This morning at my church it was all-age worship; a service where the children stay in for the whole service and which is supposed to be accesible to all ages - certainly no easy task! Anyway, this morning our local preacher engaged the kids (and to be honest all of us!) in 'Godly play' (I might talk more about this in another post, as it intrigues me, but if you want to know more about it now, there's a good, brief article here!)
So early on in the service, she had the children up at the front in two teams; one team building a lego house on a brick/stone foundation, and the other building on sand. Then after they'd finished, she came out with a big watering can; and it rained, and the water rose up, and - as I'm sure you can expect - the house on the bricks stood firm, while the house on the sand (with a little help from one of the boys who'd clearly heard this story before!) fell down as it began to stand in a swimming pool of gloopy, slippy sand. But it was what she said in explaining it that struck me - "Sometimes, it's not what we build with, or the ideas we have, but the foundation we're building on which is important." Now I've heard this parable a million times in both church and a Christian home growing up, but these last couple of weeks I've been beginning to look to the year ahead and praying desperately that God would give me new ideas of how to live out his calling on my life in the slightly different setting I'm going to be in (HAVING FINISHED MY DEGREE!!!). And when the preacher said those words, I just felt like God was challenging me > Why was I so worried about what I was going to be building with? I can trust that over to him. I should concern myself with what I'm building ON. Later, the preacher talked about looking at a big, tall tree. It stretches up to the sky; it's strong; it has beautiful flowers and nourishing fruit; its branches spread far and wide. But what we don't see is the deep, wide roots - that's where the strength is, holding all of that tree where it is, through the wind and the rain and the people (like me!) who want to clamber all over it! And it's the same with a tall building. We see its solidity; its constancy; particularly with some of the college buildings here in Cambridge, its majesty - but we don't see those deep and firm foundations beneath, holding it all in place. She left us with these questions:
I'm also currently learning a sharp lesson on control. On giving that control over to God and actually allowing him to take it - something I struggle with SO MUCH. But I feel him promising me; that as I depend more on him - as I allow him to be the roots and the foundation on which I stand and act - he will bring fruit to blossom and he will give me strength to move forward. As I dig deeper into him, and give over every part of my life to him, I can only come to depend on him. For it is when I discover how huge and wonderful he is, and how magnificent and beautiful his plan is for me, that I realise I truly cannot do it in my own strength, but on the firm foundation of his true power. So where does your worrying and the source of your comfort lie? What are YOU building on?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Like the Facebook page to keep up-to-date with blog posts!
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!
Categories
All
Archives
April 2020
|