The Power of Sharing Our Stories

 "The only story God can't use is the one that isn't shared."

Someone I know from church said this recently in a conversation. It stuck with me.

I tend to be someone who like the academic side of things. I can study or think about things & come to a conclusion. But, in doing so, I often keep it just in my head.

In the course of the conversation where these words were said, I had been reminded of the importance of sharing our stories with each other. It's our stories that move things from facts we know in our heads, to things we know from experience.

Stories also play a role in helping us to see what God has done. In the moment, we may not realize it. But, when we look back to tell the story to someone else or to write it down for ourselves, we see how God was at work. We need these to remind us we can keep going the next time we're going through something challenging. 

Our stories of God's faithfulness or the stories of others can help us to hold on & keep trusting God.

Do You Rest?

Do you make time & space for rest in your calendar?

I'm not talking about time to sleep at night - although that's important & necessary.

I'm not talking about a few hours zoning out in front of show - although there's nothing inherently wrong with that sometimes.

I'm talking about making space in your life to really slow down. To disconnect from the work emails & messages. To really just be present in the moment that's right in front of you.

This is something God actually intended for us to do. In the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20, God says:

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour & do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, not your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens & the earth, the sea, & all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day & made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11)

Unfortunately, the religious leaders of early Israel had added a detailed list of what you could & could not do in the Sabbath to this. They made it about rules, while missing the heart of it.

But, you still see Jesus & His disciples practicing the principle of the Sabbath. Over & over in the gospels, we see Jesus taking time away from the crowds & demands.

But, in our always connected society, we've lost the ability to really rest. Even when we're not at work our phones have messages from work easily accessible. It's easy to just check it. And there's often an expectation that we will.

But, this isn't how we're meant to live. This isn't what God had in mind from the beginning of creation. The example God set & mandated for His people had a regular rhythm of rest.

The importance of rest has been emphasized for me in the last few months. I was forced into an extended season of rest. At first, I didn't know what to do with my phone being so quiet & so many of the apps I'd grown used to checking no longer being there. I didn't know how to fill my time.

But, I very quickly realized just how tired I was. I had been running so hard for so long that exhaustion had become my normal. I didn't know another way because it had been so long.

As I was forced to slow down, I had to learn to rest. In it, I learned to be fully present with those I was with. For the first time in a long time, I was truly & fully present when I was with my niece . . . & she noticed & commented on the difference. Even now, as I return to working, I'm realizing I need to figure out how to plan for regular rest in my life.

I don't believe we need to get caught up in specific things we can or cannot do on a specific day. That could lead to us missing the point as the religious leaders in Jesus' day had. But, we need to create regular times of rest in our lives. Times where we disconnect from the demands of life & do things we enjoy - that fill us up.

A number of year ago, I heard a pastor describe the concept of a Sabbath in two words. Those two words have kept coming back to mind for me recently. Neither word is about a specific day or length of time or any other rules. They're concepts that can help us to make the space for rest - whether it's an actual day, or an afternoon, or a morning, or a longer period of time.

Pray & Play

PRAY: A Sabbath is time set aside to connect with God. A conversation in prayer without the usual limits that every other day may bring.

PLAY: A Sabbath is time to do things that bring you joy - just because they're enjoyable to you. Things that fill you up.

So, my question to you as I wrap this up: How can you make time to rest - time for Sabbath - a regular part of your life? What does it look like for you to spend time praying & playing regularly?

What Singleness Is Not

 I saw something in my Facebook feed the other day that rubbed me the wrong way. As is often the case, it had to do with singleness & how Christians talk about it & often view it.

Whether meant exactly how it sounded to me at first read or not, the immediate read that I & others in the comments who have been singles for longer, had hurt. I always do my best to give people the benefit of the doubt & assume the best in their intentions, but that doesn't mean saying nothing when things should be said. Even if the way it was read was not the intent, when multiple people read it in a way that causes real pain, it reveals just how much the choice of  words matters.

So, I'm going to address what was written & how it was read here today.

Here's what I read:

"Singleness is not a disease that needs to be cured, but rather, it's an important stage of life that needs to be passed through as God shapes us, molds us, & loves on us." (emphasis mine)

Now, I'm going to start with what's right & good & needs to be said more in the church. Too often, especially in the church, we view singleness as a disease. When we find out someone is single, we start looking for reasons why they are & solutions or cures to it.

We need to be clear in our refusal to see singleness as a disease to be cured or a problem to solved. This view has done much harm over the years to many, & I appreciate statements that challenge this thinking.

But, as good as the first part was, the rest of the statement was hard to read. It turned singleness into something we go through (see the underlined words in the statement above) as if it's a step toward maturity. It perpetuated the all too common & hurtful view that singleness is a temporary state for everyone. That it's somewhere people are for a while until they inevitably move to the next stage of life where they are married.

Here's the thing: Nowhere in Scripture is marriage promised for everyone. That means some of us will be single for all of our adult lives. 

And any real look around our churches today would reveal that. There are significant numbers of single adults sitting in our church pews on Sundays. 

Some sources put the number of single adults in our church on a Sunday as high as 50%. Now, that number does include divorced & widowed singles, but a number that high does mean there are a significant portion of adults of all ages who have never married in our churches.

To view singleness as a life stage to be passed through is actually as hurtful as seeing it as a disease to be cured. It's as painful as seeing singleness as a problem to be solved. It still devalues the individual & leaves them feeling as if they haven't arrived at some arbitrary marker of maturity expected for them.

If I were to rewrite what I read, I would say something like this:

Singleness is not a disease to be cured, or a problem to be solved, or a life stage to get through. Singleness is a fact of life for some people, that God uses for His purposes & His glory, regardless of whether it is short-term, long-term, or something a person returns to at a later point in life.