Temptation

Funny thing temptation, it can sneak right up on you nad can easily be about not doing as doing.

Things I want to be doing all involve making an effort, being organised, getting active. It is so much easier not to do, like not writing a blog, sitting here and having to think about what I am actually writing instead of just getting lost in another book or randomly browsing the internet. The reason I wanted to write a blog, involved having loads of thoughts and wanting to put them down somewhere, I still have the thoughts, but they just run around in my head and then end up getting lost.

I am not writing this blog to say I will now be writing more blogs, I just had something in my head I wanted to put down.

The other thing I find with temptation though is what is going round my head, is that God always provides a way out, an exit strategy, sometimes we don't see it, but it is definitly there. A good example is the internet, how many clicks does it take to go somewhere you don't want to be, it still involves clicking, there is the exit, don't click. Sometimes easier said than done, or how about the tv, something on which you really know is not doing you any good and there is a remote control, we don't even have to get up to change the channel, but the channel stays on, the way out is there. I know the places that if I went to it would be easy for me to get dragged down or into something I shouldn't, so it is best for me not to go there.

Always look for the way out, it is there, it just involves making making a choice and actually doing. I know there is more to that, more about breaking cycles and making hard decisions, but I just wanted to get that out of my head.

Reaction Time

I will be driving along sometimes and there will be someone waiting to pull out and I don't notice them in time to stop and let them through, or somebody is speaking and afterwards I think, I should have been concentrating more, I could have said...., the other week, driving to work, in my rush, I pulled out to overtake and then noticed a hitchhiker in a layby, that because of my rush, I missed being able to stop for.

It seems to me my reaction time is a bit slow, or maybe my eyes are not open enough, or even, I am not looking because, it is not natural for me to have my eyes open, ready to respond, I am looking internally, responding to what is in front of me and missing need on the periphary.

How do I get naturally wide eyed?

It says at the beginning of Ephesians 5 that I should be an imitator of God, how do I do that? Spend time with Him. His word, in prayer, in time. The more I know of Him, the more natural it is to respond because I am more aware of His heart, of His ways, of His view of things, He has a very wide aspect.
I want to be wide eyed and able to respond as naturally as breathing.

Regeneration

I have a great book by a guy called Andrew Wilson called 'God Stories.' I hope it does not sound rude if I say it is a great toilet read, the chapters are really short and yet gets so much across, it is the perfect book for toilet concentration.

I was reading a chapter the other day on regeneration and what God does in and to our lives and it inspired this wee post.
It really made me think of Doctor Who, because he gets regenerated, when he gets mortally wounded or you think that is the end, or some actor does not want to be typecast, (even though they now already are), anyway, then Doctor Who gets regenerated.
New body, new voice, new habits, new characters in his life, new tastes and always a new dress sense. He becomes somebody completely new, yet, he has the same memories, the same knowledge, he is still the doctor.

Of course, easy analogy time.
New Christian, new body in spirit, new voice, new tastes, new habits, probably some new characters, maybe not the new dress sense, new life. Still you, memories and knowledge and such like and yet made brand new, a new creation, regenerated.

Little Thoughts

I have lots of these little thoughts, little moments of clarity, or acknowledgement, or moments when I just notice God staring out at me in the most seemingly mundane or even worldly things, moments when God is apparent or makes himself known through the T.V. or driving or nature. Most of these thoughts disappear into the ether minutes after I have them, I am now attempting to make notes when I am inspired and hopefully just share something short and hopefully noteworthy which has caught my eye, or just started me thinking.

I was watching Film 2011 the other night, when I had a moment like this, they were talking about remakes, asking why people cannot be original, have to copy, or take something great and try and redo it when it does not need redoing or updating, or translating, it was fine the way it was, that is what made it a classic in the first place. Remaking stifles originality, yet of course in the film making world, it is all about the money, tried and tested may mean profit, rather than the risk of originality which can be hit and miss.

