Filed under Spiritual Life

Choose Joy

This last week I have been reintroduced to a blog that I hadn’t read in months, maybe a year. When I first visited Sara’s blog I remember being taken by her sense of purpose and joy even in the face of not being able to leave her house.

The reason Sara hasn’t been able to leave her home is due to an awful disease. Today as I write this, Sara’s disease is taking her physical life here on earth. Her passing could come at any moment. Though Sara will take a final breath in this life, the gentle force of her legacy lives in the thousands, maybe millions that have heard of and have been impacted by her life and story.

Sara has been peacefully resting this week, awaiting her face to face meeting with her Savior, yet her words have been teaching me some very crucial lessons on my own life.

It’s easy for me to be a complainer.

When things don’t seem to be going my way or I don’t have the job that “meets my needs,” I complain.

When I feel like I don’t have key, strong relationships in my life, I complain.

I sometimes feel like if I’d only find that new ministry job, I’d be able to use my passions…Complaining.

What Sara’s life has taught me this week is that positive outcomes, met needs, strong relationships and passions are in fact – relative.

Relative to my attitude.

Relative to my availability to God’s plan for me.

Relative…

We don’t always get to decide every hand dealt to us, but we do get to decide our reaction to it. That’s Sara’s legacy to me.

Sara taught me that life in Christ is about finding passion where you are, where God places you, regardless of your circumstances.

Sara couldn’t leave her house and yet from that home she impacted thousands, maybe millions. Just maybe, one of Sara’s biggest lessons taught to us is that “go and make disciples” is really all about taking steps toward your mission whether they are physical steps in a village in Africa, down the sidewalk of a neighborhood of at risk kids, or finger steps across a keyboard doing real ministry to real people in far-off places.

Sara taught me this week that I need to quit feeling sorry for myself and

choose joy.

Choose the joy that God has tucked away in the circumstances we’re in. It’s really a gift, not a curse. Sara’s life proves that.

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Privacy fences, personal space and community

I remember growing up in a neighborhood with few privacy fences. All the neighborhood kids knew each other and hung out together. The adults talked in the front yards, borrowed tools and helped each other with projects. I have a lot of great memories of that time.

Today is a different time.

I am not talking about some sentimental time period or some long abandoned cultural norm that is is seen as a relic. This is a trait that is woven into the fabric of who we were created to be. God created us to live in community with each other. He infused us with relational DNA. We long to be in meaningful relationships with each other, we long for true community. Jesus prayed a prayer for our community in John 17…

I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.  John 17:20-21

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is at the heart of God’s plan for mankind. It’s what Jesus accomplished next that redeemed our need for community and redeems our broken relationships with others. This amazing redemption should bleed into our community with others. Christ wants to remove the barriers like privacy fences, personal space, and hidden burdens that drive us from community into isolation.

In what ways have you experience Christ’s redemption of the community in your life?

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