When Following Jesus Isn't Easy

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media] 

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know about Jesus. Growing up this way was an immense blessing in many respects, but leaves my answer to “Why do you follow Jesus?” feeling a bit flat. As a kid I followed him because that’s what my parents did and what I was taught to do at church and at school, and in those environments, it wasn’t a very difficult thing to do most of the time. I prayed, read my Bible, and tried to be nice to people. It was a seemingly simple matter to follow Jesus, yet the longer I did and the more serious about it I got, I came to realize it’s definitely not such an easy thing after all. To really mean it when I say I follow Jesus demands my life be arranged and lived differently than if I were merely living for myself, and learning to look more like Jesus is a process that’s never fully complete.

Photo by Tim Trad on Unsplash

In Luke 22 we find we’re not the only ones who struggle to follow God well. After the Passover meal, Jesus took some of his disciples with him into the garden where he went to pray. Yet his disciples weren’t even able to stay awake while he prayed, even though Jesus had warned them against falling into temptation. Meanwhile, Jesus prayed, “Let this cup be taken from me.” I find those words so fascinating and so convicting. He knew he was about to accomplish the reason he came to earth. Yet while Jesus had the audacity to pray for something different than what he wanted to happen, he trusted his Father enough to know that those plans had to be accomplished and would ultimately serve the best possible purpose.

This is where we so often run into trouble. It’s not overly difficult to say we believe in God and we want to strive to follow Jesus in the best way possible. Suddenly though, when we’re faced with choices where God’s way doesn’t line up with our own, those words don’t come so readily. Perhaps, like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we know saying yes to God will lead us to a place of deep pain, struggle, and anguish. Or maybe following God means continuing to say no to dreams we’ve held tightly for so long. 

"Not my will, but thy will" are some of the hardest words we might ever say. 

While it’s true following Jesus starts with one big decision, after that one, it involves many, many more. Every day, sometimes every hour or every minute, we’re faced with decisions of whether to obey our own will or God’s will. Those decisions may be obvious, or may be complex and hard to discern at first. When we dig deep, the core of our question is whether or not we truly believe following Jesus is worth it. Do we trust God to work out his purpose for us, even if it may not be what we want, or may not seem like it’s best for us? Or do we say we follow Jesus, while all the while doubting if he can really do what he says he can, for us, in our specific situation? 

It’s nice to think these matters will eventually all get wrapped up tidily, as solid evidence we can point to and say, “God is good, because he did ________.” I love those kinds of stories, and they absolutely have to be told. Other stories have to be told as well though, the ones where God hasn’t wrapped things up tidily yet, and we don’t know if he ever will. In my own life, it’s looked like friendships that went wrong and I’ve never been able to figure out where or why. It’s looked like prayers prayed for years on end with absolutely no tangible answer. It’s looked liked dead ends to what I thought could be amazing opportunities. So my answer of why I follow Jesus isn’t based on big, flashy things he’s done in my life (though I’d argue the many small things add up to big ones), but on the basis of who he is and who he’s transforming me to become. Jesus trusted a plan that was bigger than his own, and the closer we follow him, the more we’ll learn the same. 

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Easter and Our Unanswered Questions

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media] 


Will I ever get better?

Why did my little sister have to die?

Which college should I choose?

Why do so many other people get to have happy marriages?

When will I finally get a job?

We all come to God with questions. Some of them are big and will seemingly never be answered in this lifetime; some are seemingly smaller, yet frustrating all the same. It’s tempting to approach Easter with its flowers and candy and Easter eggs and simply say, “Jesus rose from the dead! All is well!” And in a cosmic sense, Jesus’ resurrection makes that statement true, but in our day-to-day lives it often doesn’t seem that way. 

