sometimes computer links just come up for no particular reason that my techno-challenged mind can think of. today is a case in point. but oh. murples. murrrples…

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Has God trusted you with a silence – a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer? … A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that the contagion of His stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident – “I know God has heard me.” His silence is the proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, He will give you the first sign of His intimacy – silence.

from: here (so bizzare right, 11 oct. wert)

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pffbt

watching: this (one of the better shows i’ve seen recently)

So monday marks the real end of formal education – the last ‘first day of school’ for a longlong time to come. the ending leg of the race in cretinuni land. in the cliche cinematic moment, i need to wear a tweed suit, sit on a park bench, open a box of chocolates, murmur about life and eat the bittersweet piece. but no, i live in a hot and humid country so tweed and chocolate outdoors is a recipe for disaster. plus i am female. plus i like going wild on swings…not sitting staidly on park benches. plus the whole point of that scene was that you don’t know which flavour you’re going to get. i know exactly which piece i am getting.

despite not cutting it on almost all counts for a role on the silver screen, the flavour of chocolate still gets to be featured in this reel life. bitter because it is time to take responsibility (such a terrible R word right? should change all R words to like…recycle, or ruminate. same difference.) and not be a flippant student eating breakfast at 2pm. sweet because it is time to see life beyond the (orangeblue) hallowed walls.

but more importantly, sweet because life is full of hope. As Plantinga (2002: xii) says ‘Christians live by faith in Jesus Christ, and when their faith leans forward toward the coming of the kingdom, they call it hope. The person who pursues a college education in hope, and who then shapes his or her life accordingly for service in the kingdom – such a person has a calling that will outlast every recession’.

now if someone lives that out, that’s one real life to live out loud!

listening to: this

i think the king may be wrong when he sang  ‘a little less conversation, a little more action please’.

the first comment, by my literal neighbour ‘the who’, was passed in a dimly-lited bus-stop over a year ago, when i was being a legit stresspot over something in student min. and she said ‘God doesn’t call us to worry‘.

indeed, He doesn’t.

the second comment, by my national neighbour ‘the hibiscus’, was made as we chatted when she stayed over last weekend. whilst the conversation topic was not new, it was the first time we seriously talked about it. and she said ‘God is not a God of probability‘ [or, as the sign i've seen every sunday in church compound puts it, 'no one is here by chance'. punny. heehee]

indeed, He isn’t.

the third comment, was made by an interviewee. [as this interview was conducted in a hut in the middle of landscaped-wilderness, the interview recording had a two minute interval where she went 'is that a monitor lizard?' and then followed by me screaming. haha]. anyhoo, she said ‘God, the creator God, is a creative God‘.

indeed, He is.

or as Peterson (in a book borrowed from the school lib’s closed stacks, who woulda thought!), in explaining Psalm 127, puts it: “The Bible begins with the annoucnement, “In the beginning God created…” not “sat majestic in the heavens,” and not “was filled with beauty and love.” He created. He did something. He made something. He fashioned heaven and earth. The week of creation was a week of work. The days are not described by their weather conditions and not by their horoscope readings: Genesis 1 is a journal of work. We live in a universe and in a history where God is working. Before anything else, work is an activity of God. Before we go to the sociologists for a description of work or to the psychologists for insight into work or to the economists for an analysis of work, we must comprehend the biblical record. God works. the work of God is defined and described in the pages of Scripture. We have models of creation, acts of redemption, examples of help and compassion, paradigms of comfort and salvation. One of the reasons that Christians read Scripture repeated and carefully is to find out just how God works in Jesus Christ so that we can work in the name of Jesus Christ’ (Peterson, E. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 1980: 104).

I think God’s character cannot be labelled as multi-faceted, we do not (and will not) know how many is ‘multi-’! and I think these conversations about God can only inspire action. the king was wrong, the King is always correct. (: