Life in Silence

Silence is an interesting companion. 

   In many situations it seems to glide along below the hustle and clamor of our daily lives, casually and unbegrudgingly taking the wayside to business. But on the other hand it is innocently looming, just waiting to be noticed. When the time comes for it to be known, (not be known as that would insinuate aggressiveness, a trait it never holds) the noise of the world peels back unnoticeably to reveal something that patiently waits its turn, but never demanding for attention. 

   This almost subservient attribute of silence often reminds me of interacting with a good friend, the kind of which you can go long lengths of time with minimal to no interaction without maiming its longevity. When you begin to palaver with this friend of yours which occasionally manifests itself differently for many but often for most it becomes a time to reflect, or more accurately a time to commune with life itself, you suddenly become aware of its presence, not just powerfully in that moment, but continually throughout all of life. Like an old friend this can often be an enlightening and refreshing experience, for their opinion offers much insight in regards to a moment or experience.

   Silence is similar in this regard. You also begin to find that the longer the bouts of time between conversations is, the more catching up there is to do. If these gaps of time become long enough you find that you require exponentially more time to catch up. Often those times of reflection seem refreshing yet often carry a sense of incompleteness or anxiety as in something unfinished. One finds that if they take the time to catch up frequently the time is more casual, relaxed, and altogether enjoyable. And with that comes a sense of peace.

    Let this be the charge, let us confidently welcome silence like an old friend and take the time to not only unpack, but also stare life right in the face. The more we frequent silence and acknowledge it the more it refreshes and clears the mind. If we do it too infrequently we often encounter more haste and anxiety to catch up than when we take the opportunity to spend time with and enjoy the quaint yet dense knowledge that silence will willingly offer.

    Instead of waiting so long that the idea of sitting alone with silence, and therefore life, causes us anxiety, let us strive to make it not the old friend, but a constant companion. One who's presence provides kindling to life, allowing it to burn passionately. 

Okay. Now that we got that out of the way I want to explain and digest my intentions a bit. 

   First of all, I want to give some context. I wrote the above thoughts on day last week in one very intense sitting. I realize that the content of it may not necessarily be ground breaking, but it is in the sense that it was an important experience for me. As I began to start writing this (and by this I mean the above section) I found the idea to kind of consume me. The more I wrote the more I had to go until the though was complete. The reason I would claim this groundbreaking was that in that moment I not only processed this thought mentally, but I could feel it at more core, burning and yearning for release.So I took the time to write it out. I wish I could give the experience justice, but words cant quite describe it. But in the simplest way I can say that it was surprisingly cathartic.

   Now at its surface it is not explicitly gospel orientated, but when I began to look closer i think at its core it very much is. To state it simply there is utmost importance in us taking the time to not just have a "quiet time" but to take the time to be silent and patient in God's presence. A lot of times he likes to speak to us in this time of quiet peace. For a pretty clear example lets take a look at an encounter Elijah had.

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

(1 Kings 19:11-12 ESV)

 It was there in that quiet whisper (also translated 'thin silence') that He encountered the voice of God. Now I don't wan to try and look into this too far so as to avoid creating or saying things unbiblical. But I think I am safe in saying that one of the reasons I think God calls us to these times of silence is because there is an innate intimacy to silence. You can sit and talk to anyone for a long time, but a true mark of friendship is when you are capable of siting in each others presence comfortably and silently. 

I am going to wrap up by saying that there is so much power in silence and it is something I am working on a lot right now and putting a lot of focus towards it. So if you struggle with this don't worry, I am right there beside you. Just remember that our end goal is way more valuable than any other thing. May Christ be our life.

Goodbye for now. I love you all.


Oh, and make good choices! :P

The Revenant and a Revelation

So to start out I will let you know that this is not in any way a review of the movie The Revenant, and will not contain any spoilers. So if you have not seen it you will be fine reading this. I saw it last Sunday and since have had one thought that has been lingering since right after I saw it, and though it would be worth sharing it with everyone. Well at least the three people who probably read these. :)

So for those of you who do not know me I can be a generally empathetic person, and I love movies. Those two factors together turns me into one of those super into it, fist pumping in the theatre kind of people.

