Idea & Reality

When I was a kid, I loved to just stare at the way things were designed. Why make every step on the stairs just so high? Why make the handles on the garlic press just so long? One of my favorite kitchen tools was the apple corer/slicer my mom had. You just took the apple you wanted to eat, centered the round tool over it, and pressed down. Bam! Apple slices without the core.

Last night was supposed to have been the first of a series of free classes our church is offering. As part of our overall evangelism strategy we thought people might be interested to know what the Bible says about healthy relationships, or what not. I was to teach a class on what the Bible actually teaches about the identity of God. We placed posters around the community and made up invitations for our church members to hand out to friends and coworkers who might have questions about Christianity. We thought some people might come.

No one came.

Failure, or perceived failure, is a bit like being sent through that apple corer/slicer. I feel exposed and fragmented. I feel empty, as if someone had taken all the slices of the apple and put them back together, but without the core. Was it the wrong class? Was it the wrong idea at all? Or was it my sin? Am I the problem? Did God’s will just not have anyone coming that night? Had I not prayed enough, maybe if I had prayed more. Why do I feel like this was a failure? Had I hoped in success? Had I expected to little from God? Had I insulted God with my low expectations?

Please don’t comment trying to make me feel better. Instead, pray for me, my church, and Montreal. And pray for your city, your church, yourself. We sorely need God’s help.

I feel tired in my soul. Worn out, like an old pair of jeans with too many holes. I spent years wanting and wishing to be a part of a better church. The church culture I have grown up in is failing. I have never been discipled one on one, I have never even been a part of a discipleship group of 3 or 4 people. I heard a man once say that more Christians should just ask the Holy Spirit to disciple them. I did, I remember praying about it the same way I remember calling out to the Lord for salvation. I have been stumbling around, looking here and there, trying to make sense of it all by myself ever sense. Well, I have had the company of J. I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, Thomas Watson, C. S. Lewis, John Owen, and many others in the form of their writings. But God knows, he knows what I would have and would still give to have someone with whom I could learn to pray and read and be a Christian in the swirling sands of our culture. I have been lonely, so many mornings I wake up feeling strange, out of place. I believe in God’s providence, and thus I am not dismayed. Maybe I have needed the years of loneliness, and maybe they don’t stop.