Photo Credit: Marko Horvat

Which is why we turn instead to a different resurrection--that of Lazarus. Because to get to a resurrection, first there must be a death. When Lazarus died, his sisters didn’t understand how this had happened. Their friend Jesus was the miracle-working Son of God, yet Lazarus not only fell terribly sick, but died and was buried for four days before Jesus himself finally arrived. It’s not surprising that Martha had a few choice words for Jesus when he arrived, starting out their conversation with, “‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” 

Martha’s actions here are a good example for us--she didn’t run away from Jesus with her questions, she ran to him with them. She was full of both anger and faith, but both of them were pointed in the right direction--directly toward Jesus. So when Jesus told her her brother would rise again, we can almost hear the resignation in her voice as she responded, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus didn’t leave it there though. He went on, telling her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 

Even in the midst of her grief over the death of her beloved brother and the anger at Jesus over his refusal to step in and do something to stop it, Martha’s response was that yes, she believed Jesus is who he said he is--the Son of God. At this point in the story, Martha didn’t know what the ending would be. But whatever happened, she knew who Jesus was. Even her anger and frustration and confusion didn’t remove the true answer from her lips. 

Jesus’ question to Martha is the same one we have to answer today and each day we wake up to the brokenness, pain, and confusion we may face. “Whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus didn’t immediately tell Martha he was about to raise her brother from the dead. Martha had to live in the space of death and heartache for a little while longer, and perhaps we may have to as well--for another day, another month, or another lifetime. Yet, a few verses later, Jesus himself wept at seeing the tomb where Lazarus’ body was. Far from being a God who sees our pain and responds with a condescending pat on the head and “It’s all going to be okay,” our God is one who not only wipes the tears from our eyes but cries alongside us. Resurrection may not happen exactly when we think it should or how we think it should. It’s not always instantaneous and it’s certainly not always pain free. But the words to Elevation Worship’s song Resurrecting are, even in the midst of great difficulty, true: 

By Your spirit I will rise

From the ashes of defeat

The resurrected king

Is resurrecting me

In Your name I come alive

To declare your victory

The resurrected king

Is resurrecting me

The resurrecting in our own lives may not happen once and then never again, because God never promised life would be easy. Each time we end up in the ashes of defeat, the resurrecting can happen afresh. And each time, God is right there with us. 


[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Making Decisions in a World of Grey

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media] 

Many decisions we make have simple, clear-cut answers if we’re striving to follow Jesus. To yell at the coworker who made an honest mistake, or to not yell? To cheat on the physics exam, or to not cheat on the physics exam? To lie to our spouse about how we spent money, or to not lie? These answers are, in most circumstances anyway, pretty black and white. They’re rarely the ones we spend a lot of time worrying about though. Decisions that eat up our worrying time are usually all sorts of grey, with any number of solutions that could be God-honoring. Where to go to college? When to have kids? Whether or not to take the new job? While we can be confident that God will use whatever situations our choices place us in, that confidence doesn’t provide much practical help in how to actually make the decision.

Photo Credit: Behr.com

In the story of King Rehoboam, we see a decision maker who started off in a good way. Instead of making a rash, rushed decision when the people came to him asking for a lighter workload, he told them to come back in three days and then sought counsel. First he asked the wisdom of the elders who had seen the country through difficult times in the past. Then, he decided to get a second opinion by consulting the men he had grown up with and who knew him well. Up to this point, Rehoboam was actually making pretty good decisions. It can be advantageous to get input from various types of people, maybe some who have a better understanding of the situation and some who have a really good understanding of us as a person.

Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. Instead of carefully weighing the input he had received from the elders and from his friends and then using that information to make the best possible decision, Rehoboam simply opted for the advice of his not-so-wise friends without considering the consequences. He didn’t just ignore the people’s request for a lighter workload, he did the exact opposite and gave them more work to do, as well as threatened them with whipping.  

As we seek wisdom from those around us, we have to remember that not all the input we’ll receive is equal. The older advisers had spent time with Rehoboam’s dad Solomon as he ran the country and had a good understanding of how the people worked and what they would respond well to. Rehoboam’s friends knew him well, but they clearly didn’t have his or the country’s best interest in mind with their advice.

