This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. The day when the global church remembers the gift of the Holy Spirit, given to us, poured out upon the people of God. And what a gift! A gift, unlike any other.
All this is true… and yet. I grew up afraid of the Holy Spirit.
Continue reading “The dwelling place of God”It seems to me odd that Christians are often labelled as boring. That our lives could be thought of as dull and uninteresting. Shouldn’t the opposite be true?
In my last post, I mentioned the well that we are invited to dive into when Jesus calls us to follow him, and then again day by day, as he beckons us onward and upwards in our discipleship. There are many words I could use to describe such a life. However, boring is not one of them.
But do we appear boring? Are we? Sometimes?
Continue reading “The gift of a creative God”I wonder if often we distil our relationship with God into a transactional relationship? If we develop a formula for the spiritual life? We listen to God, we read our Bible, and we do what he says. But is there a danger in such thinking? We can come to understand God as a slot machine – I ask him for something, he gives me an answer; I listen to him, he tells me what to do – and we can forget that there is more. God is not looking for robots who simply do his will. He wants children.
Continue reading “Is there a formula for the spiritual life?”For much of my life, I have felt the compulsion, and the longing, to do stuff for God. But I have also struggled with the profound sense that what I do is not enough. Indeed, the Bible is filled with passages about fruitfulness, and good trees bearing good fruit. How am I to be a good tree? If a tree is known by its fruit then I better produce good fruit, but how do I to do that? And what kind of fruit is good fruit anyway? The only way I have been able to reconcile such thoughts is to do, and to do, and to do. To do something, anything, for God. But how do I know I am doing it for him? After all, what makes an action a God-centred action rather than just a me-centred action?
Continue reading “Fruitfulness? Significance? Where do I set my sights?”For as long as I can remember the most fundamental thing I’ve known about reality is that there is an all-powerful, all-loving God who is attentive to us and present in all. This is the bedrock truth influencing and overshadowing everything else.
But, for me, this awareness about God has been partnered with an enduring frustration. Why can’t I retain awareness of God and God’s presence as I live through my life each day? If God holds this prime position in reality, then shouldn’t this colour everything? Yet, much of the time, how I experience the world – what draws and retains my attention, where my thoughts dwell, how my feelings are influenced, the sensations in my body – seems disconnected from that fundamental truth.
Continue reading “The hope of the practice of the presence of God”There is a cry repeated throughout scripture and one that is voiced numerous times by the Son of God himself. Jesus says,
“Come to me.”
Here are just a few instances where this is found in the Bible: Isaiah 55:1-3, Matthew 11:28-30, numerous verses in John 6, Revelation 22:17.
I wonder if often we, myself included, fail to do just this. It is as if we are happy to do things for God, to talk about “God stuff”, to read books about God, to sing and listen to songs about God, to even speak to God. But do we take the time to actually come to him? What would that look like if we did and how would it be different? And what does this mean in practice?
Continue reading “The invitation of Jesus”When I was younger, I was terribly frustrated that the Bible didn’t give a blueprint for how to hear God. For it doesn’t. I expressed my frustration to a wise person that I know (also known as my Dad). He said to me that the reason God doesn’t do this is that he speaks in an infinite variety of ways. And he speaks to each person differently. If the Bible told us one way we would all be looking for that one way, instead we have to learn, to seek, and to find. Instead, we each get to go on the incredible adventure of discovering how God speaks to us.
Continue reading “Hearing God part 2 – How does God speak?”Fear, worry, anxiety – these are common feeding grounds for many of us. This is where we spend much of our time and much of our mental capacities. But as a follower of Christ, we know that we should be different. If you have followed Jesus for any length of time, I am sure you have heard something to the effect, “don’t worry, you just need to trust God”. But, in my experience, that “just” is far easier to say than to do.
The Bible is full of verses about fear, anxiety and worry. From the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, we hear the call to not be afraid. This is both comforting and confronting. We can find solace in the fact that worry, fear and anxiety are not new to us, not problems rooted in our day. Instead, they are as old as time itself, or at least as old as the first humans that walked on this planet. It seems that human beings have always walked in fear. But, the resounding cry of the Bible is that the people of God are to be different. That we are a people set apart and marked by peace and trust.
Continue reading “Worry or Trust – which will I choose?”Just the other day I stood before my kitchen calendar to count the number of days since the coronavirus lockdown began. When that number turned out to be 40, something (God I hope) caught my attention.
Continue reading “Lent 2020 v2.0: How coronavirus has rebooted and upgraded my Lent practice this year”In Christian circles, we are often bombarded with the words “God loves you”, we hear them in our churches, small groups, Christian books, and in song, both those that we listen to and the ones we sing in church. But, there seems to be a problem, a significant disconnect, between hearing these words and coming to embrace them as words that depict our personal experience. That, indeed, has been my journey.
Perhaps you have never struggled with this concept at all, that is wonderful, may you be profoundly and abundantly blessed in every way, feel free to read no further. But if you have, I hope that the following may be of some service to you.
Continue reading “Why is it so hard to accept that God loves us?”