A Psalm…

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Poetry, Worship

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So at a Youth Worker training and fellowship event earlier this week, we were asked to write a psalm as an act of worship.

I chose to write something close to David’s Laments and so plagiarized thoughts and ideas straight from existing psalms. This is what I came up with:

Praise the LORD
O, my soul
Let all the broken pieces of my being
Praise His perfect name

When I was cast down in the pit
He heard the depths of my cry
In the bitter retreats of my soul
He drew me to His Sanctuary

When the very fragments of me
had wasted away to nothingness
When all my substance was out of joint;
Disillusioned, to the edge of life.

It was there that the LORD met me
He bought me to His safe place
He gathered me up from all the places that I has been scattered,
and set my feet on Solid Ground.

Praise the LORD
O, my soul
Let all the healed pieces of my being
Praise His perfect name.

tg.

Natural Signposts on a Supernatural Jounery (short thoughts after a CU)

05 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Philosophy, Theology, Youth Ministry

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I just got home from giving a presentation at a school Christian Union to about 35 mainly un-churched & non-believing 12-16 year olds. We looked at New Year’s Resolutions and I encouraged them to take Jesus seriously in 2012.

I’m once again simply encouraged and a little amazed at just how spiritually open young people today are, and even at how much they recognize the basic need for spirituality in their lives. They may not call it that but after short thought experiments they really start to identify it.

I guess recently that modern media and popular science has been pushing culture towards spiritual pursuits as one of the basic needs for fulfillment in our lives along with exercise and a social life. But even more than this I am reminded of Roman’s 1:19-20 which reminds us that humankind as a people recognize God and recognize spirituality simply from the natural world and circumstances around them.

I wonder if we work too hard sometimes to convince people of the supernatural and the spiritual simply because we assume them are purely natural people. Human beings as creatures are simply not purely natural; we are intentionally and intensely geared for multi-lateral, spirtual relationships with other personal beings. We are geared towards prayer, worship, serving a deep purpose, and hanging out with the transcendent.

Maybe sometimes all we really need to do it point, name, and clarify whats already going on. Perhaps rather than trying to get young people onto a spiritual journey, we simply need to put up the Biblical signposts to make sure they’re going in the right direction on the jouney they are already on.

Just some thoughts. Dinner time now.

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