Hello all! Week 8 comes from my friend Sarah who I study with at Church Mission Society. Our friendship has grown over sharing about our projects together and also, more recently, by being in the Bible together regularly as well. I am so grateful to her for all her support and for sharing this reflection on the importance of truth and authenticity in our faith journeys too.
In Sarah's words...
"As I was pondering what to write, I realise that I am passionate about people knowing who God really is, beyond what they may have picked up from TV, church, friendships or family and discover an authentic relationship with him.
When I was 18, I had a summer job driving false teeth to dental practices around Oxfordshire. I was taking over from a girl; she was a Christian and it seemed clear that she had been trying to share her faith as she had been working. She was showing me the ropes and at one of the dental practices one of the guys said to her, “So you’re a Christian,” he then asked me the same question. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Yeah.” “You look far too sensible to be a Christian,” he replied. I remember feeling utterly gutted. I was trying my best to be the most super Christian in the world.
I remember too at the same time, someone at our Church had a partner who had been through some challenges and was starting to look for God. We were standing in a circle after the service, as usual I was feeling awkward and out of place. My friend’s partner asked each of us if we knew God, each person said yes till it came to me I said that I knew Jesus was a good and loving man, but I didn’t know if I had a relationship with him. The partner said everyone else had said yes but that I had said something different. Someone in the group said that what I had said was the same thing. I knew it wasn’t and said so, I didn’t know if I had a relationship with God. I always remember feeling if I was going to be anything I was going to try to be authentic and truthful.
Even though in every corner of the Bible there is evidence of God’s love and him seeking us out, it has taken me a lifetime to realise that potentially God might love me and want to have a relationship with me.
I am reading a book at the moment and the foreword is by Sarah Jake Roberts who said that she was searching the Bible for a woman she could identify with, but all the female heroes of faith, Sarah, Esther, Ruth, Mary the mother of Jesus didn’t fit. Until she was reading her Bible and came to Eve, so easily deceived in the garden and she related. She realised, that just like Eve, she had been heart broken, “the serpent said just enough to make Eve distrust God’s intentions”[1], this broke Eve’s heart. What if God had been holding out on her?
When we have trust broken in our lives it is hard to trust again. We judge God by people, slowly I am discovering that God is true to his word, for however it has looked in my life Jesus has never forsaken me or abandoned me.[2]"
[1] Dr Anita Phillips, The Garden Within, (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2023), p. xiii
[2] Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:6
Sarah is currently exploring her path completing a certificate as part of the CMS Pioneer programme based in Oxford. She leads Messy Church at her local parish church in Staffordshire and is married with two grown up children and a stepdaughter. She is embarking on a new journey with Lichfield Diocese helping to support their Greenhouse project which encourages those within local Churches who want to use their creative skills to pioneer projects which allow people to experience faith in different ways.
Thank you all so much for reading. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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Until next week,
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