Jesus Came for Me Too?? And He Keeps Coming...

"If the Great Commission is our job description then everything else feels like a failure or 'Not good enough...'" came through the Voxer thread I was listening to as my sister/cousin this morning and it made my head jerk up. The statement was a part of a longer conversation, but I stopped and listened and re-listened to it at least four times. Has that ever happened to you? Someone says something and you know He's speaking to you? Jesus has been talking to me lately about something that makes me highly uncomfortable.

I love the Bride, I love the nations, I love discipleship, I love the holy scriptures and I love praying. 

I grew up in a church planting family - being missional as a lifestyle has been like the "family business" since I was a toddler. Everything centering around reaching people for Jesus - everything. You learn pretty early on that your desires are secondary to reaching others. Everyone else is more important than you, that's for sure. But what Jesus has been showing me recently is that He came for me too. :) 

Sometimes being raised in this kind of missional culture you can think that Jesus came for me too, yeah, and I found Him and now, now I just need to suck it up and get my mess together so I'm able to help others. Feeling like you're "in the way" with all of your issues...you're keeping others from Jesus. And maybe your issues are that you've longed for years to live on a farm and create space for weary friends to find rest? And maybe you can't make that longing square with the dying in India? And maybe that's where the joy of your salvation comes in? Maybe that's where faith that His ways are higher starts to grow?

I wouldn't change a thing about my years growing up in my home - not one thing. My experience was hand crafted by the Creator as part of my story and I really, really love my story. But just recently - I would say maybe over the past year and a half - I have given myself permission to ask Him any scary questions that come to mind. Even ones that go against what I've been taught and my experience. I am finding that giving myself this permission has actually drawn me closer to Him. It's created this hunger to read His scripture with new eyes. Letting Him tell His story to me again. 

I've mentioned reading a book called "The Pressure's Off" by Larry Crabb. Game changer kind of read for me. Just this week I was reading a chapter where he talks about the goodness of God and suffering in the world:

"If this life is all there is, if life ends with death 

with no conscious existence in another world, 

the only reasonable and compassionate response to pain 

is to do all that we can, perhaps anything we can, to relieve it. 

Everyone, including whatever God exists, 

should devote their resources to that end.

Those who do otherwise cannot be trusted. 

They're not good. Which leaves us in a bind. 

If God does exist and if He really is in control,

 it's patently clear that He isn't doing all He could to relieve suffering..." 

Larry Crabb

So.

This is messing with my theology. 

If I'm not responsible to rid the world of pain...then what am I here to do?

I don't have all the answers like I used to. :) One of the joys of getting older, I guess? But what I'm finding in scripture is that He uses our very ordinariness to His glory. I know that I can't figure out why He allows pain in our lives, but I know it shapes us. I know that I'm exhausted from trying to live outside my skin, but I'm hopeful that giving myself to love people in the way He designed me to love will bring life to me and others and Joy to Him. 

I feel this deep liberty to not make sense to myself or anyone else anymore. His ways are so much higher than mine. If He has freed me from the cares of this world and I'm free to express my part of the ecclesia the way that is worship for me...I don't know, but where His Spirit is there is freedom. And I'm quite intoxicated on His presence.