Analytics

I rather arrogantly added a tool to the code of this blog a while ago to check how much traffic it gets and where it comes from.

I checked my reports tonight for the first time in ages and am happy to report that I get an average of 0.55 visits a day.

Sadly, that includes the times I log on as well.

Is to keep blogging on here the equivalent of talking to myself?

(waits silently for 0.55 people to respond)

Ungrace

I want to write today because I'm fed up of being a person who is slowly but surely starting to play by the rules of the rest of the world. You know, getting angry at things that aren't important but that inconvenience me only. Joining in with the petty games and office politics like everyone else. Being so quick to be clever, quick to tease those I think are foolish.

I think I've forgotten that grace is my story.

A few years ago, when I was in a very dark place, grace was somehow very real to me. Because it was all I could hold onto.

The amazing truth that somehow, despite all the mess I made of things, God loved me and wanted me to know that. No matter what. So much so that he sent his Son to die to make sure that I could not lose that relationship of grace.

Slowly, things have changed in my life. I'm happily married now, with eyes open as to what the future holds. And yet, somehow I've started to be seduced by the prevailing culture of ungrace that I encounter everyday. I've begun to hold onto other things in my hands that mean I have started to lose my grip of the very thing that is the only thing worth holding onto.

I don't like it, and want to change. To get back to the place where I don't just have knowledge about God's grace and what it means, but where I know it at a deep level and where other people notice it and experience it through me.

I know that blogging about it doesn't solve anything; beating ungrace means choosing grace instead in anyone of hundreds of different difficult decisions on a daily basis.

But facing up to the fact that I'm not a great ambassador for the truth that has set me free has to be a starting point. And I write this here because I want anyone who is able to read this to be able to hold me accountable.

Help me not to be consumed by ungrace.

PS. Just as a footnote, ungrace does not appear in the spellchecker that blogger offers. To get it out of my vocabulary would be a great achievement.

Looking For An EXIT

All good art should prompt a response of some kind. This video has been about for a while, but wanted to ensure people could see it via my blog.

It's great art. It needs people to make the response that goes beyond acknowledging that this is a problem and get onboard with fighting the issue of human traffiking.

Taking It Wherever It Goes

Shock news about the band whose music I have listened to more than any over the last ten years:

http://www.delirious.co.uk/html/news/20080706/60/the-end-of-an-era.html

I'm grateful to the Delirious family for soundtracking much of my teenage and early adult years, providing comfort, inspiration, excitement and challenge in the seasons I have seen so far.

It's hard to get out of a job you hate. It must be even harder to opt to bring something to an end and do something else when you have a safe little environment and lots of people who would love you to carry on doing what you are doing.

That we'd all have the courage to keep in step with the Spirit and risk new, possibly even unpopular things rather than sticking to the path you know.

And may we all be saved from the 'kingdom of comfort'.

Thanks for everything guys. See you in October for the last time.

Leap?

So close and yet so far.

Thirty feet up, with only another step to go. And then a leap of faith to a nearby trapeze swing.

I froze.

The pole was swaying in the breeze, I could feel cramp start to shoot into my right leg as my body tried to talk me out of this highly dangerous activity.

I hate failing and the fact that I could not reach the summit of this high ropes challenge. I was afraid to fail. Afraid to fall.

Not once did I test the rope that would have taken my weight had I dared to step out. I gave no thought to the fact that if I did fall, someone would ensure I was supported. I couldn't do it in my own ability, and gave up.

I'm supposed to be a person of faith.

At the top of that pole, I realised that I'm still well short of being able to step out in faith and take the risk.

The fear of humiliation and failure still features too closely at the front of my mind.

I wonder how life would be different if I had the courage to take more leaps of faith.