I have a lot to learn from Rom 11:11-24

I am the typcial proud, creative alternative Adventist. I live on being viewed as different, alternative, trouble, wild etc... Not because I want to be different, but simply because I am different. I Stian Keyn am different, unique and will always be alternative if you may... Before I hated it, I could not stand being different, viewed as only trouble to the established rule etc.. I tended to become very defensive, stressed and always trying to prove something... a bit paranoid as well I have to admit, beliving that the church conspired against individuals like myself and my friends... later I've discovered that they simply try to ignore because of lack of understanding and fear I guess... the same core attitude me and my friends had towards them... lack of understanding and fear of loosing controll.

It has been very tempting to seperate my self from the established church, and start something for my self... but a strong voice inside of me has always convinced me that that would be a bad move in my case.

After years of beeing different, and refusing to leave the established church, I've slowly started to learn to find peace in being differnt. I'm less defensive, relaxed and I don't need to prove my own points anymore... I've become more and more intersted and focused upon this Sap I recive from the church I'm a branch.. I feel like one of these wild olive branches that God has glued on this SDA Branch... I'm dependent upon the streams from the church... its a part of my core, even though my nature is from somwhere totally wild and foreign to this church branch....

And you know what, the more relaxed I've become, humbly recognising the need for free flow from one end of the branch to the tip, knowing my need of the church, and the church need of Jesus etc. I'm starting to see what conects us is a living force... I'm starting to recognise the same inspiration, love and passion that has to flow through everyone else that is a part of a living tree. The second I'm able to see and convey this, I get this wonderfull wholesome peace of belonging...

I've figured out that the main reason I was so defensive before, was not because I was viewed as different (because I was and still am), but because I could not see that living force that flowed through the church.. The core of my frustration and anger lay in the fact that I could not see the conection between the established church and me with my friends.... I believe we were so specialised in the church, we never conected, the old with the young... the intelectuals with the mystics etc...In this way the root of a branch may stom the flow to the various tips of the branch... It is vital that the church conects with every sub-branch... without conection, the force will have great trouble of reaching various tips... stopping the veins from flowing freely... Without identifying, conecting and inspiring, a church will slowly wither and die... work will become hard, keeping a stucture as a tree will be even harder. We start to plan to cut of this and this branch and hope that it will grow on its own somwhere else... because our branch has withered into becoming to week to support anymore..

Me and my friends stayed with ourselves, we did not have any forums where we were invited to expelain who we were, what talents and longings God had placed in us... a place where we could conect with the whole church... where we could be inspired by others.... and whenever we did meet leaders from the church, we always felt that they expected us to be like them or others before us... which is understandable since they did not know who we were... they simply must have asumed that we wanted to become what they thought the whole branch was like... it did not seem like they understood that it was possible to do things completly new, but still have the same living force running freely from the root of a branch to the tip....

I pray every day that the church won't loose conection with the wholeness of its branch... I pray that it will recognise the branches and understand the importance of keeping a wholesome conection with the branch in order for the new wild branches to get a full flow of the living force... I'm scared that we as a church cut ourseves up into our own specialised pieces so that the living force wont flow through the branches anymore... We cut ourselves of by a lack of comunication and contact.... we need to stay conected, humbly and in a sublime awe. We need to comunicate, conect, share lamnetions and worships together... There are so many branches conected to a church... realise this wonder, some are even foreign to our own nature, but they are still conected... understand the beauty of the living Force Jesus has promised us...



Gentiles Grafted In (Romans 11:11-24)
So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion[a] mean!


Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.



But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root[b] of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.