Agitated

On Tuesday I’m agitated.

I step into a colleague’s office to vent.

He spins around in his desk chair and welcomes my orneriness, listening, risking a couple of bold questions (one wrong question and I could make life miserable for him… How easy, even “wise” it can be to avoid honest, caring engagement with one another! Is it because we fear the consequences?).

He’s now confronting me… and something happens… church breaks out!

You know, all those exhortations on how we’re to love, relate, build up one another, fight for one another and offer the life and grace of the Gospel to each other… church!

Well it was happening Tuesday in office #9 between 10:30 – 11 AM with a guy I work with. God fills the room. It’s heavy, it’s thick… I’m convicted of my demanding-ness, an arrogance that expects others to see/interpret/understand a set of circumstances as I do.

My goodness… don’t they get it? I’m offering the wisdom of ages. Tested and true, my perspective is informed by things they don’t know… can’t know…  Where’s the respect of total submission to their elder?  In fact… they’re fighting me!@???

And the lights go… I see something ugly, unloving, mean in my response/attitude to them.  My co-worker says a few things but doesn’t have to say much, God is there: convicting, forgiving and inviting me into a life lived differently.

It was the community I yearn for.

Last Thursday I’m in the cab of a truck driving across town with an acquaintance. He shares a battle he’s fighting… it’s ruining his marriage and family. I make a few observations about his life, particularly his relational style and how others experience him… we’re getting into some “stuff”. I suggest we pray and invite Christ into our time as he drives…  and church breaks out! 

You know… the reason we meet on Sundays and midweek… to worship, grow, be encouraged and encourage one another. 

So, at 40 MPH a huge childhood wound surfaces and the agreements he’s made as a result. A whole lot of dysfunctional/sinful life passes by him.  God speaks… we’re both in tears, amazed and stunned by the power and beauty of our time. I get out of the truck with my 40 lb. bag of dog food and he drives off with a strength, resolve and grace he didn’t 15 miles ago.

It wasn’t Sunday. Heck we’re just driving down Austin Bluffs and church breaks out! It was the community I yearn for, the community I was designed for. What’s ironic is how much of it I truly do experience! Really! The church I long for jumps out from uncommon places in unplanned moments with random sojourners… it’s so God!  Yesterday it breaks out in a phone conversation, last week through a friend’s poem, another’s comment on my blog… God is providing so much of what we yearn for. Do you see it?

Sometimes it even breaks out in church . I’m sitting through a service led by a stunningly self absorbed Pastor using every gimmick in the book to rev us up and into some small story… I’m a little agitated… and church breaks out… God comes and speaks to a question I’ve been pondering over for months. I’m smiling, engaged, worshipping and graciously wondering about the “preacher’s” story/journey and compassionately remembering when I was him…  hoping and praying that church would break out.

May it! Enjoy it!  - Craig

Gather

Lori and I are currently in a 12 week group hosted by a local church leader…

Is there anyone who wouldn’t want to regularly meet with a few others who are curious about you and your story; are pursuing God passionately; who listen well, love courageously, and are willing to get messy offering their beauty and strength in humility/grace?

I think that’s a bit of what God intended for “small groups”. Yet what has your experience of small groups been over the years?

For most of the 36 years I’ve been a follower of Christ I’ve been in some form of a “small group”.* Some were mythic in effect, texture, and draw. God came… we saw Him in each other, called Him out…we were different. Many, too many other groups were “stinkers”.

Some end by design, others end with a bang, some with a whimper… some never end… they just go on and on and on and on.

We ache for a community that’s elusive… we ache because we were designed for it, and to go without it is, in the spiritual realm, like going without water.

It’s hard to find.

It’s real easy to give up.

It’s easy to sit through a small group passively… it’s really not what we’re looking for but we don’t want to rock the boat, rain on someone else’s parade… be critical…  and as the weeks drag on our hearts, while circled by “friends”, are parched thirsting for a life Christ directs us to community to find. And after the adrenaline wears off, hope retreats, and the enormous energy to make this group work fades you find yourself in that familiar place… comfortably numb.

“It is a tragedy to live in un-spiritual community. It is an even greater tragedy to live in un-spiritual community and be satisfied and to think that it is spiritual. There are many Christians relating in ways that only marginally require the Spirit, and who aspire to nothing more.” – Larry Crabb

We can’t live in this Story alone. Nor can we pretend to be satisfied by that which doesn’t. Don’t “settle” nor be arrogant.  Don’t rage against the program, pastor… nor be passive. Give no place to cynicism. Stay alive! Keep desire alive!

(Do you get the sense of my current personal battle?)

Cry out to God. Pray; find a few to meet with…gather… just be yourself; worship; offer; listen, love, love, love… fight for the life you yearn.

And Christ will come!

