A decision made

Yesterday and today didn't go quite the way I planned, but they were beautiful in their own way. My desk is still a disaster zone - something I'm hoping to fix tomorrow after work. I didn't end up verbally speaking the things on my heart, but I wrote them, and I have officially entered a season of transition.

For those of you who didn't know, I've been wrestling these past several weeks with a decision regarding whether or not I should continue to attend the church I've called home for the past three and a half years, or whether it was time to move on.

It's time to move on.

I've had an interesting God kind of day. He woke me this morning. I, like Samuel, didn't catch it the first time, and I hit play on my cd player, rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke again within half an hour, much more firmly awake. It still took me several minutes to get it, but I decided that given the decision I knew I had to make today, it would be prudent to hang out with God for a while. He led me to Isaiah, and I read pages and pages, encouraged and strengthened by the words of the prophet. At one point, (8:11), Isaiah says, "The Lord has given em a strong warning not t o think like everyone else." That caught my attention. I read probably ten or twelve chapters, struck by God's redeeming love, his willingness to use even the harshest methods to draw His people closer to his heart, to create a strong and beautiful remnant for His glory.

Last week I wrote about not being able to escape the passage that describes Christ as "the stone the builders rejected that has become the cornerstone." Let me string together for you several bits of scripture that have begun to permeate my thinking this week.

"The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. He is the stone that makes people stumble and the rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they do not obey God's word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Look I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem, a firm and tested stone. It is a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on. Whoever believes need never be shaken. You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple."

These are the words of the prophet Isaiah, and the apostle Peter. What's interesting to me is that Peter is the about whom Christ said, "On this 'rock' (Peter means rock) I will build my church." And Peter goes on to say that we together are stones being used by God to build His temple here on earth. And heres's the thing, Christ is with us as we are being built into a temple to glorify the name of the Lord. He is the cornerstone, the foundation without which the temple could not exist. And HE IS SAFE TO BUILD ON. Wow.

So I went to the meeting, and joined the people I love in worship, and prayed with them over some dear friends who are moving away from Calgary this next week, and, as I talked with a friend afterwards, and I left the home I knew.

My time in that community is done. All week I have been without peace as I wrestled and cried and prayed. But today, I felt such peace. It is time to step into something new. Maybe just for a season, maybe permanently.

I love these people, and I will see them often, but God is calling me onward to new things. He has given just enough light for the step in front of me, and I'm taking it. I go forward praying for the community I am leaving, and believing that the heart connections are far stronger than just those of physical proximity on Sundays.

This is right, and I am trusting that Christ will indeed be, "a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on."