Not everyone has deserves the right to speak into our lives or into a particular decision we’re trying to make. Building a strong community full of people with wisdom that can be trusted takes time and effort--it’s not something we should simply stumble into overnight. Inviting people into our lives and allowing them to see who we really are, even in our most unpleasant, unglamorous moments can be God’s way of shaping us into better versions of ourselves. True wisdom sometimes looks like letting trustworthy people who are striving after Christ help us at the times we need it most.  At the same time, if others seek our input, we must consider our words carefully, taking into account everything we know about that person and the situation they’re dealing with. It is a gift and also a weighty responsibility to be invited to speak into someone’s life. We must use our words to build up, encourage, and guide. Even wise people can inadvertently give advice that misses the whole picture.

Our decisions are ultimately our own, but there’s no reason we have to make them completely on our own. We can learn from Rehoboam’s mistakes and seek out wisdom from good places, and then truly take the time to consider it carefully and match it up with what we already know. Making decisions and trying to follow God’s will doesn’t have to be as grey and murky as we often make it, as long as we have put in the work ahead of time and have community around us to help guide us along the way.

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

How to Find God's Map for Your Life

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media] 

“I wish God would show me a map of my life,” I’ve often said. When we’re trying to figure out what God wants us to do, it seems like giving us very clear directions would be the kindest thing. Yet, at least in my own life, I rarely find the answers as easy as typing in my destination on Google Maps. Seeking God’s will seems like a great thing to do, but actually finding his will can seem nearly impossible. When we look to the Bible for people who faced difficult decisions, Esther is an excellent example. 

Photo Credit: Andrew Neel

At first Esther's story seems picture perfect. Plucked from obscurity, she won the favor of the king and and was chosen over all the other beautiful women to become the next queen. As she lived a life of luxury in the palace though, not all was well for the rest of the Jews in the land. One of King Xerxes’ advisors schemed to eradicate the entire people group. For Esther, “hiding” in the king’s palace may have seemed like a literal lifesaver as news of this plot spread. But then a letter from her Uncle Mordecai reminded Esther that even she would not be safe forever, and her position as the queen offered a unique opportunity to perhaps make a difference. While the dark tone of Mordecai’s letter seems almost threatening, he also tells Esther, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”” (Esther 4:14).

It can’t have been an easy choice. Esther knew that she only became queen because her predecessor, Queen Vashti, had been removed from the throne for disobeying the king. By planning to approach the king without being asked, Esther was about to disobey in her own way. She had no way of knowing what would happen, and the stakes were high: Either she'd come out of the encounter still alive, or she would be dead. Her response, while maybe offered with terror in her heart, was, “And if I perish, I perish.” 

Rarely do decisions in our lives have such high stakes, yet we often waffle over them much more than Esther did. Mordecai had faith things would turn out somehow--“Relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from some other place”--but Esther was willing to make the choice to do the hard thing she knew was right. What we see in Esther is her willingness to make a choice. She didn’t do it naively or without consideration--she and her attendants and Mordecai and all the Jews in Susa fasted and prayed for three days--but then she made the choice and carried out her plan.

Circumstances in our own lives might not come with a clear right and wrong answer, which can make it even more confusing when we’re trying to discern God’s will. Deciding between two colleges with good programs, deciding whether or not to sell our house, deciding which church God wants us to attend--we can become so afraid of making the “wrong” choice that we make no choice at all. In my own life, there have been times where I waited days or weeks under the guise of “seeking God’s will,” when really had all the information I needed and was simply delaying the inevitable. The book of Esther never explicitly mentions God, but from her action of praying and fasting, we can safely assume she had some level of relationship with him. If that’s true in our own lives, we can make our decisions with the confidence Mordecai had that deliverance would come from somewhere. 

We can’t forget the true peril Esther was in, though. She didn’t know what the outcome of her story would be. Yet even if the king had ordered her to be killed, I think we can still draw the same lessons from her story. Esther used the information she had to make the best decision she could in the moment, then trusted God enough to let him use her however he saw fit. Picking the college we think God wants us to might not go perfectly--the classes might not be as good as we thought they would be, or the friendships might not develop the way we had hoped. Buying a house might eventually lead us to financial distress. Going to a specific church might result in hurt feelings and divisiveness. It can make us question if we got God’s will wrong along the way. But maybe the more important question is if we trust God enough to use whatever happens to make us better, holier, and more like him. 