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."- Matthew 18

 

- Craig McConnell

*Some groups were limited to select members, others random groups of people, we’ve been in loosey-goosey-sloppy-agape groups, new member/believer/married…, parenting, parenting teens, marriage, stewardship, The Serious Study of the Word of God Group (one of my favorites… you know what Paul meant in Romans 8:1 but you can’t name 4 people in the group), sit in circles and share (you know this group right? You can see the broken marriages, abuse, wounds, addictions, shame and you spend the evening going around the circle answering the question, “My favorite dessert is_______”), support groups, evangelistic groups, seeker friendly groups, therapy groups… all sizes, shapes… experiences. And even in the “stinkers” God comes for me; exposing, speaking, loving, directing!

"Lost"

Lost

What open armed freedom to be lost in you
A holy communion shared between two
Yet reaching out, further up and farther in
Open lines of glory, the kingdom within

I am lost in you
Secretly bound to you
Breathtakingly found in you
I am lost in you
Lost in you

Moments of mystery, rolling me ahead
Through forests of fear, mornings of dread
Into wide open spaces, face breaking grins
My soul is unfolded, you live within my skin

– Jill Dyer

Jill, a lyricist/poet ally responded with this original piece to a previous blog i wrote… and referred to being “lost in God”.

A Hero of Mine

One of the heroes of faith for me is my friend Janie.

 

I will always remember the day she shared her grief with me.  Her losses were great and would overwhelm/crush/smother/demoralize anyone. Everyone.

 

I sat across from her in my office.

 

I’m the pastor, the one charged/ordained/called to remind people of God… to point them to Him.

 

In those moments of raw heartache and anguish all my rote answers seemed hollow, impotent, canned, cliché. I knew Janie. I knew the details. I wanted to offer her something substantive, real, O God I wanted Him to show up in some way that I couldn’t.

 

By the way… so many of the “rote”/cliché answers I couldn’t offer as a 42 year old pastor  I can offer now, though altered a bit, because of the journey I’ve lived…  a younger man cannot talk of God the way an older man may. Read my blogs in another 15 years if you really want some sagely insight!

 

So there she sat… wronged, despairing, despondent, lamenting with alligator tears and in broken voice said, “… and in all of this I have never known God’s loving heart as I now do.”

 

I sat there paralyzed by her story… a story I knew nothing of. The story of a God who is there, really there, always there.  I’ve found Him since, but I’ve never forgotten how Janie reminded me of Him and pointed me to Him.

 

– Craig McConnell

Like a Saint

Hey, it’s not uncommon to fight off a little cold right?

For a week I was snorting, sneezing, sniffling… tossing and turning through the night; downing vitamin C, guzzling water, doing the Zicam… and praying like a saint.  Like a saint!  For a week.

As a deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God.

I want to live well; a holy, devout, abiding, intimate, conversational relationship with Christ in any and all circumstances; a life walking with God, passionately worshiping Him and courageously loving others. It’s when people or life is onerous that I’m most drawn to bury that desire and settle for a well scripted small story…

Craig always healthy; full head of hair; bronze skin and a pair of Von Zipper’s on, is with his stunningly beautiful wife on a warm beach sitting in a pair of Adirondack chairs (One a rich brilliant yellow, the other a deep fire engine red). Flanked by the best of friends and family), a menagerie of animals: giraffes, bear cats, a lion laying next to a lamb, wallabies and Labs… and maybe birds; bushels of grain, fruit and a good-hearted dinosaur… (picture Sgt. Pepper's Loney Hearts Band album cover). Next to Lori and I are our delightful daughters, I have a granddaughter on each knee enjoying ice cream cones as they repeat over and over, “You're awesome Aboo”. My two ruddy strong son-in-laws stand and ask, “Oh, grand Father-in-Law we ask for your spiritual direction that with equal perseverance, sacrifice and soul work we might, one day, live the life we see you living… what advice do you offer us?” And then, just as I’m about to answer, a herald beckons me to a phone where a circle of international financiers, politicians,  beach volleyball players, pastors and Monarchs are wanting my help in interpreting the times. You get the picture?  Oh my gosh… it’s really a puny story in which I’m the main character and life is about me, me, me. (Oh… add a car that works and a new beefy stereo).

But… that was a couple of months ago, this is the new Craig and I’m living large in this grisly cold-sinusitis. I’m proud of myself. Typically when I'm sick I forget God and get bitchy... but not now, not here, not me! I'm in the zone I wish I lived in…  I'm so deeply aware of His presence as my Sustainer, Father, Wonderful Counselor, Provider, Life, Comforter and Strength. The truth is that most of the words you would use to describe God seemed real-time true… except for “Healer” (but even in that I sensed His sovereignty... something I didn't yet know was going on). And so I' pray… morning, noon and night a medley of worship, warfare, truth, delight, desire…  I like how I’m living. For a week.

BAM...THWACK ZAPOLA…WHAP… I get an upgrade, super-sized… my cold has morphed into some dastardly flu with a gnarly fever... incessant cough, sleeplessness, aches. 

