I have been meaning to write something ever since I got back from retreat over a week ago but relationships keep getting in the way.
Today its Tabi who's up early to chat, yesterday was bumping into a friend and using up the 20 mins I had spare to chat, the day before was talking on MSN to a friend in distress, and leading to that has been helping to sort out the living room as I'd got Ian a bigger desk from Freecycle and I've had to be moving everything else in the whole house, or so it seems, around to get the new desk in just right place and everything else to find homes. Again serving and relationship with my husband.
Oh yes I do have some "deep" things I'd like to put on here but I do think relationship are much more important :)
Friday 30 October 2009
Monday 19 October 2009
Coming into Maturity
At the moment many of my friends and myself are saying how much we preferred it when our children were younger and we were more in control, could make all the decisions and even if they answered back we just made them go anyway, even if they kicked and screamed a bit. Ok this could be a bit of a rose-tinted glasses but its how we feel.
Anyway I was pondering this one someone said about how when one hears something from God one should take it to someone more mature and let them ok it. Now I have heard this before and also seen leaders question something because they didn't get it. I am also seeing friends with their teenagers very much holding on to that control, pushing them in a certain direction, still holding control. I am also seeing it with my own on not being willing to take on financial control of their lives and not wanting to mature in that area, and of how I so want to keep control.
Someone at the 24/7 conference said about how we can only teach and show and disciple but be willing to let them make mistakes rather than control them so they don't make mistakes.
But I wonder how often to keep church things going we do not let people mature properly, we keep them always having to check things out and if it doesn't fit with what the leader says then they are told either not to do it, or that it wasn't of God, or they didn't hear properly. So that in the end we have a church full of people who do not step out.
Perhaps both with our children and our spiritual children we do need to stand back a bit and be there, as I think often God is, to pick up the pieces. Actually this is interesting that God does not control us, gives us total free will and then Jesus came and died for us to restore us to God, and even when we accept Jesus still we are free to come and go as we want, and yet still God is always there for us - no control and always will to restore us and pick up the pieces.
Anyway I was pondering this one someone said about how when one hears something from God one should take it to someone more mature and let them ok it. Now I have heard this before and also seen leaders question something because they didn't get it. I am also seeing friends with their teenagers very much holding on to that control, pushing them in a certain direction, still holding control. I am also seeing it with my own on not being willing to take on financial control of their lives and not wanting to mature in that area, and of how I so want to keep control.
Someone at the 24/7 conference said about how we can only teach and show and disciple but be willing to let them make mistakes rather than control them so they don't make mistakes.
But I wonder how often to keep church things going we do not let people mature properly, we keep them always having to check things out and if it doesn't fit with what the leader says then they are told either not to do it, or that it wasn't of God, or they didn't hear properly. So that in the end we have a church full of people who do not step out.
Perhaps both with our children and our spiritual children we do need to stand back a bit and be there, as I think often God is, to pick up the pieces. Actually this is interesting that God does not control us, gives us total free will and then Jesus came and died for us to restore us to God, and even when we accept Jesus still we are free to come and go as we want, and yet still God is always there for us - no control and always will to restore us and pick up the pieces.
Saturday 17 October 2009
Learning to walk in the presence of God
I was working on it before the 24-7 conference, the whole thing of being in the Presence of God, but after that weekend I have been more aware of things and, not working harder at it but desiring it more and more.
I am also reading my way through Richard Foster's Celebration on Disciplines which again is all about practically how we can learn to be in the presence of God; spiritual disciplines which help to get us there. Amazing how it is when God brings things together like that :)
One of the big things I've noticed, that helps to cut through the whole procrastinating, is having a desire to be in the presence of God. Its like God honors that desire but also having that desire moves one closer, or to more of an awareness of being in the presence of God.
One of the big things I have noticed is I have gone back to how I was in Ywam days when the things of God would just flow from me. Like I wouldn't have to wonder how to drop God into a conversation I was just hanging out with Him so much that He was a friend I talked about. I have been noticing again that I just drop Him into conversation, not in a "I hope people here this and want to follow Jesus" sort of way but just because I can't help talking about Him or the things we've been up to together. I have even been being able to drop in Bible verses to friends who aren't Christians, again not from a wanting them to know Him place but because what they have emailed me, a quote or something, has triggered in me something God and I have been looking at and so I just share it back, like I would anything I got from one friend to share with another.
It is like God has become more real to me as I have desired more and more to get into that special place with Him
and also as Richard Foster says in the discipline of simplicity that we need to be seeing God, experiencing God in everything, so I have able to see Him today in a guy who was selling his stuff to move to US and to hear his story, a little girl and her dad in the local shop, and in our postman and listening to his story of concerns about this latest postal dispute.
