Advice for life?

I am so grateful that God has given us plain, home-spun, common-sense. Today I finally started to chat to a colleague on my teaching course about their relationship situation.

She's happily seeing three separate guys, enjoying their company and time, but nothing serious. However, she was clearly in a quandry worrying about the fact several of them were being 'needy'. As we chatted it became quite obvious, to me, that my friend was uncertain about whether to pursue these relationships.

I appreciate that for Christian girls the first criterion used when evaluating the potential of a possible suitor has to be, first and foremost, their love for Jesus. Do they submit to Him as Lord? If this is a negative then, sorry, it's a non-starter.

My friend is a Sikh though, so my advice was simple - use two questions to check a guy:
- How does he treat his family, specifically his mum? and
- What are his friends like?

These two questions when answered honestly, remembering that men engaged in the chase are prone to chamelion-esque changes to personality in order to impress a girl, will provide a pretty fair assessment of a man's character, which is, ultimately, more important than his bank balance, looks, ambition, car, or anything else.

As I asked these two questions I felt tremendously relieved. Firstly, I was not offering specific advice; no cliched pros or cons for one or another friend she was seeing, nor was I given a tale from my experience. Put simply I provided two questions that my friend could ask and come to her own conclusion. Secondly, God gives Christians the capacity to understand the human condition better than some. It is a responsibility of ours to dispense Godly wisdom that will ensure friends and family enter into peaceful lives.

I was greatly encouraged by God to have been used in this simple way. I welcomed the opportunity to serve.

Stewarding our time

This evening at cell (the healthy church type, not the bombing type) we have continued our churches theme of Stewardship, focusing on the use of our time, talents, and treasure/tithe. Our welcome question tonight asked us to roughly calculate the proportion of our time we spend on various activities: Sleep, Work, Leisure, God-stuff (praying, reading Bible, worshiping), Chores, and other.

The findings were NOT surprising. Here's a summary of our conclusions:

1. We do not get enough sleep - none of us.
There are, of course, several schools of thought about the merits/demerits of having long lay-ins at the weekend, versus the regular settled habit of sleeping the same amount/getting up at the same time every day. While we agreed lay-ins are nice, there was the clear sense that we should be trying to be more habitual. Whatever our position on the pattern of sleep - we all accepted that we would operate much better on more sleep.

2. We seem to be habit-averse.
There is the odd belief in the group that Habit = Boring. While we happily accept the need to take regular exercise, have regular habitual sleep, we are less inclined to think this way spiritually.

3. We spend little time on our own

4. What do I have to show for my spare time?

5. We spend a small fraction of our time with God, or in God-stuff.
I wonder if we should seek to tithe our time? 10% of our day would be 144 minutes - 2 hours and 24 minutes - imagine our days looking like that?

6. Not enough exercise

7. We don't actually watch that much TV.

8. Our lives are far more full of leisure than we let ourselves recognise.
We moan lots about work, but in truth our group of friends spend lots of its time relaxing, often together.

9. Time with family?
Not many of us could refer confidently to time spent at the dinner table

10. We find it hard to remember how we spend our time!

Some thoughts following on from this:
- We enjoy time spent in God's presence, but we don't do it as we're frail and broken
- Do I, by my choices, send a message to people that they're not loved?
- To some extent there is a place for the vow of service/simplicity when thinking about stewardship. We would use our time and talents more effectively if we undertook to serve people each and every day. A vow of simplicity would best enable us to approach money in a Godly manner.

CHALLENGE:
1. How is my use of time?
What changes are needed? Am I aware of where my time goes?
2. How could we corporately better use our time to sacrificially serve others?
In the community: are their clubs, needs, projects we could undertake? In church: needs to be met (balanced against our talents)
3. How could we corporately serve God more?
Speaking to others about the Good News.

Movements

'Movements' was my last theme and I'm reminded of a great song of the same name by a new exciting band called 'Rend Collective Experiment'.

The lyrics for the song can be found on the Kingsway site.

Here's the song:

The presence of the Holy Spirit

This morning's readings continue in Luke (which we'll now continue with until 31 July when we reach the end of chapter 24), but repeats the passage we covered at the annunication.

Yesterday I met with two brothers to pray and used five formation questions taken from Richard Foster's book 'Prayer', which in turn he has taken from Wesley as a means of promoting vital growth. The purpose of the meeting was just this - to promote vital growth.

One of the questions is - What movements of the Holy Spirit have I experienced?