[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

It's Not About You

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

As we near the holidays, our minds often turn to giving. We have our list of people and ideas of what kinds of gifts to buy for them, and we also likely think about charitable giving as well. Any organization we’ve given to at any point in our lives seems to come out of the woodwork seeking those year-end donations to help them reach their goal. In addition to financial gifts, we may also spend time serving meals or collecting items for people who don’t have the same resources we do. Too often though, this mindset gets siloed into November and December and largely ignored the rest of the year.

Photo Credit: Karl Fredrickson

It’s easy to make excuses about why we don’t serve. One guy who had some pretty great excuses to not serve is David. In the story we read in 1 Samuel 18:1-11, he had already been anointed the next king over Israel and was a praised war hero who had slain the giant Goliath. Now he was just biding his time until King Saul abdicated or passed away and David could assume the throne. But instead of spending all his time on military missions continuing to build his prowess, or boasting to all the people in the town about how great he was, David spent time playing his lyre for King Saul. As thanks, King Saul, overcome by an evil spirit, tried to pin David to the wall with a spear. Instead of leaving immediately though, David continued to play, giving King Saul the chance to try to kill him a second time (and failing again). David knew something very important about service: It wasn’t about him. Already he had seen God prepare him with the skills he needed to defeat Goliath, and David continued to trust and serve God in his role in Saul’s household as a lyre player.

When we’re firmly rooted in God and seeking to love him well in all we do, service should be a natural outflow of that desire. But it gets complicated in the demands and busyness of everyday life. Work, friends, kids, hobbies, spouses, exercise, school, and so many other good, honorable ways to spend our time and energy can easily feel like they’re taking all of our time and energy. Serving can seem like just one more thing to add to the never-ending list of what we should be doing, which can lead to guilt if we’re not doing it.

As we saw in the story of David though, it wasn’t fun or convenient for him to be serving King Saul. The uncomfortable truth is that God isn’t interested in our comfort. He wants our love, devotion, and yes, sacrifice--and sacrifice will sometimes hurt. If we approach serving by always trying to wedge it into our lives in the spare bits of time here and there, maybe we need to ask ourselves if it’s really service at all, or simply something we’re doing to make ourselves feel better. Our acts of service aren’t just for the people we serve (though they may benefit); service is a thank you note to God for what he’s done.

Fortunately, there are many ways we can serve. We can serve by changing how we go through our everyday lives, adjusting our perspective so we see ways to serve not as burdens but as opportunities to put hands and feet on our thankfulness. But serving might also look like adding things to our everyday lives. Opportunities to serve our neighbors and community abound, and many places are in need of dedicated people willing to serve well, whether it’s at a church or another organization. Our motivations might not always start out perfectly pure, but we can trust that God will use what we’re offering and transform us in the process as well. How would our service change if, as we do it, we thought of each action as adding another word to a thank you note to God? Thanks for the skills we can use to serve others, thanks for the financial resources we can give away, thanks for the people we serve and the people we serve with?

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Why God is Better Than Oprah

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

I’ve sometimes wondered what it would be like to win a massive giveaway, like the kind TV shows do. One of the most iconic giveaways is when Oprah Winfrey gave everyone in the audience their own brand new car, shouting “You get a car, you get a car, you get a car, everybody gets a car!” Recently, John Oliver bought and then forgave almost $15 million of medical debt on his show Last Week Tonight, breaking the formerly Oprah-owned record of World’s Largest On-Air Giveaway. While I don’t know the details of how the attendees for Oprah’s show were picked, I’d guess it wasn’t through a carefully vetted process to make sure each person there had a perfect driving record and could be trusted to take excellent care of the car they were given. From what I can tell, John Oliver and his team didn’t know anything about the people whose medical debt they forgave, whether they were kind and trustworthy people who would appreciate the gift. 

