Green Pastures & Still Waters

     Circumstantial Environments. Surrounding influences. A framework of conditions forming external stimuli. In other words, it is where we live. Our daily lives find us moving through a variety of circumstantial environments. In each environment, we find a spectrum of emotional responses occurring within. Feelings swirl about, cascading over a myriad of thoughts. Sometimes, the strong, negative feelings shroud our thoughts. Other times, lucid insight ignites emotional combustion, helping us soar among the heights of heaven.
     The sphere within is the domain in which we must contend. When we experience difficult circumstantial environments, how do we manage the emotions we feel? One beneficial method of coping with distressing emotions is to share them. How do we share them? We do this by talking with someone we know, someone we trust. Moreover, that person genuinely cares and loves us.
     Do you experience this? Do you have those with whom you can share your emotional states? In other words, when you are shaking with anger, combined with confusing guilt and shame for feeling so angry; when embarrassingly dark thoughts triggers bizarre pleasure causing you to want to fly away and hide, is there someone you can lean on and pour out your breaking heart? This is a crucial part of connection. It’s the deep sense you have not been abandoned, that someone is vitally connected to your inner life. They don’t have to fix it or have the answers. You simply desire to allow your heart to roll the heaviness off.
     Essentially, apprehending the “green pastures and still waters” of transcending peace when all hell is breaking loose is the experiential knowledge of connection. Let me put it another way. The peace God gives is powerfully felt when we, through transparent honesty, connect with another person. Jesus lived in emotional transparency with 12 men. He modeled the kind of life he taught. It wasn’t until those same 12 men found themselves in severely distressing environments they experienced a deepening of their faith. That is when those men felt growth, life, and character forming within them.
     Community groups are small groups designed for people to experience deeply meaningful connection with a few others. It is the place where unconditional acceptance, trust, healing, safely warm friendship, and agape love finds expression. As each person pursues a relationship with Christ, they bring that journey into the group. Together, a community group discovers the mystery of being connected, as a Body, to the Head - Jesus.