I see the clouds.....

"I see the cloud, I step in
I want to see Your glory as Moses did
Flashes of light and rolls of thunder,

I'm not afraid
I'm not afraid"

God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three very distinct characters of the Godhead. Today I truly felt God touch ground in three very distinct ways. His Might, Strength, Power and Glory has flooded into view before me. The first way in which God has spoken to me is through Walk Through Holy Week. This is an event  that St Polycarps Church (of which I am a member) hosts for the local primary schools and has hosted for the last 7 years. It is a dramatised version of Holy Week going through from the triumphal entry through to the Resurrection. It is a very moving and powerful experience and two years ago I was honoured to play the part of Jesus. Tonight I had the honour of playing Jesus again in Walk Through Holy Week, which was held for Church family. God first struck me when I was laid on the floor, hidden away, half way through the event. Carl (the Self Supporting Minister) at St Polycarps was doing his part of WTHW where he dresses up as a Roman Soldier and talks through Jesus' abuse and execution in very graphic detail. I was laid on the floor with God and I just felt Him point to a connection, almost like a time line made of string, that went from Jesus' death on the cross to me lying on the floor as Jesus 2 years ago to me lying on the floor as Jesus tonight. God was consistent through that time. He didn't change and His love for me hadn't changed. It never will.

God took me through Carl's talk and images of Jesus, this humble man who healed the sick, gave hope to the poor and the unwanted, washed His disciples feet, being crucified. For me. He died for me because He loved and loves me unconditionally and when you meet this man, this love, you can't help but be changed. You can't hide it, you can't fight it.


The second way in which God spoke to me was though my Church family of all backgrounds. The inclusiveness of God bowled me over today. If you know me well enough you will know I have a passion for ecumenicalism i.e. the Church being one Church (family) rather than loads of denominations (that is not to say that the Church shouldn't have variation, in fact that is what I love about the Church but I won't go off on a tangent about that) and I saw that today. Half way through WTHW we had a passover meal and communion. It was during communion that this struck me. I was surrounded by a huge variation of people, all sharing in One Bread. One of my favourite phrases from Communion Services is "we are one body because we all share in one bread". Today that really came to life for me. I was sat opposite 3 very different people approaching Communion, the Lord's table and supper, from very different angles but we all shared in Jesus broken body and His blood. I really felt the presence of God in that room and in each of us. We were all very distinct individuals celebrating that Last Supper but I could feel a sense, almost like a gentle tug, that bought us all together.


The third was Pope Francis washing the feet of prisoners in a youth detention with genuine intentions. At the moment I am so excited about the future for the Church both internationally and in this country. I believe God is doing a mighty thing. In my opinion it is no coincidence that we have a new Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury in the space of little over a week. Both these men are moving the Church in a direction of humility, simplicity, love, tolerance and appreciation of the common person. Both these men have started off their new ministries in humility, acknowledging they are just human and that the church doesn't revolve around them and that they are not supermen.

When I watched Pope Francis washing these young peoples feet I was swept away. Why? Because of what I saw in him. I could see that this wasn't for show, for fame, glory or praise. I saw genuine love and compassion in his eyes. Love and compassion for the twelve young people. Here we have the Spiritual leader of the Holy Roman Catholic Church wiping and kissing the feet of juvenile prisoners. Youth who have had to be locked away for their actions and here is the Pope kissing their feet and washing them. In the words of my friend: Mind. Blown. That is Jesus, that is love, genuine love.


 "I see the cloud, I step in
I want to see Your glory as Moses did
Flashes of light and rolls of thunder,

I'm not afraid
I'm not afraid"

Why did I put these lyrics at the beginning? God's glory. That is why. These lyrics are taken from a song called "Show Me Your Glory". I have always had a view of God's glory being something that was just flashes of light and rolls of thunder. Clouds storming in, loud music, seas crashing and pillars of fire. Yes these are all Glorious and of God's glory. Yet there is so much more to God's glory. Today God has shown me His glory in three amazing, beautiful and very quiet ways. So quiet I almost missed them. God's silent and steady consistency, His open doors and arms and finally in His humility, love and compassion that is encompassed in Jesus.
I believe that we can see God's glory as Moses did, in these ways. We can encounter God and show God through and in these quiet and tender moments.
Finally I want to say this, I do see God's glory and I'm running in. And I am so very no afraid. I see God's glory in the crashing thunder, the rolling clouds, the pillars of fire, His consistency, sharing in His community and communion and most of all in the humility, love and compassion that is encompassed in Jesus. Will you step in too?

