And the Winner Is…

•November 11, 2013 • Leave a Comment

I’m rather anti judging.  I may have mentioned this before…

But I don’t like one person being pitched against another and a decision being made as to who is best.  Apart from anything else, we never know what conditions each is travailing under – what resources they have, what difficulties are holding them back, or the different situations each is in.  Judging is rarely assessing like for like.

In real life, sadly it is so easy to make passing judgements. “Look at them, doing that”, “Fancy behaving that way”, “Oh really”…

Sadly another occasion for, “Do as I say, not as I do”, for I stand guilty as charged of passing judgement on others 😦

God’s judgement however comes from a place of knowledge, both of knowing the whole picture and being the only one who is any place to judge because actually he is perfect, he knows the standard and Jesus lived it to show us.

Malachi 4:1-2 (CEV)

The Day of Judgment

The Lord said:

4 The day of judgment is certain to come. And it will be like a red-hot furnace with flames that burn up proud and sinful people, as though they were straw. Not a branch or a root will be left. I, the Lord All-Powerful, have spoken! 2 But for you that honor my name, victory will shine like the sun with healing in its rays, and you will jump around like calves at play.

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In the weeks running up to Advent and Christmas, the focus turns very much to Judgement.  As we recall and re-enact the Coming of God into the world in Jesus, our minds go to the time he will come again, and what that will mean for the world and his people.

I guess the point is, for us to consider, prayerfully and honestly before God, where we are, who we are, which kind of person we are.  As we prepare to welcome The King into the world, are we people who are worthy?  Are we proud and sinful (or as the NIV has it, arrogant and evildoers), or do we honour God’s name – in our lives day by day, not just in words? And what are we going to do about it?  Because as Malachi points out, the answer matters.

I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather bask in the suns rays and play like a calf in a field than be subjected to the fiery furnace.

But does my life say that?  Do I live like I would rather be victorious in life?  Do I live in honour of God and people, or proud and arrogant?

Hmmmm.  Perhaps I’d better have that honest think and pray with God.

Lord,
the reality is
so often
that my life is not
what it should be;
not beautiful,
but ugly;
not honouring of you
and those I connect with day by day,
but proud and arrogant
and yes judgemental.

Lord,
I want to talk with you,
seriously,
honestly,
about your coming again –
and about the here and now,
not from fear,
but from wanting what you want,
wanting to live your ways,
wanting to honour you.

Touch my life Lord,
heal my attitudes,
mend my ways
I pray.

Nor for a happy ever after,
but for a happy
honourable
now

O Thou Who Camest From Above

Posted in bible, faith, God, Lectionary, Religion, theology
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Given Back

•November 10, 2013 • 7 Comments

This follows on from yesterdays post.  Sorry if it’s a bit rambling!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHow to find a way?

How to carve a ministry out of nothing?

How to learn a new way to be, that still has meaning, and purpose and call?

How to respond when people don’t even know, or have forgotten you are a minister?
how to continue to live out the ‘God who will not let me go’?

How to walk by faith, if not by sight?

There are many days when I feel alone, detached, and yes heart-broken.  So much I long to be doing, and yet, and yet…

The struggle to find a ministry.  The struggle to re-become the intrinsic Me.

This blog started as part of that struggle.  To still have sermons burning within me, the need to be able to ‘preach’, even if I had no physical voice.  The need to find a niche and yes a ministry.

It is hard to each week take part in something that you ‘should’ be leading.  Can you imagine having to give up (have taken away?) your job, and every week having to turn up and watch someone else make a really good job of it – whilst longing to be doing that yourself?  To turn up to worship God, to have your heart and soul torn apart week by week?  Obviously at some point you have to come to terms with this, and this blog has helped.  I do still find the ‘specials’ hard – Christmas and Easter; and watching someone else ‘do’ communion can be painful – how much depending on what place I am in.  How I long to do that, yet it is not to be.  That is not where I am now.

Some days it hurts.   I react badly from a place of pain and frustration.  I still long to be a part of ‘things’ – exciting things, places where God is working, ground-breaking stuff, working on making God relevant in today’s society.

That is not my current calling – yet I remain called and I remain a Minister.  Just because I have stopped doing the functions does not mean I am no longer ordained and called to ministry.

I have lost, but I have been given back.  I have been given a ministry I could not have had if I was still a circuit minister.  I have time.  Time to listen, time to hear, time to be with.

