The Lord has taught me a lot about community this year. I’ve been able to experience the good, bad, hard, easy, laughter, strange moments, tears, joy and every emotion and experience 24/7 for the last 9 months. And I am SO grateful for every moment of it (even when I’m not) because I can look back over the last 9 months and see them as condensed seasons of life. These are some of the lessons I’ve learned from community:
1. You have to fight for people even when they don’t fight for you.
And yea, you probably don’t want to. Community is tough; you live with the same people every day for 11 months and you won’t be best friends with every person you meet, but that’s the beauty of it. You get to know ALL the people but instead of seeing them through my own eyes, I’m learning to see them how the Lord sees them and that makes a huge difference!
You have to fight for people because they might not know how to fight for you or themselves. Jesus fights for us every. single. day. Even when we aren’t fighting for Him. And I don’t mean passively doing something, but actually fighting! Jesus doesn’t passively pursue us, He passionately pursues and fights for us. So choosing to fight for someone like Jesus does doesn’t mean just tolerating; it means getting to know their heart, praying for them, making them feel known, and standing by them even when it gets hard.
2. The Lord never changes.
So many times this year the Lord will walk me through something and I’ll think I’ve overcome it and then I get sassy. And then I feel like I never actually learned anything because I stepped back into something the Lord already overcame. That’s when lies start to creep in and say, “If you’re struggling to give someone grace because someone put their laundry in before you for the 10th time that week, how the heck is the Lord going have grace for you when you’re being difficult?” And that is absolutely not true! The things I struggle with (or don’t) do not have any impact on the Lord or His characteristics. It probably hurts Him when I choose to not listen, but it’s because He yearns for me to walk with Him intimately not because He finally decided I had not listened one time too many. I struggle with things like grace, love, patience, and following through when I hear from the Lord, but just because I don’t hear doesn’t mean He isn’t speaking and when I struggle to love someone, does not mean He struggles to love me when I’m being stubborn.
The characteristics of who is never change. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and nothing I do, or anyone, else can ever change that.
3. You will have so many ‘laugh until you cry’ moments.
Today we fit thirteen people into a seven passenger van for an hour with a 3- year old screaming, “ATIQUE!!!” which means ‘attack’ in English. We survived…barely.
4. Community doesn’t just happen on my squad.
Community is all the people that we’ve met throughout this year that are our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s when people who have never met you offer to serve you lunch during ministry or after church. It’s when you get to play Dutch Blitz with you hosts and their family. It’s when you get to go to a birthday party for a 4 year old and dance and sing for hours on end. It’s seeing hospital staff fight for your friend in the hospital in every way they possibly can. Community doesn’t only happen on our teams or our squad, community is every single person we’ve met because all those people are doing the same thing that we’re doing. They’re in their community sharing Jesus and pouring out to these people. As we go to serve them and their ministry, they also serve us by allowing to be a part of their day to day lives and by pouring into us. That’s community. It’s not just something only in our churches or youth group or our bible study; it’s the kingdom of Christ, the Church, a whole body, not separate parts, working together for the same purpose.
5. Always be honest.
But do it with equal parts grace and truth. I tend to lean more to the truth side when I’m talking to people so I’ve gotten a lot of feedback this year about learning to be honest, but to so with grace. And I’ve had not so good moments and also lots of good moments where I can see the Father growing me in it. I’ve also become more aware of what I’m saying, so if I do say something with only truth and no grace it’s not a blind spot anymore, it’s a choice.
Jesus didn’t beat around the bush when He was talking to people, especially when He was saying hard things but He was 100% truth and 100% grace.
Thanks for reading 🙂
