When Church Hits you Like a Brick Wall Musing

Spot-On, Tailor-Made Sermon

Okay, okay -- today wasn't really a sermon, but ...

Whatever you want to call it (teaching, discussion, reflection ...), it felt like it had my name on it.

Actually, it did have my name on it. No, really. It did.

It was the passage when the three visitors came to Abraham and Sarah and promised that within a year, they would have a child, and though there was a lot more discussion leading up to it, the bits about Sarah's laughing at the promise, and why she maybe did that, and then why she lied about it, and how it's possible/likely that by that time, she was so bitter and sarcastic toward God, that she was afraid to believe that He might actually still fulfill His promise, how maybe by this time in her life, she didn't want Him to fulfill His promise ... and there was a lot of group discussion among the congregation. I love Sundays when we do this; even though I'm terrified to speak up, I feel more engaged in the teaching when we're all weighing in on this.

And it was perfect timing. After two and a half hours on the phone last night of pouring my heart and frustrations and doubts and fears out to Brooke and receiving her encouragements and her reminders that God is good, that He's always good, even when things hurt and aren't going according to "plan," when God seems sadistic and cruel (and I found out that I'm not the only one who feels that way sometimes), when I'm angry at Him ... to be reassured that I'm not the only person who's experiencing a spiritual drought, who thinks that God seems very, very far away, who feels like the prodigal child who maybe hasn't left, but is living in a completely different part of the house than the Father, who feels like even reaching Square One would be an accomplishment ... after all of that last night, to come to church this morning and be reminded that despite all of that, God is willing to meet us at our house in the wilderness, to dine with us, to ask where we are spiritually, and to call us -- in grace and with very slow anger -- on our sins and doubts and to remind us of His promises.

I won't say that I feel renewed; It would be a lie. But I see hope for renewal where, just a few days ago, renewal seemed like a foreign country that I didn't have a passport for. I think I've found the passport. I think I can get there from here. I think I've found hope.