A Long Ride Into Work

First off, apologies to my thousands of faithful readers. With the move into the city and all that goes along with helping get the church plant ready for launch this August, I haven’t had a ton of time to write. But now life is finally getting into a rhythm again.

We love almost everything about living in the city: the restaurants, new places to visit, and especially all the people we are forming new relationships with. However, there was one thing I knew when moving down here would be a bit of a sacrifice, the commute. On a good day, I’m in the car for about an hour and a half. To put it plainly, it sucks. Yet God has a funny way of using bad things to bring about good.

My friend, Michelle, gave me the idea of turning off the radio in my car and spending that time in the car praying. It has been great. It’s amazing when you sit in silence what you are able to hear. Here are a few of the revelations I’ve had.

1. Church planting makes you take ownership of your faith. It’s probably similar to what happens when you first have children. When you realize that the decisions you make affect other people’s faiths, you make sure you know what you’re doing.

2. My “idol” is comfort. I’ve been reading a book, No Other Gods, that talks about what things you put before God, and I’ve struggled with what mine was. After some long talks with God, I’ve realized almost everything I seek (or shy away from) involves my comfort.
-I spend too much time on the computer and watching tv, and not enough time serving others, my husband included.
-I don’t like meeting new people because it makes me uncomfortable, so I don’t make an effort to meet my neighbors, which was one of the big reason we moved into the city.
- I shutter at the thought of moving to another country to share my faith with people that will never get the chance to hear the name Jesus because that is so out of my comfort zone I wouldn’t even know what to do with myself.

3. I need to work a lot harder at being a wife. My friend, Jen, sent me an email with things to pray for your husband for a month. As I go through them and ask God to make my husband a leader in our marriage and make him faithful to our vows to love and cherish, I begin to wonder how am I following those vows; what am I doing to cherish my husband? Makes me realize what people mean by marriage is hard work. It’s more than just trying to live with another person.

Most of these thoughts don’t have a conclusion and aren’t wrapped up in a tidy bow. Mostly because I’m still working through what a lot of these mean. But I am so grateful to be given the chance to be aware of these things and work on them.