Photo Credit: Hans M

When Jesus picked his disciples, his process was rather unorthodox as well. Instead of scholars or students of religion, he picked ordinary people like a tax collector and fishermen like Peter. These disciples followed Jesus for his three years of ministry on earth.  Traveling together that long, it only seems natural that it became more than just students learning from their Lord and teacher, but friends. Peter, one of those ordinary fishermen, was committed to Jesus, dedicated to sticking with him no matter what happened, and Peter told Jesus as much. It can’t have been completely easy being a disciple though. Many people, especially the religious leaders, didn’t like Jesus much. As his arrest, trial, and eventual crucifixion drew nearer, Peter’s dedication was going to be put to the test.

When Jesus was taken away for trial, Peter began separating himself from the crowd by following at a distance. Had something changed so quickly, and Peter now doubted the true identity of this man he had been following for years? Unlikely. But all of a sudden, associating closely with Jesus would come with a higher cost attached to it than anything Peter had experienced before. To know Jesus was to be consorting with a suspected criminal. When the first person recognized Peter, he backed away from Jesus again, closer to the exit for a quick escape. Yet two more people questioned him, and finally, Peter couldn't handle it anymore, swearing adamantly that he did not know Jesus. Almost immediately, he recognized the severity of what he had done. What kind of sinking, gnawing, pain must that have been, to realize he had denounced his Lord and friend? 

Maybe we don't go so far as to completely renounce knowing Jesus, at least through our words, but if we were to examine our thoughts and actions for the past weeks and months, I suspect we'd find times when we might as well have renounced him. Often following Jesus looks like knowing what we’re supposed to do, but consciously choosing to ignore it or actively making another decision when we find ourselves in the heat of the moment. Realization of our wrongness may strike instantly, or may settle in over time as we think more about what we’ve done. As that happens, it can feel like we’ve disqualified ourselves from loving and serving God. Would he even want us after we’ve messed up so badly? 

God doesn’t work like humans do though. When we hurt our human friends, they may not be so quick to forgive us, but Jesus, fully human and fully God, gave Peter a gift greater than any TV show offering could ever be. Earlier on in his ministry, Jesus tells Peter, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18). Even after Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus knew Peter was so much more than his mistake. God never wants to leave us in our mess, but to redeem it. After the resurrection, Jesus asks Peter three times to feed his sheep, and the rest of Peter’s life became an outworking of that as Peter went on to become one of the most instrumental figures in the early church. It was the grace of a second chance, and it completely changed Peter’s life. 

The gift God has given us is worth more than a brand new car or the forgiveness of all our financial debts. He endlessly says to us, “You get a second chance, you get a second chance, you get a second chance!” His second chances never run out, he never gets tired of us and casts us away from him, he never holds our past against us. God still offers the same kind of second chances to us. We are never “so far gone” that God can’t break in and redeem our choices and our circumstances to turn them into something much more beautiful than we could have imagined. 

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Your Past is Not Your Future

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

There are many reasons we may think we’re unqualified for God to use us. Sometimes it’s a matter of perception, like when I originally went to college with the intention of studying youth ministry, but ended up changing my major partly due to starting to believe the lie that what I had to offer students wasn't good enough. My own life had been so seemingly boring, my path to faith so unfraught with any kind of devastating events, that I felt like I couldn't relate to what the students would be experiencing. Or we might think we’re not educated enough talk about God to other people if we didn’t grow up in church or don’t have a seminary degree. Or we might think we’ve done way too much bad stuff for God to still love us and invite us to be a part of the work he’s doing in the world. 

Photo Credit: Darius Sankowski

In the book of Acts, we see one of the most dramatic conversion stories in the Bible. From the outside, if anyone would have been a candidate for not being good enough to be used by God, it would be Saul. He had literally been in charge of seeking out Christians and killing them because of their faith, and then, on what was supposed to be an ordinary journey to another town so he could kill more Christians, God showed up and showed him the error of his ways. From then on, instead of terrorizing Christians, Saul sought to spread the word about God so that more people would become Christians. 

