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Grace and peace to you this week. Sunday we were in week three of Reconnect, and the room got honest fast. If you were with us, thank you. If you missed it, this one is for the reliable people, the ones everybody leans on. One church, two campuses, one family.
RECONNECT, Week 3: You’re Not Busy. You’re Carrying Something.You pull into the driveway, turn the engine off, and sit there for nine minutes. Nobody is on the phone. You just need nine minutes before everybody needs you again. Then you walk inside, and somebody asks how you are. You say, “Fine. Busy.” Busy is the word that ends the conversation. Nobody asks a follow up question after busy. So underneath it, the real things stay unnamed. Exhaustion a Saturday nap won’t touch. Guilt from one conversation you still replay in the shower. A resentment you never put down. You filed all of it in a folder labeled busy and kept moving. Write this down: You cannot heal what you keep calling fine. Psalm 139 is David’s song about being completely known by God. Then for four verses he rages at everybody else. And then he turns the flashlight around. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” (Psalm 139:23-24, NLT) David wasn’t telling God anything new. Verse 1 already said God had examined his heart. “Search me” is not a briefing. It is permission. It is unlocking a door God already had the key to. And in the garden, Jesus didn’t say fine either. He named His grief out loud, then carried everything we have ever called fine to the cross. God isn’t asking you to fix it before you bring it. He’s asking you to stop hiding it. Your practice this week: take one intentional period of rest and notice what surfaces when you slow down. Take the twenty minutes you would normally scroll before bed. Phone in another room. Pray Psalm 139:23-24 out loud, then stop talking. When something surfaces, a name, a face, a knot in your stomach, write one line: “What surfaced was…” Then hand that to God by name. The first five minutes will be loud. Stay. If what surfaces is heavy, tell one person. Watch the ReplayMissed Sunday, or need to hear it again with the phone in the other room? The full message is up. π Watch “You’re Not Busy. You’re Carrying Something.” on YouTubeβ Go deeper: The Reconnect Life Group StudyYou don’t have to do the twenty minutes alone. This week, Life Groups are working through Reconnect with Scripture. Next week they reach Reconnect with Your Soul, the same ground as Sunday’s message. Pick in person, virtual, or the self guided track if you worship online, and start where the group is. You are not behind. β΅ Text LIFEGROUP to 33777. π Join a Reconnect Life Groupβ Worship through the week with the Reconnect playlist: π Listen on Spotifyβ Every message lives in one place: the full Mars Hill message library. This Sunday: Dropped CallRECONNECT, Week 4. You know exactly whose name you thought of just now, and you know exactly why you haven’t reached out. Nobody fought. Nobody called. The last text in the thread says “we gotta link up soon,” and it’s from March. Sunday we open Galatians 6:2 and talk about the people we never fell out with. We just stopped calling. Sunday, November 1, 10:30 AM Central, online. Clocks fall back an hour Saturday night, so you get an extra hour of sleep before service. Pick your screen: π Website:marshillchicago.orgβ Thank you for holding this house upThis is a hybrid church with two campuses: the room in McCook and the campus that is wherever you are reading this. Your prayers and your provision keep both of them open, for the people who need a place to stop saying fine. Give at marshillchicago.org/giving, or text MHGIVE to 33777. π Give hereβ Here’s where I’ll leave you. Next time you’re in the driveway with the engine off, don’t say fine. Say search me. He’s already in the car. See you Sunday at 10:30. Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr. P.S. Before you close this email, open your calendar and put twenty minutes on it this week labeled “Search me.” Pick the night now. It won’t get less busy. A word from this week’s sponsor A quick word from this week’s sponsor.
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You said fine. You didn’t mean it.
