Limbo

One of the things that I really hate is not knowing what is coming next. I hate it. I want to know what’s going to happen in the next five minutes, five days and where I’m going to be in five years. Some of it is I think a desire for rootedness, I want to dig into my community and stay there, with fixed routines and and give and take of learning, teaching and doing that while varied is fairly routine.

That’s not the life I have. Sure there are some things we do every week (church, weekly open house supper and so on) but we’re not really rooted in a community. We have a church in our geography that we attend but some things about it aren’t really what we’re looking for, and we live here but the chances that we’ll outgrow this house are fairly high ( I mean at some point we’ll have to go from a children’s bedroom to boys and girl(s) and I REALLY don’t want to give up my office.

For the past several years I’ve been praying that God would just give us a place we could be and be used, without being involved in strife (very difficult as S and I love to debate) and without moving. When we left our old place and came here I thought perhaps we would be settling, yet this week when an acquaintance asked me? if we’d found a church home yet I had to say “We’re at such and such a church for now, but whether that will be true in six months I don’t know.”

I’m coming to see this as an area for growth though. God knows, much as I love routine it tends to be become the most important thing? in my life, and in that respect it’s not good for me. As I keep listening to Third World Symphony I keep being struck by the song Enough which is taken from Proverbs 30:7-9.

Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 lest I be full and deny you
and say, ?Who is the Lord??
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God. (ESV)

What is daily bread? What is enough? Shouldn’t I be able to be content with being in a place for six months and trust the Lord to make clear the next step? I think so, but my faith is weak.

 

 

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2 Responses to Limbo

  1. I can empathize with your unrest. Some time ago, though, I made a conscious decision to look differently at things. Because, bottom line, unless I run a church-house (which I will never), I’m not going to find a place that does things exactly the way I would do. I am involved in and with several centers of worship in my community. One hosts my women’s Bible study and my son’s Boy Scout Troop. I host two small groups and serve on the Care and Meals Team of another. And the third is the place to which I carry my family on Sundays and Wednesdays (to hear the preached Word of God), the place where we contribute, financially. Additionally, I have found so many opportunities to grow and minister online. I think I hindered myself when I tried to find an all-my-eggs-in-one-basket kind of place. Church isn’t a place. It’s is a group of Christians in many church houses, in many places. I love my patchwork church-going, and I feel like I’m behaving in a way that says “Kingdom-sized.” The lovely thing is that I’m truly immersed in the community, now; I’ve met soooo many amazing people I wouldn’t have had I been working within only one “church.” I’m not suggesting that you attend, regularly, a place where you are opposed to the theology. But, Kyndra, you very obviously have kingdom-sized gifts, and perhaps your unrest and inability to find a place to hunker down and nest is a huge opportunity in disguise!

  2. What a precious post! It is hard to live “untethered”, but it keeps us flexible for His purposes. What a blessing the you are able to see this situation from His perspective. May He bless your obedience to live with an open palm before Him, allowing your trust to be completely and soley in Him, not in all the things in which we usually find a false sense of security. Thank you so very much for linking up, dear!!!! 🙂

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