Desiring and working towards being in the Presence of God has really made my world bigger and deeper and richer
I am also reading my way through Richard Foster's Celebration on Disciplines which again is all about practically how we can learn to be in the presence of God; spiritual disciplines which help to get us there. Amazing how it is when God brings things together like that :)
One of the big things I've noticed, that helps to cut through the whole procrastinating, is having a desire to be in the presence of God. Its like God honors that desire but also having that desire moves one closer, or to more of an awareness of being in the presence of God.
One of the big things I have noticed is I have gone back to how I was in Ywam days when the things of God would just flow from me. Like I wouldn't have to wonder how to drop God into a conversation I was just hanging out with Him so much that He was a friend I talked about. I have been noticing again that I just drop Him into conversation, not in a "I hope people here this and want to follow Jesus" sort of way but just because I can't help talking about Him or the things we've been up to together. I have even been being able to drop in Bible verses to friends who aren't Christians, again not from a wanting them to know Him place but because what they have emailed me, a quote or something, has triggered in me something God and I have been looking at and so I just share it back, like I would anything I got from one friend to share with another.
It is like God has become more real to me as I have desired more and more to get into that special place with Him
and also as Richard Foster says in the discipline of simplicity that we need to be seeing God, experiencing God in everything, so I have able to see Him today in a guy who was selling his stuff to move to US and to hear his story, a little girl and her dad in the local shop, and in our postman and listening to his story of concerns about this latest postal dispute.
Desiring and working towards being in the Presence of God has really made my world bigger and deeper and richer
Friday 16 October 2009
Community
I went out last night with some home ed friends and realised that even though these are really lovely friends, some of whom will stand the test of time, I am no longer part of their community. Very much the common theme is home ed. I am no longer part of that. I am part of the teen in college crowd, but there is now crowd for this as it is not meant to be the only thing you do. I know in home ed many of the mums now do other things but very much the focus is home ed. Whereas I do not know any of the other mums who are part of Tabi's class, and would almost be seen as strange if I tried to get in touch with them. It is not done.
Again it is looking though at what makes a community.
At our family prayer time this week Ben was very bold and asked us to prayer about why he feels so compelled to join the Royal Marines, or in fact any other one of the armed forces. Ian, Tabi and I all got that what he wants it a crowd, a brotherhood, who are a team, are working together for the small goal and purpose and will watch each other backs.
To a point this is what we had in the home ed community - working towards a common goal, and even though we were spread across the country, we did watch each others backs. In fact just recently someone has been struck off a home ed e-list for publishing an article in a leading newspaper dissing a certain aspect of home education. It was almost like even if you don't agree you don't publish that. In the public eye you all stick together. I did try to explain this to Ian who, not being part of that community, didn't get it.
So again as I look to find this community and to try to encourage it here where we live by trying to start an e-list based prayer community leading to regular physical prayer events, I need to keep revising what community is. And it seems to be not just friends and liking each other but much more than. It is finding that common goal, being a team and working together, and having a common purpose underlying everything.
Interestingly I think this is why I love the 24-7 community because there is that whole thing of working towards a common goal, and it is not a closed community.
Will keep praying that God can make it work here.
Again it is looking though at what makes a community.
At our family prayer time this week Ben was very bold and asked us to prayer about why he feels so compelled to join the Royal Marines, or in fact any other one of the armed forces. Ian, Tabi and I all got that what he wants it a crowd, a brotherhood, who are a team, are working together for the small goal and purpose and will watch each other backs.
To a point this is what we had in the home ed community - working towards a common goal, and even though we were spread across the country, we did watch each others backs. In fact just recently someone has been struck off a home ed e-list for publishing an article in a leading newspaper dissing a certain aspect of home education. It was almost like even if you don't agree you don't publish that. In the public eye you all stick together. I did try to explain this to Ian who, not being part of that community, didn't get it.
So again as I look to find this community and to try to encourage it here where we live by trying to start an e-list based prayer community leading to regular physical prayer events, I need to keep revising what community is. And it seems to be not just friends and liking each other but much more than. It is finding that common goal, being a team and working together, and having a common purpose underlying everything.
Interestingly I think this is why I love the 24-7 community because there is that whole thing of working towards a common goal, and it is not a closed community.
Will keep praying that God can make it work here.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Woman with the blood
I'm still working through Mark imagining myself into all the stories and today was struck by the way Jesus makes a big thing about the woman with the issue of blood touching Him and then goes on to heal Jaruis' daughter.
We've often hear that Jesus did this so that the woman would know and He could be personal with her. But I think too that He was proving a point. If someone touched a woman during her menstrual cycle, as well as the woman already being unclean, the person who touched her would be unclean too and so not allowed into the temple. And I would presume by not getting into the temple one couldn't be used by God.
So Jesus makes sure everyone knows that He, a rabbi, has been touched by a woman who was bleeding, then He goes on to touch a dead girl and bring her back to life.
