Pain at Just the Right Time

[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 have only been grounded once in my life, and it is one of the most vivid memories from my teenage years. As a fifteen-year-old girl, I thought I was in love with an eighteen-year-old boy and would do anything to see him, even though my parents had set strict boundaries around our time spent together. We were supposed to be in a large group of people in a public place or at a friend’s house—never alone and never in private.

I decided it would be a good idea to tell my parents that I was going for a run [I am not a runner… the fact that I thought this would work is still comical]. So, I left my house and went for a jog until I was far enough away from home that my “boyfriend” could meet me alongside the road. After a few minutes of talking, I saw my parents’ very distinct black SUV pulling up behind us and my dad rolled down the window… and the rest is history. At the time, it didn’t seem like my dad had my best interest in mind—after all, I just wanted to spend time alone with the boy I “loved.” Looking back now, I can appreciate my father’s perspective; he knew that this older boy was going to hurt me and he was simply trying to save me from unnecessary pain. Being grounded was the right discipline given at the right time.

In a similar way, God kept the Israelites in a “layover” period in order to protect them from their own sinful ways. While the Israelites simply wanted a change in geography and diet, God saw the root of their problem—rejecting the Lord who was among them (Numbers 11:20). He decided to give them what they wanted, food other than manna, just not in the way that the Israelites had expected. The Lord brought an overabundance of quail from the sea and let them fall around the camp. Even those who gathered the least collected approximately 4,000 pounds of quail!

However, because the Israelites had rejected the Lord, they were subject to God’s discipline—the kind of discipline that had their best interest in mind. Numbers 11:33 says, “While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague.”



Photo Credit: Tristan Colangelo

God struck down the Israelites with a great plague in order to rescue them, and in the same way He also reaches into our lives in order to save us from our sinful behaviors. In an attempt to rescue us from the stronghold that sin has on our lives, our Heavenly Father can use pain as a way to share His grace and provide for His children. Rather than fighting the pain or ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we need to learn from the pain. It might be just the right amount of pain at just the right time, sent from a God who desperately wants to rescue us and bring us back to Him.

[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.]

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.]

Layovers

 [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]

Pastor Dirk spoke about layovers this Sunday – I’ve been through my share of unfortunate airport hang-ups, but I discovered the low point of layovers during a four hour wait in Detroit with two post-bedtime (but not sleeping) toddlers. Layovers are no-one’s favorite part of a journey.

In Numbers 11:4-15, we find the Israelites in a layover. They were stuck in the desert, waiting. They were God’s chosen people, on their way out of slavery and headed to the Promised Land; but in Numbers 11, they are parked in the wilderness for a season. A forty-year season. 

Photo Credit: Flickr user Mike Boening Photography

The Israelites began to grumble and complain, because they didn’t have the things they thought they deserved or wanted or felt they needed. In the desert, God sustained them with manna; the people wanted something more. (Meat; they were grumbling because everyone needs a chicken nugget to go with their bread from heaven.) The people weren’t complaining because of unmet needs – they were complaining because they were looking for something more, something different. They longed for their old way of life – slavery! – romanticizing how good they had it back in Egypt. Their complaining and desire to just get out of the wilderness revealed hearts that were not looking to trust God, or to see what He might have for them right there in the layover.

Every day, without fail, God was meeting their needs, sustaining them. They didn’t ever wake up wondering what they would eat to survive – God provided manna every day.

In the Numbers 11 story, the Israelites were too focused on their desires and their grumbling to be aware of the goodness of God in the wilderness. Does this happen to us as well?

In my own life, when God has invited me into a layover, it’s so easy to wallow in the sadness, emptiness, and loneliness of all that is missing. Whether I complain with my loud mouth, or just inside my head, it’s easy to get lost in what I think I’m missing.

When we moved to South Carolina, I felt like I was in the wilderness. We lived in the middle of nowhere, family life was complicated by a miscarriage, and even at our fantastic church we were extras - unneeded youth volunteers. I spent some months confused, complaining (sometimes to God (useful!), sometimes to Caleb (not useful…)), looking for ways out. But God had unexpected treasures for me in that wilderness – a time of rest and restoration, a time for new steps of faith and different avenues of service and obedience, a time to learn about love from a thriving Christ-centered community.

I almost missed out on all of those beautiful – different - things because I wasn’t looking for what God was doing; I was looking for what I wanted, the things I was used to.

