What a week!
Beginning in January, we'll share a monthly note from Erik reflecting on life in the church, current happenings, and more. Here's our first installment...
Dear City Church,
What a week! What a start to the New Year! A classic Richmond “wintry mix” storm on Sunday evening causes: multiple failures at the water treatment facility, a lack of running water throughout the city, a boil water advisory, and school cancellations for the entire week. And that’s just the week in our little municipality, to say nothing of wildfires in L.A., wars in faraway nations, or the silent pain and sadness carried in innumerable human hearts. How do we make sense of it all?
If you've listened to me on Good Morning, City Church this week, you know that I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of being kept by God and keeping one another, based on Psalm 121. I couldn’t help but think of that idea during the water crisis in Richmond in this week. As the conveniences of modern Western life are stripped away, what’s often revealed in me is how much I functionally live kept by those conveniences rather than by God’s steady, upholding hand. Confronting that truth isn’t enjoyable. The reality of being laid bare is uncomfortable.
Like most of you, when the news of the water plant failure began trickling out (sorry, had to), I went into full survival mode: filling pots with water, getting a case of bottled water, cramming five gallon buckets with snow. My first instinct was, “How can I make sure I’m okay?” It took about 24 hours without water for me to think about other people. My family, first of all—to consider their well-being not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, too. To think about others within City Church, within Richmond—on my street, in my neighborhood. In what ways might I be able to help keep others who are struggling to keep themselves healthy and safe? In what ways might I guard and protect and provide for them?
As we return to the book of Exodus this January and begin a new sermon series called Grace in the Wilderness, I’ve also been thinking about the idea of wilderness. (It’s not lost on me that Sunday’s passage describing Israel in the wilderness for three days without water came just 24 hours before many of us endured our own three (or more) days without water. I’ll admit it makes me a little hesitant to preach the next chapter of Exodus in which the people of Israel find themselves in a different wilderness, this time without food. Lord have mercy!)
As you encountered the wilderness of long snow days at home with your children or uncomfortable days without flushing toilets or potable water, did you notice how you reacted? Did you track your mood? Did you ever find yourself grumbling? If so, what did your murmuring against God (or the leaders God has put in place) sound like?
I grumbled about a lack of productivity. I grumbled about the first work-week of the year being marked by cancellations and fits and starts rather than smooth scheduling and efficient progress. My grumbling reveals the ways I look to work for my identity more than I look to God. My grumbling reveals my idols. I’m guessing your grumbling reveals your idols.
When the water starts flowing back through our faucets, when the showers are again hot and long, when the kids have returned to school and daycare, when offices and restaurants are buzzing, and when we’ve forgotten about the inconveniences of this first week of 2025, will we remember any of its spiritual lessons? Will we remember that God uses the wilderness to show His faithfulness and to prove our faith? Will we remember that most fundamentally we are kept by God, not by modern conveniences? Will we find ways to more regularly see our lives—in ease and in hardship—as opportunities to keep others?
I sure hope so, City Church. I’ll remind you, if you do the same for me.
Stay Well & Do Good.
Erik