profoundly funny, yet funnily profound

Starbucks do more than just serve coffee

If I am ever lucky enough to be a father, I hope I am as wise and understanding as this man.

(Thanks to Maggi.)

Sir Richard’s Crusade

I just read a heart-warming article in the BBC’s online magazine in which Sir Richard Branson speaks candidly about his reaction to the poverty-sticken and HIV/AIDS-stricken nation of Africa.

If you go to a hospital in South Africa today, or almost anywhere in Africa, you’ll find they’re not hospitals, they’re places people go to die.

Although Sir Richard popularly has the image of a waster – that is, too much money to spend and not enough time in which to spend it – it seems that image is incorrect. Here is a man, according to this article, who has woken up to the utter need in this impoverished nation and has the means to do something about it. Furthermore, he has the will to do something about it.

…with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility.

I wish Sir Richard every success with this philanthropic endeavour and I pray that he will make a positive and lasting difference in Africa. It’s a nation that so many people pay lip-service to and give one-off donations to and make a big deal about because it makes them feel good and it’s the popular thing to do, but then it’s conveniently forgotten about.

The UK government could learn a lot from this man.

Stressed. Excited. Sad.

Apologies for the apparent hiatus; I just haven’t had time to post. Work has been very busy and I have been working very long hours (> 60 last week and > 50 this week – crazy!). The good news is that the current project is almost complete! The final two defects will be resolved in Monday morning’s build and a code freeze will be enforced from Monday lunchtime forward. I am absolutely shattered from all the work. I haven’t had a haircut in months either, which is really starting to annoy me.

Did I mention I bought a new house? I believe the completion date will be in June sometime and the sofas are coming at the start of July. I’m so excited! I can’t wait to move in and have my own space to look after. I just hope I don’t get too lonely, though. (If you’re a friend reading this, take note – you have an open invitation to come round!)

I have had a lot on my mind recently but due to the excess work I haven’t had time to think it through.

Ever wish you could turn back time? With regard to my relationship with one person in particular, I would do almost anything to accomplish that…

Take me to the leader!

I am a Presbyterian and a member of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. PCI is governed, under God, by the General Assembly, which is lead by the Moderator. The Moderator is elected each year. This is the attitude of the current Moderator – Rt Rev Dr Harry Uprichard. Oh how it enrages me that this is allowed. I did not vote for this man, and would not have voted for him based on his attitude towards Roman Catholics. This attitude is the flipping last thing that Northern Ireland needs. I better stop before I say something that will get me in a lot of trouble… this isn’t a rant, it’s deep-seated anger!

I think I’ll bring this up with JD… see if I can get a letter or something into the General Assembly. It’s a damn disgrace!

Doubts

Quite often I doubt my faith, but not in the way you are immediately thinking. I am as certain as I can be that there is a God who created everything and I am content that history accounts for Jesus who lived, died and lived again. God Himself could appear to me and it would not make my faith more certain.

Perhaps I have misrepresented myself – let me clarify. Faith is a verb and therefore requires a source and an object. I have complete confidence in the object of my faith – i.e. God as Creator, Father, King and Jesus as God-Man, Son, Redeemer. It is the eegit who is the source of my faith that I doubt. I know him quite well, which is enough of a basis for doubting him.

Recently I have been reading Romans 7:7-25, Galatians 5:16-26, Ephesians 4:17-5:21 and Ephesians 6:10-19. These passages make me ask myself if I truly have solid, salvation-assuring, sactifying faith… and not just in a trite or pious you’re-meant-to-ask-yourself-this-question way, but in a fear-instilling and sobering way. When one becomes a Christian God the Holy Spirit makes that person His dwelling place. As a matter of course, through daily submission to God the Holy Spirit’s promptings and movements within, one sheds the “old self” and “puts on the new self” (to borrow from the Apostle Paul’s metaphor).

And that’s it. God moves inside me. I submit to Him. Consequently, I become holy as He is holy.

But that little Sunday School lesson isn’t how it is in my life, I am ashamed to say. (Hence the doubt I have already mentioned.) “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” wrote Paul [Romans 8:1, NIV]. How do I know I am “in Christ Jesus”? I understand that the Holy Spirit is given as a “seal” of God’s promise [Ephesians 1:13-14], but how do I know that it is God in me prompting me and not my own conceited, religious, indoctrinated conscience prompting me and making me feel guilty when I don’t live up to my own expectations.

