This week started alright, before sharply falling and then rising up again slowly.

Monday morning, I got an hour off to recover from the weekend. At night I missed out on catching up with Geoff because of his college work, but I spent the time resting and recovering a bit more from the weekend.

Tuesday was the killer day. There were some problems with our new email system where people were upset. It brought up past issues with church technology and it’s past implementations, which had nothing to do with me, and felt like they laid blame on me, whether they meant it or not. Now I must admit that I’m a bit of a “blame monger” i.e. I seem to look for the blame in most things; where it rests, what was the cause of the confrontation etc etc. I’m not sure why, but whenever people seem to have a problem and approach me about it, I always seem to get on the defensive, seemingly subconsciously. So that pretty much ruined my Tuesday.. It was such a rough confrontation that I was almost in tears… and fragile for the rest of the day. In the evening it was my turn to cook dinner, so it was off to Coles to grab some ingredients for a prawn & pea risotto, which was delicious!! I spent the rest of the evening tweaking my parents new laptops.

Wednesday was a fairly good, quiet one. In the afternoon I made some physical changes to the church by swapping the projectors in the main hall because the main one had a yellow tinge to it. It was quite an involved job, especially since I did it with no help. After work, I got home to see my folks and deliver their laptops, before heading to growth group where we studied some more Matthew

Thursday night college was alright. We looked at the resurrection and the Holy Spirit, before our lack-lustre peer group on the biblical theology of the Sabbath. One of the guys that was supposed to be leading left early because he felt sick, so the rest of us had to work through without much direction. Rather than looking at the biblical theology of things, we looked at the passages almost solely, trying to understand them as individual passages, rather than threading a biblical theological thread through them.

Friday was again quiet, but a little tough to concentrate on proper work… It was good to get back into touch football after a couple weeks worth of breaks. I scored a try early on in the piece; a good stride down the left hand wing, off a ball from Mike. At SALT for supper, some of the kids had brought some sarsparilla, some chinotto, and some vanilla coke; all black in color. When I put them out, I did so alternately, making for a good troll on the kids after coke.

Saturday was an extremely busy day with 3 engagements to get to. The first was Equip Women’s Convention where we had to be in at Sydney Harbour Convention Centre at 7:30am. I picked up Alfie, Tim & Jack and we made our way out there. Basically our job was to prepare nametags and booklets, heard women to the auditorium for the talks, collect donations for morning tea, and then the big task of getting roughly 3,500 women to 6 different electives, including distribution of around 1,500 booklets at various entrance points. I enjoyed my time there, seeing many people that I knew from various Christian circles, as well as a whole punch of faces that I knew from seeing them around, but don’t actually know them. I can say that was really quite impressed with how many beautiful Christian women are out there, and would take the time out to attend such a conference, though I do find it a bit of a shame, for me, that the majority of them look to be married or engaged. I would like to hope that I’d find a wife out of a bunch of women like them one day… After dropping off the guys at the end of the long haul, I headed over to Pennant Hills for Jorge & Claire‘s Engagement Party, which seemed to be in full swing, for some delicious gourmet foods, and good company. After a quick nap at home, it was time to get back on the party wagon at Alex Trevena‘s 21st, with more good food and company.

Today I was meant to meetup with Nic, but since he had such a late night, we called it off. I helped Jase film a little movie in the hope of winning him a new phone, before heading to Macquarie Centre to see Fast & Furious 5; a good movie, with a nice twist, bringing it to a level of Fast & Furious meets Oceans 11. If this movie is the final in the series, then it wraps up well, however, like most movies these days, there was no definitive end with 100% closure, leaving an optional sequel.
At graceat6 tonight, James Davidson spoke from Luke 11:1-13 which is the Lord’s Prayer. From this he drew a number of conclusions:

1. We need to remember that God is our Father

We are under His authority, yet, He is not like human fathers who are ‘evil’ in a self centered sense, rather He is tender hearted, generous and caring.

2. We are to pray that God our Father is increasingly known and revered

He is hallowed; meaning that He is completely unique and set apart, but that we should truly know Him as He actually is, and that His kingdom is progressively made known, not just in non-Christian hearts, but also in our own, so that the desires of our hearts move from being just centered around ourselves and our friends, rather around the glory of God.

3. That we continue to ask God.

Not in a nagging way, but with complete reliance on Him, persevering and letting God be the one who answers our prayers.

4. Practically

Seeking daily bread both in the provision of food to physically strengthen, but also in giving us eternal rest at the end of our days. Continuing to seek and ask for forgiveness Asking that we are not led into temptation or hard testing.

After church I got a chance to catch a few people, including Josh Charles who has stumbled upon this blog. It was encouraging to hear that he does read it, and finds it helpful/interesting to see how Christians are fairly normal, which is one of my main reasons for writing. Although I am also keen for discussion and feedback on how things are going, and that’s something I do lack on this blog.

The upcoming week should be kinda busy with a conference I need to organise for next Monday: N E X U S for those that are coming, it should be enjoyable. I’m also down to be taking a few photos for a Japan fundraiser we’re holding next Saturday, 4th June at church, called Jam4Japan. I’ll get some up here, but if you’re in the Carlingford area, and/or keen to travel there, then please do come along, should be a good evening with good tunes: 7pm – 10pm at St Paul’s Carlingford, entry is $10, with all proceeds going to relief in northern Japan.