This Sunday sermon will be served dry and on the rocks. The
refinement of desire is done best in the desert, which is why God has
strategically placed me here.
There I was on a Sunday morning, listening to Pastor Rick
preach about choosing the right doorways to walk through. I found myself on a
mansion balcony in the Arizona desert. The morning sun was shining on my back
as I sat in an expensive patio chair, feet propped up on an equally expensive
footstool. I had headphones in my ears
and I surveyed the brown dry landscape, observing the rocks piled up atop of
one another along the mountainside. I tuned into the live feed to listen to Pastor
Rick talk about doors and why we should
walk through the ones that are open and thank God for the ones that are closed.
But
what if all the doorways in the desert are presently closed?
How do you wait in that dry place with confidence and
dignity?
What do you do when you have been hurt by a church that was
made for people who were hurt by the church? (read that twice to let it sink
in).
The road home might
be a straight line, but it is long and monotonous and seems to stretch on for
eternity.
This was the first Sunday that I would miss a service at my
newly adopted church- this is meaningful to me. It’s the first opportunity to
show myself that I have learned not to hold to tightly, not to grasp so desperately,
but rather to allow my refinement to come slowly as my discipleship unfolds
gradually.
I am learning to let God fill the absences in His own way
instead of cramming them with my chosen substitutes.
As a former church addict, missing a Sunday now and then is
probably a good thing for my faith. Although I don’t want to learn about closed
doors here in the desert, this is most likely the best place to begin again.
And
so my rebellious nature protests in defiance as God patiently refines my
desires.
This is also the first week that I am writing a blog without
direction or intent. What am I doing
here, God?
My blog came on the scene with a rapid fire confession back
in November of last year- it was epic and unprecedented in the history of my
own personal writing. Then came a fresh outpouring of creative writing, a continuation
of the healing process during a raw time of public sharing. After that I
blogged straight through Genesis, beginning with Abel and following all the
shame stories in Scripture I could get my hands on. I closed it out last week
with the last chapter of Joseph’s story, because I felt myself longing to
wander into new territory.
So here I am typing without structure. What am I writing for?
I am actively and daily talking to God about this, and I don’t have an answer
just yet. As with so many things in my life which have the power to shape my
future, I am waiting on a higher power to move so that I can move with it.
I am surrounded by closed doors, waiting to see which one
opens next. My faith stands in the hallway, a long stretch of highway through
the desert with barred exits on both sides.
I have joined a small group and am reading through the
Saddleback bible study which is appropriately themed: “Putting It Together
Again When It’s All Fallen Apart”. This week I find myself in the chapter by
Pastor Holladay titled Expect And Reject
Opposition. I have been spending extra time circling, highlighting,
underlining and marking up the sub-section called discouragement.
When I face closed doors, I tend to get discouraged- it’s my
personality and my internal programming. Whether doors are closed by my own
doing or by God’s grace, or a combination of both, I languish as I wait for
another one to open.
And as I contemplated discouragement this week, I found
myself clicking into a website about how to turn your blog into a money-making
business. Follow specific consecutive steps to increase your traffic, grow your
following and start making money in less than 6 months!
Do I qualify? Sure. Am I capable? Absolutely. Am I willing?
Nope.
Writing is my calling for this season of life, not my agenda
for financial success. So I paused my latest promotion on Facebook because I
needed to do a recheck on my heart and my emotions. I took time to reflect on
where I am at in the present moment. Why am
I still writing now?
I
have a history of putting doorstops into the very doors that God wants to close
for me.
He has had to wrench me away where I stood defiantly in the
doorway, hands planted firmly on my hips, stubborn look on my face, with the
demeanor of a defensive warrior.
“Oh no, not this door, God. You won’t ever close this door.”
Oh yes, He did.
For my safety, He closed it firmly, and he pulled me back
inside before I made yet another stupid mistake.
And now I am in the desert learning about closed doors on a Sunday
morning, listening to Pastor Rick-
“How many of you have walked through what you
thought was the right door, but it was actually the wrong door? There are some
doors you walk through and it takes years
to get back on track.”
