It is good to talk…
I’m an introvert with extrovert tendencies, which is code for I am not an entertainer but I love to talk. I really do. I love sitting down and chatting through ideas and falling headlong into all the cliches. Expressions like ‘think outside the box’, ‘comfort zones’ and ‘blue sky thinking’ just float my boat so to speak. Hence my angst last week at the silence, missing 121 (rarely an expression heard in the CofS), and feeling flat. (Read last week’s if you want, it is from the heart but might leave you wondering!)
I love finding treasure in scripture and I just want to share them. I love reading books on ministry and life as I read a lot of organisational culture and psychology type material and I just want to talk it through with others. I feel like I have been given something exciting and like a child with new shoes or toys I just want to show off. And so for now this is one of my ways to talk.
I am currently in the exciting land of Isaiah. Okay, let’s be honest it is a tough read. Yet, my word, there are some treasures. I love the fact there are flashes of texts from the New Testament and I don’t mean direct quotes. Sometimes though in the doom and gloom, stories of anger, exile, and death we need to find the light. And there is always light.
I was really struck by Isaiah 28:16-17, 23-29 (GNB). We read of the solid cornerstone and written on the cornerstone ‘Faith that is firm is also patient.’. True statement but wow, that is hard. It makes perfect sense but patience…Justice is to be the measuring line and honesty the plumb line. The text moves from a building metaphor to a farming metaphor, and throws in the challenge. To paraphrase - no farmer keeps ploughing the ground for sowing, rather he gets on with planting. Through the verses that follow Isaiah is at pains to show how God gives knowledge and wisdom to the farmer so he knows what to do. And concludes with the verse -‘The plans God makes are wise and they always succeed.’ Isaiah 28:29
As someone who likes to do, who likes to share, who wants to shout the good news from the roof tops, I feel we are constantly getting the ground ready to sow but not moving to the next stage. The running joke is that God so loved the world he didn’t send a committee. And the text from Isaiah had me wondering how much I have got stuck preparing the ground? Is there no harvest because we are not planting? Are we crushing the new crop with rotas, rules and head stuff, rather than nurturing strength, patiently bringing the crop on?
Whatever we plant, do, build, as individuals in our homes and communities, and in our churches, it must have justice as our measuring stick, honesty to keep us straight and true, faith that is firm, therefore patient and Christ as our Cornerstone.
It is good to talk but let the talk actually lead us somewhere. All talk and no action is like a farmer constantly preparing the ground and never planting. So what are we planting folks? God has a plan and the seeds!
God bless you!
Love Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment