Et Tu?

I've been made to feel like Icarus...

I'm fainting from the blood loss.

Lord help me

In you I trust.

Walking through the mud

It irritates me how weak I am at times.

That in this long a drawn out battle within me, it takes a 30 secs of weakness to pull down what seems like weeks of work.

Am I leaning on my own strength again? Methinks I am.

Guilt and that sense of "mud on me" easily drives a wedge between me and God, between me and grace.

Dear Lord,

I'm sorry.
I know you've given me all the strength and tools I need to overcome.
I know that you love me and I disappoint you each time I fail.
I want to walk in your light, depend on your word.
Help me cast down the old me, to live and walk in you each moment of my life.
Help me get beyond this inner barrier, that I may touch the world beyond for you.

Amen.

Grace... indeed.

Taking ground

Its been a while since I posted.

Truth be told I've been playing with my new toy... but more on that later.

I've been on the bench for my 4th week running now and getting a bit nervous that if they don't get me to a nice project soon that I'd start looking like the proverbial white elephant in the office.

Its my first time that I don't get to look forward to "going home" to Adelaide after a fortnight, indeed, I won't see the little one for a good... month. 

Its not fun.

Amongst all this is the general compression that I've been feeling about living in Melbourne again.

It seems to me that my tone has always been resistant to change, defending my inner world and mindscape against any and all incursions without prejudice.

There are many reasons to back up how I've grown to this state, but perhaps the time will and has now come that I have to begin to allow changes. To accept sometimes constructive (if overly) critical critisms and learn from them.

Impasses and sieges are not fun, and whilst I am completely and throughly sick of being misunderstood, of having EVERY action, decision and inaction questioned, prodded and "improved", I will try to look beyond the sharp words and to the intents instead.

Perhaps in this willow reed approach, the sharp edges of the world will dull somewhat, allowing the border tensions on the edges of my mindscape to ease.

Perhaps the key to being understood (at least down to a relative level) is to simplify.

It is hard, for a man that has (at least in my mindscape) lived in the greyness of subjectivity and revelled in the relativity of life.

Lord help me.

Thats all I can say.

 

Reaching out

Dear Lord,

Thank you for your many blessings in my life.

Thank you that in spite of of the years of luke warmness and general weakness as your son you still love me.

Thank you for the opportunities you have given, to live, to learn, to love.

Forgive me for being impatient, for leaning on my own strength and understanding, For attempting to box your plans for this life you have for me in.

Forgive me for focusing on the gift rather than the giver, for being discouraged and not seeing the forest because the trees were blocking my view.

I love you, with all my heart I want to love you more. to live for you, to trust you and seek you in everything.

Lord, never before has saying things like let thy will be done been so hard. Afterall, in this season, you have indeed granted my deepest dreams and desires.

But lord, I am still your servant, trying to be humble, still the man that said with up lifted hands, here I am, send me

Lord I give you my heart,

I give you my soul.

I live for you alone.

Every breath that I take,

Every moment I'm awake.

Lord have your way in me.

Amen

Nothing to say

This is how I would remember today if I hit the "replay" button in my mind.

I woke up tired and feeling guilty.

I grabbed my camera and took some shots of the tree in the front yard's first flowers.

Jumping on the train in the crisp cold, I had been plagued with guilt that I had yelled at the little one the night before.

I spent the train trip in composing a sorry email in my head.

I walked in the office.

I sent my sorry email.

I worked.

I spoke to her to wake her up, it made me smile.

I worked.

I stopped to eat lunch and didn't feel like going outside.

I looked online at toys that I might buy myself, just that little bit torn on if I should do it.

I got bored of work and had completed most of what I needed to do.

I researched online on said toys.

Time's up, I took the train home.

I got home and said hi to mom.

I went to the gym.

I came home and had dinner.

I sat down and turned my mind off in front of the telly.

