McMahon Life

Do you ever have those moments – be they minutes, hours, days, or weeks – where your mind is filled with doubt and confusion, where everything that you know is for some reason up for questioning,

even though you know that you know that you know it?  Those moments where you ask yourself, do I even know how to hear God speak to me?  Am I really where he has asked me to be, or have I somehow mucked it all up and ruined his plan for my life? In our moments of clarity these questions are really

kind of ridiculous, but in our moments of doubt they are very real, penetrating to the depths of the mind and soul.  You know what I’m talking about?  These are the moments when, even though we absolutely know the devil is lying into our ears, for some reason we still give that voice credence, though momentary, and this challenges everything that we know.

This past week was like that for me.  As I was expressing it to my wife the other day she looked at me astonished saying you actually think this?  You actually believe this? No.  Of course I don’t.  I know what I believe, yet in that moment they became very real possibilities – even though in that moment I knew those possibilities to be false, charades drawn up by the enemy to confuse and destroy.  Why do we give those thoughts place in our lives?  I have no idea.  Weakness maybe.  Perhaps we are searching for a pat on the back, confirmation that we are where we knew we needed to be all along and therefore we question everything and create drama, just hoping that God steps in and says, in his gentle, incredible way, silly, you know this is where I want you, you know what is true, you know that other voice is simply a lie.  You are truly silly my child! Yesterday was one of those moments.  I know God has led us to The Bluffs, but still I asked, really?  Are we sure?  Maybe we messed this us (even as it is so overwhelmingly evident that God brought us here – isn’t it amazing how we do that?).

Michelle worked from 2-8pm yesterday, giving me some time to a house that is empty for the first time in two weeks (we had students living with us the past two weeks).  You’d think I’d spend some time in solitude and silence (both needs in my life), but not yesterday.  I’m pretty sure from the moment Michelle left to the moment I picked her up from work someone else was constantly with me.  And I’m not talking about Someone Else, I’m talking about people. Four o’clock found me at our community pool feeling loved as just about all of the 25 kids in the pool were calling out Brian, watch me!  Brian, watch this!  Hi Brian! The innocence and joy of children overwhelms me sometimes.  I ended up playing football at the pool with my j-high boys (Miles, Scott, Michael, Tristen, Deon, Cowboy, Daniel, and others) and playing at the pool somehow led to me bbq-ing hot dogs for all of us for dinner.  Thank you South Everett Foursquare – we are still using the extra hotdogs from that bbq at our house at the beginning of the month!

Now, most of the kids know that I’m a pastor (though, with their Catholic background, many refer to me as a priest instead), and so, as I’m standing there grilling dogs on my patio, surrounded by 7^th and 8^th graders, one of them pipes up and asks me, how come you’re a church guy? I said, I don’t know if I’d call myself a church guy.  I’m really a Jesus guy, and that’s why I go to church. So he continued, well, why are you a Jesus guy?  Hmmmm. Well, now that you ask, let me drive my bus through that wide open doorway.  It was so beautiful.  I gave a brief answer of a God that absolutely loves us, wanting to be in relationship with us, and how I wanted that relationship because I couldn’t do life by myself, and so I needed Jesus.  Then another kid goes, I have a friend who’s an atheist.  He’s got a lot of questions.  He asks his mom, but she can’t answer them.  I invited him to ask them.  They were questions about how God can exist (to which I asked, ”why do you think God doesn’t exist?”), about stealing, about how you know you get to go to heaven.   I couldn’t believe this was happening.  My church kids never sit with such seriousness or questions!  My heart leapt with joy.  This is what I live for – to share Jesus with those around me.

I spent about thirty minutes with the boys (the grilling was followed by a meal around our kitchen table, followed by snacks on our patio – again, thank you to all who have given to us to give to those around us!).  In that thirty minute span I spoke about the story of God creating a people to be in relationship with him, of that people choosing to follow their own ways instead of God’s ways, and of the gap, the separation in relationship that came as a consequence.  I spoke of God’s incredible love for his people, but his holiness and desire for perfection and the consequences and punishment for everything that we do that is not in the ways of God.  I spoke about God coming back to judge everybody for what we’ve done, and how one bad thing is enough to keep us from entering God’s presence for eternity.  The kids got a little freaked out, asking if that meant they were screwed.  What a perfect question.  So I spoke about that indeed, they were kinda screwed (they didn’t like that thought much), but there was a way out.  So I told of God loving us so much that he had his son be born among us, live with us, experience all we experience, live in perfection, and when he died, I told of how Jesus offered to take the punishment that was due us for the consequences of what we’ve done.  I spoke of a God that loves us so incredibly, who absolutely longs to be in relationship with us – not just to save us from the consequences of our action, but to actually live with us in this life.

