Talk
If something is flourishing what does it look like?
Do you believe that God has made you to flourish?
What do you think it might look like?
How is your walk with God going?
“Good people will prosper like palm trees,
Grow tall like Lebanon cedars;
transplanted to God’s courtyard,
They’ll grow tall in the presence of God,
Psalm 92:12-13 (The Message Bible)
Claire has a large coffee cup mug –
Some time ago the world as I saw it became rather grey. I stopped seeing the world in the colour and it became rather drab and colourless. It became hard work, hard work to get up in the morning, hard work to go to work, hard work to do anything. A good friend of mine was stopping with us and we were chatting at our kitchen table. She said to me do you ever think this might not be how it is supposed to be,…the world is not grey, it is full of colours, you see I had become used to living in black and white. It took the words and encouragement of a good friend to remind me that God wanted me to flourish, to see the world in colour again.
Interestingly, becoming the person I want to be and becoming the person God wants me to be are the same. The problem often is how both of us work it out, in partnership, because our concepts and ideas can be very different.
Ironically becoming this person will never happen if your primary focus is on you, just as no one becomes happy if their main goal is to be come happy. God made you to flousih, but flourising never happens if we look out for number 1. Flourishing is tied to a much grander nobler vision. The wolrd badly needs wise and flourisinh human beings, and we are called to being God’s wisdom and glory to the world. The truth is that those who flourish will always bring blessings to others.
“The me I want to be” page 13,
John Ortberg is not daft, have a look at what it says in this letter wirtten by a Christian called Paul to a group of Christians in Ephesus, now in Turkey.
Reading – Ephesians
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving.
He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Ephesians 2:8-10 (The Message Bible)
As God helps us to change we will always be us, that can never change. If we are planted strawberries we will always be so, we cannot become radishes. In fact God would never want that, he wants us to flourish as strawberries, to be the best we can we be. God made us to flourish to receive life from outside ourselves. We cannot do it on our own, this is not self help, that only leads to no hope.
We need to be in harmony with God, other people, creation and ourselves. Flourishing is not measured by wealth, the size of our house, the jobs we do, or even how good we look, it means us becoming the person that God had in kind when he created us.
Part of my training a a Research chemist before I did this job was being analytical. My training took a natural skill I had and honed and refined it. It is still there, it has not gone, it is part of my flourishing.
Some of you might now be thinking actually I just wish he would do away with what I have and start all over again. Sorry I have some bad news for you. God does not work that way. Claire has learnt a phrase whilst working in the NHS, she uses it a lot and I have started to find it quite annoying but as I prepared for today I realised actually it is how God works. The phrase is ‘we are where we are’ Gods the same, he starts where we are. He wants you to become more you. You will change, God wants you to become a new creation, but that does not mean completely different. Thus is not strawberry to radish.
It’s like an old bike, restored, an old piece of furniture, God is in the restoration business, there is a posh theological word for it – redemption. He wants to redeem you, to make you more you-ier,
How does this restoration happen? How does flourishing happen? Well that’s what we will be looking at over the next few weeks.
But here is something to get you started.
How do you live in relationship with God? Do you live in relationship with God?
That has to be the first question and then you can go from there. If you don’t know how to answer that question then chat with someone who you trust or can start that journey with you.
Secondly, what do you feed yourself with? What do you watch? Where do your eyes rest? What do you spend your time doing?
You might like to reflect on some of those questions this week.