Wednesday 4 February 2015

Take It Over The Top

Confession: What you are about to read, if you chose to continue reading, is not an exegetical commentary, it is a spiritual interpretation, if you can even call it that, really it’s just something that came to my mind this morning in reflecting on the passage, so take it or leave it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

A couple days ago I rediscovered my pencil crayons and doodle pad, so I’ve been doing some doodling during my still times in the mornings with Jesus. This morning I asked Jesus to give me an image to draw. What came into my minds eye was a picture of a glass over flowing. As I began to draw, the liquid overflowing was wine, but the liquid being poured into the glass was water. As my good friend Corine often says, “fishy!” As I coloured (oh what a pleasure it is to colour, so relaxing, you should try it!) the obvious Bible story came to my mind, you know the one where Jesus turns water into wine (John 2:1-11)? OK interesting, I continued colouring reflecting on the story, then I put down the blue pencil crayon and picked up a green and started writing…

God takes that which is ordinary and makes it extraordinary, and brings it to overflowing! Because it is his good pleasure to bless the world. We just have to be open to his Spirits move in our lives, in the world, and ask! We just have to ask God to move, ask him to take the ordinary, and even the loss then great in out lives and make it extraordinary, and cause it to overflow! And he will, because he wants to! As God cause our lives to overflow with his blessings, we will have the good pleasure of participating in blessing all around us! Because you see this is the thing, we are never blessed for our sake and our sake alone, but we are blessed to be a blessing (Genesis 12:2-3, Luke 12:48, James 1: 17-18, 2 Corinthians 9:8-10, Philippians 2:12-18, 2 Peter 1:3-4, 2 Corinthians 12:9, John 16:7, Luke 11:13, 1 John 5:13-15, John 14:13 ). 

What ordinary in your life can you ask God to make extraordinary and to overflow for the blessings of all around you? Now this is not just meaning material blessings, though it can, I also mean emotional, mental, spiritual blessings. Do you love to host people? Ask God to take this gift and push it into the radical, the extraordinary! Do you have a gift for science? Ask God to take your mind for science and take it to the next level! Do you have a solid loving family, or a great group of friends? Ask God to take your gift of family and extended it out to welcome those who are lonely and in need of love! You see that which we might take for granted, or overlook, can all be made extraordinary in God’s hands, to reach out into the broken world and bless it, according to His mission to love the world to himself! Amen!

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Story

Yo! This is going to be a real short little thought, for real, I know I've said that before! haha

OK so I was reading Psalm 112 this morning (after being encouraged by Eugene Peterson (via reading his book) yesterday on the importance of praying the Psalms, he's got some really great stuff on the Psalms and prayer, really great stuff!). Anyhow, so I was reading/praying Psalm 112, and the verse that stuck to me was: 

He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.

When I say it stuck to me, I mean it keep rolling around in my head, even after I had moved on, so I went back to it and chewed on it for a bit.

I already posted this on Facebook so if you are my friend you may have read this already:

I think of how often when I receive bad news or at least things don't go the way I want to I am troubled and worried, this is a great reminder that I don't not need to be afraid or worried because my Father is the God of the universe and he has my back! Now that's some good news, don't you think?

After posting, I asked myself, "self what are you afraid of?" And the answer came quickly and quite expected, "being alone." I know this is a great fear of mine, and I have blogged on it before. God's truth flooded my mind and heart just as quickly as the lie did, "I will never ever be alone, EVER!" 

Then I thought why should we trust the Lord? I mean it says in that he is not afraid because his heart is firm trusting in the Lord, but why? Why should we trust the Psalmist? I don't know the guy, for all I know he is a crazy man who talks to inanimate objects!

The answer that came to my heart was, we trust the Lord because he has proven himself faithful over and over again.

I thought yes, that is true, I don't have to take the Psalmist's word for it, I have my own proof that God is to be firmly trusted. Do you?

This is why it is so important to remember, to remember how God has been faithful to us. We remember together, we remind each other of God's faithfulness through testimony. 

This got me thinking of my dear friend Sue (not that she necessarily agrees with anything I am saying, it's just that her smiling face and laughter filled my heart), and story, the importance of story, what kind of stories are we sharing, what kind of stories are we listening to? 

The stories we fill our lives with matter. They don't have to necessarily be explicit Bible stories, but are they stories that tell of truth? Or are they stories that fill our minds and hearts with lies? This is why it matters what we read, what we watch, and what we listen to, we are being told stories all the time, all around us, we need to be discerning about what stories we let penetrate and take up residence in our hearts and minds, because stories shape us, they impact how we interact with God, with ourselves, and with others. 

I would love to continue on but I said this would be short! haha

What stories are you listening to? How are they shaping you? Quick example, watching Romcoms tend to fill my heart and mind with falls exceptions of relationships, and what life is all about. A better story for me to fill my heart with is about women and men who have lived lives fighting for social justice. That's just one example. 

Go ahead be honest with yourself, ask God to search your heart, to know your ways and to lead you in the way everlasting. (Ps. 139:23)