Talk about going against so much of the Pharisaical laws. And yet He still says He comes to fulfill the law and not to destroy it!!
We've often hear that Jesus did this so that the woman would know and He could be personal with her. But I think too that He was proving a point. If someone touched a woman during her menstrual cycle, as well as the woman already being unclean, the person who touched her would be unclean too and so not allowed into the temple. And I would presume by not getting into the temple one couldn't be used by God.
So Jesus makes sure everyone knows that He, a rabbi, has been touched by a woman who was bleeding, then He goes on to touch a dead girl and bring her back to life.
Talk about going against so much of the Pharisaical laws. And yet He still says He comes to fulfill the law and not to destroy it!!
Imtimacy
The recurring theme from the weekend, and from so much of what we are hearing outside of the regular church messages, is about intimacy with God, and it is amazing how some people are so scared of this!
There was the challenge of "would you go if all your dreams came true but the presence of God was not with you?" from Pete Greig. And then being reminded by Ian Nicholson about how we need that intimacy with God, that really the only way we can stay in the presence of God is if we stay intimate with Him.
In sharing some of this with other people they have become very anti in their response. It is like this whole thing of just being close to God, rather than doing the stuff, really challenges people.
And it was interesting to see it worked out in some friends of ours with their marriage and how actually their main struggles are just about communicating honestly and trusting each other, both of which really bottom line to being not afraid of being intimate with each other.
Seek 1st the Kingdom of God then all these things will be added to you. When we know God is in charge, when we know that no matter what He wants the best for us, when we know that what He gives us we can hold loosely, then we know we are on the road to putting Him and His Kingdom first, and are learning to walk intimately with Him.
Why the fear in doing that? I wonder if it comes back to that Protestant work ethic and we are afraid that if we don't do then people will think we are struggling with our Christian walk, or whether it is that fear that if we really get into being with God He'll make us change our ways?
There was the challenge of "would you go if all your dreams came true but the presence of God was not with you?" from Pete Greig. And then being reminded by Ian Nicholson about how we need that intimacy with God, that really the only way we can stay in the presence of God is if we stay intimate with Him.
In sharing some of this with other people they have become very anti in their response. It is like this whole thing of just being close to God, rather than doing the stuff, really challenges people.
And it was interesting to see it worked out in some friends of ours with their marriage and how actually their main struggles are just about communicating honestly and trusting each other, both of which really bottom line to being not afraid of being intimate with each other.
Seek 1st the Kingdom of God then all these things will be added to you. When we know God is in charge, when we know that no matter what He wants the best for us, when we know that what He gives us we can hold loosely, then we know we are on the road to putting Him and His Kingdom first, and are learning to walk intimately with Him.
Why the fear in doing that? I wonder if it comes back to that Protestant work ethic and we are afraid that if we don't do then people will think we are struggling with our Christian walk, or whether it is that fear that if we really get into being with God He'll make us change our ways?
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Quick overview of the 24/7 conference
Wow what a great weekend. There is loads I want to say but will go over my notes soon and put some stuff up. The teaching as always was excellent and practical and relevant.
What I love is that there are no heroes in this. One is listening to guys in hoodies who are doing the stuff not just talking about it.
Some of my highlights were when we were in a talk about mentoring and discipling and one of those being discipled had a word and shared it and finished off by saying "and we will pray for you" without talking to the leader. It was just that trust and total outworking of team stuff that really struck me. And also that Tabi got so much from the justice discussion and feels inspired that she isn't the only one who feels that way, and has been offered trips to Romford, UK and Finland to connect with people on a similar journey to her.
As well as great conversations and a great small group leader who really connected us all. And Amsterdam, even though dirtier than I remember, which is happening with lots of the cities I go to with Ian now, still had that charm for me.
And we came back to Ben having a full time job even though it is only temporary,
though how temporary he doesn't know. This came about after he got the verse about "ask, seek and knock" and then went and prayed and asked! (A long week in a family....)
Loads more to follow soon
What I love is that there are no heroes in this. One is listening to guys in hoodies who are doing the stuff not just talking about it.
Some of my highlights were when we were in a talk about mentoring and discipling and one of those being discipled had a word and shared it and finished off by saying "and we will pray for you" without talking to the leader. It was just that trust and total outworking of team stuff that really struck me. And also that Tabi got so much from the justice discussion and feels inspired that she isn't the only one who feels that way, and has been offered trips to Romford, UK and Finland to connect with people on a similar journey to her.
As well as great conversations and a great small group leader who really connected us all. And Amsterdam, even though dirtier than I remember, which is happening with lots of the cities I go to with Ian now, still had that charm for me.
And we came back to Ben having a full time job even though it is only temporary,
though how temporary he doesn't know. This came about after he got the verse about "ask, seek and knock" and then went and prayed and asked! (A long week in a family....)
Loads more to follow soon
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