July 26 - Amanda Furman

How long have you been coming to H2O? I've been coming to H2O for 4 years. I moved to Orlando as part of a corporate move with The Jesus Film Project from California, although I'm originally a Chicago girl. A couple of weeks after moving I found the church website, visited, and never left! I ended up leaving the JFP after a couple of years and now work for the City of Orlando.

What do you like to do for fun? I LOVE the outdoors and I especially like to go hiking. It's not as tempting in hot, flat Florida, but if I found a buddy or two I'd go in a flash. Reading takes up a lot of my free time, alternating between Theology/Church life type of stuff and whatever else looks interesting, including many blogs. I'm also a big fan of road trips, hanging out with friends, and laughing until my sides hurt.

What's an interesting fact about you? An interesting fact about me. Hmm. Although I am only 5 feet tall, most people don't notice I am short until then know me for a good while. Then something like "Oh my gosh, did you just get shorter?" will come out of their mouth. I haven't solved that mystery yet.

I have a dreamer/idealist personality type with many deep, passionate ideas about what I'd like my Kingdom life to look like. The problem is that when you look at life through the lens of an idealist, reality often comes at you hard. I've been wrestling with the part of my spirit that is bent on analyzing and critiquing everything to death instead of taking simple, flawed steps to get where I want to go.

One of the highlights of the last several weeks has been a book group that I've been going to. We've been discussing "The Myth of a Christian Religion" by Greg Boyd. It is a challenging read that covers a wealth of topics that Greg sees as hinderances to the beautiful, set apart Kingdom of God (including things such as nationalism, racism, individualism, violence, etc.) Although we have a lot of different opinions on these topics, it's been really refreshing to have deep, engaging convesations about such things with other believers who are passionate about the kingdom.

Something I've been wrestling with God about, prompted by the book, is my quest to find answers. It isn't easy for me to hang out in grey area. It's all or nothing. Tell me what's right so that I can just do it. What God has been revealing in me through interacting with these folks, is that yes indeed there are right answers to these questions, but we don't get off that easy. Even if we knew all the right answers, we can't do all the right things in our own power. We need the very person of Jesus Christ to transform our hearts and minds, we need the Holy Spirit in community as we seek the kingdom life together. We need to set out in a direction that's moving towards Christ and kingdom values, even without knowing how it all works out. It's a far more beautiful plan than say, Amanda gets to know all of the answers and be right all of the time. Ha!!

Matthew 6:33 - But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

To sum up, I would really appreciate prayer about the stuff I've been sharing. Taking those practical, flawed steps towards loving God and people. Emerging out of my idealist world once in a while, and living in reality. Being present with God, letting him transform me instead of just conceptualizing him in my head. Bringing myself and my passions and my flaws into community, but not holding so tightly to my idealism so that I incidentally bring bitterness and criticism. Not easy prayer requests by any means, but they are sincere.