In Hosea, God speaks to the idea of waiting in the layovers:

“Therefore, I am now going to allure her [Israel]; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” Hosea 2:14

Through Hosea, God was telling the nation of Israel about their rebellion, and comparing His plan to win them back to the time they had spent wandering before entering the Promised Land. I’m astounded by this passage; the wilderness isn’t an accident or a problem!

The layover – the wilderness – isn’t a scheduling mistake by God; He plans the layover because He has something there for us.

In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the people of everything before they head into the Promised Land at the end of their forty-year desert layover; he warns them about the abundance that is coming:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you – a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, and olive groves you did not plant – then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Deuteronomy 6:10-12)

Moses is reminding the Israelites that when they come out on the other side of this long layover, they will have all the things they were crying out for – all of that and more! And yet, in that abundance, they will be prone to forget God. The wilderness was the place where they were most aware of God and His goodness; receiving everything they thought they wanted would tempt them to forget Him.

In the daily needs of the wilderness, they learned of God’s goodness. They learned that God was the only source for all of their needs. As He was faithful day after day, He invited them to trust Him.

We sometimes miss the good and gracious gifts of God when we are stuck with our eyes and hearts on our own waylaid plans during life’s layovers, unable to see the goodness of God as He cares for us. If instead we remember God’s faithfulness to us – that He has been good in the past, and we can trust Him to be good to us again – we will be in a position to let God allure us and speak to us in the wilderness. 

[Robin Bupp is married to Caleb, and they are from many places east of the Mississippi (but are calling Michigan home for the foreseeable future). A former high school science teacher, Robin is slowly turning the two Bupp kiddos into tiny nerds while they teach her lots of things, especially humility and patience.]

Restoration: Living Water

[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]

Photo Credit: Flickr User CinCool, Creative Commons

Do you know what it feels like to go to the well at noon? Yes, but I haven’t felt like that for a long time now. I answered this question in my heart as Pastor VanTil shared the message based on John 4:6-26, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. I began to wonder if I had really overcome my sin and shame, if I had really encountered Jesus and experienced his refreshment and restoration. But then the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and reminded me that, yes, I had dealt with the sin and shame of my past, but what about my present struggles and sins?

Instead of allowing Jesus’s living water to continue working in my life, I have reached a place of complacency and apathy. I seek daily satisfaction and fulfillment through material things such as my education, career, financial status, and role as a wife and mother. My wells or cisterns—the things that keep drawing me away from true restoration through Jesus—are less obvious now than they were in my past, but they do still exist. I have created my own broken cisterns that cannot hold water or provide lasting refreshment and restoration.

As Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Just like the Samaritan woman searched for fulfillment through the many men in her life, I too search for satisfaction and define myself in terms of what I can offer the world. The first question that people often ask when they first meet one another is, “What do you do for a living?” Even as Christians we are quick to define each other based on occupation, education, financial status, or other material factors, when in reality, we are defined by the love of Christ. I love this assurance from Galatians 3:26-29:

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

When we return to those wells in life again and again—whether it’s finding our satisfaction in relationships, our identity in an addiction, or our worth in the reflection in the mirror—remember instead that God gave us a well of living water. He called us as his children to be defined by his love that refreshes and restores us to who we were created to be. We no longer are slaves to our sin, but are free from shame and are loved unconditionally by a God who purposefully pursues us, even when we are undesirable.

For further reflection on this week’s message, check out The Well by Casting Crowns.

[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.]

Giving Up Religion

[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 was raised in a Christian home and attended Christian schools, so religion has been woven into my entire life. For a long time though, and even at times today, I thought religion was the point of it all. The first time I heard someone say that Jesus hadn’t come to earth to create a new religion, I had to ponder it a bit. Divorcing the concept of religion from our relationship with God is a complicated process, because it’s not that religion itself, or the practices we engage in because of religion, are inherently bad or wrong. The problem comes in when religion becomes our aim instead of God--because Jesus didn’t come to bring us religion. He came to bring us himself. 

Photo Credit: Flickr User Paul Trafford, Creative Commons

When it’s wrongly understood, religion tells us there are a certain set of rules we have to follow, and if we follow them well enough, God will be happy with us and love us. The problem is, we don’t have the capability to follow the rules well enough to earn God’s love, and that’s where basing our lives on religion falls apart. It’s a game with no winners, ever.

