As Christians we should acknowledge the things that are ugly and manifestations of sin. We must not be afraid of recognising them, of vocalising them. It is important to state them to our father so that he will be glorified. Matthew 10 v. 26-33
I am angry when I see a women searching for assistance but is so drugged up,
she cannot focus enough to remember personal information.
I am angry when a man has to choose between school or working 12 hr days to provide for himself/his parents.
I am angry when I see a teenage mother struggling to provide for her child.
I am angry to encounter a man completely wasted a 11 in the morning.
I am angry when people act as if they are too good to be near someone who they judge as below them.
I am angry when people passing by give the ugliest looks to my friend who is homeless
because, being happy to see me, he decided to serenade me with a goofy song.
I am angry...
May we never ignore them or consider their hardships to be normative.
and May we hold to the promise of Revelation 21 v. 3-5.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
My Psalm (27 June-Peru)
I have found that at times a source of good reflection and time with God comes in personalising/re-writing Psalms.
What follows is an example of this, specifically one while reflecting during my time in Peru.
You know my temptations and my struggles.
You know the words that scratch my soul like freshly sharpened knives.
You know the desires of my heart and the burdens to tough to carry on my own.
You know the words I long to say and halt the curses that seek their exit my mouth.
And you are with me always!
There to comfort me when I stumble, and to set me straight when I wander astray.
You have search my mind and know the lies that plague it.
You place light among them to show them for what they are.
Let me see that the monsters that haunt me are not but creatures to be squashed beneath my feet!
Inspiration: Psalm 139
What follows is an example of this, specifically one while reflecting during my time in Peru.
You know my temptations and my struggles.
You know the words that scratch my soul like freshly sharpened knives.
You know the desires of my heart and the burdens to tough to carry on my own.
You know the words I long to say and halt the curses that seek their exit my mouth.
And you are with me always!
There to comfort me when I stumble, and to set me straight when I wander astray.
You have search my mind and know the lies that plague it.
You place light among them to show them for what they are.
Let me see that the monsters that haunt me are not but creatures to be squashed beneath my feet!
Inspiration: Psalm 139
Sunday, September 25, 2011
The Art of Trusting
Trusting is an art form. It takes practice, tools and skills built up over time, and just a touch of daring. It is an activity or practice that can be regarded as medium of expression for a relationship.
This week I was placed in a position of having to express the deepest trust and found that trusting God and trusting others often go hand in hand.
It started off on being in a place of dangerous ground, to where I was not caring what God wanted to say to me. This had to change. I needed to move from having no faith to having great faith, obedient faith and it had start with some action.
I have a passion for God. It has developed in me over the course of many years, several filled with trials and tribulations. I have had to learn over the years (and had to have it refreshed for me this week) that it is not simply God taking roll and his satisfaction with "Here!" but that he wants more. He desires, "I'm listening," as well. It is having the same response when times are difficult/critical as when your journey first began/when things were easier.
This time if I wanted to be listening to God, if I wanted to take him seriously, I needed to follow his calling for accountability, and in turn meant having to put my trust in a very dear friend. And so I did, and trust me it wasn't easy.
I couldn't eat all day, I was nauseous, and during our conversation I could hardly bring myself to look my friend in the eye. Up to that conversation I was facing a problem with faith. I was faced with the possible contradiction of a promise from God, with the command he had given me. How was God, in this situation, going to be a God of honour? I was facing the possibility of rejection, humiliation, and the loss of a friend. I'd experienced it before. How was God going to show up in this context? I had to take a chance, and I am so thankful I did.
Often trying to understand what God is doing puts us at a confrontation with what he would have us do. Trying to reason about what God will do binds us to inaction. But God has a plan both big picture and small and before we can see the place or to see the outcome, we must choose to see the God who is already there.
I would rather choose love and the risk that people will not accept me for everything that I am, then not trust God. Heb. 11 v. 17-19
This week I was placed in a position of having to express the deepest trust and found that trusting God and trusting others often go hand in hand.
It started off on being in a place of dangerous ground, to where I was not caring what God wanted to say to me. This had to change. I needed to move from having no faith to having great faith, obedient faith and it had start with some action.
