living today

Getting distracted by the uncertainty of my future a wee bit today but reminded of this quote I read a few weeks ago in one of my granda's old books again...

"Instead of allowing the future and thoughts of it to grip you, talk to yourself, remind yourself of who you are and what you are, and of what Spirit is within you; and having reminded yourself of the character of the Spirit, you will be able to go steadily forward, fearing nothing, living in the present, ready for the future, with one desire only, to glorify Him who gave His all for you..."
p105 Martyn Lloyd Jones in Spiritual Depression

Also really not wanting to wish away the next few months of my life...

"For a long time it seemed to me that life... was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life ... would begin. At last it dawned on my that these obstacles were my life."
Alfred Souza (HT: peter)

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time." CS Lewis

exact places

Reading about church planting in belfast and portadown and trying to get in touch with another friend who has recently moved to start a galway church plant has made me think about a quote I read last summer...

Driscoll, referring to John 17:15–18 says: “Jesus prayed that we would not leave the sick and dying world and huddle into a safe subcultural ghetto of Christian nicety, but that we would stay in the world.” (from The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World)

I’m still trying to figure out what that looks like for me. In the next year, I’ll have to figure out where I’m heading... what continent, never mind what city, town, or 'ghetto'... At this point in my life it will be largely influenced by where I can find a job. But I hope having a vision for the community where I choose to live will be part that decision...

‘...he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him...’ acts 17:26-27

In the meantime, I still don't really know my neighbours...

my father's world...

i had an interesting conversation today...just made me think. we were talking about if we had one question that we wanted to ask god and that he would answer, what would it be? (i know, sounds like a strange question to have a conversation about!) i guess some of us would hypothetically ask trivial or obscure things about the world, or science etc whereas others may ask the big philosophical questions about death and suffering. the guy i was having the conversation said that he would ask, what did the future of the human race look like... in other words, about the future... what's going to happen to the world? how far will science advance? will life get better/worse? are we progressing?
i guess i've not thought about it that way. of course all of us would like to know the future in some shape or form, to know what decisions to make now, to see what life will be like... but i've never really thought about the question the way he put it. i guess with all the talk of global warming, environmental disasters, the increase in hurricanes/tsunami/droughts (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6288445.stm - bbc article on nigeria that i read today) etc it is something that is coming more to the fore in the media. but i'm not sure i've thought about asking god about.
i believe he is in control of everything and therefore he must be in control of nature. also as creator, he knows all in relation to science/physics as it is all his work. so he knows what will happen in relation to the human race/the world...
in the same way, i do believe that he is in control of the mess that seems to be iraq even though reading the news makes the idea that his purposes are ultimately being fulfilled hard to chew...

the other thing the conversation made me think about was whether, if this world/this life was all there was to look forward to, maybe i would be more concerned about the preservation of planet for generations to come etc... but because i believe there is more to life than this world does that make me less concern about the natural world? do i switch off more than the average joe bloggs when climate change comes on the news because of my faith in 'something more' and the idea that 'this world is not my home'? yet surely because i believe in god, should i not be even more ready to stand up and fight ecological sustainability, preservation etc because of the view that we are caretakers of this world and actually the idea that 'this world is not my home' means the world actually god's which he has given to us for a time to care for?
it seems this is a debate that has been taking place in the states, and some evangelicals have actually gone again bush's policies up to now addressing (or not addressing!) global warming... so maybe they will have a voice in the future. (see http://www.ncccusa.org/news/14.02.05theologicalstatement.html

anyway. that was a bit rambling. what do you think?