I see the cloud, I step in
I want to see Your glory as Moses did
Flashes of light and rolls of thunder,

I'm not afraid
I'm not afraid

Show me Your glory, show me Your glory, my God
Show me Your glory, show me Your glory

I'm awed by Your beauty, lost in Your eyes
I long to walk in Your presence like Jesus did
Your glory surrounds me and I'm overwhelmed

I'm not afraid
I'm not afraid

Show me Your glory, show me your glory, my God
Show me Your glory, show me Your glory

I long to look on the face of the One that I love
Long to stay in your presence, it's where I belong

Character(s) of God

Character: the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Dare I venture into the realm where I talk about the very nature of God. God is above and beyond anything we can ever fully understand but that doesn’t mean that we can’t understand any of God. In fact I believe it is important that we aim to understand more of God every day.

 The nature of God is who He is and as we go further and deeper in our relationship with God we understand more and more of Him and we learn more and more about ourselves. God is intrinsically part of our life (whether we like it or not!) and understanding more of God fills more of that God-Gap inside ourselves. There is a great joy to living life and learning more of our Father, Creator, King, Lord of Lords, Saviour.... and I suppose that is why I’m writing this Blog. I’m writing this to share some of the nature of God that I have experienced, the understanding of God that I have accumulated over my life.

 I realised as I was walking to work that I have had lots of different experiences of God that have all been mentally separated but they are all different characteristics of the One God so by doing this I aim to be able to bring them all together in my head and heart to the God I know and love. I can’t do them all at once so I will be posting all the different ones as often as I can. Some will be easily recognised, some not so. Watch this space and I hope you enjoy.

God as Creator

Right down from the basic code of life that is DNA all the way through to the order of the cosmos in the orbiting and pattern of the planets and the solar systems I see evidence of God. There is an order and structure that is just too perfect and too beautiful to be accidental (in my opinion) and I believe that this is attributed to God. This part of Him, God as creator, is very beautiful and exciting to me.

It is also deeply moving and personal. To know that God created the EM spectrum, the milky way, the sun and the moon, the air, the ozone layer. He made gravity, magnetism, fire, water earth. He created time, space. He carved the earth, He moulded the planets, painted the skies. He formed the flowers, invented the sea, and produced life. All of this He did and more; He created my inmost being, He knew me before I was even knitted together in my mother’s womb. He knows every hair on my head, because He put it there. How amazing that He put the same amount of care into my little toe as He did in the formation of the Sun. How mind-blowing that He spent as much time and care and effort on my ear as He did on the planets foundations.

 I can’t escape how awesome and inspiring God as Creator is. All that power, that knowledge, that time and strength is beyond comprehension. Then beyond that there is all that love. No-one hates anything they create and nobody creates anything they hate. When we Create things i.e. bring them into being, we are completely involved in it. It is a part of us. Just in the same way that everything created by God is of Him and part of Him. That for me epitomises God as Creator. He created me and all this Creation that is gift for us to enjoy and He loves it. He loves us and He loves us giving us the Creation to enjoy and He just loves to enjoy Creation with us and I love to enjoy Creation with Him.

Coming soon..........

God as Father

God as Smith

Its hand made. Not like a factory, churning out people. God puts effort and time into creating every part of who we are.

God as Gardener

God as King

God as Friend

Also if you have any that you think I should mention or feel I have missed out or even think that I should explore please do drop us a comment or an email and I will have a shot at it.

Many Blessings

Ed

Prove Yourself

Prove: to demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument. The topic of this post came to me as I went past a bus. I found myself thinking about bus fares and my little brother. My little brother is in Year 10 and clearly at school in full time education. He also does not have a bus pass. Repeatedly he is told that he needs to prove that he is able to get a students fee for the bus by getting a bus pass, despite the fact that he is clearly in full time education as law requires. I find myself bewildered about this as I find that we are constantly having to prove ourselves. As the legal age for leaving full time education is being raised to 18 I can see so many contradictory situations occurring. People who are clearly under 18 having to pay full fare on buses as they can't prove they are under 18 but then having to prove they are over 18 to vote, watch certain films, buy alcohol e.t.c. We live in a society where we are constantly having to prove ourselves.

