As I have looked back on my life the past couple of years, it seems that in many ways…
I appear to be back theologically, emotionally, etc. where I started. I ended up back at a place and in a career that I once thought was severed so permanently that I had actually gave up hope because I had really believed that God must have had it in for me and was using me as his pleasure toy and laughing behind the scenes. I finally found a church home that I finally decided to join because the quest for a solid core theological foundation was seen as growth and maturity instead of being seen as ‘tradition’, ‘missing out’, and ‘quenching the Spirit’.
I have also noted this in the lives of many of my friends that they are now back in the same place they once were at one time in their life. One friend has started going back to church after a two year hiatus. One friend who had left a church to take part in a church plant across town (that has recently taken a turn for the worse) has resurfaced back at their original church. Another friend I saw at church today that had left for a very rocky journey told me between services while munching on brownies that he was so glad to feel once again that he was in a very safe place spiritually.
It just seems to be that for many people right now, we are in a time and place where the U-Turn has been completed and we have gotten back to the place we were once at before we either made a wrong turn, forced to leave via an exile and left very confused, decided to take a different route that we knew was a diversion, froze at the thought of the unknown, got tired and weary and decided to take a long hiatus, etc. Whatever reason that it may have been, it seems that at some point, we had to make the u-turn and get back to the point of knowing the familiarity, safety, and guidance of where the known mark of a foundation was.
We go onward, forward, and toward……
I can relate with that my friend. I see the same thing happening now. For one I am getting back into the teaching piano students.
I, too, can relate. It seems life is full of U-turns and doublt-backs. For me, it has had much to do with returning to things that I loved before I became a Christian and concluded that I had to get rid of them. Slowly, I came to discover that many things I love about life and music are not as evil as I once assumed they were. It’s been a journey out of the wilderness of contemporary Christianity’s bad imitation art (in music, movies, etc.) and back to some authenticity.
Peace,
AC
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Andrew:
It’s great to hear from you again.