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 Having two small children at home slowly but surely disrupted our regular attendance at church. One Sunday we’d be running late, the next week one of the boys would be sick, then another Sunday we’d be out of town. And then, we ran out of good excuses and eventually stopped making excuses all together. We just weren’t going. We acknowledged the problem and fixed it (happy to report that we’ve made it to church 3 of the last 4 weeks). Now the issue is where to call home. We have entered church hopping mode, trying to find the perfect fit for where we are right now as a family. We’ve had good experiences everywhere we’ve visited, and might still head back to the church we regularly attended before the drought. But for today, we are indeed church hoppers.

In the past, hopping would have felt like an impediment to my spiritual growth, but in my new journey, I think it has actually had a positive impact. In the past, I’ve looked to my church as being the center of my religious walk, the place where I can plug in, the place where I can get recharged every week, the place that will help guide me and direct me.  I think this approach is partly to blame for all those people who have stopped going to church because of a bad experience. After all, the church is made up of people and people are flawed, and so if you are aiming all your expectations in that direction, you are guaranteed to come up short. (see my post Isaiah Part One)

My new attitude about church is that it is a supplement to my walk, not the center of my walk. It is a vitamin, not the meal. It is part of the plan, not the plan itself. As I’ve church hopped, it has forced me to connect more closely with God to set my course. I think that has been a powerful scenario. It also has helped me reset my view about the church truly being the collective of God’s followers, not just a brick building or a specific congregation. It’s really easy to confine ourselves with the four walls when truly we should be living in community with all those around us. WE are the church after all. So there’s my silver lining. Church hopping can be good exercise.

I’ve been reading Isaiah as promised in my most recent post, and I’m just finishing chapter 17. Below are a few key verses and what they said to me. This would be a great time to remind you that I am not especially qualified to dispense theological advice or to decipher scripture. I can only share what insights are entering my mind as I encounter the text. So far, the theme bubbling up for me is one of misplaced faith.

6:5 – “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

To truly enjoy a relationship with God, we first must fully realize the gravity of sin. I have been a Christian almost all my life, saved at an early age. It’s been quite a while since I paused and really, truly pondered the significance of my sin and the price that was paid for it.  Which is probably part of the reason that my faith is not as strong as I’d like it to be. And probably why many of us have trouble genuinely trusting God.

8:12 – Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy. Do not fear what they fear or dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear…

When we get caught up in worldly fears and worries, we aren’t able to work toward God’s plan. We hold too tightly to possessions and ways of life, to status quo, and we are frozen by what might happen to the house of cards we’ve erected for ourselves if we were to breathe too deeply. We get obsessed with our earthly kingdom and lose sight of our heavenly one.

2:22 – Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils, of what account is he?

3:12 Oh my people, your guides lead you astray; they turn  you from the path.

8:19 – Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

Three different passages, one message for me. Why put faith and expectations in man, when I should trust in God? I too often lean on other people (family especially), to fill my needs. I am much more likely to put faith in my wife, or a close friend, to come through for me. I’m asking too much of them, and not enough of God.

9:9-11 – All the people will know it, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say with pride and arrogance of heart, “The bricks  have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.”

When we overly depend on people to fill the role of God, and we experience disappointment, our natural reaction is to dramatically turn the other direction and build walls to protect ourselves. We fortify our defenses. We allow transgressions from others impact our relationship with God. We develop hard hearts. We let the hurt affect us in negative ways. We reinforce the deep belief that faith will only bring pain, which creates additional barriers for truly giving our trust to God.

10:15 – Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it?

As a combination of misplacing our faith, of getting consumed by earthly fears, of responding by defending ourselves, we reach a place where it is us taking matters into our own hands. We haven’t trusted God. People have let us down. So, it’s up to us to take charge. We place our faith in ourselves. And so at best, we self-impose an enormous burden, and at worst, we grow to believe that we are in control, and that we are the ones delivering the goods. Not giving God the trust and faith he deserves typically ends up with us not giving Him the credit he deserves either.

A horrible thing happened in Haiti. Period. And to watch us rally and respond as a country, as a world, as a body of Christ has been moving and inspiring. It’s all hands on deck, with a sense of urgency, like tomorrow will be too late for progress.  We are wired to act this way in times of crisis, as a society, as individuals. We go into “crisis mode” and we focus harder, we work faster, we take nothing for granted. We attend to the emergency at hand.  For many of us, though, it takes a crisis to get us moving, to act, to exercise our faith. 

In Wide Awake, Erwin McManus writes, “When you are about to drown in a storm, you’re really open to God and whatever he might want to say to you.”  He was talking about the miracle of Peter walking on water. When we need a miracle, when we are at the brink of disaster, it is easy to turn to God, because there is nowhere else to turn. In a crisis, you just respond.

My goal is to avoid requiring a personal crisis to exercise my faith.  Sure, trusting in God during a horrific storm is a good thing.

I want to be strong enough to respond just as swiftly when the waters around me are calm.  

After months of prompting, from my counselor and several other people in my life, I picked up a copy of Madeleine L’Engle’s book, Walking on Water. It only took her 50 pages to inspire me, challenge me, enlighten me. She is the author of one of my favorite children’s books: A Wrinkle in Time. And now I am discovering that she is every bit as powerful as a non-fiction writer. I can already feel the writer’s block vacating my body. Truly freeing.  In the early stages of the book, she hits squarely on something that has caused me great pain. I struggle for clarity, for certainty, for THE ANSWER. But L’Engle cautions, “The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions and become smug like the Pharisee…”

She goes on to quote another author, Unamuno who said, “Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, w ithout anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pursued the idea of God and not God himself, I’m ashamed to admit.

I am only a dry tree

Roots run shallow

Sin runs deep

Swaying with the wind

Time and again

I break when I should bend

 But I believe

God is alive in me

God is working in me

And if I continue to believe, and continue to dig deeper, I’ll see this dry tree transform, just as He promises in Isaiah 57:3-8 where he says that those who keep his covenant will receive an everlasting name.