In God's strength

I have been so busy recently.  My existence is usually a fairly quiet one, but this year there's been so much that's outward-facing.  I've spent a lot of time on my fish project and have become more active on Facebook, both in supporting friends and in advocating for issues important to me.  In recent weeks my life has been consumed by work on Just Kai.

As the busyness has increased I've felt an increasingly urgent tug to return to spiritual practises that had become neglected.

So this week I've resumed doing lectio divina each morning, focusing on one of the day's lectionary readings as before.  It's been so helpful!  I've realised I've been trying to do God's work in my own strength, and getting so stressed by it.  Such foolishness!

Through Galatians 5:1-6 God showed me that I am trying to make myself a slave (which is kind-of ironic, as I'm trying to eliminate slavery...) by relying on what I do to make myself 'good enough' for God rather than 'eagerly awaiting' his work in me.

Through Galatians 5:18-26 he showed me he wants to grant me peace, and I was able to begin to rest in that :-)

Through Isaiah 35:3-6 he again reminded me that the work is his, not mine.

Through Ephesians 1:11-14 he showed me I am 'in Christ'.  That's where/who I am, I don't need to do anything.  So reassuring.

Then today in Ephesians 1:15-23 I saw that God has given me access to the extremely great power that raised Christ from the dead (!), and that we (our little 'Just Kai' team) are part of the body of the one who is in charge of everything, and as such are mighty!

It has all been so encouraging, and has really been changing my perspective.

The other day we talked to someone who is going to be advocating with MPs for a Modern Slavery Act in New Zealand (something like this).  He offered to hand out Just Kai business cards if he came across people he thought would be interested.  Suddenly we needed business cards very fast!

We ordered some, but then I got worried.  Could we have gotten them faster if we chose a different company?  Or if we'd gone with the same company but arranged to pick up in store rather than post?  Should we just order a second batch a different way just in case?  I started researching other options and getting into a real muddle.

But then I thought, no!  We are doing this because it is Jesus' work.  If Jesus needs us to have business cards by a certain date, we will have them by then.  I calmed down :-)

In the end, the company printed them several days earlier than they'd said and now the tracking information suggests postage should be faster than expected, too.  It looks like we'll have them on Tuesday - the day I'd been trying to engineer getting them by anyway!  We still haven't received them, let alone got some safely off to Wellington, but it's looking increasingly likely that Jesus wants them to be available to some MPs after all :-)