Wandering wandering
Through fields dark and grey
Amberling amberling
Ignoring the call to obey
Strolling strolling
Going on in my own way
Shepherdles and kingless
Vagabond, rebel, astray
LIGHT
Light shines into my darkness
Grey turns into black and white
Accountable accountable
I’m lost I’m dammed I’m dead
My life laid bare before me
Before the judge, the court, the king
My wretched deeds, my wretched life
My sins transgressions crimes
The things I’ve done, the things I’ve said
The wrong thoughts, oh my lord I am dead
What hope have I?
To who can I cry?
Again the light shines back on me
And bids me listen to his voice
Visions, pictures, words, flash before my eyes
A babe, a man, a rough cruel cross
A death, another dead instead of me
A life a life
The tomb is empty now
A promise a promise
If I would follow him
If I would turn from my wretched ways
And make Christ Jesus my king
The slate is clean, the price is paid
My crimes on him were laid
I walk a new path, narrow, straight and true
Where all will become perfectly made anew
I wonder I wonder
Why all this for undeserving me?
Prayer Point
I've have just this minute posted my aplication to Thames Valley Police.
I would apreacte prayer in this matter. :)
What Ever Happend to the PINK Ranger?
Kimberly aka Amy Jo Johnson, the star of wondeful saterday morning rubbish. Yet as power rangers went of of fashion and into obscurity we (... well I) wonder what heppend to the pink ranger???
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005057/imdb shows us that realy not a lot. Highlights inculde an cameo in Spin City and ER.
Caption Competition:
(After a late night in the Pub I was beginning to get rather tired of his big mouth !)
leave your caption in comments :)
Biblical Babes???
So in the Uni Cu we’ve been going thru Ruth, I also decided to go thru it with one of the colleges I work with. You can get quite a lot from Ruth it is such an amazing book. Anyhows, I was prepping the first Chapter and reading about Ruth and her response to Naomi about leaving I was like… wow I wish I could have married Ruth. Then it struck me… I don’t actually know what she looked like; all I have is her character and her actions. Then I thought more about it and was like… she could like have one eye, an extra finger and webbed feet, and thinking more about it I actually don’t know what any of the women in the Bible looked like, I just made a picture for myself of some amazingly attractive woman when I read Ruth. Why.. well it’s because of what we’re told of her. It seems the woman in the bible are attractive or ugly because of their character, it’s us who imagine them to be good looking because of what we read of them and what they do and say.
I guess my point is this; we’re told that real beauty is on the inside.. many many times, BUT when do we actually understand it. It just struck me that a good way to help people to understand this is to get them to look at those in the Bible they think are “good looking” and ask why. And its not because of their appearance!!
I bought this up the other night and we had a good discussion, people were really jumping on this, we’re all subconsciously doing this to biblical character, Ruth, Sarah Ester (referred to as “a hottie on the loose” by one of my CU girls). It’s like we’re halfway there, we know it but soo often we only look at appearances.
So when we are told about true beauty being our Godly character we should seek it and look for it in our brothers and sisters. And help others break the culture and see what God wants us to see in our Brothers and sisters
Pratical Theology
I thought this was aproprate due to the nice weather we're having.
Alternate valentines:
So it's the 14th and your your housemates are out doing.. well you dont want to think about that. What oh what can you do.....
This is an idea for you to try, i've done it before and worked wonders.
1) Get your mates
2) Get a selction of real ales / 6 pack of stella
3) Watch Saving private Ryan (or the Rock, Full metal Jacket, Platoon)
This is a garenteed way to cheer you up with a testostorne overdose and relise that desire of camardre, brotherhood, standing firm in the face of adversity and shooting the facless enemy (well k maybe not that last)
if that doesnt work, i've also spent valentines day doing army training with the cadets on a week long course, nothing like early mornings, cooked breakfasts and shouting to push those valentines day blues out your head. Although signing up to the army just to escape Valentines day may be a little excessive and i'm not recomending it.
Free SpeechIgnoring the response of the Muslim communities I’ve had a few thoughts on the whole issue in relation to the cartoons published in the Danish papers.
I was reading the comment by Simon Jenkins in the times, he bought tout the point that ALL new papers are censored, albeit self centred, there is an editor who looks through and edits (or censors) what is in the paper, something’s you don’t put in and leave our for public decadency, therefore the publishing of the cartoons were both deliberate and intentions.
What is free speech; the articles defend freedom of the press/free speech as the ability to satire and parody the sacred and religious…. Frankly if that’s what free speech is I don’t want it. I mean for people who have nor religion and nothing is sacred then free speech becomes just an excuse to dilbretly mock others.
Hang on I tell a lie, I suppose to people there are sacred things, maybe if a Islamic paper published a cartoon of a dog doing obscene acts with the (dead) mother of the editor of whichever newspaper that would be fair game… I mean that would be free speech….
But (you say) that would just be rude and offensive and vindictive. My point, the cartoons were exactly that. It might be free speech yet it certainly wasn’t loving or sensitive.
Also, people are upset with the protesters carrying slogans referring to 7/7 and threatening violence on the newspapers etc… isn’t this free speech? Isn’t this just people excersing the same right the papers did?
