The slow work of God…

11 Mar The slow work of God…

Welcome to the weekend y’all!

Looking forward to seeing all of you this Sunday when our guests from Compassion are with us to celebrate the great partnership in ministry we share with them. Remember…we’re practicing resilience & adaptability & how to adjust to the ever-adjusting world in which we live. This weekend is no different & it’s going to be awesome!

 

I invite your prayers for the Steering Team. We’ve got a meeting this week…there’s always a few challenges facing us & decisions to be made and as we move back toward whatever “normal” is supposed to be these days those decisions get more difficult.

 

Also…I’ll be deciding on a Coffee + Bible + Jesus + Me day this week…so…let’s link up somewhere & see what unfolds!

 

If you’re looking for a slightly singed sausage tomorrow…stop by the Christian College Open Day from about 10:a.m. – 2:00p.m. I’ll be on the BBQ for some of that time. Should be a fun time out there…just to wander around here the student musicians see the animals…have a sausage!  😉

 

And…I’m reading a couple of pretty interesting books.   Slow Church – Christopher Smith & John Pattison And Reappearing Church – Mark Sayers (this is actually the second of his books that I wanted to read but the first is out of stock & being ordered from the US)

If you’re interested…both of these books have “study/discussion materials” that go along with them.We could read one or the other or BOTH together as part of a group…Whatcha think?

Slow Church put me in mind of this poem…I’ll finish with it.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit Priest…deep thinking theologian & spiritual director for the church…always meaty stuff to let sit in your heart like a beautiful song…This one is about the “slow work of God”

 

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

 

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

 

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

 

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

excerpted from Hearts on Fire