the slow work of God

Words from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new. Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

theology and discipleship

In a recent Baptist Times is an interview with Revd Dr Pat Took, recently inducted as President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.

At one point she says:

"We need good, thoughtful and seasoned theology in our churches.  We also need loving discipleship.  We need that from ministers, who are the community pastors and theologians, and we need everyone to have access to such good theology and discipleship." 

Sometimes theology gets a bad press.  There's a wedge driven between the 'intellectual' and the 'experiential' as if were not all living, feeling and thinking beings - united, not fragmented. Sometimes you get the feeling that the 'ivory tower' stereotype is still out there.  But I think theology is vibrant, dynamic, and sustaining.  We have been given the capacity for deep thinking and deep feeling.  Both together = deep living.

Perhaps one day I should blog about my preoccupation with 'depth' - but the story behind it feels a mite too personal still.  Occasionally I share it as part of my testimony.  But that quote from Richard Foster at the bottom of this blog is no casually chosen thing.  This quest for depth has characterised my journey and indeed my blog will always be looking deeper.  That was its primary purpose.

But I digress, ever so slightly.

Theology and discipleship are co-partners, companions, each sustaining our lives and enriching them.

We need everyone to have access.  Yes.  We have all been given eyes and ears, minds and hearts that we should love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Do we seek him with both mind and heart?  Do we seek understanding?  Wisdom?  To be a disciple and to make disciples?

impossible

It would be impossible for me

to hold you in my hands,

nor would I wish to.

Even the idea of you is uncontainable,

mind-bending, and yet

so beguiling,

that he who is before all things

should want to walk beside me,

take an interest in such a fragile

heart as mine - 

It would be impossible for me

to hold you in my hands

although I try to understand

you better, not to squeeze you

into my poor definitions, but

for you to define me.

You are vital to my existence

sustaining each thought, 

my every breath -

It would be impossible for me

to hold you in my hands -

rather,

I am held in yours.

Image: mine

the fact of the matter

the fact of the matter is
I'm a work in progress

every so often I remember
those who are far worse off than I am
and keep things all
in their proper perspective
every so often

sometimes I ignore
the impulse to strike out
in my defence, remaining
wisely silent and calm
sometimes

from time to time, I let go
of the need for the approval
of others, and focus instead
on the One who truly matters
from time to time

once in a while, I have
an utterly generous moment,
and all I can think of
is giving to another
once in a while

occasionally, I take time
to stop, reflect, and be thankful
for all that I've been given,
rather than all I think I lack
occasionally

every now and then, I can almost
touch the beautiful proximity
of my creator, sensing
his extravagant love
every now and then

the fact of the matter is
I'm a work in progress




***

The last few days, the air outside the front door has been full of butterflies, mainly Painted Ladies, coming through on the wave of warmer weather. Summer, after politely waiting in the wings while we all cooed with delight at Spring, is emerging. When I walked out with my camera this morning, the heat of the sun instantly hit me - making me realise I was wearing the wrong clothes.

Do you ever get the feeling you are wearing the wrong clothes? I feel it, when I end up being all the things I hate. When I'm irritable, impatient, selfish, consumed with a desire to please everyone, when all I can see is me and I forget the needs of everyone else. There's an awareness niggling at the edge of my mind, knowing, somehow, that I'm wearing the wrong clothes. And as soon as I turn to seek God's face, and feel his warmth, it becomes even more obvious.


My identity is in Jesus Christ, so when I behave in a way contrary to that lifestyle, I am acting outside of my true identity. I'm growing into it, I suppose you could say, but there are times I need to draw back and think - no, wait. I don't have to respond to this situation like this. With God's help, I can win over my natural reflexes (forces of habit, a lot of them). Instead of letting my insecurities take the reins, I can choose to dwell on the security of being 'in Christ', getting things in perspective, choosing to be wise.
I wear the wrong clothes a lot of the time. But in Colossians we are told:
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:12-14)

Those are the things we should be wearing. I am a work in progress. I'm not going to get it right all the time. But I would like to do it a little more frequently than I do now. I want to see the transformation of my heart and mind. So that one day I will be as beautifully clothed as those butterflies, after their own amazing metamorphosis. I want to be who I was made to be.

memory lane: the God who hears

Today's memory is a simple one of when I was in my mid to late teens. I'd been hearing lots of stories about how people had become Christians. I have always loved hearing such testimonies, but I was struggling at that time as I longed to remember my first profession of faith. many of us 'grow' into faith by stages, and it is hard to catalogue the 'moment' - especially as in my case, where I could not remember a time when I had not accepted, and indeed loved, God.

I knew that when I was 7 I had echoed a prayer led from the front at a church camp we had attended. Today I would see this as one of many steps of faith, but it was very important to me then that I could remember what was my first real declaration and invitation - my first commitment. But try as I might, I could remember nothing of how I felt. And as a teenager, this troubled me.

