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Just Being
This has been a strange week. I’ve been far more contented than usual. Even having to type this post out again because I managed to navigate away from the page hasn’t got me that phased. I didn’t win a set all night at tennis and yet managed to laugh my way through it. That never happens unless I’m winning. Part of it has to do with having been on holiday, I’m sure. And part of it has to do with not being in the office, and having a pretty un-pressurised week on training. But there’s definitely something more than that.
The times I’ve been spending with God in silence have been amazing. No noise (not even music). Not asking for anything. Not even necessarily needing to say anything. Not having a specific purpose for hanging out. Being. Resting. Being aware of God. When I wrote this post the first time, I had an epiphany. I don’t need to learn something every time I hang out with God.
Because that’s been my attitude. What are you teaching me God? What does this say about who you are? Very good and healthy attitudes to be having, and I don’t want to lose the hunger to be chasing after who God is. But God needs to be more than a teacher. Because bad jokes about having crushes on teachers aside,there’s not the same love in a student-teacher relationship.
Even my worship recently has been about learning. In thinking about it, I realise that I’ve been analysing the words of the songs we sing. Cogitating over what they might mean, about who God is, and about my relationship with him. These are good things to be doing. But they aren’t worship. They’re certainly not about love.
A phrase that I’ve never really felt all that comfortable about is the idea of Jesus being “my lover”. And not just uncomfortable for the weirdness angle. It’s not something I’ve ever really been able to understand, having that level of closeness with God. I’ve had experiences of feeling close to God, and feelings of being loved by him, but I struggle with the thought of Jesus (or God) as a lover. And I think this might be some of what it has to do with – never actually just “being” together. So I’m starting to do it. So far so good!
PS. Sorry that the posts have been a bit more personal recently. Hopefully I’m not losing the interest of the people who don’t give a stuff who I am
PPS. I was about to title this post “Teacher and lover”, but then I’m not sure that I want some of the connotations with that.
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4 Comments
what a lovely post geoff… and for those of us who do care how you are, the personalness is good.
your paragraph about thinking of jesus has caused me to read over it about 7 times now… good work…
fantastic post. Twas good to hear you chat about it this morning…seeing as I’d already read it, it was interesting to see you ‘tell’ it. I love that God can be approached in this way. This morning’s little session was GOOD and strangely enough (cough) very relaxing. I appreciated the added bits…especially ‘the word’. However hippie it may have sounded. I’m up for hippie. hehe.
Good stuff all round.
maybe in future avoid the ‘sometimes you just want to look at them’
cheers big Geoff.
what’s that about?
I used this content in the youth stuff today. The comment about “looking at someone” was me tripping over words and making a fool of myself – pretty much your everyday youth talk