Tomorrow is the annual Father's Day service at Peace Arch Park. How fast has another year passed! The weather has turned cold again, and clouds fill the sky. As someone who has come to realized that my mood can quite be affected by the weather, I feel quite relaxed and at peace this morning :) I spent the morning being productive and stopped due to the growling of my stomach. Lunch is cooking on the stove and I browsed my blog entries to those from about a year ago. I see how I longed to be close to God, and how worried I was that a new relationship was going to distract me from Him. And oh how I strayed from God, that in the end (and perhaps since the beginning) everything I did centred around my needs and desires and plans. It was a period of full seflishness, in which I hurt myself and another. My soul was confined into a little box, one that I desperate wanted to break free from, but which fear prevented me to do so. Now that things are all over and I am slowly picking up the pieces and putting them back together, I thank the LORD that through all this I am able to experience so much of him and become more mature in faith. I see how far I had strayed and I am feeling a bit like the prodical son just about now.
Joy and Sorrow
Henry Nouwen writes that we often experience joy and sorrow at the same time. As him and Eugene Peterson have both stated in their writings, our culture is a culture that avoids pain at all costs. We come up with numerous ways to make ourselves feel better, with new drugs, gadgets, perhaps even new friends, or a new lifestyle. But the truth is, pain is what makes life real. Jesus doesn't want us to avoid our pains, but to walk through them, to sort out our inner feelings and present them to God as an offering. I have experienced much joy in knowing the presence of Christ in my suffering, holding onto him, knowing that it is true this refining in fire that I can become more like Jesus. Nouwen says that we must embrace pain for something new will be born from it.
God at the Centre
It has been a real challenge to stay centered upon Christ. So many from the secular world call and beckon. A lonely heart will often wish to give in to those calls. But thanks to the work of the spirit and no doubut many prayers, I have faltered yet so far. For I know if I exchange firmmness in Christ for a mere moment of self-satisfaction, then it would take me even longer to come back to God the next time - and with more pain. God, being gracious, has his way of letting me know what things are to be are what things are not to be, what things we are to say and do and what things we are to hand over to God. Praise God for his faithfulness! I will trust God and fear no evil (in the words of CT... hehe).
Joy and Sorrow
Henry Nouwen writes that we often experience joy and sorrow at the same time. As him and Eugene Peterson have both stated in their writings, our culture is a culture that avoids pain at all costs. We come up with numerous ways to make ourselves feel better, with new drugs, gadgets, perhaps even new friends, or a new lifestyle. But the truth is, pain is what makes life real. Jesus doesn't want us to avoid our pains, but to walk through them, to sort out our inner feelings and present them to God as an offering. I have experienced much joy in knowing the presence of Christ in my suffering, holding onto him, knowing that it is true this refining in fire that I can become more like Jesus. Nouwen says that we must embrace pain for something new will be born from it.
God at the Centre
It has been a real challenge to stay centered upon Christ. So many from the secular world call and beckon. A lonely heart will often wish to give in to those calls. But thanks to the work of the spirit and no doubut many prayers, I have faltered yet so far. For I know if I exchange firmmness in Christ for a mere moment of self-satisfaction, then it would take me even longer to come back to God the next time - and with more pain. God, being gracious, has his way of letting me know what things are to be are what things are not to be, what things we are to say and do and what things we are to hand over to God. Praise God for his faithfulness! I will trust God and fear no evil (in the words of CT... hehe).
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