One day I knelt down in my room and asked God to help me remember, so desperate that I was literally crying. After a while, I felt the burden lift, and I let it go.

A few days later I was on a blank tape search. This happened often at this time as I had started writing songs, and not being able to write music adequately, I would record them onto tape. (Some of them are predictably cringe-some. Others could be worse.) Anyway, my mum was trying to hunt some out and came across some tape recordings of the church camp we had been on all those years ago. Sidetracked from my original intent, I was fascinated. One of them was the same service which afterwards, I had made my first commitment to following Jesus.

I often listened to talks on tape at this time, so I put it on while I pottered around doing other things. The talk was actually very appropriate for me at the time, and I appreciated it. What I did not expect was the recording to go on running after the talk had finished. Frozen to the spot, I listened to the minister of our then church talk about following Jesus for ourselves, and then leading a prayer which people could join in with if they so desired.

There were tears pouring down my cheeks as I listened to the words that I had whispered on my mother's lap as a shy 7 year old, as the feeling of the moment overwhelmed me. It was wonderful hearing the words, and knowing their significance over time. And underlying all of this, was a huge surge of gratitude that God had heard me and answered my prayer, in such a down-to-earth way. Gratitude that he was concerned with me - me - so tiny in this world. He hears the concerns of our hearts - and he heard mine.

As I said, today I would see my faith as a journey of many significant moments, but then, it mattered to me particularly that I should remember this first declaration of faith. I am still very grateful for this moment. It was such a simple thing, yet it meant so much to me.

Today: 3-4/10, medium

a prayer

I want to follow wholeheartedly;
I want to liberate the words of love
which are so often neglected,
shackled by fear, regret,
pain, or often
simple forgetfulness.

I want to articulate
the truth of you, to discover
and to share my discovering;
instead of merely staring
at a blank page, or
empty lines.

Crying out to be a voice,
but having so very little strength,
completely lacking, and thus
completely dependent
on what you choose to give,
and I accept.

So weary of weariness,
wanting the chance to transform,
to change, to be other
than what I am now,
to unclog that which is stuck,
and let it flow freely.

O God - my prayer.
Turn my greys into vivid reds,
blues, greens, vibrant yellows;
turn my life from the chains
and enable my mind and body
to serve you absolutely.

Today: 3-4/10, medium high

walk in love

Here is my attempt at the latest Salt Challenge, "Walking in Love".



I have some thoughts on it I would like to record, but right now I have to clean the bathroom, among other things! In case I don't get around to it before the challenge is over, here it is. Watch this space for further comment /explanation!
..........

As soon as I read the theme for this challenge, I thought of different shoes. The idea being that sometimes it is much easier to love, and other times it is more difficult. There are times when love springs from us, bubbles up, as we willingly express it in our attitudes and actions to others. At other times we would much rather curl up and not bother making the effort to actively love; it is more of an act of will to say 'let me do that for you', to do something purely for another person. What I pray is that whatever my mood or circumstance (whatever 'shoes', whichever 'road') is that I will still act (walk) in love.

I've said this before, but it is a continuing lesson - our strength of character is not truly shown in the good times but in the difficult times. Being loving and acting in a way pleasing to God when all seems to be rising up against you is much harder - but by practising it we become more able to do it. It's a challenge to me because I know when I am horribly tired I become more sensitive to things, less calm in reacting to conflict or difficult situations. I need God's strength in these moments to help me 'walk in love', because the fatigue robs me of the control I need to be the person he wants me to be. I need his patience and his goodness- I need the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of my efforts, in order to honour him when the road is far too steep for me and I frequently stumble.

The wonderful thing is that God's mercy is 'new every morning'. Although I may frequently fail to 'walk in love' as I am called to do, he is faithful and forgiving and gives me a fresh start each day, using the difficult moments and what I consider my failures to teach and strengthen me. These lessons can be very painful at times but God can transform even my pain into something beautiful, if I trust him with it. If I clutch it to myself, picking at it, berating myself, collecting my failures like anti-trophies, I am not giving it to God to mend - instead I am propagating it, making it worse, and causing a cycle to start which is hard to get out of.

So I pray, Lord, may I walk in love even when I'm on a stony, difficult road and wearing the wrong kind of shoes. Help me, and when I stumble, help me to fix my eyes on you, not looking down at where I have fallen. I may stumble often, but with you I can grow stronger. I can learn to love where I would not naturally be loving, because of your Spirit within me. I need to stay close to you in order to do this. Help me stay close, so that I can act out of love, everything flowing from love, so that the world may look and know that I am your disciple.

Energy levels: 5-6/10
Headache: low - medium