With the start of school today, League City felt like a community. For a couple of hours, we were concentrated around the schools as we helped our kids get off to a good start. I drove by the "Boo Hoo Brunch" this morning for the kindergarten moms who were struggling with separation anxiety, and waded through a packed Starbucks where other parents were celebrating their first kid-free coffee in 3 months. There was a buzz around town today; it was my first back-to-school as a League City resident, and it felt good to be a part of it.
I've prayerfully asked a question several times today: is this my town? Do I feel a special affinity for League City? The answer is yes, up to a point. We just moved here in January, and I think attachment is related to experiences, which have been only a few so far. But we moved here to be attached; we moved here with the intention of caring for League City and its people and helping them connect to Christ. I want to be attached, and that certainly helps.
Is this your town? It's an important question. How you answer it may determine whether you are ever happy here. It may determine whether you are willing to get to know people in a significant way, and whether you're interested in serving the community. On average, we Americans move every 7 years (and some curve breakers are moving a lot more often than that). For the vast majority of us, who aren't natives of League City, is there any way to feel the kind of connection to this place that Montgomery Gentry sings about in "My Town"? Is there any point?
Yes. This can be our town, and it needs to be. We don't have to have been born here, and none of us has a crystal ball to know how long we'll stay here (although we do have some say in the matter in most circumstances). But we can have an affinity for this place and the people who live here. If we don't, our time here will be the "years the locusts have eaten" (Joel 2:25). If we want this to be our town, all kinds of good things can happen.
Choose to believe you live here for a reason. If you believe at all that God is directing any part of your life, you have to believe that the place you live isn't accidental or unimportant; neither are the people around you. This small change in thinking sets in motion a whole new set of feelings, thoughts and behaviors in your life. This place is a place where God has placed you. Living here is a blessing and a calling, not a stopover. The next person you meet may become your best friend. The next person you meet may be a difficult relationship God uses powerfully in your life. The next person you meet may come to faith in Christ if someone they knew believed they were here for a reason. This place may be the place you find your niche, the place you bloom, the place you realize your full potential in the body of Christ. Pining for a place of the past or waiting for the place of the future will kill all these possibilities. Our mobile lives carry strong temptations for both, but God can overcome them. Ask God for this sense: make a daily request that your town becomes your town.
The famous "shortest verse in the Bible" is John 11:35, "Jesus wept." He wept because he saw Mary, the sister of Lazarus, weeping over her brother's death. He was moved because Mary was a friend, and he hurt with her over the loss of her brother. He was so moved that he miraculously raised him from the dead. If this is our place, and these are our people, we will share in their joys and their sorrows. We will care what happens to them, and the rest will just come naturally, because you don't have to muster up caring for your friends. And God may be moved to the miraculous. We may not have been born here, and we may or may not be buried here; but right now we are here. This is our town.
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