I don’t need to know all or pre-empt the outcome or even understand why one day I feel as though I am on that mountain top and the next day I feel like I might be at the bottom of a canyon. I don’t know why I fail at things when I thought I was strong enough, or even sometimes when I know I am strong enough. I don’t know why people have to cry and why people I love get ill. I don’t know why there’s pain and no cure. I don’t know why families don’t love one another and there’s no mutuality between those who are expected to have a mutual care for one another. I don’t know why there’s addiction and poverty surrounding me when I walk along the streets. I don’t know why there’s injustice in the handing out of money. I just.. don’t know. 

But, were we ever intended to know why, to see the reasons, to root around at the causes? Were we ever intended to play God and to change the future and reinvent the past? I honestly don’t think so. I honestly hope not.

And in all these ways I am very glad that I fail and that I do not understand, but yet I do not have to journey on my own. I am thankful I do not have to be on either the mountain top or in the canyon on my own. I am so thankful.

The Beauty of His MajestyGod, I pray that just like this day when I stood on top of the hill looking at your creation when I felt on top of the world, you will remind me of this feeling when I do not feel so high. I also pray that when it is your will for me to be learning how to love you from the valley that I will know it is right for me to be there. I love you Lord -show me more of your will in my life. Amen

I love this picture, so much so that I just had to post it. It reminds me of the glory of Gods creation and the fact that if he can create something so perfect and beautiful but yet still choses to use me to do his work then He is a pretty special God.

His ways are beyond my thinking, but His thinking is well beyond my understanding.

what are you giving up?

…about a lot of things lately, including writing in this blog again. So, first of all, here I am, encouraged by some friends also, writing in the good ol’ blog which no one reads!

There’s reasoning behind this you see: – namely that I have ‘quit facebook for lent.’ I put this in parenthesis (thanks Rachel @www.stageactorbysoul.wordpress.com because there’s only a certain extent to which I have managed this, you see.

I don’t see myself as someone who has very much will-power and I have proven this to myself again and again this week, by taking sneak peaks at facebook yesterday and Thursday, two particularly stressful days over the past week. I don’t know who I think I am cheating or fooling, but I think it’s only myself and possibly God that I am letting down. In addition to this, I’ve ‘given up eastenders’ as well, something which I gave up giving up on Friday due to the live episode which was airing.

So, you see, no will-power whatsoever. So, here I am, sitting on Monday 22nd, 6 days into lent and not doing so well. Thinking about giving up giving up anything – if you know what I mean… but what good does that do? In fact, why am I even giving up anything in the first place?

Well, lent isn’t something which I have been involved in before, partly because it’s not a surprise that I have no stickability with giving things up and this isn’t news so I just haven’t bothered before. Secondly, because I have never felt that there was anything in my life at the time of lent that I had to give up (or, at the time wanted to give up).  However, this year was different as I sat checking my phone for facebook updates immediately after checking online and then watching back to back episodes of Eastenders and Doctors.

I sat down and thought about how prevailent these  things were in my life compared to God and realised that connecting with people over facebook and watching a few rubbish soaps definitely took up more concentration time in my weekly routine than God. How sad! So, they have to go! At least 5hours per week can be gained by giving up these things. However, the time mustn’t be filled with more TV or with more social networking time (twitter, bebo, whatever else). Tough. Especially for me. No will-power, remember?

So far though (despite my apparent failings) I have read more of my Bible than I have over the rest of the beginning of 2010 and spent more time praying. This has been good, fulfilling and I am happy with this. I have also really realised my dependence on those things whcih comfort me when I am angry or stressed or tired, and how this dependence should be on God, not on ‘Stuff’ which I fill my time with.

One other thing, though, I have realised that I have a need for people around me, a need for community, and facebook etc meets this need to an extent. You connect with people and catch-up (even if it just through reading someone’s status update without commenting) and that’s it done. Whilst not facebooking, I have found out that connecting people in other ways is much more gratifying and I am having to make an effort to be with people, whether that is in person on over the phone etc. This is tough for me, as I need my space too and I thought this was the most important thing. It’s not though. So yeah, this is the journey of understanding my need for ‘connecting’ – expect to hear more about what I learn about this particular thing as I update over the course of ‘lent’ with my musings and thoughts about the whole process and other things of the like.

What’s your experience of community – do you need it? - do you need solitary? – is it important for humans? – AND – what are you giving up for lent, if anything, and why?

