Hey Friends…
Can I tell you a love story? I’ll warn you, though: it has a break-up in the middle of it like many relationships do. Some of you might have to think back to a younger time in life to recall the ups and downs of early love and those giddy feelings when you finally met “the right one.” Others may recall the heartache of being dumped. Or of the doubt that crept in that this could ever work out. You up for thinking about love? I’ll tell you more--and especially how this relates to you and Jesus—in Deeper Thoughts below… But first… · Ladies: Join us for our annual “Vision Board” event TOMORROW: Saturday, February 1, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Click here for more info! · Teens: Youth Group this Sunday, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., with lunch, games, and a personal story from Randy Richardson! Contact Jess if your teen will need a ride home. · Parents: Save the date!! Saturday, February 22, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m., drop your kids at the church and go spend some time alone for a special “Parents Night Out / Kids Night In.” We will have snacks, crafts, games, movies and more that your kids will love. This is for Pre-K through 6th grade. More details to come! · And don’t forget our “Daily Six” video series, six-minute videos every weekday to read along with me as I study through the Gospel of Mark. Click here to jump in this week and catch up! And if you’d like to receive daily email reminders, click here to receive a link to The Daily Six each morning! OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who think crazy is all bad. BUT… Some Deeper Thoughts… The great theologian known as “Calvin and Hobbs” explains how love works. In the once-popular comic strip, young Cavin told Hobbs, his imaginary stuffed tiger friend, that “true love is when your heart falls out of your chest, drops down into your stomach, and then short circuits your brain.” Anyone who has “fallen in love” can relate to that, can’t you? On top of swelling emotions, there is a definite short-circuiting of most rational thought. Doubts, fears, and cautions get thrown to the wind by the joys, anticipation, and imagination of what life would be like with his special someone. But after time, most relationships will enter a frustrating season. Sometimes it’s a lonely phase. Sometimes it’s a painful period. Sometimes it’s even a dark and broken chapter. The genuine hardships of life eventually catch up with our optimistic infatuation. This difficult season--which attends to almost every love relationship—can be stunning and deeply disorienting. Hollywood and American culture has conditioned us to the falsehood that true love sparks brilliantly and then continues unabated “happily ever after.” The deception is so strong that modern culture demands that when hardships come, it must not be true love. The only safe bet is to bail out. When surrender, sacrifice, and the breaking of our stubborn will is what’s next for the relationship to thrive, America says to bail out. Real love says surrender. The Bible calls this “breaking”. Not breaking up. But breaking— breaking the stubbornness of our selfishness and hardness. Real love must go through the crucible of testing our willingness to break, to surrender ourselves to placing the needs of the other first, even at our own personal expense. Why am I telling you all this? It’s still two weeks until Valentine’s Day, so no, this is not a lecture on romance. No, this is a story about God. It is a story about you and me and God. In human romance, the healthiest and most lasting love relationships almost always hit an inflection point--hopefully while still dating and not inside the marriage—where rejection is on the table. “If you really don’t want me for who I am, this is not going to work.” I know a little bit about this from my 20’s. I dated more lady friends than I’d like to admit. I had a very restless soul, so I experienced more than a handful of conversations just like this. Each time, my immature, long-lasting adolescence clung to toxic Hollywood ideals. The relationship was, appropriately, cut off by the one who had enough self-respect to say, “If you really don’t want me for who I am, this is not going to work.” Friends, the same is true with us and God. God will not accept an unwilling and half-hearted romance with us any more than a self-respecting woman would. If our hearts are not in this, God will reach an inflection point. He will clear the deck. He will cut everything down. But this is where He is different from the girls who dumped me when I was young and dumb. God clears the deck not to end the relationship. His discipline always sees a tiny hope, a little shoot of new growth that could grow up from the stump of that which He cut down. God always sees a straight-line path to a vibrant relationship. The path to that relationship is often in the crucible of testing our willingness to break. This Sunday let’s explore this in one of the most important parables Jesus ever spoke. He refers to our heart as soil that can either be hard packed, filled with rocks, or choked out by thorns and thistles. Only some of our hearts are the soft and well-tilled soil in which our relationship with God can thrive. You can do some advance reading… soak in the whole chapter of Mark 4. See if you can pick up where the breaking needs to occur, and what God will do with it. When you come across Mark 4:11-12, be prepared to be confused. But follow the trail to Isaiah’s prophecy that Jesus is referencing. If you follow the trail through Isaiah 6 (catch especially Isaiah 6:13) to Isaiah 10:25 to Isaiah 10:33-34 to Isaiah 11:1-10, you might see God playing hard to get… just like we talked about above. Jesus is the little shoot that grows up out of a cut down stump (Isaiah 11:1). To mix the metaphors, we are the hardened soil that needs breaking up. Shall we get our shovels out? See you Sunday… 10:00 a.m.!! Much love… Chris Eads Mt. Hope Pastor Friend
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