7 June 2011

After breakfast this morning, we went to the worship room to read the next chapter of “The Furious Longing of God” together. It’s called “Fury”, and in it Manning describes what he means by God’s longing for us being “furious”. He doesn’t mean it in the sense of ‘extremely angry’, but rather in the way that a storm can be furious -  “the enormous vitality and strength of the God of Jesus seeking union with us.” Manning goes on to say, “employing adjectives such as furious, passionate, vehement and aching to describe the longing of God are my mumbling and fumbling to express the Inexpressible. Yet, I plod on... Now we see only reflections in a mirror, mere riddles... But someday, the adjectives will give way to the reality.” He talks about how we cannot earn this furious love of God. We don’t receive it once we’ve become like Mother Theresa. This love is for all of who we are, as we are right now. “So much of what was presented to me as real in bygone days, I now see as fictitious. The splenetic god of alternating moods, the prejudiced god partial to Catholics, the irritated god disgusted with believers, the warrior god of the “just” war, the fickle god of casuistic morality, tut-tutting our little weaknesses, the pedantic god of the spiritually sophisticated, the myriad of gods who imprisoned me in the house of fear; I could go on. Von Balthasar’s credo rings true to me: ‘Love alone is credible.’” The questions we had to answer today were:

1.       There is the “you” that people see and there is the “rest of you”. Take some time and craft a picture of the “rest of you”. This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions.

2.       I listed some fictitious gods presented to me in the past. Come up with at least one more, from your history, to help round out the list.

After about an hour journaling through that, we met back again in the worship room with ‘Papa Ken’ (Jonathan’s dad). He spoke to us a bit about his walk with the Lord so far, and it was a really beautiful, sweet time. Some of my highlights:

·         The key to discipline is desire. Practicing is not a hardship because the end result is the ability to flow – this is as true of practicing an instrument as it is of practicing the spiritual disciplines.

·         Do you know how to live? How to really live? How to enjoy every moment? We need to unlearn in order to learn. Don’t assume that you understand. Sometimes we need to learn heaven’s definition of certain words and ideas. We need to learn heaven’s vocabulary, heaven’s dictionary.

He told us a bit of what he had done in his quiet time this morning, which included praying for each of us by name. He has all our names and photos and is interceding for us, and getting to know who we are. I am undone by the huge privilege of this1 he then proceeded to speak out what he had heard the Lord say for us individually during his quiet time! This is what the Lord said to him for me:

Ella:  Laughter in her soul O God.  Yes, a cheerful heart does good like a medicine.  Uh oh, here comes God’s vitamin chest being opened.  Vitamin B 12!

Vitamin B12, vitamin B12 or vitamin B-12, also called cobalamin, is a water soluble vitamin with a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is one of the eight B vitamins. It is normally involved in the metabolism of every cell of the human body, especially affecting DNA synthesis and regulation, but also fatty acid synthesis and energy production

Oh, Ella, what stands out to me is God wants you to be a Holy Thinker.  YEA GOD.  As you energize Ella with your own Vitamin B, reveal the mystery to her that You can think Your own thoughts through her mind!  YEA GOD, may the very mind of Christ be in Ella:

“For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” I Corinthians 2:16

Ella, what a joy to me you are.  Bless you and your time here that you receive more than you could ever imagine!  May God sneak up on you and fill each day with surprises!  DO IT LORD!  Love you, Ken

He spoke over half of us today, and the other half will get a turn tomorrow. AMAZING! God is so good. He said he could tell us all about how to hear God, how to make ourselves a vessel for Him to use – but he’d rather show us :o)

After lunch we were split up into our work duty teams. I’m in the group that has the privilege of cleaning the kitchen, dining room and office. And it really is a privilege. We get to make this place home, and everyone who lives in a home and truly loves it, has to take part in looking after it. So many people have come before us and poured love and energy and prayer into this place, that it is an absolute honour to get to do a little of the same, and help take care of what God has blesses us with. Jonathan says many of his amazing songs have been written whilst doing some of the most mundane chores on the farm! That is where Jesus delights to meet with us – in the simplest of ways. This is what it’s all about! Real life. After we’d finished, we had some free time, and I helped my friend Katharina write a beautiful song. She had all the fantastic ideas for lyrics, but wasn’t so sure about how to put it to music, so I helped her with that!

And then after supper it was time for another story telling session. Tonight was David and MK’s turn (our small group leaders, yay!). they told us a little bit about their individual stories, and then their INCREDIBLE story of God bringing them together. There is just so much beauty in it, because God’s hand is so evidently in it! Afterwards, Jonathan and Melissa said a few words honouring both of them, but David especially, for huge amounts of behind-the-scenes work he does. It was such a sweet time! They spoke of him being an armour bearer, who doesn’t often get seen, but without whom no battles would be won. They gave him a surprise gift, and there was HUGE amounts of cheering and celebrating with them :o) what an incredible family this is! I cannot begin to describe how honoured I feel to be a part of it.