The truth is, I became quite disheartened by the whole blogging thing, partly because the majority of my views are coming from people who are searching for “french wine” or “durdle door.” Neither of which is my topic of choice.

However, I am still here, I am still youth-working, I am still blogging, and facebooking and occassionally twittering. I just get disenthused with the inordinate choice of wedsites through which to portray who you are.

Anyway, currently I have no real insights to share with the world on this site. However, I was reading Psalm 3 this morning, and I thought I would share the encouragement which I received from it.

1. God is a sheild around you.
2. God is your glory.
3. God holds your head high.
4. God answers you.
5. God keeps you in safety and watches over you.
6. You do not need to be afraid of 10,000 enemies.
7. And finally, your victory comes from Him.

Well, that’s about all for today, hopefully it won’t be another 2 months until I blog.

Also, if you are even more interested in this discussion than reading some thoughts from someone else on it, and you wishyou had been there. Or more worryingly, you were there and would like to watch it again, Glasgow University provide the webcast in their archive, and you can find it here. You will have to have windows media player to watch this wmv however.

Brodie, however, also reminded me that Brian Mclaren is coming to Glasgow at the beginning of December. Precisely, he will be speaking on Sunday 7th December and also two times on Monday 8th December. I plan to attend both events on the Monday (11am -3pm at ICC, focusing on the topic ‘A new kind of Christian’, and then laterly at the Vertigo Bar in Strathclyde Student Union from 7.30pm) as I am otherwise engaged with work on Sunday evenings.

And for some added information, I wanted a picture for this post, so choose Brian Mclaren, but found it funny that Google Images more or less only has two different pictures of him, this one, and another with him sitting next to a cross. Either that, or her just poses the same way quite a lot.

I arrived with a whole load of preconceptions about the Archbishop who thinks that Sharia law should be an integral part of British law. I’d heard so much about it on the news, and Dr Rowan Williams received so much criticism and caused uproar because of the comments. The archbishop had been “ridiculed” and “lampooned” by some who believe that any change along these lines would create social chaos.

However, the Bishop of Hulme said, in response to this, “We have probably one of the greatest and the brightest archbishops of Canterbury we have had for many a long day,”

It was this fact that I started to realise as I listened to the bishop speak, and my misconceptions were in part turned around and sorted out. I maybe wouldn’t go as far as to say he was the greatest and brightest, but I certainly think he has more to him than the media have been suggesting. He speaks in an engaging manner, almost as well as a politician, answering the questions which he likes to answer and effectively missing out those which he prefers not to. He speaks of his passions of sharing Christian love and of the similarities between different religions.

There were a couple of things which stood out to me, but I will only deal with one tonight as it ended up being a larger thought process than I would have imagined at first. So, the Archbishop spoke of his view of Holiness and how he could see the attributes of Holiness in all different types of people, including people of other faiths.  In particular, he said that he knewthere were holy aspects visible in people such as Mona Siddiqui, a Muslim and other Jewish people that he knew.

But, how exactly can this be so? Isn’t Holiness an attribute of the God of the OT, in fact it is the only description which is emphasised by repeating it three times. For in the OT there was no bold text or underline, rather the emphasised by repeating, so to have one word repeated three times makes it pretty special. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. God is Holy! So, then, if we are not worshipping the same God how can we all be displaying this attribute of God.

Well, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests that we are not worshipping different Gods, rather we are expressing it differently. Of course, this is the controversial point, and I do not agree with this as such. I do not think that different religions are merely different expressions of worship towards the same God. The main point for me, as a Christian, is the fact that a third of the entire being of God is Jesus. Therefore, if any religion, or any person, disowns or does not believe in Him, then they do not know the true God. So, if Jesus was fully God, and you do not know Him or worship him, are you really worshipping the same God as someone who does? So really, while I agree that some worship by obeying law and others worship by serving others and being in relationship with “God”, they are only worshipping God if they have come through Jesus. – “No one can come to the father except through me” – Jesus

My thoughts are scrambled on this one and I keep going round in circles, hence my statement about the theological hamster wheel earlier in the week.

Anyways, it’s time for me to move on, but what’s your thoughts on Archy and the Sharia Law?

What are your thoughts on holiness and it being visible in people of many other religions?

I realise this is a sensitive question and I haven’t dealt with it fully, I just hope people don’t think I have been offensive!

We worked on the youth bus for the first time in the town centre and I must say it was great. However, we didn’t get to work on it yet again on Tuesday which was disappointing.

