Blog
Before Jesus ascended, he left his disciples (and subsequent generations of Christians) clear final instructions, which we call the Great Commission: "go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20)
How am I spending my days? Am I being intentional about the way that I am living? This is not to suggest that we have to cram endless activity into each day - after all, we have just been on a Sabbath journey together that has reminded us of the wisdom of stopping, resting, delighting and worshipping. But Dillard does encourage us to reflect on how we are using our time.
I heard an expression this week that was new to me but immediately made sense. The phrase "friendship recession" is used to describe a clear trend today that sees more and more adults (men particularly) finding that they have very few or no close friends. If this is true, it means that we have a diminished support structure to carry us through difficult times, and that loneliness is becoming a very real experience for more and more people.
If you are part of a small group, or a service team or a mission project, we'd love for you to share pictures or details of what is happening in your corner of our WMC community.
We do need these kinds of diversions though, don't we? It may be an English football side, or a hobby of some kind, but we need something that gets us thinking about more than load-shedding or petrol prices!
I'm sure many of you will remember the days when the whole world seemed to slow right down on Sundays - shops were closed, there were no school or sporting events. One had to have planned carefully to make sure that all the Sunday braai supplies had been bought well in advance :)
"If we pray only occasionally, we might well experience some pretty deep emotions in our prayer. However, if we pray faithfully every day, year in and year out, we can expect little excitement, lots of boredom, and regular temptations to look at the clock during prayer; but we can also expect through the years an ever deepening intimacy with our God."
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)
Author Gretchen Rubin hosts a podcast on the subject of happiness. She recalls how she once interviewed Sandra Day O’Connor (the first female Justice in the US Supreme Court), and O'Connor offered her own definition of happiness in just three words: 'work worth doing'.
At our home group this week we talked about people who had nudged us closer to God over the years.