Skip to main content

well done (no buts)



Last night I spoke at church - well, anyone can speak up, but I was the one guiding the discussion. It turned out to be an exercise in encouragement for me. You see, I tend to see where I (and others) fall short and I can be too quick to point it out. When I asked God what he wanted to say to this particular group of people that night, two words very plainly rang in my head, "Well done." And I had to fight to keep the talk from becoming a lesson in how to do better and correct our mistakes and try harder and use our talents more effectively, for I knew all God really wanted to do was encourage and let people feel his pleasure. So I tried to do that and at the end of the evening sang this song that I had jotted down just before the meeting:

Well done, my friend

Good and faithful and true

Well done, well done

The servant of God is alive in you, yes the servant of God is alive and well in you.

For every time you wanted to give up and didn't - well done

For leaving the past behind and moving on - well done

For every time you gave a helping hand - well done

For everyone who is right here, right now - well done

For staying when others walk away - well done

For asking for help when you know you can't do it alone - well done

For every time you get up after you fall - well done

For giving when you would rather receive - well done

Every time you opened your arms to a stranger - well done

Every time you shared some of your food - well done

For going to work everyday and providing for people - well done

For praying for others time after time - well done

For taking care of the small things you have been given - well done

For being a friend one can count on - well done

For making the time to wait on God - well done

For giving and giving and not holding back - well done

Well done, my friend

Good and faithful and true

Well done, well done

The servant of God is alive in you, yes the servant of God is alive and well in you.

This is another fine photo by my nephew Jeff. Well done.

Comments

shane magee said…
this is lovely matte. well done.

Popular posts from this blog

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

soul refrigerator

I went grocery shopping yesterday and came home with three bags of food. After I unpacked them all, this is what my fridge looked like: really empty. How does that happen? How can I feel so full and ready for any food emergency one moment, and after one quick glance, realise that I have nothing, really? Today is one of those days in my soul as well. I woke up with gratitude and fullness in my heart, ready to take on this day and all the wonderful opportunities that it presented. Then I caught a brief glance of some emptiness in my life and bam - my buoyancy was compromised. For the past few hours I have been treading water, trying to keep my head in a positive space, bobbing in and out of disappointment, and catching myself whining with pathetic indignity at the cement blocks of other people's stupidity that are tangled around my ankles. When I am staring at the empty refrigerator of my soul, these are my thoughts. Where do I go from here? Perhaps I should slam that refrigerator

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