A Bible study on Learning How to Wait on God.

A Bible study on Learning How to Wait on God.

A 21st Century Tale

I have started up a new blog which is a little less personal than this one! :) It's basically about the stuff that influences and shapes me as I live in the 21st Century as a twenty something female from the beautiful emerald isle.

http://onceuponthe21stcentury.blogspot.com/

Childlike faith...

Today I looked over some old notes on facebook which I had written when I was 21. I was struck by how young and fresh I sounded; I was super excited about life in general, enthusiastically throwing myself into whatever new challenge presented itself. I'm sure I was rather annoying. Roughly 2 and a half years have past since then and I fear that I have lost something of my younger self. I have lost some of my youthful passion. This scares me, and hopefully enough to change the direction I am heading. One of the challenges I set my 21 year old self was to talk to randomers about Jesus and offer to pray for 3 people every week. My 24 year old self thinks "What the flip was I thinking?!" I hope I would be willing to do so if I felt lead by God but I fear that now my head isn't even tuned into the fact that that might be something God would want me to do. I'm not properly listening. I'm not even really asking that he would use me to show his love to randomers. I think I have slipped back into the old pattern of only being willing to step out my comfort zone when I am supposed to; so at Late Love its completely fine for me to tell students about Jesus or to offer pray for those in chaplaincy but in my general day to day life it's not even on my radar.

I have been reminded of Romans 8:12-16 today and I love the bit that says: It's adventuously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" Do I dare to ask him that wonderul and terrifying question?

I was hanging out with a new friend earlier who told me that he'd looked up my blog for which he then began to tease me merciously. I inwardly cringed and outwardly went red and longed to get home in order to delete this record of my character growing pains. And yet that's precisely why I can't delete it. It helps keep me humble and serves as a reminder that I am so very human. In a few months time I will probably be cringing at this very entry and yet I suppose that's a good thing as it means that hopefully I will have grown and been refined a little more.

I am currently approaching my final set of exams of my final year of university (or so it appears). This has truly been one of, if not the best, years of my life. I didn't particularly like Belfast, I didn't really want to be here and I wasn't all that fussed on uni and yet I have loved getting stuck in to student life on campus. Being on CU committee and living at Methodist Chaplaincy forced me to literally live and breathe on campus, with the Students Union and Queens Building on my doorstep. I have loved my final year of my degree, loved being on CU committe (despite weekly 4 hour long meetings) and loved living at chaplaincy. My future is currently like the Mumford and Sons song, a 'White Blank Page' but God has shown me that its not really blank, but already full of colour and adventure as my future will be filled with his Spirit.

Summer Productivity.

I had thought with having so much time free over summer that it would be super productive; I would have revised stastics by the end of July, got out my violin, maybe did some art, finished well in advance my discipleship audio CD for this month and have gone to the gym every day, becomming super fit by September. Instead the most I've done revision wise is get a couple of books out from the library (always makes me feel like I have achieved something), I have no idea where my violin is, haven't thought about doing art once, as usual I am cramming my discipleship audio's last minute, joined the gym (step one) and have become addicted to "How I met your Mother".

However there have been a few summer highlights. I loved being at Summer Madness, was great to just hang out with the young people from my church which included some card playing, lots of singing, occasionally some dancing and lots of laughter. It was fantastic to see Rend Collective live, they so quickly lead me to a place of intimate worship and the presence of God was just so powerful. Brian Heasley's seminar on prayer and mission was a timely reminder of how we need to breathe in but if we don't breathe out- we'll die and how following Jesus can lead you to being kissed on the cheek by a prostitute. It made me think about Queens and my role as prayer secretary and the necessity of the combination of Breathing in and Breathing out. I'm really excited to see what God has planned and just hope I don't miss anything! I read in Romans 1 today "Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus." I find it hard to know how to pass it on in my day to day life and often forget about the urgency. Most people seem so disinterested or else bitter against the church thats its easy to leave them alone and not try to force Jesus on people who don't care. And yet again in Romans 1 I read "It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else".

I am heading to Castlewellan at the weekend for our Methodist Family Holiday week which I have been going to since I was 12. I love getting to be part of it, seeing young and old fall more in love with Jesus. It'll be great to catch up with old friends, walk round the lake, catch up with young people I have discipled in the past, worship lots, and drink lots of tea. On my things to do list for Castlewellan are the following; find a gazebo, make malteaser buns, make a tree and buy a Princess Leia wig! I better get started :)

An occasional update of life with me...

