers who vehemently argued over who was the greatest among them
women whom no one believed when they were the first to bring the news, 'He is Risen!'
none were powerful, wise, impressive or respected in any way on their own

"And they were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? and how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians-we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God."

Out of this wonderfully diverse crowd... "So those who received his word were baptized and there were added about three thousand souls" Acts 2:7-11, 41 ESV 2005

A community transcending all cultural, racial, national, ethnic or gender boundaries... united in a love for Jesus Christ greater than all else (Let Your Wind Blow the entire passage of Acts 2 with a few more comments)

I so long to be a part of a community like this...

I believe God can do this kind of work in any time, location or people

and so the burning questions come...

Why does one's experience of Christian community at times differ so radically from what is described above????

What to do when what I deeply desire and believe God wants differs from what is?

The rest of the book of Acts and the New Testament confirm that Christian community is no instantaneous, pop-up, just add water and presto! kind of experience. It is difficult, takes long-term commitment and massive amounts of grace not to destroy itself. Just a few small examples ...

"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another" Galatians 5:14-15 ESV

I beg you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I beg that all of you agree with each other, so that  you will not be divided into groups. I beg that you be completely joined together by having the same kind of thinking and the same purpose. My brothers, some people from Chloe's family have told me that there are arguments among you. This is what I mean: one of you says, "I follow Apollos"; another says, "I follow Peter"; and anotherr says, "I follow Christ". Christ cannot be divided into different groups! Did Paul die on the cross for you? No! were you baptized in the name of Paul? No!
I Corinthians 1:10-13 International Children's Version

so many more passages (Phil 4:1-4 for instance)

I appreciate that God gives it to us straight and includes so much real life and experiences of those who desired to live in Christlike and Christ enabled community with one another. For two thousand years, believers have struggled over these questions.

What does it mean to be in community with others who believe in Jesus Christ?
How can one enter in to what His grace and Spirit want to do in genuine and loving relationships? 

I can only say so much of my own personal agony has been the tension between what I read in the Bible, and wholeheartedly believe God can do and what I experience as I seek to enter in and continue in loving community. Church history and many, many biographies of those who have gone before give witness to the blessings and struggles in this arena of faith.

For me, the questions become personal...

How to manage a realistic expectation of Christian community, relationships, with no lessoning of trust in what God is able and wants to do?

How can I avoid becoming disappointed, hurt, frustrated and bitter, withdrawing to the very lowest levels of vulnerability and relationship...

Over and over again I find I am not even aware of my expectations until they are not met and the stabbing disappointment arises, the crushed hopes, the painful longings

I so long for a loving community to rise up and surround me with the practical love of Christ and show His amazing grace and glory.

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35 NIV

These are not rhetorical questions written to be clever and catchy but the very real throbbing of my heart. I am seeking to be like Habbakuk who came to God with his burning questions and said,

"I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint." Habbakuk 2:1 ESV

If anyone is reading this and has anything helpful to say, I am listening and I am praying to learn and grow in this area right here and now. I welcome your input.
In fact, I need it.

Those who know me personally and have observed my life beyond these words on this page, I especially need you to speak the truth in love to me

if anything I have learned, it is how much we really do need each other

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with al the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:14-19

 We can only know the fullness of the love of God in relationship with others...

“Woe is me, for I am undone!Because I am a man of unclean lips,And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;For my eyes have seen the King,The Lord of hosts.”Isaiah 6:5 NKJV

Isaiah describes his experience of coming into the presence of the LORD of hosts by saying, "Woe is me, I am undone"

Is not this the key to entering into genuine relationship with God and others?

As I come into contact with Truth, does it not have the exact effect of deconstructing my delusions, fantasies, imaginings, about myself, others, relationship, community?

Is not this the place to begin?

How can I come to know God without being in genuine interactions with others, who become a source of truth, confronting my carefully constructed facades and defenses and illusions?

Isn't it  in relationship with others that I can be in a place for God to show me truth, bring me into truth, transform me by truth?

 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" John 8:32 

It has taken me 5 days to write this post because I am trying to write with multiple, energetic children in my house who make noise, interrupt and have all kinds of needs. Part of me wants to yell at the top of my lungs, "This is not an atmosphere conducive to reflection, thinking, or trying to write!!"
And yet, I see that this is the perfect environment for me right now because my kids are a constant touchstone to the present and what is real. There is constant and even instantaneous feedback!
I have the jarring and uncomfortable experience of calmly typing about the wonderful love and peace of God and the very next second, realizing my desperate and deep need for more of Him in my life!!

This is a heathy learning environment for me because it is both lecture and lab, theory and practical application. It is in contact with you that I am continually made aware of my own inability to love you fully and completely as Christ loves. How I need His love in my own heart and to enable me to love you.

Not to say I don't carve space and time for quiet and reflection and greatly value and need such, just that God is keeping anything He wants to teach me very real and applicable at this season of my life!

