Check out Marcus’s blog entry on the Questions of Jesus which explains why Seeds is based on queries and advices. None of us has all the answers but we can be good company for one another while we try and work it out!
A quote from A Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L’Engle
…most growth has come during times of trial. Trial by fire. Fire as an image of purification is found all through literature. Dante speaks of the fire of roses. George MacDonald’s Curdie has to plunge his hands deep into the burning fire of roses. In Scripture we read, “Our God is a consuming fire”. God is “like a refiner’s fire”. Moses saw God in a burning bush, a bush which was burned and was not consumed, as we are to be burned by this holy fire and yet not consumed. We are to be refined in the fire like silver. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked through the flames. The Spirit descended and descends in tongues of fire.
Satan has tried to take fire over as his image, teasing, tormenting us with the idea of the flames of hell. Dante understood the wrongness of this in having the most terrible circle of hell be cold.
Coldness of the last circle of hell; coldness of heart; lack of compassion; treating people as objects; pride, setting ourselves apart from the “others” – all these are cold.
It is a terrible choice: the purifying fire of the Creator or the deathly cold fire of Satan.
Soon after I became a Christian I was given a copy of “The Fight” by John White – basically a primer on Christian living for the newly converted, I can’t remember much about it except that I recall earnestly working my way through some questions at the end of each chapter and tucking these answers inside. My point, almost 15 years on, it that with a title like this I can’t say I wasn’t warned and yet I believe I’d like to register a complaint… does discipleship have to be this hard? It does. It is the crucible that burns away the impurities and transforms or the seed that dies for a plant to grow and produce fruit.
“Will you lay down your life for me?”
You have to choose a path less travelled, and keep choosing it, again and again. ‘Disciple’ and ‘discipline’ are based on the same root word “to learn”. All manner of things will be well, not necessarily the ones you had planned, and you will be blessed abundantly. You will give more than you knew you had, find more that you knew to look for. But, fair warning, it will be hard work, it is a lifelong struggle against the tide of dominant culture and ‘empire’.
When Jesus called, he said “Take nothing for you journey…”
Were the twelve afraid?
God’s peace be with you
Did they wonder if they could do these things?
Next to the quality of your ministry did they feel inadequate and unworthy?
God’s peace be with you
Did they want to postpone their journey until they had all the possible things they might need? Until they were sure of their abilities?
God’s peace be with you
Did they want to hold off on a commitment until they were absolutely sure it wouldn’t be a mistake? Did they ever feel they had no time, no talent, no knowledge, no energy, no guaranteed results?
Jesus said “take nothing”, and they went.
They went with His power.
God’s peace be with you.
Father God, I want to thank you for ——–, I want to thank you for calling them to be leaders. There are times when responsibility can seem too much to bear and we wonder how we came to be here, to deserve this trust. That in ‘taking nothing’ we ‘have nothing’. Grace each of them with the sense of peace of knowing you are with them, the sense of faith that is born of giving up our will to yours, and the sense of love that is born of forgiveness and communion. May this spirit which passes understanding, and this grace which makes us what we are, and this fellowship of His communion make us one in spirit and in heart. Let them find ease in You who are our leader. We need not be afraid, for you are with us always. In Jesus name, amen.
[Sharing communion @ Kinfolk]
I know that something in Covey’s book (7 Habits) crystalised the need I felt to leave my job. Part of the transition I hope but I feel overwhelmed, I feel raw, I feel afraid… I don’t know if this will be what I thought it would, I don’t know if I will be who people thought I was. I am afraid that there isn’t ‘enough’ to hold my role together, or rather perhaps, hold me together in my role but I cannot name what I need. I only feel sad.
For a group who talk a lot I don’t know that we say what we should say – I feel sometimes that my ears roar with all that is unsaid and I cannot hear what the person in front of me is saying over the ringing in my ears. False pride, false self, false humility. Reading in Tim Costello’s book “Streets of Hope” tonight he cites Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech to the effect that “most of us are afraid not of our inadequacies but of our power to be ourselves”. Am I afraid of others or am I afraid of me?
Is it supposed to be this lonely? A regardless of how many people are around us do we ultimately travel alone? My hobby pastor thanked me for my faithfulness yesterday it doesn’t seem fair to accept gratitude for that – I just am and broken at that, of what worth? Why do I exclude myself from God’s grace? A community of broken people making broken offerings, there can be no other explanation.
itellyouarise 