Other things are going well, having seen over 60 young people again this week through various different meetings.

On Friday night, the 31st, we didn’t go to a Halloween party, rather we opted to take the young people to see James Bond, the Quantum of Solace which happened to be the first Bond film I’d ever seen. I would say it is very worth seeing it, and didn’t particularly need the previous film in order to understand the content. On the downside, it did take a lot of time to build up the story, probably because it was a standalone film. As a Bond virgin, I would say, however, that the opening credits interested me much more and were great! I realise there’s a whole load of people who would disagree with me. There was a lot less action than I thought there would be, and a whole lot more talking. Daniel Craig is a good Bond but has a weird pouty thing going on. And if anyone asked for some random thoughts on the movie then this was them.

Today, I slept, drove some, and watched Clerks II, which unfortunately, I enjoyed! hm!

Anyways, I will be back at the beginning of the week with some real stuff on this blog!

real persecution?

Today we continue our series on Romans 12 with verse 14. We are looking at the following verse:

Rom 12:14  Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse.

The image I have used from the Simpsons to illustrate the point which I intend to make may seem a little crude to a few of you, but I just had a feeling when researching into today’s verse that very few of us actually understand persecution. Persecution is not just someone mocking us, scoffing at us, sidelining our views in society, although ultimately these things can be part of persecution in a larger scale. Rather, persecution is the systematic mistreatment of a person/persons. This could involve, arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture or in extreme cases execution. And yes, this still happens, but fortunately not to us. So, how then, do we understand persecution in our contexts? My initial response to my own question would be that we do not fully. However, we must attempt to understand this concept as comprehensively as we can. Therefore, we must look forwards, backwards as well as examining our present circumstances in order to gain an answer.

Here are the following three parts I feel would help us understand persecution and this verse:

Past: The past can tell us a lot about persecution, particularly of the religious sort. In order to get a full perspective on persecution and how it has an effect on people we can read from the Bible the persecution of early Christians and perhaps imagine ourselves in those situations and attempt to recreate how one might feel about those who persecuted them. In addition we can listen and try to understand the stories of those around us who may have been persecuted for whatever reason. This could be real testimonies from someone we know who might share what they have been through, or alternatively we could submerge ourselves in the retelling of stories such as ‘The Heavenly Man.’ Which gave me an interesting insight to persecution in China when I read it.

Future: The book of revelation is by no means my specialist subject but I know that this book says that Christians will be persecuted and it goes into some detail about this. We should familiarise ourselves with these writings and prepare ourselves for what is to come. Most importantly we should stock up on scripture such as the one which we look at today, as these are vital for us in understanding how we should deal with the persecution which will inevitably come our way.

Now: As mentioned above, I don’t believe that in our current culture contexts in the UK we have anything which we could remotely call persecution; therefore I actually think it might be quite offensive to say that we do. However, we do have trials and tests and there are people who hurt us or turn against us. The best we can do in these circumstances is to practice with the little what we will have to with the lot, if you know what I mean?  For example, when we have people who go out of their way to make life difficult for us we should not treat them unkindly and as enemies in any way. We must remember that although we were once enemies of God, he did not treat us as such as we opened our hearts to His calling. However, there is more to this than simple not treating ‘enemies’ as enemies, because we are asked to bless rather than curse. This takes courage in most circumstances, but we must know that this which Paul speaks of in this verse is the way God would ask us to proceed when we are persecuted or faced with difficulty.

It is a difficult one, I don’t deny it, but I guess it is important. Thoughts welcome as usual.

However, this apology made, let us get round to reading the scripture and deciphering yet another verse from Romans 12.

Rom 12:13      communicating to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality.

Now, this verse is one which I had to read in many different versions in order to attempt to understand its meaning. In the KJV the translation is not particularly useful for a comprehensive understanding, but looking at the Greek words behind this translation helps a little. In simple terms, and from my simple understanding, this verse tells us that in amongst these other attitudes which we should have as a Christian, we should also be seeking to help our brothers and sisters in Christ, those who have faith like us, especially if they have need in their life. In all circumstances we should seek to pursue hospitality. Hospitality being the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.

On this matter I was reading recently the thought that “the world’s love is focussed on people’s desires, Christian love is focussed on people’s real needs.” I wholeheartedly agree, however, the writer continues to go on quite a substantial rant over how Christians build large buildings and employ profession Christians etc while having little concern for Christians in the third world. Whoa… hold the boat! When did this connection get made? I’m supportive of missions, especially into Africa, as I often feel as though my heart was left in North Africa in 2007, but what about the mission in our backyards? What about those on the same streets as those large buildings or living across town from those professional Christians. I simply don’t see why Paul’s mentioning of hospitality would bring up issues of third world mission, unless of course you were living there also.