How beautiful is that?  How incredible?

Michael asked if stealing was wrong. What do you think? I asked.  He said yeah , cause it was taking what didn’t belong to you (but does anything really belong to any of us?).  But then he said, “What about if you really need it?  Is stealing ok then?” So I spoke of a God of love who established some rules and guidelines – all in love – to help us live in love with one another.  I explained that the problem with stealing is that it is not acting in love toward that person.  I told him that is what community is for – so that those that have share with those that need.  I explained that in God’s eyes, if I have and don’t share, I am just as bad as someone who needs and takes (1 Jn3:17)– because both act in selfishness instead of the love that God wants for us.

As I walked down the street to pick Michelle up from work, I marveled in the goodness of God.  In a moment of my doubt, in a moment when I chose to give space to lies and confusion, God chose to encounter me with his beautiful people.  God chose to encounter me, and remind me of how silly I am to doubt his goodness, his hand in our life.  God’s love and gracious compassion overwhelm me.  In the moment when I least deserved his goodness – when my faith was failing, he encountered me and spoke his love and joy to my spirit.

“…let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” – 1Jn3:18

As I write this our home is home to Michelle and I, Brandon (till Sunday night), and David (for the next week, maybe more).  It has been a bit of an adjustment having others now living with us, actually beginning to figure out what it means to live as a community with those that live with you.  It is so easy for four individuals to live under the same roof and live completely individual lives.  It’s far easier than living lives that are shared together.  But intentional community is something that Michelle and I are committed to.
What does it mean to share life together?  How do we foster an environment where we have time for each other as well as for all else that is going on?  Maybe we have to eliminate some things (I’m still not very good at this!).

I think it’s been over a week now since I last posted anything.  Probably the longest stretch without a post yet – for fairly good reason.   July has been an incredibly hectic month (but a great month).  We are just finishing our first week of having one of our youth from Mill Creek Foursquare live with us, and looking forward to another (or two, or…?).

Brandon has been with us since last Sunday and it has been quite a wonderful experience.   We opened up our home to our students from MC4 with the hope of creating a context for relationship to be built between them and the people in our community here at the Bluffs.  I think my favorite moment was coming home on Tuesday after being gone for a few hours to Brandon’s report that at one point he had sixteen kids in our home playing LEGOs and hanging out.  Go Brandon!  He has genuinely begun some friendships with our neighborhood kids, and it is such a beautiful thing to watch him loving those around him for Jesus!  We’ve had numerous incredible conversations about what it means to be a individual raised in privilege, what our responsibilities are to those around us (and those whom our privilege have disabled from actually being around  us).

This week has seen our first outdoor movie night – we borrowed a projector from church and Brandon set it up outside our home on the opposing wall and we gathered fifteen or more kids to watch Kung Fu Panda.  I think we’ll do it more often once it gets dark a bit earlier (9:15 is a bit late to begin a movie!).

This week also saw our first spontaneous community potluck, something I have been wanting for quite a while.  Jeff and Mike joined Michelle, Brandon, and I playing basketball, and afterword invited us in for spaghetti.  Since we had already started dinner (defrosting some salmon someone gave us, and making a salad), we suggested that they bring their spaghetti, and we bring our salmon, hot dogs, and salad, and we eat it together at the picnic table.  We spent the next hour or so chatting with (finally!) some of our adult neighbors.  It’s a start.  Hopefully meals like this will become far more consistent.

We’ve seen an increase in older students hanging out with us ever since Brandon got here (you don’t hear any complaints from us!).  We have found them to be willing teachers of Spanish and of culture.  I have begun learning about the gang culture that is quite prevalent here on Casino Road.  We will see where God leads.

Not the most graciously worded of blogs, but I wanted to take a moment and let you all know what has been going on this past week – and there’s quite a bit as you can tell!  Pray for us as we discover what community means, as we pray that you grow as the people of God, living in a way that provides those caught in the brokenness of our world an alternative to what they know!