I've been following All We Can's Lent booklet, All Together for Justice which takes inspiration from words attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can." Nearing the end, the booklet has reached a focus on that last phrase: As long as ever you can. And one line in particular jumps out at me from today's page: "Our life, for as long as we have it, is at its most fulfilled when it is full of love." Our life. For as long as we have it. Is at its most fulfilled, when it is full of love. "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us" (Ephesians 5.1-2a). I often find myself wondering about the future. About how I'm going to follow God; how I'm going to live my life fully for him, as it says above, doing all the good I can, in all the places I can, in all the ways I can, so on. How I'm going to live a meaningful life, or make a difference, or achieve something that when I'm old I can look back on and, I guess, be proud of. But that's not where my fulfillment will come from; there will always be more I could've achieved, a bigger and better name I could've been in a bigger and wider circle. Christ asks his followers to love as he loved; to walk in love. And when I look back on the experiences I've been able to have, it is those times when I have managed to love other people, when I felt most alive.
Earlier this week I received acceptance to start pre-ordination training for the Methodist Church this coming September! For the last couple of weeks (with the final interview and then a week of waiting for the response!), as it all became more concrete, and as the interview panel at the final interview focused, rightly, on all the aspects that still scared me about becoming a minister, I grew terrified that they'd say yes! I started wondering about what it would be like, whether I could even do it - I still feel so small and so young and so not ready! - whether I could still follow God while doing it or whether it would wear me down and tire me out and take away my freedom to adventure with God wherever! Whether it would be the very best way that I could live out my life fulfilled in God. But I'd forgotten the bigger picture. I know that wherever I am, whatever role I'm playing, whatever job I have or that needs doing, I am called to love; to walk in love. And in doing that, I find the life that springs forth from Jesus Christ. I am the woman at the well, and Jesus offers me his water to drink; Living Water, so I shall never thirst again. Abundant life. To love and to follow is my future; everything else just happens around that. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3.17) I am made free in giving my life to serve the Lord; I do not worry about how I will do it, but concern myself to love however and whoever and wherever I can; it is God who will fill my life.
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Thinking on the Lord's Prayer in Luke (Luke 11.1-13) |
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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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