Читать книгу Soup Kitchen for the Soul - Renee Crosby - Страница 10

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WHAT I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT
GOD IN CHURCH, I LEARNED
IN A SOUP KITCHEN

In that soup kitchen, God revealed to me that I labor not in vain. God showed me a message, a mission for His people in which we lack a connection today. This message is to be shared so that we can learn and grow from it. What I hadn’t yet learned about God in twenty-eight years of my faith walk since accepting Jesus as my Savior, I learned while serving only twenty-four cumulative hours (that’s hours, not years) in a soup kitchen.

When I stepped out of my comfort zone in fear and apprehension and walked into that soup kitchen, my faith walk changed from being about having God meet me where I was to me meeting God where He was. The experience was a transforming miracle! It changed everything, and I mean everything.

It changed seeing with my eyes to seeing with my heart. It changed what I see, and where I see it. It changed my relationship with God, with my husband, my children and my friends. It changed my general demeanor with strangers from intimidating at times to always approachable. It changed my outlook, my tone of voice, my posture, my nature, my facial expressions, my wants, my goals, my love for others, my love for God and my soul. These are changes that you can experience too!

I write to inspire change in the way we do our Christianity and in the hope that we can all connect with God in a way that we all need but may not realize we do, as I didn’t. It’s about connecting with God in a radically new-old way outside of the church walls to see the scriptures come alive with meaning and relevance and power and truth.

Not only will Christians be able to experience God at a whole new level, but be inspired to engage in works for the Kingdom of God that have seemingly lost their significance in our modern faith walk. How or why part of our Christian works have lost significance isn’t as important as to know who is behind the movement. It is solely the work of the enemy (who I will only refer to as “the enemy” because I don’t believe he is worthy to even be mentioned by name). The enemy has worked toward having us forget some of the most astounding promises of God.

We are a sinful people, in a sinful world, constantly being bombarded with deceit and lies so deep that I cannot address them in this book. So our focus must be upon reclaiming some promises from God found in the scriptures. I can assure you these promises have not lost their relevance and can be reclaimed to enrich our modern faith walk!

As we awaken these sleeping promises in our souls, we will then come to evaluate what we can do better as we walk this Christian walk. Within my soup kitchen experience, it seems my soul was awakened, yet was in this groggy phase for a while. I was reacclimating myself with my surroundings and this new heart vision I had, when I remember the moment my soul was awakened completely. While I was in the midst of awakening the experiences of the soup kitchen, one of my pastors asked a question of our congregation that snapped me to attention like that first sip of coffee in the morning.

He asked a very good question that has significant relevance for the life and purpose of the Body of Christ and our institutional churches. How we answer this question is a good barometer of determining whether we are doing a good job at the missions laid before us for a great and glorious God. The question was:

“What if the people of ____________________________ (insert your church name here) weren’t here anymore? Would the community around you notice?”

What a thought! Think about it. Would the community notice? If our answer is anything other than a resounding, absolute “Yes!”, we have work to do.

Is your church and its people a real, tangible, visible reminder of an invisible God, besides the evidence of walls that make up the building? Are you a visible reminder of an invisible God? We, the Body of Christ, are to be a visible reminder of an invisible God to the world around us like the wedding ring is a visible reminder of an invisible love and commitment in a marriage.

The scriptural foundations of our Christian experience are carefully packed into a treasure chest that waits to be opened by us to find wonderful treasures inside. In order for us to do our Christianity in radically new-old ways, we must look for the treasures found within the precious stories and lessons given to us by the God-breathed word.

For about 15,372 hours, or the equivalent of 640 days, or 91 ½ weeks, or 21 months I prayed for the words to articulate the soulinspiring experiences of the soup kitchen. I waited patiently (for once in my life) but with much anticipation, for God to reveal to me how to share those lessons. Finally, God answered my prayers.

