Following is NOT For the Wimpy!

As we desire to be authentic in following God, just feeling the tension is not enough...

observing others trouble is not enough...

hearing about heart ache and feeling sad for people is not enough...

watching news reports unfold before our eyes and absorbing it no further than we would a CGI manufacturing

IS.

NOT.

ENOUGH!  

We must bleed WITH people, EXPERIENCE their pain, fully INHALE life with them...

Then you will see tension relieved, peace engulf trouble, love transform pain and supernatural community form.

We can't just feel the tension or see it... We have to have the courage and faith to STEP   IN    TO    IT...    Alongside... With... Together.

Not only holding another hand for their benefit, but sometimes receiving the benefit of their strength as well.

Please read this excerpt from the book "Red Moon Rising" by Pete Greig & Dave Roberts.

A guy named Paul with long matted hair and massive flares stood up rather hesitantly to speak at on particular 24-7 gathering.  He began with a confession, but we were soon to discover he was carrying a powerful message from the Lord.

"My sister has anorexia," he confided, brushing the hair from his face.  "She's 26 years old and weighs just seventy pounds.  The anorexia is so bad that she's now developed arthritis so she can't even dress herself or straighten her hands.  She also seems to have diabetes and is going through menopause twenty years too early.  She isn't a Christian; she just seems to have been robbed of everything: her womanhood, her future, her dignity, her life."

The crowd had grown totally silent, hanging on every tortured word:  "I'm here to confess something to you..."  Looking up at his audience, Paul paused:  "I don't even pray for her.  I've been asking myself, 'Why not? Don't I care? Yes, I care! Do I believe in prayer? Yes, of course!"  The reason I don't pray for my sister is because it's just too painful.  To pray for her is to think about her situation.  It means identifying with her and feeling her pain.  So I find it easier just to forget the whole thing and pretend it's not happening.

"But God's been challenging me to feel my sister's pain, because that's actually what it means to truly intercede.  I also believe God is challenging us as a movement of young people to dare to feel the pain all around us.  To move from praying 'for' people from the comfort of our own salvation to interceding 'with' them from a position of need."  He grew in confidence as he sensed the Holy Spirit putting words in his mouth:  "Here's the question: 'Will we allow the things that break God's heart to break our hearts too?'  It'll mean more tears, more listening.  It may even be the reason why so many of us struggle with our own personal burdens and heartaches -- God is allowing us to feel the pain, to be weak and broken so that our prayers have power.

"Intercession means weeping for the earthquake victims in the news right now, and for the anorexics, the drug abusers, the sexually abused, the friends who don't know Jesus.  And God says that if we will stand in the gap in this way, bridging the ravine between a hurting generation and a healing God -- we will see breakthrough, a new level of effectiveness in prayer.  In short, there will be very great power in our pain, or, in the words of The Vision, we will weep 'sulphuric tears.'"

Paul scanned the crowd for a moment and noticed the way some were avoiding his gaze:  "This is a tough word isn't it? We're so often told to trust Jesus for a problem-free existence.  But what if the call to pray is a call to bleed as well as to receive blessing?  Maybe we'll run out of words in the prayer room and just join the Spirit in praying with 'groans that words cannot express.'  Maybe our passion will consume us until we actually live out our prayers in practical action?  Will you carry this cross?  Can you receive it?"

---------------------------------

This story resonates with me.  Do you connect with Paul? Do you ever feel that something is missing when you gather with other believers?  Is it possible that as a group we tend to welcome a mutual blindness to one another?  Why?  I think Paul hit the nail on the head.  There are most assuredly times that a problem is too much!  Isn't that the point?  In our weakness & insufficiency He is enough...  He is made known by making up for our lacking.

And then, there's the other angle...

Just being in a close proximity with people when we feel alone, discouraged & pained...  is not enough.  Do you know what I mean?

Do or have you been around those who are your closest spiritual family, feeling need or pain or loneliness, yet hiding it, denying it, guarding it or ignoring it?  This is not to say that at times, just being near those who love you is not comforting, because it is and sometimes that is all that is needed in that moment.  Often times answers to your questions even happen without you ever voicing them.  But is that as it should be?  Maybe, sometimes.  

This is to say that in that moment when you need to open up...

When you feel that nudge mixed with FEAR...

When you need authentic spiritual community...

Will you follow then?  When being led into this kind of vulnerable intimacy... will you surrender?  Will you let yourself be loved?  Will you let that moment of vulnerability or insufficiency be that moment God teaches, answers, guides someone else?

Following is not for wimps!  It takes a lot of guts to be honest about our failure to love others... It also takes a lot of guts to allow others to love us.  We must trust God to lead us into community with His people, which may be the scariest thing yet.  

What is the correlation between loving and being loved... trusting and being trusted?  

You will follow something... someone...  whether you realize it or not.  Let's examine our tendencies... lets be gutsy when it's called for and vulnerable when it's right.  Both take more guts than you have on your own.