Love abounding more and more

Today at our staff time of worship I read Philippians 1 reminding all gathered of the truth of the words "that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight". What is this love - Love for God, our neighbour, ourselves? This can be a hard challenge and today, with varying emotions, I have wrestled with.

So with those emotions swelling up inside I sat a listened to a beautiful song by Keith & Kristyn Getty - new words to a familiar song. Believe me this was saving grace today.

What grace is mine that He who dwells in endless light
Called through the night to find my distant soul
And from his scars poured mercy that would plead for me
That I might live and in his name be known

So I will go wherever He is calling me
I lose my life to find my life in Him
I give my all to gain the hope that never dies
I bow my heart, take up my cross and follow Him

What grace is mine to know His breath alive in me
Beneath his wings my wakened soul may soar
All fear can flee for death's dark night is overcome
My Saviour lives and reigns forevermore

So I will go…

(to the tune londonderry air - or danny boy as it is also known)

It has been a while........

I am starting to feel the itch to blog again. It might or might not be a regular thing, but at least I think I can start posting some new material here.

So why the gap? Partly a busy summer and yet a bigger part was knowing what to share and what not too if that makes any sense. There has been the intense joys over the last few months but also the moments of questioning and today was the day I thought I would begin the blogging expedition again.

Yet today.. after a few days with a bug and feeling increasingly disappointed with a few things I thought why not put pen to paper - or rather cursor to screen.

Is the theme and subject of disappointment something we avoid or minimise? After all we do have our hope in God. One thing that is common to all humankind is suffering and disappointment. Perhaps all of us have suffered varying degrees of heartache, but certainly all of us have known what it is like to be downtrodden and disappointed. So the question for the Christian is not if suffering and disappointment will come, but rather how will we respond when it inevitably knocks on our door? And what happens when it does - do we paint on our perma-grin like a clothing accessory and join in the chorus of the faithful with the liturgical response "I'm fine" when asked the quesiton of how we are. Are we given permission to speak out in truth to another to verbalise our frustrations and our fears?

I think we have to first recognize that suffering and tragedy are a central theme in the Bible. We don’t have to look further than Jesus to figure that out. When we ignore this fact, then we don’t know how to help each other. We end up giving each other pat answers and trite religious expressions that not only offer no comfort whatsoever but really make things worse.

So then how are we to respond? What is God’s answer? I think there’s only one place we can find comfort, and that’s in the sovereignty of our God. God is in control and for that I am eternally grateful. Please forgive me I am not being trite or pious it has just worked for me again and again and again. So when i cry, scream and shout at the heavens then there is peace because in giving I receive and then my shouts turn into praise.

When I am disappointed God is near.

When I struggle God does not.
When I am weak God is strong.