Galatians 4:6-7 tells us how relationship with God is really supposed to be:

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

It’s not based on something we do; “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” That’s the key right there--on our own, we’re never enough, but God says we’re already enough. We’re his children, dearly loved because of who we are and not because of what we do.

All of this is well and good; it’s certainly important to be reminded that we’re deeply valued and loved by God. But why does this really matter in our everyday lives? What difference does it make? Intellectually I know I’m loved by God and don’t need to try to meet some unattainable standard, but it doesn’t always feel that way. What can bridge the gap?

The answer is the Holy Spirit. The rituals and beliefs of religion can’t, on their own, save us or move us any closer to God. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. To break free from the idea that religion is the point instead of God, we have to believe and let the Holy Spirit do his work.

This is a difficult concept for me. For all my religious knowledge, pointing to the Holy Spirit’s actual work in my life would be a lot harder for me. There’s something about the idea of letting the Holy Spirit work in my life that unnerves me a bit, and I think it’s because I’d much prefer for the Spirit to work within the limits I put on him. A prayer as I brush my teeth, a few minutes of silence on my drive to work, a bit of Bible reading before bed, and I feel like I should be set. All of those activities tend to be rushed though, like I’m expecting God to work himself into my schedule. 

When we really desire to put a relationship with God first instead of getting caught up in the rules of religion, we can’t expect the Spirit to only work through the spare snippets of time we give him in the midst of a chaotic life. It’s not that the Holy Spirit can’t or won’t work through those circumstances, because he can work anywhere and through anything, but to truly grasp the significance of our relationship with God as his children, we have to commit to dwell on it, soak it in, not rush to get to the next thing. The significance and responsibility of being a child of God can’t be crammed into the corners of our lives--it has to become a priority.


Over the next few weeks, what would it look like to set aside intentional time to dwell on our identity as children of God and to ask the Holy Spirit to meet us in that place?


[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.]

Driver's Seat

 [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]

After my junior year in high school, I spent the summer teaching sixth grade Bible class every morning at a summer camp. (I spent the afternoons and evenings much less glamorously washing dishes. Lots of dishes. All the dishes.) I remember almost nothing I taught (I hope the kids don’t either – I was so young in my faith), but there is one lesson that sticks in my mind.

In a fully unfortunate illustration that likened our need for salvation to a toll booth (please remember how young I was), I explained that if Jesus was in the passenger seat, He could pay the toll. THE PASSENGER SEAT!

Photo credit: Flickr user Nicholas A Tonelli

I remember it so clearly because some time later I realized how completely wrong I was! If anyone in the room was not a sixth grader, they probably would have called me out for the passenger seat illustration (to which, I would hopefully have said something witty about how it was actually a British car). In all seriousness, I have prayed that those kids would all forget all of my teaching. Who knows what else I said?!

Why would I put Jesus in the passenger seat in that illustration? Because I like control. Because life was all about me, and I was really glad I had found Jesus and invited Him along for the ride. I like my own way; I want to drive that metaphorical life-car. And as a young Christian not fluent in Christian-ese, I didn’t realize how passenger-Jesus revealed all of my selfishness, control issues and lack of surrender.

My plan was to figure out how I could best succeed at life, and then invite Jesus along, hoping to please Him with my efforts. I had a lot to learn about God’s grace and sovereignty.

Unfortunately, I learned words like “seeking His will,” and “God is calling me…” far before I understood how to listen for the Spirit, how to hear Him. I learned to hide my messy heart, instead of learning to hear His voice. I realized how incorrect my statement was about putting Jesus in the passenger seat before I learned how to let Him have control of my life.

I had no idea how to listen to God, no idea how to hear and feel the stirrings of the Holy Spirit.

No idea how to follow.

Oceans is a familiar worship song at Encounter. “You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown, where feet may fail…” Those lyrics really seem to resonate with us. My heart knows that following where God calls is right and good, and I want it to do it. But even as I sing, I sometimes struggle to know confidently to what or how God is calling me. You too? If we’re being honest, most of us should probably be singing something more like, “I like to swim, so I go running into the water; where are you when the waves crash me into the rocky shore?”