That being said when watching The Revenant I found myself in utter distaste of the antagonist played by Tom Hardy. As the movie progressed I found myself teeming with rage as I saw his character continue to prosper despite the evil that trained right alongside him.

I found that at my core, especially when seeing him cause harm to Leo's character, to desire to see justice play out. So much so that I found myself admitting to myself that if I had ever (hypothetically) encountered him in real life I would not hesitate to end his life. I wanted nothing but to see revenge for the things he did to someone who did nothing to him. That injustice had me boiling with rage.

(If you want to know how it ends you will have to go see it yourself, or cheat and look it up on some plot exposing website.)

After the credits rolled I found myself reflecting on this deeply ingrained desire to see justice play itself out and see the bad pay for the harm he caused the good. It was then, soon after as I was getting ready to start my car, that it hit me. The Revelation.

(This is where I am going to get a little cliche and pull and Christian lesson out of a Hollywood blockbuster, but I cant help it, my brain functions by creating continual metaphors. I try to make comparisons to basically everything I encounter.)

Anyways, back to my point. It was then, in that moment of silence before my care started belting classical 90.7 radio, that I realized how big of an idiot I was. I, for some reason, in these 5-ish years of following Christ, made the mistake of assuming I understood grace.

I sat dwelling on my desire to see justice prevail when God gently nudged my thoughts over to the Gospel and what Jesus did for me, no, ALL of us. We are a sinful people that live in a sinful world, and because of that we deserve death. Everything we do is for selfish gain, whether its to be the best or to subtly make ourselves feel better by being nice to others. It even says in Romans that "the wages of sin are death".

Then I thought about the idea of Christ, a sinless perfect being who came here to die on the cross for us because God is a just God and someone had to pay the price (or wages) of our sin, which as I just mentioned was death.

So if the idea of the "bad" guy in a movie getting away blameless at the cost of the life of someone who was a "good" guy. why don't I find the Gospel message more unsettling?

Why have I belittled grace?

It was throughout the span of that night that I sat in a silent, bewildered stupor. That I met an unfortunately rare kind of worship. The kind where I sit sick to my stomach because there is literally no reason by my own doing that Christ should have died and risen, thus forgiving my sins. I am still not sure if I can say that I understand, but I think it is safe to say that the one thing I can walk away from this sure of is that if I ever claim to understand grace completely and am not floored by the idea, then in that moment my theology has become soft, my faith weak, and my God small.

Which I can assure you he is not.

Beloved, I'm not sorry to break this too you, but you have been forgiven of soo much that you will NEVER fully understand it.

And honestly, I think that is the true beauty of  grace.

The Facets of Fellowship

Community: n - 
1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
2. a locality inhabited by such a group
3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists.

(Yes I realize this is not the word I used in the title, just stick with me)

This is the simplest and most worldly way to describe the word. After another summer spent at a Christian camp with fellow believers in an environment that requires a Christ focused community I can't help but ponder about how this definition of community fits into what we are called into as believers, and how it differs from fellowship, which sorry to break it to you, is not the same. (Update: By the time of finally finishing this I have experienced many more  examples of everything that fellowship  entails, the most recent being a Christian Conference hosted by CRU called DCC.)

Fun fact: After doing some research I came to realize that the Bible never uses the word community, seemingly because the word community itself is to vague to communicate accurately. If it is trying to reference believers (community) as a whole it addresses it solely as the Church (or Israel, One Body,  etc). In any other situation it chooses to refer to specific attributes that the Church reflects. (Ex: Romans 12:4-5,16, 1 Corinthians 1:10,1 Peter 3:8, Acts 4:32, Acts 1:14. Look into these when you have time, I would love to, but these are almost worth a blog of their own.).... I think you get the point, there are many more where those come from. I guess my point is that when one really looks at what Scripture says they see that it doesn't just want a community, it wants a collection of people transformed by scripture and Christ.

Now for the fabled and very often misinterpreted word that this blog post is focused towards.

