Years ago we took our two teenage daughters and their best friends to Myrtle Beach for a vacation.
After a few days of overwhelming estrogen, my wife said to me, “Why don’t you take a walk by yourself…go talk to God.”
She’s intuitive enough to pick up that not only was I reaching the limit of my extroversion, but I probably needed to talk with God.
Honestly, I was under a lot of pressure at that point in pastoring the church in Cincinnati. At that time we had about 120 people on staff and a lot of moving parts and a number of challenges and pressures. That’s just what church is.
So that night, I took a long walk along the ocean. There’s something powerful about the sea at night, almost spooky, in terms of feeling small while looking out over a vast black sea with a smattering of moonlight as far as the eye can see. I was walking along and started with one of my usual prayers that goes like this: “Father, why am I so weird? What’s the matter with me?” If you’ve never prayed that, I suspect you’re in denial, because I’m fairly sure many of you are just as broken—and ridiculous—as me.
I pray prayers like that from time to time because there are areas of my self-centered life that need to change and God is my only hope. I looked up and walking the opposite way along the beach was a mom with her teenage son. When they got closer, I noticed he was a young man with Down syndrome. He had a wide smile and didn’t seem to take notice of me. They were walking hand-in-hand, oblivious to anyone around them, enjoying the night air and the inky-black sea. She seemed just as happy as he was to be there.
Truth is: I really don’t hear God’s voice that often; for much of my life it’s been a journey of simple obedience as best as I understand…and then let the chips fall where they may. But after they passed by me, God suddenly and clearly spoke to me and said, “Dave, that’s you and me.”
Only five words…and it took my breath away. I realized that the young man may be unaware of the depth of his condition. What’s more, it had no effect on the amount of delight his mother took in him. We think we’re so sophisticated, so bright, so aware of truth, so together. But often we aren’t even aware that something is not quite right with us.
And what we really want is someone to love us. Someone who knows us…and still delights in us. I sensed that God was saying, “You don’t even know the depth of your brokenness or the depth of my love for you. Let’s just take a walk.”
Leaders must let their people know the profundity of God’s love for them. And our understanding of that love correlates in some odd way with a deep personal understanding of our own fractures and failures. It is within that context that grace abounds.
It is why the apostle Paul writes, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Are we teaching that in a truly experiential way?
Dave Workman | The Elemental Group
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