A safe place

Last night's message at Crave was amazing. Jeremy did an awesome job speaking about cities of refuge. There were a lot of things that stuck out to me and I really am thankful to be a part of a group where broken people can come.

I left with the overwhelming desire to make sure that everyone in my life sees me and my home as a city of refuge.

A couple years ago Andy Stanley did a series and one of the questions he left us to think about is "Am I a safe place?" Meaning can the people closest to me come to me and be open with their hearts knowing they can trust me? A very close friend goes to his church so she was hearing the same series and I loved how that theme was reflected in our friendship and conversations. We realized, esp since we are such totally different people, that for us to be a safe place it must be something we actively pursue.

And sadly, I think we are more aware of our unsafe places. We have all felt the sting of betrayal, have been on the harsh end of gossip, have been told the lie that we're just not enough or we're simply too much. Whatever the case may be, we have all felt the pain of learning that someone or a group of someones wasn't a safe place.

And it is so important for us to identify our safe places. Last week in Captivate we were looking at Hosea and how GOD so beautifully lays our criteria for the type of leadership we should follow. One of the things that jumped out at me is how whoever we follow must be worthy of our trust. Too often people seek advice from unworthy mouths. We look to people who tell us what we want to hear, or who will wallow in out self pity with us, or those who time after time react with a cruelness that in unbelievable, but we so desperately seek their approval, we keep coming back.

But as time goes by we learn the art and beauty of guarding our heart (Proverbs 4:23), not building a wall around it. But protecting and making sure that we are careful who we trust with it.

But can people trust their hearts to us. . .

Are you a safe place. . .

It is a hard question to ask because in doing so, we must look deep into our own hearts. We must allow GOD to show us the crap that we have buried under more crap. And we must allow Him to put His healing hand on the wounds that we have long ignored, hoping they would disappear. But in this process we let go of our anger, jealousy, pride, and every other maliciousness we hold on to.

Too often our hearts have been wounded in the past. Really wounded and the wounds are never tended to. Instead they fester. They become infected and fill with puss. They hurt so badly because they are swollen and bloated with infection that has gone without attention for years. We hope that it will heal itself. But just like a wound in our flesh, these hurts must be tended to. They must be cleaned out. Many times they must be lanced to have the infection drained.

Nasty I know. I hope it makes you a little nauseous, because that's how serious it is. We would never let our wounded leg go without medical attention, so we must learn not to let our hearts go without the healing and medicine it needs.

Then, we can be a safe place. We can see the ones we love who are utterly broken and not loose patience with them. We can identify the scars and unchecked infections in the hearts of the ones we love because we have had similar wounds. We have empathy for those around us and appreciate and understand the value of a safe place.

In thinking about this Luke 6:42 How can you think of saying, 'Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye. becomes so much more precious to me. Not only do I have to tend to my own wound first, remove the log from my eye, I must also be extremely close to the one I am hoping to be used by GOD to heal. In order to see a speck we must be close. Very close. A safe place.

This is how through CHRIST we can encourage one another while at the same time holding each other accountable.