Archive for the 'My Pilgrimage' CategoryPage 2 of 10

Changing focus

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Graeme
on September 10, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
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It’s now less than a week before the Prayer Warrior Session starts here in the UK and as a member of that session I won’t get the same time to post to the blog in the same way as I have been over the last couple of years.

Because of this I suspect that there will be something of a change in focus of the blog. Rather than sharing my thoughts on different subjects, the blog is going to become more of a personal journal of my college experience.

On that note, I must admit that I really cannot wait to get stuck into college life and studying. Over the last 12 days since we arrived, we’ve been getting to know the other families who have also moved in and in the next few days the remaining cadets will arrive. It’s been great to start forming relationships with those who we’ll be sharing the next two years with.

Moving day

Published
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Graeme
on August 28, 2008
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Tomorrow is moving day! We’re packed, well all except the last few small things that we need in the morning! Sometime early tomorrow afternoon we will arrive in Camberwell at the College and start our new life.

We’re really looking forward to settling in and we’ve got a week to do so before Sian starts school on 8th September!

Have no idea how quickly we’ll be back online, hopefully not too long!

Last Sunday

Published
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Graeme
on August 26, 2008
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Last Sunday was my last in command of Godalming Corps and we had an amazing evening meeting! As often happens on these sorts of occasions we had a few extra people in the meeting which boosted numbers a little. The meeting itself was good and led by our good friend and sponsoring officer, Adrian Allman. I didn’t even get up to preach until the meeting was an hour old, and it usually only lasts one hour!

People said nice things about our ministry and we received a few presents, all of which was great but it shouldn’t be about us and what we’ve done, but what God has done through us!

So I get up to preach and I’ve known what I should say for weeks now, so I start and soon realise that something is happening. The Spirit is there and is touching people through the words I’m delivering on the Spirit’s behalf. The words are about having a big God! They are about allowing His glory to be seen through our everyday lives! And then the Spirit challenges them and me, and out of my small congregation of 25 people 13 make their way forward to surrender themselves to our awesome God, and the meeting becomes not about Zoe, the girls and me leaving, but about the God who we serve.

The scenes on Sunday night will stay with me a long time and I am glad to have served the Lord in Godalming and will miss this small group of Christians. I know though, that He has greater things in store in the future!

Our God is great!

Privilege

Published
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Graeme
on August 12, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
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It’s strange to think that I only have two Sundays left in charge of the corps here in Godalming. We have had a challenging year in some ways, what with knowing that the appointment would most likely be for just one year and that we also had to adjust back to living in the UK after 6 years in Latvia. At times things have been difficult, in fact at times they have been quite demoralising, but God has brought me through the experience wiser and stronger in my faith.

This coming Sunday evening will be the highlight of the year for me personally. Why? Well I will be enrolling a soldier! To see the way this mature woman has grown in her faith is such an encouragement and as we shared together last night she said the following,

“The only thing now is that I have to study the Bible more. Not because I’m supposed to but because I want to!”

Says it all really, doesn’t it! I have to admit that I was almost skipping down the road as I walked home beaming with pleasure.

Worthy conduct

Published
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Graeme
on August 1, 2008
in My Pilgrimage
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I’ve been catching up recently on some old sermons on my iPod. In particular I listen to Rob Bell, although admitting that might get me challenged by some. For some time now he’s been going through Philippians and he recently spoke on Phil 1:27Open Link in New Window which says:

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

I’d not really noticed this particular phrase before, although I must have read it at some stage. However, in listening to this sermon the words really challenged me.

What sort of reaction do I have to certain situations? What do I say or do? How do I act? Are all these things consistently worthy of the gospel, or do I end up letting the gospel down? If I’m honest the latter is true. Too often in my own life my conduct isn’t worthy of the gospel. I’ve seen an improvement over the last 18 months, but I’m still quite a way from where I should be.

Can you imagine though what would happen if Christians were to act worthily all the time?

Seeing bigger II

Published
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Graeme
on July 16, 2008
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Following on from the last post, in Donald Miller’s ‘Searching for God knows what’ there is a section where Miller talks about how big we see God. Basically, he takes us to the burning bush encounter where Moses asks God who he should say sent him to release the enslaved Israelites. Of course God responds simply, “I AM who I AM”

Here’s what Miller says:

God did not answer, “I EXIST,” of offer one of His names, all of which are metaphors invented for humans, but rather, “I AM.” Climbing inside letters, God explains, I encompass, I am beyond existence, I am nothing you will understand, I have no beginning and no end, I am not like you, and yet I AM.
pg 147 - Miller, D., (2004) Searching for God knows what, Nelson Books

We try so hard to define God by adding to His name. Of course we have to try to make sense of Him as we learn about Him, but we should not limit Him to our own understanding or thoughts.

I suppose it comes down to what sort of God we want to have a faith in. Do we want to have a faith in a God that we can understand and doesn’t make a mess of our lives? Or do we want to have a faith that constantly challenges the boundaries of our perceptions; that is constantly stretched so that we grow deeper in our faith because the God we worship is always surprising us by revealing something new about Himself?

Seeing bigger

Published
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Graeme
on July 15, 2008
in Faith and My Pilgrimage
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The other evening Zoe & I were sat up talking and at one point we were talking about God and how small some people’s image of God is. As we talked I got the memory of a song that I remember being sung by a guy who I really respected about 20 years ago. I have no idea whether it was a song written by him, or by someone else, but it was called ‘God in a Box’. I can’t even remember how the song goes, but the title has stuck with me ever since.

There really is a sense in which we have tried to stick God in a box in our faith. The size of the box varies from person to person and the contents vary on the basis of our theological and political worldview, but on the whole many of us have God stuck into a box like so much screwed up newspaper. I guess that this is some sort of defence mechanism in many ways simply because God is too big for us to understand.

If, by dint of some relevation we have managed to get God out of the box, many of us still manage to restrict our view of Him. We tend to look out of a set of windows that surround us and can see aspects of God. So some will look out at Him through the window of Wesleyan Holiness, others through the window of Pentecostalism, still others through the windows of Roman Catholism. To these we can add windows of conservatism, liberalism, progressiveism etc. But our view is still limited! It’s still an attempt for us to constrain a God that trancends constraining.

It reminds me of the Dougie Dug Dug song, “Have we made our God too small?”

The other day Zoe blogged on a quote from Bill Hybels that talks about being a Prayer Warrior! Hybels said this:

A ‘prayer warrior’ is a person who is convinced that God is omnipotent - that God has the power to do anything, to change anyone and to intervene in any circumstance.

We believe in the omnipotence of God, but subconciously I think we’re terrified by it. It is simply too big for us to comprehend and consequently our minds retreat into a safety net of boxing God in, or looking at Him through from the safety of a window.

What would our faith look like if, instead of trying to understand God from our point of view, we were simply to allow God to speak to us? Instead of us trying to fit God into a nice little box that suited our own ideas or looking at Him through the windows of our own liking, what would happen if we entered a dialogue with Him, with a totally open mind, that allowed Him to shape our views?