Catalyst Track: English Lessons // Day Three

This track comes from English Lessons: The Crooked Path of Growing Toward Faith, by Andrea Lucado. 

 

Sometimes I think this world is a long and spread out Tower of Babel. You don’t have to move to England in order to feel like a foreigner. It might feel like no one speaks your language in your own home, school, or workplace.

 

The most familiar things in life can cause us to feel the loneliest at times. And loneliness is the absolute worst. But it can be effective at changing us for the better, forcing the layers off and allowing us to do brave things, appreciate relationships, and find friendships with people we didn’t think we could befriend.

 

Submitting to Babel allowed me to feel connected to those around me.

 

In this 3-day track, Andrea invites people into her personal journey of embarking into the unknown, and in doing so, discovering a great need for others in the process, a need for the Church.

 

As a leader, you probably often find yourself in unknown spaces. And that can be a lonely place sometimes. But does it always have to be? Can you find your needed strength and courage in others to do what you are called to do?

 

Are you ready to find out? 

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DAY 3 – Take a Break

 

In Oxford, my conversations with God were quieter. They felt strange, almost awkward as if the God I was trying to talk to in England was not the same God I had always talked to back home in Texas. Our talks often felt one- sided. When I prayed, I hit dead ends. Was God disappearing as I began to imagine and understand life without him? Was I making him disappear?

 

Maybe this is why I talked to Jisu more than I talked to God that year. Because at some point, your morning quiet times are finally so quiet they only echo your own voice back to you. “Anyone out there? Anyone out there? Anyone?”

 

What you want instead, what you need, isn’t God, but someone, a physical real-person someone, to show you the way. You want to talk to someone who you know is talking to God, even if you can’t or just don’t want to.

 

The people who talk to God can do a lot for you and for your faith if you let them. I once heard author and pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber speak. During the question and answer session at the end, a guy stood up and said, "I had faith, and it was strong, but now I'm doubting. I feel weak in my faith. What should I do?"

 

Bolz-Weber’s suggestion? “You can take a break now. Let someone else on the pew be strong for you.”

 

I like this idea of giving each other permission to take a break from trying and let the others on the pew be strong for us for a little while. As you boomerang from one dead end to another, the stronger ones take you by your shoulders. Right where you are, facing that dark stone wall, they place their hands on you and gently turn you around to point you toward something bright, toward something true.

 

CHALLENGE:

 

What do you need to take a break from & seek help about? Reach out to a friend or mentor this week who you want to help be your strength. Who will that person be?