Fellowship: n -
1. the condition or relation of being a fellow: the fellowship of humankind
2.friendly relationship; companionship: the fellowship of father and son. community of interest, feeling, etc.
4. communion, as between members of the same church
5. friendliness

This is where the cool stuff begins, well at least for me, I get almost embarrassingly excited about this kind of stuff.

I want you to take a second and let the language of this definition of fellowship in comparison to the definition of community sink in. I especially want to point out something I particularly interesting, the definition of fellowship actually uses the word community, or branches of its root word commune, to describe it. Therefore, it can be  fellowship is a specific form of community, not just a synonym.

Okay. Deep breathe. Now I want to take a peek at the end of Acts 2 where we witness one of the first true christian fellowships, and an incredibly spirit-filled one at that.

The Fellowship of the Believers
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
(Acts 2:42-47 ESV)

Great stuff. Now the Greek word used for fellowship in this passage is the word koinonia which is a noun from the word koinoneo which means contribute, enter partnership, share, and take part. The other thing I want you to understand about this word is that in the new testament it is often also used when referring to the sharing or distribution of money, particularly on behalf of the poor. 

For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.
(Romans 15:26 ESV)

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
(Hebrews 13:16 ESV)

 In both of these instances the word used here is the same Greek word koinonia. I realize that you could pick this apart A LOT and go into depth about money and such. *insert sigh of everyone glad that Im not talking about money here*

I have a couple points I want to make regarding the distinction and use of the word koinonia and what it means for Christian Fellowship, but I am going to tie it up all under one point.

Christian Fellowship is others focused.
There, the cat is out of the bag so to speak. Now before you start complaining about that not being that great of a point (I know at least some of you are thinking that) hear me out. This idea fellowship is based of the concept of sacrificing out of your surplus for those in need. Let me hop back to the the aforementioned verses from Acts, verse 45 to be specific. 

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
(Acts 2:45 ESV)

This group of believers realized where they had abundance and gave from that plus more. The even crazier thing being that these people, recently transformed and captivated by the idea that Christ the son of God came to die for their salvation not because of anything they have done, realize that LITERALLY everything they own is a undeserved gift from God and viewed as surplus to be given. Heck these people where selling property and houses if the need arose. This idea of joyful giving and gospel propelled humility creates a dynamic that is powerfully selfless. This kind of radical selflessness and giving bring about a truly captivating and disarming joy that is not explainable yet holistically enticing to non-believers. with a dynamic like this its not focused on building ourselves up around similar people (like most worldly communities) but solely on building up those around us. This is a place where those who are hurting can come and be loved and cared for even though they feel as though they have nothing to offer. 

Now to throw in a little disclaimer, if you enter into one of these fellowships with desires in how you specifically should be treated and the amount of respect you deserve, well then you have missed the point. At that point, in your mind the community is about you and how its not benefiting you. This is dangerous and unlike the original format laid out for Christian fellowship by the life and words of Christ. For a few more simplified examples lets just take a look at the life of Jesus (in brief). He came to this earth out of pure compassion to atone for our sins. Knowing that we could do absolutely nothing to pay him back. And need I remind you that everything we do amounts to the worth of menstrual rags? (Isaiah 64:6a)  

This Christian fellowship is a beautiful structure, designed in a way that when the believers that apart of it are focused and led by the Holy Spirit and Christ's redeeming love. This creates a safe place where outsiders can come to to be loved, poured into, and inevitably transformed by the gospel. A place where all credit is pointed to Christ, and a realm where the Gospel, love, compassion, and transformation are so powerful and Spirit led that it begins to becomes an engulfing, self-feeding blaze. 

Fellowship, my beloved, is what I believe to be a glimpse of His Kingdom, here on earth.









*If you want to hear some more gold on what a Spirit-revived community looks like, check out the sermon series by the same name from pastor Art Azurdia based on Acts 2:42-47 Spirit-Revived Community

**Also is you are interested in this topic I also suggest checking out the book Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Its a short, by very challenging and dense read. One of those you could read multiple times.