Another writing deal
I made a deal with Bre that I’d write every day in October and here we are, the seventh day of October, and I’m writing my first blog post of the month. Technically I have written in my journal every day, but I waited a full week to pop on here and post something.
Ever since I published my last book, my eighth tome called How to Understand the Entire Universe, Part 1, I have been drier than lips in a Colorado winter. I think I’ve barely squeezed out 5 blog posts this whole year, compared to like 100 most other years. One-twentieth isn’t bad, if you‘re really bad at fractions.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve felt like I have much less to say, or that I’ve felt numb in general, or the fact that I have a job I really like and I let it consume all my time, including my ‘off-time.’ Like even when I’m not working, I’m thinking about sermons, activities to do with students, events we could put on, things to discuss in one-on-one coffees, and enhancing worship experiences.
So today I’m turning my writing energy not to my normal work routine, but to pumping out a blog post like it’s 1999. Not because I have anything to say that’s worth reading at the moment, but because I made a deal with Bre.
Perhaps the biggest thing I’ve been chewing on for a week is a story I’m hijacking from Andy Gullahorn.
He told the audience a story about a time his church was going through a church split, and it was messy. He and his wife had decided to go with Side A (my own term). At some point during the mess, an elderly lady dropped by their house for a visit. Toward the end of their conversation, the lady asked which ‘side’ of the church they were going to stick with.
“Side A,” they answered.
The lady paused and inhaled.
“YOU ARE LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF THE DEVIL!” she yelled and stormed out.
Fast-forward several years. Andy and his wife are having a casual evening conversation. She tells him that she wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually drifted away from his Christian faith. He says he wouldn’t be surprised either. That his personality is written with so unique a code that it could just drift away. His wife didn’t mean it as a diss, just a friendly observation.
Andy says that at that moment, he felt like God called to mind that specific instance with the old woman yelling, “THAT IS THE VOICE OF THE DEVIL!”
Like walking away from God would be listening to the voice of the devil.
But Andy felt like God was saying, You remember that attitude? That would be the opposite of mine. If you wanted to walk away from me, I’d say, ‘Ok, let’s walk through this together.’
What kind of God is that? What kind of God is humble and loving enough to walk with us through a walking away from our faith?? Not in a condescending or guilt-riding way, but in a posture that says, I love you enough to walk through everything with you.
Like in Psalm 139 where we can’t run from God, even if we descend to the depths. Even in darkest darkness, You are there. Even in a deconstruction of our faith and paradigm, you are there.
So I’ve been sitting with that posture, with that God, for a week. I like that God. I want to have a relationship with a God who loves us enough to hold us in an open hand; not because He wants us to walk away, but because He is acutely empathetic and intimately aware of our experience which would lead us to that point.
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