Churching it Up

I've been going to Xenos for awhile now, and as a result the past year or so of my life has really involved confronting stereotypes about faith and my own hypocrisy with what's important in my walk with Christ and what isn't.

The hard things about going to Xenos have been realizing how legalistic and judgmental I am, and how ugly my heart and thoughts can be. Confronting the depths of your own sin is a pretty ugly business and would be utterly depressing were God not there to pull you up. Luckily for me, despite being forced to acknowledge and wallow in my own filth quite a bit, I have also never felt God's presence so strongly in my life before.

In September I literally took the plunge and decided to get baptized. Xenos is not a church that believes Baptism is necessary for our salvation (I agree strongly with them on the doctrine of being saved by faith through grace only and so far as I interpret the Bible I believe that is what it teaches) So the baptism for me was not to replace my baptism in the Mormon church (when I first asked Christ's death to count for me) nor to mark when my relationship with God became personal (as it did when I was diagnosed with depression at 17) but to celebrate the decision I have more recently made to try truly "living" for Christ and devoting my life to walking with him as best I can.

It was an amazing experience. All that talk in the Bible about being a "new creature in Christ" never made much sense to me until that night. Not only overwhelming were my extreme feelings of joy, but it also marked the first time I had ever spoken in public to a mixed group of people both of those I loved and those I completely didn't know, without getting performance anxiety or blanking (I did have some notes, but I surprisingly found I didn't need to use these as much as I thought I would and I was completely amazed and how clear and confident I sounded-a first for me in public speaking!) I got to share my testimony about how God has conquered what I used to consider the unconquerable in my life, and talk about how one by one he has help me to overcome the insecurities and discouragement that used to rule me. Once I came up out of the water I felt like I was glowing and I rode a spiritual high for two days straight. Never have I been more spiritually excited or grateful for God's grace and the change it has made in my life. A greater blessing still was that despite our different faiths, all of my immediate family but my sister Valerie were there to share it with me (and the only reason she missed it was because she was on vacation, but I was gratified to hear repeatedly for her how much she wanted to be there) which was a true answer to prayers.

But coming down off the spiritual high as was inevitable has left me in a mood of serious reflection. I am starting to think about all those "where next?" questions and am realizing that a walk with God is not a short stroll that ends with an exciting event like a baptism. Or to put it in a metaphor that is helpful to me, at first I looked at it as small but difficult climb up a mountain. Once on the top I was tempted to feel I "had arrived" but after staying still for awhile enjoying the fantastic view I suddenly realized that a walk with God is more like stair steps. You have a period of difficult climbing, get to the top, and rejoice; but then you are faced with the choice to walk across the plateau until you smack into the next wall and you have to decide whether you want to start climbing that one too. There's always more to progress, more to address, and more to let God confront in you, and the higher you climb the more tempting it is to want to stop and rest on a level plain instead of striding forward again.

After smacking pretty hard into the metaphorical wall and being cross about it for some time, I've decided that I want to climb that next step. But that means more difficult revelations about myself I've blissfully ignored for so many years, and continuing to submit to the Lord instead of saying "Okay God thanks for the help. I've got it from here!" as is so tempting.

Changes have been taking place too. I'm in a new position at work that involved an exciting promotion but also more responsibility. Having prayed strenuously before and after interviewing for this job, once I found out I had got it I was convicted of the fact that this was truly where God wanted me next. So with added prestige of course comes added responsibility, longer hours, and sometimes even more frustrations. I know I'm not up to the task and it's been hard to remember at times that God is.

Not only that but there is my growing relationship with my sister Valerie that I would have thought before impossible. After healing the divide that years of hurt, anger, and bad treatment had created between us, I now have the at times overwhelming experience of doing a weekly Bible study with her, and attempting my walk with God with her by my side. I have learned to be open and honest with her without fear of repercussion, and have been able to be real about my life and my excitement in the Bible and God's love. Despite her continuance in the Mormon church and my adherence to my own Biblically based approach to faith, we have been able to debate points of scripture and Biblical interpretation without it ever once being confrontational or awkward, and have always been able to be completely frank and honest with each other. And added to that blessing, she most recently got a job at my office and I am now working with someone who went from being one of my worst enemies when I was finally honest enough to admit that was how I had considered and treated her for so many years, to one of my best friends and confidants.
Meanwhile our homechurch group is splitting in two because it's gotten so large. While this is a joyful time it is also a sad one. Many dear friends that first helped me start this journey are going off to sheperd others. Not only does this mean relying less on their strength, it means stepping more into my own. Acknowleding that God wants me to be a strong Christian who in turn grows and can serve in helping others is hard. Part of me wants to be the baby, to be the new one who gets all the love and attention instead of standing on my own two feet that God has helped make so steady for me and acknowledging that his plan for me most likely calls for me to do for others what was done for me in turn. No resting on my laurels if I want to grow!

