Choosing In

Our whole ComLife family arrived a little over a week ago, and we are all learning exactly what that means in our community.  We are just now getting our feet wet in each other’s lives, still kinda skimming the surface, playing nice.  Last week was  a rough one for me, to be perfectly honest.  I had many of those what- the-heck- I am-I- doing- here moments.  I’m 27, I don’t want to be sharing a room, I don’t want to live with 18 year olds.  I want to live life with other people, and not feel like I am leading some kind of weird mission trip in Gainesville.  I felt like I had done this 100 times before.  I know what true community is, I have it with other people, so why did I want to invest in these 6 new strangers in my life?  What is my motivation?

 

 That is when I had to make the decesion.  To choose in.  And this is why I have to:

 

1. Because God has called me here.  This is where He has planted me.  I have seen His hand so much in the path that got me to this very place.  And, as my fellow AIM staff Michael Hindes told us a couple of weeks ago, I must go back to the last word God has given me.  ComLife was my last word.  So, this is where I stay.

 

2. God cares about community.  God cares about this community.  He is putting on so many of our hearts that this is bigger than just a bunch of people living in a house in Gainesville, and AIM gets some cheap help in their office.  It is a call to a renewal of our minds.  In how we see church.  In how we be the church.  Not a building, or a ministry, but God’s children walking alongside one another, crying out for His Kingdom to come to Earth, listening for His voice, and bringing it TOGETHER.

God loves this.  I want to love the things God loves.

 

3. Satan hates this kind of thing.  He knows the power in it.  The Acts church must have made him quake in his boots.  He sees this movement in people’s hearts, so he is doing everything he can to stop it.  So, he will whisper in my ear. My flesh will rise up and the selfish and irrational thought patterns from above will ensue. 

 The truth is, sharing a room isn’t that big a deal.  My 18 year old roommate is actually pretty cool (love ya, Maggie:).  I AM living life with them, if I just put down my pride and expectations and allow myself to do so.  And I need to see this situation for what it is: a big fat attack. I need to respond accordingly.  There is a John Eldridge article floating around a lot of AIM blogs lately, and this excerpt sums it up pretty perfectly:

 

A true community is something you’ll have to fight for. You’ll have to fight to get one, and you’ll have to fight to keep it afloat. But you fight for it as you bail out a life raft during a storm at sea. You want this thing to work. You need this thing to work. You can’t ditch it and jump back on the cruise ship. This is the church; this is all you have. Without it, you’ll go down. Or back to captivity. This is the reason those small house fellowships thrive in other countries: they need each other. There are no other options.

Suddenly, all those one another’s in Scripture make sense. Love one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Forgive one another. Acts of kindness become deeply meaningful because we know we are at war. Knowing full well that we all are facing battles of our own, we give one another the benefit of the doubt. Leigh isn’t intentionally being distant from me-she’s probably under an assault. That’s why you must know each other’s stories, know how to “read” each other. A word of encouragement can heal a wound; a choice to forgive can destroy a stronghold. You never knew your simple acts were so weighty. It’s what we’ve come to call “lifestyle warfare.”