Then there is proving out capabilities, our gifting. Take education for an example. The current teaching system in this country isn't here (in my opinion) anymore to teach people but to tick boxes. To send children through the processor and tick boxes on the way. When was the last time I used most of what I was taught at school? In my exams. I was taught what I was taught to pass exams, which I had to pass to prove... well to prove what? That I can regurgitate plain data, process dead facts? When were we last taught to live life? Why aren't we taught to live life?Apologies I appear to digress.
Exams are there for us to prove what we have been taught, our ability to learn and process, which I completely agree with but I feel has been taken out of control. Young people are being pressured to prove that they are capable of this high "perfect" target of passing GCSE's, passing A-Levels, going to University, getting a degree, getting a job...... Each level demanding a higher level of proof of our capabilities. I understand this and I feel that it can be positive to challenge ourselves to a higher level but I feel that this process is no longer positive. At least not for a lot of people. If we fail to prove ourselves at one level of this ladder of life then we are disproved i.e. we fail.

I suppose what this post is gearing towards is rebellion against the constant need to prove ourselves. It's tiring and de-humanising. We spend so much time having to prove ourselves that we forget to live. We forget to do the things because we enjoy them or because they are good. We need to find those things that don't always require proof. Let me take a personal example: I play the clarinet and whilst I was at school I had lessons for it. I did a couple of grades and then I got sick of them. I said to my teacher "I don't want to do grades any more." So we stopped doing grades. Did I stop learning to play the clarinet? No. In fact if anything, I started to learn to play the clarinet. I learnt to play the clarinet so I could play the clarinet. Some weeks I would make very little progress, some weeks I made lots of progress but I was learning to play an instrument. Now when I say to you "I play the clarinet" I don't have anything on me to prove it. In fact at this moment in time I don't even own a clarinet. However I can play the clarinet and I don't need to prove that to anyone.

On the other hand I acknowledge that "faith without deeds is dead". We do need an outwards manifestation of the internal knowledge/ faith/ belief/ conviction or it is truly dead. Evidence of our abilities and gifts are visible naturally and it is good to encourage these. Otherwise they will wither and die. Yet I still feel that the level of demand for proof we have in this society is unhealthy. We are constantly driven to higher targets by this need to prove ourselves and that is what it simmers down to. This constant pressure to prove ourselves before everyone. Everyone and God.

 That is where I struggle the most. The pressure to prove ourselves  before everyone has spilled over, infected even, our spirituality. I find myself before God constantly trying to prove myself in spite of those echoing words that resonate in my heart "It. Is. Finished." The last words on my position before God. I spend so much of my time trying to please everyone and God that I forget to just enjoy being with Him and enjoying being who I am called to be. This is not to say that I shouldn't aspire or become filled with hope for change but that I should be pleased with who I am in Christ. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and End. He is the first and final word on who I am.

Christian Mistakes

Christians never make mistakes! Do they? Surely not.
Recently I've been thinking about mistakes that we make. I feel that a lot of Christians feel that they should never make mistakes. At least not big ones anyway. Especially when it comes to public life and mistakes made in front of colleagues/ friends/ people that we know outside of Church. In Church we there is an element of openness on a scale that can't really be found anywhere else, hence Christians can mostly be very comfortable about making mistakes in front of fellow brothers and sisters. We accept each other (most of the time!) warts and all. I feel this is because we have had to come before God searching ourselves and understanding the "warts and all" that we have.

