Kia Ora!
It's Gracie B coming at ya with another sporadic update! We are officially on the home straight (cry) with only 5 more weeks of the fellowship left! This module is about bringing all the threads together. We are learning about wisdom and studying the 7 letters to the churches in the book of Revelation (insanely cool) along with the usual, chipping away at spiritual disciplines and looking closely at the shape of our lives.
We have spent quite a bit of time evaluating how we are reading Scripture. This deserves a blog post all to itself, but I have been really challenged and inspired to read more imaginatively and my reading has been enriched because of the study we have been doing and this has played out in a couple of really practical ways.
I have been encouraged to read a smaller amount with more intentionality. For me this meant pondering on one verse, looking at where it sits in the chapter and book to get context, meditating on it and then really thinking about how it could apply to my life.
"They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen" - Romans 1:25.
Just one sentence that led to some really awesome learning for me. I started to ask myself:
How often do I exchange the truth about God for a lie? Or the truth God speaks over me for a lie I have chosen to speak over myself?
How often do I serve created things rather than the Creator?
So I made a list of lies I felt like I was exchanging for God's truth. And I made a list of created things that I was serving or giving a lot of time to. To cut a longer process short, this resulted in me deleting Instagram from my phone for awhile. One small action to place the Creator that little bit higher in my life. Nothing dramatic, nothing wrong with Instagram but a small action to attempt to serve God more in my life.
This happened again just today with Psalm 8:3-9:
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herd, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
So today I was upset about plastic. Sobering images and statistics everywhere. Plastic everywhere. I was feeling disheartened. What is my reusable bag going to do to find a place for the 4000 tonnes of plastic waste outside Thames?! This verse got me even more fired up. We have been made rulers over the works of Gods hands! This intricate, grand and beautiful creation has been given to us to steward. And we are often so nonchalant about things like the plastic paving the paths of the seas. I know that this is like a small whisper in the noise around plastic and waste happening right now. But this is my little call to Christians who think it isn't our responsibility. Not to be harsh but to be real. We have been crowned with glory and honour, named rulers of the earth and co-heirs with Christ (that in itself is quite insane). This earth isn't going away so, how are we welcoming the Kingdom? We should be the front runners of care for the earth!!
We were created in the Image of God. Each one of us reflecting a unique aspect of our Creator. Let's be faithful reflections.
Arohanui x
It's Gracie B coming at ya with another sporadic update! We are officially on the home straight (cry) with only 5 more weeks of the fellowship left! This module is about bringing all the threads together. We are learning about wisdom and studying the 7 letters to the churches in the book of Revelation (insanely cool) along with the usual, chipping away at spiritual disciplines and looking closely at the shape of our lives.
We have spent quite a bit of time evaluating how we are reading Scripture. This deserves a blog post all to itself, but I have been really challenged and inspired to read more imaginatively and my reading has been enriched because of the study we have been doing and this has played out in a couple of really practical ways.
I have been encouraged to read a smaller amount with more intentionality. For me this meant pondering on one verse, looking at where it sits in the chapter and book to get context, meditating on it and then really thinking about how it could apply to my life.
"They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen" - Romans 1:25.
Just one sentence that led to some really awesome learning for me. I started to ask myself:
How often do I exchange the truth about God for a lie? Or the truth God speaks over me for a lie I have chosen to speak over myself?
How often do I serve created things rather than the Creator?
So I made a list of lies I felt like I was exchanging for God's truth. And I made a list of created things that I was serving or giving a lot of time to. To cut a longer process short, this resulted in me deleting Instagram from my phone for awhile. One small action to place the Creator that little bit higher in my life. Nothing dramatic, nothing wrong with Instagram but a small action to attempt to serve God more in my life.
This happened again just today with Psalm 8:3-9:
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herd, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"
So today I was upset about plastic. Sobering images and statistics everywhere. Plastic everywhere. I was feeling disheartened. What is my reusable bag going to do to find a place for the 4000 tonnes of plastic waste outside Thames?! This verse got me even more fired up. We have been made rulers over the works of Gods hands! This intricate, grand and beautiful creation has been given to us to steward. And we are often so nonchalant about things like the plastic paving the paths of the seas. I know that this is like a small whisper in the noise around plastic and waste happening right now. But this is my little call to Christians who think it isn't our responsibility. Not to be harsh but to be real. We have been crowned with glory and honour, named rulers of the earth and co-heirs with Christ (that in itself is quite insane). This earth isn't going away so, how are we welcoming the Kingdom? We should be the front runners of care for the earth!!
We were created in the Image of God. Each one of us reflecting a unique aspect of our Creator. Let's be faithful reflections.
Arohanui x
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