I think Ishmael kind of got a raw deal. Other people made some questionable choices—understandable, given the culture, but not ideal choices—but he was the one who mostly had to live with the results.

Granted, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sure, he was a slave, but reading between the lines, Abraham still cared for him and was reluctant to send him away, and generally speaking, it sounds like Abraham was a good master to the slaves in his household.

But no matter how good the master is, very few of us would choose slavery. Or so we’d say…

Yet according to Paul in Galatians 4:21, that’s exactly what the Galatians were doing. Instead of embracing the freedom-truths of the Gospel, they preferred to focus on the rules of the law given to Moses.

As mentioned before, I can understand the appeal. But how many people get to choose between slavery and freedom? Not much of a choice, really, since choosing slavery ends in… slavery, with stubborn refusal to enjoy the pleasures of freedom.

But something holds us back. Maybe, like me, you prefer the “orderly” rules to the wild unknown. Maybe your analytical side likes the logic of the law. Maybe you feel better when you “earn” something.

Whatever the reasons, we have to get over ourselves! Even though we try to make it sound holy, our resistance is almost always about us. Time to shift the focus to Jesus and see what happens.

There is a lot I’d like to know about these stories of Abram/Abraham’s family.

I’m curious about Ishmael. How was he raised? There were 13 years between his birth and the time that God told Abram that he would have another son, this one with Sarah as the mother. Until that point, who raised Ishmael—Sarah, or his mother, Hagar?

And then there’s Sarah. If she did have a hand in raising Ishmael, why did she turn on him so quickly? And if she didn’t, what changed from her original plan?

I wonder about Abraham. I can’t imagine the stress he probably lived with, mediating (or maybe just trying to hide from) the two strong-willed women. He may have been rich, but money doesn’t fix those kinds of problems!

Finally, I wonder about God. Why did He wait so long to send Sarah a child of her own (or even state that it was His intention to do so)? Obviously He had his reasons.

Maybe having certainty earlier on would have prompted Sarah to treat Hagar and Ishmael even worse. Maybe God wanted to wait until it was painfully obvious that this baby boy was all his doing and there was no chance of it being interpreted as a natural even.

Despite not having a full understanding of all of the nuances, though, I take comfort in God’s promise to Hagar. More than just promising to help him out, God heard Ishmael.

I don’t know about you, but being truly heard probably means more to me even than action most of the time. And fortunately for me, we still have every reason to believe that God does hear us. That’s good news… even if He doesn’t always tell us all the details!

Yesterday’s reading was focused on Abram’s physical children (or lack thereof), and today’s reading takes that concept a step further by talking about his spiritual children—or at least that’s the theory.

The problem is that, as humans, we pretty much always manage to confuse ourselves and pick the wrong things to focus on. This was as much a problem for the Galatian Christians (some of Abram’s spiritual children) as it is for us now.

The first chunk of today’s reading shows us Paul, pretty frustrated with the Galatians (one of my Bibles starts out the passage with, “You crazy Galatians!” and another takes it even further: “You stupid Galatians!”).

What had him so frustrated? Apparently some of the Galatians were undergoing circumcision as a way of trying to “complete” what God started. Rather than keeping Jesus as the central focus, they had fallen into the (familiar) trap of worrying about rules and regulations.

It’s not hard to understand, at least not for me. I like rules and regulations (at least most of the time) because they’re like checklists; I know exactly what to do, and I know when I’m done.

As much as the checklist-style religion thing appeals to me, though, that’s not how God works at all. As far as I can tell, he’s not really interested in making my life easy so much as making me holy.

By placing my faith in the checklist, I’m essentially suggesting that I can make me holy.

Not only does it not work, but it’s actually kind of insulting to God when you think about it—He goes to the incredible (and frankly, inexplicable) effort of sending His son to die for me, and I basically say, “No worries, I can handle it!” That’s the height of arrogance on my part!

When we try to use the rules to help us feel like we’re on top of things, not only are we deluding ourselves (because the odds of us actually being on top of all the rules are almost nil), but we’re ignoring their purpose as a catalyst to bring us close to God.

According to Paul, if we’re looking to the rules first, we’re going about it all backwards. The Message puts it this way: “Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you?”

It’s not hard to guess the answer he’s looking for. The only hard part is dragging our eyes away from the rules and keeping them focused continually on Jesus.

Trying to do God’s will can be a challenge. Sometimes it’s a challenge because of temptation or selfish desires, but other times, even good motives and our attempts at the “right” actions aren’t enough.

