Category Archives: life

Jesus on the road

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I started the day with the Waltham Forest YFC team at their morning prayer meeting. I used the journey on the Emmaus Road from Luke 24 to help us to think about where we may not be noticing Jesus in our lives. I have a current theme from God to share – that we are so busy rushing from A to B that we do not notice what happens on the journey. The journey just becomes something we use to arrive.

It strikes me massively that Jesus meets these 2 disciples on their journey to Emmaus. They are in the middle of nowhere when Jesus turns up. They are not at the start and neither have they completed the journey when Jesus arrives. It is in the journey itself that they encounter Jesus but fail to recognise him.

At the end of the story the disciples make an interesting remark:

‘Weren’t our hearts strangely warmed when he walked with us and explained the scriptures’

The clues were there for the disciples. Their bodies were giving them the clues, but they were failing to register them. They were experiencing something of God, but due to their grief they were refusing to listen to what that something may be.

Reading that passage causes me to ask

what is it that prevents me from noticing when Jesus is so clearly there?

It seems to me that it is easy to miss Jesus in the journey.
It is easy to be so keen to reach the goal, the destination or the aim and miss Jesus traveling alongside us.

When that happens we are truly missing a life changing encounter, and the richness of the road is lost to nowhere.

Naked refelections

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It’s been a hectic week and a whole week where I have not blogged. This has simply been due to pressure of time and lack of an Internet signal. I am currently in a busy spell and have realised again why I originally started to blog – which was to help my reflection and force me to consider what is happening and reflect on the implications of my observations.

The last week, and in particular, the last few days I have felt oddly naked (I don’t think that has anything to do with the Gender and Sexuality topic of the SEITE weekend!) This nakedness has left me thinking I am missing something. In particular missing the space to reflect, the time to analyse why I did what I did, the quiet to process in my head and heart the motivations hiding behind my actions and above all to consider where God is in all I have been doing and maybe even where I have missed God. I like to ask this as I think it increases my chance of noticing God in ‘the stuff’ in the future.

I think as we ask these questions it gives us the opportunity to again stand naked and unashamed in front of God and receive again the blessing that he intends for us to have. It’s in the nakedness of my thoughts, the rawness of my emotions, the playing with words on SHP that I think I grow a little more in Christ likeness – frustratingly so little that neither myself, nor those around me, notice it.

So – I am back, I have lots of thoughts, but I have forgotten lots of thoughts too but trust God that I will retain and reflect upon that which he has enabled me to remember.

The journey

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Ysterday I had the pleasure of leading the morning of the retreat for our London staff and volunteers at West Malling Abbey.

The picture shows ‘the journey’ a prayer activity that I orignally experienced when Jonny introduced us to this when he had this YFC role in London. It always strikes me how honest people are in this simple activity and the result is always exciting – in that it becomes clear that we are all at different stages of our Christian journey – some in the desert, some on the mountin tops, some lazing in the lake for refreshment … and so on.

Too often we think about arriving, and having to achieve, and the need to be sorted. I think this results in us denying the reality of our situation, and consequently missing out on any blessing that God may have for us, or any lesson he may want us to learn.

Today I hope that we were able to show these young leaders that it is ok to struggle, it’s ok to not be enjoying your calling at this particular time, it’s ok to doubt God, its ok to be wherever you are – these are normal parts of our Christian lives where God wlks alongside us which we need to acknowledge so that we can continue on the road rather then get stuck somewhere.

whose mountain?

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cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

First this cartoon made me laugh and then I stopped and thought.
Something hit me.
A question came to mind.
Am I climbiing the mountain I need to climb, or a I climbing the mountain others say I should be?

An Ordinary God?

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I had a good few meetings in London today.

The youth co-ordinating group of CTE met which is, I think, the only forum that brings all Christian youth organisations together from England, Scotland and Wales. It’s great to be a part of this and share what we are doing and hear what others are doing.

Grabbing a coffee with Dave Wiles from FYT afterwards and then catching up with Lorne from Church Resources of YFC was also a great time.

Today I saw God in the ordinary everyday conversations of people I met with. It’s easy in this calling/ministry/vocation to become task orientated and compartmentalise activities into worship, or work or some other sub-section. I’ve always struggled with that. It’s easy to forget that God is part of all my life and activities – but if you remember to look and be aware, God is pretty obvious! God is in the ordinary, and that is incredibly exciting because a God that is present in the ordinary is good news because that sort of God can be found by all.

As an aside, but linked, my annual appraisal will happen soon. The YFC form always has a question that I struggle with: ‘how is your spiritual life?’ I struggle with this every time I am asked as I can’t extract my ‘spiritual life’ from the rest of my life – my life’s aim is to have a life of worship which means that all I do, whether that’s fill in a tax form, meet friend for coffee, have a business meeting I come to see as being part of my worship to God. I think this is what the first few verses of Romans 12 is all about.

The Message:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you

acclimatisation

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Today as I went around my normal everyday stuff I met a young woman from Russia who was visiting friends in Gillingham. Why on earth would you come from Russia to Gillingham!!?