I have a passion for God. It has developed in me over the course of many years, several filled with trials and tribulations. I have had to learn over the years (and had to have it refreshed for me this week) that it is not simply God taking roll and his satisfaction with "Here!" but that he wants more. He desires, "I'm listening," as well. It is having the same response when times are difficult/critical as when your journey first began/when things were easier.
This time if I wanted to be listening to God, if I wanted to take him seriously, I needed to follow his calling for accountability, and in turn meant having to put my trust in a very dear friend. And so I did, and trust me it wasn't easy.
I couldn't eat all day, I was nauseous, and during our conversation I could hardly bring myself to look my friend in the eye. Up to that conversation I was facing a problem with faith. I was faced with the possible contradiction of a promise from God, with the command he had given me. How was God, in this situation, going to be a God of honour? I was facing the possibility of rejection, humiliation, and the loss of a friend. I'd experienced it before. How was God going to show up in this context? I had to take a chance, and I am so thankful I did.
Often trying to understand what God is doing puts us at a confrontation with what he would have us do. Trying to reason about what God will do binds us to inaction. But God has a plan both big picture and small and before we can see the place or to see the outcome, we must choose to see the God who is already there.
I would rather choose love and the risk that people will not accept me for everything that I am, then not trust God. Heb. 11 v. 17-19
The Lie.
There is this little lie that we as human beings have been fed that pervades our lives and influences our day to day actions. This lie is whispered to us daily: to be effective we have to have it all together, and it is compounded on by the lie that we CAN have it all together. This can be said even more so of Christians; that somehow, to be able to truly walk a walk of faith, we have to be able to meet a set of requirements, to make up for our inadequacies before we can be in relationship with God.
This is called religiosity and I want nothing to do with it.
We have to stop trying. Make loving God another obligation burn out will happen and we end up focusing even more on ourselves. How can you command others to stop sinning in order to love God, when we have to love God to stop sinning? It is when we stop actively loving and pursuing God that we slip into sin.
I need God to help me to love God. That's the beauty of it, our efforts are totally out of the picture. He died so that we could love him, he helps us to love him.
Read it yourself:
Gal. 5 v. 13-14, John 10 v. 10
This is called religiosity and I want nothing to do with it.
We have to stop trying. Make loving God another obligation burn out will happen and we end up focusing even more on ourselves. How can you command others to stop sinning in order to love God, when we have to love God to stop sinning? It is when we stop actively loving and pursuing God that we slip into sin.
I need God to help me to love God. That's the beauty of it, our efforts are totally out of the picture. He died so that we could love him, he helps us to love him.
Read it yourself:
Gal. 5 v. 13-14, John 10 v. 10
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Putting the Gifts Down
I have been living the last six weeks burdened by the desire to be in two places at once. After two wonderful years of discovery and growth I am once again living the the town in which I grew up.
I love this place, I could go on about it for hours, to the extent which I always get looks from friends that are underlaid with the question "WHY!?!". With it's rustic and rural beauty, it's history, and it's broken, eccentric, and beautiful people, this little town of Gold never ceases to amaze me. However, I am in love with another place, another group of wonderful, eccentric people, a second home.
Today was a message on a segment of Abraham's story. It is a story I have heard countless times, but somehow never appreciated the gravity of the story's background. It is the story of Abraham's test to sacrifice Isaac his only son, and the greatest promise from God in a covenant to Abraham. If you know this story you have probably asked, as I have, why on earth would God test Abraham in such a manner? This kind of test would never blow over in this day and age, and you would be right. Yet, how Dennis pointed out, God often uses the same lessons, he simply uses different packages.
Gifts, especially gifts from God come in all sorts packages. They may be an assortment of talents, they may be unexpected blessings, or in my case a group of amazing people. We like to cling to these gifts with everything we have. Which is understandable, they are wonderful examples of God's love for us. The problem comes when we cling to these gifts so tightly that, when God steps in and asks us to take his hand and follow him, our arms are too full to take hold. It's really hard to trust God enough to set down our beloved items in order to be in relationship with him.
