… 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!
You didn’t want heaven without us
So Jesus, You brought heaven down
My sin was great, Your love was greater
What could separate us now?
Maybe this song has been overdone a little. But I was really struck tonight by the above words. Yes, Jesus did not want eternity without me and even if my sin is great, Jesus’ love is much bigger.
“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.
I have a very stressful week ahead. A lot happening that I am not ready to face. I have had a headache for three days that I am sure is the stress related to the anxiety that I am feeling.
So my first reaction is to dream about being a hermit – to live alone somewhere without contact or interaction with other people. Recluse would be a better term – or a solitary. The other option is to enter some monastery somewhere and disappear. The problem is that I do not have a vocation to the religious life – either as an individual or within a community. To be honest, I am unsure if I have any vocation or calling. I have tried to wear various masks during my life – masks that often others gave me or that I thought others wanted me to wear. So I think this would just be another version of a mask that has been given to me by someone else.
I know for certain that it would just be a form of escapism. I like to run away from my problems rather than face them. I procrastinate because I cannot face the world. So I would be running from the world rather than to religious life.
I have learned over the last three months and I am extremely grateful for the people who have helped me. I also carry the pain of people who have decided that they cannot bare with me any longer. And that pain is so real at the moment that it colours everything in my life.
In the end I am alone before God. I have to act – no one else can act for me or on my behalf. I have to face my actions and the consequences. Hopefully I will be able to look back on this time and see it as a time of growth. But right now I am anxious and stressed.
So hermitage – yes or no?
Today would be Kierkegaard’s 208th birthday. So to celebrate here is the Ramones:
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!
The above is the Icon of Christ and Abbot Mena and is said to date from the 8th century. Jesus is holding the book and Abbot Mena is the one with the grey beard. I like how Jesus has His arm around His friend. There is a sense of intimacy in the icon. A warm welcoming Jesus embracing the Abbot.
I have been thinking about being friends with Jesus – the theme of this week’s gospel (and tonight’s study). What does it mean for me? What does the intimacy that the above icon illustrate mean to my day to day life? Not as a slave but as a friend of Jesus do I love – what does that mean for me now?
I like the image of Jesus as my friend. I like the above icon.
I pray you have a Jesus filled day!
a fool and his prayer book 