Here am I send me.

God calls and we follow. Easy right? Sometimes God gives us choices. We get up in the morning and look in the wardrobe for something to wear. We don’t have to pray about it just make a choice. God has given us the ability to choose. We always have free will to do what we want but in the bigger decisions in life I want to clearly hear what God has to say about it. What is his will? 

When there is a fork in the road which way do we travel? When the river forks which way do we sail our boat? Every decision in life has consequences good and bad. Sometimes we make wrong choices and suffer the consequences. Sometimes the decisions are the right ones but still there are fall outs and repercussions. 

I was 16 when I was called to ministry. Sat in church on a Sunday morning listening to a sermon on Isaiah 6. Isaiah had an encounter with God that he couldn’t deny. He was faced with his own sinfulness and inadequacies. God said to him, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’

If God asked you that question what would you say? My response and that of Isaiah was, ‘Here am I send me.’

It’s not always easy. But if we don’t follow God then who are we? Before the term Christian was used we were ‘Followers of the Way.’ That’s what I want to be, a ‘Follower of the Way!’ Look out for the sign posts as you travel and journey with God. May our answer always be, ‘Here I am send me.’

Photo every day, Lent 2016: covenant

I have been on a ministers retreat and thinking about today's theme of 'covenant'. My covenant with God is to live out the call he has placed on my heart as well as I am able. I feel inadequate at times but it's not about me and what I do. It shouldn't be about relying on me but about relying on God. Here is a poem that materialised today...

To serve you

To serve you

Isn't easy

yet here I am 

With open heart 

and hands outstretched 

To meet you

To greet the stranger

To love the outcast

To worship you in essence.

To say here I am

Send me.

To serve you

With every ounce of me.

All that I am

And meant to be.

I listen for instruction

But sometimes you say,

'Just simply be,

Stop, 

Relax

Breathe deeply

Lean on me.'

To serve

I need to observe

The season of change

The call of your Word

That disturbs the tranquility

In silent humility

I offer myself

Once more to your call

I listen some more

Then you whisper to me

'Just walk through the door.'

Copyright revdjo 24/2/16

Ministry

It's a calling
Ingrained in the heart,
No going back
God's love to impart.

It's a calling
Full of God's hope,
Ministering the Word
God's love to impart.

It's a calling
Bubbling with joy,
His Spirit's anointing
God's love to impart.

It's a calling
Faith - if you will,
Trust and devotion
God's love to impart.

It's a calling
A challenge, a way,
Take it or leave it
God's love to impart.

It's a calling
Will you stop praying,
And tell me
What do you say?

©Revdjo 20/8/2013

Pickle and Cyberspace

I have been busy of late updating my church website.  I am sure I have got a lot to learn about such things.  Whilst I am not a technophobe I do get rather frustrated by technology and in particular computers.  They are fine as long as they are working but I often seen to get in a pickle with them.  My normal course of action is to ask my husband, John, to sort out any issues and then if he really can't fix it to bite the bullet and sort it out myself.  This worked really well until I ditched the windows based operating system laptop, invested in an Apple Mac book, and started fiddling around with Internet templates, not to mention Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter, all of which he knows little about.  Today I picked someone's brains about the website.  - Please understand this is a metaphor and I am not Hannibal Lecter and eat people's brains although I do admit to once eating Brain's Faggots (remember them?)  As I am writing this I am wondering if I should be worried about their kind invitation to a meal and whether they will be serving faggots.  For my American readers I ought to say that faggots are a traditional English meal made from meat offcuts and offal that use to be very popular.  