I feel a calling to follow God by joining the Peace Corps, this may sound ludicrous, and sometimes I ask myself the very same thing. Inasmuch, it has meant placing some of the gifts that I have been given down in order to take God by the hand. Yes, it is extremely hard. Not only am I facing not being near some of the people I love the most for a short while, but it also means facing the knowledge that in the future I am going to have to put down even more to live in a foreign country for 2 years. Yet, if I truly desire to follow God, this is what I am required to do. Thankfully, I stand in the knowledge that putting my cherished down for now doesn't mean I am required to do so forever and, thankfully, it is for a God who knows our backgrounds, who declares that he will never test us beyond the portion of our faith, or beyond our ability to succeed.
God is not always easy to listen to, but he's worth it.
I love this place, I could go on about it for hours, to the extent which I always get looks from friends that are underlaid with the question "WHY!?!". With it's rustic and rural beauty, it's history, and it's broken, eccentric, and beautiful people, this little town of Gold never ceases to amaze me. However, I am in love with another place, another group of wonderful, eccentric people, a second home.
Today was a message on a segment of Abraham's story. It is a story I have heard countless times, but somehow never appreciated the gravity of the story's background. It is the story of Abraham's test to sacrifice Isaac his only son, and the greatest promise from God in a covenant to Abraham. If you know this story you have probably asked, as I have, why on earth would God test Abraham in such a manner? This kind of test would never blow over in this day and age, and you would be right. Yet, how Dennis pointed out, God often uses the same lessons, he simply uses different packages.
Gifts, especially gifts from God come in all sorts packages. They may be an assortment of talents, they may be unexpected blessings, or in my case a group of amazing people. We like to cling to these gifts with everything we have. Which is understandable, they are wonderful examples of God's love for us. The problem comes when we cling to these gifts so tightly that, when God steps in and asks us to take his hand and follow him, our arms are too full to take hold. It's really hard to trust God enough to set down our beloved items in order to be in relationship with him.
I feel a calling to follow God by joining the Peace Corps, this may sound ludicrous, and sometimes I ask myself the very same thing. Inasmuch, it has meant placing some of the gifts that I have been given down in order to take God by the hand. Yes, it is extremely hard. Not only am I facing not being near some of the people I love the most for a short while, but it also means facing the knowledge that in the future I am going to have to put down even more to live in a foreign country for 2 years. Yet, if I truly desire to follow God, this is what I am required to do. Thankfully, I stand in the knowledge that putting my cherished down for now doesn't mean I am required to do so forever and, thankfully, it is for a God who knows our backgrounds, who declares that he will never test us beyond the portion of our faith, or beyond our ability to succeed.
God is not always easy to listen to, but he's worth it.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Moment of Artistry, A Touch of Poetry
My eyes drew open, and I gazed in that somber direction.
There will be no more dreaming as the day when death itself is undone.
No more dreaming like a boy so in love, I'm just a boy so in love with the wrong one.
I ran from the dawn, fought with the day, trapped now always in this twilight.
I went down to the river, praying that the water would give me answers.
But this, the water gave me:
Memories slipping through my fingers and a pocket full of heavy stones.
Oh, how I pity poor Atlas.
The world is such a beast of a burden,
When you've been holding on for such a time,
As I have been, to my defences.
There is love in my body, but I cannot get it out
Since the tenderest of touches have left the darkest of marks.
There is no excuse for the state I'm in, but I have found
The sweetest of words have the bitterest taste
Hence, saddness shows on my face, catches in my breath
And the space between two lungs swells as it burns
When I recall the love I held from the start.
There will be no more dreaming as the day when death itself is undone.
No more dreaming like a boy so in love, I'm just a boy so in love with the wrong one.
I ran from the dawn, fought with the day, trapped now always in this twilight.
I went down to the river, praying that the water would give me answers.
But this, the water gave me:
Memories slipping through my fingers and a pocket full of heavy stones.
Oh, how I pity poor Atlas.
The world is such a beast of a burden,
When you've been holding on for such a time,
As I have been, to my defences.
There is love in my body, but I cannot get it out
Since the tenderest of touches have left the darkest of marks.
There is no excuse for the state I'm in, but I have found
The sweetest of words have the bitterest taste
Hence, saddness shows on my face, catches in my breath
And the space between two lungs swells as it burns
When I recall the love I held from the start.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)