How to start? Or, a better question, where and when to start?
This project (a word that is neither accurate nor adequate, but will have to do while I give you the skinny) has been brewing and bubbling in different lives for a number of years, and, as you will see, is just part of a plan that God had in mind before space and time became here and now. So I will start with posts explaining in a bit more detail what we are doing, or at least flailing around with the intent of doing, and then in further posts give you some history, which has been fascinating, terrifying, miraculous and a privilege to live out.
The great thing about this blog for you, dear reader, is that you get to miss out on all the bits that were, well, boring, if I'm being honest. The day in, day out stuff: the painting, praying, plotting bits, the waiting, wrestling, walking stretches. The life outside of the Facebook highlight reel we all seem to judge ourselves by these days. It is important to remind myself, and you who will be witness, that all this did not happen at once, that much of what happened, though resolved with hindsight's rosy glow, was far more mysterious and obscure to walk through than it might appear from a simple summary of it's parts. Now we see the picture: then we saw a step, had a word, felt a push. Faith kept us going when we couldn't see, and faith will lead us on as we continue on this narrow road. You get to look back with us and judge for yourself if coincidence is explanation enough, if faith is folly, or our folly faith, and this testimony shall be a reminder, in old Christianese an 'Ebeneezer', for us as we walk on in the same glorious mystery.
And this is key: what shall follow these initial summaries, these statements of intent and explanations of the how, why and what, are just the beginning. What follows this will be the ongoing chronicles of normal people, broken people, believing for their daily bread, believing that Christ came into the world, lived, died, rose for the forgiveness of sin and holds out the real hope of the nations. Not a utopian ideal; not a political revolution; not 'faith' for faith itself, a kind of naive wish fulfillment towards a cosmic 'force'. Hurt and hurting folk in a busted world trying to live with, not just around, each other, in the belief that all who are 'in Christ' are one together, are family and closer than family. We have a real, living hope in a real, specific Kingdom, with a real and wholly glorious King. This will mean posts where we are riding high on fulfilled promise, or sinking low in doubts and fears.
I intend for it to be a real tale of real family, not a set of perky updates about "living in the victory"! We live in victory for real, but all that 'best life now' nonsense? You want that, this isn't the blog for you. The life we lead in the flesh will be resolved one day: our ultimate hindsight will be postmortem, when all our questions will be answered by our Man of Sorrows, our Prince of Peace, our Friend of Sinners. Till then we will fight and strive with all the power God allows to will and to work His good pleasure.
For this we will need a reminder of all the good, bad and ugly we have already walked through. We will need to look back, see the LORD's faithfulness to us even as we staggered and stumbled through our 'before', and trust ourselves afresh to Him when the way is dark, the load is heavy and our steps faltering.
So this blog is for us too, oh reader, and not words on a screen, but breath, and blood, and memory. A A journal of sorts. I hope it will bless, encourage, rebuke, exhort and inspire you to pray for us. I pray that it might be a word in season to some hopeless soul, some questor for truth, some traveler without a home destination, some angry revolutionary bitter with the world's failed answers, and turn them to Christ. A big hope turned over to a big God.
I hope that you too will be challenged to live up to the counter-cultural vision that is the heart of true Christian living: each to so love his neighbor that personal cost is no consideration. I hope this for myself. I hope this for my family. I hope this for those who come here. God above, let none who read and none who write be left unchanged for the process.
Grace and Peace.