While his conversion was immediate, it took a while for others to believe it was real and was going to “stick.” Over time though, the existing Christians recognized the work God was doing in Saul’s life and began to work alongside him. Saul never fully forgot about his past, and it’s unlikely that everyone he worked with was able to see beyond it either. In the letters he wrote to churches later in life, he refers to himself as “the worst of sinners.” But even though Saul recognized the importance of owning his sin, he also refused to let his past disqualify him from doing things differently in the future.

Our sins may not be the same as Saul’s. For us, it may be gossiping and judging others, refusing to admit an addiction, cheating on our schoolwork, failing to see the image of God in people who annoy us, ignoring our spouse in favor of someone who seems more interesting, cutting corners at work to make our coworkers look bad and ourselves look better, or any number of other sins that continue to plague us. Whatever they are, whatever “level of wrongness” we may view them as, God is able and willing to forgive them. We don't need to keep looking at our past when God is looking at our future. Despite Saul’s mistakes, he came to understand that who he was wasn’t defined by the man he saw in the mirror, but by the work that Jesus did for him. When we believe this too, our identity suddenly becomes not about what we have or haven’t done, but about who Jesus is and how he transforms us to be more like him.


The other ways we try to disqualify ourselves from God’s service fall flat too. We don’t need special training to tell others about what we’ve seen God do in our own lives, of the experiences of his love and grace and mercy that have transformed the way we work and play and live. Over time I realized that even my story of faith, while very different from someone like Saul’s, had value of its own, and it in no way meant I wouldn’t be able to relate to students or be used by God to speak into their lives. That’s the beauty of the kingdom of God--he can, does, and wants to use all people to accomplish his purpose. He sees the potential in everything, even when we can’t. With God, no sin is too great and no story is too small to be used.

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

When What You Want Isn't What You Need

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

There’s a worship song we sing pretty regularly at Encounter that I struggle with at times. Called “Always,” it includes these words:

Oh, my God, He will not delay  

My refuge and strength always 

I will not fear, His promise is true 

My God will come through always, always

One Sunday after singing it, I remarked to a friend that I wasn’t sure I bought it. At that point in my life, it seemed as though God was either moving really, really slowly, or perhaps not at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe God was there, but it was difficult to see how and where he was working. When we’re in a layover season in life, a time of uncertainty, disappointment, loss, heartbreak, change, or any number of other things that seem to keep us from moving from one place to the next, it can feel like “He will not delay” is a bit of a lie.

Photo Credit: Flickr User netcfrance, Creative Commons

In Numbers 11, we find the Israelites at the very beginning of a forty-year layover. When the people start complaining about the lack of a diverse diet within the first few weeks, Moses knows he’s in for a long, difficult time as their leader. Instead of sending fruit baskets and pizza and ice cream to alleviate the grumbling though, God gives Moses...a committee. It was likely not the answer Moses had been hoping for. Our natural reaction to a layover is to ask God to get us out of it, and that seems to have been Moses’ hope as well.  Yet, God’s reason for sending a committee is an important one. In verse 17 he tells Moses:

I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.

Instead of making Moses bear the weight of an entire community’s layover experience on his own, God gave him people to share it with. The Bible doesn’t tell us what the leaders prophesied about a few verses later, but I doubt it was all the same message given in the exact same words. And while we don’t get filled in on what Moses was thinking and feeling as this happened, I hope he was able to appreciate what God was doing by surrounding him with people. During a layover it’s tempting to ask God to get us out of it, but what if instead our question was, What does God have for me in this layover? And what if sometimes his answer is a committee?

If God gives us a committee, it can be difficult to let other people into complicated, messy spaces with us. We might feel like they’ll judge or blame us for being where we are, or offer words meant to help but that instead bring hurt. Those are the unpleasant sides of dealing with other humans, because nothing will ever go completely smoothly in any relationship. But we shouldn’t let fear hold us back from reaching out to the people who have proven themselves trustworthy. God put them in our lives for a reason. Having a committee didn’t fix all of Moses’ problems--it didn’t remove them from the desert or immediately make meat appear--it was, though, a tangible reminder from God that Moses was not alone in his problem. When we are in a layover, or when we are sitting with other people in their layover, presence may be all the solution we will get or are able to offer.

