There's a lot of nonsense in the media about particular days, like "Black Friday" and "Blue Monday", almost predisposing us to a particular mood for the day. Stupid! A friend put this on her Facebook status today. That's more like it. Thanks, Emma!
My carer was a few minutes later than usual this morning, but it didn't matter. I enjoy times of waiting. Our Bible notes today began: "'But I have stilled and quietened my soul; like a weaned child with its mother...' (Psalm 131.2). Still yourself before the Lord, and listen for his voice."
Whether my carer was speaking something of the Lord's voice, I don't know - I try not to dismiss the probability that God will speak in unexpected ways, ever since he used Balaam's donkey. Anyway he quoted something he'd read in a weekend supplement: "There's a danger of us becoming human doings rather than human beings." And later he quoted
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk saying: "Don't just do something; sit there!" which is, as they'd say over the pond, a "kinda neat" way of saying it.
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| courtesy - the Eddy family |
Our local curate's family have just brought home a lovely spaniel puppy, which no doubt has periods of frenetic activity, but also has the gift of stillness. It's something that dogs are very good at - relaxing. I suppose that's what we also need, a balance between doing and being -
but we need to avoid measuring our value or our importance by our doing. God values us all, because we're his children, and his love is the measure that matters. "It's so high, you can't get over it; so deep, you can't under it; so wide, you can't get round it. Oh wonderful love!" as we heard on Sunday.
3 comments:
"Resting" when you have a condition is not straightforward. It depends on the condition. I found I was always incredibyle and wearyingly tense but even then I was helped by a vicar telling me once about "the Sleepeasy man". His wife was dangerously ill and he was feeling his world collapsing when driving home he saw that advert of a man falling into a Sleepeasy matress on the side of a lorry? He recalled that always in every situation "underneath are the everlasting arms" even when one feels one is falling into "nothing". So one can relax after all. His wife fully recovered too.
Nice - the Sleepeasy man! I'm not good at that sort of trust.
"Sleepeasy faith" is the only type of faith taught - and the only type commended by the Bible. We are informed we are saved "by faith" - and that "tested faith" is pure "gold". It is also the only type that "works" - please dont ask me what that means....it is an long essay.
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