Hope For Change

“I want to change!” Rick said to me, his opening comments as he came back to talk.  “There is something about what’s happening here that maybe this is a place where I can actually hope for change.”  It was the fall Community Party sponsored by Northeast Bible Fellowship, last Thursday at McIlvain Recreation Center.  About 100 people showed up. There was plenty of food, games for the children, beautiful fall weather and a contagious spirit of joy that caught everyone present.

Rick has six children.  He struggles with alcohol addiction.  He also spent six years in juvenile prison.  He is an engaging man and I believe he is looking for a place to fit in.  For encouragement.  Someone to just listen for a while.  A place of hope.  Love.

There’s only One who can deliver all that.  But our Father God regularly uses us clay vessels to join with Him to deliver hope and love and community.  Rick had left the party and then returned.  He said his heart was churning to come back.  I prayed with him.  And we talked about getting our families together for dinner at his house in a week or two.

Mary was there with her two daughters.  She said she is afraid for their safety every day, as her six and eight year old girls played in the field in front of us with all the other children.  Jacquie said she wishes this kind of community event could happen all the time in this neighborhood.  LaShant wondered if we could help her run a block party on her street.

Refuge. Encouragement.  Community. Hope. Love.  Can our Father God really deliver all that?  Are we promising more than can actually be handed out?  Do I have faith to trust God to use me to deliver those precious goods?

Last Tuesday evening at our weekly community Bible study we looked at Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians where he said, “When I am weak, God is strong.”  I know I am too weak to provide such hope and love, even when I’m teamed up with the great folks who make up Northeast Bible Fellowship.  But our Father God is strong, very strong, infinitely strong.  And He loves all of us more than we’ll ever understand.  Because of His power and love people like Rick and Mary can have hope and peace.  And through faith in Him, I will be part of His love for them.

Barren to Beautiful

I had an hour before I needed to head over to the tutoring center, so I met up with a good friend of mine for a late lunch. When I went to leave there was an empty parking spot where I had parked. What started out as a quick lunch with a friend turned into hours of subways, buses and walking out to 61^st Street (that’s the out in the middle of nowhere section of Philly, if you’re unfamiliar) to get my car. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to make it to the recreation center yesterday. 

But I got to spend a lot of time with this friend, and get into things we wouldn’t have been able to if I had left when I had intended to. I talked about my frustrations and sadness over the number of close people in my life who have left their faith. My uncertainty of what to do, and my own struggle with my faith walk, now that I have lost the support and fellowship I once had with them. She shared with me parts of her own thought process as a girl who grew up in a Christian home, but no longer considers herself a Christian. Parts of me recognized the good in being able to spend this extra time with her and have these conversations. Part of me wanted to say look how God is using this. But mostly I was tired from thinking my car was stolen, to realizing it was towed and going who knows where to pay who knows what. I was exhausted from confiding hard struggles, and then adding another one to the list. Part of me wanted to find a purpose for the past four hours, but a bigger part of me just wanted to give up and not think about any of it.  

We said goodbye, and I drove over to the church for Bible study, tired, hungry, and feeling pretty defeated. The best I could do was joke that I ended up having a pretty expensive lunch that day. We shared prayer requests, prayed and then dove into the lesson. Pastor Alonzo choose to speak on John 15, the passage about Christ as the vine and us as the branches. In light of the day, it was just another passage to me. Another passage that wasn’t going to help me in my faith walk, that wasn’t going to tell me what to do about all my “ex-Christian” friends. Until it did. Alonzo asked what we thought was meant by the beginning statement of the verse 2, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away…” At this point my attention perked, but my heart remained discouraged. The words “taken away” aren’t the most encouraging. The discussion wasn’t giving me much comfort until Alonzo stepped in and offered a new thought. He read an excerpt from the book, Secrets of the Vine, where the author, Bruce Wilkinson, is having a conversation with an owner of a vineyard.

“New branches have a natural tendency to trail down and grow along the ground,” he explained. “But they don’t bear fruit down there. When branches grow along the ground, the leaves get coated in dust. When it rains, they get muddy and mildewed. The branch becomes sick and useless.”

“What do you do?” I asked. “Cut it off and throw it away?”

“Oh, no!” he exclaimed. “The branch is much too valuable for that. We go through the vineyard with a bucket of water looking for those branches. We lift them up and wash them off.” He demonstrated for me with dark, callused hands. “Then we wrap them around the trellis or tie them up. Pretty soon they’re thriving.”

As he talked, I could picture Jesus’ own hand motions when He taught in the vineyard that night. He was showing how the Father makes sure Hs crop comes in full and sweet. When the branches fall into the dirt, God doesn’t throw them away or abandon them. He lifts them up, cleans them off, and helps them flourish again.

As I listened, holding back my tears, I knew that those words would not have been as powerful to me had I not gone through my afternoon. I knew my heart wouldn’t have been as vulnerable and open to receive comfort, had it not been still tender to the hurt of the day. I may have thought I had an expensive lunch when I walked in, but sitting there last night, I knew I had gotten a cheap, safe, but powerful lesson. A gift really.