I have had times in my life where I have struggled to find time to think. When the busyness of all that must be accomplished, the tiredness that accompanies such doing, and the mental exhaustion that follows seems to suck away all possibility of thought, much less deep thought. And I find that the time that I spend with God is more hurried and as a consequence, he appears more distant.
Continue reading “The good that lies before us”The gift of beginnings
I love the start of things. I love the promise of what is yet to be. The seemingly endless possibilities. Whether it be in the empty notebook that I pick up, the blank canvas set before me, an empty garden bed prepared but unplanted, a handful of seeds, or, far more significantly, the birth of a baby.
Continue reading “The gift of beginnings”In the times when God seems far away
This past week I have thinking about times when God seems far away. How often we hear, and perhaps speak, the language of distance when we are discussing God and our relationship, or lack of relationship, with him. We speak of God as far away. As removed. We talk about prayer going nowhere, of our words reverberating around our room but never reaching the ears of God. God is remote. Disinterested. Busy. Busy with anything, everything.
Continue reading “In the times when God seems far away”Where is Jesus to be found?
We often talk about seeking God, and of finding him. Of searching for him, and of longing for him. Oh, how I long to find him, to see him, to touch him. I long for the day that I will see him face to face. (See the end of this post for a list of our previous posts that have touched on this topic). Oddly enough, though, in the context of those thoughts, I have not often given much consideration to the following verses. But over the past few days, these are the words I have been pondering. These words of Jesus have echoed in my heart and reverberated in my mind.
Continue reading “Where is Jesus to be found?”Hearing God part 3 – Hope for those who don’t
I was in conversation with someone recently, and they spoke to me about how they have never heard from God. They said that they have tried. That they have sought to listen, and they have asked God to speak, but they do not hear anything. They told me how they longed to hear from God in the way so many others seem to, and yet that has not been their experience. And I said that I understood. For I too was once in that place.
Continue reading “Hearing God part 3 – Hope for those who don’t”The gift of a creative 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”The invitation of Jesus
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”Worry or Trust – which will I choose?
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?”Why is it so hard to accept that God loves us?
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?”Lament: an invitation
In these times of the coronavirus crisis, I’m finding myself drawn to the practice of lament.
A lament is a passionate expression of grief, often in a creative form, like a poem or song. It is an honest, unfiltered, intense offering of hard, painful thought and emotion to God. It is clearly something that a reader of the Bible like myself should be no stranger to. After all, the whole book of Lamentations is a series of laments about the destruction of Jerusalem. It is estimated that two thirds of the Psalms are laments.
Continue reading “Lament: an invitation”