It was a wonderful morning celebrating God’s Glory and ministering to one another as His body. It was also our first Sunday as a one-service church. We have gone from two services, 9am and 11am, down to one 10am service and it was really cool to see everyone together this morning. I remember when we went from one service to two and it was difficult for me because suddenly I wasn’t seeing people at church because they were going to the other service. I felt I was missing half the community. It was necessary because we were growing, but it was different.
For entirely separate reasons, I stopped attending church for a season and when I came back, the church had changed locations to a much larger facility. Two services suddenly didn’t seem so necessary because there was now more room. Today we consolidated and it was so grand seeing people again.
I was privileged to share a bit about community groups and what God was teaching me this year, what had changed in my relationship with God and how God’s love, grace, mercy had been shown to me through community. I had to start with a confession because I had been away. I had walked away, slipped away, gradually faded away and stopped attending for about a year and a half. It started with an argument I had with God and how I subsequently dealt with it. I sulked, I pouted, I took my toys and went home. It had nothing to do with the community at Redeemer. It was all about Elda not happy with God’s answers. I confess, I stopped pursuing God and began pursuing theater and long distance events, finding my relevance and identity through them.
I don’t need to tell you how foolish I was, but I will. I was very foolish. I told myself I could minister there, but I didn’t. It wasn’t about God at all. It was ALL about me. And I was foolish and sinful to let it go on as it did. There was nothing inherently bad in what I was doing. Believers I know participate without any thought to acting or running being sinful or wrong, because they aren’t. They were for me, though, because they weren’t where God wanted me.
God was gracious to me throughout my rebellion. He protected me. He spared me greater grief. He did finally get my attention, though, through jewelry, or, rather, the loss of it. While I was away for an extended weekend, at another long distance event, someone broke into my house and stole ALL my jewelry. Four jewelry boxes, fifty years worth of jewelry given, purchased, inherited, was gone. I was heartbroken and devastated. And sadly, other than my immediate family, there was no one else with whom I could share. I’d stopped being involved in the lives of people at church. I would see them online and witness, from afar, their life events, but I wasn’t there, present with them through those times. And now, I realized, they weren’t there for me… again, through no fault of theirs.
I had done that. I had broken those bonds by walking away and now I felt I had no right to go to them for comfort in my loss because I hadn’t been there to comfort them or celebrate with them.
It was not for their want of trying. There were efforts to reach out to me, but I gracefully (or so I thought) deflected those efforts. I was OK. God was with me. I would be back some day…
I must also give credit to my daughter’s church for speaking into my life during this time. You see, even though I wasn’t going to church at home, when I was down south visiting my family, I was going to church with them. And theirs is a church that focuses on community and being the church, living out life in Santa Clarita Valley as followers of Christ. That means they’re engaged in their neighborhoods and they fellowship regularly apart from their Sunday morning gatherings.
The pastor would preach on living out life IN community, IN fellowship, ministering to neighbors and the community at large. Needless to say, I was convicted. I would dismiss it, though, upon coming home. I was busy. Life would get in the way. Ooh, and here’s the best one… Sunday was MY day of rest.
And then my jewelry was stolen.
The prodigal began to think of her church and how maybe she could go back and sit in the back pew and gradually work her way back into their good graces. And she did go back and sit and look around… and there were a bunch of people she had know idea who they were! The church had grown, people had come and gone. There were still people she knew who were still there and they threw their arms around her neck and welcomed her with hugs and more hugs. She was home… but she wasn’t.
This was a new church, it seemed. There were new people. She would have to come out of her introverted self and engage these new people. God had that in hand also. The community group with which she had fellowshipped from the beginning was meeting on a night that she wasn’t able to attend. She knew she needed to get into a community group and she realized it would have to be a new community group, filled with new people, strangers no less. Mild panic attack ensued… Countless reasons popped up in her head as to why she couldn’t join…
But she joined a group, and she got to know these new people, and they got to know her, and she was blessed beyond measure as only God could orchestrate.
I didn’t tell this entire story at church today. Not really sure what I told… I muddled through and prayed that it was coherent. I will try to respond now to the questions that were asked earlier.
God taught me, this year, that He is a jealous God and will not let anything get in the way of His relationship with me (Ex34:14). He is also a gracious and merciful God to rescue me and bring me out into a broad place, because He delights in me (Ps18:19). He knew I would need this community group to get me out of myself and to show His grace and His mercy to me.
It has been a hard year. The question that I asked so long ago still remains unanswered. He is revealing more of the reason, though, and I am again brought low, but it is good and I am learning to rest and wait. I am learning, once again, Philippians 3:7-14. My life is not my own. I am His, to do and go at His pleasure.
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
We sang this song today. It was beautiful.
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” (Ps122:1)
For a live version (in a forest), check this out:
All Things Elda 