Daniel 9:20-11:1
I’m sorry but I am L-O-S-T. There are too many ‘sevens’ flying around for my brain to keep up with it. Even Daniel’s decided he wants to be called something else now - is it Michael? Oh no, that’s right, he is the prince but he is not the Prince of Persia because the Prince of Persia is a baddy and Michael is a goodie. But what happened to Gabriel? Is he a prince as well? Is he the prince of Greece? Or is he the one who looked like a man? Oh flip. It makes me want to give up. In the Vineyard we always approach the bible trying to take the ‘main’ meaning out of a passage and to focus on those things that are ‘plain’ in the text - so we get the saying “the main and the plain”. But I challenge anyone to find anything main or plain in this. I guess that if I scrabbled around for several minutes and rooted right down into the corner of the bag I might just come up with a suggestion that visions from God are very confusing and only a buffoon would claim they knew exactly what they meant (unless of course an angel has appeared to explain it all in detail). God is called the Revealer of Mysteries for a reason - this stuff is very mysterious and it needs to be revealed to us.
1 John 3:11-4:6
Love one another. I’d like to spend more of my energies on loving other people. I guess that means laying more things down. I guess that means giving more stuff away. It sounds like a bit of a bummer but actually it is not. I’ve never had a material possession that has even come close to being as satisfying as feeling confident in my God. Our new car (when it was new) felt pretty satisfying for a day or so but then it got a bit grubby and the baby was sick on it and I realised it actually wasn’t that cool after all. Not compared to how much Jesus loves me. And how great it is to express that love to others. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that there is nothing sweeter than expressing pure love to brothers and sisters in the faith. They are worth laying everything down for. To show them love just feels like the purest act that I could ever perform. That’s why we’ve decided to stay at SWLV. That is why we lead a house group. That is why we have tried to organise our lives so we can lay down our lives for those around us. Because when we do that - when we love with actions and in truth - it feels like the most magnificent way to spend an hour (or two or three or four). But I want to do it more. I would like to give away more. There are many more brothers in need - and the Lord has given to me so richly.
Psalm 137:1-9
What emotive and poignant poetry... that was utterly ruined by Boney M.
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