espresso scripture

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the LORD.

Lam 3

I wonder what you are like at waiting?  I am rubbish ! I was speaking with a friend who is seeking faith recently, who told me that they want to know God, but whenever they ask him to prove that he is there, nothing happens…..

This scripture tells us that to wait on God means that there is something deeper going on, I believe that it is through waiting that we receive salvation….

because to wait takes us beyond ourselves, it stretches us to the point that we have to ask “is this really worth it?” which is the question we have to ask about the gift that salvation is!

This week, spend some time asking God a question and let your response be to wait.

espresso scripture confession…..

For three years now i have sent out a Monday morning e mail called Espresso Scriptures.  I idea was that people who don’t have faith would be able to access the bible in a real and relevant way.   Well i have a confession to make, here is today’s espresso that i wrote but didn’t send because i felt it too self indulgent, but thought it needed saying somewhere out loud so this is why it’s appeared on hear….

 

I wonder if you will indulge me for a brief moment this morning?

It has been playing on my mind now that these espresso scriptures, may have fallen foul of an inherent Christian disease.  That of a quick fix and easy belief system.  The whole idea of these e mails was that people who don’t profess to having faith would be able to access scripture in a way that they would be able to understand and relate to their everyday lives.

But i have found that i may have been writing in a different way just recently, and that rather than writing in that way, i have tried to write to a Christian audience, and offering teaching on the scriptures rather than giving an access point.

I guess what i am trying to say is sorry…..  i know its not up to me what you do with these e mails how you read them and how you journey with God.  But i just felt that i had to say this

thanks.

Ben

fresh or stale its all the same body ….

we have a very, very long way to go when it comes to both fresh and inherited models of church within the church of England. there are always going to be rubbish fresh expressions and rubbish inherited models !as well as amazing ones of both ! the worrying thing is that they feel pitted against each other !!! not good at all.

they are both becoming church and will always remain doing so !! long may those who led either or both have the humility to say i need to learn from the other so that we can more fully become church!!! which is easier for me to say because the expectations of what i do are not conformed by tradition (yet!) there is nothing new under the sun and no fresh expression is a brand new thing ! it might be more culturally relevant but the message and principles remain the same and so they should. after all we all come from this amazing Body that is Christ’s !!!

Embrace the chaos…

This blog has been decidedly pants just recently…..

mainly because i have not sat down with the time to write anything opinionated!  However there has been much to provoke me into thought, outrage and quite contemplation, so i will give it a quick bash and see where we get to…..

over the summer the USA have been talking about health care reform, and i am not going to get into that debate at all, but one thing that i did see that absolutely floored me was the people disagreeing with Obama’s plans painting a Hitler tash on a poster of his face !!!!  Just unbelievable!!!   are these people seriously allowed to vote and have children?  lets just have a quick check list here one of these leaders caused the death of over 56,000,000 people the other is trying to improve the lives and health of a nation!!!! seriously i ask you ! words fail me…..

i have also been learning a lot about myself over the past few weeks, learning that time out allows me to work better, that down time should not always be filled and that chaos is to be embraced and not feared.

I am someone who actually needs chaos and disruption in order to work efficiently and productively, but there must always be an end to it…. this time last year i began a gentle slide into depression, mainly because of feeling that the circumstances i was surrounded with were totally out of my control, which to all intents and purposes they were.  In many ways chaos seemed to exist at every turn, without let up.  But through this i learnt that life sometimes is just crap.  But it is always temporary, today will pass and there will never be another day like it, tomorrow will come and although the situation may still be the same it will not be the same as yesterday.  For me God is in the Chaos, sometimes he is the Chaos !  but i know that either way and every way he is also the embrace….

The light…

The light shines in the darkness
John 1

As the nights begin to draw in and again the seasons begin to change, the darkness becomes more and more prevalent.

I wonder then, if this may get you thinking about the dark times that you have been through in life, maybe you are there right now.

I wonder how you handle darkness?

