Slow down you move too fast

Slow down you move too fast

Approaching my 55th birthday I am worried at the speed of things around me and within me.

Sitting in T5 Heathrow I look at human ants scurrying, spraying, carrying and pushing to get to their destination. I have often felt myself like a washing machine on speed. Even on holiday I find myself rushing, checking my watch, people watching and checking the departure board every ten minutes in case the flight is cancelled.

But I have this hunger and desire.

I want to know rest, deep rest, soul rest, yet understand that it is as flighty as a butterfly and as elusive as a mini bar of soap in a bubbling jacuzzi.

It is a fact the Western world is getting faster, we walk 10% faster than we did 20 years ago, we process eighty times more information in a single day than we did back then. Our electronic age has shrunk the world, the bleep of a phone alerts us to football scores, world news, family fun or an e mail that desperately needs answering before the day is over.

So what do I, we, do?

I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help comes from? It comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who neither tires, nor sleeps and is in control of all things.

God rested on the seventh day, and invites me, you and every child to enter in, to kick off our shoes and switch off all external distractions. In that place alone, with the audience of one we can more fully know and be fully known. In the contemplative tradition of the Church to practice soul resting, by three disciplines of recollection, quiet and union.

I am once again hearing the refrain from Simon and Garfunkle

Times are changing

It's is a full time job keeping up with change! My supermarket decides to change the gluten free aisle, my bank tells me it is changing the way it does internet banking, there is a new look to my weekend newspaper and my wife wants new clothes for summer! Can't anything remain constant?

When you boil life down to its core, the name of the game is change. And most of us resist it.

Oh yes, there are the few that love it; leaders typically who see change like a fresh breeze to a sailor aboard his yacht, or a new chapter of a great novel, a changing room to leave behind the past and dress for the future.

Change is never easy or indeed quick.  Changes challenge our comfort, upset our rhythm, mess with our diary and even our wallets! Excuses come readily, complaints drop from our tongues as plentiful as the rains of Spring. Yet God is in the change business, his word brings the challenge of change to our lives. God wants every child of his to grow up, to break sinful habits, to put off first in order to put on something new. Col 3:5-14. Change is the master of the fitting room and invites us daily to undress, count the cost and dress for the future.

Change takes time, it is made up of small steps, and it is often the smallest of these steps in a Godward direction that end up the biggest steps in your life.

Commission will also embark upon a season of change as we embrace the vision that God has put before us. 20:20 vision will take all our efforts together, involving taking risks, maintaining the tension of caring for and building the local church while pushing forward with church planting and working into areas where Christ is not yet known.

As we embrace this vision we may feel tempted to look back or even complain. But the real name of our tailor is the Holy Spirit. You can always count on him to disturb a meeting, to turn over the tables, to set fire to our well made plans. He lifts before Commission a mirror and challenges us to get changed, prepared for the adventure of our lives.