I can barely believe all the Blues I've been party to this week (you?):
-a two car accident JUST happened outside my office and I'm the 911 caller (not sure I've ever called 911 before)
-infertility - again - for a dear couple I love at LFC. Their desires to have children are good and honor God. Why?
-a divorce that hurts. but its been civil. now turning contentious. please Lord don't let this affect the children involved...
-one of our precious members (we call them Ministry Partners) died suddenly and still mysteriously this week - a single mom who is a widow, leaving underaged children with no parents. the funeral is here on Saturday, led by our pastor Mitch White
-I toured the Men's Uptown Homeless Shelter today with Exec. Director and new Lake Forest member Carson Dean. Seeing scores of men desperate for hope was hard. watching a school bus pull up and drop off a high school boy at the shelter as his home was harder.
-Doubt. I spent an hour talking through the doubts of one of our Ministry Partners. He has faith in Jesus. Yet he doubts and needs to talk about it.
-Death. Again, i spoke to two Ministry Partners who lost their mom to alzheimers this week. they each have a concrete hope of heaven and a reunion. but life on earth without their mom is disorienting.
-Ministry. I talked to a pastor who is tempted to give up hope that his leaders will ever be open to a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus more than by showing up for an hour each Sunday morning.
-Staff. I commisserated with a fellow staff member over the disconcerting juxtaposition of our joy at holding out the gospel to hungry people, and our (my) own struggles to keep overwork and stress and anxiety from overwhelming our own lives as ministers
All that to say. Revelation 22:20 "Maranatha!" (that is the original Greek, which in English means) "Lord, Come soon!" and finish making all things new by the power of your resurrection! The risen Jesus is called 'the firstfruits from among the dead.' It's autumn, the first fruit of the harvest has ripened. We shall all be changed, reaped into fruitfulness and life everlasting. But still we live in the fall season - where there is so much beauty and crispness of life. Along with so much decay, while we wait for the promised, coming new life and new eternal kingdom, sure of it because of the downpayment of Jesus risen from the grave.
I will be ready to sing my blues in a God-ward direction with my church tribe this Sunday for Hope in a House of Blues. Please sing your blues to Him alone, and with others. Regularly. Or you might explode.
