The Cloud of Unknowing

Apparently a practical spiritual guidebook from some unknown 14th century monk. But the phrase came to me as I thought about my frame of mind of late...

As I've sought to consider what God would have my family and I doing both presently and post Bible college with the general direction of our lives, I seem to be on a journey through some type of cloud of unknowing. There are definite moments of clarity when action is needed, but it doesn't take long before everything is clouded in again.

On the up-side, it's nice not being deluded that I have all the answers. And the process has pushed me to focus on knowing Christ. Whatever we end up doing, it must be an outworking of the glorious gospel of God. Phil 3:10 keeps coming to me, 'I want to know Christ'.

In the end, I'm realising this is what wise living is all about. Job goes through terrible suffering and never actually finds out why. Yet in the process, as he grapples with his experience and what he knows of God, he is given wisdom even to perceive that in the end resurrection awaits him (Job 19:25-27). The great lesson of the book is at the end of the epic poem in the middle, 'The fear of the Lord - that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding'. Though I'm shrouded in the cloud of unknowing, if I keep seeking Jesus, though all the questions my experiences pose might go unanswered, I trust that I will grow in wisdom all the same, which in turn will lead me deeper in my knowledge of him.

Please pray for that wisdom.

Student Ministry

This year I am a student at St Matt's in Ashbury. It's nice being local (we walk to church) and been great getting to know people. There are lots of other college students who are part of the congregation, both Moore and SMBC.

My role though is a bit different to the last couple of years. Rather than leading services and preaching, I'm spending my time visiting homes in the area, working towards running an evangelistic course of some kind at home, and hospitality. Also, I have been doing a lot of thinking about church and evangelism and engaging with our culture. It's been interesting and tied to what we're thinking of doing long term. But more on that later...

For now, if you'd like to be praying for us in this role:

* Pray that God might be working to save people in this community

* Pray God would give us perseverance in prayer, godly living and speaking the truth

1st Day of Preschool

Amber and Eby on their first day of preschool this year. They both go 2 days a week and have been loving it. This is Amber's second year and she'll start school next year. Eby is just starting and will be there next year as well.

Rockstar performance

Coming to a venue near you soon!!!!

We have a blog!!!!

My plan this afternoon was to set up a blog page, mainly so that we can let people know where we're up to in life and with plans for the future, and hopefully have people praying for us. And what do you know, we already have a blog page. My clever wife beat me to it. Sorry to anyone who has been checking the page, waiting for something to change. God willing will be more info to follow....

A New Look!

Due to the price increase of the provider we were using for our last website, we've decided to use google's blogger instead. I think this may be easier to update as well ( I hope so!!). We hope you have all been going well (drop us a line!), we're slowly getting into routine as College has started and everyting else winds up.

I looked after a friends little girl this morning who is a month older than Amber and they had a great time together. They're little conversations were sooo cute. One went something like this, over morning tea:
Amber - Where's your Mummy gone?
Anna - To Lauchy's school.
Amber - Where's Lauchy?
Anna - At School.
Amber - Where's your Daddy?
Anna - (Abrreviated) At College.
Amber - Oh. My Daddy goes to College too. Your Daddy go to College, yeah?
Anna - (nod)
Anyway I got a kick out of it, you probably need to hear the expression that went along with it.

I'll see what else I can do with this site. Till next time, Jay-ellen.