Grow Group

Hi everybody!




I hope all of my American friends had a fun Independence Day! As for me, I spent my day quite differently.




It started with helping out at the café with my host, which went very well. Cat handled most of the drinks and all of the food, and I helped out by running the till taking orders and making tea. As I learned last year while trying to help in the café, I'm no good at making coffee! Most of the time we were there was fairly quiet, so we weren't overwhelmed by orders. After closing, Cat and I went back to the house for some relaxing time.


After a delicious meal of fish and chips, a friend of mine picked me up for Grow Group. This was the same group of young adults that I went to last year and had an incredible time with, so I couldn't wait to rejoin them. There were a few familiar faces as well as some absences of people that were in the group last year. Regardless, it was fun right off the bat. We shared pizza and lemon cheesecake over loads of laughs, and then got started discussing the same bit of Revelation that was shared in the message on Sunday. Our discussion, however, took quite a different turn. In that passage (Revelation 1:9-20), Jesus's appearance is described, and it is nothing like how he looked while he was a human on Earth. What we had never realized before was that in this description, loads of light imagery is used. His eyes are described as blazing fires, and his hair is described as being like wool or radiant like snow. His face is like the sun at full strength, and even his feet are glowing like bronze. He's also described as holding two different items in each hand - in one he has seven stars, and in the other he has seven lampstands. Every simile used to describe him has some connotation of light, which makes sense, because didn't he say he's the light of the world? I find myself thinking like how John did at his appearance, because it is written that John fell over like he was dead. I probably would have reacted similarly, because I often find myself focusing on the gentle, loving Jesus that is described in the Gospels and forget about his power and majesty. It's not like one is better or more accurate than the other - he is both at the same time. I think what is important is to acknowledge and revere both aspects of Jesus, because he was both the human that walked the Earth alongside us and the powerful Creator that has always been and always will be.


From there, we talked about finding Jesus in the everyday and loving the church like Jesus does. It was comforting to know that I'm really not alone in having a hard time acknowledging Jesus in all things. What we landed on for a while was that it is so easy to just complain about everything instead of turning to Jesus. How often to we keep ourselves wrapped up in the busyness of life and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it instead of relying on Jesus for strength and endurance? Why do we often forget that Jesus experienced our own mundane humanity and understands how we feel? Our talk really was a wake-up call for a lot of us, and we needed the reminder to turn to Jesus in all things. I think encountering the image of the powerful Jesus who conquered death was a solid push in the right direction - after all, if he is that blindingly radiant, he's kind of hard to miss.


Later today, I will be having dinner with my friends that took me to Liverpool and then seeing a play with Cat. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this day, and I'll tell you about it soon!


Cheers,

Lindsay