Ground Hog Day
Have you seen the film? Is that how life seems to you. A repeat of yesterday, over and over again?
Hope of a better day
I used to live for tomorrow - the hope of a better day, even my 'big day'. The only thing was there were so many difficulties, trials etc. that just seemed to stop me getting there. If only I could get by them, then I could really live as God wanted me to.
Let me be frank, sometimes I even went to bed thinking, hoping, that it was somehow going to be different tomorrow - and do you know, it wasn't. Ground Hog day. Just another replication of yesterday! Same trials, temptations, problems - same old me, same old life.
But surely the Christian life was more than this! I mean all those promises ...
Without today, tomorrow never comes!
Somehow, slowly, by God's grace I began to wake up to the fact that this was my life, even with these difficulties, trials, problems - they WERE part and parcel of my life. Not only that, but God was there, waiting with his Word and grace, and I was missing him. Instead of waiting for a better tomorrow I needed to live with God in today - today is the day of salvation both for the Christian and non Christian. NOW is the time.
Are you missing God's heart for you today, because you keep looking for a better tomorrow?
Are you failing to get to tomorrow because you are missing God's purpose in today?
Monday 22 February 2010
Wednesday 17 February 2010
The Ordinary
A New Experience
One of the big issues we face today is living with the ordinary (by that I don't mean boring - that's an attitude of mind - or unenjoyable for that matter). Life it seems has to be constantly filled with events and excitement. Advertising continually pushes us in the direction of a new experience - as if the one we've got is past its sell by date, and the church is not immune from it - new worship, new and more exciting conferences, new ways of 'doing' church, the latest etc. ...
Another Drug
It's not that new things, events and excitement are in and of themselves wrong, it's the motivation. It's when we are dependent on them to keep life going, to keep it interesting, we have a problem - they are in danger of just becoming another form of drug, and when that drug no longer works we need a stronger one.
Nothing New
We only have to look at Israel in the Old Testment who had some tremendous encounters with God and saw miraculous provision and victories. Think about it, the Manna and the Quail in the wilderness became ordinary, shoes that didn't wear out became ordinary! And dare I say it even God became 'ordinary.'
We point the finger at them and wonder how they could think like that, yet we are just as guilty. Todays miracle can easily become tomorrows ordinary, yet everyday is a miracle.
It's not that events and excitement are wrong, it's that we were never made to live on a perpetual high. It cannot be sustained.
Are you taking life and the 'ordinary' blessings of it for granted? The people around you?
Are you failing to see life's little miracles because you have relegated them to the 'ordinary'?
Do you see church as a ordinary?
Are you always looking for God in extraordinary ways and fail to see and encounter him in the ordinary? (it's walking with God in the ordinary that leads to extraordinary encounters, not the other way round).
One of the big issues we face today is living with the ordinary (by that I don't mean boring - that's an attitude of mind - or unenjoyable for that matter). Life it seems has to be constantly filled with events and excitement. Advertising continually pushes us in the direction of a new experience - as if the one we've got is past its sell by date, and the church is not immune from it - new worship, new and more exciting conferences, new ways of 'doing' church, the latest etc. ...
Another Drug
It's not that new things, events and excitement are in and of themselves wrong, it's the motivation. It's when we are dependent on them to keep life going, to keep it interesting, we have a problem - they are in danger of just becoming another form of drug, and when that drug no longer works we need a stronger one.
Nothing New
We only have to look at Israel in the Old Testment who had some tremendous encounters with God and saw miraculous provision and victories. Think about it, the Manna and the Quail in the wilderness became ordinary, shoes that didn't wear out became ordinary! And dare I say it even God became 'ordinary.'
We point the finger at them and wonder how they could think like that, yet we are just as guilty. Todays miracle can easily become tomorrows ordinary, yet everyday is a miracle.
It's not that events and excitement are wrong, it's that we were never made to live on a perpetual high. It cannot be sustained.
Are you taking life and the 'ordinary' blessings of it for granted? The people around you?
Are you failing to see life's little miracles because you have relegated them to the 'ordinary'?
Do you see church as a ordinary?
Are you always looking for God in extraordinary ways and fail to see and encounter him in the ordinary? (it's walking with God in the ordinary that leads to extraordinary encounters, not the other way round).
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