No running on the poolside!

The big lesson I've been learning this term has been all about not running away...
Right now I'm listening to a song called "When your mind's made up" from the film "Once" and there is this lyric in it that just sticks with me: "so, your just like everybody else, when your shit falls you just run away..." and it's had me thinking about the way I love to run away from the challenges in my life...just like everybody else but am I called to live differently?

Like it's always easier to be the one to leave a place then have someone leave you behind...and often this is the route I take. I love to leave everything behind and go spend 3 months each summer working at a camp in Canada but that's not right for me this year, I have no crazy 12 week Uni holiday I can use up...I have a job!

And boy did I want to run away from a work situ...get a new job, new people that I work better with but does that reflect how God does relationships? The Bible is full of God issuing covenants with his people-everlasting promises to stick it out through thick and thin....He promises He wont bail on us and He doesnt want us bailing on each other.

In my journal I've called my desire to run away my "divorce mentality"...when things get tough just call it quits but God hasnt called us to this and though it hurts to stick it out that's where we grow. If we moved everytime we disagreed with someone those aspects of our character that God wants to smooth off would never get seen to.

Isn't this what true community is? To stick it out with people as you grow together following our Father's covenant heart...

"I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me (... not run away!)."
Jeremiah 32:40

Being authentic with God.

Today was one of those days, feeling pain to the core I just wanted (and I think I did) to lay out a lists of complaints before God. This is why I'm hurting and quite frankly I dont see why you havent provided for me. There it was laid out before God, how I felt. It wasnt a prayer of "Thy's and Thou's" but one of honesty. God know's exactly how we're feeling, He know's that the life we are promised by the media doesnt work out in the real world. He knows this fallen world is one of pain, anxiety, frustration and many tears. He calls to us to come, cast all our anxiety on Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). I guess the greatest part of growing through the tough times is getting to that place where we are continually saying "Yes this is how I feel, over to you God, I can't deal with this, it's too big for me, take it all,"

I read somewhere ( I apologise to whoever's insight this is) that "If the tension points in our relationship with God canot be owned, talked about and laid bare before him, then not only will we be unable to receive the love for which we were created, we will be unable to return it...we hunger not merely for encouter with God but authenticity with God." Authenticity is found in the tough times, when we are too weak for politenes, for protecting our ego, when all we can do is cry out for help. And that is the greatest place to be, in that position on our knees before God saying "You are God, and I am not, please, will you take control, take the lead, have my life."

The real question is whether we will allow our pain to drive us away from God or whether we will meet him in that place of authenticity, that place where He will gladly take the lead as He lifts us up and moves us on.

First post!

Hi, This is my first post on a blog that I hope will inspire myself and others to "hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:23). Someone said once that: If we're living life then we know what it is to hurt, but each trial is an opportunity to see the hand of God's faithfulness in our lives. I'm not claiming that in every fear and trouble I am praising God. However, I believe that He is our hope, that each trial is an opportunity to depend on God and see that His heart towards us is good. I am learning and will continue to learn for the rest of my life how to hold unswervingly to the God of my hope and not turn to the many other solutions the world tempt us with. I hope this blog will help you too.
Tor x