Anyway … we got talking and in typical British style I got onto weather as I attempted to show some intelligence by guessing that in Russia the temperature would be around -20C. Apparently I was spot on but the girl then aid something that surprised me. Although she has only been here a few weeks she said that when she left the house she still felt very cold which I found quite bizarre! She is used to -20 at this time of the year and she is feeling the cold in 10 degrees! Could it be that her local context tells her she should be cold as its winter and so she is cold!

Isn’t it amazing how quickly the human body acclimatises, or adapts, to the surroundings it finds itself in? It seems to like to find, and rest in, an equilibrium.I wonder if this is one of the issues with church today – we are no more than a bunch people who have adapted into the sort of church we are told to be by our local context – the church should stay out of politics, the church should not make unnecessary demands, the church should not rock the boat. A good steady equilibrium is good for us all!

Have we acclimatised?
Have I acclimatised?
Is this such a bad thing?

I think maybe it is. I think maybe we have succumbed to trendiness and a longing to be accepted. I think maybe this longing has resulted in a watered down slightly corny faith. I think maybe this has resulted in cheap gimmicks to make Jesus acceptable.

I’ve remembered Jesus was unacceptable 2000 years ago to the majority mindset.
Should it be any different now?

I want to live out an authentic faith with others, not an acclimatised one that people don’t notice or see no need for.

lots of thoughts and no time

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I have loads of thoughts meandering around in my head at the moment.
Sunday night at Moot, Ian challenged us to think about how we were living – were we living at our edges or at our centres.

I kind of relised that I have been at the edge for such a long time that I have lost the grasp of what my centre is, my core being, who I am in Christ, who I am in myself. Somehow I need to regain a perspective by retreating from the edge and attempting to re-establish where I am.

But not just now … tomorrow I have a busy day to look at Love Gillingham, beofre driving to Cambridge and then Newmarket to catch up with the excellent YFC people the before coming back home to watch Gillingham play football (in the looser sense of the word!)

I’m writing this here as a commitment to myself to refocus, rediscover, relign myself with my centre. I’m writing here in a kind of accountable way: maybe if you see me around you can ask me how this re-centreing is going.

ups and downs, downs and ups

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The weekend flew by!

It got off to an excellent start with the might Gills surprising us all by beating Tranmere 2-0 in front of the Sky cameras. We never perform well on the telly so this was a surprise.

Saturday morning saw Beth opening ‘the letter’ from the local authority to learn she has been selected for grammar school education (yes…Kent and Medway are one of the few that still do this to children!). Despite my reservations of the system – big congratulations to Beth who has worked incredibly hard this year.

Later that day I finished off the bathroom and we enjoyed a curry together as a family.

Then the weekend seemed to turn!

Sarah’s grandad fell down the stairs on Saturday night and is currently in hospital. Sarah’s nan has only just come out so it’s a kind of bed swapping exercise, but it does make you concerned for them.

Amazing how life is full of ups and downs, or is it downs and ups?

The weekend is over and I must admit I am not really looking forward to this week. Kim’s funeral is on Wednesday in Weymouth and can’t quite seem to get that out of my mind at the moment so I’d value your prayers that day if you have a spare moment!

silence pt 2 … you want reality …. remove the masks!

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The silence has continued. Throughout the rest of the day I chose to do a little reading but mainly sit and listen while repeating the Jesus prayer as a mantra. As distractions came I acknowledged them, as Abbot Jamison suggested, and then returned to my mantra.

I the silence, the still small whisper of God became barely audible
I was reminded of what one of the retreat leaders had said earlier in the day.

God loves the real me.
The real thing!
The me that no one else sees.
The me I keep locked away in secrecy.
The me I conceal from others.
The me I hide from myself.
The me I run away from.
The me I wish wasn’t me.
The me no-one knows.
The me I don’t know.

In the silence
God made me aware
of the many masks
that I wear

The mask for family
the mask for church
the mask for friends
the mask for work
the mask for God
the mask for me

Multiple masks
Multiple identities
Multiple actions and reactions
for so long that now
I have to ask
‘will the real me step forward’

In the silence
Listening
The voice…
to discover your true self
to find your true identity
the real you
the real you that I know and love
you need to take courage
you need to remove the masks
and be the person I have created
the creature I gave birth to
your true self

The thought scares me, but I think this is a long process that God is calling me into. I feel God has spoken to me in the silence and through ‘Finding Sanctuary’.I look back and can see that I have copied identities that I see around me, popular ways of doing things, not unlike teenagers at school all wearing the same brand trainers to ‘look cool’ and thinking they are individuals expressing their creativity and right to choose. I don’t wish to look cool (can you look cool at 41?!) but I can acknowledge the same process happening. Instead of really tapping into my personal, God ordained creative life, I look to others. I guess we all do to an extent.

Thomas Merton said : ‘Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious people are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to being the particular poet or the particular monk that they are intended to be by God’ Jamison goes on to say ‘People fail to be themselves because it is easier to be somebody else’.

I think this ties in my (not) resolution to shine like stars.

A picture tells a thousand words

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Some days you needs words … others and a picture sums up your day perfectly!