Coffee Shop Journal

The Tangible Kingdom, by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, has probably affected me more than any book I’ve read recently. It strengthened my resolve not to just think about the work God has for me to do here, in His community, but also to DO the work. Words are useful, and my stock in trade so to speak, but they are limited in their use. So reading the Tangible Kingdom I began to wonder what kind of adventures would await one who stepped out into the wide, wide world. This week I learned a few lessons about life out here, and I thought I would try to return to my first love and put them into words.

• There is nothing more important to do than the thing God puts in front of you that only you can accomplish. It just won’t look like you thought it would. This thing that you must do will almost certainly test every preconceived notion you had of yourself. Competing opportunities will immediately look far more attractive. But only you will be able to do this thing. That’s how you know that God is in it.
• Don’t expect a storybook ending. There is a storybook ending, of course — God’s story, and not yours.
• Don’t expect to feel sufficient. Funny thing about jumping into the fray: it’s a battlefield and there are casualties, including you. We can’t do it. We can’t begin to even comprehend it. But there are wounded sitting next to us in coffee shops, churches, or even our small groups who are counting on us to do it anyway.
• So do it anyway.

Maybe that’s the biggest and hardest lesson I’ve learned this week. Nothing is tied up in a pretty bow, nothing turns out beautiful in the end, it’s messy and grimy and covered with unimaginable filth. But we have to do it anyway. I had no idea so many, many people were waiting for me to agree to walk through the kingdom with my eyes open, connecting with the people around me. I had no idea. I’ve never been more heartbroken.

But somehow through the grime and sludge of life out there, I’ve never been happier. Jump in with me.