Friday, April 23, 2010

Will you come and follow me?

Will You Come and Follow Me?
(tune: Kelvingrove, Scottish traditional)

Will you come and follow me
if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don???t know
and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown
in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind
if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer
in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean
and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean
in you and you in me?

Will you love the ???you??? you hide
if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you???ve found
to reshape the world around
through my sight and touch and sound
in you and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true
when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
and never be the same.
In your company I???II go
where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I???II move and live and grow
in you and you in me.

John L. Bell and Graham Maule

Follow me ???

This has been going round and round in my head.

How can I live up to this?

Will you come and follow me?

Will You Come and Follow Me?
(tune: Kelvingrove, Scottish traditional)

Will you come and follow me
if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown
in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind
if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer
in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean
and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean
in you and you in me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
to reshape the world around
through my sight and touch and sound
in you and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true
when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
and never be the same.
In your company I’II go
where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’II move and live and grow
in you and you in me.

John L. Bell and Graham Maule

Follow me –

This has been going round and round in my head.

How can I live up to this?

Posted via web from Alex E Jones

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Greatest of These is Love

The Gift of Love from bible.oremus.org

"13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have
love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic
powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have
all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my
body so that I may boast,* but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but
rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as
for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an
end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but
when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was
a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like
a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For
now we see in a mirror, dimly,* but then we will see face to face. Now
I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully
known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love. "

God grant me faith to keep my hope alive.

The Greatest of These is Love

The Gift of Love from bible.oremus.org

"13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have
love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic
powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have
all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am
nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my
body so that I may boast,* but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but
rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as
for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an
end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but
when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was
a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like
a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For
now we see in a mirror, dimly,* but then we will see face to face. Now
I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully
known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love. "

God grant me faith to keep my hope alive.

Posted via email from Alex E Jones

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Fear

If nature, silence and writing are the ways to make you feel happier and more at peace, then that's what I'm going to try.

Maybe gardening is the ultimate combination of silence and nature? Certainly our garden needs some attention, tidying up the debris from the last tidying session that we've left in the centre of the garden. I've found that each evening as I peer into the miniature plastic green house my spirits rise slightly. There are the tiny plants I planted in trays sat on the kitchen doorstep in the dark in early March. It's probably time to move them to larger pots.

Silence is so hard to come by. Work surrounds me with chattering, and life has not time for it. In my silence yesterday I could hear all my hearts cries pounding with every breath and pulse. It was an odd prayer session, with God being very present, and I having so much to say to him, over and over again. I wasn't sure if I was talking to God or if God was talking to me.

And here I am writing...

Things haven't been so good for me this last week. Fear of life, and my future, have been intruding in what was a happy existence. I wonder how one can ever be sure of anything? How can we be sure of God's salvation? How can be sure that we've chosen the right thing to do?

Fear

If nature, silence and writing are the ways to make you feel happier and more at peace, then that's what I'm going to try.

Maybe gardening is the ultimate combination of silence and nature? Certainly our garden needs some attention, tidying up the debris from the last tidying session that we've left in the centre of the garden. I've found that each evening as I peer into the miniature plastic green house my spirits rise slightly. There are the tiny plants I planted in trays sat on the kitchen doorstep in the dark in early March. It's probably time to move them to larger pots.

Silence is so hard to come by. Work surrounds me with chattering, and life has not time for it. In my silence yesterday I could hear all my hearts cries pounding with every breath and pulse. It was an odd prayer session, with God being very present, and I having so much to say to him, over and over again. I wasn't sure if I was talking to God or if God was talking to me.

And here I am writing...

Things haven't been so good for me this last week. Fear of life, and my future, have been intruding in what was a happy existence. I wonder how one can ever be sure of anything? How can we be sure of God's salvation? How can be sure that we've chosen the right thing to do?

Posted via email from Alex E Jones