Thinking outside the box

Today at Crossings Jen challenged our thinking about God and life. We talked about how people assumed they knew who Jesus was and because of that, they put him in a box.

People do that with each other, with us. They think they know us and therefore know what we will do. But, sometimes people can surprise us. They can do something different than what we expect.

This is especially true for God. We have an assumption about God and what he is and how he works but really, what kind of box is big enough for God?

What do you assume about God? Do you put God in a box?

Letting Go.

In biblestudy, we talked about the parable of the man who had so much stuff that he needed to build a bigger barn. Year after year he accumulated stuff and built bigger storage spaces. Then, one day he said, "Ah, I have everything I need, I will rest and live happily." But God came and said, "Tonight your life will be demanded of you."

Our initial discussion found this to be very straight-forward. Don't spend your life so pre-occupied with getting a better house, better job, better car, rather make sure that you keep your eyes open to others around you.

But, the next section said, do not worry about what you will eat or drink, for the ravens do not worry and God provides for them. You are worth more than birds.

We talked about poverty and God's provision. When some people starve, how can we believe that God provides?

As we talked our conclusion was that these verses are about surrendering to God. That life is uncertain and bad things happen. We can do everything in our power to try to control that - buy insurance, get a good job, live responsibly, but at the end of the day, there is nothing we can do to prevent cancer or earthquakes or death. Those things are part of living in this broken world.

But, if we surrender. If we let go of our worry and trust God day to day. Then we are free. Our lives become light and full of color.

Of course, letting go of control is hard. Letting go of fear is harder

You gotta have faith....

This week at Crossings we read the stories of how Jesus healed several different people. What we noticed and discussed was that in each occasion, Jesus called the people to faith. He asked them to trust him, to believe him. They did and were healed.

What does that look like for us today? What does trusting a God we can't see, and often can not hear look like? What does healing look like?

We didn't have answers but we thought about the words Jesus shared with his disciples before he died. Two things he emphasized. First, that the holy spirit would come and second, that they were to love each other. From this we took that healing happens in relationship - with God and with each other. And that Faith and trust are about opening ourselves to that relationship.

God tells Job to "get a pair"

At biblestudy we have gotten to Luke chapter 11. You may wonder how this led us to God telling Job to "get a pair," I will explain. We ended spending a lot of time talking about the following verses:

30 As Jonah was a sign for those people who lived in Nineveh, the Son of Man will be a sign for the people of this time. ³¹ On the Judgment Day the Queen of the South will stand up with the people who live now. She will show they are guilty, because she came from far away to listen to Solomon's wise teaching. And I tell you that someone greater than Solomon is here.

This led us to read the old testament to figure out what Jesus meant by this. The stories of Jonah and the Queen of Sheeba are very different, but at their heart they are both about gentiles recognizing the God of Israel as God. So, here, Jesus prophesies that he will finally break down the barriers and all gentiles will be able to see and recognize God.

He continues after this to berate the pharisees and the teachers of the law, which got us going on just how good he is at ripping on people. I mean, it was brutal. He basically held them personally responsible for all the deaths of all the prophets in the old testement.

Again refering to the old testament, we read many sections where God is rather blunt with people for being disobientiant or for questioning his authority.

We ended up reading from the book of Job where God rips Job a new one for questioning him. Chapter 38 starts like this:

¹Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
²"Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
³"Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
⁴"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

It is refreshing to see God's infinite grace and yet not a pushover.

calming the storm

At Crossings this week, we read the story where Jesus and his disciples are crossing the sea of Galilee. Jesus falls asleep and a big storm comes and threatens to destroy the boat. The disciples are terrified so they wake Jesus up. Jesus stands up and tells the storm to calm down, and it does.

Ali gave a great message about storms and how life is full of them. She reminded us that all along, Jesus was with the disciples through the storm. God is with us and close to us during the storms of our lives and when we surrender to that presence, the storm can go on how ever wild it is, but we are filled with calm. God is in control and we have nothing to fear.

Letting go is the hard part, particularly when we have a hard time trusting God, believing in him... that he is there at all. But even if we can't surrender, can't believe, can't let go of our fears, God is there anyways. That's grace.

as we learn to accept it, it becomes all the more beautiful.

The Kingdom of Heaven...

is like a mustard seed that starts small and grows on its own.

This is the verse we read at Crossings this week. It really touched home for me as I am 4 1/2 months pregnant which has given me a number of insights into faith.

At first, I was agnostic about being pregnant. A little stick told me that it was true but I didn't feel any different and had a nagging sense that it wouldn't really "stick."

Weeks passed and I had an ultrasound. Seeing a little body that moved and beating heart pierced me. But still I couldn't feel it. I wasn't changing that much and so emotionally, it didn't seem real. I was agnostic.

I realized that sometimes, even when God presents us huge blaring signs that he exists and is out there. We find ways to dismiss them. But yet, this small thing is planted in our hearts and grows. And as it grows it takes hold of us. It changes us.

And as I am now starting to believe in and connect to this baby that I can't see growing inside me, so in faith we find small ways to connect to and believe in God and to trust in Him.

Feeding of th 5,000

At biblestudy we are continuing to work through the book of Luke. This week we read chapter 9 which had a number of great stories including the feeding of the 5,000 and the transfiguration of Jesus.

One thing that we really discussed about this chapter was how it was a time of teaching for the disciples. If you notice the words carefully, when Jesus feeds the 5,000, he actually doesn't do the work. He tells the disciples to "feed them." He blesses the bread and then the disciples go out and give it to the people.

In this story, the disciples go from passive observers of Jesus's ministry to active participants who share in the work. What would you do, if Jesus turned to you and asked you to feed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread?