Image via WikipediaI had a really interesting experience during our worship service yesterday. The theme of the service was “For God so loves the WORLD”. The focus was on those who go out to various parts of the world to spread the good news of God’s love.

One of the things that happened was that several members of our congregation stood up and read John 3:16 in various languages.

I was quite surprised at how teary I got as they did this. It was like the words bypassed my brain and went straight to my spirit. I may not have been able to understand what they were saying but the words touched me in a very significant way.

It just blew me away with how AWESOME God is that his word can surpass language barriers. I may not have known in my mind what was being said (although given it was a familiar verse, I did kind of know) but there was no doubt in my heart that God’s word was being spoken.

It also got me to thinking as to whether there are times when my brain interferes with what God is really trying to say to me???? Hmmm….food for thought there.

Anyway, it was a very touching experience and I wanted to share it with you. Has anyone else experience something like this? I’d love to hear about it if you have.

I’ve just finished reading a Karen Kingsbury novel “When Joy Came to Stay”.

I quite like reading Christian Fiction Novels and Karen Kingsbury is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

This particular novel hit a chord because it dealt with the whole issue of Christians suffering from depression. In fact, the main character has a nervous breakdown and books herself into a Christian Psychiatric hospital.

Not surprisingly, I shed quite a few tears as I read the book. It’s a very touching story and I identified with at least some of what the main character was going through.

I was a little bit disappointed with the author’s wrap up and explanation of their understanding of Christian’s suffering from depression. Not that I think their opinions were entirely inaccurate, but perhaps showed a limited understanding of the vast array of reasons why people may suffer from depression.

As Christians I think we’re still very focused on “walking away from God” as being the cause of all depression. I don’t deny that this can be a factor in some cases but I feel it’s a disease that is far too complicated to be sumized into such a simplistic causality.

Nevertheless, I found this novel a touching and compelling story that highlighted the faithfulness of God. No matter what we may go through in this life, we know that He will never leave us nor forsake us.

I seem to be struggling quite a bit with it at the moment.

It’s not that I’ve turned away from God or don’t feel close to Him anymore.

I guess I’m lucky in that we seem to kind of walk hand in hand a lot of the time.

At the same time, I’m not spending as much time in prayer and reading my bible as I would like.

Why is it that it’s so hard to stay focused on the things that are important and so easy to get distracted?

I wish it wasn’t.

Image via WikipediaA song we sang on Sunday has been rolling through my mind throughout this week. I thought perhaps it was time to put a few of my thoughts down on “paper” (I know this isn’t paper but it’s kind of the same - yeah?)

Before the world began, you were on His mind

We’ve been progressively doing creation in Sunday School at the moment. I find it kind of hard to imagine the world not as we know it now. To try and understand that before creation, the world kind of didn’t exist. I think it’s beyond our human comprehension really.

So what of God “knowing” us before we even existed. Before the world existed? Yeah, that kind of blows my mind.

And every tear you cry is precious in His eyes

I cry a LOT. Does every. single. tear I cry really matter to God? Apparently.

Matthew 10:30 says “And even the the very hairs of your head are numbered”.

I guess it stands to reason that if He knows how many hairs on each person’s head, he would also care about every tear that falls from our eyes.

Everything was done so you would come

How often do we get caught up in what God wants us to DO. How can we ever possibly be GOOD ENOUGH for God?

The short answer is: We can’t

The Good News is: We don’t have to.

It’s already been done.

Doesn’t that just blow your mind?

I know it does mine.

I read this post this morning and had a very MUCH NEEDED laugh: What If Noah Blogged and David Twittered?

I just LOVE creative people.

Here is a link to the original of Noah’s Blog.

I just LOVE this one:

Day 31
You guys read this blog. You know I love my wife, right? But I swear, sometimes she just gets on my nerves.

You know what? Sometimes Noah just needs a little Noah Time, okay?

As you read through them, it starts to put a very REAL spin on what Noah went through. Imagine being cooped up with all those animals and just your family for all that time. I love the way it highlights Noah’s humanity. He really was just a regular guy.

Here’s another excerpt:

Cush’s Essay
Here’s something my grandson Cush wrote for a school assignment. . . .

The eNd.

I’m sure we could come up with LOTS of stuff for the blogs of various bible characters. I guess in a way, that’s what the Bible is all about. A peek into the lives of ordinary people doing extraordinary things through the power of God.

What is it that Solomon said?

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

Perhaps the internet technology wasn’t around in Bible times but I think God understood right from the beginning, the human desire to peek into one another’s lives and see what we’re up to. To learn from one another and to share our journey’s.

