Monday 27 August 2012

Travels in Aus

Well its been 4 weeks in sunny Australia and one more to go! What an amazing time, visiting family and friends (old and new) and some time to chill/sightsee/reminisce.

I have so much to process! I felt it was a time to listen, observe, hear the incredibly diverse stories of the people who have meant a lot to me over the years. Many of them I hadn't seen for 20 or more years, even a couple of old school friends from the 70s. I shared much of my story too, and received all the love that was offered, especially from those who knew Min.

Over the next few weeks I'll be compiling a lot of thoughts from this trip. I knew God wanted to expand my horizons, allow me to see His love in action in so many different lives. To see the application of His grace where it intersects in every person's life. I have been blessed more than I could imagine by how He has revealed His heart of love to me and allowed me to see it in others, even when they can't.

As I'm typing this I feel a weight of solemnity, almost tears (or something), aching to see the world overwhelmed with His passionate love for us all, yet almost a detachment from myself as I also walk the path of journalist/observer, ready to question, inspire, delivering cathartic catalysts, and prizing paradigms loose from their moorings.

He is good beyond our wildest dreams, and so much bigger than our silly little doctrines and dogmas.

"...but the greatest of these is Love" 1 Cor 13

Wednesday 8 August 2012

How does He speak to you - follow up

After my request for comments on how God speaks to you  I received a good range of replies (although not anywhere near as much as I hoped - feel free to let me know if you are still interested). My plan was to assemble all the comments anonymously to show the diversity of our interactions with Him, and explore this with my own perspective to provide some clarity on the whole subject, and publish it as a short article.

I'm now working on this (probably to be incorporated into my book as well), and finding it really exciting. There are many questions surrounding how we equate intimacy and unity with God to how we communicate with Him. I have posted a few ideas before on this and discovered its a difficult subject to discuss, as many feel intimidated and inadequate if their relationship/communication isn't as obvious/demonstrative as others.

For me to say I hear His voice and we talk very intimately about many things, will easily be interpreted as I have a special relationship with God that is better than those who only see Him in nature or get revelation from reading the bible etc. But unless we really open up this area for discussion and get past the judgement and preconceptions, we are doing ourselves a disservice.

The bible says many things about this, but its all quite ambiguous. The reality is we have to trust the Holy Spirit in each other and ourselves to bring deeper intimacy in relationship, however that looks.

I encourage us all to explore this in an unashamed open manner, with no criticism, and at the same time, a willingness to learn and change our paradigms. In the end, if we aren't clearly relating to God "one on one" what do we really have?