for those who don't want to just wait it out

like the song says this is a blog for someone who wants to say something (anything) and who's happy to wait and see what time will bring...

Friday, October 24, 2008

Wanted - A life less ordinary (part two... somewhere down the road on the quest)

Have you ever noticed, that in times when you perhaps have the most to say - be they questions, exclamations, desires or whatever - that this is often the time when you least have the words to help you express yourself? Proverbs 17:28 tells us that
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue
and since I have had much cause to pray for wisdom in the last few months, silence seemed like the best solution so that my troubles or questions didn't invade this blog, or other people too much.

Just to give you a quick summary the last few months have been mmm.... interesting/challenging/confronting/exhausting (take your pick really) with some of the harder moments seeing people I love either getting very sick or dying (most notably for anyone whose been around for a while was my much loved Pop/Grandfather) or the painful question of thinking through where my ministry has value and to who it should/could impact. Considering all of these things came in the space of about 6 weeks... lets just say I needed a lot of time to process especially in light of our time in the Gulf. All I'm going to say is that God has brought me through it - and like other times of massive testing He has refined me and so I'm thankful.

So - why blog again now? Well, it's because the other night at the Passion event I realised that I still have the same questions, and am on the same quest as the last post - a life less ordinary... so I thought I'd share - oh, that and there has still been the odd pesterer :)

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that I live a particularly ordinary life - but I also wouldn't be calling it extraordinary at the moment. Perhaps because I, like so many other Christians, can get set in the comfortable mediocrity that the world wants us to settle for. Time dulls the glow of passion and little by little extinguishes the flame of a Spirit that wants to burn so brightly that it is a beacon, to a city on a hill for any who would seek refuge...

So here is the question that I've been asking a number of people lately - what do you/must you change in your life, today, to make tomorrow extraordinary for Jesus? For me, I think the biggest ones would be bold prayers (knowing that God actually wants to say 'yes!' to the ones that will bring Him glory and make me holy as He wants me to be) and working out ways to keep investing in people where they're at (whether they're Christians or not) so that I can be genuinely and consistently loving them.

In the last 24hrs I have had a couple of amazing conversation with some wonderful women. Asking, and challenging each other as to why we don't spend more time talking about Jesus - reminding each other that the bible says, very clearly, that we are to spur one another on to love and goods deeds... doesn't this by implication command us to actually be speaking to each other about the one who makes this possible?

At Credo we've been studying the book of Hebrews for this semester and through it all I've been reminding our student leaders of the same simple, beautiful sentence that my youth group bible study leader told me sums up this book: Jesus is better, so don't give up! It's been great to read through with students (and our CCSI bible-study for that matter) and remember that when things get hard, and we get tempted to forget the truth, or go down the past of least resistance... Jesus is still, and will always be, better than anything we could ever imagine or settle for.

Ok - that's enough of a start back. I'm off to indulge in two of my loves, friends and food

Bisous