Weekly Pastoral Letter May 23

God is good! 

I believe that the cornerstone of our strength – our strength in the Lord is the revelation that ‘God is good. Ps Bill Johnson has plenty to say about that in his book by the same title and before that in his book and eCourse ‘Strengthen Yourself in the Lord. This week I’ve included an extract from chapter 2 as I believe it is very pertinent to our well-being in or out of our COVID 19 season. He says ….. 

I believe that the reason many believers fall into the trap of fear and anxiety in the midst of crisis is because they allow the enemy to successfully distract them from the fact that they are prepared with tools they already have in their arsenal. It’s easy for us to feel blindsided by events that we did not expect; but nothing surprises God, which is why He prepares us for what’s ahead.  Continue reading “Weekly Pastoral Letter May 23”

Our response to strange times

I think we could all agree these have been strange times. Probably all of us have never lived in a time such as this. Everything that we thought we knew has been brought into question. Patterns of behaviour and ways of thinking challenged. Questions asked of our motives and our actions. No doubt there is some familiarity to the aftermath of a severe cyclone but with a higher degree of consternation about the future.
So what should we do? A question faithful followers of Jesus often ask – what should we do Jesus, in light of our circumstances? Each of us, though influenced by the same global problem, have a different set of problems or situations to navigate. The privileged few say, well not much has changed for us, as we lived pretty simply and quietly anyway – yet even they wonder what now?

In previous letters I’ve described how we might position ourselves in relation to our God for strength and encouragement. I’ve suggested just last week how to engage with the trauma we all face when life is outside of our control. This week I just want to encourage you, as you do life, in a pandemic or not, to engage in one thing ‘without ceasing’. The one thing that will reshape your actions , your world, so that it comes into alignment with God’s will. Pray!

Timothy Keller in a work entitled PRAYER © 2014 Random House Company encourages, ‘never stop praying’  (1Thessalonians 5:17) . He goes on to say … Jesus Christ taught his disciples to pray, healed people with prayers, denounced the corruption of the temple worship (which, he said, should be a “house of prayer”), and insisted that some demons could be cast out only through prayer. He prayed often and regularly with fervent cries and tears (Hebrews 5:7), and sometimes all night. The Holy Spirit came upon him and anointed him as he was praying (Luke 3:21–22), and he was transfigured with the divine glory as he prayed (Luke 9:29).

When he faced his greatest crisis, he did so with prayer. We hear him praying for his disciples and the church on the night before he died (John 17:1–26) and then petitioning God in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Finally, he died praying. The power of the Spirit descends on the early Christians in response to powerful prayer, and leaders are selected and appointed only with prayer.

In this season, where our timetables and priorities have been upended, is the best time shape or reshape our lives, our prayer lives, to come into agreement with the one whom we claim to follow. Let this interruption, even upheaval in our lives, count for something. It would be such a waste to come out the other side of this the same way we went in.

 

 

Getting off the never-ending ride – CCUC Pastoral Letter

Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ

Well, the rollercoaster that we call life continues to roll on. It sometimes feels like a never-ending-ride, one day blends or even collides with the next, one moment you are doing okay and then yet another twist or turn enters your life.

For some of us we have not yet found the off switch for our ‘fight or flight mode’ that was triggered by the traumatic season we are living in. Marie and I have the pleasure of being in on a webinar (seminar delivered via the web) on this very topic of trauma. It is very interesting because Sandra Sellmer-Kersten made this very point – “that some of us have had the part of our brain that protects us from danger, the amygdala, triggered in this season and its still firing”. So, she says, we will find ourselves in either fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (become ultra compliant) mode, or a mixture of all of the above, until we can find a way to ‘deal with’ the trauma that has triggered us. You might say this is some psychological mumbo-jumbo but I regret to say its a well attested ‘fact of life’, like death and taxes. Continue reading “Getting off the never-ending ride – CCUC Pastoral Letter”