I have to confess I'm a bit scared - no, own up, I'm terrified - of what's been triggered by those 8 days away. There's no knowing where it might end up...
What seems to have happened is that all the established patterns, the old priorities and the unspoken values are up for reassessment, for re-examination in the light of the Christ of the Gospels. I don't know that I can be sure of hanging onto anything.
20 years ago now, in the mid-80s, I wandered off, got consumed in writing and all the stuff and the people that went with it. When God reeled me back in at the end of '88, there was a sense that I had to be prepared to let him have just whatever he wanted of all I'd been working so hard for, and clinging to so desperately. He did in fact take everything I'd been afraid he might take, and within two years I found myself back on the farm, milking cows... and yet far closer to him than I'd ever been.
Now, although by his grace the wandering-off element is absent, at least to its previous degree(!), there's something of the same feeling. If I am truly serious about following Jesus, then I can't have any control over where he might lead me, and there's nothing I can hold back, no insurance... it's the same problem the rich young man in Matthew 19 had.
Oh Jesus, give me the grace always to say "Yes!" to you, whatever the question...
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