Gut check time. I\u2019m wiped\u2026I was told I\u2019m supposed to be authentic and honest\u2026. So here it goes:<\/p>\n
I was supposed to go to Whistler during our past long weekend. It\u2019s been a long road from early August when preparations for this school year began. But Whistler was coming! It\u2019s an annual trip my wife and I make with some friends. It\u2019s a chance to reconnect with each other and recharge after a busy start to the school year.<\/p>\n
Then came the round of health orders asking us not to travel outside of the Fraser Health region\u2026trip cancelled! But no time to waste; get your game face on! It was closing night for the auction! Fear not\u2014the long weekend is coming, just a lot more local. Right?<\/p>\n
Last weekend didn\u2019t turn out quite the way I planned. It was the furthest thing possible from a long weekend getaway to Whistler. The global pandemic made itself known in a very real way in our community. I spent way more time with Julius, Karin, and Tym than I ever planned to on any weekend.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not complaining\u2026okay maybe I am\u2026but trust me; this is all a picture of biblical relational flourishing.<\/p>\n Stay with me here\u2026.<\/p>\n When our secondary staff came back to school on Tuesday, I shared a video by Rod J. K. Wilson. He talked about relational flourishing. He shared about how from Genesis we were created to be in relationship with each other. Perhaps this is no truer than right now. Biblical relationship is sacrificial. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n He referenced the apostle Paul:<\/p>\n \u201cLet no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.\u201d <\/em>Romans 13:8<\/p>\n Rod quoted Jesus from John\u2019s gospel:<\/p>\n \u201cA new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.<\/em> By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.\u201d <\/em>John 13:34-35\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n We live in a community that lives out what Rod would call biblical love: \u201cBiblical love is sacrificial, hard work, and it\u2019s other-orientated.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Some examples of biblical love I\u2019ve experienced lately are:<\/p>\n I\u2019m wiped. Exhaustion, fear, mistrust, criticism, doubt, stress, and anxiety are all real things I\u2019ve dealt with lately.<\/p>\n The COVID-19 exposure in our community can be scary. I feel much of what many of you are feeling (my daughter is at the middle school; my mom is an EA at the middle school\u2026I won\u2019t call her elderly though \ud83d\ude0a). It\u2019s easy to let fear, anxiety, and concerns (all of which are valid) get in the way of the biblical love that we need to show each other during this time. We were made for community and our ACS community must play a large role in our lives this year!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I missed my much-needed trip to Whistler. I\u2019m still tired. But those examples of sacrifice, hard work, and otherness from above give me the strength to carry on from one day to the next.<\/p>\n I leave you with one question: How can we show real biblical love to each other that as Rod says, \u201crequires work, energy, effort, and sacrifice for the other?<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n How about:<\/p>\n What other ways can we, as a community built on biblical relational flourishing, show love that is sacrificial, hard work, and other-orientated?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gut check time. I\u2019m wiped\u2026I was told I\u2019m supposed to be authentic and honest\u2026. So here it goes: I was supposed to go to Whistler during our past long weekend. It\u2019s been a long road from early August when preparations for this school year began. But Whistler was coming! It\u2019s an annual trip my wife […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":5058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,35],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-5052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","category-secondary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5052"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=5052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}We Need Relationship<\/h2>\n
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We Need Community<\/h2>\n
Prayer, Encouragement, and Love<\/h2>\n
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