Fit for service?

I'm having a really bizarre week (things weren't helped this morning when I put my Trinity card in the cash machine, but we'll overlook that)! I've been feeling increasingly hopeless, helpless and overwhelmed with certain situations, yet at the same time God seems to be doing so much in/through me in other areas (whilst delivering subtle messages about the hopeless ones!)

John wrote; "You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:28-30).

How much have I seen this week that I need to stop trying to do things in my own strength?! God has promised to bring his plans and promises to fruition, and that they are good and perfect plans (Romans 12:2). This week he has also taught me about patience, and putting hope in things unseen (Romans 8:24-27) so even though I know deep down that God has got things sorted, why do I still struggle so much?! For goodness sake I asked for a miracle and God did it; whats my problem?! And, if I'm in such a mess, how is God managing to use me in different ways at the same time?

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2Corinthians 12:9)

Last night I was challenged by the bit where Jesus challenges people on the cost of being His follower;

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:57-62)

There were a couple of interesting things that stick out from the story.

• In Jewish custom (then and now), the dead are buried immediately. So it was unlikely that the mans father was dead yet as the man would otherwise be with the body or it would already have been buried; it is likely that the man was simply trying to put off following Jesus. The word Jesus uses for "dead" can be used for the spiritually dead as well.

• Jesus wouldn't let the man go back and say good-bye to his family as he knows the pressure that we can come under from family and friends that could distract us from the call of God. Sometimes people (even Christian friends with the best of intentions) can affect our priorities and cause us to stumble.

Both of those observations apply to me; procrastination is one of my biggest hinderances! I'm put to shame when I read about the calling of the first disciples (Matthew 4:18-20); Jesus called told them to join him and "at once they left their nets and followed him" (v20).

But it is the second point which is most affecting me at the moment; the challenge not to put love/friendship before the call of God. That's something I'm really struggling with at the moment (and for the last year and a bit!). "Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires" (Song of Solomon 2:7)...but what if it does "so desire"?!

Help!!

Jesus reigns!!

Woah, so much has happened recently!! Its been really easy to see where both myself and my church have been under massive attack from the enemy recently. But the devil is a liar, and it makes me so excited when I look back at the last few weeks and realise that I (and the church) can say, just like Job - that whatever happens, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth" (Job 19:25).

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death". (Revelation 12:10-11)

I love that bit, where it says they overcame the lies of the enemy by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. When we stand on the truth that is Jesus and proclaim that the enemy has no place, he flees. There's a verse in James that says "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you".

I had been really struggling for a while with a situation I'm facing which I can see no solution to; I know God is all-powerful and that He has got everything sorted, but often I look at things and see a hopeless situation which not even God can sort. How wrong I was!! Last Monday, inspired by the verse in Philippians which urges us to present our requests to God by "prayer and petition", I decided to petition God for a miracle which would bring hope to the situation by the end of the week...not a finished article or a complete answer to the situation, just something that I would know to be from God that would set my mind at rest. I prayed for this every day during the week; part of me wanted to lose confidence as the week progressed and I didn't see any miracles on the horizon, yet part of me knew that Gods promises are promises! At the last possible minute, I had a text from a friend (unaware of the situation) with a verse that had come to her whilst she'd been praying for me...

"For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." (Romans 8:24-27). Patience is a virtue!!

So I've been going about my business with a fresh reminder that God is in control. Other passages that have stuck out to me recently in different situations (which need not be mentioned!) have been these...

And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. (Mark 16:17-18)

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the LORD, who is my refuge - then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. (Psalm 91:1, 9-10,13)

I have this picture on my bedroom wall. It's an awesome reminder that Christ is reigning over everything. I would love to go to Rio de Janeiro one day just to see that figure of Christ looming over the city in all its splendour; the way it overlooks the office blocks, the high rise hotels, and the slums. Does Jesus reign over your entire being - the rich parts and the slums?

Picking blackberries

Haven't written anything for ages!!

There was a guy speaking at church yesterday about how we should seek God in everything. He was talking about Moses; the ground was always holy but only at a set point did he realise it. Only at a set point did he realise that God was in the bush (due to the heat, burning bushes were common, Moses would have seen loads of them).

"Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up." When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God" (Moses 3:1-6)

He quoted a bit from a poem;

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.
But only those who see take off their shoes,
The rest stand around and pick blackberries.

How much am I missing out on because I fail to see its sacred value? How many things do I write off and completely discount, without stopping to look for God in them (ie college!)