Thought for the Week - 28/11/2021

 

Dear Friends,

The season of Advent is upon us once again and it is an opportunity for us to slow down and take time to ponder and think, pray and read about what the coming of Jesus Christ as the babe of Bethlehem means for us. I’ve been recently reading a book called The Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas who is the lead pastor of a large multiracial church in Queens, New York. In a chapter called Contemplative Rhythms for an Exhausted Life, he references a condition called ‘Newyorkitis’ which a doctor in 1901, John Harvey Girdner, coined to describe an illness whose symptoms include edginess, quick movements and impulsiveness. The point that Villodas is making is that we live at too fast a pace of life stating that ‘the problem before us is not just the frenetic pace we live at but what gets pushed out from our lives as a result; that is, life with God’. It isn’t easy is it, when there are 101 things to do on our ‘To Do’ list, and the phone is going, emails need to be answered, letters written, people to see, and places to go. What is it that gets pushed out from our busyness – our time with God, quality time of prayer and reading our Bible, of worshipping and praising God, or just being quiet and still in God’s presence. The American trappiest monk, theologian and poet, Thomas Merton, says, ‘Solitude is to be preserved, not as a luxury but as a necessity: not for ‘perfection’ so much as for simple ‘survival’ in the life God has given you.’ In Psalm 46:10 we are encouraged to ‘Be still and know that I am God’ and it is interesting to look at the Hebrew for ‘be still’ because it carries the meaning to stop, but also to wake up and acknowledge and be in awe of who God is. That is something that we will find incredibly difficult to do if there are so many other things crowding in on our lives, important as they may be. But what if being still, stopping and solitude are essential to our life in God, to our living out our faith in a healthy and productive way, what then? We can be reminded that God’s first commandment to us is to love him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, in other words, to put God first in our lives before anything else. So as the season of Advent begins once again, will you put God first in your life and take time in your busy schedule to deepen your life in him?                                    

Grace and peace,

Neil

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