praying in secret.2

A new feature of our church life we want to share more widely. You can easily adapt it to your own neighbourhood.
Praying in secret 2012.07.04

Matthew 6.6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
we are sending weekly emails to encourage and remind us to pray together as a church family; this is when we each set aside time every Wednesday at 7 pm to pray over the same issue, either in private, or as a group with family or friends.

We are completing a series on Acts this week and what strikes me is how outward-looking they are, how aware they are of those who don’t yet know or follow Jesus, and how it matters to them that people should know and follow the Lord. This weeks therefore our focus is on our outward focus as a church, caring about and reaching out to those who neither know nor follow Jesus.

Key Verse: And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

Please pray:
(1) for growth in confidence for living and telling the good news to our friends and neighbours among your brothers and sisters at Forrest Hill Church;
(2) that we will be sensitive to the opportunities that God gives us to show and tell about Jesus in our own neighbourhoods and workplaces;
(3) that the Session and Managers in affirming the priority of bringing people to a maturing relationship with Jesus Christ (our mission statement) will be prayerful and bold in their direction of this congregation;
(4) that our leaders will develop a very clear vision of God’s ongoing purpose for this wonderful community we call Forrest Hill Church that involves being seen and known as lovers of God in our neighbourhoods.

As an alternative spend some time, either in your imagination or in reality walking your street, or a street near the church buildings, praying for each house as you pass it; asking God to meet the deepest needs, and asking for opportunities to meet those people and be like Christ for them. (You could actually do this using maps.google.com; put your address in the search box, or one of our neighbouring roads in Forrest Hill.)

As a family or group you could each something about the streets and the people in your area; then you could pray about what each person or family shares. Then perhaps your family or housegroup could simply invite neighbours or friends to a soup and toast lunch on a Sunday afternoon - or a dinner if you want to go that flash.

May God bless you with an abiding sense of His peaceful and empowering Presence, touching the world through you.

In His unrelenting grip
Peter
awake, breathe, serve, celebrate

the warm sunshine of gratitude

I discovered something in hospital that I suppose I knew - already - but I'd never been still long enough to see it work over a sustained period.
Y'see, in a hospital bed you get what the medical people are able to get to you when they're able to get it to you. I could do little enough for myself, and even less for others...but was this really an invitation to make myself the exclusive centre of attention?
Having visited a couple of friends in Hospital the previous Sunday I knew that people are so much worse off than me, but this was hurting, uncomfortable, dependent, and somewhat attention-focussing.
And yet somewhere deep within was a sense that I was the beneficiary of amazing surgical skills and compassionate nursing and ought to be properly thankful for all that comprised such a blessing. So I found myself saying thank you whenever a surgeon come visiting, or a nurse handed me a pottle to puke into or plunged the a syringe full of this medicine or that into a device in the back of hand, or handed me a pill or two or several. Even an icy refill of my water-jug seemed like a real blessing - actually that was a blessing. So "thank you" became an act of praise both of my carers and of the God of all goodness whose own goodness lies behind all good.
So - sunshine? That was the astonishing effect that such a small act of appreciative response; the smile on the faces of those repeatedly, patiently answering my requests and calls on my little button; often a little hassled by the weight of the needs of those they had to care for.
In as much as you did it for the least of these...ought to yield a little sunshine now as well as well on the loving face of the Saviour as He reviews the shape our lives...and yet maybe that "in as much..." also applies to putting a smile on the face of a willing, hardworked, dedicated, compassion-driven servant of my needs when I'm so dependant and at their mercy.

Reflections on gaining a bionic knee.1

On May 1 I launched out on a new adventure; that of elective surgery to get my knee working properly again - in fact a partial knee replacement - hence "bionic" in the title.
First my thanks to Matt Walker the capable and resourceful surgeon, then to Richard the Anaesthetist, and the Theatre staff. No nonsense, thoughtful, skilled.
I am also very grateful to a wonderful nursing team; to Bindu and Philippa our night time nurses (and to Lynne who did the late shift the last night); and to the ever-smiling and sweet Jisha our daytime nurse. And of course Angela the capable and friendly charge nurse.
I also want to give special credit to my room mates: Randy, Diane and Barbara...all my juniors in age. Their encouragement, even in the midst of their own struggles, was key to my belief in my ability to get going as well as I did post-operation. The two latter are still in hospital as their improvement has been more gradual and painful; may they get well and been tearing up the pavement soon.
One can never discount the encouragement of loving visitors, lead by my life-partner and lover, Bernadette (accompanied once by daughter Beka and granddaughter, Haeata, later followed by my youngest John). The very act of showing up all smiles and concern joined me to the Body again, if I'd ever felt separated. So to Pete and Pam and Bill; Matt; Malcolm; Bob; Victor and Hera and Yongki humble, blest thanks.
Even our journey of pain is not a solo journey, though it may feel so. The best sign of the ultimate Pain-Bearer's presence is that of His love-giving people gathering and travelling with me; and that Presence I felt strongly in the stretches of night where sleep lay in waiting, calling me to talk with Him about those sharing the room with me and whoever He brought into the conversation Deus absconditus? I don't think so; in fact I know otherwise, all praise to His loving, ever-present care and attention.
Blessings
Pete

