Category: The God Spot

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We will now sing Hymn 214 from Hymns Ancient and Prehistoric (1983 edition)

All across the world tomorrow there will be a minimum rebellion and battle of wills when the vicar stands to announced the singing of one particular song.

Mr Davies (3rd seat in on the right hand side, 4th row from the front) will pointedly sing “Redeemer” in a loud deep voice whilst Mr Jones (aisle seat, front row directly looking down the vicars throat) will belt out “Jehovah” ensuring that the lovely stained glass windows rattle to the depth of his baritone voice.
Continue reading “We will now sing Hymn 214 from Hymns Ancient and Prehistoric (1983 edition)”

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** PAUSED **

… Press Pray to Continue.

The road to moving home is never fully smooth, and pretty much always throws up the odd surprise along with a bit of tension and even a few tears. When it’s God telling you to move, you kinda hope, and pray, that the road will be smooth and that things will almost fall into place.

A naive perspective I know – but when you’re talking about God then it can also be seen as a trusting faith as you step into what God’s called you to. Yes, I know that when God calls the road is rarely smooth and rosy (just look at Moses, Joseph, Mary, John the Baptist etc…) – even so, we were hoping that this would be the case here.

Instead we are now at a point where we’ve had to press the pause button on the story of our move. Yup, we’ve had to take the house off the market *sob*

We’d set ourselves a target time, due to various reasons, of the October half-term as the cut-off date for the move and when we finally hit the point where that wasn’t going to happen we made the painful call to take the house off.

And it hurts. We KNOW that God is telling us to move. We KNOW that Rugby is our destination. If we ever drive past it there’s a longing and a pain in the pit of our stomachs. What makes it worse is we know that there’s a good reason for the delay, it’s just that God hasn’t told us yet. This is obviously a part of the process He wants us to go through and there are things we need to do/learn/act upon/whatever during this hiatus in proceedings.

We’ve not dropped the plans. We’ve not decided that we’re not moving. We don’t feel that “we got it wrong”. We just don’t fully know Gods roadmap for the journey He is sending us on.

The house will go back on the market next spring and we’ll be praying and looking to move sometime in the summer ahead of new school years and, in the case of our eldest, college. In the interim period we’ll be getting on with life and doing a few more jobs on the house that need doing…

And then we’ll kick it all off and hopefully we’ll move to Rugby.

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Purpose, Conviction, Vision and…. patience

 

I’ve mentioned here in the past that I can struggle with the P-word sometimes. Patience is something that I can often lack, and always need more of.

What makes things worse is when you have a clear sense of purpose, a definite goal and total faith in what you are doing… but you still have to wait.

As you cannot help but have noticed, we are moving house. We know God’s calling us to move, we know where, we have complete faith in that – but the time still ticks by and that exposes the patience, or lack thereof. After waiting for so long for the starters pistol to fire, we know that we’re on the final straight and we can see the finishing line in front of us (appropriate metaphor for this year really). Unfortunately it’s one of those scenarios where time seems to slow down, and the goal seems to move further away with each step closer we take.

There’s no doubt that this is the right move and there is no doubt that this is what God wants us to be doing – but we’re definitely at that point of wishing it was all over and done with (well, except the move itself as that needs to wait until the summer hols :-D)

If you happen to have a spare 30 seconds, please shoot a prayer upstairs for us!

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And after all…

In the midst of all the house move preparations and DIY chaos (more on that soon!), I’ve found a need for a simple connection with God. Through all the busy-ness and noise, just a still small voice before the throne of God.

There’s a song on the last David Crowder Band album (Give us Rest) called “After All (Holy)” that immediately moves me through the wonder of creation and the universe and into the throne room of God. The imagery of the almost hypnotic lyrics within the verses bring a stark and vivid sense of scale to everything and then the song moves into the most simple of choruses, just singing “Holy”.

That got me thinking about worship, something I love. Music stirs my heart and soul and can connect me to God in amazing and wonderful ways.

There are songs that proclaim biblical truths and foundational faith. There are songs that can paint pictures, consuming the mind and imagination in such a way that your only focus is on worship. There are songs that are musically brilliant and complex, that take you along for the ride. There are simple songs, that just declare one or two truths and can absorb you within the reiteration.

I find it fascinating to look at scripture and consider the worship we see in there. The book of Psalms is a glorious library of praise and worship that comes from the hearts of people experiencing all of the human emotions we know – love, hurt, despair, loneliness, desolation, depression, awe, wonder, majesty, fear, abandonment and more.

The Psalms can be simple, or a rich tapestry full of fine stitching that calls us to examine closely and really look at the detail.

But after all that… we can look at Isaiah 6:1-3

“It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

They were calling out to each other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

The angels in the throne room of God aren’t singing complex exaltations. They aren’t delivering speeches in song.

They are simply singing “Holy”

And after all… that’s sometimes all that needs to be said.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7rjwkLpooY[/youtube]

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Lost in translation.

It’s such a famous passage: “They that wait upon The Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31 King James Bible)

I’ve always read it as a call to rest, be quiet, wait… and then the strength will come and I will rise up, run, walk. I’ve always heard it preached that way and never really given it much thought. We all know it, we sing songs based on it, and surely we understand it.

Last night I had an OUCH moment. One of those times when the Word of God hits you in such a way that you wince at the impact of it. It makes you cringe as you reflect the word upon your own life. You squirm at the implications for how you proceed.

I was listening to Pastor Steven Furtick and he turned the verse on it’s head saying that to “wait” doesn’t mean stopping, it means the same thing as a waiter waiting on tables… serving.

“What we call Patience, God often calls Procrastination.” was one soundbite from the sermon.

OUCH.

That hurt. How many times have I “waited on God” before acting? How many times could I have been stepping out in faith, getting on with the job and believing that Gods strength would come, that His wisdom would be known as I too a leap of faith. How many times have I sat on my backside when I could have been seeking God through action.

Now I don’t take such radical shifts in the way the bible is interpreted at face value… so I did some digging into the different translations of this verse to see what they said:

  • “But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength.They will soar high on wings like eagles.They will run and not grow weary.They will walk and not faint.” (New Living Translation)
  • “But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wingsand mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired.” (Amplified)
  • “But those who trust the Lord will find new strength. They will be strong like eagles soaring upward on wings; they will walk and run without getting tired.” (Contemporary English Version)
  • “But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (New International Version)

Don’t get me wrong, there are times we need to STOP. To wait on God. To refresh and recharge. Even the most enthusiastic and energetic of Christians need to stop sometimes or risk burning out. There are times when God needs to speak to us in the silence and the calm, to ensure He has our full attention and that we aren’t so distracted by DOING that we aren’t LISTENING.

But it’s also been a far too convenient excuse. It’s been so easy to accept that I need to “wait” and not “do”.

I wonder… how much further would I be if I’d mounted up on wings like eagles? if I’d run and trusted that God would provide the strength?

Yes, there’s always grace – but there are also seasons, and I suspect there have been some that I’ve missed because I’ve been sat on my blessed assurance with a holy face on. Hopefully now I might just be a bit more proactive and less procastinatory (is that even a word?!?)