Digging Deep Into Your Life
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” - Luke 6:46-49
How easy is it to “dig down deep” to lay the foundation of a house by hand? Think of all the sweat, all the energy that must take. And how long does it take to “dig down deep” to lay the foundation of a house in the first century context, where there are no back-hoes and metal-tipped shovels are a luxury. It’s a LONG process! It takes a whole lot of shoveling to lay that foundation - shovelful of dirt after shovelful of dirt after shovelful of dirt.
The stated mission of City Church is to “hear and respond to the call of Jesus towards wholeness.” We represent that in the simple diagram of the Learning Circle (at bottom). Essentially, what we’re all about is helping people to dig into their lives and figure out what God is saying to them so that they can build the houses of their lives on God’s word to them. But it takes a lot of work. It’s like shoveling out the dirt to get down deep to the solid rock of the foundation. Each day that we listen for God’s voice is another shovel full of sand we clear out of our lives. Each time we share with a friend what we think God is saying and how we think we might respond is laying a big strong rock at the base of your house to make it strong.
Will you go on that journey with your church this week? Take a few moments and reflect on the Learning Circle below, using these words of author/pastor Frederick Buechner to stir up in you a desire to dig around in your life for what God is saying to you these days.
I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it...there is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him...If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. -Frederick Buechner
