Wow, this week has been gruelling and exhausting, and that’s with a couple of days off in the middle…

Monday was the first day back for Gary… It was good to see him, and there were plenty of things to sort out… In the evening at Growth Group there was a growing number back with us, as the holiday periods started ending… We looked at the first tough question being How do I know God exists in the first place?. The first task was to work out whether it was a knowing, meaning or living question; something that generated much discussion without much resolution. Next step was to formulate some of our own thoughts as to how we might answer the question if someone asked us. Then we watched the DVD where Al Stewart gave us his answers, which were very much along the lines of ours, but they still left something unsaid… All of Al’s answers were biblically based, which from a Christian point of view is a good thing, but for a non-Christian; perhaps someone who doesn’t believe the bible, who doesn’t believe it is truth, we didn’t think his answers would work, would answer the question sufficiently…

Tuesday was probably my most gruelling day… I had planned to take Wednesday and Thursday off, just to relax and un-wind, so I had to make sure that things were all done on my part… Other people had other ideas, as things normally seem to go…. In the evening, I was looking forward to some apple crumble from the farewell on Saturday night, but as things would have it I didn’t get that into the oven until well after I’d planned due to lack of awareness and communication. The hard thing for me, and the most draining, was to put into practice some of the things from Mike’s sermon on the previous Sunday, of not being malicious and holding grudges, but forgiving…

The effects of Tuesday showed through on Wednesday morning as I, uncharacteristically, slept through to almost midday… My plans for my days off were to do some housework & cleaning, specifically of my room, but that kind of fell through….
Thursday wasn’t too much better, but I did get out and about to kit up my bathroom a bit with some supplies from Aldi. In the evening Geoff came around for some Diablo 3 and a chat up at Carlingford Court over a KFC dinner. We had quite a long chat over this blog, particularly in it’s effect on my relationships… I gave some serious thought to closing this whole thing down, with the belief that it is detrimental to my relationships, but after some further thought, I don’t think that I will…

Friday morning I went for a roadtrip out to Collaroy with Mike, Sam and Nathan to inspect the site for AWESOME. It was a good little trip and the site is really nice. I’m looking forward to what we will be able to do there, but I think I’m going to still need to bring quite a bit of tech along, perhaps more that I had to at Eleanora… The rest of the day was hectic as I played catch-up and fulfilled more requests… Touch was pretty good, with almost 10 a side this week. I managed a couple of tries and a few assists…

On Saturday morning, I was up early for the monthly men’s breakfast. I headed out early, via Carlingford Court to try the new coffee shop Cafe Cherry Bean, only to find them still in the opening process. When I asked them what time they opened, they told me 8am. So without coffee, I headed up to the Wilmshurst household for breakfast and book. This month we talked about Men and Church that we are to be servants and not passengers. The chapter in the book was short and not too comprehensive; I would have liked it to have covered some specifics of serving. Our group took the discussion more to talk about meeting up with others, encouraging and connecting with people.
In the evening I headed out to West Ryde Hotel for dinner with a whole bunch of people from graceat6, opting for the $10 cook your own steak. I had a few good conversations with a few different people. Next stop for the night was the Argyle in The Rocks for the 1st birthday of Takin’ It Back. It was a quiet night for the room this month… The dancefloor was empty for most of the evening, which was a bit sad, but I managed to dance it up a little. There was one point where I was dancing with 3 girls who would have been one and a half heads taller than me (helped by heels), and at one point wanted me to show them how to dance, but I don’t really teach people how to dance, and their heels would have been a real hinderance to my style of dancing…

This morning Nic and I met up for some of chapter 2 of Romans, chatting and praying. Just when we were about to pray, there was an older lady that came up to speak to us, telling us that she was a pastor of a church, and telling us of plenty of stories, mission trips, answered prayers, visions and messages from God. It was a bit kooky, and I kind of wanted to say something like we weren’t actually with her in her beliefs, that our theological thinking wasn’t the same, but her ramblings were enough and I was just keen to get down to praying proper.
Tonight at graceat6 was the return of Gary to start his series on 1 Kings on Life after Solomon. I do enjoy his preaching from the Old Testament narratives, especially the way in which he weaves the biblical theology into the talk, rather than outrightly addressing it

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