For the last year-and-a-half I've been talking a lot about how I feel God has called me to commit myself to the community I'm involved in. Specifically, the community of people around Scum of the Earth Church in Denver, Colorado. And so, thinking in my usual extremes, I've found myself talking and thinking in terms of this being the community I'm committing to for as far as I can see into the future. I've, in fact, spent a good amount of time wrestling with the idea of being in this part of denver for the next 50 years. And with these people for the next 50 years. And maybe struggling with the same flaws in our community for the next 50 years.
But this last week was a first for me. For whatever reason, the conversations I've had lately have opened my thoughts to some new ideas. In fact it was entertaining the idea of certain people within this community potentially leaving for a period of time, that allowed me to think about whether or not I could leave this community in the same way. Granted, I will always be a part of this community of people in some facet, but this was the first time I was able to feel as if I could leave this place at some point and not be working directly against God's will.
And then it was conversations I've been having about the difference in family upbringing that gave me insight on the way God may have been using me as of late. Maybe God needs to explain things to me in the form of extremes, in order for me to understand the subtleties of what he needs me to be doing.
It was in realizing that I may not always have to be in Denver, with these people, that made me realize how God may have not wanted me to think otherwise until now. Perhaps God needed me to believe I would be in this place for the rest of my life, in order to get the effort he needed out of me, in terms of investing here.
And maybe he's been doing this all along. Maybe God calls us to believe things will be one way for the rest of eternity, in order for us to have the right reverence for the place he has us in. Like levitical law and the Israelites?
But maybe God knows us even better than that. And when this burden is lifted because it begins to wear on us to much, I find myself wondering if I'm willing to accept this kind of grace, in the humility of putting my plans in God's hands.
