Literally. Today, version 4 of Logos Bible Software is finally released. I’ve been part of a group of beta testers helping to get the new release ready, and there’s been a real buzz about this new release. Here are a couple of screen grabs of it running on my own machine.
It’s brimming with new and exciting tools, books and media resources. Ever since the first beta some weeks back, I’ve loved using it and am delighted to recommend it!
Visit Logos website for more information …
>> Canada Files: Day 028
It's time to start reading through the Bible again, so I'm spending time in the Creation narratives of Genesis at the moment. It paints such a wonderful picture of God's creativity and his sheer pleasure in the creative act and in the creation.
And God saw that it was good ("very good" after Day 6 of Creation)
And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. (Gen 1:9)
It's no accident that some of this pleasure is felt as we meet to worship in GOHOP - most of it is created "in the moment" as we pray and worship, and create together. Yesterday, in the flow of worship, new songs were coming to us, and they seemed to blend so well with what was happening in the room.
This is so important to remember in intercession and spiritual warfare, that no matter how bad things have become, that God still loves his creation, and longs to delight in it again. Intercession and spiritual warfare often focus on darkness, but really it's about sharing in God's re-creation of how it was meant to be.
As part of this, I'm starting to create some ambient music to express the rich food that is being served up from these meditations in Genesis. Watch this space!
This is it. This is my last full week in my current post. After 6 years in parish ministry in the UK, I'm taking a sabbatical in Canada with a community of Christians who meet to pray in all kinds of creative ways. This will involve such things as laptop DJing, digital art, improvised worship, prayer and intercession and so on.
I'm looking forward to a change of scene, of pace, and of focus for a while. As well as being a positive step in itself, it's also a chance to think about the future. It's time to step back and have a fresh look at things.
After that I have no idea what will happen. As things stand I'm heading to Canada on a one way ticket, without a job or a home to come back to. It feels a bit like this ...
This trip captures everything that Pilgrim's Progress blog has been about in its 3 years. Living every day with a desire to be in God's house, but until that day finally comes, to journey with that glorious destination in mind, to live intentionally, and to seek to live by what is REAL. I've fallen far short of this too often, but it remains my goal.
Psalm 84 captures it ...
Blessed are those whose stronghold[1] is in you
In whose hearts are pilgrim highways.
They grow in warrior courage
Till each of them appears before God in Zion.
Notes:
[1] Stronghold. Translates a word that means refuge, place of strength.
[2] Warrior Courage. The Hebrew word commonly translates as "army", "valour" or "might".
P.S. Pilgrim's Progress will keep running - that's the beauty of the web - I can update it from anywhere, and I hope to post some of the art & music that emerges from my involvement with the folks over there.
It's all happening. I'm off tomorrow to investigate a possible job. In addition, earlier on today, someone phoned to ask me to consider taking on a certain local parish. And at the same time, I've had some conversations with another local parish which might be able to offer an exciting post. They're all beyond me. But maybe, with God's enabling, any of them might just be within reach of where I am now.
I don't know how you react when faced with something that's beyond you. Mine is to mentally list all the flaws and weaknesses that disqualify me. But a few weeks ago, I'm sure in faith the following words came to me as I was mulling this over: "I am the Lord, who makes you competent".
It was only during last Sunday's sermon preparation that I found them. These words, about God making us competent, come just before the better known verses in 2 Corinthians about treasure in clay jars. Here's my attempt to translate them (Click here for a flow diagram of the text):
But we have such a confidence as this through Christ before God,
not that we are adequate in and of ourselves to think that anything comes from us,
but our competence is from God, who also made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, one not of the law, but of the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:4-6a, my translation)
I spoke with one potential new boss about this, and his reply was "At each step, God has always called me to something that is beyond me."
Who knows what will transpire? It begins tomorrow with a 250 mile drive to somewhere I've never been before. Whatever happens in coming months, I won't be all sorted out before it begins. Not all the rubble will be cleared, but soehow it seems possible to trust that I will be made competent to go and make a start.
Notes:
1. "Adequate"\"competence"\"made us competent" share a common Greek root - to be adequate\sufficient\competent\enough.
