This thought came from my thinking about Meadow Way Chapel (my old church) and how I think it is better than my house mates church (Kings Community Church)
OK, so imagine you were and church and the guy doing the sermon was talking about whatever and half way through some random lady, (you know the kind that does the teas and coffees week in week out and no one actually takes the time to thank them for their dedication), walks up to the communion table, (lets pretend you are brethern for a moment), and puts down a place of chocolate hobknobs, custard creams and digestive biscuits on the table. Noticing this he says "if you feel you would like a biscuit at any point during the service, feel free". The communion table however is about 10 foot from the front row and right below the pulpit.
Now, it might be because we are british, or it could be something else that i haven't thought about, but I can pretty much garentee that no one will go up in front of the rest of the congregation and get a biscuit...that is unless they are under 11.
The great thing about children is they are so innocent.
An adult will be thinking a mixture of things ranging from "what will everyone else thing of me?" to "this has got to be a catch, I'm gonna look silly if I fall for it"
The bible says how we should come to God with the faith like a child. You would see in this instance the child will trust the speaker, they will believe that if they are offering it, there isn't a catch. However adults seems to be conditioned or taught to be cynical and expect the worst...EVEN IN CHURCH! (which is probably the reason why they let their children go up and look silly)
I think this can describe our prayer life sometimes. Sometimes when we pray for we're like "Father God please will you make it so that [fill in the blanks yourself] in your name amen!" but then we completely ignore the things that God does give us.
The bible says how we should come to God with the faith like a child. You would see in this instance the child will trust the speaker, they will believe that if they are offering it, there isn't a catch. However adults seems to be conditioned or taught to be cynical and expect the worst...EVEN IN CHURCH!
Even with God we sometimes seem to think there is a catch, when God gives us really wonderful things (that are blatently right under our noses) we're like, "oh Lord give me a sign! Give me the desires of my heart...give me [again fill in the blanks], in your name Amen."
I know it says in the bible that whatever you pray in Jesus' name will happen, but we really need to stop and look around and see what God has given us first before we start asking for stuff, you could use that wasted breath in better ways like thanking God for what you do have, or telling someone about what God has done for you!
It seems it so easy for us to start ignoring what is God's will and start thinking our ideas and our wisdom is better than his. Since when did God ever start making mistakes? When did his track record of letting us down start? We need to face it, we don't really have any decent reasons to not follow God's ideas, we know from scripture he always has our best interests at heart so why don't we take that on board and start living it?
Going back to our hungry little monsters, children tend to be quite bold. I think as we grow up we start thinking that boldness is seen as being rude and slightly egotistical (which is bad) and quiet meek timid christianity is all polite (which is good). But if you have faith like a child you believe that what is being offered to you by God is safe and good for you, and so you can go and get it, but you need to step out of your comfort zone. The thing with children is that they don't care what people think so much, they actually like being the center of attention, they don't care if everyone is watching. They are in that wonderful place where they haven't started thinking about what other people think of them so much that it drastically effects their actions. An adult will not go up infront of the rest of the church to get a biscuit cos it will look like they are greedy.
To be honest, in our lives, we need to do that (go and get what God offers us). If there is something we want in our relationship with God we need to hunger for it, and if that is the focus for us, everything else (including our insecurities) won't be the center of our attention and won't have as much power over us as it does already. However, we also need to accept and come to terms with the fact that we might look stupid sometimes. Thinking about it, you would actually look kinda silly if this whole biscuit thing happened, but if you don't care what people think, who cares what you look like!? Its about stepping out of your comfort zone, the more you do it, the more you feel comfortable outside of it. If you're in the will of God, even tho it can be uncomfortable, God will reward you with the thins he has instore for you and provide you with what you need to get through it, and when you do, you will have heinsight to look back and see all that God has done.
Oh, and by the way, my thoughts about Meadow way and Kings was this:
Meadow Way have biscuits after church, Kings don't.
And incase you wonder, I used to be that 11 year old child and I'm currently working on becoming 11 again.