At times though, we have the opportunity to see layover circumstances in a different way than the people who are in the midst of them. I don’t remember my friend’s exact response to my lament that God seemed to be delaying, but it revolved around the idea that maybe God’s definition of “will not delay” is different than my own. For a God who is bigger than my linear, human understanding of time, “not delaying” could be a week from now, two years from now, or not in my lifetime at all. It wasn’t the reminder I wanted at that time, but it was the one I needed. If we let it, good, healthy, Christ-like community can function for us this way--helping us see what we may not be able to on our own and reminding us that God is who he says he is and he will do what he says he will. What we want from a layover isn’t always the same as what we need.


[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

Forgiveness: Increase Our Faith

I admit that forgiveness is something that does not often occupy my thoughts—it can be an assumed duty as a Christian along with the commandment of “love one another,” but it can also be avoided as a method to rationalize our anger. The topic of forgiveness is sometimes brushed over within religious circles because as humans, we feel that our anger and bitterness is justified. It’s almost as if holding a grudge against someone who has wronged us can be qualified as “righteous anger”; after all, don’t they deserve to recognize their own sin and then ask us for forgiveness?


Photo Credit: Gerry Machen, Creative Commons

Luke 17 begins with Jesus speaking to his disciples; he tells them that, “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.” Jesus is letting them know that we will encounter hurt and pain in this world, sometimes at the hand of others. We then read Jesus’s first shocking statement: “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” As Pastor Dirk explained, the millstone being referred to here is a large commercial stone used for grinding large amounts of grain or crops. In other words, it is better that someone drowns rather than causing a believer to stumble.

Jesus continues, “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.” If we stop reading here, it might be easy to think that our assumptions about holding grudges and withholding forgiveness are correct. Do we really have the right to wait until a brother or sister repents before offering them forgiveness? That idea doesn’t quite line up with the rest of Jesus’s teachings, so we keep reading for more information: “Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

In this case, Jesus is addressing forgiveness within the context of the cultural norm of the Pharisees. It was common practice to forgive each other with urgency, based on the belief that the priest could only offer forgiveness on the Day of Atonement if forgiveness was already extended amongst each other. In order to avoid getting taken advantage of in terms of forgiveness, the Pharisees said that you only need to forgive another three times, and that was considered generous. Jesus again disagrees with the Pharisees and calls his disciples to forgive unconditionally.

It is this type of forgiveness that Jesus illustrated when he died on the cross and extended his forgiveness to all of our sins. He asks us to offer this same kind of forgiveness—the kind that is given regardless of whether the person is deserving or not. It recognizes the humanity in each of us and allows us to look past sin as a defining characteristic and see each individual as a child of God. Rather than writing off forgiveness as an assumed Christian duty, we must intentionally seek to let go of our anger and bitterness toward those who have hurt us. As the disciples say in Luke 17, “Increase our faith” so that we might experience and offer true forgiveness just as Christ offered it to us on the cross. As Paul says in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

For a song that reflects on this message, check out Losing by Tenth Avenue North.


[Megan Stephenson is a recent graduate of Grand Valley State University and works for a private education group in Grand Rapids as an Assistant Registrar. She loves spending time with her husband, Ben, trying out new breweries, restaurants, and local attractions. She also self-identifies as a crazy cat lady, despite owning no cats of her own, thanks to her loving and allergic husband.]

Quitting The Busy Games

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

The Busy Games are popular these days. When I was in college, which is where I first became aware of this phenomenon, they sounded like this: “I’m taking 18 credit, working part time, and volunteering at the soup kitchen,” would be met with “I’m taking 20 credits, working full-time, and volunteering as both the preacher and worship leader every week at my church, and I’m married with 2 kids.” Now that I’m out of college, they sound like: “I work 60 hours a week and walk my 2 kids to and from school every day and am learning Russian in my spare time,” or maybe, “l have 5 kids and they’re each involved in at least 3 extracurricular activities and I run an online business from my living room.” No matter what The Busy Games sound like, the reality is that they never have a winner.