I meet people I would never have met if I had stayed where I was, or if I was still busy, busy, busy.  I have had opportunity to cultivate new relationships, many of them ‘on line’.  God can, and does I believe, still use me.

Ministry is different, but still is – I still am.

The Methodist Covenant Prayer is powerful wherever you are in life:

‘I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.’

To many of us, being ‘laid aside’ for God is a scary thought.  It is a scary place.  But I pray that in being laid aside, in having apparently nothing, God continues to work in and through me.

God can and does rescue me – from my panic, from my pain, from my hurt, from the things I can’t do.  He takes this broken and cracked old pot – and is making something new.

Now I just need to hold tight to that!

2 Corinthians 4:7-9 (NIVUK)

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

Come Let us Sing of a Wonderful Love

(And for anyone who knows me, perhaps the biggest surprise of all this is that I’ve chosen two classic hymns!)

Posted in calling, church, disability, faith, God, hope, life, Rants and Ramblings, Religion, theology
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Take Away

•November 9, 2013 • Leave a Comment

I’m writing this to try to clarify some of my thoughts, and for anyone who is interested to know a bit of my story.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I used to be a Circuit Minister.  That means I was stationed, in Methodist parlance, to a Circuit, where I had pastoral charge of five churches.  Two of them were 15 miles from The Manse – but not in the same direction!  I had plenty of involvement in schools, in the different communities and with the older people.  I had opportunities to lead all varieties of worship, to try to work out how to make God relevant to different people. I loved it.  I was fulfilled, excited, challenged and everything felt so “right”.  I’m not saying I got everything right – far from it, I made some spectacular mistakes and misjudgments, but that was part of it.  Part of living and learning and walking in faith together.

Then in 2005 I got flu.  Not, ‘I’ve got a really bad cold’ flu, proper full-blown, knock you off you feet flu.  I took to my bed, wearing my coat – partly because I was shivering despite the fever, and partly because I had no energy to take it off on crawling back from the doctors.  And there I lay, well until they came to install our new kitchen, when I had to make it downstairs!

The problem is, I never got better.  The fever went and the head ache and even the sore throat.  But the cough, the total exhaustion, the not being able to think straight  stayed – and were joined by some other friends like excruciatingly dry eyes and other problems that have come along since either caused by or part of the rest.

Eventually it became clear that this was going nowhere, and after a couple of trial returns to work, it wasn’t going to happen any time soon.  And so the decision was taken that I would retire early on ill-health.  I am eternally grateful to the Methodist Church for its care and provision for us, that meant we were safe and had a roof over our heads.

Yet, to have to leave, to have to give up a ministry I had trained for, that we as a family had sacrificed so much for (and got so much more back!), that felt so right, was so part of me… To have to leave behind a community, a friends network, our children’s friends was, and still is, so hard.

I see that my earlier experiences and theological explorations had taught me about how to cope and live with the physical issues and constraints, but what about losing me?  The me I had become, the me that had been formed in a furnace?  The me that was called and equipped?  The things I enjoyed?  The things that made me feel alive?

And so I am stripped of all that.

Landed in a community not of my choosing.  A community I cannot join in with to make any contacts.  With no ministry.  No energy.  No voice.

And yet, I still stand by those words,

We walk by faith, not by sight

and always, always, singing this song:

because I have nothing else at all to hang on to.

2 Corinthians 5: 1-10 (CEV)

5 Our bodies are like tents that we live in here on earth. But when these tents are destroyed, we know that God will give each of us a place to live. These homes will not be buildings that someone has made, but they are in heaven and will last forever. 2 While we are here on earth, we sigh because we want to live in that heavenly home. 3 We want to put it on like clothes and not be naked.

4 These tents we now live in are like a heavy burden, and we groan. But we don’t do this just because we want to leave these bodies that will die. It is because we want to change them for bodies that will never die. 5 God is the one who makes all of this possible. He has given us his Spirit to make us certain that he will do it. 6 So always be cheerful!

As long as we are in these bodies, we are away from the Lord. 7 But we live by faith, not by what we see. 8 We should be cheerful, because we would rather leave these bodies and be at home with the Lord. 9 But whether we are at home with the Lord or away from him, we still try our best to please him. 10 After all, Christ will judge each of us for the good or the bad that we do while living in these bodies.

That was 2007 – I’ll share the next part tomorrow – but that might be a bit harder…

Posted in calling, church, disability, faith, God, life, Rants and Ramblings, Religion, theology
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