our impatience to maximise..the Kingdom no less!

We are an impatient lot.

we hate to queue. we dont want to wait to grow. we expect God to intervene – now – to change the person, adjust the situation, overtake the conflict…

an old hymn has a line that goes: “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see…”

but no, we dont want for revelation. we grasp for understanding, insight, breakthrough, solution.. we want to mximise everything within range.

so we build, organise, evaluate, review, tear apart…such that instead of

-accountability and mutual honour, our leadership structures generate distrust

– full hearted, embodied worship we get a war of words, ideas that divide and distort what worship is truly about

– enjoying our journey with Jesus we agonise and swing from guilt to licence; one minute we are too strit with ourselves, the next we lax and drift.

– giving God and each other space to work for maturity and growth, we judge and stymie the very growth with our harsh expectations

If we can take a leaf from the environmental degradation around us… it is our desire to maximise that has distorted and destroyed the wondrous gifts God has given us. We cut rivers, chop entire forests, spew chemicals..when water, trees and growth and organic, natural processes God has designed!

What are the natural organic processes God has designed for the church to fluorish? Loving each other, using and planning according to our spiritual gifts, helping each other to be transparent, speaking the truth in love, and waiting together under the banner of God’s love for Him to act and move… the critical and foundational function that we must each cling to and receive sustenance from the Vine (and the fruit comes)..

We need organisation. We need to plan, forecast, dream, and of course envision – for God’s Kingdom requires imaginative, creative engagement. But we must not get so impatient that we plan the Life out of things and introduce death as a result.

Just as we are now discovering that we can cooperate and flow with nature; it’s about time the church discover how to flow with the Spirit, obey the Word, and stand amazed at God’s Kingdom revealing itself!