The church can sometimes act like this, somebody once referred to McChurch, the way services, ministries,etc.. are replicated in so many churches up and down the country, exactly the same service, same format, same ministries.

This can work.

If that is what God is saying to you.

But what if He is saying do something new? How easy is it to break the mould?

From Enoch to today, God has asked us to walk in new ways with Him, I bet Noah just wanted to be like Enoch and walk with God, but God wanted him to build an ark, I bet Abram did not want to go walkabout but would have preferred to build an ark, God had already asked someone to do that. How about Martin Luther? Or Wesley? Or countless others, who responded to God's originality, rather than just trying to make a dull remake.

IPhone

This is me being very modern and attempting to blog from my phone. So this will be a very short blog as it is just a tester, but I still have something to share which has been on my mind now for a while.
There should be a difference between the living and the dead.

There is obviously a natural difference between a live physical body and a dead physical body. Should there not be a difference between a dead spiritual person and a living spiritual person?
Sometimes it is very plain to see when someone is saved the huge difference Christ has made in their lives and there are people I know who really shine differently from those around them because they are really alive in Christ, yet there seems to me, too many of us who there is no difference between us and the bloke down the road who has no idea who Jesus even is, in habits or deeds or way of life.
Surely there should be a difference.

Right Eyes

I am doing a degree course at the moment, which I am thoroughly enjoying and learning a lot from, there are a wide range of topics within this first course I am doing, ranging from Cleopatra to Michael Faraday to Cezanne. Out of all of these so far, the one I have enjoyed the most has been Cezanne and probably the biggest reason for my enjoyment is that my whole view of modern art has been changed as I have studied. As I was writing an essay on this artist I suddenly found myself defending him and understanding what he was doing, it was a wonderful epiphanal moment. The German poet Rilke, has a similar experience, he said he suddenly started seeing the paintings through 'the right eyes.'

The veil needs to fall away, because there is a veil in all our thinking, putting limits on God, putting God in a box, just not even getting who God is.

I find myself hearing more and more truth, I have to be discerning and I don't jump on everything I hear and run with it, but when I hear something which is truth and I meditate on it and think about what that means in my life then I start to see something new with the 'right eyes.'

I cannot force anyone to believe anything, I can only share truth and hope that something clicks, as it did and continues to do for me.

.

Driving Again

Driving is something I do a lot of, it is also something I have blogged about on many occasions. The thing is, the way people act in their cars, it can be such a magnified reflection of people in real life.
The other night, on my way home from work, there is a place where there is a short piece of dual carriageway which then goes to down to one lane, it is a chance to get past any slow moving traffic, because after that, for the next 15miles, it is single lane traffic. Anyway, on this night, I overtook a lorry and then had a car overtake me, a bit ahead, I could see another lorry and wondered if I would get to overtake it or not and in my rearview mirror I could see another car in the overtaking lane that was going to overtake me.
As I got closer to the lorry, I kept my eye on the vehicle behind, which was still sitting where it was before, just behind me, in the overtaking lane, not overtaking and making me think, whether I would be able to or not, then as we got to the point of the road becoming one lane, I thought, well I won't bother overtaking, I can sit behind the lorry, it is ok. At this point the car behind notices that the road is becoming one lane and tries to overtake me and the lorry and fails miserably, and has to pull right in front of me. I flashed the driver in front, I was a bit peeved, this was dangerous, but the fella, put his hand up to apologise and I was happy to let it go. The driver was not finished though, he decided to overtake the lorry anyway, on a blind dip and nearly causes another accident, I don't know why he did it, maybe he thought I was an angry driver behind him. Lastly, 12 or so miles further down the road, the lorry is gone and I have clear road ahead when I come across this dawdling vehicle trundling along delaying me getting home and who is it? But my friend the dangerous overtaker.

My lesson, how many times do we do something stupid, dangerous or just plain wrong and follow that up by trying to escape the shame or truth and do something more stupid, more dangerous or more wrong and yet in the end, it all catches up with us.

.