It's been three years since I left this blog. Three years and some change when I gave up on where it was going and felt overwhelmed at what I felt like I had to do.
This time is different.
This time I'm not aiming for perfection, but for authenticity. I want each post to matter to me and not just to be a number in a very long counting game.
I've decided to make Bridgetown my home church. After wavering at Westside and a brief stint at Sunset, I've decided to try and dig in in this city and plant roots here. I've gone the past couple of weeks, when they've been breaking into Thessalonians, and have enjoyed both sermons. The first (last week's) was incredibly satisfying intellectually, with history behind the letter and some insight into the church plant in Vancouver.
Today, John Mark was teaching and I remembered why, still to this day, he is my favorite teacher. I think it's his blend of arrogance and humility that can only be explained as human -- he is real in his pain and his shortcomings, and I appreciate that.
We just unpacked the first few verses, but the simplicity is often where I find the most comfort. The main focus of the teaching was surrounding the tension between gratitude and grief. Going through a tough break up, I'm settling into this tension -- I think it had to happen, and hopefully my ex is happy with whatever he chooses to do from now on, but I am teetering far closer to the grief as I mourn what was, could have been, and what I was hoping would come.
Scripture tells us that work is produced by faith, labor is prompted by love and endurance is inspired by hope. This is so timely because I know that the majority of this relationship was not driven by these ideas and I think the labor and work put into it, at least on my end, could've been far better and deeper. I could've done more, and I admit that so many of our problems were because of me. I can only thank God for grace and forgiveness, and pray that others forgive me, too.
The takeaway questions from tonight were...
Is your work directly shaped by your faith?
Is your labor motivated by love or something else?
Is your endurance in need of hope or your hope in need of endurance?
Let that sink in, because I'm also thinking about these things. The biggest for me right now is that my hope is in need of endurance. I think the reason I stayed so long in something that may not have been healthy was my fear that no hope would be there if I left. But there is always hope in the Lord, and I'm coming back around to that realization.
Thank you, Jesus.