This week Pastor Dirk shared from 1 Corinthians 12:1-3 that we sometimes struggle to hear God because, if we’re honest, we aren’t very good at listening. When we are considering our plans, our ideas, what to do when faced with a choice and whether it will bring glory, comfort or presumed happiness to us, we may be “listening” to a mute idol. If we listen for God, His direction will always lead us to choices that declare that Jesus is Lord.

When we feel a nudge to do something or not to do something, how do we know if it’s Him? If we are being nudged into something that will declare His glory, that will proclaim “Jesus is Lord!” we know it’s Him. If we are being nudged toward things that don’t elevate us, but that elevate our God, if the outcome will deflect praise and glory back to Him, we can be sure that nudge is the Holy Spirit moving us toward God’s glory.

He is a good and gracious God – He did not let me stay so wrong, so alone, attempting to bring success and glory to myself instead of Him.

God got all up in my business and showed me that He had been driving all along (those stories are too long for this blog…maybe I’ll share them another time). He’s driving me to places I wouldn’t even dream of, inviting me to do things I wouldn’t know to ask for.

When I operate in my own strength, my successes reflect my glory. When I operate in God’s strength, He gets the glory, and I get to enjoy the ride. He invites me to rely on His power to do things I’m not capable of. (Like this! I’m a science teacher – beakers and white boards are far more comfortable than words - writing is not my jam on my own!) He has called us to places where our feet fail, because He is strong enough to un-fail them!

I’m learning to hear His voice. Our God is not a mute idol; He calls. And when we follow, we will find Him.

[Robin Bupp is married to Caleb, and they are from many places east of the Mississippi (but are calling Michigan home for the foreseeable future). A former high school science teacher, Robin is slowly turning the two Bupp kiddos into tiny nerds while they teach her lots of things, especially humility and patience.]

Hindsight is 20/20

[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://encounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Sporting my pixie haircut in beautiful Colorado, 2012

As I begin to leave my college days behind and start to think about motherhood, the phrase “hindsight is 20/20” comes to mind. For instance, I remember when I decided to get a pixie haircut while working at a summer camp in Colorado—no one ever tells you that a pixie cut is not easier to maintain than simply throwing your hair into a ponytail. It was the summer of hat-hair, bobby pins, and desperate attempts to speed-up hair growth, but at least I made it to the top of a mountain. On a more serious note, I often look back on my first two years in college and how I spent many of my nights and weekends. It’s so much easier to see the negative effects that those decisions had on my life now, rather than when I was living in those moments. Hindsight is 20/20.

This makes me wonder if the disciples ever had similar thoughts about their journey with Jesus. Did Matthew ever look back on the day when Jesus approached him at the tax collector’s booth and said, “Follow me” (Matthew 9:9) and think, “Wow. I cannot believe how much things have changed…” Or, did the disciples look back on their last supper with Jesus and realize that it was then that He had promised the sending of the Holy Spirit?

In John 14:16-17 Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

These words of encouragement from Jesus demonstrate the relationship between the trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son Jesus to save the world and the Father also sent another advocate (the Holy Spirit) to be with us forever and continue the life-changing work of Jesus.

John 16:7 says, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

It is difficult to understand that it is better for us to have the Holy Spirit living in our hearts than it would be to have the Son of Man walking besides us in the flesh. But, because it is written in the Word, we believe that it is true and invite the Holy Spirit to bring the transformative power of God into our lives. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, Helper, and Advocate—He brings life into our weary souls, picks us up when we have fallen down, and fights on our behalf. These qualities are easy to simply write on paper and believe them to be true, but can we recognize when we have actually experienced the Holy Spirit in our lives?

If we apply the perspective of “hindsight is 20/20” to our spiritual lives, it’s possible that we could recognize the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts. Take a moment to truly invite the Holy Spirit into your heart and allow you to see His power throughout your life. Rather than being satisfied with seeing how God has shown up in our past, I suggest that we ask the Holy Spirit to be present in our daily lives. When this happens, when we can feel His power moving in our hearts daily, we truly will display the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

A life lived in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s influence on our hearts can have a significant impact on sharing the Gospel and God’s grace with others. When we are transformed by the Holy Spirit and display fruit of this transformation, it is an amazing testimony to the love of God. Let’s pray relentlessly to the Holy Spirit that we might be changed—that we might be able to fly and fully live in obedience to God’s call for our lives.

For a song reflecting on this week’s message, check out Beautiful Things by Gungor. It is one of my favorites!

[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.]