One Life

Something has always fascinated me about words. There are times when they seem so, well, useless; when they are awkward or shallow or empty compared to what we really want to express. And yet we have to use them anyway.

And that’s a little like how I feel now. I feel like God did something significant in me over the YLC in Falmouth, but I’m struggling to find words for what exactly He did. He was good, wonderfully good. And that’s about the best I can do.

So in the absence of suitable words, what you need is something you can get hold of. Get your hands on, since your mouth won’t work. For me, it was something that these heroes, Gary and Bev Killingsworth, said in one of their seminars. They mentioned that verse in James about being doers of the word, not merely hearers, and made the point that we know a lot of the Bible, but do much less. What we need is to do more, not hear more.

For example, loving your neighbour – something that I know but do not do. Not intentionally, anyway. When was the last time I prayed about loving my neighbour, or went out of my way to do it? I’ve realised that first on that famous list in Corinthians is ‘love is patient.’ This basically means that most of the time I fall at the first hurdle. So this is my task: when my heart is still too full to make sense, I will try to love my neighbour. I will just try to be patient. That’s about as simple as it gets, but right now simple is best.

I can only hope that my amateur attempts will please my Father – or at least amuse Him.