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?
I had never heard the phrase 'fallen-condition focus' before I read this post. You must've learned something in that subject :)
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