Thursday 14 January 2016

Godly Serendipity


These words recently rang true for me:
If we let go of our corrosive, mistaken presumption that we are somehow responsible to supervise the work of God and instead allow ourselves to be humbly and easily used by God, we soon become more supple, able to bend gently, easily to forces much larger and wiser than ourselves, and taste each new surprise as an opportunity, a blessing, a delight. Then, the magnificently impossible Kingdom of Heaven is ours. 
Wayne Muller, A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough

Renewed and refreshed from my sabbatical, I am now embarking on a project to bring my healing meditations to a wider audience, recording them onto audio media.  This has been on my heart for so long that it has always felt like "my" special project.  As I look at the way the Spirit has moved though to draw around me all the people and resources to now enable this to happen, I believe it to be a work of God in which I am simply playing a small part, alongside a talented team of people who were previously unknown to me.  Godly serendipity has been at work!  Give thanks for this and please pray for all involved in this project, that the Spirit will flow through us and between us to create something of real value. Please pray too that all the practical details of a dispersed team working together will be easily overcome.
 
We begin recording in early March.  In the meantime, there are various logistics to be considered and scripts to be adapted and rehearsed alongside the musicians.  As I work on preparing scripts to record from, I am beginning to realise that recording something onto CD is quite different to delivering a meditation to a group of people that one is, at some level, interacting with in the Spirit.  Please pray that I will be given wisdom to know the best way to present things.
 
To give space for the above, I won't be leading any events before May this year, but there are meanwhile two books in the pipeline.  An Advent manuscript is currently sitting on a publisher's desk, awaiting a response, and I very much hope that the long awaited 'Deeper' will become available later this year.  Please pray that both of these books will get into print.
 
In all of these things, I am acutely aware that God is the one taking the initiative; in bringing together the right people at the right time, in anointing people with various complementary gifts, and in birthing the flow of creativity.   May all we do be for His glory.
 
Thank you for your continuing interest in my ministry: I very much value your prayers .
 
Do watch this space.  ...
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Saturday 2 January 2016

Emmanuel

New Year's resolutions.  They're a very cultural concept.  And I'm all in favour of them.  Let's face it; most of the resolutions we make are in some way about self-improvement and that can only be good, both for ourselves and our world. And maybe we need this annual point of reflection to give our lives a new focus; a kick-start into a better way of living. But don't you find it interesting that we use this arbitrary single moment on the earth's journey round the sun to mark the time when we collectively think about how we'd like to change? 

This is also the time of year, I find, when I meet so many people who speak of Christmas with words like, "all over for another year".  And whilst I understand that as a response to letting go of the additional stresses that the season can bring (and sometimes I use that phrase myself), at another level it saddens me.

Haven't we just missed the point of Christmas if we say that? The underlying story of all our Christmas celebrations is that baby in the manger.  And though that event also happened at a particular once-in-history moment in the dance of the planets in the cosmos and in the earth's traverse around the sun, its consequences live on.  As that baby grew to be a man, He revealed the full extent of God's remarkable gift; that through his Spirit, we too have been given the means to birth Him in our lives. 

Emmanuel: God is with us.  God abides in us.  Now that's a cause for celebration!

So whether our Christmas has been lively or lonely, stressful or peaceful, painful or joyous; let's remember that each and every day is an opportunity for a new beginning - and that the Spirit of Emmanuel resides within us, inhabiting us with His love and His grace, and fully able to empower us for whatever lies ahead.  God is the God of new starts; so every day can be a New Year's Day with God. 

Thank you for your continuing interest in my ministry.  And profound thanks to all those friends and retreat spaces who hosted me, and to those who supported me prayerfully and financially, during my recent Sabbatical. There are too many to name, but you know who you are - thank you!  I am about to embark on an important new project, which I'll share more of soon.

Meanwhile ...
I wish you all a deeply blessed, Spirit enabled year in 2016. 
 
May you know the reality of the presence of Emmanuel in your life.
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