And then there is my passion of writing. I've finished one novel that I am working on self publishing, and writing two more. I have been confronted with the fact that while I dearly love my novel work and indulging in whatever spare seconds I have for characters who are like children to me, perhaps there is a greater challenge still there to develop my writing skills beyond my own enjoyment to subjects that mean more and can benefit others. A long conversation with one of my husband's best friends in our homechurch hit home to me about how whatever small gifts I have in writing, I may be called on to try and use them not just for my own enjoyment, but for the Lord. This is something I am extremely conflicted about. On the one hand I have always greatly admired those like C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller who use their amazing gifts of prose to explains Gospel points in ways that are intelligible to the average man. How often have I yearned for a writing talent like that! On the other hand I want to write about fun trivial stuff, and I'm starting to realize how escapist I have become with my own writing. It would be a challenge to not knowingly enter into fantasy land were I to try this different approach to what I chose to create. While a part of me wants to say also that I'm a horrible writer and surely God can't use me (Moses' protestations of being a bad public speaker until God gave him Aaron as his mouth piece come to mind) one of the unfortunate truths I've discovered this past year is there's no saying to God, "I'm sorry but I'm not talented or smart enough to do this. This just isn't something I am good at." To which God has every right to reply, "I made you! Don't you think I know exactly what you are and aren't capable of? Are you unable or unwilling?" From my own experience I know that every single time I have put something to God and told him I am not good at the task before me or unable to do what I'm being called to, he has consistently showed me that with Him all things truly are possible. Since one can't make a liar out of God then, my own inability to trust him to provide in the same way he has already done time and again is made apparent as the real issue.

I am excited today though because I made the discovery that while I have been going to such a non-traditional church now for so long (no pews, no organ, no real rituals, and hardly ever any praise music, nevermind that there is voluntary unstructured prayer and fellow believers who drink and may have any host of body piercings, tattoos, or even-gasp!-swear) I was deeply gratified today to discover that I can still enjoy a traditional church service where the gospel is still preached and a Biblical message given. I had the awesome privilege today of going to church with my practically brother Justin, and I was worried for myself at how I would react to being in a traditional church setting after so long away from established rite and ritual. I will confess too that in the past I have harbored some unfortunate stereotypes and generalizations about Baptists as a whole, and this was only the second time in my life of ever attending a baptist service. Having so recently discovered how nasty and judgmental my heart truly is, and how fantastically good I am at looking at the speck in other people's eye while I blissfully ignore the log in my own, I was worried I would fall back into unpleasant habits of judging without making a fair assesment of the service based on Biblical principles and not my own personal perferences and hangups (see I already am starting to sound like a sanctimonius prat!)

What a surprise then to find how thoroughly I enjoyed myself. Indeed I felt the Spirit there just as strongly as at some of my own church meetings where I had felt connected most! The formalities were enjoyably comfortable, reminding me of my heritage growing up in the Mormon church, but equally a blessing was the service at no time had anything extra Biblical that would have made me uncomfortable. I heard the foundational message of salvation preached, and delighted to hear the teachings of Grace and Bible verses I loved cited. My heart warmed at the continual call to service towards all those who were destitute in anyway, and I sang with joy to tunes and praise songs that I recognized. I was afraid when confronted with these things I would revert to being unfairly flexibible, but I was gratified to experience worshiping with other believers in a different way than was my norm but with the same feelings of spirit and joy.

So despite all my changes and sins that I still struggle with, it has cheered me greatly to know I can still commune with other believers and not be one of those obnoxious people who thinks only their church is good and right and proper, and who gets hung up on little differences when those differences don't matter. I pray that as I go forward in this crazy upward climb with God, I will continue to always be capable of "churching it up" in other places, and always able to appreciate the Gospel message at the heart of a teaching no matter what other trappings or accouterments may make up that setting.

The Christian faith is a complex and demanding one to follow when you realize that God doesn't only wants to change a few things about, He wants your whole heart so He to continue to combat every bit that is unpleasing to Him and unhelpful to you, whether you want to give it up or not. Sometimes I think I lose my head in these changes and to compensate for past transgressions, run too hard in the other direction to counteract those problems with the opposite extreme, thus creating new troubles for myself. What a blessing to find that despite my shortcomings and times where I have done this, I have not lost the ability or the want to worship with other fellow believers and feel truly at home even when out of my element. It is my prayer that as Christians we can gravitate more towards this goal, and commit ourselves to not objecting to that which is trivial or unimportant from church to church, but unite over the common message of Grace that has saved us all and that hopefully results in the desire of wanting to share that with any other person out there who is hurting, searching, or in need of that supreme joy which trumps all others.

May we never lose that, but only grow it stronger.