Right I say now I condone neither. The cartoons were offensive and rude, and the protests were shocking and excessive. My main thought would be how would we feel if a paper published a cartoon of Jesus in a gay bar? Or perhaps St Peter fast-tracking abortionist killers and bombers into heaven? This is my issue, there may be free speech, yet why do we not have as much passion for when people blaspheme, we just ignore it, or if people mock our saviour, we just stand and take it. I’m NOT advocating any attempts of violence or brutality on people who are irreverent, just a challenge to stand up more for our faith when its being eroded and mocked.
LONDON CALLING.....
It hard with FE events to find fruit and encouragement at times. You turn up to London and there are more staff than students, your CU’s could have benefited so much yet all had other things on. YET you’ll do it because God wants you to. Atcauly I thought the day was really good and I got a lot to help me in FE work and to help train others in my CU’s.
We were helpfully reminded of “God uses the weak and foolish things” in this world.
The bible is full of them:
*Goliath bought down by some scrawny kid with a pebble
*Gideon saves middian with 300 men
*A talking donkey!
*Ablimelech was killed by some woman dropping a mill stone on his head
Yet in all these it is God working and we know that because they are soo weak and foolish! God show himself powerfully in the weak and foolish things.
Likewise, the Gospel, a crucified king, God on a cross! To those who don’t know its seems weak and foolish. Yet we know that this is actually the best news ever, because we can’t save ourselves, God does it for us, again God acts and is Glorified in seemingly week and foolish situations.
I don’t know what your CU, Church, work situation is, I don’t know how weak and foolish you feel at the moment, you might be sitting there wondering how on earth God could be working in your situation if God could use you at all????
God uses weak and foolish people and situations, like me and my work.
SIZE DOESN’T MATTER, ITS WHAT GOD DOES WITH IT THAT COUNTS!
RELAY II
Wow I think I’ve just about come to terms with what went one... it was an exceedingly strange time. I went there thinking “why am I here” (something I often ask myself). I was not especially looking forward to it, it would be a lot of looking back and lots of people saying how amazing their time on relay was. Well I was right but I enjoyed it none the less.
Relay II was very practical, we had to do both an OT minor prophet bible study and a Evangelistic talk, both useful skills. So what did I learn.
· Joel- This is a scary book! Lots of locusts, armies or armies of locusts. Interestingly we have little to no info on Joel and who and when he wrote. Instead of looking for plagues or invasions in Israel’s history it means we should look ahead to what it tells us about God’s Judgement. First we see immediate judgment which is the removing of the blessing God gave his people in Israel, then later there is the Day of the Lord which is the final day of Judgement of the earth. It not nice, God here is the Holy Holy Holy one who will enter into Judgement against all, his Judgment will be thougher and complete no one will stand against it. However there is hope, if people will truly repent then God will forgive and bring back his blessing and give them shelter from his wrath.
· Mission, I do wonder to what extent relay is a reciting centre for IFES and OMF... Again John Williams (UCCF mission guy) spoke on mission without boarders. Very encouraging, basically Jesus sent his spirit out to the world and salvation was made available to all at Jesus’ death. So when people go to mission, Jesus is already there waiting for you. The context was people going out to the world but how true is this for all? When we move when we start new jobs etc Jesus is already there waiting for us.
· There’s nearly always another way to do something. We had a karaoke night, our team hadn’t practiced or got costumes so basically we would be awful. Now I can’t sing but I can think outside the box. So our team performed Alaniss Morrisette’s “Ironic” in interpretive dance. We have the music start... then stop, then Kath let loose on her bongo’s with intermittent performing of the lines from the song. All rather “out there” I don’t think they we ready for it. Special mentions to Sam who climbed up a pillar, Dan for his dry dry parched dry repetition of the line “ironic”. Not so special mention to Hoop’s who decide to tip a jug of water over me.... I said a cup Dave!!! We came 3rd overall... a decidedly good result for something that would either be amazing or stupid and was I suppose both.
· I am an Introvert. After a week of no “me” time I got back home. I just wanted to sleep and sit in my dark room with Tracy Chapman on softly in the background. Actually my housemates had guests for dinner, I had just walked in the door when they all arrived.... I was very good and didn’t scream “leave me alone !!” I made excuses and went to my room for solitude and refreshment and time to ponder over relay II.
· I also learnt what God is doing in my life. We had a “lets reflect time” so I reflected looking back at a letter I wrote on relay 1. BOY did I have a lot of issues... and still do. It was odd I knew God was doing stuff but I couldn’t see what. With help from Kath to reassure that things weren’t as stupid as I thought I went to the next talk. On Luke and being ready for the Lord. There were three points, two were we should have 1) Love for God’s people 2) desire for God’s glory. And yeah this is what my relay year has been about, learning to love my silly, random and much much love worthy students. And getting frustrated because the CU’s aren’t what they could be, God could do soooo much more and be soo at work.
Relay II, was not a waste of time as I thought. I actually enjoyed it despite the lack of sleep privacy and a hideous cold! :)
