Reflection

It has been my very great pleasure during this summer to attend three Summer School Celebrations. The enthusiasm has been great to experience – and the music, dance, drama and timbrels were pretty good too!

As part of these times there is inevitably an opportunity for reflection – this may be carried out in small groups or through a worship experience. My prayer is that this reflection, and any decisions based upon it will be long lasting and become a new pattern for living.

The whole concept of reflection, and its practise within our own spiritual formation, is crucial – along with appropriate action.

It sometimes feels as though we make rapid decisions leading to actions when we have had little reflection on Biblical truth or the theology that threads through our existence, or conversely we engage in perpetual spiritual navel gazing leading to no personal growth, relationship or programme development.

The practise of reflection is one we all need to engage in but we need to keep it in balance with activity and response. Spend time thinking – in any given situation – praying, meditating on the word and listening for God’s voice. Then act, tell others what you are going to do, journal it, write a blog – it creates an accountability to others and to our God in His leading. I can’t think of any individual or corporate situation where this would not be appropriate. The danger is that we fail to act on our spiritual reflection – or fail to seek God’s will.

Jesus clearly took time for personal reflection while being an activist that saw lives changed – we can do nothing less.