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Events, Talks, News Sheets and more
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Monday 1 March
Spiritual renewal
Have you ever allowed your petrol gauge to get into the red zone? Not only could you run out of petrol, you could also damage the engine. The same is true for your spiritual life: If you don’t refill your spiritual tank, you will get depleted on the inside and eventually do damage to every part of your life.
After his spiritual high, when he won a victory over the Baal priests, Elijah the prophet went into a deep hole of spiritual depletion. This can happen to us, too! When we give out without receiving from God for ourselves we can end up with spiritual burnout.
God lovingly restored Elijah. This involved a 40-day journey to Mount Sinai.
The Lord desires us to spend time alone with him. Henri Nouwen wrote, “We don’t take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.”
We live after Jesus’ resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, so we don’t have to go on a 40-day pilgrimage to do that! We can learn to practice the presence of God in our everyday life.
Thank God today for his presence. Invite him to help you become more aware of him in your everyday life. Consider how you can make time in your daily schedule to seek him. “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (James 4.8)
WEEK FOUR: SPIRITUAL WELLBEING
Sunday 28 Feb
True rest and refreshing
Holidays can be good for our replenishment, but they don’t necessarily satisfy our need for spiritual rest and wellbeing. Saint Augustine famously said, “Your Lord have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find yest in you.” Selwyn Hughes writes, “If God is not satisfying our souls, we will seek something else to satisfy us.”
Our spiritual wellbeing is of critical importance to every other area of our lives.
God’s forgiveness, peace, presence and rest is available to all who accept what Jesus is offering them! The Bible promises that all who believe in and receive Jesus are born again, made spiritually new and alive through his resurrection power.
No matter how long we have been a Christian, we need to keep coming to Christ and ‘drink’ regularly, because – in the words of John Wimber – ‘we leak’!
If you have never experienced Jesus coming into your life, then why not invite him today? You could pray like this: “Lord Jesus, I admit my need of you and invite you to come and forgive me. I believe that you died and rose again so that I could receive new joy, purpose, hope and wellbeing. Please come into my life and fill me with your Holy Spirit. I commit to following you and your ways all the days of my life. Amen.”
If you follow Jesus as your Lord, why not turn this prayer into thanksgiving and recommit your life to him?
Saturday 27 Feb
Sabbath
The concept of Sabbath is often misunderstood; it means ‘to stop’. The biblical creation account tells us that God rested on the seventh day – delighting in his creation. Often this biblical command to ‘keep Sabbath’ has been made into an unhelpful, stifling religious duty. Jesus responded to that by saying that ‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ (Mark 2.27). It’s a gift from the Creator to his creation. Our goal should be to work from rest, not to rest from work: “People who keep sabbath, live all seven days differently” (Walter Brueggemann).
> Do you take a weekly Sabbath? What could you do on that day that refreshes you?
> Take some time today to review what you’ve learned this week. Which one step could you take into greater emotional wellbeing?
Thank you Father for hearing us in Jesus mighty name we pray, Amen.
Friday 26 Feb
Slow down to be present
Slowing down is essential but it can be hard. Our fast pace can make us especially vulnerable to burnout if our identity is rooted in what we do rather than who we are. A wise Christian leader counselled a younger one, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
Slowing down is part of becoming the person God has designed us to be. Only when we slow down can we learn to be present.
The Christian approach to mindfulness is being present to the One who is always present to us. It is about learning to ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46.10). The Prayer of Awareness (developed by St Ignatius of Loyola) can be helpful in this. It consists of five steps:
(1) Thanking God for specific good things. (2) Searching my heart for anything that has come between me and God. (3) Reviewing the day just gone – have my actions and circumstances taken me towards God or away from God? (4) Confessing anything that I have become aware of in steps (2) and (3), not allowing any sense of condemnation, but receiving his forgiveness and love. (5) Abiding in God’s presence and love.
If you’d like to explore the Christian faith, we’d love to be part of your journey of faith. There are also some helpful websites as a starting point:
St Mary’s Church Office
Village Road
Denham UB9 5BH
Tel: 01895 832771
Monday 09:30am – 12.00pm
Tuesday 09.30am – 12.oopm
Wednesday Office Closed
Thursday 12.30pm – 3.00pm
Friday 12:30pm – 3:00pm