Heart work

Kia ora whanau!

So much for doing a blog post once every two weeks... I knew that was pretty much impossible but my Aunty has always said that I need to attend 'Over Achievers Anonymous' so it's no surprise that I thought I would be able to achieve this! It has been a really jam packed few weeks, here's a few of the things that I've been getting up to:

- Venn Summer Conference - I went to my first conference in 2017 and it absolutely changed my life and my relationship with God, it's the reason I am here doing this fellowship! Once again it was an incredible week, if you're remotely interested in the kind of stuff I'm doing you should check it out! 

- Festival One - I got to play in a wee orchestra with The Brilliance on the main stage at festival and it was incredible! Major highlight of my life, I reckon.

- Waitangi weekend - I spent four days up in Paihia staying at Te Tii marae, it was a beautiful and unique experience. We went up with Karuwha Trust who are doing awesome work with reconciliation between Pakeha and Maori and restoring the story and history of our country. This weekend deserves a blog post all on its own, but I was deeply impacted by the weekend. 

On top of all of that we have been continuing with content on module two of the fellowship, which I plan to do another couple of posts on. So that's a teeny update on what I've been doing! I thought that while I've got ya reading I would share a little bit on my thoughts and learning on desires.

We have looked a lot at what it means to desire the Kingdom. (There's a book called 'Desiring the Kingdom - James K.A. Smith that a lot of this comes from). I have been asking myself these questions:

Where are the loyalties of my heart?

Do I actually desire God's will for me or do I just hope that God will grant me my desires?

What am I letting shape me?

The reality is, whether we are aware of it or not we are constantly being shaped. We are being sent messages through friendships, family, social media, movies, TV, church, work, uni, you name it. These messages tell us things like what is important, what we should value, what it means to be successful and what we need to feel satisfied. Some of these messages are positive, but some are deeply damaging and if we aren't paying attention we are at risk of letting them all hit us. 

There is absolutely no way I am saying we need to draw away and become overly paranoid about the messages we are being sent, I will happily continue watching The Bachelor and scrolling through instagram without worrying too much about what it's doing to my heart. Let's not withdraw but actually I think we need to be paying more attention. We live in a culture that is constantly reaching out for our loyalties, how much are we giving it? Is an hour at church on Sunday enough to shape the desires of our hearts? Is thinking a few good thoughts enough to resist the pull of how our culture says we should live? 

If an enriched vision of what 'the good life' looks like isn't put before us there will be counterfeit visions that our desire will bend towards and most of the time we won't even realise it. We need less "stop thinking that/stop doing this" and more painting a picture of what good desires are. 

"The person has to choose again and again, to develop the moral muscles and skills which will shape  and form the fully flourishing character" - Tom Wright. 

I don't want this to sound like I'm bashing culture, I'm a classic millennial through and through. I just think we can enjoy what culture offers way more if we choose to think critically about our engagement with it. 

Aroha nui x