here we are Lord...

I'm at a leaders' retreat at the moment and very much enjoying the stimulating time, the really great talks and discussions and also really missing the family. I feel a bit like I'm going to miss a crucial moment in one of the boys' lives, a first of something or an exciting moment. Retreats are simply places we go to hear God better. Other people help us and there are leaders here from all over the country and both together and on our own we learn to listen, learn to see and receive from God life and a new perspective.
We live in a world full of fears, full of bad news and full of all the wrong perspectives. We simply have to have God's view on the world, God's view on the future if we are ever going to change anything in the world for the better. I feel like I have been washed with hope for the future. Like my brain has been rewired and I have God's perspective on the state of the world. It's like the children's song we sing - 'He's got the whole world, in His hands ....'
Well, He does but He has given it to us to govern and steward - that's the scary part.
And I think many of us followers of Jesus are just waiting for God to do something or Jesus to return and fix it all. But from what I know of God, He created us to actually be responsible and rule the earth!
And I don't think He has changed His mind either. I believe Jesus will one day return and the world will be changed, but not until we have in cooperation with Him made the world around us a very different place to what it is now.
I think it starts with a new view, a new perspective - a repentance from hiding in our little lives hoping Jesus will come and rescue us from a collapsing world, to the taking up our responsibility for what happensd in our town, on our streets and in our schools and places of work.
The moment we do, I believe the Lord of all the earth will give us strategies and a new vision for our family, for our home and then going out into the world with our covenant friends in the church to make a real difference with whatever gifts and talents we have been given.

It's time to beat the hopelessness in our own heart; it's time to change the perception of the place we live. Every night before bedtime I hold our son up to the window overlooking Bicester, where we live, and I say: We love you Bicester, we bless you Bicester' - then kiss him and tuck him in.
We are blessing our town together and I pray he catches a heart for it instead of a cynical negative mindset (I think it happens very early) and that all my family don't stay behind safe locked doors watching while the world becomes more hopeless, but that we follow Jesus out into the homes and streets where He wants to go and love and bless people.
With all my trembling, fearful and weak heart I say - here we are Lord, send us....

Andy Strajnic, 13/10/2011