Are You Willing To Sit In Traffic?

Somewhere we went wrong.

It is like sitting in traffic and having your GPS tell you that you are going the right way, but your flesh takes over (Romans 8) and you decide you want to get off, go and find another route that doesn't have traffic and you end up getting lost or taking an even longer way home. This is all because we are not capable to sit through something that is not enjoyable.

We have taken this mentality and applied it in so many areas of our lives. Whether it is the hard conversations with friends, where we choose texting instead of face-to-face encounters. Whether it be never following up with that person we told we would get dinner with so many times. Whether it is not asking for forgiveness but instead letting time cover it up. But above all it is the spiritual aspects of our life we have let it stick to. 

If it not enjoyable, if it requires us to put in work, if it requires us to give of ourselves, or even deeper to see the wrongful things of ourselves, we do not want it. If is not entertaining, we act as if there is a do not enter sign flashing and we walk the other way. 

I think so many times people view life and the church like one of those Passage Malibu rehab commercials. I remember the first time I saw one of the commercials, and thinking if that is what rehab is like I want to go. The beach, the swimming pools, all the glitz and the glam, it was appealing to the eye. But if you know anything about rehab, it is not glitz and glam. Both of my brothers have been, and they would tell you that is the farthest thing from what it is, but they would also tell you it was still worth it. 

I cannot think of better correlation than this. With the hopes to draw people in, Passage Malibu has beautified a place that should not need to be beautified. Rehab centers are a place for you to get help, for you to find yourself once again, and for you to break free from the sin that is entangling you. If you want what it has to offer, you have to make the choice to want to go. It is hard, it is painful, but you can find freedom.

That is the church these days, and by church I mean places we gather. We beautify it with the hopes of appealing to those on the outside. We beautify it to draw people in. Yes, the church has so much offer, but at some point people have to make the choice to want it. They have to make the choice to come.

We do not have to beautify the church. We do not have to advertise how we can entertain you if you come. What the church has to offer is already beautiful.

A.W Tozer says, “Some go to church looking for consolation. We are encouraged to go to church to find peace and consolation. But the church is not a place to find consolation; it is a place to hear the gospel preached so you can find salvation. A big difference exists between being consoled and being saved. A man can find consolation and end up finally in hell. A man can be under blistering, terrifying conviction, get converted, and go finally to heaven.”

I like to think Tozer is saying, “hey sometimes just because it's enjoyable, easy, and looks good to everyone does not mean it is the most beneficial.”

Do not get me wrong, I believe fully in inviting people to church, and the importance of them finding Jesus, but I just think that we have moved to far on the spectrum to “feel good” messages and enjoyable moments, and because of it this mentality has manifested into our culture, into our friendships, into our work ethics, etc. etc.

Do we want to be people that are never willing to sit in the traffic?

Do we want to be people that only want to go to the places like Passages of Malibu because they look good?

Do we want consolation or salvation?

Or

Do we want to be people that just want to experience Jesus?

Life is full of hard moments, but do not ever think that Jesus is not in those hard moments. Sometimes it is in those hard moments that you experience him the most. I know I have. 

Conviction is not the best feeling in the world but the after taste of grace that comes with it is. 

Lets be people who are willing to sit in the traffic sometimes.

God of Comfort

This is a first for me. Grabbing my computer when it is nearly midnight, but I can’t sleep, so I thought maybe I should just write. Write because my heart is exploding with so many emotions. Write because the Spirit has been stirring in me all week and I have to try to take my thoughts and piece them together.

This is one of the hardest posts I have ever written because I know exactly what I want to say, but I do not know how to say it. I am just trusting that the Holy Spirit will show up like God’s word promises in Romans 8, intervene, and paint words onto this page.

This past week, as most of you know, there was a tragic accident where four UGA students lost their lives, and one is still in critical condition. I did not personally know these girls, but all week long I have been a mess. My heart has been so heavy for their families and friends. I did not know them, but hearing about their lives and how they lived has inspired and challenged me all week long.