Photo Credit: Flickr User schmollmolch, Creative Commons

Having a full calendar can be a way of making us feel important. We like to show that we’re busy because being busy means we matter to the people and places we devote our time to. If there are lots of demands on our time, then certainly we must have value as a person.  But this busyness can take its toll in unexpected ways, often so slowly we hardly recognize that it’s happening. Not having time to relax and do what we enjoy is one thing, but suffering relationships with God, family, and friends, are less immediate effects that can ultimately be devastating.

In the story of King Ahab, as told in 1 Kings 20 and the surrounding chapters, we see a classic case of divided loyalty. He wanted safety for his kingdom, but to gain it, he went against the express orders that had been given to him by a prophet of God. Ahab took his eyes off God and allowed himself to be distracted by other things. When we look at our own lives, we may find that much of our busyness is chosen busyness. The ways we spend our time are a major indicator of what we truly value. We may say we value our faith and our family, but if we’re not investing in them in tangible ways because we’re too busy with other things, it’s hard to see that our commitment to what we claim to value most is strong. 

Oswald Chambers writes in his book My Utmost for His Highest:

The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God. We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through. Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticize us as they will; but never allow anything to obscure the life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him.

It's easy to get caught up in playing The Busy Games, but much of what we brag about isn't worth bragging about at all. What would it look like if our conversations instead revolved around the ways we are working on our relationship with God, sharing with others what we discussed in Bible study, where we've seen God at work, how our Christian community is challenging us to live more fully for him? These all take time as well, but their ultimate payoff stands to be much greater than we may ever fully realize. There are no winners in the The Busy Games, but we can be winners in an eternal sense if we fix our eyes on the God who truly matters. 


[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]

How to Live Boldly for Christ

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

In Christianity, phrases like "Live boldly for Christ" are fairly commonplace. Yet I've never really seen a definition of what "bold" means when it's used that way. Does it mean selling all my stuff so I can give away all my money? Does it mean moving to Kenya to become a full-time missionary? Does it mean going to seminary and becoming a pastor?

If I don't do any of these things, am I a failure at living boldly?

Most of the time, we equate bold with BIG. What counts is the action, the big, dramatic things that make people take note.

Photo Credit: Flickr User Irwin Scott, Creative Commons

In 1 Samuel 13 and 14, we see the contrasting stories of Saul and Jonathan. Both act boldly, but in different ways and with different outcomes.

King Saul’s bold move was to offer a burnt offering. He was getting antsy waiting around for Samuel to show up to offer the burnt offering, so Saul went and did it himself—his rationale being that he wanted to seek the Lord’s favor before battle. Overall, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal, except he had been explicitly told not to. Instead of waiting patiently for Samuel to show up, Saul let his own misgivings drive his behavior. And, when we look closer at Saul’s motivation, we see fear and doubt that God could and would do what he said he would.

Jonathan’s bold move was to seek out what God would do. He took his armor bearer with him and headed to a Philistine outpost known to be dangerous, saying, “Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.” (I Samuel 14:8) His goal wasn’t to make himself look good (because only he and his armor bearer even knew he was going), but to see what God would do—because Jonathan trusted that God would.

On the outside, King Saul’s action doesn’t seem so bad, and Jonathan’s seems perhaps a little foolish. King Saul was seeking God’s favor, and Jonathan was putting his life and someone else’s in danger.

Except these were merely outward actions. While Saul’s inside motives were not so great, Jonathan’s were—making his actions the ones that were bold in a good, God-honoring way. There are lots of bold actions that are great things to do, but if we’re doing them with the wrong heart attitude, they’re not good things at all. Being bold for Christ isn't so much about the outside as it is the inside.

For some of us, being bold might mean giving away all our money, moving to another country, or becoming a pastor—but for many of us, being bold won’t look like any of those. And if those actions aren’t accompanied by a trusting heart ready to be used by God, they’re empty, not bold at all. On the other hand, actions we consider commonplace or even “small”—showing up to work diligently, being a good neighbor, serving at the church—can be our way of living boldly.

In the end, it’s our hearts that determine whether we’re acting boldly for ourselves or boldly for Christ.

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]