Thankful Thursday

I’ve been sitting at home this afternoon waiting for it to rain.  The weather forecast predicted a lot of rain today but I’m yet to see any of it!  I’m glad that I made it home while it was still dry.  Here are some things I’m thankful for this week. 

It’s my birthday!
It’s my birthday today!  I have to admit that I often feel a bit strange on my birthday.  More people talk to you than normal, saying ‘happy birthday’ and doing nice things.  I’m not used to the extra attention and I’m not really sure how to react to it.  But I have enjoyed the love that friends and family have shown me.  I’m thankful for these people. 

Quick crafts
On Monday I started a crochet project and I finished it today.  It was for a sock bun, I found the pattern here.  It was basically a large square that I rolled up and sewed together.  I haven’t tried it out yet but I’m looking forward to it.  I’m not sure how curly hair goes in a sock bun but I figured this would be a cheap way of trying it!  I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Rebuke and encouragement
There have been a number of instances in the past two weeks when I have felt rebuked about my Bible reading and prayer habits, but particularly prayer.  A lecture two weeks ago, a small group that I led and a chapel sermon.  I’ve been encouraged to get back into the habit, and though it has been slow, I have been more regular than before.  I’m thankful for these painful reminders and the motivation they produced in me.

I’ve got to stop there are get ready to go out for my birthday dinner!

Thankful Thursday

Here we are at Thursday again.  I’m particularly thankful that we are because it means that my last assignment for the semester is finished!  Here are some of the other things I’m thankful for this week:

Growing things
On the weekend I did a bit of work weeding in my veggie patch and was excited to see that some of the seeds I had planted a few weeks (or months? I can’t remember) ago have started coming up.  I have some carrots (I think…) and some kale growing next to my exploding tomato plants, and a few little cucumber seedlings have popped their heads up too.  It has been rewarding being able to eat some of the things we’ve grown ourselves and seeing little seedlings emerge makes me marvel again at how intricately God has made his creation.  All I do is plant and water (and even then I don’t do it very well!) but God is the one who makes it all grow.  I’m thankful most of all for this and the opportunity that the veggie patch has given me to marvel again at God’s creation and to participate in some of his creative work. 

Forgiven failings
On Sunday afternoon J and I played tennis with some people from church.  This is a semi-regular thing, happening every few months.  Now I say ‘played’ tennis… I’m sure that’s what J was doing but I’m not sure I was.  I’ve never been very interested in tennis, though I don’t mind watching bits of the Australian Open each year.  Mum and Dad would try to teach my sister and I whenever we visited the local tennis courts but we weren’t very committed.  So I found myself flailing for the ball on Sunday and apologising to my partner whenever I missed it.  But I am so thankful that I could still have fun despite my abysmal tennis, and that my partner and opponents also had fun.  (I’m also thankful that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t that great at tennis.)

Resolutions from assignments
I wasn’t going to talk about my assignment but I realised that aside from being thankful that it is finished, I’m also thankful for what I will take out of it.  This assignment was for my preaching subject.  We had to reflect on what we had learned about preaching, about feedback, our strengths and weaknesses and plans to improve our preaching.  The two things I resolved to start doing to help improve my preaching was to work out the fallen-condition focus of the passage and to pray for understanding of the passage.  Now, I don’t get many opportunities to preach (not that I’m complaining!) so there’s not much opportunity to put these things into practice.  So I resolved to do these things in my personal Bible reading time.  I’ve often struggled with personal Bible reading, making it more than just reading to tick a box but not taking it in.  So I’m thankful that through this assignment I have made some resolutions that will hopefully not only help me the next time I come to write a sermon, but will help me in a very practical way in understanding the Bible. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

Friends, I’m sorry that it’s been a while since I’ve written.  There isn’t really an excuse.  But here I am again, perhaps procrastinating a little from my research week assignment, but I really did want to get a post out today since I haven’t posted in a while.  So here are some of the things I’m thankful for in the midst of this mad assignment–writing week:

A package in the mail
This wasn’t a surprise because I ordered it myself, but I was surprised with how quickly it arrived.  On Tuesday I got my gumboots! 
I have complained twice on Facebook (and more times out loud) that I didn’t own a pair of gumboots.  The first time was when I went to the show (you can read about it here) and it rained for half the day.  I walked around with wet–sneaker feet all day. 
I haven’t had a chance to wear these gumboots yet because it has been sunny all week (I’m not complaining about that) but when I do I’ll try to remember to take a picture to share with you.