I believe that we are not designed to live in darkness, because darkness is a place that can bring fear, confusion and loneliness.

I also believe that Jesus tackles this head on by calling himself the light of the world, and as the scripture above points out a light that shines in the darkness.

As we head into a new season, into more and more darkness (maybe physically, emotionally and/or spiritually)  let us remember that there is always a light….. it might seem dim, fragile and distant.  But there is always a light.

This week find a dark place and in the stillness light a candle.

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Bread and me…

here’s a thought…..

Give us today our daily bread.
Matt 6

I wonder if have heard this phrase before? If you have, I wonder what it means to you?

These words come from Jesus, they are part of his response to a question about prayer. Jesus uses these words because I believe he wanted people to trust in God for everything…… Which i think is easy for us in the West to say, but hard to do!

I wonder what your life would look like if instead of asking the question “I wonder what I am going to eat?” instead you asked “I wonder when or even if I am going to eat?”

I wonder what our lives would look like if we sought out and invested in people who spend every day asking ‘when’ and not ‘what’?….

This week think about your daily bread and the utter luxury it is, and if you get time break some bread and share it with some one else.

Grace and peace.

espresso scripture …..

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Matt 6

I wonder what you investing most? To invest takes time, effort, energy and commitment and sometimes more than we really want to give.

I wonder if you would say that the places you are investing are the right ones?

The passage above states that if we invest in God, everything else will make sense. Not that it will always be easy, but when we put His agenda first the rewards from that investment will be far greater than if we invest in things that might well disappear…

This week take some time to reflect on where you are investing, and ask yourself “Is this still the place that i should be?” also, ask yourself what are the “God-realities, God-initiatives and God-provisions?” and what do they look like in your life?

Disasters and miracles…..

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”   Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.  Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

Exodus 14

If you were to ask me what it is like to live a life of faith, i would probably say it is one of disasters and miracles.

I believe that no matter what journey we take in life there will always be disasters of one kind or another.  But for me i know that what ever disaster i may encounter, there is also the possibility of a miracle.  Not that the miracle always happens, but i believe that there is the possibility of it happening.

The story of Moses is one of disasters and miracles, its one of faith and disappointment, its one of answers on un-answered questions.  But above all it is a story of hope.

I wonder this week if you could hope for anything, what it would be?  I wonder what it would mean for you to trust in the possibility of miracles?

take some time this week to do as Moses says here and ‘be still’ and think about this…..

Disabilities, life and the specials…

This week saw a new internet based reality programme called ‘The Specials’ In which 5 young people are filmed living together in a house in Brighton.

You can follow their story here
The Specials

I wonder what you experience has been when i comes to disabilities? In the 2001 Census, one in six people in the UK (10.3 million) living in a private household reported having a limiting long-term illness. (LLTI)

Personally speaking i have not really had much experience of people with severe learning disabilities, i would guess like a lot of people i know friends who have LLTI but not that i see and deal with on an everyday basis.  So in many ways i am pretty ignorant  about what it means to live like this and the difficulties that can come with  it.  But saying that i wonder how you might define disability, i would say that we all have disabilities in one way or another.  Some are more visible than others and some are greater than others.

What i do know is that my disability has a name.  I have Dyslexia, which was only diagnosed after i had finished my degree.  It is an issue that a lot of people either don’t think exists or think that it is ok to make fun of  like the funniest Joke in the world is “Dyslexics rule KO”  I do just need to say 1. its not very funny you have just embarrassed yourself 2. its about 30 years out of date who says something Rules these days. 3. you have never actually lived with this problem.  constantly feeling think because you cannot retrieve the words you need to express yourself or reading out loud only to get the words mixed up or asking people to spell the simplest of things so that you do not look a prat in front of them.  having someone else read and re read everything that you have written.  having people point out all your mistakes because it actually makes them feel better about themselves. and people making really crap unfunny jokes for reasons that are just beyond me ! (sorry rant over!)

Yes we should all pursue a better standard of living, we should never be defined by our disabilities, but we should also never be labelled by others either!…..