Tim Turner

It’s been a while since I’ve even thought about writing anything. These last few months have left me drained and uninspired. Work has been stressful, and worrying about things that cannot be change seem to use up a lot of your energy.  Life piles on high and doesn’t let up at all. Finally you come to a point where you can no longer stand. In the end you either fall on your knees, or flat on your face.

Every minute I’m alive it becomes more and more apparent how little I control, and how big God is. The more statistics, graphs, and charts that I learn just seem to leave me realizing I’m just not strong enough handle it all. We try so hard to “grab life by the horns”, but it turns out those horns are sharp and have a tendency to run us through. It leaves us broken, exhausted, and bitter. That is how I could sum up the previous 8 months from the time of my last post…

But then there is hope.

Somewhere in the back of my mind God keeps screaming at me telling me to stop trying so hard and let Him do the things that I already know He can do better than I can. Somewhere along the way I started to decide that might not be such a bad idea, and so I started to let go just a little bit. I had to start letting go of what I wanted to happen and when I wanted it to happen, and come to a place where I could just let go.

Sunday was our kickoff service at our new building. I can’t even explain how excited I was to finally see it happen. To see a little bit of our dreams solidify is a wonderful thing. During the sermon Ovie used an example. It’s a very simple concept: If you build a cage with a hole large enough for a monkey to slip its hand into to grab whatever object you have placed inside. You will find that the monkey will not let go of what it has grabbed, despite that making it impossible for the monkey to get its hand back out and get away.  As a result the monkey is then taken into captivity. This example has been told many of time, and under different applications. For me personally, however, I find that despite knowing and understanding this concept… I still do it. I don’t want to let go of knowing. I want to know whats going to happen. I want to have control, because control equals comfort. A lot of the time its not ok for me to unable to predict the next thing. You see I value knowledge, and I value the mind that God has given me. It appears that I often have a tendency to mistake knowledge for wisdom. When that happens I find myself trying to snatch control from God. Despite my unruliness God continues to work on my mind and heart to breed wisdom within me. God teaches me everyday about letting go, and trusting in Him. Trust in God is how lives are changes, and how ministries grow. Little by little I see the changes that happen in others and in myself as a result of letting go and trusting. Its not easy, but no one said it would be.

Trust is what brings us to a new chapter for The Union. It’s been a bit of a journey, but coming to a place where we all step out on faith has been rather liberating. The idea of being in a building, of having bills to pay, and of new responsibilities is a bit nerve racking. Despite that, however, all of us stepped out. Now, we haven’t a clue where we are going to go from here, but where ever it is we’re going to follow God to get there.

When we moved into our building we set a goal to have everything ready by August 23. Sunday we were ready. Nothing spectacular happened. No red sea was parted in the room, nor did tongues of fire appear over anyone, but a group of people did come together to worship God, and to grow in Him. I  find that amazing. There was a peace over all of it, and that’s why we’ll continue to see what adventure God has in store.

One of the most amazing things about it all, is that everything we are doing has been done time and time again. Not only has it been done, but it will continue to be done. Yet nothing can ever seem to replace the joy of community in Christ. No matter how many times it is done. No matter how many different locations, times, and peoples do it, we still find that simply coming together in mutual community and faith is one of the most inspiring things that could happen. When the divine presence Christ brought here for us is embraced we find that true life is found, burdens are eased, and lives are changed forever.

The Hebrew people believe that we enter the future with our backs towards it. All we can really do is see where we have been, and learn from our past. That is my prayer for the future of our ministry. I pray that we would put our faith in God, learn from out shortcomings, and never forget to love the way that we have and are loved.

I realize now what one of my biggest fears in life is. I’m terribly afraid of being an average joe. I was thinking way too much the other day, and got to thinking about my talents, or lack thereof. Its upsetting to think that I don’t stand out from anyone else. Sure I like graphic design, but honestly I’m not that great at it. I’m good with computer, but not really any better then a mid-level technician. Guitar wasn’t my forte either. I know it seems like just whining, but really do you ever wonder what makes you…you? At times I’d like to think I could answer that, but the older I get the more I realize how obscure I feel to myself. Our culture doesn’t help, the constant advertising we see seems to dictate who we should be. I know that I have a purpose, and there are things that set me apart, but I simply don’t understand them and thats what I hate. When things in life are gray is really agitates me. I guess what I really want to know is what will satisfy my soul. There are a lot of things in my life that make me happy, or are fun, but I have a hard time saying something truly satisfies me. Now, lets be realistic I don’t expect something thats going to make life feel perfect, but when someone is doing something that they truly feel meant to do you can see the satisfaction on there face, and in there life. So what is it–art, music, people? I don’t know. So far I haven’t had any God-given epiphanies, but God also doesn’t operate on the same time that I do. So, in the end I’m going to keep going until I get some further direction, and all I can do is hope it comes sooner than later.

We’re going to Orlando Wednesday and I’m super excited. Kat, Denise, and I will be seeing Wicked the Musical this week and its going to be fantastic. I was introduced to Wicked a long time ago by a good friend named Amanda. At first I kinda brushed it off(mostly because at the time I didn’t care much for musicals), but after looked into Wicked I found it grew on me rather quickly. I’d recommend listening to the cd, its full of a lot of great music. I still haven’t read the book, but its on my list of things to do. Though, I have heard the book is quite different from the musical, but thats ok its two different art forms and I don’t expect them to be the same.

Recently I scrapped an idea I had for a freelance design company, mostly because I hated the name and the logo idea. I think, though, that I’m going to design a backend CMS system similar to pureedit.org. So far I like the name “simplicity CMS”, that name sums up the idea. I want to create a CMS system for users who don’t need uber features. I’ll have to figure out how to integrate frontends into it, but that’ll come with time while studying php. I think its a solid idea and I could get some real use out of it.