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

One of my favorite quotes is from a movie I have never seen, but someone else quoted to me (and then told me the movie was terrible and I shouldn’t waste my time – so correct me if I misquote it!).  The quote is from the movie 10,000BC and occurs toward the end (so I’m told) between two men discussing greatness.  As one man mentions the greatness of the other, the great man responds something like this, “everyone draws a circle around those that they care about, those that they defend and protect.  Great men just draw their circles a little bit bigger.”

Last week I was in a short conversation with a friend of mine in which he said, referring to what Michelle and I are doing at The Bluffs, “I’m so glad you guys are doing what you’re doing, because we can’t.” Now that friend of mine, if you’re reading this, please don’t be offended!  This is no critique of you, because I actually believe you do more than you recognize!
Now, I actually think that what my friend said is thought by many – and if not thought, it has subconsciously permeated lifestyle.  Are Michelle and I somehow so amazing that we are able to move into a community and open our doors and our hearts to the people of our community to love and care, to share stories and life?  Is this amazing?  Absolutely not.  But it is the thought that what we are doing is so great that causes the second thought that those who are not like us cannot do what we do.  Michelle and I will be the first to say we do nothing spectacular, nothing extraordinary, nothing even special. But what we have done, is choose to draw our circle a little bigger.

It is a fairly simple thing to settle oneself with caring for, loving, protecting, and providing for ones immediate family.  That indeed is a noble task, and often a daunting one for many.  And it is a simple thing to stop right there, to observe the incredible responsibility that it is to care for your family and determine that is all you are capable of, or even called to.

Let me ask a question: what would our world look like if my circle included you, and your circle included me?  What if both of our circles included the single mom that lives down the road from you, or the family with two kids with severe disabilities that live around the corner, or the family that has both of their elderly, aging grandparents living with them?  What would happen if I decided that it was not just a nice idea, but it was indeed my responsibility to know and care for those that live around me (not just go to church with me)?

The pressure with the conept of a “big cirlce” (see quote at the top), is that it feels as if the entire weight of the circle falls on your shoulders, and if you can’t take care of your family, how can you add more to the table?  Exactly.  You can’t.  That’s the problem.  Part of drawing our circles a little bigger requires that we allow ourselves to be included in other’s circles.  That’s tough, isn’t it?  Especially as providers, it become difficult (subconsciously embarrassing perhaps) to recognize that you can’t do it all and invite those around you to care about you.

Yet the most beautiful thing of all is that when I am in your cirlce, and you in mine, the burden for all become light because no one is trying to carry anything by themselves.

So when people say, “I can’t do what you’re doing” I think, are you ridiculous?! Not only can you, you would find life so much easier if you did!  As we have opened up our doors to those around us, they have begun to open up their doors to us!

What is it that we have done?  We have chosen to intentionally expand our circle to include an entire neighborhood.  That’s all.  And we have chosen to not put the weight of it on ourselves, but to enter into community with those around us so that we can carry one anothers’ burdens, and no one is left struggling along.  I think the Bible says something about this in a couple places (wink wink).  My hope is that I have not offended you.  My hope is that perhaps I have encouraged you who are already living in expanded circles.  My hope is that perhaps I have helped some of you think beyond the current involvement of life (and I make no judgements on your current places of life).

If we are called to be a light, then that light must shine (and not be hidden under a basket, or within the walls of our houses or apartments – Mt.5).  We must share that light.  That light is our lives.  We must share life to share light. And sharing life is something that we can all do.