And so I'm back...
...from outer space. No, not really.Went on a week's summer camp for kids. It was a week of hanging out with 16 8year olds and kind of being 'mum'. Getting them up in the morning, getting them out the door, supervising breakfast, entertaining them while they waited, pouring milk, cereal and drinks so they didn't spill it, giving them permission to leave the table, supervising and leading activities, cutting up food, telling them to eat things they don't like, teaching them to clear the table, disciplining them, sending them to bed, and many more things in between.But by far the best thing about the week was the last night of camp, when I ended up with all 16 of them in 1 room and we had a huge question and answer time about God, faith, Jesus, the Bible and related topics. They are so thirsty for knowledge it is amazing. It is also amazing the knowledge that some of them have. But through it all I certainly was aware of a huge sense of responsibility as I came to the realisation that these girls understanding of the gospel was coming from me. In some ways, I was God's Word to them. What I was saying to them they would believe as truth. There's no better way to gain the desire to know God's Word and know it well then when the faith of an 8 year old hangs on what you say.
with Respects to Matthew
The eternal perspective
Mysteries revealed
The wise become foolish
And blind eyes see
Dying is living
Losing is gaining
Sacrifice is worship
Surrender is victory
No claim to glory
No right to one's own
Self lived on an altar
For the ransom paid
Earth is fading
Hevean remains
Hearts find treasure
Foundations are laid
No choice but response
For gifts imparted
To follow where led
And never look back
I live for His glory
Had a really interesting revelation about this tonight. This is something that I think I have said, or at least I have said, "I want to live for His glory." I even sign part of my emails, "for His glory." I think the comment is all backwards. See, I live for His glory, would mean I want the things that I do to bring glory to God. But that means that it is about me, I what I want to do. But I think the statement should be flipped. It should be "For His glory, I live." Because then it becomes about God. And the point becomes, it is for God's glory that I exist at all. That is, God gets to use me for His glory. This means that it's not about what I am doing, or what I desire or anything about me. It is about God being able to use me to do whatever He wants, to bring Him glory. It's kind of scary, because I get no say. But it can't be anything less. First of all, God is God and He is sovereign. But second of all, my salvation has nothing to do with me but everything to do with Him. Therefore this life that I have is not my own anyway. So therefore God has every claim on my life to be able to say, "I will use you in whatever way that I want so that my glory can be promoted."
Lessons from Halo Part 2
Given the far larger than usual response to my first Halo blog, I thought I would add a second. This one has also come to light in the past few days, and once again, it has its beginnings in the game of Halo.As briefly referred to in the previous entry, one of my shortcomings in the game of Halo is that I have sucked at close combat. What actually happens is that I become so agitated that I just freeze or can't control what I am doing and get killed very easily. It actually took a whole game of Stephen practising close combat with me to start to get it. Now, I am not great, but a lot better at it, and sometimes I even come out of these situations as the victor. I also noticed this phenomenon while participating in slingshot paintball (a fine game if ever there is one) on a camp I recently shared leadership of. I found that when my combatant was close at hand I would fumble and falter and not be able to shoot properly or reload my slingshot. And here's where it applies to me. I am not great at close combat situations. If I feel that I am being personally threatened or unexpectedly attacked then I become very agitated and my mind often retreats for a holiday (somewhere in the depths of darkest Africa, I assume) and I am devoid of the ability to maintain intelligent arguments. What is more frustrating is that upon removal from this situation and the opportunity to process with more clarity I can formulate all manner of appropriate and worthy arguments. And it is not just that I am now finding the justifications, it's just that my mind started working. So I need to get more practice at this to. I need to be able to think on my feet and give the answers for the reasons that I know I am right when I am actually right. That's a tough one too. But I'm giving it a shot.
Lesson from Halo
I am not the world's hugest computer fans (contrary to what some people I know might say!). Particularly I have never been a huge fan of any of the player against player shooting kinds of games, like Halo. But recently, because of its benefits in social interaction I have been playing Halo (who ever thought that guys played computer games to facilitate socialising together, I thought they were just being anti-social). And I'm getting kind of good at it too. But here's the thing. When I started playing Halo I sucked! Like really sucked, I couldn't gain perspective I couldn't coordinate my movement and my looking around, I kept on getting lost on the screen and in any close combat situation I was stuffed. And I would say it as well and generally be disparaging about my Halo abilities or lack thereof. But I was called on this self depreciation and told that I should see that I was getting better and start focusing on how I was improving instead of always finding the worst in the situation. And i t worked. I stopped getting down on myself and started realising that I was improving and I now enjoy the game a lot more (even if sometimes I still need to be corrected for the occassional denegration). And I have recently realised that this kind of perspective has far wider applications than just playing Halo. See I have a tendency to put myself down quite a bit about the things that I do. I am incredibly critical of anything that I do and I find it far easier to see all of the short comings in what I did rather than seeing the things that I did well. But I wonder if some of that is simply because I am so used to making the negative comments and saying them to myself. And so I'm going to try to start looking at assessing things and finding the good and not always putting myself down. Because I know when I am made to sit and look objectively at something that I have done then I will regularly admit that there were good parts to it. I think I just have to start finding those more, make it a practice and stop seeing myself so negatively. I think there is a real choice element to this, because it is not impossible for me to see the good in myself; when made to do it, or when I am getting defensive, I can list off things that I am good at. So I think that I need to retrain my thinking. It's going to take quite a bit of practice, but we'll see how we go.
