The Bridge

I asked my wife if she would be willing to write something about us purchasing a home for our newsletter.  As I read I’m continually amazed at how wonderful she is.  Enjoy her thoughts below.

Recently, Marty and I have been praying and thinking about moving, and our thoughts have turned to making a home in Ottumwa. That of course means a physical home for our family and a physical space for the Bridge to meet, which we have been pursuing recently. But, we’ve been praying about what it really means to make a home. What does it mean to move into a town and become part of it? How is that even done? I mean, I can only make so many cookies to deliver to neighbors and then you run out of neighbors. We’ve thrown out meeting people and inviting them over for a BBQ or warmly greeting people and starting conversations in fast-food restaurants. I’ve thought about buying my groceries on the same day at the same time to try and build relationships with the people who work at that time at the grocery store. I’ve thought about going to parks with the intent of meeting other parents and sharing life and starting conversations.

All those “methods� for meeting people would be an exercise in discipline for me, which has been a word the Lord has led me to study for the last while. I believed the reason I was studying discipline was that the Lord was calling me to greater levels of it in reference to “making a home� in Ottumwa. I believed I needed to be training myself in the art of meeting people, which created fear in me, but I wanted to obey what I thought the Lord was calling me to.

As the departure day comes closer, though, the Lord has clearly steered me away from studying the word “discipline� to looking at the word “radiant.� I find that interesting. In searching for the word “radiant� in scripture, Moses is described as having a radiant face more than any other person in the Bible. In Exodus 34, his face is described as radiant three times in seven verses. Moses was radiant after he had met with and spoken to the Lord. Interestingly enough, he was never radiant after he had people over for a BBQ or whatever the kosher-equivalent of that is.

When Moses was first called by God to deliver his people from slavery, he had fear and doubt. When I was first called by God to be a part of this church plant, I feared I wouldn’t be able to do it the way I felt I should. I’m an introvert, and I like being at home. That didn’t match up with what I thought discipline meant in my life.

But by God’s grace through reading about Moses, I’m learning that I’m being called to simply radiate the love and joy of Christ to others. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can quantify that into specific methods, but the only thing I’ve really come up with so far is meeting with Jesus. I need to find ways to make my journey up Mount Sinai a priority so that I can meet with my Lord and begin looking more and more like him. I think I still need to be intentional about meeting and engaging with people, but more importantly, I need to radiate Christ and his love to them.

So my questions have changed. Now I’m asking, what does it look like to have such an intimate relationship with Jesus that our faces radiate? What does it look like to be known by love?

“I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.� Psalm 34:4-5

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 9:06 am and is filed under Family, Moving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.