Environment…
I’ve been thinking a lot about environments over the last several months. I’ve finally realized that the environment I long for, yet haven’t found yet, will require us to change…
I want an environment that has ample:
Love to cover
Liberty to choose
Spirit to lead
and Grace while learning to balance
Peter tells us “love covers a multitude of sins”. I believe it takes no faith, courage, or character to point out another’s failures. I’m not talking about excusing sin and handing out cheap, even shallow grace. I’m talking about learning to be gracious in restoration while being trustworthy with another’s confessions. Love is after all patient, kind, believing the best, and hoping the best…
Love is real love only when it’s released unconditionally and risks being unrequited. Love cannot demand a return on its investment. Love must offer the object of its passion the liberty to choose to return that love. If no liberty to choose, there is no love, just control and manipulation…
Any environment I’m involved in, I want to be Spirit-led. Minus the Spirit, things are mostly academic, superficial, passionless, and just plain boring. The Spirit spices things up because He’s usually unpredictable, unexplainable, and often uncontrollable – I’m tired of control. Where the Spirit is released, the atmosphere is super-charged with joy and peace. Why would we do anything without the Spirit?
Yet sadly, most of what is done in the church, is done spiritlessly…
Now as I look over the first three in this list, I realize they would require quite a paradigm change. The three are so contrary to our current environment that demands: sin be exposed, people compelled to choose, and things thoroughly understood rather than being spirit-led. So, the last thing on my list - a little Grace while learning to balance…