Wow so I have just read over some of my old blog entries! I now understand why people used to get so annoyed when I used text talk- sooooooooo difficult to read! On my facebook page I have the quote "Faith doesn't know where it is being lead, but it knows and loves the One who is leading" (Oswald Chambers). Looking back over my different struggles, and what life has looked like over the last few years I can safelty say that that quote is true. I can't believe how open and honest I was about my struggles and weakness on an online blog which my peers read. I think when I was younger I wore my heart more on my sleeve. Now I would rather talk about what has inspired me in a way that I might write an essay. And yet the title of this blog is "an occasional update of what's going on with me" which I considered changing to "my thoughts and reflections on life", much more grown up and much more boring! As I read through past entries, cringing all the way, I had a strong desire to delete all evidence of the fact that I was so silly! But that is indeed my past and has formed who I am today and I'm sure if I was to look closely I would see many resemblances. And so in this blog I will continue to endeavor to be honest.

I am now 23 years old, still faithfully following God, still frequently getting it all wrong, no longer having patience and loosing my temper issues, still occasional boy issues. I have travelled all round Ireland, lived in Galway, visited Tanzania, Edmonton, Phoenix, Berlin, Fraserburgh, Sevillie, Budapest. I want to visit Korea, Ibiza, China, New Zealand and Cuba. I am currently going into my final year of Sociology and Theology at Queens and contemplating doing a Masters. I still have no idea what I'd like to do but that no longer worries me. I am currently dog and brother sitting as my parents are away and failing miserably as to remembering to water the plants and take the washing out of the machine! I am re reading Harry Potter for the billionth time as well as 'Shirley' by Charlotte Bronte and 'Abba's Child' by Brennan Manning. I have made no plans for over summer and so I am rather bored and miss people and busyness and yet I know this is a good place to be.

Your Kingdom Come

"I want to see a new dawn beckon for this generation. A dawn of hope, a dawn of helpfulness and dawn of selflessness, I get glimmers and whispers of a new dawn for this generation. I occasionally hear the birds heralding this new dawn, I want it to grow to a crescendo, aloud bright transformation of a generation."

Brian Heasley (24-7 Ibiza)

Glimmers and whispers are sometimes all we get to remind us that there is more and that God is beckoning this generation forward; "I will rebuild the places long devasted for generations" Isaiah 61. Just one brief look at the news shows how depressing the world is and can cause us to forget that we are heralds of Good News, that we go not only in the name of the King but with the King.

"So we say More revival! More fire! More signs and wonders! More gifts of the spirit! More intimacy! More love and joy! More fruit! Let's find every lost sheep! Lets take in every orphan! Lets share the Kingdom! And never settle for average, mundane, normal! In short let us totally enjoy our God."

"We are not just soul winners and not just social workers. We are after the Kingdom"

Rolland and Heidi Baker (www.irishmin.org)

Run the race, fight the good fight, keep the faith.

Last year I introduced Leanne to Lord of the Rings, after begging her to watch at least the first 10 minutes, she agreed to try it and loved it. However it took until this weekend for us to finally watch the last one together. Lord of the Rings is always inspiring and this time round I was struck by the importance of enduring. Whilst reading the books, the bits with Frodo and Sam always slightly bored me as I was always impatient to get back to action and adventure with Aragaon and the rest. Yet it appears to be almost easier to fight a battalion of orcs than to face the corrupting influence of the ring. In life it is easy to forget that we too are in the midst of a battle between good and evil. Evil doesn't helpfully appear as an evil eye or a dalek but instead roars its head in the battle of our minds. Alan Scott, speaking at Summer Madness, spoke of how Paul urged Timothy to 'Remember Jesus'. That seems something which is pretty obvious and something we skip over when we read it. At Knock Methodist in front of the communion rail engraved in the wood are the words "This do in rememberance of me", words that we hear everytime we take communion and yet how quickly we forget. Evil seeks to make us forget about the good, to forget about Jesus. Ephesians talks of how we must put on the armour. Why? In order to stand firm. Apathy creeps in all to quickly until spending time with Jesus simply becomes something we know we're supposed to do and our passion for Him soon fades away. We need to keep on going even when the race is more like the slow of tedious journey of Frodo and Sam than a mad rush of adventure. We need to endure, to remember Jesus.