St Paul, I'm sure, would have been pleased with us, because he often used the 'Body of Christ' metaphor when referring to the Church, with every member using their own gifts and talents to keep the body moving and working in a balanced way. And the interesting thing is, as we do this more and more, we grow and develop not only our own gifts and talents, but our own Christian character - so that we become mature people (Paul again - Ephesians) learning from each other, and from our Lord himself. So, as we sung the other day, 'Jesus, you are changing me, by your Spirit you're making me liked you.....' It has also been said (I'm not sure by whom) that 'although God loves us just as we are, He loves us too much to leave us there', so we are all on a journey (yes, everyone).

And did you notice in that bit of Ephesians as well, that lovely bit about growing deeper into the soil of God's love - rooted and grounded - as the other versions have it?

That's another way of thinking about us all being nourished, and able to grow into what God had in mind when He planted the seeds!

When I was little, and in Sunday School, my teacher - a certain 'Miss Mavis' taught me a little song, which I'm glad to say we are still singing today:
Trust and obey,
For there's no other way
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey.

It strikes me, that every church or group of Christians need people who can just listen - and trust - and obey what God is saying to them. It may involve others, it quite often won't - sometimes God says 'I want you to do this'. He may also add 'Never mind why - trust me' - and if we do, there's another piece of God's Kingdom advanced, often with no one else aware of it at the time! To be obedient, I'm sure, is a mark of growing Christian - our supreme example is of course Christ himself. And if we choose to be obedient to the Lord, we can trust Him to give us all the ideas, energy and help that we need - enough to do what HE wants us to do, and not (as I have found out to my cost) enough energy as well, to do what we think we might like to do for Him. In fact I have discovered that we must sometimes put down some of our own busy-ness to allow God to keep filling us with His love, His strength and His instructions ........

It's like God wanting to give us gifts (because He loves us) but we can't receive them because our hands are too full of our own stuff - so LET'S PUT IT DOWN SOMETIMES - and get into listening mode.

And that reminds me of another hymn I used to sing at Sunday School -

I am listening Lord for Thee,
What hast Thou to say to
me? (Anyone know that?)

Listening to God, together with praise, 24-hour worship, prayer walking and a few other things, are all very dear to my heart. Maybe I will write about these another time

In the meantime -
let's keep listening
let's keep obeying
let's keep growing
and let's keep enjoying our worship!

> Margaret C

1st August 2003