Too busy to blog?

Yes, I’m afraid that’s the case right now. The summer months are always very busy for me and one event seems to merge into another, with little time in-between.

This summer, for example, began with my taking seminars at new Horizon, a Bible Week in Northern Ireland. I was home for a week, then off again (with Evelyn) to Torquay in Devon where I did the Bible readings at a conference hosted by Marilyn Baker. The pattern continued with another week at home before heading to South Wales and a retreat at Nicholaston House. Now today, after another in-between week, I will drive down to Sussex for a retreat with a small group of mission partners.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking for sympathy, nor am I complaining. I love the ministry that God has given me, and I love meeting so many wonderful people. It is a joy to see God work deeply in people’s lives, and to have a small part to play in sustaining his servants; but sometimes it is busy, and often I can’t achieve all that I would want to.

Keeping up with my blog is a good example. Somewhere I read that for a blog to be effective it needs to be written regularly, say weekly or fortnightly. This encourages readers to keep following the posts. Since I began my own blog this has been an unofficial guideline which I have been able to keep to (more or less) until this summer... and now it’s weeks since I posted anything. Which means the ‘law’ (thou shalt post every week) has been nipping at my heels and biting me with guilt. Which is silly really, isn’t it, because it’s my own rule (not imposed by anyone else), and there has hardly been a public outcry at the lack of blogging activity. So why do I feel guilty?

But that’s exactly how the law works, isn’t it, and especially man-made, self-imposed religious rules. Like reading through the Bible in a year or five chapters every day; witnessing to one person each day; promising to pray for a friend overseas daily, and so on. You probably have your own favourites. These well-intentioned ideals either make us proud (because we kept them), or miserable (because we didn’t). The challenge is to live with a free conscience, doing what we know to be right to the best of our ability, but not getting screwed-up when we fail to live up to even our own expectations.

What this requires is that we know how to live under the rule of grace, not law, and that we learn how to be gracious towards ourselves. Indeed only if we are gracious towards ourselves will we be able to be gracious towards others and free of self-righteous judgementalism (is there such a word?).

So, I hope you have missed my blogs, and I hope to get into a better routine again soon as well since I love the process of writing and reflecting. But I wanted you to know that although it has been a struggle for me to not write for a while, it has been my own choice has I have had to weigh up my priorities pretty carefully, and my blog had to be sacrificed for the sake of sanity and well-being. I’m sure you understand.

PS It's been so long I couldn't remember how to make a post on my blog!