Coming Into Focus

I got new glasses yesterday and I love them/hate them. It’s only been a year since my prescription was updated, but the difference is profound. I had forgotten what it was like to see things clearly. I’d also forgotten what it was like go around feeling like you’re in a gigantic video game with bad graphics, thus the love/hate relationship. I have progressive lenses and they are wonderful, though the adjustment is tricky. When I first got them a few years back Lynn called me bobble-head because I was constantly moving my head up and down trying to find the correct focal point for various distances. The first prescription update wasn’t bad and I hardly noticed any change. But due to a couple of issues and a couple of birthdays the new prescription was a lot more powerful and these new glasses are rocking my world—literally. But, I can read interstate signs, again, and I can clearly read the down and distance graphics when I watch football on TV.  You don’t realize what you’re not seeing until everything suddenly come into focus.

As we reflect on the 14^th anniversary of the terrorist attack on America I’m thinking about the first Sunday after September 11^th. At that time we were only doing one contemporary service at 8:45 am in the gym, which seated around 275, though we had crammed in 300 folks a few times. There were 418 people in the 8:45 contemporary service that Sunday after 9/11. Folks were standing around the walls with others sitting on the floor. People wept openly as we displayed pictures of the tragedy on the screens and read verses from the Psalms and prayed for the families of those lost and for vision for our country as we sought a response to the violence. Likewise, churches across Knoxville and across the country were filled beyond capacity as folks feeling overwhelmed with helplessness wandered in for comfort and reassurance. It was encouraging and interesting to watch as un-churched, de-churched, and barely-churched folks had a moment where their need for something/Someone beyond themselves came into focus. While we expected higher-than-average attendance, we didn’t expect the scope of the response.

Then, when Sunday came, again, most of those visitors didn’t. Sadly, that was expected. The need for spiritual focus began to subside as the intensity of the anger and sadness prompted by the attacks eased. Moreover, the numbing replay of the attacks on the 24-hour news networks and the reality that there were people who hated Americans enough to commit such atrocities created a hardening of the heart in many folks. Life began to settle into a new normal and the awareness of a need for something transcendent blurred into the mundane patterns of daily living. I wonder about those folks, sometimes. Their need for God had been brought in to focus by a dramatic chain of events. I hope they found what their newly sharpened vision had allowed them to glimpse and they’re in church, somewhere.

While we are limited as to the influence we have with folks who aren’t in our church—beyond inviting them and being a good witness in the community, there is much we can do to help folks in our church avoid the spiritual blurring that daily living can induce. That’s why we are placing a renewed emphasis on discipleship though small group participation for fellowship and spiritual growth, mission, giving, and worship attendance. In much the same way that physical exercise allows us to enjoy more robust health and participate in life more fully, spiritual exercise, if you will, allows us to have a more robust relationship with God and more fully participate in his life in and among us. Plus, with a strong spiritual self we are prepared for whatever life brings. Then, when those difficult days come and our world is rocking on it’s axis, we don’t have to go wandering and wondering if there is a God who cares. We will know the assurance of his presence even before the first wave of trouble comes our way.

Not many of us can stop a terrorist attack. Each one of us can be ready for whatever may attack our sense of peace in a world that grows more difficult understand with each news cycle. Reach for God every day, in a prayer, in a devotion, in a song, or any other activity that helps us be mindful of his abiding presence. Don’t just come to church, BE the church. Grow, serve, give. Then, we’ll be ready to take on whatever comes and, just as important, we’ll be ready to reach out to someone else who may not yet know God but who knows you. Perhaps you can lead them through the transition from blurry to clarity and be there for that moment of amazing grace when God starts coming into focus.

God bless you and God bless America,

Larry