Being Mary

Last weekend we were at church camp. The organisers requested for camp reflections to be inserted in the bulletin this Sunday. I've received 3 (one still outstanding) and all praised the guest speaker Randy Harris for his faith, wit and humour. I cannot agree more. It was for me the experience of sitting at Jesus' feet, learning about the Word sans powerpoint presentation and "relevant" film clips. But it would have been better if photography & filming of the campers was non-existent or at least kept to the minimal. It was annoying and intrusive to say the least. I think it's easier to see the Christ in needy people than in annoying ones loh. Anyway, here are my notes (it'll probably only make sense to myself or at least to the people who were there too.)

Lesson One (What is Spirituality?)

1) Duet 6:10
spiritual threat - to be "forgetful" of God
spiritual - remember God at ALL times

2) 1 Kings 19: 9 (Elijah)

sacred time & sacred place - ANYwhere or ANYtime that God is present - i.e. you don't need to go to Mount Sinai to experience God

spiritual - remembering God at ALL times and in ALL places.

3) Romans 8:18

all creation still groaning (hoping)
spiritual - sees that God works in ALL things through both righteous and unrighteous people

So, spirituality is an act of constantly being aware of God in ALL things. This is contrary to a popular framework of seeing spirituality in terms of loving God through one or some of these ways because we are different:

1) studying the Word
2) serving others
3) praying
4) relating to others
5) feeling


Lesson Two: Practicing the Presence of God

4 ways:

1) Today I will be incompetent (2 Cor 4)
- to recognize our incompetency is to let God work through us

2) Today I will be fully present to God and to the people in front of me
- every moment is a kingdom moment
- threats: distraction, multitasking

3) Today I will BE the Christ (Gal 2: 20)
- what Jesus would look like, how he would respond
- despite the fact that we are given different talents/gifts, ALL of us are called to BE like Christ

4) Today I will SEE the Christ (Matthew 23)
- when we see people suffering, we would respond to them as we would respond to Christ.


Lesson Three: The Way of Spiritual Discipline

Spiritual life is not about TRYING harder, it's about TRAINING & PREPARATION & PRACTICE. (Romans 8:1-4, Ezekiel 36: 26-27, Psalm 51:10)

- We are not able to keep the law, the Holy Spirit enables us to do so.
- We don't CREATE, God does (a clean heart)
- We can however make ourselves available to God's act of creation, not at the point of decision making or temptation, but way before that (the process of training and preparation) so that our natural reaction to the situation IS the spiritual reaction.


Lesson Four: Praying Like Jesus (Luke 4: 40ff, Luke 5:15ff, Luke 6:12)

- Jesus was not repeating the Lord's prayer in each of these instances. He was listening.
- Jesus retreated to lonely places and was engaged in a prolonged period of praying and then decision was made afterwards.
- ministry will never be completely done (there is always one more hurting or needy person) - important to pull away and pray

Ways of praying:
1. Talking AT God - rote prayer (Lord's prayer, the Psalms)
2. Talking TO God
3. LISTENING to God (Habakkuk 2:20: silent before God)
4. Being WITH God - spending time with God
5. Practicing the Presence of God
- bec we can't do this perfectly, we need to do the other 4 ways.
So the challenge is to be open to God when we are NOT praying


Lesson Five: Transforming Bible Reading

- aim of Bible reading is not to ask questions of the Bible, but to ask questions of ourselves

1. Reading through the lens of loving God and people
Mark 12:25 (The Greatest Commandment)

- ask ourselves how do we love God and how do we love people (reading the scriptures will never lead us to hurting people)

2. Reading through the lens of Jesus Christ (2 Tim 3)

3. Call to Action (James 1, Matthew 7 & I Cor 11:17-34)
- go and do it

And of course, these lessons will be forgotten if we don't put them into practice. These points are not new, but what made the difference for me was how the speaker practices them in his life and shared his experiences so honestly and humbly, giving God the glory for what HE did through him.