Taking a Break

I have been blogging now every week (and sometimes more than once a week) for over 5 years. I've come to the point when I feel it's time for me to take a break for a while.  I just feel that now is the time to fill my mind with other things. I don't want to be always thinking of something meaningful to write about so I miss life that is happening all around me. Will I blog again in the future? Maybe, probably, don't really know. I'll still be around on social media so no doubt will write and share some of my thoughts there.  But for now it's au revoir to my blog and thank you to all who have taken an interest in what I have shared here. 

Not Just A Drop

A thought that I have been coming back to all this week is about a drop in the ocean.  You can't begin to compare the difference in size between a vast expanse of ocean and just a small drop.  And yet the ocean is found within each tiny drop.  The drop doesn't depend on size in order to qualify as water, the same water that makes up the whole ocean.  So although the ocean is not a drop of water, in essence each drop is ocean.  

At this time of year many gardeners and those who grow crops are planning the layout of their land and beginning to sort out and acquire the seeds they need for this year's produce.  Within each tiny seed is the dna to grow and produce great crops that we in turn enjoy and devour, giving us energy and life.  Who would think that such a tiny thing had such great prospects all wrapped up within it's tiny package.  It reminds us of when Jesus referred to the mustard seed and how such a tiny thing can grow into a plant the size of a tree where birds can nest.  Although the seed is so small in comparison, it still has within it the essence of the plant it will become.

How often do we seek out the large, showy experiences in life. We make celebrities out of preachers, speakers and worship leaders.  We go to certain places in order to 'catch some of the spirit' manifest there.  No doubt there are occasions when large gatherings are a means of great blessing and situations where God pours out his spirit on many people.  But let's not forget that God is everywhere and therefore the same spirit and love of God that is manifest in large gatherings and special occasions is also in the small, insignificant moments, maybe when we're alone or carrying out some tedious, daily task.  God is there also in all his glory.  

Just as the entire ocean is in essence in each tiny drop and the large tree is in essence in the seed, so God is in all things whether large or small.  He is in all of his creation, seen or unseen, spectacular or ordinary.  For God there is no sacred and secular.  That is a distinction that humans have created.  His presence and love are everywhere and so for God all things are sacred.  You can touch the divine in all things, whether you are involved in a large revival meeting or sharing a coffee with a friend; whether you are enjoying the beauty of a great view of creation or tending a small house plant; whether you are amazed at the variety of species in the animal kingdom like some David Attenborough programme or feeling the touch of your pet as you sit and watch the television.  God has a wonderful way of making the ordinary extraordinary; the everyday spectacular; the insignificant meaningful.  May we learn to experience each ordinary moment as a drop full of divine presence.

Change of Perspective

This week I had to smile at a video I saw and shared on social media.  It was about a very small child holding a mobile phone.  I am guessing that the child is only about 12-18 months old as she is not able to pronounce proper words and talks throughout the video in gobbledigook. It is very humorous to watch how the small child carries out her 'conversation' using gestures that no doubt she copied from the adults in her life whom she had seen doing the same thing.  No doubt the toddler is very serious in what she is doing while others who are older find her actions quite funny and worth filming and sharing.  The video lasts just over a minute long and is worth seeing if you haven't already done so,.  Just click on the picture.

Often our age has a lot to do with how we view things.  Our perspective changes as we grow older.  As small children, we think our parents know everything about everything and tend to believe anything we are told.  As we grow into our teens, they obviously know nothing at all but when we ourselves become parents, we realise that they were right all along.  And so it is with many things in life.  How our concepts change depending on our age!

I had a stark reminder of this this week as yesterday I reached a milestone in my life when I celebrated the fact that I arrived on this planet 75 years ago.  I remember as a child thinking that people in their teens were quite grown up.  When I became a teenager, I looked with awe at those in their 20s while people in their 30s were getting on a bit.  There is a tendency to look upon someone of an older generation as really old until we actually reach that age.  I always felt that those in their 60s and 70s were really ancient but now that i'm 75, well it's not that old.  I mean people often live until they're well into their 90s and beyond.  (Forget the Bible verse that tells us that a person's life is three score years and ten!)  In my mind, I'm still young and active.  I just wish sometimes that my body would adopt the same perspective.

This has all been a bit tongue in cheek but on one last serious note, it is important to accept that someone can change their opinions about things without actually being a sort of traitor to their prior beliefs and thoughts.  It's just that as nature evolves with the seasons and the life flourishes and becomes something quite different from the early stages of existence, so we humans change our perspective on things as we live and learn.  It is the nature of things to evolve and we as part of creation continue evolving as we grow, learn and become aware of things in life.  As we journey, our view points vary.  We begin to see things we couldn't before.  And I'm still evolving and learning.  Well, we're never too old to live and learn. 

  

All Things New

Well. here we are in a new year.No doubt some have made resolutions that possibly will be broken within the first 2 weeks or so of January while others will be hoping for a better year than the last one. Whether you are in either of these groups or neither, the thing about the new year is that it is new.  It's not just reliving the past year a bit differently. It's time that we haven't yet lived.  It's new, untouched, fresh.

I do smile when looking round the shops and seeing adverts about certain products that they are 'new and improved'.  We do tend to think of something that has been made better as something new, it's not like the old version.  

Actually it's either new or improved.  If it's improved then it really is the old with some slight difference in content or the way it's been put together.  Something new is something that hasn't existed before.  So this new year is new, having not been lived before, new opportunities, new adventures, new encounters.


With this in mind, I've been pondering about Jesus' words when he said 'A new commandment I give unto you'.  Many times he referred to Old Testament laws and commandments and then said 'but I say unto you ...'  His way wasn't just to be an improvement on the old, something rehashed, a sort of reinvention of the wheel so to speak.  It was to be something different, something that hadn't been considered before.  It was a new way of thinking, different attitudes and reactions, a different way of living.  


We are told that in Christ we are a new creation - not just the old but a bit more tolerant and maybe a bit more smiley than before, not so quick to react.  God is not just patching us up and repairing us, mending the bits that are broken.  He re-creates us.  Many people have the thinking that we gradually work our way up the spiritual ladder, improving as we go,  It's as though somehow we earn our entry into heaven by being more and more active within our local church community.  It's a bit like a scout or guide working to earn their badges of merit.  We don't seem to understand Jesus' teaching that God loves us, full stop.  We can't earn his love.  He is love.  Actually what Jesus said was not that we should be an improvement of our old self but a new creation and have different ways of doing things.  As he said to Nicodemus, we must be 'born again', become a new and different person   We have made following him a religion centred around the person of Jesus, while he was telling us to follow his teachings.  When after feeding the 5000 and the people wanted to make him their king, he rejected the idea.  Again when there were those who said that he was 'good', his reply was. 'Why do you call me good?  There is none good but one and that is God.'  He was always pointing us to God and showing us how to live the way God intended, showing his unfailing love to all and at all times by the way we live.  We are to be people of 'the way' of Jesus. 

I am just musing and wondering how will 2016 be a new year?  How am I a new person in him?  What does that look like?  I don't have all the answers and not everyone may agree with my rambling thoughts but I can't help wondering if we as his Church have not just re-formed and improved the Old Testament ways instead of doing a 'new thing'.  How much of Jesus' teaching do I actually live day by day?  How much do I really follow him and show God's all-embracing and ever present love through my daily living?  I pray that in this new year, God will guide me along new paths and reveal himself to me in new ways.   Happy New Year to you all.