:: basicblog ::

My wife and I have been on a very strange journey... one that not everyone around us has understood, but nevertheless, one that we felt compelled to take... we don't exactly know when it began... we were married in early 2001... must've been shortly after that... we just started getting restless... antsy... we were both yearning for more in our walks with Christ. It was like one day we woke up and church just wasn't the same... or maybe we weren't? That's been one of the hardest things to figure out about this whole thing...

On the one hand we felt like God was calling us both to go deeper with Him... on the other hand, church was "feeling" more and more like "McChurch" or "church lite"... I say "feeling" because I think it was a totally subjective "God thang" my wife and I were going through... I mean, no one else noticed it... I really think God was up to something with us and wanted to change our "direction".

We were clueless... we were both so unhappy and just puzzled by what was going on... then we began getting hints...

I remember hanging out at the Morristown, NJ Vineyard in what must have been July 2002 for one of their Friday night "soaking" worship services. Danny Daniels was there and he did a then relatively new song called "If You Say Go" by Diane Thiel...

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Here's the lyrics:

if You say go, we will go
if You say wait, we will wait
if You say step out on the water
and they say it can't be done
we'll fix our eyes on You and we will come

Your ways are higher than our ways
and the plans that you have laid
are good and true
if You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You
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My wife and I were both deeply touched by this song. It spoke to us exactly at the point of our need... we knew God was calling us to go somewhere, we just didn't know where... and we were scared. Scared of the "not-knowing"...

All I know is that as we sat on the floor of the church after that song, tears in our eyes, we both began to feel a sense of excitement amidst the uncertainty...

A journey with God is always both scary and exciting isn't it? Reminds me of that passage from C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe": "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about being safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."