On the subject of food I finished off a jar of Branston Pickle today.  I have previously mentioned earlier that whilst I was at college I would often sit eating Marmite on wheat-free toast wondering where God was calling me to pastor a church.  Burton upon Trent is the home of real ale, Marmite (made from the yeast extract from the brewing process), and Branston Pickle!  If you want to know more about the history of Burton as a brewing town have a look at the Burton and South West Derbyshire Campaign for Real Ales website.  I would also keep a bottle of Branston Pickle on hand and if I wasn't eating Marmite on my toast I would be eating pickle on my cheese and rice-cakes!  You may have worked out by now that I have a wheat intolerance hence the need for taste toppings.  Branston Pickle was made in Branston which is a small suburb of Burton from 1922 until 2004 when the factory relocated to Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk.  I am sure God was having a laugh with me as I was searching for an answer to my prayer as to where he was calling me to.  When we are looking for direction as to where God is leading us there are often clues along the way and confirmation that we are on the right path.  We just need to open our eyes and see them.  In case you are wondering no, I don't like real ale, I am more a West Country cider girl. 

 

A couple of days ago I even managed to use Twitter correctly.  I have had an account for a few years but could never get to grips with it.  I have a tendency to use my iPhone (I am such an Apple junkie - but at least they are healthy!)  for social networking which is fine as long as the app is easy to understand if not I get frustrated and put things on the bottom of my to do list.  One of the big mistakes I made with Twitter was to follow too many people.  Having culled those I follow, hopefully it wasn't painful, I added a few extra ones which has a knock on effect of them sometimes choosing to follow you.  (It seems Twitter is just one big game of follow-my-leader.)  It amused me somewhat that 'Russel Brand Fans' are now following me.  Surely they should, by their nature, be following Russel?  It made me laugh anyway!  Following people is all well and good as long as they are not lost or misguided.  Whilst I may follow people on Twitter I choose to take my lead in life from God.  I am one of His many followers.
             

Earlier today my Mac decided to black screen on me even though it was powered up and I nearly didn't blog again.  This is the first time in three years that it has thrown a tantrum so it has done well really.  I really do feel called to write much more than I have done of late and not be put off by the technological glitches.  I thank God for friends who have encouraged me to continue.  Today's blog has been a bit of a ramble but then spirituality is a ramble to. Experience tells me I draw strength from God in the hard times and through adversity.  Life can seem a pickle and difficult to work out but as we ramble through the thorn bushes of life it is important to smell the roses and enjoy the blackberries on the way.  Branston Pickle and Marmite may not be your call but pause for thought and you will see the path God has made for you.                             

        

Calling

More fun from http://www.reverendfun.com/

What makes you who you are?

Today I had the privilege of conducting a service renewing a couples marrage vows on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary.  Mark and Gill have had a tough time recently as Mark nearly died.  It was a great to have been asked to take the service for them - but why me?  I am not yet ordained and I am still searching for that church to which God has called me to.  I am at present nomadic - a pilgrim on a journey.  Is this perhaps a way for God to affirm my calling?  Am I to be a pastor to the pastorless?

Mark and Gill were married in an Anglican church and it was to this church that they returned 25 years later to renew their promises before God and in the presence of their children and their partners.  The service was short, yet intimate and extreamly moving.  God was there and His presence was real.  I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  Today nothing else mattered, no essay, no lecture or anything else was going to get in the way of the task in hand.  I can't say that I felt particularly upbeat today - more miserable like the weather.  (It has rained most of the day.)  But today I had a commission - a job to do - a priestly role to fulfill.  Is seems strange but yet perfectly normal to be standing at the alter in an Anglican church.  (I am an eccumenical.)  The vicar did not mind me conducting the service, Mark and Gill wanted me to do it, I wanted to, and more importantly, I feel it was what God had called me to do today. 

But I am left with a question - what makes you who you are?  Is it a label?  Is it an ordination service?  Is it what you do?  Is it other people?  Or is it God?  I am who I am.  Imperfect, a bit moody at the moment, inadequate in so many ways and a sinner.  But by the grace of God I am forgiven, redeemed and made perfect by the blood of the lamb.  I am a child of God and it is God who makes me who I am.  Today, dispite the rain, it has been a good day.