Steve-o's Devo: Listening to Live

The one thing we do a lot of at By The Way is listen. Even our primary phrase, "listening and exploring faith together" empashizes this very important piece of Christian community. We still are an early community. A community of people on the fringe who have perhaps had an encounter with the holy and desire deeply to discover what truth looks like after that encounter.

It is in our human nature to want to test everything to see just what it might be about, or if the people we meet are who they say they are. We see this played out in our daily lives at school, work, in our relationships. The hardest thing for many of us comes when we discover the truth that we are loved, just as we are, where we are at in our lives. That seems almost unbelievable. And yet, it is a core reality of God's grace.

In Paul's letter to another early church, one in Corinth, he reminds the people that it is less important to worry about the testing of our faith or of living in community. He reminds them it is not so much the fact that you are tested, but that you had the opportunity to pursue what was right. He hopes that the people followed the path laid out to them by Jesus--a path that can lead to the ability to listen to one another, come to an agreement and live in peace. This happens when we are able to accept God's love as always present and manifested in those around us called to live as followers of Jesus.

The path is not an easy one and this weekend I was reminded of this when I saw a bumper sticker that said: No Jesus, No Peace....Know Jesus, Know Peace. I laughed at first because as a person who works with other Christian communities, often ones in conflict, it seemed that this "peace" had been forgotten. But then I realized something deeper that gave me pause for reflection throughout the weekend. When we forgot who we are, and whose we are, peace is a difficult thing to come by. When our communities get bogged down in what we think, instead of discerning together and listening to what God may have in store, peace cannot exist. Conflict will begin to arise and we enter paths that cause more problems for us and our relationships. Is it any wonder so many people have come to church to discover Jesus and the peace that passes all understanding, only to discover a surly bunch of frustrated and distracted people. As I thought about this, I realized, it is our responsibility as disciples of Jesus to remind these communities that they are forgetting whose they are as they descend into bickering. And it is our responsibility to encourage them to rediscover Jesus.

It's not easy living in community. There will always be frustrations and contentions and I do not expect even our community of By the Way to be without them. But I think if we practice listening to one another, trying to discern what God is loving us into, we have an amazing opportunity to re-discover a world overflowing with grace and abundance. My prayer is that we can be one of those glimmers of hope that calls others, even those already connected in Christian communities, to re-discover and revitalize their lives in Jesus.

If you are stuggling this week, finding it hard to focus, perhaps feeling unsettled or frustrated, I hope you will consider stopping by to regroup your spirit, and discover how you can truly know peace. Or perhaps, you may just have to turn off the noise...and listen.