2. "Comes from us" ... a similar phrase to one in the "clay jars" passage (2 Cor 4:6-8) - the all-surpassing God is of God and "does not come from us". This is all about the source of the power that fuelled Paul's ministry. The point is that the clay jar, the earthen vessel merely contains a power that has its origins elsewhere, and that a ministry operating as God intended would leave people in no doubt about where the power was coming from, which means the brittleness of the clay jar would have to be made obvious. There's a scary thought!
Today concludes two weeks of outreach activity in our parish. I for one have had many conversations where I've had a chance to share something of what it means to be a Christian day by day, and in return I've heard many others share their stories. My main task was running a prayer labyrinth (Click here for an online example). I was amazed at how many people were moved by it - some came and told me what had happened.
This is one example of the many ways God has taken us all as we are, and put us in places to bless others in Jesus' name. Human frailty and weakness, incompleteness and immaturity, brokenness and I-really-ought-to-be-more-holy-by-now-ness don't seem to be a barrier to being anointed for this work!
But we have this treasure in earthenware jars, so that [it might be plain] that this all-surpassing power is from God and does not come from us. (2 Cor 4:7, my translation)
A local church leader told me he often keeps a plum near his desk. It reminds him of a prayer he often prays as he sets off into the day ... P.L.U.M. - Please, Lord, Use Me.
I sometimes despair at how much rubble is lying round in my own heart: failed prayer and bible reading campaigns, unconquered habits, childish and wounded thought and behaviour patterns and so on. But the more rubble I see, the more God seems to want me to get on my feet and go to where he calls, to let others see what he's up to in me, and let him deal with the rubble in his own time.
Notes
1. "This treasure" is Paul's ministry (and ours too!)
2. Earthenware jars were cheap and very ordinary, and would not normally be used to contain treasure, but would be put to everyday use.
I have lost two good friends over the last few weeks. One to cancer, the other in a road accident. Life feels so fragile sometimes.
In 2006 I want to do my best to make every moment count. And yet so much time and opportunity seems to slip through my fingers day by day. And I can't get them back. But that's my aim nonetheless. This a new year. This is a new day. This is a new moment.
Therefore watch carefully how you live, not as those who are unwise, but as those who are wise, seizing the opportune moment, because these days are evil. (Eph 5:16; my translation)
Written in another context maybe, but the thought is the same. Seize the day.
Translational Notes
1. "Seizing the opportune moment" = literally "buying back time". Time is "kairos" rather than "chronos" which more usually refers to the opportune moment rather than simply measured time.
[Technorati tags: digital art, spirituality, biblical studies]
"The thoughts of the son ran thus: ‘My hopes painted beautiful pictures, but they are fading one by one.’ His Father said: ‘Destroy all those pictures. To watch them slowly fading is weakening to the soul. Dare then to destroy them. You can if you will. I will give you other pictures instead of those your hopes painted."
(Amy Carmichael)
Hope drawn out makes the heart ill
But longing fulfilled brings life to the soul. (Prov 13:12)
Translational Notes:
1. "Drawn out" translates Hebrew "mashak", which suggests something drawn out until it is a fine thread. Most translations have "deferred". When the thing hoped for is continually denied, or fails to materialise, hope is "stretched thin".
2. "Brings life to the soul" is literally "a tree of life". This image occurs regularly throughout the Bible to represent a source of life and vitality e.g. Ezek 47, Jer 19 etc.
I love this picture. It's Sieger Koder's depiction of the woman at the well from John 4 (though St Paul's Multimedia links it with Ps 139, interestingly).
It's the second face in the water that gives this post its title, and gives me hope, both for my own rocky road towards maturity, and for a broken world. As God deals with my own heart, my past, my present, including what John Goldingay calls "adult oddities", I keep meeting Christ in my depths, as I meet him working patiently away in many others too.
An expanded translation of Prov 20:5 (reflecting the imagery implied in the original text) might be:
The plans and purposes of the human heart are hard to fathom, like deep waters, but those with understanding bring them up to the surface, as one draws water from a well.
I am convinced, as a forgiven sinner (not in a beating myself up sense!) learning to live as one forgiven and loved, that the cleasing and restoring power of the Cross goes so much deeper than all of our depths, so we can even rejoice even as God's often painful work progresses in us.
Click here for another interpretation of Psalm 42 ...
(Flash 6 or later; 337K) ...
When deep calls to deep ... when we are emptied by God, how shall we then be filled? Some days he will lead us by gentle streams of water, some days he will deluge us ...
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