dis·ci·ple

Trying to put together a discussion for homegroup on Tuesday.

The theme is discipleship. It's a word I hear a lot, so I decide to check the specific dictionary definition of the word.

Here's what I found:

dis-ci-ple (n)
a. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.
b. An active adherent, as of a movement or philosophy.

Which has kind of stopped me in my tracks.

I can't talk about being a disciple.

I'm not a very good one.

Of Things Light And Aligning

You shine on us.

You align us.

Not sure where this little couplet has appeared from in my head over the last couple of days. Usually when something inspired appears to me from nowhere, it turns out that someone had mentioned it a while back and it has only just filtered through to the front of my brain.

I've Google searched it to see if it's a song lyric or a quote, but no-one is owning up to it.

But I'm using it as a prayer, wherever it has emerged from.

I don't just want to be someone who is aware of God's light shining. I want to get aligned to the source of that light, so I become more like Him. It must be the case that the more aligned with God's light I am, the more effective a light and pointer to the greatest light I might be able to be for those around me.

I can't be a light independent of the source, although I'm acutely and painfully aware that this is often the case.

Sometimes it feels that I always have to relearn the same lessons. I want to not just appreciate the light, but be aligned to it. In a meaningful way.

Travelling Into Daybreak

Having the time to look at the blog a bit today made me realise that the title 'Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult' was a little outdated. It was a reference to when much of my time was spent doing lots of youth work and generally acting like some distant relative of The Boy That Never Grew Up.

But life is seasonal. I don't find myself doing as much youth work now. This season of my life is currently consists of spending lots of hours commuting to my office via train. I thought that in the interests of integrity, this should be reflected in the updated blog title for this current season of my life.

The travelling can prove ardouous, especially as the trains often prove unreliable in my quest to get from Bristol to Basingstoke and back each day.

But even the most mundane parts of life can expose us unwittingly to things which are deeply and prfoundly spiritual.

After walking to the station in the darkness, the train departs whilst the moon and stars are still in their ascendancy. The early part of my journey continues in this unbroken gloom, with my location remaining a mystery until the train reaches the outskirts of the next town where a stop is scheduled. Then, just as I get the bearings of where I am, the train departs and plunges me back into darkness, leaving me speculating once again about my position in the world.

But, without fail, at one unpredictable moment in the journey, the darkness begins to dissolve. The sun appears on the horizon, splintering the pitch black sky and breaking through to dabble the sky with pastel colours of orange and red. Although some areas are still in shadow, there is the assurance that the time of darkness is short, and soon the sun will fully rise.

This moment changes what happens to me on the train. I stir from being slumped next to the window of the train, which is what happens when the darkness reigns and I have nothing to focus my eyes on

And for the rest of the journey, I don't feel lost.

The light of the risen sun reveals to me where I am.

I can focus on where I am going on this new day.

It's A Race

It's often been said of me that my default setting is to be independent, and those people are probably right.

I'm not trying to be arrogant and say that I can do without any one's help, but most of the time I feel that there are so many things wrong with me as a person that if I didn't have independent tendencies, I'd be someone who caused a real inconvenience to the people around me.

That said, the 10k run that I completed in September taught me a few valuable lessons that I hope I learn from.

I hope that I understand the benefit of being part of a community who are running towards a goal together. To be part of a group with a common cause, and where just finishing the race was the goal. There was no prize for first place. It didn't matter how many other runners I passed, or how many others passed me.

Spiritually, I'm often guilty of treating the race of living life as a Christian as being a competition. That I need to be in first place, recognised and lauded for my performance. And as I'm rarely in first place, I look with envy of those who are doing well in their race. I wonder how much better off I will be as a follower of Jesus if I choose to adopt the same perspective that I managed to grasp during my sponsored run; that I'm running as part of a community. Not trying to emerge from that community as number one.

I hope I understand what it means to be cheered on by a great crowd. I approached the last 500m metres of the course with heavy legs and a burning sensation in my lungs. The community of runners had started to flag and those who had acted as pacemakers to me earlier in the race had fallen behind and I was a good distance away from the nearest other runners. I contemplated stopping running and slowing to a walk. I didn't want to do this-I had challenged myself at the start line to keep running the whole distance, and not resist the urge to slow to a walk. With the pacemakers gone, the temptation returned to the surface.

Until I rounded a corner and began to hear the noise of the supporters on the finish line. Clapping. Cheering. Urging the runners to continue.

Urging me to continue.

I managed to glimpse Rachel's face in the crowd. Clearly I was spurred on by this and determined not to falter and appear weak in her sight. But the others who didn't know me were still cheering, still clapping, still yelling encouragement to me to keep going. And I suddenly found myself not wanting to fail in their sight either.

The writer of the book of Hebrews talks to his readers of being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and how the presence of these witnesses should act as a catalyst to get rid of everything that is trying to hinder the completion of the race and encourage them to persevere and keep their eyes on the goal. Maybe I understand this concept out of experience more than just theory now.

What I mean to say is a thank you to those who sponsored me and supported me on what was quite a crazy idea in the first place.

Thank you to all of you, seen and unseen, who invite me to be part of a community of followers of Jesus who are running the race of faith together, not in competition. And thanks to those, seen and unseen, who send love and encouragement my way to keep running, even when all my instincts are saying it would be easier to give up.

I hope I keep running.