I must confess to finding this a difficult question to answer. Not least because on a day-to-day basis I do not find myself either trusting God for present empowering, but also I do not exercise the spiritual gifts God has given me.

It is interesting that Gabriel informs Mary that "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Luke 1:35). It is the Spirit who will cause Mary to conceive - it is not just that the Spirit will rest on Jesus (thus making Him holy), but that Mary herself will require the empowering presence of God to help knit together this child. The word 'overshadow' has negative connotations. I think of how one might refer to a good performance being overshadowed by either a better performance, or a bad situation.

However, here the idea that Mary's efforts will be overshadowed by God's efforts are cause for celebration.

And yet in my life, day-by-day I cannot say that I am overshadowed by God's presence?

When I think about all that I'm called to do each day, the people I need to serve, the prayers that need praying, the temptations to face, and the raw physical energy demanded - how do I ever think I can continue in my own strength? Why do I not actively seek movements of the Spirit?

Seeing compassion

It is not very often I read all three readings at an office and find clear links, but this evening's Evening Prayer has three wonderful post-Easter passages.

Firstly, we are reminded of Phinehas (Ps. 106:30), who features in the book of Numbers. Just as God is calling the Israellites to a life of godliness, to come apart from others, there is sexual immorality with the women of Moab (Num. 25:1). Now I'm not going to launch into a detailed diatribe against sexual immorality. The purpose of the reference to Phinehas' story (Num. 25:1-13) in Psalms is as one who "interceded".

I've never thought of intercession as something we do, so much as something we pray. But perhaps this verse is a challenge. Do I love God enough and has he so transformed my life, and am I gripped by his love for me and the world, that I understand as I pray how I am the answer to my prayer. Or in this case, that I am the answer to God's will.

Solomon in Song of Songs (another book that has much to say about sexuality!) writes words for his wife:
"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine" (SoS 6:3)

Crunch time - do I honestly know that I am my beloveds? Do I believe that God loves me? Where is evidence of God's love?

We see it in Jesus - who died for us. But also in his life. The widow's son at Nain experienced his compassion:

"When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her "Do not weep." (Luke 7:13)

As strange as this may sound, I don't think we act as outrageously, as Phinehas does, because we do not know the real depth of God's compassion for us. Compassion means: feeling of distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another. Jesus had compassion for this woman. God has compassion on us; on me. The Psalmist is recounting God's saving faithfulness - which is matched by Israel's unfaithfulness.

Today, am I aware that the cross and resurrection is born out of God's great and wonderful compassion for us. Do I know that this compassion springs up from his love. And that when we truly know this love, our lives will become intercessions for others to know this.

Video of Leonard Ravenhill

This is more of a reminder for me to use YouTube to review some of Leonard Ravenhill's sermons, but here's something for you to view:

Weeping

Despite the season (Eastertide is upon us) I am continuing to make my way (once again) through the powerful book 'Why revival tarries' by Leonard Ravenhill. For the record, this is not a book to recommend for casual Christian-lite reading. This book was recommended to me by a great pastor and friend, with the intention, no doubt, of causing me to shake.

It is available from amazon, but I advise with caution.

Today I've read chapter seven and once again Ravenhill refers to the importance of tears:

"I am increasingly convinced that tears are an integral part of revival preaching. Preacher brethren, this is the time to blush that we have no shame, the time to weep for our lack of tears, the time to bend low that we have lost the humble touch of servants, the time to groan that we have no burden, the time to be angry with ourselves that we have no anger over the devil's monopoly in this 'end time' hour, the time to chastise ourselves that the world can so easily get along with us and not attempt to chastise us" (Ravenhill 1979, p.65)

It may seem strange to focus on tears at the beginning of our Easter season. But when I've considered the shift from the darkness and self-examination of Lent with the joyful 'alleluia's' of Easter I am convinced that all Christians must see the light of Christ bursting from the tomb, and ask whether that same light is bursting forth from our lives. Are we so innured to the world that we do not have hearts aching to share the Love of God. Do we chastise the world? Do we speak out about the love God has for the loveless?

I must confess that I am merrily carrying this good news around with me, and remain remarkably unmoved that so many people I know are in darkness. Why is this?

It's Ravenhill's final rebuke in the paragraph that stings: "This is the time... to chastise ourselves that the world can so easily get along with us and not attempt to chastise us"

Amidst the joy of Easter can we seek to translate our joy into prayerful tears?


REFERENCES
Ravenhill, L. (1979) Why revival tarries. Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers