True Community. Is it possible?

Ok...I can't help but put up one more Daily Reading from John Eldredge. Denise brought up the previously posted reading in Sunday School this past week. The book it was from is Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge. (not Waking the Dead as I mistakenly said on Sunday.)

The reading below is from Waking the Dead. I stopped at my computer Saturday morning and read this as I scrolled through my e-mail. As I began to read, Clinton leaned in over my shoulder. When we finished we just turned and looked at one another, blinking, saying nothing but thinking the same things. Then I read it again today and the Holy Spirit linked this brief excerpt to our discussion on Sunday about who we trust.

How about you? What thoughts does this stir up in you? Share them when you are through reading. Don't worry if you are not a part of this Sunday School class I'm speaking of. There is enough here for you to jump in where ever you are and make this discussion more rich and interesting.

It Will Be Messy
11/03/2007

The family is…like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.

Chesterton could have been talking about a little fellowship (our true family, because it is the Family of God). It is a royal mess. I will not whitewash this. It is disruptive. Going to church with hundreds of other people to sit and hear a sermon doesn’t ask much of you. It certainly will never expose you. That’s why most folks prefer it. Because community will. It will reveal where you have yet to become holy, right at the very moment you are so keenly aware of how they have yet to become holy. It will bring you close and you will be seen and you will be known and therein lies the power and therein lies the danger. Aren’t there moments when all those little companies, in all those stories, hang by a thread? Galadriel says to Frodo, “Your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.”

We’ve experienced incredible disappointments in our fellowship. We have, every last one of us, hurt one another. Sometimes deeply. Last year there was a night when Stasi and I laid out a vision for where we thought things should be going – our life-long dream for redemptive community. We hoped the Company would leap to it with loud “Hurrahs! Hurrah for John and Stasi!” Far from it. Their response was more on the level of blank stares. Our dream was mishandled – badly. Stasi was sick to her stomach; she wanted to leave the room and throw up. I was…stunned. Disappointed. I felt the dive towards a total loss of heart. The following day I could feel my heart being pulled towards resentment. It's moments like that which usually toll the beginning of the end for most attempts at community. 

(Waking The Dead ,197 )

My own thoughts are pretty much an echo of what we said on Sunday. We can know the will of our Father - to love one another. I was going to link to a verse here but here are 10 all giving the same instruction!

We can always trust Him with the love we give to others and the love we receive from others even when the object of our love lets us down. Keeping our love for Him and our love for one another in the proper focus will allow us to live in community with one another. We can expect it to be fraught with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, faithfulness and falseness, even betrayals, because we are human and we sin, mess up, wipe out. But, when our eyes are fixed on and our hearts are filled with our Saviour and the truth of His word we don't have to despair. We don't have to become cynical, resentful or despondent. When we humble ourselves toward one another, He promises to lift us up. 1 Peter 5:5-6

Your turn...