By Catechist Whitney DeWare, Yellowknife
I grew up believing that my present circumstances would inherently set the tone of the rest of my life. I read about miracles in the Bible, but in real life they seemed an ancient fantasy, irrelevant for my life today. As a child I attended Church, Sunday School and Youth Group weekly. In the summers I attended an overnight camp that was owned and run by the Association of Baptist Churches on the East Coast of Canada. For four summers in my later teenage years, I worked at one of those camps.
My friends were all church-goers. Our parents instilled Christian values in us. We could be found listening to 90’s Christian Music at school, at home, and everywhere we existed together.
But I, like so many, moved away from home at 18 years of age and found that I had no solid foundation of faith to depend on. I had lived my entire life a particular way, but I hadn’t discovered what it was really about. I had spent my entire life in the organization of the church. But, at the same time, I had spent my entire life outside of the real life of the church.
I walked away from church, and then I walked away from faith. Sure, I had encounters with the organization known as ‘the church’ over the course of the next 13 years, but none of them made church make sense in any real way. Most of my encounters were among the world: I was involved in drugs, alcohol, sex, and destruction. On occasion, when the weight of life was too much to bear, I would return to church. I would go looking for something, but I never found it. I know now it’s because I was looking for more: something beyond what a human organization could offer.
When I was 32, I reached a point where life was entirely unmanageable. I was on the brink of self-destruction, suffocating under the weight of being alive. I reached out again, but this time was different. I wasn’t met by an organization, committees interested in doing what has always been done. This time I was met by a person, one who was a faithful follower of Jesus. This person knew that just being involved with the organization known as the church couldn’t rescue me; this person also knew that no human person was the answer to what I was looking for. This person knew that the only way for my redemption, for freedom from this unbearable weight of my life, was through a relationship I didn’t have and couldn’t yet understand – a relationship with Jesus. So, this person made the decision to build a relationship with me, one that continually pointed me beyond them and on to the person of Jesus.
Over the course of the next three years, there was time and time again where my life changed dramatically. Someone took the time to invest in me, to show me grace, to offer me a hand out of my self-destructive pit. They demanded that I be honest, even when all I could see was shame. They facilitated my wrestling with God, and challenged and pushed me when my doubt was at its height. They backed off when I gave up, but never failed to show up again when I surfaced enough to know I was still missing that thing I needed most: a real relationship with Jesus. In all of that, I learned difficult lessons about what grace is. What love is. What trust is. And something invaluable about who God is.
But none of this would have happened if it weren’t for that person taking countless hours to invest in me. To see me as God sees me, despite my destructive tendencies. Gently – yet very purposefully – pushing me to accept that I, too, could be a daughter of the Most High.
When we focus on the church as an “organization” we have a tendency to push people into programs (Alpha, a Bible Study, a grief-support group, a 12-step group, all good things on their own), but we assume the program will do the work of discipleship for us. But even the best programs can never replace the one-on-one interactions that we, as humans, were created to experience and rightly depend on.
Our God is a God of miracles. He transforms people from the inside out. He places people in particular places at particular times for a particular purpose. He brings about incredible goodness from messy and terrible human situations that we could never imagine God could use to show His grace. And He does that through His faithful people. Whispering to us to show up, giving us His words to speak, divinely putting people in our paths who we need and who need us.
The miraculous power of God evident is in each and every instance of human redemption. It doesn’t come through membership in the organization of the church; it comes through the relationships that exist between faithful followers of Jesus as they learn to follow Him together in this very messy world.
Yes, support your local church. Yes, get involved in outreach and discipleship programs. Yes, invite your friends and neighbours, and especially those who need to meet and enocunter Jesus. But be ready. Because the life-changing example of what it means to faithfully follow in a relationship with Jesus won’t come from a program or a sermon in a worship service… it will come when ordinary Christians like you and me take the time to invest in those whom Jesus loves and died to save.
You’re part of God’s plan for a miracle to save the hurting and the lost. How will you respond? I will, with God’s help.
