Ambiguity: How a little gray area has helped me experience God more fully

Too much on my mind for me to wait to blog until tomorrow, tired as I am. Plus, I have a back log of blog entries in my head, so I had better start getting them out.

I am currently in the process of finding a church home here in Bangkok, and it's not going anything like I planned.  Those of you who know me know how much I hate ambiguity.  My world is black and white with splashes of pink- gray does not exist to me.  However, I find myself in a season of ambiguity with church, visiting a different place every week.  This was not my original intent.

Our first three Sundays here the school arranged transportation for us to three different international churches in town.  We were also given some information about a few other English speaking churches.  So those first weeks I went church shopping.  And those who have had to move and find a new church know how much of a joy that can be.  After those first weeks, I felt no real draw to any of the churches (though also nothing at any of them that would prevent me from going there, doctrinally speaking) and so I looked into one other international church a friend went to.  And that's about when the stress started.  Because although I liked that church as well, probably more than the others, I still wasn't quite sure it was home and I really wanted this decision made.  As is made. It was really bothering me that I wasn't sure where I wanted to go to church, and I began to really dread going anywhere each week. Everyone around me (all the other new teachers) were finding and settling into their new churches and I was still, undecided. 

Then one Saturday I was driving in a car with a friend and the wives of two other teachers and one of them told me about this church they went to that was Thai but had English translation and it sounded really cool, and I wanted to visit with them.  And somewhere in the decision to visit this other church, I gave myself permission to let the decision be and not choose a church just yet.  Suddenly, I really wanted to go to church every week because I was no longer shopping.  I was going to church to worship God and hear from him.  It just happened to be with a different group each time.  Don't get me wrong, I do want and intend to settle somewhere eventually- I just don't know how long it is going to take.  I started gathering a mental list of places to visit and have expanded into churches that are perhaps a bit out of my comfort zone in ways, but oddly a good fit for me nonetheless.

The best part of the whole thing is how I have been freed from the analytical perspective behind church shopping and am just able to go and worship and hear the Word and not wonder the whole time "Is this the place?"  And God has been incredibly faithful to me in that.  Each week, no matter where I go or what their style or background is, God has shown up and spoken to me.  Each sermon seems directed right at me.  Each week I walk away with verses and passages that I want to read and meditate on during the week.  And today something even more incredible happened- I took notes!!!  Now, I know some of you take sermon notes every week, but that is just not my thing.  I take notes about once every five years, and only in a desire to stay awake. But today, two minutes into it, I'm asking my friend for a pen because I just had to write this down.  It was a guest speaker, which if you are church shopping is very annoying because you want a sample of a normal Sunday, the usual pastor, not a guest, but when you're just visiting you don't care because you're not there to analyze but to worship. So she was preaching on 2 Samuel 22 (who gets this excited about OT sermons?!  but seriously, look it up and read it, it's basically Psalm 18 and it rocks) and I'm just writing things down left and right.  Things I needed to hear, things about who God is and who he is in our lives.  One of my favorite bits was the end, when she said, "Don't just preach 'God is', you have to live it" meaning we have to live out who God is in our lives.  Rock. Redeemer. Refuge. Salvation. Stronghold. Savior.

It's so neat to me how a small change in perspective in the church finding process has opened up such doors for me to hear from God.  I love going to church every week and even tithing each week in a different place because I am then able to support such a panoply of ministries across the city.  I have at least one more church on my list of places I want to visit (which I won't get to for a few weeks because I'll be out of town).  And then I'll make some return visits to the places I connected with the best, and then, perhaps, the ambiguity will end.  But until then, I'm going to just keep soaking it up, wherever I am each week.

"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." 2 Samuel 22:33