Making the move from more to More

Hello again!



We had a fabulous and fun time last Thursday night at McAllister Center. We started off our time recognizing the coolness of God by talking about how our eyes work. Using a couple models that Robyn brought - thanks! - and some pictures, then using a flashlight and looking into each other's eyes, we noticed and were amazed at the complexity and wonder of the eye and all it does. We talked about the remarkableness of the system of vision and then about the muscles of the eyes and then about how the eyes connect to the movement system of the head and so your eyes can move and stay in focus as your head moves. Then we talked about how we can see so much more in someone's eyes than just pupils and corneas and the color of the eyes, like how they are feeling, etc. To think that some people would try to convince you that all this was purely accidental - ludicrous! We were challenged to begin noticing God when we notice the eyes of those people in our lives and celebrate how amazing He is.



Then, we spent some time talking to God about each other. As we often do, those who wanted to wrote something that was bothering them on a slip of paper - either with name or anonymously - and exchanged it for another in the group, anonymously. By taking a piece of paper, they promise to care for and talk to God about the person who wrote on that paper and whatever the issue is, for the next 2wks. This is one of the ways we support each other.



Last, we learned by continuing to talk about how we make our transition from the mores of the world and American life, to the More of God. We all agree that the running after of money, success, religion, the perfect body, the perfect house, the perfect family, etc, we find emptiness, no matter how much we achieve and that the answer to this is in running after God and asking Him to come into our worlds. The problem is that this is not terribly easy - we have been setup to expect that when we decide to go after God, that all will fall into place and that all our tendencies to go after what we always have will stop/fade away and we will never struggle anymore. We talked about how hard it is...for so many reasons.

One is that getting money and success and stuff and all that is fun - it is not even close to as good as living for God and will eventually not even be fun anymore - but for a time - it is fun and that is alluring. Plus, it is easy - it is how we have trained ourselves to handle all the baggage and hurts and pain in our lives. All the boredom and loss and frustration and self-defense and control and everything else come from stuff inside us that we just have not dealt with or don't know how to or don't even know it's there - it messes with our world and so we find ways to deal with it - usually in all the "mores" we have been talking about. Like covering up our boredom with pleasure or our fear with more money or our lack of feelings of worth by succsess, etc. So, we are setup from the beginning to run after all this other stuff, only to find out that it does not satisfy.

The thing is, once we try to shift our running from all this stuff to God, when we realize that He is the real More that we are searching for, then, later, at some point, we realize that this running after God thing is not all easy and cake either - sometimes it is painful and frustrating and we find ourselves really yearning for that other stuff that we used to go after all the time - because it is easy and comfortable - not good - but easy. Then, after we slip back into our usual ways, we feel guilty and mad at ourselves about it. It is interesting - there are a lot of different people in this group - people who are new to God and people who have been with Him for a long time, young and older, professional and blue collar, and everthing in between that you can imagine - and you know what? They all agreed. They all have struggled with the stuff that they used to go after - it is universal - we all deal with it. So, if you struggle sometimes with this - take heart - you are not alone - invite God into the middle of the struggle with you - He does not condemn you for it - He loves you right in the middle of it and wants to help you! He can bring real healing to all the stuff that brought about all this in the first place - and you begin by inviting Him into it with you.

We ended with that piece of comfort - that the process begins by inviting God to come into the struggle with you and that it is a problem that is not yours alone, but all of us - we all struggle with the stuff we have been prior to deciding that God is the More worth living for - but He is there to help us - and so is our group - if you want to comment here, or join us next time, 4/2/9 at McAllister Center - we will continuing our discussion about this and trying to figure out how we can, in real life, make this changeover from the more to the More. Hope you can make it!