Malcolm Potts March 29th 2015

The same One whose hands flung stars into space lives in you! Ponder that for a moment.As Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem this Palm Sunday all that is going on; branches, donkeys, entry in to the city – the whole story – is calling out, “He is here”. The one whose hands flung stars into space is here!And now, because he served and suffered, because he gave his life for his friends, he now, by his Spirit, lives in you.When I meet people who know that Christ lives in them, know that he is their hope of future glory, I notice a couple of things. Firstly they have their eyes on others not themselves. Second they trust in God not in their circumstances and thirdly, they love and show an interest in what Jesus loves.It was so encouraging to come home from holidays to find my co-workers report what has been going on in my absence and it is a balance between good things and tough things.Good things like rich challenging testimonies in church, the Toddler Jam team [the event is good but the team doing it is awesome], what your Parish Council have been up to working behind the scenes, Pam’s large group learning about spiritual direction and reflection, small groups meeting and caring for each other, the squillions of people doing their bit and more than their bit, 3 new families on the data base, Liz building learning modules on spirituality at home and teaching kids how to pray, September Family Camp prep going well and so on.Tough things like people grieving, ageing and being diagnosed with serious illnesses. Tough things like being made aware of failures, poor process’ and things that have slipped. Tough things like redundancies and uncertainty. Tough things relationally that can only be resolved by repentance and forgiveness.This is life with the suffering servant who gives himself. A full life.A couple of our guys are doing some ‘out there’ fathering work in our local schools. They have been surveying the boys in this early stage. What don’t boys need from their Dads? What do they need?Early results indicate local boys don’t need more toys and gadgets [let’s face it they’ve got plenty of them]. They don’t need time poor, angry Dads who fly off the handle at the smallest thing.Boys report they do need TIME from dads. They do need dads to teach them things patiently. They do need dads to celebrate the things the boys love joining in with them.Simple isn’t it. Palm Sunday. Here comes the servant king. What do I have to do to be the Christian God wants me to be? Serve somebody. Start at home, start in your spiritual family, start with your boys [and girls], start with each other. Start calling on the One who lives in you.BlessingsMalcolm