For years, God had been telling Abram that he was going to be the head of a big family, despite the fact that his wife, Sarai, was barren. Often this promise was more of an assumption—really, just an aside in a larger promise—than a specific topic of conversation.

But in Genesis 15, Abram calls God on it. God’s promised Abram protection and rewards, but Abram replies:

O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.

Despite this kind-of-whiny approach, God gets specific in his promise:

Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

“Excellent!” Abram must be thinking. God makes a covenant with Abram, complete with a ritual and a vision, and everything’s good. Except…

Abram waits and waits. No son. Waits some more. Still no son.

We don’t get an actual timeline for this bit (at least not that I’m seeing), but at the beginning of chapter 16 of Genesis, we’re told that the action starts 10 years after Abram settled in the land of Canaan, so it’s probably been a couple of years.

We don’t see any more recorded conversations with God in the meantime, and I can understand why Abram and his wife, Sarai, start to doubt. Not that they doubt God’s promise, mind you. They just wonder if they aren’t supposed to be taking some initiative.

So Sarai comes up with a plan: she has a younger servant, and she convinces Abram to sleep with her to produce a son. This is a bit shocking to our modern, Western sensibilities, but in their culture, the only real suprise is that it didn’t happen earlier—apparently it was a common solution to the “problem” of infertility.

Sure enough, the servant, Hagar, conceives, and everything quickly goes downhill. Sarai realizes she actually isn’t okay with this arrangement, and she blames Abram, who refuses to get involved. Sarai takes her anger out on the pregnant Hagar, who runs away, and it’s pretty much a big mess.

And this is where it gets tricky for me. It’s tricky because the whole mess could have been avoided if Sarai and Abram had been patient—but they would have had to have been really patient, because it took about 13 more years before God moved forward with the “you’re gonna have a son” plan.

13 years is a long time to wait—and that’s on top of however many years they waited before getting Hagar involved.

To make it worse, they didn’t have any crystal-clear instruction from God before that point that they were supposed to wait for Sarai to get pregnant. Today, we’d get fertility treatment; back then, a “substitute wife” was the closest equivalent.

This leaves me with the perplexing question: when am I supposed to take action, and when am I supposed to truly wait on God? Because my personality is always going to jump to “take action,” but clearly that’s not always in line with God’s plan.

So how do I know which is which? How do you know?

I have a family history of drug abuse, mental abuse, abandonment and much more that yet has to be dealt with … which I am sure is not surprising to many of you … you see all that and more wherever you go. I left my seriously broken home when I was at the young impressionable age of 16 … only to carry out some of the terrible dysfunction that had been passed down from my parents and then me to my three kids.

Please know that I don’t blame anyone for this dysfunction … at least I don’t now. But merely two years ago I was as broken as I could be. Being in control is my addiction; codependency combined with Satan’s discouraging words and temptations pushed me into a state of serious depression and anxiety. I felt I had nowhere to turn, no one to talk to, and no one who would understand. I didn’t think I was worth anything ‘cause that’s exactly what Satan was whispering in my ear … all the time!

But by the grace of our wonderful Savior, I am here and all I did was make a choice … I asked Him into my heart; told Him I couldn’t bear the pain any longer … He asked me to let go and give those burdens to Him … I am now 36 years young, have my three wonderful kids and have a husband that only God could bless me with.

So, I ask you … Do you struggle? Have addictions? Bear any dysfunction? God wants you to give those burdens to Him. The Experience family is a family of radical followers of Christ and would love nothing more than to meet you and introduce you to who God really is!

Heidi

The Bible says, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV)

I wonder if sometimes my spiritual experience was similar to this… A form of spirituality, but denying the power that God could actually do anything in my life to change it - so we talked more and more about what we were supposed to do and not do and hoped that we could change.

However, the power of change is not within US! The power of change is - according to Jesus - is in Him! Could it be that we are simply missing it all when we focus on the guilt and trying to convince ourselves that we are supposed to do something else to “be good enough!”

In the book Irresistable Revolution, pg 269 it says, ”

Growing up, I was told that good people go to church. And then I looked around and watched the news and found a church full of sick people and a world that had some decent pagans. And I studied sociology. My studies taught me that the higher a person’s frequency of church attendance, the more likely they are to be sexist, racist, anti-gay, pro-military, and committed to their local church. And I figured if that’s what it  means to be a Christian, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be one, or whether even Jesus would want to be one, for that matter. I wondered why Jesus didn’t take back his religion. As I’ve heard my old mentor Tony Campolo say, “If we were to set out to establish a religion in polar opposition to the Beatitudes Jesus taught, it would look strikingly similar to the pop Christianity that has taken over the airwaves of North America.”

