Opposites Attract

Last night I was at Glasgow Elim church listening to Heidi Baker talk about her life and how God is using her to reach people in Mozambique. Those people who are starving, lonely, homeless, hurting and struggling to survive. What she said was a real inspiration and challenge.

Today I was working at my summer job, McDonalds, watching people buy food and then throw it away. People who are privileged to afford food and living a fairly comfortable life. What I saw made me sad that food is wasted and that those customers don't realise how lucky they are.

One extreme to the other.

I'm not perfect in any respect and I hope God can keep transforming me and teaching me. I want to be able to show his love by being with the poor and the hurting instead of just listening to talks. I hope that the western world will realise how privileged we are to be able to easily obtain food and have shelter to stay in.

Why do we deserve this?

However is our comfort a blessing or are we too comfortable to realise how much we need God. Heidi spoke about how real God is too those African people and about the miracles that have occurred. Is our comfort and lack of faith blinding us from the work of God.

Jesus.

Made the blind see.

May we not be to proud and see how the Lord is moving amongst the people in Mozambique. May we in the West think about our everyday desisions and ask if this is showing God's love.

God's Radical Love.

The world needs a hug

Last weekend was slightly unexpected and crazy but so good.

I made it to 'the rescue'in Edinburgh on Saturday after rearranging my study plan and I am so glad I did. The protest started out with us meeting outside the parliament buildings to be made into a group of 20 and given a rope to hold on to (I ended up at the front of my group). We then walked to Princes street gardens to symbolise the children being abducted. Once we got there we did some photo and film shoots before setting up camp, well, rolling out our sleeping bags. Letters were then written to be sent to Gordon Brown and David Milliband. Billy Boyd (aka Pippen from the LOTR films) came and rescued us, he made a speech and stuck around for quite a while which was really sound of him. We left in the morning at 6.30pm, knackered but happy.

It was my first experience of being involved in a protest like this, it didn't seem to make too much of a difference at the time but knowing that it was happening in a 100 cities in 10 countries all over the world made it special. Hopefully the media attention and letters will drive the governments into making a difference and get the peace process back on track. Those children out there, who are suffering in an invisible war, who are killing for a man who is insane and who are dying in the process, need a hug and may that happen soon.






On Sunday afternoon I ended up on Sauchiehall Street giving out free hugs with a group from church. You should have seen the faces of the public, some were shocked, some confused, some excited but all those who got a hug left smiling. It's amazing what one hug can do, a few people said it made their day and a few came back for more. The free hug was just a way to show how much God loves us.

God

Loves

Us

It can be hard to see this in situations like in Uganda but just because we can't perceive a reason for it doesn't mean there isn't a good reason. Sin has caused this injustice but God has a plan to end it.

He wants to give us all a hug.

He wants to give the world a hug.

Doing the dishes

This morning I noticed that there is a huge a pile of dishes to be done in my flat. This reminded me of community mentioned in Claiborne and Hartgrove's book entitled 'Becoming answers to our prayers'. They have T shirts with 'Everyone wants a revolution but nobody wants to do the dishes', a reminder that the route to a revolution is through small aspects of love like washing someone's feet or doing the dishes.

Love - a beautiful word.

What does love fully mean, is it all emotional or is it in part a choice, a choice to completely care for a certain person or thing? I think when you love something you don't need to question it. Love should be a word that describes the Christian Church along with grace and forgiveness. However many people associate the church with words like hypocrisy and hatred.

Something has went horribly wrong somewhere.

I was challenged at church on Sunday when my pastor spoke about how he was out with a group at the bottom of Buchanan Street holding a sign saying 'Sorry' while the others were giving free hugs. This is similar to what Donald Miller talks about in his book 'Blue like Jazz', where he set up a confession booth at college and people came to listen him confess about the Church's faults, past and present.

Confession and Forgiveness.

The church needs to look out for the oppressed, help the poor and first and foremost be Christ-like. May people describe Christians as full of God's love.

Now to do the dishes.