I turned the tv off and went upstairs to talk to the little one (The only thing I had been looking fwd to besides clocking the day off and getting closer to the weekend.)

Lord, give me a life over flowing, or let me go back to building that life that I was working on.

Please? 

A clash of humanity...a glimpse of God

We hear a lot these days, on the doctrine of Grace. Indeed at 2 Hillsong conferences past, they've gotten guests speakers to preach it. 

some even take it to the point and make statements like, "the law was old testament, its no longer rel event! This is the age of Grace!"

In response to this we hear many other pastors take to the doctrine of Law, attempting to counter the so called "cheap grace" ideology being raised by the formerly mentioned preachers by calling it a watered down spiel to make the faith more attractive by lowering its standards.

Having attended churches from both camps,  I feel that God has shown me the 2 sides of the issue and also shown me where things should sit.

In Acts 15: 36 -41 we see a mighty clash of what was probably equivalent to Christian celebrities in the early church.

2 heavy weights of the church square off and go at each other like a couple of battleships trading cannon blast, it seems like a terrible example of humanities' failure at playing nice as Paul and Barnabas go on their separate ways.

Or is it?

Whilst we see the argument on the surface, a study group member shared this insightful view.

That in this situation, we see the fullness of God's personality, his overarching plan over us and the combination of the 2 seemingly divisive doctrines that plague the modern church of law and of grace.

Barnabas, the compassionate one as we will call him. Was the instrument chosen by God to introduce a then Saul/Paul to the church. Passionately arguing that God's transforming power in Saul's life into the man that eventually turned to be Paul, we can deduce the heart this man's ministry as one that ex amplifies the forgiveness and grace of God.

Indeed the crux of the falling out in Acts 15 it seems, is the very same scenario, where Barnabas is seen defending one John Mark to a somewhat less accommodating Paul.

Paul on the other hand, has always been a beacon of discipline in the early church, his letters and ministry to bring much needed guidance, rules and sometimes rebuke to the various churches of the day. Taking his ministry to a point, he can be seen rebuking even Peter, one of the original 12 for his 2 mindedness in his treatment of Gentile believers... A set of rules, do and do nuts, does this not seem akin to the Law of old?

So we see painted in concept and doctrine, Grace and Law in a seemingly irreconcilable argument, split off to walk separate paths of ministry...

Or is it? For if w study Acts, we will see that both paths from this fork led to highly successful ministries that resulted in the church of the day growing in numbers  and blessing.

Could it be that  instead of a clash of opposing doctrines, we have just seen a small glimpse that they are but small aspects of a larger whole? Of the multi faceted nature of God? (I think so)

Even Paul himself writes in the book of Romans, that it was the law that defined man kind as sinful, the law that dictated how we are to please god, the law that taught us how we were to co-exist with an infinite being.

Yet it is through the very existence of the law that we discover that we are imperfect and unable to meet the minimum standards that God sets for us.

Enter the need for Grace, which in spite of our human inequities draws God and Man together in the person of Jesus Christ and the Crucifixion.

So who is right? Neither s the obvious answer.

The law is completely necessary as a definition of the standards that God has called us to and that we humanly cannot meet. Grace is the counter point that ensures as that in spite of our human flaws we can still please and be accepted by a holy perfect God.

Grace however is certainly not a license to carry on our lives in our own fatalistic wills, but the acceptance of us in Jesus Christ as we daily strive to put our old selves to death and live in him.

Grace is in fact the fulfillment of law.

A time of reflection

Dear Lord,

as the other half snaps at the chains of time.

I too come into your presence.

Unclean, distracted and once again completly reliant on your grace.

Nothing's ever going to be the same again.

I spoke mere minutes ago.

No, but somethings shouldn't change.

Forgive me lord.

Draw me close to You
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear You say that I'm Your friend

You are my desire
No one else will do
'Cause nothing else could take Your place
To feel the warmth of Your embrace
Help me find the way
Bring me back to You

You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Help me know You are near