Inca Court was a utopian outpost on the frontier of a dystopian suburbia.  The small suburban Atlanta street where I grew up had only ten houses.  Until I left home for college, it was the only home I had ever known.  None of the families on our street ever moved in or out.  None of the parents in any of those homes ever moved in or out.  We never knew the curiosity of new neighbors and never coped with the stress of leaving Inca Court behind. There were no Moving Days on Inca Court. In a mobile society marked by constant transition, Inca Court was sociological anomaly.

My first significant move was phenomenally stressful – filled with logistical angst and existential self-doubt.  Was I crazy to leave the familiar, the comfortable, the settled, the influential, the known – even with its problems and challenges – for the uncomfortable, the unsettled, the uninfluential, the unknown? 

Life transitions are fertile fields for lush and verdant anxiety, we are never as prepared as we hoped to be but often more prepared than we thought.  As followers of Jesus, we have been chosen to live a pilgrim life.  For those who like to put down roots, this can be disconcerting.  Yet our God is always moving, always at work, even to this very day.  To be a follower means to follow – to follow a God who never changes, but often calls us to change, a God who never leaves or forsakes, but often calls us to leave and forsake.

But when do we go, how do we know where to go?  Or what will happen one the way?  Or when we arrive? What will we leave behind and what will we find ahead?   Following God and leaving the familiar is tough.  Preparing for a move and a new beginning is complicated.  What do we take, what do we leave?  Will we have what we need?  Will we find meaning, purpose, love, community ahead?  Will we be able to hang on to what is behind?  We make lists and plans.  We close accounts and open new ones.  We pack and repack.  And we stress.

But the Lord does not simply push us out of the nest to find our own way.  Nor does he send us unaccompanied.   The Lord promises to go with us and provide us with direction, encouragement, and provision for the journey.  Our active preparation is, in truth, a reaction to his gracious preparation.  When the Lord calls us to start a new life, he has already provided for us.  Before our first list is made or our first mile is traveled, he ordained all our days before one of them comes to be    This is true of all our new starts whether vocational, geographic, situational, relational, or spiritual.

The call to faith is not a call to work harder to manufacture faith.  Nor are we to root around to find faith somewhere inside ourselves.  No! Faith is a gift the Lord gives us to prepare us for all the grace that faith unfolds.   To be sure we must respond to God’s gracious initiative.  But even the preparation to respond is God’s enabling work of grace.  

Mark’s gospel does not begin with a genealogy or Jesus’ birth story.  It begins with the sudden and dramatic appearance of John the Baptist.  Without explanation or backstory, John appears in the wilderness to “prepare the way of the Lord.”  He is baptizing and proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sin.  Here is a new thing in an old medium.   Something big is coming.  Everything is changing.  Not just then.  But now, today.  How do we get ready?

Our first instinct is to focus on where to begin, what we need to do.  And anxiety begins to grow.  But Mark shows us that God does all the hard work of preparation and provision.  He calls us simply to respond. Join us as we examine Mark 1 and consider the preparations God makes for us to begin a new and remarkable life. 

We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.