This post is meant to be a resource for those with a propensity to live a wandering, uncommitted life that travels from place to place, people to people and purpose to purpose all the time hoping to find and discover the hearts true home. A people hoping to discover a people, tribe, community, place and purpose to live for. If that describes you then this series is meant to guide you into a spiritual formation process where your heart can settle in, find a place, contentment, and a people and a purpose bigger than ourselves to live for.
Wanderlust: A strong longing for or impulse towards wandering.
“There’s a race of men that don’t fit in, A race that can’t sit still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and rove the flood, And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Their’s is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don’t know how to rest.”
― Robert W. Service- British Canadian poet
Wanderlust is a teaching series that took place at Society Church in November 2014. It is all about staying rooted to God and growing in our faith amidst a wanderlust world.
We will be looked at the different things that cause us to wander in our faith and life. Like the old hymn, “Come Thou Fount” says:
“Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”
Jesus talks about the 4 stages spiritual growth and 4 states of the heart in a parable about “a seed and soil” in Matthew 13. During this series we looked at how we can identify these stages and states in our own life and heart and how we can stay rooted and growing in a wanderlust world. Click on the message titles to listen to the podcast and look through the notes.
Breaking Up:
- No one likes break ups, but sometimes we need to allow God to breakup the hard, well traveled, unplowed, weathered ground of our hearts, so that we can begin to grow roots of faith again. (Matthew 13:1-3, 18-19)
Throwing Rocks:
- Have you ever dug into dirt full of rocks? It is nearly impossible to get through. Our heart can be full of rocks that keep us from developing a healthy life giving relationship with God. We will look at how to find and throw out the rocks so we can develop deep roots of faith. (Matthew 13:5-6, 20-21)
Pulling Weeds:
- Taking the time to identify and remove the things in our soul that keeps us from producing faith, hope and love within our lives. Life gets busy and many things can crowd out a rooted and growing relationship with Christ. Lets pull some weeds together! (Matthew 13:7, 22)
Becoming a City of Trees:
- If we can stay engaged in identifying our growth stage and God’s growth process in our life, we can become a people rooted and growing in our faith. Becoming for others and our city “Oaks of Righteousness” producing the fruit of the kingdom of God. (Matthew 13:8, 23)
As we walk through this series together, our hope is that we will be able to identify where we are at with our faith. That we would be better equipped with practical tools to begin to develop deep roots, and a growing faith that produces the fruit of the kingdom of God.
Here is our prayer for this series, it echoes that of the Apostle Paul from Ephesians 3:16-21:
“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”