Delighting in the Divine
Yes to freedom, yes to play and yes to celebrating the moment!
Delighting in the Divine
Yes to freedom, yes to play and yes to celebrating the moment!
All tagged abiding
Could God possibly desire brokenness above seeming fixed-ness?
Could God possibly prefer me broken and weak and at the end of me over held-together-all-by-myself me, because that is where He is? ...
How is your new year going? Does it feel like a new season? It is Summer right now in Peru and we are abiding as a community - spending lots of time resting, spending time together socially, sorting through things and preparing for the new school year which starts in March here. Having spent time resting over Christmas I feel excited and expectant about what God is going to do this year. Right now I am in a season of preparation and deepening roots...
Now that you can see the prize and all the beautiful fruits that unity can bring, let’s talk about the price.
My husband and I began living in community 5 years ago after moving from a neighborhood where nobody would talk to us! As well as getting to know our neighbours, we have gathered people around us who have become leaders of their own communities and students from our school of ministry. There are lots of people and many leaders around us, who we work with and live life together with. There are LOTS of opportunities for disagreements and misunderstandings and LOTS of conflicts and potential conflicts...
I have applied the vine and branches passage in John 15:4-5, every time I have read it, to my own personal walk with God. 100% of the time I have viewed the passage like this: If I, Anna, abide in Christ, and I, Anna, seek God and have communion with Him at all times, then I, Anna, will bear much fruit...
I am really excited about this new series because I am really excited about being in relationship with Emmanuel! It is what breathes life into my life! Without Him, everything I do is pointless, worthless, depressing, overwhelming, stressful and just hard and yucky. Sometimes, when I forget I am in relationship with the Creator of the Universe it is still those things. When I find myself in those moments, I find myself wondering how I can cultivate a walk with God throughout my whole day, throughout my whole thought-life and throughout all my actions.
What relationship-breathed habits and rhythms can I put into my day so I don’t forget the most important relationship I have, for even a moment? Yep, just a small task! Actually, so often my life has become about tasks which I complete, trying to do them in joy and so often not knowing if I am in God’s will. Sometimes I wonder whether God’s will actually exists in what I am doing (does God have a preference here or is He totally content to inhabit what I am doing just as a father joins in a child's play?). Other times I find myself living in a spirit of striving: striving so hard to be and do right, but failing to actually acknowledge Him and ask His opinion on things.
Lima is currently passing through the coldest winter in my lifetime. Now compared to England, the daytime temperatures for winter are good (11-16’C/51-60’F), but we have no heating in our houses here, the sun never shines and it is damp and windy! So, since May I have been in at least quadruple layers on top and bottom and we had to buy extra blankets for many of the beds. On the upside, the rain has been more frequent - which in a desert, the plants are loving and so am I as I haven’t had to water the garden!
But the strangest thing for me has been our peach tree. I planted it in the first year of being here and it did nothing for two years. At least, nothing visible...
Journaling has become one of the main parts of my quiet times over the last month. I had so many things I was seeking God about that I wanted to allow the time for Him to speak to me. However, one of the main things He has said to me is to just lie on his chest and listen to his heartbea.
I am a doer. I am a disciplined doer and I don’t just do things for the sake of it (having children and limited time has ensured that!) but even in my quiet times, I find myself trying to achieve something...
The most helpful and inspiring workshop I ever went to at University was a voluntary one.
Only 6 or so students turned up, all seeking the answer to the same question: How can we get top marks in our essays with this teacher? (From what I remember the class was on French existentialism!)
I think we all expected to be pointed to key academic texts we could discover the answers to the varied essay questions in, or to be given a secret or two by the teacher. But as far as I recall, there was none of that...