Yep. The story of my life for the past year. I nod and blink
in the direction of the dry mountainside before me.
The desert rocks stare back at me in stony silence.
“Sometimes God shuts a
door for my protection. God knows how to close doors to protect you and how to
open doors to bless you.”
I don’t like closed doors- they make me feel punished.
Should I feel protected? I had never considered…
“Sometimes God removes a
harmful person from your life for your protection. Do NOT run after them! Don’t
do it! When you do, that’s called co-dependency.”
Oh God, this
resonates deep. I devoted an entire blog of my confession to this very topic. I
still struggle, even now. Some days I want to forget all the healing progress I
have made and run full speed back into the arms of the past.
“You do not need them.
God has shut the door- do not run after them. Some of you need to hear that
today.”
Yes, I do. The desert is a hard teacher, Pastor Rick.
“They have walked out
and you need to let them walk out. God has a bigger plan, a better idea and a
greater door for your life. He often shuts a door for your protection.”
A better plan- one that includes the firm and abrupt shutting
of doors? I process this logic as I go about the rest of my day.
My family and I eat peanuts and watch baseball and catch the
Blue Angels in action.
And all the while I think about doors and desert mountains, co-dependency
and new hope.
I watch those blue and gold jets make lines in the sky and I
wonder- what am I doing here, praying and seeking answers in this dry desert
place?
“Sometimes God cracks
open a door to give me a glimpse of my future long before I am ready to walk
into it.”
Well this seems unfair- closed doors feel like punishment.
Should they feel like
hope?
“When God gives you a vision
He never gives it to you all at once- He wants to keep you growing.”
Ok, but I am discouraged. Tell me more. I need more.
“Some of you have no
idea the success and blessing and ways that God wants to prosper your life, but
you are not mature enough to handle it yet. Right now you are a little bit too
selfish.”
Yep. This is true- I will own this one. Keep preaching...
“We need to prove we are
capable of handling the blessing He wants to pour out on our life.”
Oh- like a lengthy assignment or a long-term stake-out. A sojourn through the desert on the long
road to a wellspring of abundance.
This I can understand. This I can do.
But when do I get my new ministry?
“In God’s timetable He
will bring it to pass.”
Of course- this again. The unknown, the uncertain. The call
for trust.
Because an immature child needs to grow naturally through
each stage of development.
My childlike stubborn pride presses back hard against this
truth.
Later in the week, as we ride back home on the long stretch
of highway where there is nothing but dry rocks and brown dust and tumble
weeds, I think about that sermon and how appropriate it was for me to hear at
this point in the journey.
“Ok, God, I accept
that this door is shut, I will stop jiggling the handle and trying to pick the
lock. I surrender! So, where to from here? You can open the next door now!”
The desert is dry, quiet and empty. The waiting is pregnant
with hope, but it is still a waiting.
I remember the words from Sunday that struck me deeper than
my pride-
“Here is the problem- a
lot of times God opens up the door a little bit and you get a little glimpse
and think ‘oh, that’s my dream for my life, I would LOVE to do that, it’s what
God made me for, this is what I really want to do!’”
Yes, precisely.
I munch on communion crackers as I dwell on God’s timing,
consuming the last remaining evidence of my previously broken dreams. I had purchased
a box of communion crackers on day when I was certain I would never step foot
into a church again. In my stubborn pride I decided to never return to the
people of God for all the ways they had disappointed me.
That lasted all of two Sundays.
Now I consume that holy and forgotten bread like a starving
wanderer on the long road through a dry arid landscape, listening to words of
retribution and correction from this new spiritual father I have adopted.
“We immediately, without
waiting on God, run out and try to accomplish the vision in our own way and in
our own time, and we fall flat on our face.”
Oh yes, I most certainly did that, in a most epic and
ungraceful manner.
I pass the communion bread back to my family as I share the broken
remnant of unholy dreams. I know that boredom and long desert roads will make
us all into consumer Christians if we are not mindful of our deepest needs.
“And then we come
crawling back to God and say, ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, I really let you down. Did
I just miss the vision?’”
