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Despite not too much happening on the blog of late, plenty of stuff has been happening in the real world. Sometimes there’s been too much, and my health has taken a battering again. But in the midst of all that there has been some significant times of wrestling with God.

Philip Yancey’s book called ‘Prayer’ has been a place of refuge in the busy-ness and a timely reminder that neglecting a life of prayer is one of the surest roads to disconnection from God. But at the same time, that feeling of isolation is one that forces us to our knees with more urgency than before. In some ways, that has been my story over the last six months - but that’s a post for another time.

In the dark spaces, God’s word becomes life giving in a new way. It seems that it is the only link to something far greater, the only strand of hope to hold on to, the only point of light in the darkness. And so preparing messages for our Sunday gatherings has been a spiritual discipline for me and supported me in a way that others couldn’t.

A few weeks ago I spoke on Romans 12:1-8, the well known passage about living a life as a living sacrifice. But while it may be well known, there is a lot of confusion to what it might mean in the reality of the everyday. How do you live your life as a sacrifice to God?

Some of this confusion comes from a misunderstanding of what a sacrifice actually is. I always used to think of a sacrifice as something I give up and don’t have anymore. I sacrifice some time for my neighbours sick child. I sacrifice some money for church. I sacrifice some sleep for comforting my son we he has a nightmare.

But a sacrifice is not so much about what is given up. Nor is it about what is given. It is about the giving.

To be a living sacrifice for God means we are not simply given to God but are in a constant stae of being given. Granted, this is a subtle disctinction, but still important, becasue if I see myself as having been given to God, it becomes a one off event and too easily becomes less significant/relevant with time. But if I am constantly being given, then I am faced witht he prosepct of a life that God owns, everyday.

Paul encourages us to be transformed, by renewing our minds. There’s lots of strategies around to try and do this, but very few of them seem to be very effective in the long term. The boundaries that we put in place to protect our thoughts are good at stopping us from doing things (sometimes) but don’t necessarily help us with DOING the right things.

Immediately following this statement about renewing the mind, Paul talks about serving others. He encourages leaders to lead, teachers to teach, givers to give and so on. It’s almost as if using our gifts somehow contributes to the transformation of our minds and helps us to discern the will of God. And to top it off, it is an act of worship.

Being actively involved in the faith community contributes to our spiritual growth and worships God. That’s cool.

I encouraged those in our church that are already involved in stuff to keep at it, and to view what they do as an act of worship in which they are constantly being given over to God. For those that weren’t involved, I encouraged them to get involved - offering before they were asked.

But there was another category of people that I thought needed addressing. Those that were already involved but were considering pulling out. Not pulling out to do something else (I firmly believe there are different seasons that we go through that call for different involvement), but those that just wanted to pull out because it all seemed to hard. Those who thought sitting back and doing nothing seemed like the most attractive option.

I was discussing the same question with a group of youth pastors the week before. We wondered what you did as a pastor when you felt tired, exhausted and struggled to see what God was doing. Your enthusiasm was gone and there was little motivation for ‘the call’. The conclusion of the group was this: When you don’t feel like doing ministry, you keep doing it anyway.

1 Peter 5:8 describes the devil as prowling, wanting to devour any that wander too far. And what pleases him more than anything else is when God’s people stop doing God’s work. That makes life nice and easy for him…

At the end of the night, I simply encouraged people to see themselves as being given over to God always, and to let that be expressed by serving the faith community using whatever gifts they had. In doing so, minds are renewed, lives are transformed and God is worshipped.

The subversive love notes are next! Missions month is giving me a chance to catch up!!