Come on Spring!

Hello everyone

It’s really nice to see the sun outside…finally. I’ve been able to sit on the terrace and start to write a sermon which has been really nice and relaxing, especially since my whole life seems to be getting busier and busier every week. What’s more is that it’s not going to get any quieter. But I guess that’s life, and I can at least say I’m not getting bored or lazy. There has been some really interesting things that have been coming up and new ideas and attitudes that I have been discovering that I thought might be good to share.

I have discovered a lot about my attitude to giving everything to God. I have seen that I can often do it, and that when I do the effects on my abilities go up considerably, because it is not in my own strength I do those things but in God’s. But I have found that it is too easy to then start to think I can do all those things that were done in God’s strength in my own. I have found that once I start to think like this, it is the beginning of the fall to not doing what God’s will for me is, but what I see best for myself, even if I think what I am doing is for God.

I have also found that in the last couple of weeks I have been challenged by the level of respect I should treat others with. I have always tried to be nice to people to their faces, and be willing to do anything for them, but if I am to love how God has intended for me to love, then I must also hold that attitude of love for them in everything I do. It’s so easy for me to think negatively of someone, maybe because of different attitudes or different personalities, but all of that can be unhelpful, leading to gossip and unfriendliness and starting to lose the fellowship that we are called to have with each other. Love for others has certainly been on my heart throughout my time at cliff, and it is something that I must work hard at allowing myself to be transformed by because of my experience of Christ’s, the ultimate example of love.

Just a few thoughts on the way I have been changing, and of course there are loads more things that I have been working through, but I would be hear till midnight writing about them.

I hope everyone is ok

Andrew