Today we said goodbye to Jane, Mark & Emelia who had been visiting for the week. When you live abroad it’s wonderful to get these occasional visits from friends and family. It’s always a little tough though when they leave and you’re back to just your own little family again. This is especially true for Sian as she has spent the last few days with a new friend as Emelia is almost 2, and her god-parents.
However, the time we spent has been great with lots of talk about the past, present and future, and most importantly sharing our faith together!
I’ve spent my whole adult life praying for The Salvation Army and wrestling to get to grips with understanding this special mission that God has called us to. Over the last 10 years my heart and mind has cried out against the major injustice we see in the world today and again have tried to understand the root causes and what God has to say about it.
In the two decades since I signed my Articles of War I’ve soldiered at 9 different corps and in only one of them was challenged to seriously think about my faith and study! The rest of the time its been through my own motivation.
You might be thinking where am I going with this post? I remember several years ago hearing John Gowans speak (I think when he was TC in the UK) and challenging people to read books that challenge the mind. After all Jesus himself said that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37
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The Western mindset is no longer really satisfied with the simple answers to the questions they ask. These are often the only answers that most Christians seem able to give. Gone have the days when people will accept the simplistic response like the old chorus suggests, “You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart!”.
Encouragingly we finally seem to have caught onto this and now the internet seems to be full of Salvationists who are thinking seriously about their faith and its outworking through The Salvation Army. I think of the Journal of Aggressive Christianity now into its 7th year and the new and superbly challenging theRubicon.org and celebrate the breath of thinking. There are also countless blogs where people are doing the same thing.
If you don’t read them then I urge you to do so and start loving God and worshipping Him with your mind as well!
…was my reaction to an e-mail I’ve just received!
Now I’m a major sports fan! Whilst my favourites are typically English, Football, Cricket and Rugby, my tastes cover pretty much all sport (except possibly curling, bowls and darts). This means that I’m very aware that the Ice Hockey World Championships are being held here in Riga during May!
Tickets to most matches were sold out at a very early stage and the cost was too much to justify for those that weren’t, so despite really wanting to go, I’ve reconciled myself to watching it on the TV.
Imagine my excitement therefore on Sunday when my best friend here, Steve, told me that he had tickets to some of the matches. Then this morning I open my e-mail and there it is; an e-mail inviting me to both the Bronze medal game and the final on May 21st! I’m looking at this as probably my once in a lifetime opportunity to go to the final of a major international sporting event and I’m grabbing it with both hands!
I realised when I looked at my blog this morning that I had made a major mistake in the coding on the sidebar when I was trying something new. This means my blog was pretty messy last night and I apologise for that. I’m trying to understand this coding stuff but not always making a good job of it!
Last night we had an amazing house group where all the plans went out of the window and instead we did what God wanted. The 6 of us who were there spent time praying for each other and the presence of the Holy Spirit was very evident. For me personally, this was a very important time and I’m going to be working through what the Lord said to me for sometime.
In many ways this is where I am at the moment. It’s clear to me that I’m walking a path towards something that God has not yet revealed in its entirety. My problem is that I’m often distracted from that path and consequently fall back instead of move forward. I know for a fact that the obstacles I need to cross are not going to be easy and they’ll probably be painful at times to, but I have to get there! The Lord is calling me to a deeper intimacy with him and I’ve got to get there!
As I write this I’m reminded of 2 things. Firstly, (and annoyingly for me as I have always felt unsure about quoting songs) I’m recalling the words of a chorus I’ve sung many times over the years:
I want to be a soldier of the cross,
Brave-hearted and true;
I want to be a soldier of the cross.
I do, I do, I do, I do.
I want to be a soldier of the cross,
Telling out the story,
Walking with Jesus
All the way to Glory.
Secondly, on Good Friday during our service I got a real image of Jesus on the cross shouting out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At that moment our sins were piled onto Jesus and I really don’t want to do that anymore.
The last weekend has shown me how great it is to be married with a child. With it being a long weekend we got to spend a lot of quality time together and have made the most of it!
On Saturday we took Sian to see Ice Age 2 (the original film is one of her favourites) and she spent the whole film sat on her own chair (plus booster seat) and laughed her self silly! We also laughed ourselves silly with some good clean family fun!
Monday saw us take a trip to Riga Zoo and again Sian enjoyed herself most of the time. When we talked to her in the evening her favourite part was definitely the tigers, followed closely by the fish! While we were there she was able to put across her fear of going into one darker area, but later conquered her fear of going into a similarly dark area to see the fish. There’s a lesson for us in there I reckon.
All in all a great weekend!
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