Uplifting Bible quote

nospam@example.com (James Valentine) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:53:41 +0100

I keep seeming to bump into these today. Here's a good one:

"For I know the plans I have for you" declares our Lord Jesus Christ, "they are plans to prosper you, to give you a hope and a future and not to destroy you."

That's from the Book of Jeremiah Chapter 29, verse 11.

According to Wikipedia, Jeremiah had a happy early life, but has come to be known by scholars as the "weeping prophet" due to his rather touching Book of Lamentations, one of the four he wrote in the present day Bible canon. His spiritual role as a prophet was to point out where people were going wrong in their relationship with God and to bring the bad news of God's anger and frustration to the communities who ignored God.

Have you ever read a more scary prayer than this?

nospam@example.com (James Valentine) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 22:51:12 +0000

Paul my vicar has been blogging again, this time about Renewing our Vow and Covenant, and he mentioned a prayer that I hadn't heard of, but it might just be the scariest, most challenging prayer I've ever heard. It's called the Methodist Covenant prayer. I got shivers when I read it.

I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. Amen

There is no clever language here, nothing I can't understand, just the most pure expression of supplication, submission and admission to God that I've ever read. Even though the first line is simply a recognition that we didn't make ourselves and that God's creating Spirit is responsible for our existence, it puts it in a new light. It recognises that God is the God of the Old Testament as well as the new: isn't it tempting to think of God only as a benign, gentle, useful, protecting watcher when it is so much more than that. God is love, and love happens in pretty explosive, cruel-to-be-kind, hands-on, forthright way sometimes, and that's just with humans. Why don't we treat God as capable of that same kind of tough love?

Great stuff.

The new balance - Kingdom building

Uplifting Bible quote

Have you ever read a more scary prayer than this?