Activate!

A recent theme in our lives is "new beginnings." New endeavors, new relationships, new ministries, new ideas...

We started a new small group bible study. Joy and I realized we were so blessed through our involvement in a small group- but the purpose of the group came into question: are we working to introduce new members? Are we working to take care of ourselves and the existing group members? We all felt like we should be reaching out to others, but we hated the idea of breaking the group apart and starting a new group. Our solution was to keep the existing group and start a new group.

This is a new theme in my life, personally: I keep finding myself in situations where I feel I'm in way over my head (and I'm almost 7' tall!). Seriously, leading a small group? Teaching Sunday school? I fight against the thought: who the he77 am I to be doing this!? Perhaps I've been growing for a while, and I am just now stopping and looking around and asking How'd I get here???

But our small group is off to a fast start. We started this book called "The Kingdom Experiment." I can't call it a "bible study," because so far it has been so much more than that. Experiment is an apt name, because each week we're being stretched into more and more uncomfortable places. Some of the discomfort is physical- sleeping on the floor, giving up cold showers, spending money differently, etc. But more of the discomfort has been social discomfort. As a social worker, I'm comfortable with many socially awkward situations. It's not uncommon for me to say things like, "Dude, you smell like a foot," or "How can I help you get deodorant on your body?" This isn't the type of uncomfortableness I'm talking about.

Some of the tasks necessitate truly walking alongside people into yucky territory. Territory where I don't know how to make sense of what I experience. This week one of my coworkers, a therapist I've worked alongside for the last 11 years, had something horrific unnfold in his personal life. Actually, he's had two horrific happenings in the last month. First, a few weeks ago, his sister was in a car accident and was ejected from a vehicle. She has been in a coma for the past two weeks. IF she survives, the extent of her brain damage is unknown- she may be in a vegetative state or otherwise require round-the-clock intensive care. She is a single mother with two small children.

As if that weren't enough, this week his wife had an ultrasound and they were told it is very likely that the unborn child has Trisome-18, a condition where only 1% survive to age 10 years old. The average lifespan is 5-15 days. I was with my friend the day he found out. He was sobbing heavily. He expressed feeling hopeless and confused. He covered his face with his hands and wondered if his prayers even mattered (this is a devout, devout Mormon). I realized that I was living out a task from the Experiment. We were supposed to "seek out" someone in yucky place and walk beside them. But this happened extemporaneously- the situation combusted right before my eyes.

I'm not speechless very often. Simultaneously, my mind paged through several comforting scriptures and numerous counseling techniques for grief and loss. But everything I had to say was cheap. My friend was experiencing a personal faith crisis, a crisis in which lives were literally suspended in the balance. And I realized there was nothing for me to say. The author of Earth is not a math equation to be solved. There is no solution, for the God of eternity is a mystery to man. I leaned in, now with tears in my eyes, and said something like, "whatever happens, you won't walk through it alone." He looked up and said, "You don't even have to tell me that, man." And he wasn't alone. He wasn't alone in his grief, in his fear, or in his unbelief. It doesn't make sense to me how a baby can receive a death sentence before it takes a breath.

Since then, I've been praying for homeruns. Nothing else will due, in this instance. And so the Experiment leaves me altered forever; I can (an I am) asking the Lord to heal this baby. I am praying in the confidence that this is something well-within the scope of God's capabilities. But, I also cede control- God is going to do what God is going to do. What explanation is there if I ask and I ask and I ask and yet still the baby dies? No suitable explanation, at least not for the parents of a dead baby. For me, the only explanation that offers any solace is this: God's ways are incomprehensible to me. Again, GOD IS NOT AN EQUATION to be solved or understood. If there was no mystery, God would hardly be worth worshipping. Maybe that's cheap? Maybe it's letting God off the hook too easily? But that's where I'm at as of today.

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I started Robie Creek training yesterday. I ran stairs at Nampa High Stadium. My parents-in-law gave a me a Garmin Forerunner for Christmas. It is an awesome, extraordinary, and irreplaceable piece of equipment. Yesterday was my first time using it. I am going to have to eventually get desensitized to the awe of it, because I don't run well when I am checking my wrist every 20 meters. I actually can't wait to run again because I am enjoying testing it and tinkering with it.