El Roi and Brokenness

Some quick business before I start; I have made two updates to the blog. The first is that I think I figured out why some people couldn't comment, and the problem should be fixed now. So use that comment box, because I love hearing from all of you! Secondly, there is now an RSS feed up for this page, as per request.

Ok, that concludes business. On to the fun stuff.....er, well, the stuff you want to read :-)

El Roi
"Seeing is not easy business. It demands a lot. It can be tiring and sometimes unpleasant. It means carrying in our minds unresolved pain and need. It means abandoning the enclave we might have been hiding in. We won't be able to sleep quite as soundly. The things we thought mattered we will now consider of little or no importance. It's not easy to live as an exile- Jesus said we could depend on that. This is what drives us back, to need to see God afresh, to need to grow in our capacity to 'let the same mind be in [us] that was in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 2:5)." -From The Dangerous Act of Worship

El Roi. The God who sees.
This name for God is only used once in scripture, In Genesis 16. Abraham and Sarah's servant Hagar is pregnant with Abraham's son and has been so horribly abused by Sarah that she has fled into the desert. There she meets an angel of the Lord. The angel acknowledges her hurt and pain and then sends her back. And then she gets to name God. This lowly servant, raped by her master, gets to name the Lord almighty! Time and again it is the poor to whom God reveals himself, it is the poor who understand.
"She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.' " (Genesis 16:13)
The angel of the Lord also tells her to name her son Ishmael, which means God hears.

God doesn't change Hagar's situation though. He sends her back to Abrahan and Sarah. He merely listened to her, saw her pain and acknowledged it. God let Hagar know that she was not invisible, and that was enough for her. God sees. God hears.

Our white American culture is a culture of doing. We don't want to experience pain or problems, we want to jump in and fix them. We are a fighting culture, and we have made many gains because of it. But our way is not God's way.

I am not saying that we should never fight for the side of right and justice, but often our real call is simply to listen. To see. We cannot fix all the problems that plague our world, but we can bear witness to the pain they cause. We can see other people, see their lives, their sorrows, their joys. Often the most effective ministry we can do is to really see. To let people know that they are not invisible.

But to see we have to be vulnerable. Seeing means risking our own pain and our own hurt. It means discovering injustices we never wanted to know about, and finding ourselves partly or wholly responsible. It means setting aside our own opinions and beliefs and not getting defensive. Seeing usually means investing in people's lives, sharing in their struggles, but it can also be as simple as asking the stranger sitting next to you on the El (the elevated train in Chicago) how their day is going. But whatever the scenario, and whatever the personal cost, we must see.

The Brokenness that Brings Healing
Ask me how I am right now, and if I'm being honest, I'll tell you that I'm ripped to pieces. My heart is broken a little more each day for this neighborhood, and I am constantly suppressing my desire to jump in and try and fix everything. It's so much harder to sit and simply be a witness to the injustice here, but I'm learning to accept the discomfort and learning that it's ok to live with hurt. I live in a shattered world.
But I am broken in another way as well. Much of our focus here is on community and systemic problems, but in the midst of that, God has brought my own life, faults, and calling sharply into focus. I have professed all my life to follow Christ, but I am only now beginning to understand what it means. When Jesus called people to follow him, he also called them to leave everything behind and start a new life as his disciple. These men left steady jobs, family, good lives, screwed up lives, wealth, all to follow Christ. Now it's my turn.

But it is far from easy! God keeps asking me to surrender more and more to him and it keeps getting harder and harder because each thing is successively closer to my heart. Each thing is a little more dear to me than the last. Still, I know that for every part of my life I am asked to surrender, the Lord has a more abundant life prepared for me. And I know that I will have to continue surrendering till the day I die, until every bit of me is given over to the Lord.

I'm under no illusions that my life will be easy or happy or comfortable. But I do know that it will be abundant, worthwhile, and full of joy.

I'm having a rough time right now, but that's ok. I am struggling, but that's ok. I don't have to have it all together, I don't have to be perfect. God is redeeming my life. I can rest in his peace.

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:12-13)