Who are you when no one's looking?

Well, needless to say, I survived man flu last week, and went on to have what has been a great weekend. What kind of a patient am I? Well I think I’m the longsuffering sort who doesn’t make a fuss…., wait a minute, I’ll just go ask Angie!! Reminds me of something I heard a while ago: “Our self-assessment is about as accurate as a carnival mirror.”!! You know the sort – you stand in front of one and it elongates you into a stick insect, and the next compresses you into two foot sumo wrestler!

So where am I going with this week’s Blog? Well, I ended the week teaching a group of leaders on our Leadership Training programme, on the subject ‘The Character of a Leader’, and I felt uncomfortable. Nothing to do with the group; they’re great. It’s just that when you look into the mirror of Scripture on a subject like this, you get a bit of a wake up call. And D.A. Carson didn’t help. Take a look at this quote from his book ‘The Cross & Christian Ministry’ (highly recommended, just so long as you’re ready for a little ego deflation). I quote: ‘God made us to gravitate towards him, to acknowledge with joy and obedience that he is the centre of all, that he alone is God. Here comes the bite! The heart of our wretched rebellion is that each of us wants to be number one. We make ourselves the centre of all our thoughts and hopes and imaginings’. Now, just in case you managed to slide out of that one, read what he says next: ‘We ruefully acknowledge how self-centred we are after we have had an argument with someone. Typically, we mentally conjure up a rerun of the argument, thinking up all the things we could have said, all the things we should have said. In such reruns, we always win. After an argument, have you ever conjured up a rerun in which you lost?’ !! Ouch! Come on, put your hand up – me too!

There is, of course a wonderful solution to this condition. It involves seeing and savouring Jesus Christ, and making Him your centre.

So what kind of patient am I? OK, so I winged a bit…. well all right, too much! But God is good, and so is Angie, and grace is all about being treated in a way you don’t deserve. Speaking of which, I slipped off for a great end of season sail Saturday afternoon. Perfect!

Then there was Sunday, with our good friend Clive Cernik here in Norwich fresh from Dubai where he leads the Gateway International Church. His preaching on the Reversal of Babel, how the confusion and scatering of Babel is reversed as Jesus gathers into His church, people from every tribe, tongue & nation, with a unity in the Spirit that, of course, needs to be worked out in the process of accepting and loving one another - and not insisting on our own way...... envisioned, and challenged again! God's ways are very good!
Don't miss them by insisting on your own.


Have a great, Jesus-centred week!

Goff