This has become a great fear of mine. Did I misread my
calling? Because honestly, multiple people in high and authoritative places in
numerous faith communities have told me I was chosen rightly, that I have a
special gift, than I am more than qualified.
Did I misunderstand the vision for my life?
“And God says “No, no! I
gave you that vision, I gave you that dream, it’s from Me. You just didn’t wait
for part two and part three!”
I really needed to hear this Pastor Rick. Did you know you were preaching right to me?
As we come closer to home, we approach the burnt hillsides
from a fire that raged through the landscape several months ago.
I notice that green things are starting to bud up from the
destruction.
“The way God intends to
fulfill the vision in your life is often the exact opposite of the way you
think you should do it.”
There is a cross that survived the fire- it stands tall as
the tiny leaves of green poke stubbornly up from the burnt earth.
My intentions were burned in a refining fire because I did
not wait or call on God’s guidance.
“And that’s why you fall
flat on your face.”
I was in such a hurry that I tripped over God’s perfect
plan.
Thankfully green can still rise up from the charred remains.
It may take a year or two before that hillside looks
resurrected, but each day is an opportunity for growth.
“When you are waiting,
it’s not as if God isn’t working. When you are waiting you are supposed to be
preparing, and when you’re waiting God is getting things lined up in the way
that He wants to. And God can do more in five minutes on His timing than you
can do in fifty years on yours. He can flip things around in amazing ways. So
when He cracks that door it’s just helping you see where He wants to take you.”
So putting it together again when it’s all fallen apart? For
me, this is a season of waiting.
And waiting can feel like punishment.
Or it can feel like protection and hope.
I heard Pastor Rick say “God doesn’t sponsor flops.”
Which means my story is not a failure, because His hand is
still so clearly upon me, even when I am stubborn and obstinate.
And I am learning to wait like the author of Habakkuk 2:3-
3 This
vision is for a future time.
It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently,
for it will surely take place.
It will not be delayed.
It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently,
for it will surely take place.
It will not be delayed.
This barren wilderness of patience has its good days and its
bad days. Sometimes it feels like a lot of impatience and some disappointment.
Other times it feels like a drink for my thirsty soul.
I pray and ask God
for peace on an almost daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Since my epic failure,
it is rare for me to feel fully “at peace” with myself, to be certain of my
purpose and my identity. But these closing thoughts of the Sunday sermon were a
consolation in the desert and water for my thirsty soul-
“You are not going to
feel peace on this side of the door. You only get the peace that surpasses
understanding after you go through it in obedience, while you are scared to
death. But once you get through it then God gives you the peace.”
The closest thing I can find to support this is when I
became a member of my new church. I was in spiritual and emotion turmoil about
it up until an hour after signing my name. I would alternate from apathy to terror,
back and forth, again and again. I was so afraid of making another mistake.
But after we drove
away from the church as “official” family members, I felt covered with joy and
peace like I had not known in many months.
It was the rare kind of peace that surpasses understanding. The kind that grows from within.
“When you walk through that door and you come out on the other side
then the peace comes. Don’t expect the peace to come before you obey, it
doesn’t work that way. God only gives you peace after you obey.”
So yes, perhaps some peace will not come to us until after
we walk through the door of opportunity, and we must sometimes wait a while for
it to open.
And as I wait in there in the hallway, I will consume
communion in the desert place, and I will pray.
And I will listen, always listen, for wisdom comes on the
wings of hope and lands in the barren wilderness for the thirsty soul to drink.
There is only one Scripture you forgot to mention in your
sermon, Pastor Rick. It’s the one about me, about my story of slowly blooming
where I am planted here in your faith community:
14 “But
then I will win her back once again.
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her there. 15 I will return her vineyards to her
and transform the Valley of Trouble[b] into a doorway of hope.”
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her there. 15 I will return her vineyards to her
and transform the Valley of Trouble[b] into a doorway of hope.”
-Hosea
2:14-15
This is my prayer, for myself and for anyone else who has
been hurt by the church.
There is an open door for us, too, and the journey begins here in the desert place.
God is the Author of our stories and His vision for us is beyond our biggest dreams.
Amen and amen.
Rebecca
~*~
