Being A Hopeful People

Pastor Dan's Broken Series has encouraged my heart and sharpened my mind! It is a profound thing to realize that we most identify with each other and with Christ in our brokenness and hurt.  Even more profound is the realization that our stuggles and hardships are actually the pathway to peace when we share them together and walk through them together with Jesus Christ.  For a lot of us "My grace is sufficient for you" can seem so disciplinary and corrective, even punitive when we hear it from the lonely place of personal pain and loss. But my first hand experience has shown me that pain and loss are not to be born alone. They are to be carried together. When we are truly together we can experience the grace of God.

What do I mean by truly together? Well, the example of Job's friends together with him is what I don't mean! They were so focussed on fixing him so they could feel better. At one point he tells them that the best thing they could do is be quiet, indicating he didn't mind their presence - it was their hurtful 'fixing' that he detested, as well as their insensitivity. That's Job's hint about what truly together looks like. Another good hint would be what the Lord Jesus asked his three disciples to do for Him as He prayed in the garden... wait and watch with me. They failed Him, but what He was asking them was to be truly together with Him. One can argue that He needed to be alone to drink the cup of wrath for us all, but that argument is weak when it comes to helping another drink from the cup of sorrow. Surely the scriptures are clear enough about bearing up one another. So what I mean by being truly together is this: to listen to and to love one another together. It is the small gathering of safe people, openly and honestly listening and loving in and through the pain and sorrow of trials and losses, and the joys of life. Being givers of Life, givers of Hope, being grace givers together is the living evidence of the LORD's promise that whenever we gather together in His Name, He is with us.

Because we are coming together as a crowd of Christ followers with such growing numbers, I am convinced the LORD is, in fact, doing His work in and among us. I sense there is not one among us that doesn't have some kind of hurt or hang-up or habit that causes pain. It is our pain that can help us identify with each other and with Jesus. With His and each other's help, our pain can be our pathway to peace. Hope Ministries and the coming Connecting Ministries are being shaped to help in becoming an increasingly hopeful people who are truly together in the presence of Christ in smaller groups, ministry teams, Bible studies, Celebrate Recovery groups, home groups, and visiting teams.

We are all welcome to be truly together, being a hopeful people, bearing the name of Jesus Christ!