Trust in me

The answer to the teaser below (27 June) was trust. Our daily challenge as Christians is to continue to trust in God whatever happens to us or those around us. Hopefully this weeks talk (available as a podcast - see links on the right)will help you in putting your trust in God, preparing it helped me a lot. Below is the slide show that went with the talk and I have also posted the extract from Phillip Yancey's book which I think is an extremely helpful way of picturing how we should trust in God.


In his book "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made," Philip Yancey says:
A certain bridge in South America consists of interlocking vines supporting a precariously swinging platform hundreds of feet above a river. I know the bridge has supported hundreds of people over many years, and as I stand at the edge of the chasm I can see people confidently crossing the bridge. The engineer in me wants to weigh all the factors: measure the stress tolerances of the vines, test the wood for termites, survey all the bridges in the area for one that might be stronger. I could spend a lifetime determining whether the bridge is fully trustworthy. But eventually, if I really want to cross, I must take a step. When I put my weight on that bridge and walk across, even though my heart is pounding and my knees are shaking, I am making a statement-declaring my position.
In the Christian world I sometimes must live like this, making choices which contain inherent uncertainty. If I wait for all the evidence to be in, for everything to be settled, I'll never move. Often I have had to act on the basis of the bones of the Christian faith, before those bones were fully formed in me and before I understood the reason for their existence.
Bone is hard, but it is alive. If the bones of faith do not continue to grow, they will soon become dead skeletons.

A teaser

Looking at the picture below can you guess what I might be talking about on Sunday?
Answers in the comment section.

It's that picture again

I keep coming back to this picture; it says something to me about the power God has to cut through the rock that is me and my stubborn ways.
The water here is pouring down inside a Swiss mountain; draining from a glacier, cutting rock as it falls. Despite the seeming impenetrability of rock, the water finds a way to cut through to the next level.
This is both exciting and scary. I like the idea of a God who doesn't come at me with a chisel to get me to change shape, but who continually pours his love over me until bit by bit things change.
I am feeling quite nervous about leading the Taize service, but am taking heart from the fact that this time last year it would have been unimaginable for me to even think I might do such a thing, so that is a bit of rockcutting that must have been going on - who knows what other bits of me, or you he plans to, or is already reshaping!

Little things...

I have had quite a busy week so far and was feeling a little guilty about not having posted anything on the blog for quite some time and not even really looked at it. When I looked again today I noticed we have had more visits from around the world. I have no idea who they are or how much of the site they read but it was a little spark of encouragement to know that our thoughts about God and our experiences in our part of God's kingdom are possibly being shared globally. We are called to go into the world to bring good news and in this day and age there are so many opportunities to literally do this with out leaving our small community. I hope and pray that people who do stumble across our little blog will find something to help, challenge or inspire them to know more about God and if you are one of those people please take a few moments to comment and say hi we'd love to hear from you.

'The Lord all powerful said:
"You people are precious to me"

Potholing

Yesterday's newspaper crossword had a clue that read 'despaired of getting potholes repaired'. It was an anagram question and the answer was 'lost hope'. There was something very satisfying about the connection of lost hope with potholes.
It seemed to tie up with Shaun's donkey hole of the other week - that a seemingly hopeless situation can turn out to be less final than that - not that it is necessarily a barrel of laughs to get out of; but the difference between having lost hope and being able to believe you have fallen into a pothole, seems immense.
Dan said on Sunday, that we never seem to learn that God is always with us - everytime we hit new difficulties it seems to bring us right down to a place of struggling to find him; yet looking back we see a series of potholes of differing depths and steepness that we have climbed out of and can see that God was there all along.

Taize service

Sunday 29th June
7.30pm
Taize-style service at Ashley.


For me the striking thing about Taize services is sitting in silence for a few minutes, and the simple songs that say wonderful things, often in other languages; like 'Dans nos obscurites' which means in our darkest times, and goes on with 'you kindle a fire that never dies away'. How great is that!

There are some quotes I am really fond of that spring from Taize - including one that Hannah talked about once -

You are never alone. Let yourself be plumbed to the depths and you will see that, in your heart of hearts, in the place where no two people are alike, Christ is waiting for you.

Poem by Gerard Kelly

I had posted a poem here called 'This God', which talks about the wonder of having a God who conducts the universe and yet also cares about individuals. Belatedly I got to wondering if that was a copywrite breach, so I have removed it, but that poem and others by Gerard Kelly, including the wonderful 'You Catch My Eye' can be found here.

I really like the last bit of 'This God' where knowing exactly what he needs, and knowing all my limitations and fears, he chooses me anyway.

http://bless.typepad.com/spoken_worship/