This community stuff…is not easy. Living with other people…is not always easy.
I remember living with my mom and dad…Mom would walk into the kitchen, and she would have stuff strewn about the kitchen table, desk, and counters, but she would hone in on one piece of mail that I had sitting in the midst of it, and in a huffy tone, say: "Kacie, you need to get your mail out of here…"
Then she'd turn to Dad, and completely exaspperated, say: "I just hate this grill thing…if you're gonna use it, you need to clean it right after and then put it away…" This grill…which took up maybe a square foot of the counter…was surrounded by mountains of other things.
Dad and I would just look at each other, and laugh a little. What do you do? (Love you Mom! :))
Sometimes we get so used to seeing our own mess. It's so familiar, and we know that we'll 'deal' with it, yet we sometimes neglect dealing with it and just focus on the crud that surrounds it…the crud of other people that we don't have any control over.
This community thing…it allows people in to see your mess.
And it allows you to see just how your mess affects others. It no longer just affects you.
When I lived by myself, I could let the kitchen get overrun with dishes. I could fill that sink until nothing else could fit in. But it was MY sink…I could manage a way around it.
My team lives in a church this month. One morning dishes were left in the sink. They were left for that 'later' moment that gets pushed back and pushed back til the final hour. Well, that morning someone from the church needed to use the kitchen. They couldn't. They couldn't even use the sink for what it was made for…because there was so much stuff in the way of it. In community, our desire to deal with something 'later' will almost always interfere with what is needed from us at the present moment.
Here's an embarrassing thing to admit…when I lived by myself and things would go wrong with the house, I'd just sort of move on. For instance, if a light bulb would go out in a part of the house, I just wouldn't operate in that part of the house anymore. (My dad is not proud of this in me:)).
So, when I'm living by myself, there are parts of the house that just don't get dealt with…because I'm okay with them not being dealt with.
Community…
The Lord must have known this about us when He called us to live in community with people. He must have known that we could be perfectly content to look past our crap and even live in it…so He said,
"Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that is in your brother's eye but do not become aware of the beam of timber that is in your own eye?" Matthew 7:3
When we're by ourselves, we can deceive ourselves. We can believe the lie that our sin only affects us. But what community exposes is that sin affects everything.
There are parts of you that people need…that the Lord wants to be able to use…but we can let things pile up, and then the thing that needs to be used can't even be reached.
And people may laugh at the fact that I would just stop using an area because the light bulb went out, but how many of us have done that? How many of us, after we've been hurt or offended or broken, decide that it's easier to just not operate in that area again. So we leave it shut off. We might let others into our lives, but only in certain areas…They can't go to those places where the light is out.
So, He calls us to live in community. To love one another with a love that doesn't just tell you what you want to hear.
Because it's in community that people will look at you in love and say: "You weren't meant to live like this. This thing is getting in the way…and it's keeping you from who you were made to be."
It's in community that those areas you've shut off get discovered (because everyone on this Race has a headlamp). And when they do, people will remind you how necessary it is that you use that area again…it just needs a new Light.
Community.
It's easier without it.
It takes way more energy to change a light bulb than it does to just avoid that room.
It's easier to just not use the sink and eat out, because that pile of dishes will take WAY too much time to mess with.
It's easier to not be accountable for my mess…and just do life by myself.
But it's miserable.
And we were called to live. To live and enjoy life, and have it in ABUNDANCE…to the fullest…(John 10:10)
To the FULLEST.
It takes ALL of you to live that. The WHOLE version of you…not the partial you that's allowed to be exposed.
Sigh. Community…what a beautiful mess. 🙂
"And let us consider and give continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up and incite to love and helpful deeds; not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together as believers, as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching." Hebrews 10:24-25
