People Experience This in the Mundane

After one neighbor was arrested a while back, and one on suicide watch, I'm just here to say you don't have to go to Africa to share the gospel. I mean really. Despite what the modern day church might display. Quiet frankly, I moved to this little city to "get away" from chaos. To live a safe, comfortable, calm life.... you know, one where neighbors don't knock on your door at 1am or at any hour really…. a place where I can just do my own thing.  

I don't live in the hood, not even close, more a 8 square mile city where mommas drive Land Rovers and daddies BMWs, festivals, parades and our own episodes of Desperate Housewives happen. Top schools and children riding bikes around downtown freely. The train constantly rolls on through like nothing abnormal.

I thought that these 8 square miles were full of people who didn't need anything from me. I thought my own space was what was best to prevent immense heart break again- if no one knows my story, we don't have to discuss it. If no one knows my gunk, I don't have to know theirs. Keeping my front door shut, away from the mess in a urban-want-to-be suburban community is not what it seemed it would be.

Somewhere after you get the  brilliant dumb idea to throw a neighborhood BBQ and you reluctantly begin letting them in, one by one because you can't be THAT rude neighbor. By all means you just threw a BBQ….. And somewhere in the letting in of one by one, the gospel happens.  It doesn't look like some religious psycho rubbing oil on peoples heads or standing on the rooftop screaming scripture through megaphones. It doesn't look like starving dark skinned babies in Africa and it doesn't look anything like what I had planned for.

People experience in the mundane. In the mundane the gospel finds people. The mundane changes things and then the changed start serving at your local church with you and it's no longer "Keeping my front door shut, away from the mess in a urban-want-to-be suburban community".... And somewhere in that mundane of reluctantly letting them in one by one -- you just begin realizing that your front door of what you thought would be shut and never opened is the hub of "My life is a wreck, Can I come in?"…. And you begin to buy more groceries each week and you look like an extreme game of follow the leader heading to church each week. And you no longer drive 15 minutes to someone else's house for community group, but have it in your own living room…. with all those one by ones who somehow convinced you to let them in months ago.


I gave up a few months back and left a key for the normal people to just let themselves in. I gave up trying to have a life closed off that didn't involve telling people my story or letting them run the risk of hurting me. I gave up at the proper need for everyone to have a chair at my dinning room table, because it only can fit 4 maybe 5 people around, and sometimes usually there's more- and the kitchen floor is fine for dining too, I've learned. 

I've watched mommas rock babies and I've handed tissues out for the tears in my 700 square foot space.  I've seen people I now love most make brave choices and trust a God that is far bigger than comprehendible. I've prayed prayers, bold request that seem impossible, over people on my hardwood floors - Prayers that I never knew would be possible to come out of my mouth, not with my plans of keeping my front door shut.  

I've learned it's good live in the mundane, to love the mundane. It's in the mundane of eating dinner, walking to the post office, drinking tea, watching the CMAs and such that the gospel comes. It's not only on flights to the nations and in the brush of Africa that I've seen hearts healed. It's not only in the mountains of Nicaragua that I've watched Jesus show up. It's in my little 700 square foot house that sits within the 8 square mile city my heart beats wildly for that the gospel is found.

It's there. It's in throwing a neighborhood BBQ you begin to trust that God wants your front door swung wide open even if it hurts, is messy and insanely uncomfortable at times. It's in folding your neighbors laundry that Jesus begins to take off some of the deadbolts around your heart holding your door tightly shut. It's in this mundaneness that Jesus repairs your own heart. You tell these one by ones your mess and gunk and they find hope for their own stories. 

It's there in those 700 square feet that Jesus opened my front door for me and offered what I knew but refused to admit these Land Rover driving people and myself needed- Grace.  And it's there He carried me through great fears of opening my heart and life to anyone.

What a loss this season would be if my door would have stayed closed. What if Jesus would have not consistently brought people knocking on 2S? And what if Jesus held back and never gave strength to swing wide open my heart, mess, gunk and life? What if? What joy I would be missing out on. What salvation could have not come. What hurt and healing I would never have known. What fear He would have never carried me through…. 

It's just in the mundane He's healing me so greatly by doing the thing I wanted least - experiencing community.