well nic, i really was not expecting to have the privilege of posting in your head space...

but know this - it is SUCH an honour that although this is the first time i have logged onto blogger since i arrived in toulouse, yours is the first site i went to - even before my own...

sorry no words of wisdom here, but more of thanking you for sharing your head, cos alredy it is ALSO helping me ponder on things that are right, noble and honourable...

thank jesus for the crazy space in your head!!

So, recently i have been challenged by the thought that everything we do should come from the motivation of helping people to know God for themselves, something i think that god has been letting me in on his heart about; how that would affect and change things that we do - including social justice works. I was reading today an article in the latest cutting edge magazine which was a talk that John Wimber did when he was alive. he talks about two things that made me cry:

1. That we need faith and works - that "jesus went about galilee, preaching and teaching and healing and delivering" (mt 4:23-25). So often i think this is viewed in terms of people not doing enough with the faith they have, not putting it into action. sadly i think for some, amybe lots of people today, the opposite is happening and i think it makes god equally as sad. that people are out doing good works, which are so important and i don't want to dumb down that as they are great to do, yet telling people about why they're doing it isn't happening. Surely just having this half of the equation can't be right either.

2. To quote John W (quoting a taxi driver who'd had horrible experiences of church) "Well, if there was a God and he had a church - they would care for the poor, heal the sick, and they wouldn't charge you money to teach you the book". I thought "they know. The world knows what it's supposed to be like. the only ones who don't know is the church".
gutted. how true is that. how hard is it to spend some time with someone on the streets, to give a lift to someone you don't really want to be with, to actually love someone enough to tell them that their way of life might not be the best way but that we can introduce them to someone who can help make sense of life and the things it throws at us. And yet i find myself so often walking past those opportunties and at the same time crying out to God to live more in his Kingdom.

i think i have some learning to learn, some time to give and some speaking to speak.

So, last weekend i went on a conference for christians who work with women involved in prostitution. Although i felt like a bit of a fraud being there, as everyone else had the profession as their life passion, or main focus and i am only playing aat the sidelines in my spare time, i did learn a lot.

Elaine Storkey was talking about identity and although i have heard so many talks about it before, suddenly it started to sink in. She was illustrating how God loves to help us find our identity in him, using the examples of 3 women that jesus had interractions with. Whilst she was doing that i realised what a relief it was to finally have something in the bible that i could look at to help me understand more. It all kind of clicked into place.

Off the back of that it helps me love other people in a much easier way, a much more substantial fashion as i know how God sees me and that he sees everyone else, especially the girls we see all the time who would normally be thoroughly rejected by society, in the same way.

last week, in the height of my worry/stress etc, i went to see a wonderful wise lady in the church who casually informed me of a thought that she'd read saying that those who worry are also those who are good at meditating. The same process is going on in the mind, of mulling over and thinking. All i had to do therefore was to think on the RIGHT things and i was away! So simple, yet so revolutionary! I have tried it and have so far been much happier, much more full of God, if that can be the case, much more aware of him anyway.

I wonder why that thought hadn't occurred to me before. For so much of my life i have hated being such a thinker, dispising and lamenting the fact that i think so much about things, always asking God to what use i can put this crazy brain of mine as he must have given it to me for a reason. Maybe i've found the answer...

i guess Paul said it a long time ago. the new living translation makes it so much more understandable than the NIV:
"6Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
8And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.
" (Philippians 4)

I all seems so much easier all of a sudden.

I also got reminded again and again of the following in Isaiah 30:15
"This is what the Sovereign LORD , the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength".
So all i need to do is realise my position before God and let that settle into my spirit. Then i need to be quiet before God and listen to what he says, getting to know his character so i can trust in him. From there i can use the philippians stuff to ask, let go and move on!

How great!

Hopefully this is the first of many - a bit of space to clear my head and somehow keep track of the many thoughts which seem to whizz around inside it!

Life has taken an unexpected (to me anyway!) twist to it over the past week and i have been knocked sideways a bit with a rather large accumulation of stress and anxiety which has suddenly manifested itself. Aside from feeling totally exhausted i am left asking myself how this happened again and why i am so bad at managing stress longterm.

There must be a God-way for it to be done, some way whereby he can take the load off at each moment. I just haven't found it yet - very frustrating. Maybe it's a lack of trust on my behalf - if i really knew him and my position with regards to him and therefore the rest of the world, i wouldn't worry or fear as it could all be let off onto him. Didn't Jesus say to cast our burdens onto him? I always finding myself saying that old cliche that "it's easier said than done". Why is this i wonder?!

Surely it must come down to perceptions of the Lord of all - is that what he is to me?