I am amazing/Incredible me/Celebrating the being/I choose to be

Single people can so focus on the absence of one relationship that we overlook the people who are already part of our lives. What's more, we can forget that most of anyone's relationships in life are not romantic; nor do people assess a single person in romantic terms.

For instance, I know an elderly lady who is gracious and wise. She does the Powerpoint for church each week, takes an interest in the people around her and is really involved in her children's lives. I don't think of her in romantic terms, yet she's an attractive person, someone for whom others have great respect. This lady is married, but if she were not, the absence of that one relationship would not make her any less in mine or anyone else's eyes.

Not only is this so, but as Christians, the most meaningful and lasting relationship we enjoy isn't a romantic one. It's being a brother or sister in Christ. This is the relationship that comes before any other and the one that will carry on after death. It's a role that brings great dignity. Though we did not earn it, in it we can be proud.


Title taken from the first stanza of "Hello World" by Dan Coppersmith http://www.spiritwire.com/kidsselfesteemposter.html accessed 30/12/10

The mind of Christ

I get the feeling that people expect missionaries to be on a higher spiritual plane. I never know what to say when I'm asked about my 'call'. I mean I'm certainly open to God speaking in that direct way, but I don't think we're promised that he will. And I don't see other people looking for a call to their secular job or even to other, home-based, ministry. My sense of being 'called' comes more from what has been directly spoken to us all in the Bible and from a sensitivity to God's providential ordering of life's details.

This extra-spiritual expectation also comes out when I'm making decisions about the details of where I'll go and what I'll do. I'm advised to 'pray about it' and I feel like it would be unacceptable to simply say, "Having thought about the position description you forwarded me . . .".

This helps:

. . . And don't just say, "I prayed about it". What's praying got to do with it? That's talking at God. That's just more you talking. Praying's not a form of guidance. Praying's a form of asking. . . . Think about it! You pray about it, ask for wisdom, to then use the wisdom to think!*

Thinking can be spiritual too :).


* Mikey Lynch, 'Sermon 3' from the Ministry Challenge conference Tasmania 2010

Actually helping

Many months ago I went to a SIM conference at which a lady spoke about the difference between 'relief', 'aid' and 'development'. If you do one when you should be doing another, what is meant to help ends up hurting.

Relief (eg the distribution of food and medical supplies after an earthquake) should be immediate, temporary and seldom. Rehabilitation is the middle way. It aims at getting a person or community back to normal (eg helping girls get out of prostitution). Development is intended for a community which is already functioning normally and aims to improve their lot. Because of this it should be participatory, empowering, holistic, and sustainable. Helpful categories I think.


H/T Juanita

Happy dependency

The major thing that stopped me becoming a Christian before I did was dread of giving up control. The thing I feared more than anything was having God decide how I should live my life. I would've hated the thought of this anyway, but it was made worse because my previous Christian experience seemed to be about restrictive, life-denying, socially-humiliating rules. I feared a return to all that.

God forced my hand by breaking my heart. Strange to say, I'm glad he did. I was never happy in my freedom. I gave myself over to him and realised that true Christianity is much more a yes to life; that Jesus' yoke is indeed easy and his burden light. I've found it inestimably better to live as I was made to, than to blindly order my own life.

The sovereignty of God actually

Another thing I realised in inviting my friends to the Cross of Christ was that my role was pretty limited. Aside from not actively putting them off, I had very little control over their response. I just had to give them the invitation and leave the rest up to God. It was pretty unsettling. I felt like there must be something that I could do to make them come. I felt like I wasn't being totally faithful unless I did something. So I had to remind myself that my friends' lives are in God's hands, not mine.

This sorry time

Not many Australian-born people become Christians. In my Hobart and Sydney churches - both around the 150 mark - I reckon it's about 2 each year. Significantly more international students come to faith, but there's still a vast number of people who haven't had the Christian message explained, who have refused to listen, or who have listened but disagreed.

We celebrate the salvation of these one or two, as we ought (Luke 15:7, 10). It's the next step that concerns me. When we speak of these people, we often add some vague comment about "others" who've also been saved. There is something right about this - for we don't always know what becomes of people who, say, come to church only once. It's good to think that God had mercy on them.

However I think this sort of comment is also motivated by a desire to protect God's reputation. Again, there's something good about this (Exodus 33:15-16). Yet God does not need us to blur the facts. He's perfectly able to look after his own reputation. The exile and the cross both brought great shame (Ezekiel 22:4-5; 36:20; Matthew 27:39-44), but he still has concern for his holy name and brings things to bear so that all might see his glory (Ez 36:21-23; 39:23, 27-28; Romans 14:10-12). He is still the same God in this - troubling - time when few are being saved. Perhaps we should rather mourn and beseech him to extend mercy, than speak as if things are better than they are.

Indifferent religion

On the weekend, a friend told me that she's quite happy with there being no God. She asked me what was wrong with that and I said nothing - if she's right. It's only if she's wrong that she's needs to worry. CS Lewis says it this way:

One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.

From God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1994), 101.
H/T David