= No Sabemos el Futuro
This week has been spectacularly busy so far; with only 1 week left of term now, there is just SO MUCH to do and so little time to do it in! But I was very lucky this week as I managed to get away from it all for a day! :-D Last Friday I got ready to go off to my Hebrew class as usual; only difference was that this time, I was taking with me a guitar and a big camping rucksack with things for that day and the next (yes, a one night trip for me requires a big camping rucksack as my light-packing skills are virtually zero!)! And straight after my class I headed to the train station to go to London where I was staying with a lady I met on my trip in the DR so we could both go to the debrief day together on the Saturday. Anyway, at this debrief day, we knew we were going to be presenting something from our trip back to the other people who had been to the DR over the year and also people who had been on Moldova teams as well. And me and this friend of mine sat there after a beautiful dinner she cooked me, looking at a single PowerPoint slide saying "DR Debrief Day: Team 7" and thought "AHHH! We should probably do a little more than that!" Luckily, I had preached recently and had talked about the trip in the DR and though the demonstration I had done in the church had been in a completely different context and with a completely different stress, it was also highly relevant here, so I wanted to share it with you all: Basically, 1 person held a small foam ball and the other had to get it from then. But the "get-er" was blind-folded, so I was going to be telling her how to get it. Only I was blind-folded as well. So we proceed, and I, unhelpfully, interject at random moments saying, "Take it... Take it now. Reach out... now? Have you got it?" And so on. Unsurprisingly the "get-er" does not get. At which point we pause. Sometimes we feel as though God is blindfolded and is randomly telling us to do something but can't even see what he's telling us to do. At least that's how it feels. I used the example of Moses' intercession in Exodus 33.12-23, where he basically says, "Lord, you've told me to do this, but you haven't told me how! What am I supposed to do? Have you evenseen what you're telling me to do? THIS IS PHAROAH!!! I need more, Lord. Please." And so often, we too feel like this when God calls us to something. We like, I need more than that. Over my time in the DR (and previously but less continuously), where I had lots of extra time to spend with God, I really felt God telling me I would end up working for the church. Immediately, I'm thinking 'What? Where? How? WHY?' We feel like God is blindfolded, telling us to do random things. So we carried on our demonstration, this time I took the blindfold off. But I didn't tell the "get-er" any more information, but when I told her to "take it", I took the ball from the "holder" myself and placed it in the hands of the "get-er". And in the Moses reading, God doesn't tell Moses any more details about what he wants him to do; he doesn't give him the blueprints or the plan of how it's all going to work out. But what God does do is to show himself to Moses. He tells him to go stand in a crevice in a rock, and as God passes by he will cover Moses with his hand so he can't see him, but as he leaves, he will permit Moses to see his back. He gives Moses himself; and he gives him the confidence to be able to take that next step, knowing that God is there with him as he does. And that's the thing that struck both me and my friend when we came back from our trip in the DR; what next? And we're both the sorts of people who are control freaks and always want everything to be planned out to the letter. I want to know what I'm doing now, how that will lead to the next step and so on. But God doesn't give us detailed plans. And if he did, we would probably run away. Claire, the lady who works for Mission Direct and led our team in the DR told us that if she had known when she went on that first 2-week mission trip that she'd end up out there for 4 years, she never would have gone on it (she wrote a post on it today actually on her blog, with many thought-provoking ideas worth checking out, including this one!). But God doesn't leave us in a position of want and/or need. He gives us what we need to take the next step. He showed Moses himself, giving him confidence in God's presence with him. In the demonstration, I gave the "get-er" the ball - I didn't tell them how to get it, I didn't tell them how they should take it, or why I even wanted them to have it. I placed it in their hands. Just as God places the opportunity for us to take the next step in our hands too. He places what we need into our hands and with his hands he holds us safe throughout.
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= Para Deleitarse en el Señor This morning I was reminded of a plan I had for this term - I'd decided I needed a particular focus for my spiritual journey with God, and that this term, I would focus on delighting in the Lord. The way I figured, it's just like rowing; you can only actually remember one thing at one time, so you focus on them all independently, until they all come so naturally that you can do them all together. Life is a lot like this - we have to develop skills individually, and only then can we make sure they work altogether. Well anyway, this morning we had the College CU prayer breakfast. We basically turn up on a Friday morning, somebody sorts breakfast for that week, somebody else a thought and we spend some time praying together generally and then sharing what in our lives we'd like others to share praying for; ourselves, friends, good things, bad things, etc. This morning, the thought shared was a section from a book called Incomparable by Andrew Wilson (which I have just ordered from Amazon to read over Christmas!), which was looking at Revelation 1.14-17. And it was talking about how if you ask a 3-year-old child to draw a picture of their Dad, they will draw a picture which is much more simplified, contains misunderstandings, has parts missing (it was always necks and ears that I forgot as a child!), is 2D, etc. And often, when we're asked to paint a picture of who Jesus is, we too tend to give an over-simplified version, one with misunderstandings and parts missing. We sometimes picture the baby in the manger (particularly THIS CLOSE to CHRISTMAS!!!), or the teacher on the Mount preaching to crowds of people, or the sorrowful face looking down from the cross. But Wilson points out; if we asked John, one of Jesus' closest friends who ate with him, rested with him, saw him in all his humanity - he paints us this picture. A man who's "face was like the sun shining with full force". The sun that is SO MUCH bigger than us; gives out SO MUCH more energy in each and every second than humans have made in the history of humanity; and that brings life where earth is cold and barren. And yet Jesus is even bigger than that, and gives out more energy than that, and brings more life than that. And this reminded me; how can I NOT delight in the Lord. So I've been feeling ill, and I have loads of work to do, and I am exhausted - but even just Jesus' face, shines like the sun with full force; in ALL its brilliance. In that I gain perspective; in that I gain energy; in that I gain renewed life - and in this I do delight. |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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