Maybe the Bible wasn’t really the very first Blog. After all, blog is short for “web-log” and there was no web. I still think it goes to show that blogging isn’t really a new concept. It’s an old concept on a new platform. There really is “nothing new under the sun”.

Dear Lord,
Thank you for the gift of blogging and the encouragement that it brings as we reach out to one another through technology. Please use it for your glory. Thank you that you started sharing right from the very beginning and that we have your Word to delve into and learn more about you and find encouragement for our daily struggles. Amen.

Lots has been happening in my life over the past week or so and I’m really feeling quite worn out and down. I’m a bit mixed up about who I am and feeling a bit down on myself in general.

So it was a really special time in worship this morning to feel God’s arms just wrap around me and reassure me that I am someone. That it doesn’t matter if I’m good at things or not good at things. I am who I am.

Just in case anyone is looking for me over the next few days, I’m hiding in God’s arms. And I’m not sure I want to come out anytime soon. It feels so warm and cosy and relaxing.

A few months ago I told my husband that if he needed a gift idea for me sometime, I would really like a pink bible that is small enough to fit into my handbag. My current bible is rather large and cumbersome and I thought it would be great to have a bible that I could easily carry around with me.

By the time my birthday had come around he had of course forgotten all about that conversation. But I was given some money so I took the opportunity while we were away to visit a Christian bookshop and choose one for myself.

I’ve not bothered to understand the whole wordpress.com photo set up but you can see a picture of it here:

Expressions of Me Bible

It’s not quite as pink as the image shows. It’s a deeper, more purple colour (in fact, mulberry is a good description of the colour).

It’s so pretty that I didn’t care that it’s aimed at young girls. Why should they get all the fun?

To be honest, from time to time I suffer from guilt at the number of bibles we have. It’s probably silly but I know how precious they are in some countries where bibles are so few and far between and people treasure having simply a page of scripture.

I try not to take my bibles for granted. Which I guess is really the point. Not so much how MANY bibles we own but how precious it is to us to have our own copy (or multiple copies).

I have to admit, my new pink bible sure does make me smile.

Dear Lord, Thank you for the blessing of Your Word. Please help me to never take it for granted and to hide your word in my heart. Give me a hunger for reading your word every day. Amen.

I’ve just this read this post and wanted to share it with you. It really touched my heart. Hope it does yours too.

The Magic Eraser

I started our worship this week with this clip from You Tube and thought perhaps I’d share it with you all.

Image via WikipediaA couple of weeks ago I wrote of the news that our current minister (pastor/priest) is leaving our church at the end of September.

Earlier this week I went to a meeting to begin the process of looking for a replacement. It was really good to listen to our minister explain briefly what had gone on in the process of him being called by another church and to be honest, I felt much better about the whole situation having sat through that.

He also walked us through the process in our denomination as it stands today. In the 5 or so years since we’ve had to go through this process, a few things have changed. And as tends to happen in organisations, some of the material available to explain such processes is long and complicated. So the way he summarised it was helpful.

As a result of that meeting I feel that some really strong positives have come out of our need to search for a new minister.

There was a real heart and hunger for prayer amongst those present and suggestions were made as to a group of people getting together regularly to pray for our current situation. Isn’t it funny how a “crisis” is often what prompts us to pray. Maybe not funny….

Each of the congregations involved in our parish now needs to go through a process of examining what is currently happening in our churches and what visions we have for the future.

Then out of that we need to look at our *needs* from a minister (which is quite complicated when we have 5 very different congregations).

I can see this process being quite healthy and having not really gone through the process for almost 8 years (we’ve had our current minister for 5 and were 3 years without a minister before that).

Talk also centred around the availability of supply ministry. We have some ministers who move from church to church, providing support, encouragement and teaching for short bursts of time as an interim while you are without a minister. My experience with such supply ministers in the past has been quite positive. One in particular encouraged a significant amount of spiritual growth in my life. There are other positives such as having a variety of different people come through you get a variety of teaching and pastoring styles which suit different people. They’re also often able to focus on the job of actually teaching and pastoring as a full-time minister seems to have quite an administrative role to play in addition to their leadership within the church.

I have also taken on the role of getting a website set up for our parish. This is something currently being encouraged by our state body (and hosted by them as well). I was most excited when I discovered that they actually use WordPress software on these sites. My hope is that this might be a great way of communicating to potential ministers as well as within our own parish and as a way to get some of our young people involved.

So, as you can see, what was feeling like a negative just a few short weeks ago, is now looking more and more positive. It’s not that we won’t desperately miss our current minister. But God is showing his hand in the situation and like always, bringing forth many blessings.