Mary's Thoughts

I am having a sleepless night. I shouldn't be. It's almost by choice - and a foolish one as my day is busy and full tomorrow starting with injections at the doctors at 9am... I go to Albania in a week - that's my validation for not being able to sleep - but I don't reckon its so simple. I have thoughts to work through - lots of my own thoughts that I don't want to deal with, so with a water bottle to drink from at my desk and the light from the computer the only light in the room I face an avenue to finding some answers, I give myself a reason to be awake at 2am and I start to write and update this blog which I havn't written in for weeks.

I've looked back at "expectations" and read what Mary wrote - I jotted down a few things hoping they would speak to me or make me think, and they have. My house mates Anna and Catherine and Anna's boyfriend Owen were talking tonight about God's leading and leadership in church and ministry - and how it is often a narrow road - and a surrenderd one to Gods choices. So Mary's question of "God - should I expect you to call me out to great things?" rang a chord, and I feel like I have an answer. I think the question in itself is good. If you are really willing to do what God wants you to do - then he will lead you into great things - and they are great things by God's standards - quite often contrary to what we hold up as great. The only reason we love beauty and art and friendship and justice and anything good is because of the Spirit of God or the image of God. That's what I think. So to give God your will, so he can give you his will is the only starting point to anything of greatness in Gods eyes - cause he will have a good and perfect will, and he will have good works already ordained for you to do. Jesus was all about his fathers business - and if thats what we're looking to be sold out for - then yeah God will call you into great, great things - by his great, great standards. Which probably means servanthood, sacrafice, meekness, faith that stretches you, hurts that hurt you, love that melts you, joy that is great, family/friends that are wonderful and difficult and wonderful, burdens for people that are heartbreaking, seeing the world as it is that can almost crush you, seeing the beauty of life and loving every minute, seeing people come to know God, seeing God win, seeing the goodness of God in the land of the living.

Is that the calling of God upon us - isn't that what we are about - isn't that what we are walking or climbing towards when we seek after Gods will for our lives. To me that makes the whole world the place of God kingdom and our hearts and minds unlimited in their avenues to be expressive of God. I think that although we can do so many different jobs and live so many different lives I think if we truely desire Gods will for our lives and ask him for this - not once or twice but by the very act of being alive, it it is what we are living for - God will give us a vision and a heart that follow his own, and we will want to walk down that narrow way - no matter what the cost.

Then I read "sheer receptivity, utter dependance and radical reliance" - Mannings words on childlike relationship to God and His great power and mercy and love, and the great cost paid to follow with our very lives has a great balance in the fullness of God in return. Expectations - there is no call from God to be utterly dependant unless He is utterly dependable. The expectations that God has on us - are fully in relation to His capacity to be all that he has said he is. There is no cross to bear - but for the joy set before it. Following Jesus is our greatest call, and he knows the will of the father - and the father is God himself who has the whole world in his hands - he has great things in store for those surrendered to him. And that's obedience, and I wouldn't even dare to begin to write of Gods love that we can recieve and know so little about.

Then I read Mary's recent post - about "as it should be" and although things seem unsettled in big and small ways in personal life and in the world at large - I feel glad that the struggle is there - that there is no peace when it comes to strife and injustice and hurt and loss, and there is hope although at times only a thread, hope in God and the differnce he can make - and even if it is just in a small way - through the capactiy of a christian wanting to see God bring life and healing and taking a step towards being like Jesus and reaching out - then it's worth the struggle. It's cool that God has allowed the world to be seen and the hurt to be felt, it's cool that he is sharing his heart. I pray for his spirit to be alive in me - to mold my heart and mind and use my life for his will.

And all these things are not nicely tied up in the end - not in this blog - not in this life! And I should be in bed sleeping, and I havn't spent proper time in prayer or in reading the Bible for days even weeks. And I've know grace anyway - and I feel free, but my old self comes creeping in and I know I'm in my own strength right now and I want the comfort of other things - I need water from the eternal well and I find myself a thirsty but don't drink, I need the bread of life and I find myself hungry and empty but I don't eat. It's not Albania and thoughts of the new life, the narrow road there - it's my need keeping me awake - and I've still not prayed. I must and I will. Mary your thoughts have let me find grounding for my own thoughts - and I've meandered through - and I've found a space to speak the truth of me, so bless you for all your insights and writings and struggles and thoughts! Goodnight - I hope I'm off to pray before a long awaited sleep.