And, so how to listen well and sensitively to what God is wanting to show, teach, change in me?

Daniel 9 is a beautiful example of someone reading information from God and responding in earnest prayer and seeking of God for what it meant and how it applied to his life
Definitely praying and earnest seeking for wisdom and understanding of what God wants to teach, show change in me

but I am convinced it will involve a sense of being undone as Isaiah felt

I will be confronted with realities that shake my world to its core

I am not the person I wish I am
You are not the person I wish you to be
but is not this the path to transformation?
To the working of these wonderful truths of God into the realities of my daily experience?
The community that formed in Acts 2, did they not experience this as well?
II Corinthians 1 is one of my favorite passages because it details Paul's own experience of this as well

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. II Corinthians 1:3-5 NIV

I can only give to you what I have received
One of my favorite books: Holding Onto Hope by Nancy Guthrie is a beautiful example of this

I Corinthians 12 and 13 are such wonderful passages describing the community of believers as a body, a body which everyone who has put their faith in Christ is a part of, although different from one another
a body of which I am a part=belonging
    when I feel like there is no way I will fit in - He has made me a pat oh his body whether I fell like it or not
a body of which I am only a part=we need each other
    when I self-absorbed and feel like it is all about me and my experiences and how I feel - I am only a part
a body in which He has a meaningful role for me to play, although different from others
holding these ideas in tension

Isaiah 6 seeing God
seeing God and hearing God through you
seeing others as they really are
trying to have a relationship with what I want you to be won't work because I am only having a relationship with a fantasy in my own mind instead of you,
the actual  real and living being before me
when the reality of who you actually are hits my wishful view and all I have stuck to it and intertwined with it will shatter like a mirror
like glass connecting rods to my heart

Jeremiah 2:13 "My people have done two sins. They have turned away from me. And I am the spring of living water. And they have dug their own wells. But they are broken wells that cannot hold water."

When I try to make you more than you are, then I am digging a broken well that will not hold water.

accepting the limits of who I am, who you are, what God has given at this time (I wrote more on this thought at On Dying On Accepting Limits Ode to my mom )
when I accept the truth of who you are, I can begin to have a genuine relationship with you and be authentic myself
a living connection is born
like a tender shoot it must be cared for
and loved
not automatic
intentional

I cannot change you but I can seek to love you with the love of Christ
begin with one

from a movie about Heidi Baker (Mama Heidi)
"love the one God has put before you"
seek to be Christlike to all
but intentional about building community with a few
at least one

a mutual expectation to share lives deeply

pray for one another

build connections between our lives

what is a community but a collection of individual relationships?
community is a made up of individuals and their connections with one another

A wonderful place that I am finding healing community and genuine connections is through
Jo Ann Fore's website: writewhereithurts.org and her upcoming book When A Woman Finds Her Voice
It has been a wonderful place to get to know other women who are trying to learn these things as I am.

It was is stretching out his crippled hand at Jesus command, that the man was healed. 
(Luke 6:6-11)

"Then I said, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." Isaiah 6:5 KJV

"Dear brothers, when I came to you, I did not come as a proud man. I preached God's truth, but not with fancy words or a show of great learning. I decided that while I was with you I would forget about everything except Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. When I came to you , I was weak and shook with fear. My teaching and my speaking were not with wise words that persuaded people. But the proof of my teaching wast eh power that the Spirit gives. I did this so that your faith would be in God's power and not in the wisdom of  a man."

I Corinthians 2:1-5 International Children's Version

a beautiful post on how God makes community out of the broken: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/09/dear-church-the-real-truth-about-family-values/

If you have made it to the end of this very long post, I invite you to add your contribution and honest feedback. I want to learn from you. Thank you for reading!

great quote of Eugene Peterson
Scot McKnight had this quote from Jon Merritt's interview with EP on his blog tonight:
"EP: I’d tell them that pastoring is not a very glamorous job. It’s a very taking-out-the-laundry and changing-the-diapers kind of job. And I think I would try to disabuse them of any romantic ideas of what it is. As a pastor, you’ve got to be willing to take people as they are. And live with them where they are. And not impose your will on them. Because God has different ways of being with people, and you don’t always know what they are.

The one thing I think is at the root of a lot of pastors’ restlessness and dissatisfaction is impatience. They think if they get the right system, the right programs, the right place, the right location, the right demographics, it’ll be a snap. And for some people it is: if you’re a good actor, if you have a big smile, if you are an extrovert. In some ways, a religious crowd is the easiest crowd to gather in the world. Our country’s full of examples of that. But for most, pastoring is a very ordinary way to live. And it is difficult in many ways because your time is not your own, for the most part, and the whole culture is against you. This consumer culture, people grow up determining what they want to do by what they can consume. And the Christian gospel is just quite the opposite of that. And people don’t know that. And pastors don’t know that when they start out. We’ve got a whole culture that is programmed to please people, telling them what they want. And if you do that, you might end up with a big church, but you won’t be a pastor."