Dear Friends,
Thank you for the responses received so far from my questions in last week’s letter. I am happy to receive more feedback about the service sheets and letters.
I have taken a few covenant services in recent weeks. Some of them have coincided with readings about John the Baptist and his message of repentance, which was echoed and developed by Jesus in his own preaching.
I realised that at the moment I am doing a lot of repenting! I am regularly coming home from the supermarket with lots of wine boxes. They are all empty of their former contents, but they are just the right size to pack books without getting too heavy to lift.
My repenting is in going on by sorting through the many books on my shelves and having to make decisions. Which I will keep, and which I will pass on to others. Books, like other possessions, become very familiar, and we can get quite attached to them. Even if we have not looked at them or used them for a while; having them there is a comfort and a part of our life story. Some of the books speak of different stages and places in my ministry over 40 years.
So which are important enough to keep, which might I need in the future, and which might I say farewell to? Each decision is a small act of repentance, a turning away from what has been, toward a different future.
Whether it be books, other possessions, or habits which have become ingrained in us, the call to repent, or re-focus, is ever new and ever present for us. As I am finding, it is not a simple or quick process. The other side to the call to repent is to rely on and lean on the grace of the Spirit to act and to decide and to move on.
Peace
Tim