When I come home after team meetings I always need an hour or so to unwind a little – grab some headspace before hitting the sack.
Its that way most nights when I have been with people. The introvert needs space to settle before putting head on pillow.
That is why I often find myself writing stuff late at night. I am in unwind/reflective mode.
Tonight we began to look at the book of James. We did the ‘helicopter view’, reading it right thru initially before digging around in it over the coming weeks. I find its always good to take time to read a book as a whole (and aloud if you can) before delving into it. Its a bit hard with Isaiah etc, but the smaller letters lend themselves to it.
For those who are interested here’s another life sharing/prayer exercise I used tonight.
1. Using a set of picture cards (I downloaded from webshots.com and then printed them out) ask everyone to choose a card that depicts where they see their relationship with God at the moment. Do it quickly / intuitively.
2. Pass around slips of paper with sayings of Jesus on them. I had about 30 or so sayings made up using the Message as the translation. The deal is that you read the sayings one at a time as they are passed to you. Read them rapidly and as soon as one hits you, you take it and keep it. The sayings circulate until everyone has one. (We put them on our heads to let people know we had finished – which puzzled Ellie greatly when she came in wanting a drink… ‘what are you guys doing?!’)
3. We then split into groups of 3 or 4 to talk about what we chose and what connections we see between our ‘saying’ and image. My hope was that in the conversation we would pick up on what the spirit was saying to us and we would ‘learn’ .
4. We come back together and I read a passage from Philippians – 4:6-13
5. We pray together – prayers that flow out of the experience.
This was the image I chose – a bush in the desert that looks to be alive and well.
The saying of Jesus that resonated with me was “Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” –Mark 3:35
Is it just me or is there a connection between a bush alone in the desert – that is alive and well and a devotion to Jesus that surpasses any other relationship?
Discipeship is where life is found but it is lonely at times, because few people choose the ‘narrow road’.