journey

I've been thinking a lot about how our life is a journey in recent weeks and how that analogy influences how we think about our faith. Forgive me for being oversimplistic but I wonder if there are two ways of seeing faith/life as a journey:

Have we invited Christ into our lives to join us on our journey or has He invited us into His life to be part of His journey? Has God become part of your story or have you become part of His story?

Jesus was pretty clear on where he stood in relation to his heavenly father:

"I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does."John 5:19

and his disciples in relation to him:

"If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me." Luke 9:23

Our orientation matters greatly because the fruit will differ considerably!

Is your life busy with frantic activity which you ask God to bless when you remember to or have you taken the time to see what the Father is already doing and been still long enough to listen to His invitation to join Him in His activity?

Is the way ahead unclear? Have you lost your sense of direction? Could it be that you have stopped following.

We all need at times to get into a still, quiet place with Lord - free from distractions and demands - to find ourselves once again in Him, to feel His life energizing ours once again, to be thrilled once again by His invitation to join Him - to follow Him.

Missing, Presumed...

Easter Monday, a day off from work and an opportunity to spend it with friends in London. A day full of sights: artefacts from ancient civilisations that have gone before us, a vintage clothing store with genuine items from the previous 10 decades, tea on a floating restaurant overlooking the Thames, the London Eye, and the Houses of Parliament.A day full of sounds: mostly laughter as we enjoyed each others company.

How quickly the relaxed mood changed when amidst the hordes of people enjoying street performers, someone said "Where's Sophie?" In that split second i found myself gripped by a moment of panic as a worse case scenario played out across the internal screen of my mind. "Missing, presumed..." Taking hold of those thoughts, I turned them into a prayer as I scanned the crowd.

They went to the tomb - he was gone.

Now they knew he was dead. They had seen him draw his last breath, washed his body, wrapped it in grave clothes and laid him in the tomb. But now he was missing.

Missing - this is not how things should be.

When things happen to interrupt how we think things should be, what is our presumption? Is our default position one of fear, doubt, insecurity and panic?

"Peace - trust me" I heard the Lord whisper in my heart. Some moments later she was there and my arms were around her.

"Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?" The angels asked matter-of-factly.

The One who goes before us, The One who has been faithful to the generations who have gone before us, spoke into the disciples turmoil - speaks into ours with an unruffled whisper: "Peace be with you...don't be faithless any longer. Believe!"

a life worth living...

When I was 8 or 9 my eldest brother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without having to think about it, straight away I said "a philosopher"! I like Douglas Adams' term better: Professional Thinker.

Thirty years later, I find myself doing this for a fair bit of my time.

I have always been fascinated by the big questions about life - what makes people tic being a nice way of summarising my quest.

There are obviously biological / physiological factors that enable to exist: oxygen, water and food. But it's not the workings of our physical heart that grabs my attention, it's the non-physical aspect of our lives - what the Bible also calls our "heart." This is what interests me.

Variously described throughout the scriptures with interchangeable terms such as the soul, the spirit, the mind - it refers to what animates our physical bodies in a way that is unique among all other living things.

This is more to do with the question of "who" we are rather than "what" we are. Though we frequently (and mistakenly) define who we are by what we do - each of us was already "someone" the moment we came into the world - before we had even done anything. "The you that makes you - you," as Douglas Coupland puts it, is fundamentally an issue of personhood.

I am both body and soul - a mysterious interrelationship of two fundamental ingredients that have combined to express "me."

In the same way that I will cease to exist without oxygen, water and food - "I" have no meaningful existence without the "fuel" that energizes my soul: relationship.

The paradox of existence is this: unless I get certain things I will physically die, however, unless I give myself to someone other than myself, I will have no life worth living!

This is the essence of genuine love: it is self-giving, it is self-less, it is is others centred.

When we make life all about getting not giving, when selfcenteredness rather than selflessness is our focus, the life we think we have is no life at all.

Christ is the supreme example of a self-giving, selfless life lived for others and He invites us , and empowers us, to make His "way" our way of life. The same Holy Spirit that animated the life of Christ can animate ours also and transform our hearts to be focused on others rather than ourselves.

Isn't it time we all started really living!