Your Kingdom Come

The wonders of technology! A sweet friend sent me an animated e-card for the 4^th of July. As the fireflies swirl round an iconic American farmhouse, red/white/blue flags and decorations appear on the porch. The fireflies move on to a pastoral scene and then to a southern style mansion, with more bunting, more flags, and now people waving and cheering as fireworks explode overhead.

I’ve felt patriotic in a heart-broken way of late, grieving for the USA I knew as a child, which I now see I saw only in part.

Only God is holy. Only God is perfect. May his kingdom come, his will be done on earth – the whole earth – as it is in heaven. Amen.

No More Violence!

Presidents shouting across the world at each other, threatening and bragging that each has the firepower to bring the other country to its knees. Each feeling superior.

Through the streets of Charlottesville they marched, dressed in basic costumes which send chills down the spine, brandishing flags and bristling with arms as massive as AK-47s. Feeling superior. 

‘As long as there is gender inequality, we will have domestic abuse.’ Words I heard today at an informative session run by Grampian Women’s Aid, in which we learned the appalling fact that 1 in 4 women in the UK suffers domestic abuse, and 2 women die from such assault every week.

Jesus said to love our neighbours as ourselves. We are all children of God. In Christ there is no Jew nor gentile, no male nor female, but all are the same in God’s eyes. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. 

Praying tonight for his kingdom to come, his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Expectation

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Just in from cutting grass and trimming and pulling weeds. The grass is in flower; I am allergic to grass and dust. Therefore I sit here expecting an eruption of hay fever sometime this evening. 

But maybe it won’t happen. Maybe I’ve outgrown the allergy. Maybe the pollen will have blown in a different direction rather than up my nose. There may be no catastrophic result from this evening’s exertion.

It’s easy to expect the worst. Sitting here awaiting the outcome of the referendum, it’s easy to imagine that all sorts of negative things might result when the vote is counted. Uncertainty and instability or even civil unrest. 

But I am a Christian, and my hope is in the name of the Lord, and therefore I am praying and trusting that whatever the outcome, it will be intertwined with God’s glory. I pray for forgiveness and understanding, unity and cohesiveness as we work our future out together, however it looks. It behoves every Christian to be diligent in prayer.

Perhaps over the next few days my blogs won’t be inspired by nature, but may be inspired by looking for the glory of God emerging in a thousand small ways. To God be the glory, whatever the outcome. May his kingdom come, and his will be done, here in the UK and in Europe. Amen.

Freedom, exuberance and joy

My interior life – my personality – can be a desert wasteland, a place of mountains of dread and fear and depressions of anxieties. It can be a place of tortuous curves of self-justification and valleys of low self-esteem. 

I don’t think I’m alone in this. Isaiah 40:3-5 speaks personally to me about this. ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low, the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.’ 

I can deliberately work on rectifying these situations in my mind and personality but that can quickly slide the way of most New Year’s resolutions if I try to do it by myself. It’s only as I ask prayerfully for help in identifying the mountains and valleys and boulders, and then continue asking for help in removing them, that success will come, and it is as I work with God on this interior landscape that the glory of the Lord is revealed and others see it. We’re meant to be a partnership: each one of us + God.

What does his glory look like? Freedom. Exuberance and joy, light and laughter and love, togetherness in relationship.

All mankind together will see it. 

Division in the church is opportunity to prepare the way of the Lord. To prayerfully, humbly seek to remove boulders of division. It can only be done with God’s help because we don’t want the church to end up watering down the message of grace nor conforming to the spirit of the age. 

When God’s glory is revealed in the church, the whole world will see and rejoice.  May his kingdom come and his will be done in me and through me, in the church and through the church, today as it is in heaven. Amen.