leaning learning

There are some things in life that I just cannot explain. Call them miracles, call them God showing his love and kindness to us, call them the natural outworkings of basic life principles such as sowing and reaping or pride and humility - it really does not matter to me. All I know is that at least three times in my life, God has intervened and instantly freed me from addictions, destructive patterns, and painful memories. I still feel the vestiges of familiar tendencies on the rare occasion, but the impulse, the devastating ravage of emotions, that seemingly helpless downward spiral, and the desire to even head in those bad directions are gone, totally gone.

I wish I could point to something I did, or find a convenient 5-step process that made all the difference, or tell you that someone prayed for me, but in all honesty, I just cried out to God over and over again and submitted myself to him as best as I could. And one morning, or make that one morning and two evenings, these things were not following me around anymore.

I do believe that my desire to disentangle myself from these things caused me to lean over towards God more and more and rely on myself less and less and eventually, I just fell over into his arms and the chains broke. In one instance, I was alone at home, another time I was falling asleep, and most recently, I was in a crowd. No matter what situation I find myself in, if I just turn towards him, He is always there, more willing to engage with me than I could ever fathom.

This is a band we saw at the Montreal Jazz Festival a few weeks ago, Misteur Vallaire. Photo by Dean.

Comments

comedic timing

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim...

what's on your breastplate?

Who wants to be a priest? I asked this question in my faith community this past Sunday and a few eager hands went up. But there were also looks of puzzlement. Perhaps some people were thinking, "Maybe, but what exactly does a priest do?" I am so glad you asked. The first mention of a priest in the Scriptures is Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Abram has just rescued Lot and his household from capture (they got caught in a war between rivalling kings), and when he returns, he is greeted by the grateful king of Sodom and a priest. “And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!’” (Genesis 14:18-20, NRSV) So what does this tell us about what it means to be a priest? First, this priest was also a king. Subsequent priests were not kings, so this double role was unique to...

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go...

outWORD by Matte Downey

Search This Blog