a new approach to Sabbath

People who don't get the idea of our Holy Rest drive me crazy...don't know that they're not made to go on and on and on...don't they see they're made to pause every now and then. Things like Uni students at my church who think they must study every hour of every day, while commendable is ultimately self-destructive. So when I was reading "A Passionate Life" by Mike Breen and Walt Kallestad and stumbled across their section on resting [ch.7 The Seventh Day] I was blessed with a great perspective on keeping a day for Holy Rest (my emphasis).
As I thought about it I realised that we humans don't appear on the scene of the creation until well into the 6th day and that all preceded that day happened without our input in any way shape or form. Imagine that - God acting without any recourse to our opinion or prayers! Shocking!
So as B & K point out when God rested on the 7th day, and called humans to rest with Him, our forebears were actually resting on the first full day of their existence. They prepared for their emergence among all that God had made, by first resting. They were not taking a well-earned rest at the end of a week of frantic activity, followed by a day of frantic religious activity. Rather - they were being prepared for what the Lord had designed them to accomplish in the perfection of His purpose.
Further it was a preparation for the creativity with which He had enjoined them as His fellow-workers in "the garden". Sunday is not just the height of our creative, it is also engaging with the Creator Spirit; having our creative energies and intelligence refuelled and inspired. If there's no time for creative development in our week of frantic activity, then here it is, in resting and refuelling in the fellowship of God's loved people and in moments of blessed solitude.
This way of looking at it maybe sets the Sabbath at the start of the week rather than as a way of recuperating at the end of the week. It also puts in the theological rubbish bin all our silly questions about what is permitted on Sunday; questions like "how much work?" or "is sport work?" or "isn't shopping on Sunday only encouraging others to break the Sabbath?" become irrelevant when we acknowledge that the issue is restoration, preparation, inspiration, gathering momentum for the great spring back into life and mission in the field to which the Spirit has lead us. The question how do I best rest, reflect and restore my intellect and energy both in fellowship and solitude?
Well how do we? How do you do this?

what you planted

It was puzzle, I was sure I had planted cute little flowers in that plot. Spread seeds all over the place I thought from those little foil packets. Should have yielded flights of floral fancy, not an overcrowded cluster of carrot seedlings and radishes! The fertile soil yielded a great crop; it just wasn’t I had hoped for. What the heck?! How did that happen?
Apart from me not having labelled the little packets, a lesson in itself, it was a matter of what you sow, is what you reap - now who said that I wonder?
In the Letter we’re studying, the apostle John’s first, he talks about how God has planted extravagant love in us and so expects that to yield a harvest of loving action in our lives. If He has planted love in us He expects and looks for us to plant love into the lives of others by virtue of our actions that demonstrate our love for God. In this way we cultivate and even harvest love for our brothers and sisters and for those among the Lord has sent us in order to witness to His unquenchable love.
What’s going on if we find ourselves being hateful? It means we have allowed something other than God to be planted and growing in our hearts and minds. However it gets there, it is the work of the anti-Christ about whom John writes more later in the Letter.
The only useful response to that potentially disastrous situation is to bring that failure to God, understanding He already sees it, and allow Him to forgive and cleanse the invasive, life-choking weeds that have come to dominate as only He can. It’s a total weed-out - no trace, no evidence left that we have erred. Thus we’re free again to receive His planting of sacrificial love and begin again producing the harvest of loving action expected.

Not jumping at shadows

Loved - forever! part the first
I suppose it was my own fault; I really shouldn’t have been watching a grisly episode of Criminal Minds so close to bed-time. Not that I dreamed about the strange-but-effective team of individuals, or the seriously-distorted pieces of humanity they were trying to catch and apprehend. But something nasty from that show crept into my sleeping consciousness and produced a very unpleasant and unsettling nightmare - of sorts. So I woke up, rattled and unnerved and needing a “little walk down the passage”.
That’s when the trouble started. I was in the halfway world between dream and reality when I entered the darkened hallway, and nearly leapt clean out of my skin when I “saw” something lurking next to the mirror near the kitchen!!! Whoa! After a severe attack of knee-trembling, and deep-breathing, I snapped on the light to find it was a pile of instruments that had been brought in and deposited just there. The light removed the spectre of my fevered imagination, and revealed not just the reality of the situation in the hallway, but also my silly suggestible fear for what it was - a jumping at shadows.
In our Christian lives we do quite a lot of jumping at shadows - which pleases the enemy no end - and yet we should know better. God will not allow that kind of thing invade our space, or terrify us. God is about light and love and intends such good for us that it is almost beyond our understanding; and when we habitually hang around in His presence, in prayer, worship, thoughtful reflection and study (and in the loving embrace of fellowship) we find His wisdom and compassion often enlightening our world of shadowy fears and looming apparitions and reminding us that love conquers all and His light shows the wonder of His enduring Presence.