When I wrote about our Jurassic Journey, I talked about following the crumbs. Following the crumbs is the way my wife and I describe how we go through life. We believe that the Holy Spirit leaves little trails of cookie crumbs for us to follow. We enjoy the taste along the way and find some pretty neat places in the process.
We felt we were on a different crumb trail than the one that we had been on for quite a while. Who knows, perhaps it was the same trail, just a different type of cookie. We felt it when we began to plan for our first real breaking away, a vacation from our home network and our two businesses. At first we thought we were going to look at an old motel we could have possibly purchased in the desert. On the way there it didn’t feel like it, but it did before and it got us moving and solidified our resolve to explore.
We went along the trip, looking for those thin places where you could actually be in heaven and on earth at the same time. We found a few and we found clarity in the lack of definition. We were on a journey, not a trip. A trip has a starting point, an apex point, and a return. A journey leads you wherever, and the point is not in the points but in the serendipity of the path. We didn’t get the motel.
If you have followed along on Facebook you will know that the last few months have been, interesting.
Usually I have visions. They aren’t all inspired. In fact most of them are not. I like seeing them and running them to ground. Often they are more ghost like, or like a mirage in the desert. I am energized by them, nonetheless.
In our recent case, the reality is unfolding long before the vision. Oh, my brain keeps trying to catch up. Usually it is the other way around. First you see the vision then you shape the reality. Oh no! That would be too normal. Right now it seems that we are seeing the reality and it is shaping the vision. The reality is changing, and I mean changing really quickly. The vision thing is just catching up.
I don’t really know what was going through the minds of the early Christ Followers. You know, Jesus said all that stuff about going in all the world and to share this good news of God’s kingdom, then with a puff of smoke they saw him head up into the clouds. Dramatic. What did they do? They stayed in Jerusalem and shared the good news of God’s kingdom. Half right.
When things got really tough in Jerusalem and the church was being persecuted, I kind of doubt they thought of that as a commissioning service. You know, the cool church thing where we pray for our missionaries and send them off with our blessings. I think that reality happened. It happened quick and the vision of the missionary call sort of caught up with them along the way.
Long story, short version, within a few short weeks we visited a community in another part of the state, felt that we were supposed to become a part of that community, got financed for a house in that community and began packing. Actually it only took 3 weeks. In the mean time we are living, doing, and going about what we have been for almost a decade.
We carry with us some cool good news. It is that the Kingdom of God is here! Jesus grants us access to a great way of living, heavenly, you might say. We also carry with us some stuff that we have learned about how we as a family do that best. We do it best through hospitality, love, and acceptance. How simple is that?
Our mission, in our current community or the one that we are moving to, is to create sustainable rhythms of hospitality that reflect the same love, acceptance and forgiveness that Christ offers us. I’ve been trying this for a few years. I have failed at it more times than I can count, but I am doing better.
I live my life out open. If you happen to come close you will get to see me in all my un-glory. I get some of it right, some of it not so much, but it is out there. I put it out there because I am trying to be real. I was good at a contrived version of who I thought I should be. Too good, actually. I don’t want to be anything other than what I am, each version an improvement on the last.
If you are interested, I would love for you to follow along. If you aren’t, you can always follow along anyway just to do a guy a solid. The more people who follow the better my blog looks and the more people who will follow. OK, so that may be too much to ask. Well, at least pray for me, ok? I need the blessing and we all need the practice.
simplecelt 