… Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
1 Corinthians 8:1b
The above was part of the reading from Evening Prayer tonight. I was so struck by it. I like Paul’s theme of “building up” and that, I think, should be the major image that the church uses for ministry and mission. My call in Jesus is always to “build up” – to call myself and others to transcendence. And that is what love does!! So what motivates me is love and what I do is build up.
I am looking forward to watching The Chosen as a church community. It will be good for us to get together and watch this incredible series.
I think one of the things modern Christians struggle with is that we have made sin an action so holiness has become an action also. We have wholeheartedly adopted a juridicial image of justification and elevated the “Jesus for me” to be the only image that we proclaim.
Therefore, sin is things I do wrong and holiness is things I do right. While I agree that faith needs to lead to a life of following Jesus, it is Jesus in me (the relationship and intimacy between Jesus and the individual) which brings holiness. Holiness is abiding in Jesus, remaining in His love, and the intimacy between Jesus and the Father. It is less about looking backwards (to what I have done wrong) to looking forwards (to Jesus as the final end of my life).
Jesus does not want perfection, He wants my heart!
I just wanted to share the above from Instagram. I really identify with it and I have struggled with being a male who feels things deeply and often, in last three months, has cried. In fact, I cannot recall a day when I have not cried in the last three months.
Now the real insight for me is that I can see the above as a negative. But it is only negative if I force myself into an image of maleness that is given to me by others. All of the above is a positive. Yes, I feel things deeply and I cry. That just makes me human. And some of the gifts that brings to others is a huge positive in my life and in other people’s lives.
I like the above quote because I have moved from seeing it all as a disease that needs to be removed to a gift that needs to be celebrated. Yes, I struggle and I am not like most males or people. But the gifts that being a sensitive male brings much outweighs the negatives and struggles.
I pray you have Jesus filled day!
“The thoughts you think are not a waste of time”. I have often been struck by that line.
I live in my head and often feel life has passed me by. But my thinking has benefited me and others. I am constantly amazed that I make any sense at all because in my head is a crowd of voices arguing and yelling. And, maybe following on from the previous post, that is my vocation – to think with Jesus?! Or, as Paul says, I think “so that the church may be built up”.
I have had somewhat of a hard start to the day but it has improved. A very encouraging message from one of the clergy of the parish has helped. I should not be amazed but I am still struck by how Jesus speaks to me through people at the most appropriate time. And I am always struck by how Jesus moves people and how people who have nothing in common except Jesus gather and support each other. So I am extremely thankful for that today!
I will face tomorrow with Jesus. Every day is a gift, but like Tony Soprano says, “does it have to be a pair of socks?”. I will keep going, I will use my gifts for the “upbuilding of the people of God”, and I will be open to Jesus in whatever way He choses to use me.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.5 But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
The first psalm at Evening Prayer was Psalm 13. I thought I would share as it really spoke to me tonight. My life gives context to the words of the psalm. My disappointments and pains is what the psalm is all about – it speaks for me to God. And it speaks for God to me.
I was thinking about how quickly things change in life. Not always in a bad way but for me it appears to always be bad at the moment. When I feel I have reached some form of balance, something happens and I am back at the start. Yes, I am back at the start with new skills and more life experience. But I am back at the start. And it is exhausting!
So the above quote from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came to mind. Yes just stop! Stop and look around. I feel like everything is rushing past me at the moment, like I am missing life itself.
I try to find Jesus in the darkness – allow Him to carry me. So there is that!
I wanted to share this quote from Meister Eckhart. It illustrates the paradox and irony of Christian life. In the darkness we find light. For someone who has struggled with “the darkness” for many years, some in silence, it is an insight that is worth considering. When God seems war away, He is so only because He is so close that I cannot see Him.
I think the mystics have a lot to say to us. Modern mystics like Thomas Merton, who is able to share his experience of the Divine, are worth the effort. These mystics sometimes speak in parables and images that are hard for the modern mind to comprehend. And that is the point: it is not for comprehending but for experiencing. These writings do not exist without my response to them: to enter into the experience of Jesus. In that sense they are akin to the Scriptures of the Christian tradition.
So the challenge for me is twofold: to experience Jesus in the darkness, and read more mystics.
A lovely person emailed me this video today. I have been thinking of Ignatius’ Surrender Prayer recently. I have been trying to consecrate the day to Jesus before I get up – a sort of spiritual wake-up call. And I have been wondering whether I should use my own words or something like the prayer above. I am not against either option – I am formed in a liturgical form of Anglicanism and that is my natural home, and I have no problems with using tears to pray.
The video is a little on the long side but it is worth watching. Even only for the first 6 minutes or so.
Maybe you have a Jesus filled day!!!
I am not normally a selfie-type of person. But this afternoon I was sitting outside, after saying Evening Prayer, and took one. What ya think?
I have had a sleep in. The first in many months. Youth last night was great – magnificent kids, good food, and some very inspiring discussion around the theme of God’s Kingdom. I got to tell a Kierkegaard inspired story about the incarnation – the king and the servant!
I feel life is improving. The help I have received, and continue to receive, from people of faith has been so inspiring. The example of what it means to follow Jesus is the most helpful – to model for me what it means to live for Jesus alone. I have had opportunity to use my gifts within the faith community and that has been extremely helpful and healing for me.
I see when I cycle downward and I have learned to pull myself through it. I have learned to “let it pass through me” as my counsellor would say. I have learned to cry and to talk about my feelings on a completely different level. I am a very different person to who I was three months ago.
Of course, my anxiety is saying, “just wait!”. But I feel that even with the problems that life will throw at me, I have learned to be more “me” and less the depression. I will never be an outgoing, easy person – I am reserved, quiet, and somewhat intense. I have learned to be alone without being lonely, and to be with people without being lonely. I am finally happy to be me and not looking to be someone else.
So I pray you have a Jesus filled day! A day full of love.
this solitary life 