Thursday, 29 July 2010
?
Identity is found in Christ, this I understand, to an extent at least, I guess you can never really fully understand it. Also to say you're not really sure who you are is an extreme cliché, but what if it's true? It is true! I am so easily influenced, by company, what I've just watched or heard or whatever. I guess everyone is influenced and who you are is a product of what you soak up as you travel through but it's more than that with me. Everyone else seems to have their own unique identifiable personality, mine is non existent. I just seem to adapt to what's around me and if you asked what I actually am, I have no clue. I knew this before but it became so evident to me this evening as I found myself in a room with a group of strong personalities, beautifully strong and to see how they worked together was beautiful but I had no idea how to join in, I'm not even sure "I" exist, if I do I don't know what I am.
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Thorns
Listening is good but I often find G-d speaks to me when I'm not actively trying to hear Him. I love it when His voice catches me by surprise, I love the way He gets my attention.
This morning I went to church for no other reason than the fact that I was playing drums in the band and had to be there. I arrived early and the 9am service was still in process and Joshua was mid sermon. So I took a seat at the back and turned my attention to the splinter I'd been trying to remove from my finger the last few days. "We can not remove the thorns on our own" said Joshua from the front. The relevance of his words to my current activity initially amused me but it then occurred to me that this wasn't mere coincidence but potentially G-d trying to get my attention. So accepting Joshua's suggestion that I was incapable of thorn removal I left the splinter be for the moment and started to listen. He was talking about the parable of the sower and the danger of becoming one of each of the types of soil that didn't let the word of G-d take root. I thought about the thorns that were growing in my life, strangling my growth in G-d, strangling His word in my heart. For a long time I'd been waging war on these and too very little, if any at all, avail. Those habits I just can't break, those feelings I just can't let go of or those inadequacies that reveal themselves day after day, they just won't budge no matter how hard I try.
Joshua suggested that these thorns be taken to G-d laid at His feet and that we trust Him to remove them, not that discipline or effort is a bad thing but that it has to start with Him and be done through His strength. This wasn't anything I didn't already know in a way or hadn't heard before, but there was something about the way G-d said it through Joshua, the way He spoke it right in to my heart, that just made it so real to me.
On the bus home the book I'm currently reading was talking about how G-d isn't keeping score and yet we still try to score high. Truth is I've already got top marks in life, not because of anything I've done but because of what He did on the cross. I just need to live in the truth and freedom of that, taking the thorns that root themselves in my heart to His feet and letting Him change me.
G-d is good.
Shalom
This morning I went to church for no other reason than the fact that I was playing drums in the band and had to be there. I arrived early and the 9am service was still in process and Joshua was mid sermon. So I took a seat at the back and turned my attention to the splinter I'd been trying to remove from my finger the last few days. "We can not remove the thorns on our own" said Joshua from the front. The relevance of his words to my current activity initially amused me but it then occurred to me that this wasn't mere coincidence but potentially G-d trying to get my attention. So accepting Joshua's suggestion that I was incapable of thorn removal I left the splinter be for the moment and started to listen. He was talking about the parable of the sower and the danger of becoming one of each of the types of soil that didn't let the word of G-d take root. I thought about the thorns that were growing in my life, strangling my growth in G-d, strangling His word in my heart. For a long time I'd been waging war on these and too very little, if any at all, avail. Those habits I just can't break, those feelings I just can't let go of or those inadequacies that reveal themselves day after day, they just won't budge no matter how hard I try.
Joshua suggested that these thorns be taken to G-d laid at His feet and that we trust Him to remove them, not that discipline or effort is a bad thing but that it has to start with Him and be done through His strength. This wasn't anything I didn't already know in a way or hadn't heard before, but there was something about the way G-d said it through Joshua, the way He spoke it right in to my heart, that just made it so real to me.
On the bus home the book I'm currently reading was talking about how G-d isn't keeping score and yet we still try to score high. Truth is I've already got top marks in life, not because of anything I've done but because of what He did on the cross. I just need to live in the truth and freedom of that, taking the thorns that root themselves in my heart to His feet and letting Him change me.
G-d is good.
Shalom
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