Outside Church there is a different story. I grew up in an environment that could be at times, quite literally, unforgiving. I made mistakes and I made choices that were unacceptable to some people so the concept of apologising and forgiveness that I built up were completely wrong. Apologising led to grovelling which led to desperation in my apologies. And forgiveness was given as a way of making me stop grovelling. The first time I understood truly, in human terms, what forgiveness was, was when I was in Barbados with a friend and his family;

My friend, his brother and I had headed down to the beach whilst his parents stayed back at the villa. We had left our phones behind as we were only a fifteen minute walk from the beach. It got to about 5 o'clock and we decided to head back. My friends brother ran off ahead to try and jump us on the way back, but we forgot to take a turn. So we ended up walking an hour back to the airport (the only place we could get our bearings from) and walking an hour back along a motorway so we could find the villa. 45 minutes after sun down we made it back home to parents who were never so relieved to see us alive. The embassy was just being dialled!! I remember apologising straight away to which the mum said "it's fine as long as your safe!". We were fed and watered and sent off to bed. The next morning I approached my friends mum again to apologise. Half way through she stopped me and said "It's OK. You have already apologised."
Mind! Blown!

That was the first time I had truly encountered what apologising and forgiveness truly meant. In my faith and my relationship with God I had experienced forgiveness but I didn't know what it truly meant as my understanding of what forgiveness needed was skewed. I kept on approaching God over and over again over the same thing, begging for forgiveness, but now I knew that it was done, finished, dealt with. Jesus said "It is finished" and I knew that God forgave straight away, without grovelling  or begging, when I came to him saying sorry with a sincere heart. This has been a major part of my faith and my life for the past 3 years.

Recently, however, I have encountered another hurdle. Making mistakes in the "real world". I suddenly feel a pressure to constantly do everything perfectly because I'm a Christian. I feel that I can't make mistakes that upset people or that appear to be arrogant/ rude/ thoughtless.

Upon reflection I feel that it is not making mistakes that define us or show us for who we are, but our response to mistakes.  That is where the crunch point is. We are all human, but it is our response to our humanity, that shows us to be good or not.

"Beginning" the Journey

Here we go. Setting out on a journey. This is the first Blog I have ever done and it is very exciting. Personally I am external processor which means that I end up talking, writing, drawing etc. in order to process thoughts, decisions and plans. That is the primary cause for this Blog. I hope that as you read this and read through my Blogs containing my cogitations and musings that you will be inspired, challenged and encouraged. As you dip in and out of this page I hope you see it as observing or partaking in my journey. We each have journeys and we each have paths to take, doors to walk through, decisions to make. Journeys are exciting and challenging, hopeful and fearful, personal and shared. In the last 2-3 years of my life, my journey, my route has changed and redirected many times. Joining St Polycarps, starting my job as a Science Technicians, entering a relationship with Liz, stepping forward for ordination, making new friends, leaving home; these have all been part of my journey through life. I like to call this journey The Great Pilgrimage. Why? Because of a vision I have about life being a journey, a pilgrimage. I saw it as people, clothed in cloaks and hoods, holding lanterns and walking along paths towards a Great City. Each person has their own path to take and no other person can take that path for them. Yet peoples paths come close to each other, sometimes obscured by hedges, fences, walls, sometimes clearly visible and people can interact. However other times peoples paths join together. Other times they split apart from one another.
The point of this image, I feel, is that we all have our own path to make, to take, on this Great Pilgrimage of life, but that doesn't mean we take this path alone.  As I look towards my wedding in 37 days time, I look to my path being permanently intertwined with Liz's, and I look back at all the paths that have crossed mine, intertwined with mine, come close to mine and I look at all the routes and decisions I made. I acknowledge that not all my decisions and routes were truly what God wanted for me, but I know that I am where God wants me to be. That has required me to take ALL the paths, routes, decisions I have made to get me here. That means that God has used my mistakes, my rebellion and my daft, daft, daft moments that I am so prone to. I look at the footsteps I have left and realise that God was with me every step of the way. I know there are things that I have done that I would prefer not to have happened but as I said before I had to take those paths, routes and decisions to get to where I am today. As I look to the future I am excited for two reasons. Firstly; I know that I am on track with God and heading into the places He is calling me to be, He is with me for all of it, He is guiding me and protecting me. He is also allowing me to live life, which means making genuine mistakes and daft, daft decisions, whilst also holding me close to Him and loving me unconditionally. Secondly is because of a quote from a wonderful, hilarious film called The Infidel; "Look not to what a man has done but to what a man hopes to do." I know there are a great many things that I have done that are not brilliant but I look to the things I hope to do, by the grace of God.