A God I don’t fully trust
When I lack strength, self will and control. The urge to do right has left me and desire to love doesn't come easily. Once the stuffing has been squeezed from my seams and I'm flat on the floor, does God still care?
It is really easy too feel passionate and enthusiastic in youth. Read a book that makes you think you can change the world. Go to a concert and feel like the country could be different. Throw the bottle away and never leap to the bottom again. For a few weeks it will last. Be assured, boycotting and writing letters can be fun and lobbying parlament is a rush. One can even change the parts which sit in shadowed shame. For a season. Yet the endeavours began in faith fall short. Passion burns to apathy and anger. Goodness is suffocated by sickening sins. As for righteousness? Robbed by so many defeats.
The summer time is usually a significant time for Christian young people. Summer camps and events ignite these kid's hearts to the things of the Lord, to transform reality. Conferences that say there is no Trans-National so big that it can't be reached by the cries of the poor. Speakers who like to stand on platforms and say that a life lived in the light of God will count for something.
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- Ode to Christchurch or my first sermon online
- He who has ears
- Sovereign over suffering
- Treasuring Jesus over sin
Treasuring Jesus over sin
I really want to sin.
No, I don't want to go out and shoot a person in the face or rob the last pennies from some poor old dear or even take advantage of the low prices abusive labour practices can provide.
But there's still plenty of bad things I still really would like to do. I mean I love that liberating feeling you get when you let all that venom you have stored up over a certain person come spewing out in a public place. Laughing and connecting with people often involves making crude jokes for a cheap laugh. Small price to pay for friendship, right? If we spend all night drinking, it's not a big deal because at least we're going to be friends!
Maybe if I get a girlfriend, I'd want to sleep with her under the guise of 'we're going to get married anyway'? Probably. Maybe. And I don't need to care about that friend who's life is falling to bits, because I've clearly got enough on my own plate without someones drug habit or drinking problem adding to the pile, you know?
Taking the time out to connect with God is always a struggle. It's not like I don't know the peace and joy and comfort available to me. It's not like I don't know that hearing from God will be to me the sweetest sound, the words of life. But I still don't want to do it.
I really want to sin. To separate myself from God and to dishonour his creation and to hurt my neighbour. The worst part is that I am very aware of the harm sin causes.
But that doesn't stop it's power.
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Learning how to die #4
Realising that I am wholly inadequate in obeying God is a very important step to being reconciled to him. I think it is wonderful grace that his arms are open for those who would seek him, however incompetent we may prove ourselves to be. The fact that I find it terribly difficult to love others, and so fulfil the law of God, is no barrier between him and me, between him and us.
In fact, on this particular exploration of discipleship I have noticed that failure serves to drive me further toward's God. In failing, I recognise that I am not all powerful and in my mind, at least, Christ is magnified since he was able to do what I cannot do when he lived here in flesh. Perhaps this is evidence that God, by his Spirit, has my conscience captivated to regard him above everything else.
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How Majestic Your Name
Sadly I can't see the moon from my current position, without straining to look around.
I think the night sky can unite many of us, throughout the ages and across the world people have looked up, out and encountered something far bigger and outside of themselves
.
Work ceases in the dark. Tending of fields and growing of crops can't be done at night. This is animportant fact, if you are living in the ancient near east, where crop growing is one of the central activities of your countries economy.
Funnily enough, not a lot has changed. Most work still occurs in the daytime, when the sun rules the sky and its brightness and warmth permits life to carry on.
One of the great kings of the ancient near east, called David, wrote on the night sky. His words carry weight for me tonight.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
The eighth Psalm is a wonderful one. The night sky, for this song writer, reminds him that God's concern for his people extends into the night time. When working ceases and we must surrender our bodies to sleep, God has set the moon and stars in the sky to watch over us. When we are busy resting, God is still at work.
What grace! What astonishing love and care! God who is above and outside of our world still cares for it, when we surrender our control and our activity.
This was the perplexity of the king. It's amazing to think that God would hold man in his hands
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
Whilst we have been given great responsibility over creation, there comes a point where we must surrender that control, as we rest and sleep.
I want to remember this year, a new school year, that God is mindful of me, even when I am mindful of... well nothing at all. I don't need to be strong, wise or great for God to be mindful of me. What a relief!
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
God I seek the peace that comes from knowing where I stand
That comes from knowing that I am a limited being, that I don't have all the power
Or all the wisdom
Or all the glory
For these are yours, and they are gifts bestowed upon fragile human frames
God remember me, be mindful of me when I cease to be mindful of anything at all
For your name is majestic in all the earth
Amen
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