Relationships

Sunday night was an interesting night. I had homework due at 11:55 pm and I was anything but on top of it. In normal college student fashion, I had staved off the inevitable until the last possible moment and when the self-inflicted stress reached critical mass, I finally buckled down to do it. I returned to my apartment at about 9 pm and was slightly anxious about the amount of work I needed to do in the next three hours. It was do-able but I had to push everything aside and ignore all of the distractions that living with three other guys entails and put on my working pants.

As I began to get ready for the storm of computer programing I was about to pursue, my friend said he really wanted to talk to me about stuff. My friend had just recently accepted Christ as his savior, and we had been walking together with this "Christianity stuff". I told him this really wasn't a great time and I had homework to do and that I would catch him later. Fortunately, God had other plans for that evening. He was not about to let me miss my divine appointment that night and so when I sat down to do the first problem and could not get the computer program I was supposed to be writing to work, I began to panic. I kept getting the same error over and over again no matter how I changed my program to correct it. Finally, I was praying for a miracle to help me finish this. One more attempt.... nothing. So I decided I needed to step away from the problem and I told my friend I could meet him for a little to discuss what he wanted to discuss. Thank God I did.

He met me outside my apartment and we talked. He opened up to me about all sorts of crazy things going on in his life and things that God was teaching him. Unfortunately, sometimes growth comes at the cost of pain. I used the example of Eustace, the boy-dragon from C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in my Jesus Camp High post to help illustrate the pain that comes with drastic transformation, and my friend is going through a "stripping of the flesh" experience for sure. It was hard to hear what was going on but it was AMAZING to see the conclusions and growth that he was experiencing from it. I offered to pray over him which he accepted and we went up to my apartment so that I could pray over him. I am excited to say God moved. For the first time ever, I spoke in tongues and saw a vision and those spiritual gifts did exactly as they were supposed to: they edified the body. My friend felt the Holy Spirit move all around us and he felt loved, strengthened and energized. I felt the rush of the Holy Spirit and was also strengthened and energized. It was a God story for sure.

I didn't finish all of my homework by the due date. Honestly, I should have not put it off, but I did come back and found the problem with the program I had written and managed to bang out a few more before the time was up. But God taught me something about that experience: relationships matter.

I have been battling with how we do church. How do we do Church better? Is the current format of church broken or is it merely just not being used the full potential? Is there even a problem at all? I have had discussions about this with many people, most of them a lot smarter and a lot more practiced in ministry than I. I have heard a vast array of responses, but they all agree on one thing: Relationship is needed. Most of the time spiritual growth has come for me, was in conversations with other people. People using their God-given spiritual gifts to teach, edify and stretch me. I have certainly heard amazing sermons and have learned from them, but many of my God experiences have come when I was meeting a few people, discussing God and walking together in life. Paul discusses church unity in Ephesians 4:

"But to each one of us Grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: 'When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.' ... So Christ himself gave the apostels, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:7-13 NIV)

Let's start with that. Christ gives us gifts, gifts that we can use in conjunction with other people to build up the body of Christ. So relationship is important in order for the body to function. But let's take a step back and examine what does relationship mean?

The word "relationship" is a difficult word to nail down. Relationships are messy, and in that messiness, they are defined separately for each person. There is no standard relationship formula because as many different types of people, you need that many different types of relationships. However one principal is clear, relationships need to have mutual submission to one another. Jesus himself says to his disciples in Mathew 20:25-28:

"Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever want to be first must be your slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (NIV)

Jesus is explaining that it needs to not be about prestige and honor but about loving one another and submitting fully to each other. We have to shed our pride and be willing to serve the other side of the relationship. I did not do a good job of doing that Sunday night. I was too caught up in my own work that I forgot to love my friend and serve him. God forced me to back away from my stuff and to focus on him and I am so thankful I did.

Let's focus on doing life together so that we can build one another up. Let's step outside ourselves and put another persons needs before our own and submit to them just as Christ submitted to us. I know that if we do that, we will start to see some amazing, life-transforming, kingdom-building changes in how the Body works.

Until next time, God Bless.