Earlier this week a ministry out in Texas found me on Instragram and reached out about me writing a piece for their yearly advent book they put out every year. I happily agreed, and they sent me an email with the details and assigned me a word that they wanted my post to focus on: comforter.

What is a comforter? What does it mean to comfort someone? How does Jesus possess the quality of being a comforter? All questions that skipped through my mind throughout this week.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” 1 Corinthians 1:3-5

Paul lays it out for us. It is not will God comfort us? It is not will God show up in our troubles? It is PRAISE be to God who is the God of all comfort. It is PRAISE be to God who comforts us in all of our troubles. You do not praise someone for something they might do. You praise someone for what they have already done.

Another translation says “the father of mercies.” It seems better, however, to take the words more literally, as stating that God is the originator of all mercies, the source from which they flow. 

I cried a lot of tears this week, tonight especially.  But I think those tears washed away a perspective and gave me a new one, a new awakening. Driving home after church I could not help but think about thirteen almost fourteen years ago when my family stood in the midst of death and looking at where we are now and seeing not just the faithfulness of God but the comfort. I wish I could say that in the middle of the hard times I was aware of all that the Lord was doing but I wasn’t. I am now learning that there is beauty in being honest. There is beauty in being real with a world that needs you to be honest with them. There is beauty in saying, “as obvious as it might have been I missed it.”

I did, I missed it.  I missed the fact that in the darkest days, God was still the God of all comfort. I missed the fact that in the sea of grief, God was still the originator of all mercies. We pray for Him to be those things to us. We pray for God to be a comforter, we pray for Him to bring mercies, but He already is. I knew this is who He was but my circumstance blinded me to the truth, just as it so often does to us.

Paul says “praise be to Him.” He was the God of all comfort all those years ago when Paul wrote this letter to the church of God in Corinth. He was the God of all comfort thirteen years ago when my dad died. He was the God of all comfort in some of my darkest days. Today, He is still the God of all comfort.

We pray for Him to be something, and Paul says we should just praise Him because He already is. He is already everything we need Him to be.

By watching the community of UGA this week rally together, I am seeing how they are taking Paul’s words, “God who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God,” and applying them. In old English, the word comfort can be used as a noun or a verb, but in both cases there is an implied meaning of “strengthen.” That is exactly what those students are doing. I read about the prayer nights and the worship songs people are singing all around campus. They are strengthening their campus by proclaiming Jesus. They are strengthening each other by speaking out the hope we have in Him. They are comforting.

But more than that, Agnes Kim, Kayla Canedo, Brittany Feldman, Christina Semeria, and Halle Scott are all comforting us because every single one of them is strengthening us. Strengthening us because their lives proclaimed Jesus, pointed to Him, and are still pointing us to Him.

It is a chain of events. God comforts us. We comfort others. But this only happens by realizing, understanding, and seeing Jesus is a God who comforts, not just sometimes but all the time. 

I miss it sometimes. I miss being able to see how the Lord was the God of comfort then just as He is now. But I will never miss it again. Instead I’ll praise Him. Because yesterday, today, and tomorrow He will never change. I have tasted and seen the God of comfort and now I can go be comfort to someone else.

No circumstances get to blind us from the truth anymore. Tears don’t just have to cloud our vision, but they can instead be the very thing that make us see clearly. It is the truths we stamp on our hearts day in and day out that become the foundation we stand on when things are falling apart.

Remind yourself as often as you need: He is a God of comfort.

Remind yourself so that you don’t ever miss it.

To Agnes Kim, Kayla Canedo, Brittany Feldman, Christina Semeria, and Halle Scott:

Thank you. Thank you for giving me eyes to see something I have needed to see for a long time. Thank you for living in such a way you were/are able to teach me something although we never met.  

Heaven will be a more crowded place because of these girls, but heaven can be even more crowded because of you. Ask Jesus for the eyes to see Him for who He is, and for eyes to be able to see Him as who He is even in the darkest days. Then go and proclaim it.

Friends, take heart. You do not have to ask for Him to be a comforter, He already is. Praise Him.