For those of you who are actually reading both blogs, sorry for not updating this in a long time! Things have been crazy. Living in a community and actually being intentional is WAY harder than it sounds. Now I thought, I've lived with roomates, I did the whole college thing, totally easy....I was wrong. I'm learning how to truly love my house mates and how I can best serve them, even when I REALLY don't want to. When really what I want to do is shut myself in my room and know that I'm right, God calls me to be different. To be open, to share my struggles, my fears, my joys. This has not come without a lot of pouting and crying and wanting to be by myself, live on my own, live where all that matters is me. But God calls us to a different life. Bonhoffer(sorry I don't know how to spell his name) in his book, Life Together, has been challenging me. God called us to live in community. Our western world has gotten so far away from the word community, we don't really know what it means anymore. I still don't get it and want to run away from it, but I know there is a reason God created Eve so Adam would not be alone. Prayer, praise, psaltery, breaking bread....TOGETHER....if we really actually learned to live this way, don't you think some of the injustices that I see in this community would be gone? We would not complain that our food isn't cooked to our liking, or didn't come fast enough, because we would see that our brother has none on his plate at all. We would read the Psalms and realize that although we do not feel the deep despair and hurt of war and loss, that our brother is still today in another country. We would want to come home at the end of the day and praise God together and hear what he has been doing in each others lives. I know I wish that I could truly understand this...I still fail. But I'm trying, I'm trying to be intentional. Even the days when I am defiantly NOT trying, I am still trying and learning that God calls us to live a life in communion with one another!
I am starting to think about the upcoming year(I have a Job interview lined up which I am SUPER excited about). I am tempted to be excited about getting back to ME. Live in an apartment by myself, cook food my way, pray the way I want to pray, tell jokes that make me laugh...well yes, none of these things are bad that I desire them, I should want to do all of these things, but it's only half of my whole. I am made to live in community. I hope that I will get to live with my best friends and that we can learn to praise God together, read his word together, eat bread together, and through that we will want to take that out into the world. Where it starts at home, then it will continue to flow through us. This is my hope....
Sorry if these thoughts are jumbled, I just needed to write them down and share with you since I haven't done a very good job! Though, if you do read this you should check out www.greaterworks.us because I do a better job of writing weekly reflections there!