Much closer to home are those who are within day to day reach of us, they are the ones we walk past without friendly contact or those who fail to be invited to our Christian fellowship dinner meetings. The ones who would truly benefit from this hospitality. I’m also not saying, as the above quoted commentator suggested that looking after fellow Christians is wrong, after all the first point of this scripture talks about looking after brothers and sisters, but this needs to be in proportion. At the end of the day, we all, as Christians, could live tidily inside our Christian comfort zones, but then we wouldn’t be even close to living out our commission.

So, the result? Focus on real needs, rather than on our own Christian wants. Help your brothers and sisters in Christ when they are in need rather than in want. But above all, reach out to those around you in all manners necessary; show them your lovingkindness, your patience that you care. Above all, show your God through your actions.

• I’m still working as a youth worker for my church, the job is a amazing, so varied, so right for now, and when I am honest and not tired and grumpy, which happens from time to time, I wouldn’t be anywhere else right now and I am so blessed.
• I am also working for a couple of other organisations doing youth work, in a youth club and also on a youth bus. It’s been amazing because these jobs have provided me with the means to get more training and get a wider perspective on youth work and what God can do through young people.
• I am currently doing some web related stuff which is giving me a break and a welcome distraction from the youthy stuff, and its great because I can do this stuff at home and even when I’m not feeling so great.
• Church has changed more than I have ever known it to in the past month or so, the people outside my family who I have known for longest, who trusted me, gave me a job and mentored me have moved on from my church and things are vastly different. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with this change, but most of the time I feel optimistic about where we are going as a team and as a church. I am excited to be involved in where we are going and what we are doing!

So, there’s a whistle-stop tour of life right now, and before I go I must mention that there are two things which God has been teaching me through everything that is going on right now.

1. We must praise God through everything we are going through. Especially we must praise him for bringing us out of difficult circumstances and providing for us. More so, we must praise God just for being God. For this is the essence of worship, to praise God for being who He is. Then also, I am constantly reminded these days of the song that Moses sang after God parted the sea and saved Moses and the Israelites. He sang of God being his salvation and also of the amazing things that God had done to save them. This is where worship comes from; an ecstatic response to the wonders of God’s character and the wonders of His actions
2. Secondly, I am learning about the pearls of self-reliance and the foolishness of relying on people. Sometimes, these two things take the place of simply relying on God, and I know this is wrong, but it does not stop it from happening. They often seem like the easier option, as we want to know where our safety lies and we feel comfortable if we are in control or if we can see who is in control. Unfortunately, people let us down, they are ultimately selfish, self-absorbed, busy, lazy, or they just move on and relationships can be discarded. As for ourselves, we are also selfish, we fail, we fall, we over-protect and then we under-protect. Then we beat ourselves up for the things we do wrong and we take too much pride in the things we think we got right. We are not God. He, on the other hand, is always true, always loving, always works things together for His good, and there is no other good except from that of God. He is merciful, graceful, all-seeing. Therefore, knowing all this, I must strive to place ALL my trust in God who knows infinitely more than I do or ever will. This is the bit that I am coming to terms with and trying to put into practice as I am faced with a sea of changes and few people who are constants and who are supports. In God alone will I place my trust.

Anyways, that would be enough rambling for now, Ciao.

durdle door image - c mccormack

 

So yesterday we went visiting various places along the ‘Jurassic Coastline’ of Dorset. I must say, there are some really quite phenomenal places along there, including the Durdle Door (above) and Lulworth Cove (below).  These places strike me as quite amazing simply because they are completely natural. Handmade but not by us. The Durdle Door for example is amazing to look at, this huge stone arch in the middle of the water, the centre arc eroded and now it looks like this. Goodness knows how long it took for this to happen. And Lulworth cove, once completely land, the sea has eaten away at it and made it what it is now. All along the walkway there are little coves forming and little arches in the stone walls beginning to be created and you can see these. In the whole of my lifetime they will probably look exactly the same, but here is the evidence to compare in many years to come.

These are the sort of images that we see on postcards and on TV, never thinking that we will see them all with our very own eyes. However, when we do see them we realise that the sights before us as too big to comprehend.