SeaTac & Back

I was in the Pacific Northwest this weekend to be a part of my great & dear friend’s wedding.  It was a great weekend!!! My buddy has a house in Seabeck, WA on the Hood Canal, which is a part of the Puget Sound.  From his back balcony you can see the Hood Canal & the Olympic Mount Range.  Beautiful.  Gorgeous.  Picturesque.  All of these do not begin to describe how majestic the scenery is from the back of his house.  His backyard is literally the Sound!!! God spoke so much to me in this time of enjoying His creation.  

With all the technology we had there.  Wi Fi, iPhone’s, video camera’s, a professional photographer, the beauty could not be reproduced better than what the human eye can just naturally see.  God’s creation is so inexplicably beautiful, that it takes His own creation (the eye) to really see it.  And all this is post Fall creation I’m seeing!!! I can’t even fathom what pre-Fall or post-Restoration creation will unfold.  These thoughts blew my mind all weekend.  

I would fantasize with Strivs what it would be like to live in Jon’s basement.  Never needing to do anything but just be surrounded by the riches of God’s goodness displayed by nature.  Driving down roads that are shaded by huge trees on both sides, though the sun was shining.  It really was the anti-Phoenix.  I was seriously letting my mind get to a place where I could say, my lease is up in October, I could move up here then.  

So I went through my work day.  Opening up my phone periodically to look at my pix from Seattle.  Planning to go on Monster & start the job search.  Thinking of how to convince Nangle to let me live in his basement.  Our missional community was meeting tonight & I couldn’t wait to tell them all about the Pac. NW & the beauty of God’s creation.  All of a sudden, it seemed like 42 revelations all came to me at once while being with my MC.  I can’t move to Seattle.  Seattle would suck because my MC isn’t there.  I was so energized cutting mangoes & overhearing conversations, laughing, seeing 2 visitors slip right in & help with food prep & talk to people & talk about God’s redeeming plan of the world, hearing testimony of a broken girl feel so loved & blessed by our MC.  

(Sidebar, there was this beautiful vignette tonight.  Ryah was talking bout the tragicness of the fall.  She was very articulately, beautifully, describing the massive offense to God that happened at the fall.  Bringing up specific ways we see the fall playing out in our world.  Everybody was tearing up & we were feeling the heaviness of God’s goodness & our sin juxtaposed, then Jenna interrupted, “But Jesus died for sin!”.  I absolutely love that she couldn’t even put herself in that place mentally, where Jesus is not ruling, reigning & triumphant over death for even a few moments.  She had to blurt out the gospel!)

You see, what God has done in JC’s life, death & resurrection is redeem a people.  Not persons that happen to be next to each other but a people.  His bride.  The church.  I can’t live without my people, nay, God has prescribed from the jump, that it is not good for a man to be alone.  His church is in Seattle.  It would not be wrong for me to move there & be a part of His church there.  But thats not my people!  As much as I know anything, I know that God has me in Phoenix, for now, to be a part of my community.  Lord willing, there will be a day that I do move on from this community & it will hurt & suck, but it will not be just my selfish desire to be on a 24/7 vacation, looking at pretty mountains, it’ll be to be a part of a people, showing a people who don’t yet know Jesus, what it’s like to be a part of His people.