The only solution I can see is if we finally grab a hold of two foundational doctrines of  Jesus - confession and repentance.

To confess our problem - I have a problem, I can’t do it, I can’t fix this stuff. I put on religion like a jacket, but in the end I’m just as messed up as my neighbors; I’m just as selfish as the people I’ve looked down on - and I can’t deal with it any longer! I choose authenticity - admitting my problems!

To repent - to turn away - to turn to the only One who can do a stinking thing to help us - the Almighty God - Lover of the Universe, and Champion of Lost Causes.

Oh, Mighty Jesus, change us… Make us a trophy to the universe that You can change lives.

I overheard a conversation a couple days ago about church. About church is simply moving parishoners from one church to another church.  And I know the attraction to this. Whenever someone new shows up at The Experience, I’m excited! I’m even more excited when they come back for week two. The Experience IS NOT for everyone! It can be a bit strange, especially if you define church by the above mental pictures. But, when people show up, it’s exciting! And stealing someone from another church is thrilling.

But, I’m tiring of the thrill. I don’t want to be called a church anymore. I’m going to have a hard time breaking the habit. When we launched The Experience I remember wanting to kill the word church - but it was too ingrained in me and in others. But, I like the word Spiritual Family so much better. I like the word Community so much better. (I also like the words Ice Cream a lot as well - but that’s besides the point.)

I guess too many people have been burned by “church.” Too many people have felt that church was more about “church” than about people. Too many people have felt, as a friend told me a few days ago, that “church” just seems to pile on more guilt.

The Spiritual Family - the Community - is about transforming a community. It’s the call of the disciples by Jesus - when they saw a crowd of hungry people - to “give them something to eat.” Poor, uneducated, simple, blue-collar fishermen are told to feed 5, 6, 7, maybe 10 thousand+ people - in a moments notice.

That is the call of The Experience - and any group of people who feel they are followers of Jesus. It’s about changing the world in a positive way - feeding the hungry, comforting the divorced, challenging the arrogant, playing with children, and changing the world.

Oh that we would change the world… Oh that we would not play “church.” Oh that we would not simply move people from church to church - but see “net kingdom growth” - people who today do not know the power of Christ Spirituality in their lives finding the reality of Jesus living in them.

I’m looking forward to our trip even more now. We traveled some great roads -and saw some great countryside! It was beautiful! Waterfalls coming out of the side of a mountain (a lot of mountains!), a lot of cows, a nice older man with a great beard who gave us directions back to Old 30… It was wonderful.

And what was crazy is that some of the place we went were so close to the Interstate. Now, I love the Interstate - it’s such a quick way to get from point A to point B. But, there is something magical about getting onto slower roads and seeing some amazing land.

The difference, really, is just getting off the rat race and slowing down a little.

Reminds me of a spiritual journey. Sometimes life may look pretty dull - but simply slowing down, and getting away from the rat race is often a simple way to experience the beauty of a spiritual journey.

So - slow down a little; take some time to see God’s wonder….

I have a lot of respect again for single parents. And mine single parenthood was only for a few days. The fun thing was it gave me some great time to bond with my kids.

Balancing schedule, things to do, job, and making time for kids is really hard! I’m excited though that I took some time to just be with the kids. Work on building a fort; get ice cream cones, etc.

As we are on the 40 Days of Purpose together, take a little time to just be with God - relax, listen, read, and renew your purpose!

Walking in The Experience can be intimidating. There, in this room that looks like a gym, an auditorium, and who a little bit like a concert venue, is a bunch of round tables and chairs. Nope, no pews, rows of chairs, or anything like it.

I still remember when this idea first came into existence. There was a group of people at our old house on Montana in Caldwell, ID. It was summer and quite hot with no air conditioning - just a bunch of fans. And someone said they’d always thought that a church should just be made up of tables and chairs. And suddenly, it was just one of those things that I knew was right - right then, right there.

The Experience is a spiritual family. It’s a spiritual family for people who aren’t sure about traditional church. Families are all about connection, connectivity, and conversation. People get together for family reunions and… talk. I met someone the other day who was talking about her cousin and how they rarely saw each other, but their love was strong anyway. And, family reunions were for connection.

The tables are because we believe strongly that community is one of the cornerstones of a spiritual walk with God. And there’s nothing like sitting down, around a table, enjoying conversation, discussing life to bring people together.

The tables are a very significant statement that things are different here. But they are different because we value honesty, transparency, authenticity, and realness. And that’s why we sit around tables - it helps us engage in community.

Join us for community!