One morning I woke up and the treasure chest was there. God had packed the most wonderful treasures inside to help me share the story of my soup kitchen experience. Within the treasure chest were two kinds of jewels that would allow me in some small way to help Christians live out a more fulfilling life as God had designed.

These radically new-old ways are found in the scriptures in the form of defining moments and reclaiming forgotten promises. These defining moments and forgotten promises are our legacy and heritage that we have somehow come to leave behind. Reconnecting with them will allow God to define our faith walk, not us.

The defining moments and forgotten promises found within this book will allow you to know God better. Once you experience these truths for yourself, you will come away with an increased amount of awe for God. These Biblical lessons result in a childlike wonder and awareness of how glorious our God is!

I hope by now that you are beginning to ask what it is that we have forgotten in our modern faith walk and how do we reclaim it. I also hope by now that you are beginning to wonder how to answer the questions of how do we function in this world for Christ, and where is our mandate to do so? Where in the Bible can we find directives on our missions for God? What exactly are we supposed to be doing?

How do we come to learn how to live our Christian lives, and is it as God intended? Is what we have learned about being a Christian correct? Is what we have learned about God correct? How do we know it’s correct? Where are the answers? All of our answers can be found in the Bible. Within these pages that we’ll share together I’m honored that you’ll allow me to share with you my heart-changing experience in the soup kitchen in which God taught me about how to have a meaningful Christian walk beyond what I thought possible!

Ah, how did He teach me these things in the soup kitchen? I’m not sure I can fully explain that as it is the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit. I felt the truths first. I lived them. I experienced them in my heart, in my spirit. I didn’t see the truths with my mind, but saw them with my heart. Then after the patient waiting, the pertinent scriptures for each of the key truths that I learned were revealed and fell clearly into one of two categories.

The first type of scriptural truths were revealed as promises that I either missed the meaning, or that I never claimed as my own. The other key truths that God revealed fell into the category of defining moments, or defining characteristics of living my Christian life as God designed. It is my desire to define or redefine the promises and identify the defining moments and characteristics of our faith walk that will lead to a more meaningful, relevant walk rooted in our Christian heritage and legacy. I will count on the Holy Spirit to make them yours.

One of the reasons I had not been moving in the world as God designed was because I didn’t understand the way God designed us and our social structures and how we should function within them for Him. These are the truths I “hold to be self evident,” ¹ and I hope you will come to see these truths as self evident when you go into the world to experience and claim these promises and defining moments.

I had to experience them first and then find the answers to the questions that I didn’t even know I had. You on the other hand get to start by journeying with me into the Biblical truths that provide answers to questions we should all be asking, and then seek to experience them in the world by seeking out God.

I pray that these promises and defining moments come alive for you and speak to your spirit so that you can go and connect in the world as God designed. The result will be living a Christian life with authentic and truthful meaning and purpose, bringing great glory to God.

Let’s pray before we begin our journey into the scriptures, shall we?

Dear God, you are an amazing God of grace and love with promises so concrete yet mysterious and profound that we sometimes cannot comprehend with our human hearts and minds.

We want to see these truths spoken to us spirit to spirit so that we can claim them with a hungry soul and a longing heart. We ban the enemy any access to our minds and hearts as we allow you to awaken our souls to reclaim sleeping promises. We pray that as we are awakened to radically new-old ways of experiencing and doing God in our world, through these truths revealed in the scriptures, that we will recommit ourselves to have, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”(Matthew 6:10). Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What if the people of _________________________ (insert your church name) weren’t here anymore? Would the community around you notice?

2. Is our church a visible reminder of an invisible God besides the four walls that make up the building?

3. Are you a visible reminder of an invisible God?

4. If you were asked as a Christian what the purpose or meaning of life is, would you be able to give an answer, and what would your answer be at this point?

5. If you were asked what the missions of God’s people were, would you be able to answer the question or know where in the scriptures to find the answers or refer someone to? If you can’t do this yet–don’t worry. Hopefully by the end of the book you will have a clear vision of our works for God and where to find our key missions laid out in the Bible.