 Concentration
There has been a sad pattern to my research week experiences.  I’m not very good at staying on track (this may be partly my personality but I might talk about that in a different post).  The assignment is so big it overwhelms me and I often wonder what I’m even doing at college at all.  I’m not smart enough for this!  So I get distracted and waste time on other things because I can’t face the fear of not being able to get my head around the assignment.  But it’s a vicious cycle.  The assignment looks bigger as the time left to do it gets smaller.  But I am thankful to say that this week I have been pretty focused (aside from this small break, shh!).  I prayed at the beginning of the week that God would help me to concentrate and to understand what I read, and while I’m not sure about the second part, I really do think that God has helped me this week.  So this thanks goes to God. 

I think I’ll stop there and get back to my essay.  Thanks for the break!

What are you thankful for this week?

When I didn’t want to pray

Last week at college we had week of prayer to pray for the mission teams that we would all participate in the following week.  This meant that we prayed more than usual in our morning chapel times and chaplaincy groups, usually in small groups rather than being lead from the front.  

At some point in the week I suddenly felt exhausted from praying.  I didn't want to pray anymore, I was tired of praying and it had tired me out.  

I was shy of admitting this here.  After all, I'm a Bible college student, I've chosen to study my faith full time, shouldn't I love praying?  Shouldn't I be good at it by now?  I shouldn't be feeling like I don't want to do it.  

But in case there is even just one other person out there who feels the same way as me sometimes, I thought I should share this.  And I want to be honest here not just about the good things, but the struggles too.  

I know I can come up with a number of reasons to explain away why I was tired of praying.  I'm an introvert and praying in groups for 20-30 minutes each day with people I don't necessarily know well, if at all, is emotionally taxing.  I'm also shy about talking in groups so often praying out loud is a push out of my comfort zone.  Then there's the fact that you have to reword and add-lib on the fly because simply reading out the prayer point doesn't quite feel like I'm praying sincerely (even though that's a totally legitimate way to pray, particularly with the detailed points).  

But honestly, I don't want to let myself get away with excuses for my attitude to prayer.  Prayer has often been hard for me, in groups and alone.  I know that I'm not alone in this.  Pray is hard, that's the truth.  It's hard to keep at it, to keep trying, because it feels so weird.  There's nothing else that we do like it.  And often we wonder what's wrong when we pray because we don't feel any different, as if feelings are the gauge of God hearing us.  

But my thought that day last week shocked me.  Because while I don't expect that I will always love praying, and I certainly don't expect to be good at it without a lot of hard work, I shouldn't let that stop me from persisting.  And I shouldn't want to opt out from doing it.  Prayer is our lifeline to God.  It is our expression of our utter dependence on him for everything, and a product of our relationship with him.  How can we have a relationship with God if we never speak to him (prayer) and if we never listen to him (reading the Bible)?  

It was my sinfulness that said I was tired of prayer.  And I know I'm not disgusted enough with my sin, but the shock at my sin was good.  I was glad it shocked me because it showed me that God is changing me, little by little, working in my heart to make it like his and to despise my sin and love his righteousness. 

We visited a mosque today as part of our mission, to learn more about Islam and what Muslim's believe.  I've often been impressed with the amount of praying that pious Muslims do (at least five times a day according to the rules of their faith).  But I shouldn't need rules about when to pray to get me to pray.  Paul says to pray continuously! (1 Thess 5:17).  I know that God has made it possible for me to approach him in prayer without any need for special words or special actions.  Jesus has interceded for me before the Father and made me clean.  Praise be to God.  I need to remember this and keep trusting in God for everything, knowing how much of a privilege it is to come to him in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

(“What a Friend we have in Jesus”, lyrics Joseph Scriven)

The faith of an old man

Today J and I visited a man who used to go to our church in Adelaide.  He now lives in a nursing home, at the age of 99, because he can't really care for himself anymore.  Visiting him was such an encouragement for me.

He was excited and surprised to see us, not knowing that we were in Adelaide, and told us that he had prayed for us just this morning.  This man is an exceptional man of prayer.  His eyesight is poor and his hearing is going so he can't really watch TV or read a book (not even the Bible.  He now listens to it through headphones).  He told us that instead he spends his evenings praying, every evening.  I suspect that he spends most of his time praying really.  I couldn't imagine concentrating on prayer for that long, but hearing his commitment to prayer was an encouragement for me to keep working on my discipline for spending time in prayer.

