Today I caught up with the excellent Epping Forest YFC team while I led their retreat which was held this year at The Convent of the Sacred Heart in Chigwell.

It was a real privilege to spend the day with the team and give them the space to think about who they are in God, and how God accepts them and loves them for who they are, rather than what they are.

It strikes me that many involved in ministry constantly strive to be better at this, or to do more of that, or to squeeze in one extra meeting, lesson, phone call etc. Rob Bell, in Velvet Elvis, draws attention to some verses at the end of Mark 8, where Jesus says:

How do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul in the process?

It seems to me that many of us, in our strivings are doing just that – gaining the world, gaining respect, achieving more, but at the expense of losing sight of who we are created to be by God – in other words losing our soul.

I was reminded in the quiet today that God has already chosen me, he has already called me to be a person that is passionately in love with him. I don’t need to do anything else, I can’t earn that love by working harder, or indeed by working less.

The love is there irrespective of what I do, irrespective of what I say, irrespective of what I think. Nothing can separate me from the love of God.

Today it was just good to be reminded.