I'm either on the couch, in bed or putzing about in a ripe fleece, my red plaid pajama bottoms topped off with my homeless-Mohawk and 7 day beard. 

You are kidding me! What's next... boils? Now, I’m praying the full work and triumph of the work of Christ over my life, body, home, domain, family... I’m bearing down and loving God...I'm yapping up a storm with Him. I had been "suffering" well expecting that my viral/bacterial plague would naturally run its course but now that I was 12 days "into it" something began to wane.  Note: I kept thinking of the hell several friends have gone through for months/years in chemo or fighting some horrendous disease/illness...  wondering how they did it. I know, I know I'm a whimp. 

"Suffering" over time exposes how deep our roots have bored into God, My roots appear to be on the surface as discouragement begins to set in and my prayers in some very subtle but essential way shift…. The words and tone didn’t change noticeably… but something is changing…

Sitting is uncomfortable, so is standing, lying, kneeling. One moment I’m convinced Lori opened every freaking window in the house and turned on the AC…I’m freezing and there are not enough quilts in this  overpriced, quickly depreciating low light boring house. 20 minutes later I’m living proof of global warming… “Man it’s a hot one, like 7 inches from the midday sun…” * I’m in a parched land with a parched people in this miserable presumptuous neighborhood full of wackos who for some reason call this 2 bit cow town “home". Do you see the slow advance of the "bitchy" thingie?

I don’t want anything to eat!!! And there’s nothing to eat here anyway! There never is, and why is Whole Foods so expensive, and Safeway's produce is second hand produce picked over by shoppers in California and sent to Colorado for those of us stuck in this overgrown New Jerusalem where absolutely no one practices the religious values they profess.

I can’t read and TV stinks... Real Housewives of Orange County, Biggest Loser, Hannity, MSNBC, The View... they're all carnival barkers with a stale shtick. Even music doesn’t play well, not even Ashley Cleveland’s rendition of Gimme Shelter… it all sounds like bumper music to a low ratings mid-afternoon Icelandic Soap Opera… the only thing that does sound good is one loud listening to Hendrix's dark Hey Joe Live… Speaking of marriage… “Where is she?”  Can you sense a shift... I'm barking at Lori now!  Apocalyptic endings are becoming attractive... I'm rooting for the end of the world, for a random steel girder to fall through my bedroom ceiling and take me out... I'm ready to give the dog away, sell my silver, drink that good bottle of wine I've been saving and live in a Costa Rican jungle (small story again!).I’m lying in bed seeing animals in the shadowy shapes of the pine trees outside our windows, (bear, raccoons, a lizard with a captured fly in its mouth, buffalo… then people, crusaders, firemen, Joseph Stalin.. (I’m reliving the summer of 1969).

I'm taking water;losing heart and steam... yet still praying... a little, kinda, sorta, barely... not really! 

So, last night i down my antibiotic, a 12 hour expectorant gel capsule, a one finger shot of cough suppressant, and a sleep aid and hit the sack. With about 14 minutes before I fall asleep or overdose I thought I'd read a bit. I spot my Bible, pick it up and the thought crosses my mind to fling it open and read whateverer page opened (for the record this is not my practice, I think the last time I did this Jimmy Carter was president and I was about to become a rigid dispensationalist).

My Bible falls open to Luke 18... I staring at verse 1.

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

I close my Bible without reading any further... and begin to pray like I don't recall every praying before in my life!

Now I know the rest of the story about the Widow, because of her persistence, gets what she's after... but that's not the point God's after with me! Immediately I know the point is for me to pray and "not give up". It's sooooooeasy to give up! Heck I'd given up! And in one of those nano second downloads from God so very much becomes clear.

Yes, He's been in this... and so has the Adversary. In a smiling fatherly voice, that's music to my soul, I hear God's affirming words that I have lived, fought and prayed well in all of this... "Well done" echoes through my being. He's pleased... and invites me into an intimacy that perseveres... 

The life I long for has nothing to do with pleasant circumstances, loving friends, health, stereos or cars that work. Life is found in Him... in those intimate, passionate and sometimes desperate times on the bed, in the hospital, wondering how I'll ever get out of debt, or if my prodigal child will return. Life, communion with God, abiding, intimately bound to God... So much of that is what I was enjoying and was now waning.

Until those words...  Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

Ambien be damned I launch into my extended versionn of our Daily Prayer with interspersed worship, extended repentance and warfare and listening ….. I was locked and loaded, praying like a mad man... no, take that back... like a saint!  Focused and free from distraction God was showing me a life-shaping wound that's haunted me since I was 21. Agreements I've made are surfacing...  I'm actually lost in God.

Wonderfully lost in His presence muttering and groaning core passions, sorrows and hopes... crying, laughing and still. For hours.

This morning I woke up… still woofing, weezing... feeling horrible but living like the man I want to be…. and praying like a  saint. Like a saint!

- Craig

* Rob Thomas & Santana, Smooth... great summer song