He is very old and is eagerly awaiting his death so that he can go to be with God.  When I asked how he was he complained that he was too well!  But he expressed his trust in God's timing and he makes the most of the time that he has left. 

Here is one example.  He told us that he spoke to one of the cleaners who works in the nursing home and asked her if she loved Jesus.  The cleaner told him that she did, and he was so pleased.  When he found out she didn't read the Bible often he encouraged her that she needed to be fed from God's word.  Later on he gave her an old copy of a Bible reading plan and commentary notes, which she found very useful and encouraging. 

I always find myself encouraged after speaking to this faithful old man.  He always encourages us to keep loving and serving God, and his faith shines through in everything he does and says.  I can only hope and pray that God would create in me such a faithful heart.

Help with my assignment

The study rooms were full on Friday.  Everyone was at the their desk, clicking and typing away.  Every so often the air was punctuated with a heavy sigh. 

That was the first Research Week that I was in the studies (last term’s Research Week I was sick and didn’t want to share my cold with everyone). 

I think I liked writing my essay there.  There’s a sense of camaraderie in the studies.  Everyone is working hard, and those who are struggling are happy to say so.  People would ask each other questions, talk through thoughts they were having and borrow books from each other.  We’re all in this together in some sense.  I also found comfort from the people who were still there, late into the night. 

But there was something else that struck me even more.  I was struck by the fact that there were people praying for me as I wrote the essay.  Not just the unknown-to-me-people who regularly pray for students at our college, or the friends I had asked to pray for me, but even some of my fellow students, also working hard to get the essay done.  Not just praying that I would get it finished on time, but that I would learn and grow from doing it.

In the spirit of the passage I looked at for my essay (Deut 4:32-40):  Search in days gone by and over the world, in what other field of study have you ever hear of this happening? 

This is such a great comfort to me.  The people who I study with aren’t students who I compete with for marks or try to beat in the bell curve.  Or even people I am ambivalent towards as I focus on my own learning.  They are friends, family in Christ, who care about each other, help each other out with resources, and even pray for each other. 

But this is not just a comfort to me.  It is also a rebuke.  I was so focused on my own essay; getting it right and getting it done, that I didn’t really think about asking God to help anyone else with theirs.  How selfish of me.

I am thankful for not just the things I learn at college, but also the way that my attitudes and motivations are being reshaped.  Please pray that God would continue to change my heart to be more like Jesus, as I will be praying for my fellow students.

When you don’t like public speaking…

This is only a short post because I’ve still got a lot of work to do.  I just thought that since it has been a while since my last post I’d let you all know what I’ve been up to and what is coming up. 

The biggest thing on my mind at the moment is the fact that I’m preaching in Women’s Chapel at college tomorrow!  Eeek! 

I have never preached before, I’ve never really written a sermon before.  It has been hard.  I didn’t even know where to start!  This has given me a greater respect for those who write sermons or Bible talks week in and week out.  Of course, they have had more practice than me, but it’s still something that takes a lot of time and creative energy. 

Even though it has been hard I’ve enjoyed the process of digging deeper into my passage and working out how to preach it.  I’ve had to understand how the passage fits within its wider context (the letter that it’s from), and the logic of the passage.  I’ve looked at other parts of the letter that talk about similar things to help me to understand my section. 

Here’s a picture of my work station.  I’ve got a screen at the back showing the feedback notes I took when I gave this sermon in my college preaching group.  My Bible is open to the passage, and I’ve got some notes written down on the paper on my left. 

On Sunday I also lead our church service for the first time.  For someone who doesn’t like public speaking, this has made for a lot of it in one go!  Though I was nervous and unsure of myself the people at church were very encouraging.  I also found it spiritually encouraging to have prepared for leading the service and feeling responsible in a way for leading the congregation in hearing God’s word and worshipping him. 

Next week is also a busy week.  It’s research week, a week when we have no classes so that we can dedicate our time to the big assignment that is due at the end of the week.  For second years it is an Old Testament essay on a passage from Deuteronomy. 

And everything that normally happens is still happening.  Winter dinners have started up at our community, church Bible study group and women’s Bible study group are still running.  I’m still doing ballet with some girls from college each week, and I’m enjoying running with some of my neighbours a few times a week. 

If you are a praying person I would appreciate your prayers.  Please pray:

• that I would preach the truth tomorrow and God would use what I say
• that God would calm my nerves and give me confidence in him
• for all the students at college as they complete big assignments next week
• that we would take time to rest and be thankful to God

Thanks,
Rachelle