When I hear faith preached, taught and talked about, it smacks as a very romanticised idealism rather than the dirty reality that I experience day-in and day-out, and I wonder if it’s because my faith isn’t strong enough or even if I have faith at all.

Living out my faith in God is hard, not because God makes it hard but because it is hard for me in the place where I am. If you remember earlier I said faith has both a source and an object, I feel a little like Bocaj… Jacob wrestled with the object of his faith – i.e. God – I am wrestling the other way with the source of my faith – i.e. the numpty who is me!

It’s difficult because I can be very difficult. I know my weaknesses and I know my thoughts. I know my struggles and I know I am not holy as He is holy. I look around at my family, my friends and those who I respect greatly and I see people who (on the outside, at least) appear to have it sorted. Who seem to have that romantic faith, which just keeps growing and the Spirit is ever more evident in their lives day by day. I see people live the way I want to live…

No man and no verse in the Bible can I identify more immediately, more honestly and with as much conviction as Paul when he penned (or dictated to his scribe!) Romans 7:18-19:

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

[Romans 7:18-19, NIV]

But, I will keep struggling on. I will continue to wrestle. I will continue to scratch and tear away at this old-self coat that seems to be stuck to me. I can’t wait until I rip it off.

Liturgy at Lent

I found this is a thought-provoking liturgy/prayer that suits today, being Palm Sunday. Today the day we remember that Jesus set his eyes on the place where he would suffer humiliation, hatred, torture, abandonment, loneliness and utter loss.

The part that reads:

We, who dare to say
We are following you
Know how faltering are our footsteps
How delicate our discipleship
How feeble our faith.

Yet still you call us
By name
And invite us into your company
And onto your road.

… is particularly humbling.

Thanks to GoodInParts.

Baby Got Book. Word!

I don’t know whether to laugh or cringe, check this out.

(Thanks to hopeful amphibian for the link.)

Brodie on Galatians 5:16-26

Go read Galatians 5:16-26 now! Don’t read any further until you have.

Paul’s discussion of the fruit of the spirit is a familiar passage for most Christians. We have heard many sermons on the topic and maybe even been to a small group that has spent time studying and discussing it.

The passage has nearly become overly familiar to me. Well, that was until I was pointed to Brodie’s post on the matter. (Well worth a read!)

Brodie points out that Paul doesn’t talk about fruits – plural – he talks about fruit – singular. And it makes perfect sense. Just like love is made up of many things (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a), so the fruit of the Spirit is made up of many things and they are all interrelated and mixed together – for example, what is self-control without patience or joy without peace?

There is one fruit borne from the seed of the sanctifying work of the Spirit in our lives but that fruit, like a work of art, cannot be classified into any one neat little box; instead, elements and traits of it can only be described.

(For the more cynical of you, I checked out the Greek and the declension of the noun καρπος (tr. fruit) is singluar and normative – i.e. the original text says fruit and not fruits!)

I re-read Galatians 5:16-26 in light of this insight, and it was like I’d never read it before.

(Huge thanks to Maggi for pointing me to this!)

COG #3

We had our third evening of COG (Celebrating Our Gifts) in church this evening. COG is a new project in our church and its purpose is to help members to discern their spiritual gifts. It seems to be going well so far, about sixty members are seeing the course to through to the end. I don’t think there will be many major revelations, but it is helpful for gifts that we know we have to be reaffirmed.

But COG is not just about finding out our gifts, it’s also about finding a suitable ministry in which to exercise our gifts. A lot of work has gone in so that members who find their gifts and are burdened to exercise them will have somewhere to go so that the Body will be built up. I’m really excited to see how God will work through this project (now and in the future – it’s going to be a rolling programme) to build up His people in First.

JD read 1 Corinthians 12 from The Message this evening. It’s the passage where Paul talks about spiritual gifts and diversity in the Body. I have read this passage often in my NIV, but I have no recollection of reading it (tonight I listened to it being read) from The Message. It was like hearing it for the first time when JD read it out and I thought about it as though I had only heard the passage for the first time. It stirred something inside me. Hearing it has given me newfound resolve to devote myself to the tasks God has given me, because I recognise that I am part of a larger Body and that Body is diverse and isn’t – no can’t! – be all the same.

Think I’ll start reading from The Message more often…