I'm leaving for the leaders conference in a few hours, but thought I'd post quickly before I leave...

The weekend was fun. Had a fairly mellow one on Saturday, then Sunday was crazy. We went into the prison on Sunday morning to lead a service in the chapel. God was there and moved despite the usual rowdiness of the guys there. It's a great place to grow in confidence in playing guitar and singing in front of people - you're guaranteed hecklers etc!

I've had this song going through my head all weekend. I'm not a big fan of the melody, but the words are great. In fact I can't even remember how the chorus goes, but here are words to the verse...

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvelous for words
Too wonderful of comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp you infinite wisdom?
Who can fathom the depth of your love?

Yesterday I gave Emma a birthday card with a picture on the front of two apes dancing and a caption underneath that says, "I'm afraid you misunderstood, I said would you like a mango?"

This was especially funny for 2 reasons:
1) That it's a little known fact that Emma loves mangos, and
2) That the card Emelie gave her also had two apes on...

Last week I was thinking about the concept of eternal life starting now. It dawned on me that the scenario where people say, regarding tattoos, "you might like it now, but what about when you're 80," is altogether less frightening when you view this life as transient. Life is short, and in light of that fact, perhaps the attitude that is more natural to take is "why wouldn't I want to get that tattoo now? I only have a short time, why not try this stuff out now, while I can?"

I know it's a silly example, but my (rather convoluted) point is that perspective really does make a big difference.

This week is the run up to the National Leaders' Conference in Bournemouth.

On Saturday night we went to Po Na Na to hear Sim DJ and celebrate Emelie's birthday. It was a good night - Sim played some great US house, with everything from gospel vocals to the walking bass lines of funk records. Emma and I were the most hardcore, dancing from 10.30pm-1.50am.

By Sunday night my voice was well on its way out and I'm now full of cold...thank goodness for lemsip!

Wow, it's been almost a whole week since I last posted. Things in Bristol are going pretty well and are very busy. This week I've been sorting out the finishing touches to the latest edition of cuttingedge:uk, working on which has been great fun.

This morning I was doing some teaching on Form, the discipleship programme at BV. The subject was Acts, and was based on How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Fee and Stuart (a great book which I'm sure I didn't do justice!) Complications arose from the fact that the swedes (3/5 of the group) aren't back up to full translating strength, but we got through it and finished with some great Rissotto from Rachael and Emma.

On Monday I was talking to Andrew about my future career. As mentioned in my last post, I often find it difficult to find the 'one thing' that I'm to focus on amid all my varied interests. He's pretty good with quips, and this weeks one was "over analysis leads to paralysis" - one that I'm certain is true (often in my own life!)

The Poverty of Finiteness
One of the highlights of this week was a meal with Tim and Julie. We talked for hours about things like church planting, justice, and deciding what to do with the rest of your life. The latter was something that has been on my mind for a while - knowing that there are probably a number of different avenues I could go down and trying to work out where God is actually leading me.

Tim used the phrase 'the poverty of finiteness' to express this dilemma - the idea that while there are any number of things we might do with our lives, we are limited by the span of our lives. My Grandpa once told me that one of his only regrets was doing too much, rather than focussing on a few things and doing them well.

I want to learn from my Grandpa's experience, I want to find what it is that I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life and do it well.

I was about to clock-off when I realised that it's been too long since I last blogged. Things here at BV are slowly picking up after the Christmas lull, people arriving back in dribs and drabs (especially when it comes to the students).

I'm really praying that this will be a year when I learn to trust God in a way that I haven't experienced up until now. Over Christmas I spent some time thinking and praying through an area in my life that I find it particularly hard to trust Him in: money!

This (academic) year has really seen the ante upped in this area, living without a fixed wage and without that immediate connection between what I do and what I receive. What an interesting adventure.

I arrived back in Bristol last night. As I sat in the big, quiet house I was struck by the fact that the last ten days had passed so quickly.

This morning the alarm sounded at 7.30pm and I snoozed until 7.45. After a Christmas of 9am starts waking this early was painful.

Happy New Year everyone!