I took a look at the meme-list and found a fascinating Live Journal - pretend writer - a whole bunch of writing projects to stimulate blog entry creation.
1. What do you tend to focus on the most? Why do you think you focus on it?
A. The past.
B. The present.
C. The future as you think it will be.
D. The future as you are afraid it will be.
When you look at the Myers-Briggs personality test I come out as the kind of person who preserves the status-quo. I like order. I like structure. What I do now is shaped by the past - each step forward is a logical progression and outworking of the journey I have been on to this point. I am not the kind of person who is “flighty” in the sense of making random spontaneous hops from one thing to another.
I felt really crushed as we worked through one of the last VLI intensives on “vision and planning“. The book we were assigned (”Developing a Vision for Ministry in the 21st Century” by Aubrey Malphurs) was good, but left me feeling that I was unsuited (to the core of my being) for being a leader of anything that needs a forward-looking vision. I still have no answers to the questions / issues that the book raised.
I think that I live my life in the present and the past but with a fear of failure relating to the future. Does that mean I have voted for 3 of the 4 options? My focus is the present, informed by the past but driven by a future as Im afraid it will be, in other words, Option B. How’s that?
2. How many active prescriptions do you have at the moment. Of those, how many do you take regularly?
None and none. I rarely go to the doctor and certainly dont like taking medication. At most I’ll take an Advil here and there.
3. What is the most inexpensive, non-valuable thing you tend to collect and hoard? Why do you do it?
When I pay for an item I put the receipt into my back pocket. When the pocket gets too fat to sit on I pull out the contents and toss all of these snippets of paper onto my bedside table. There’s a “hoard” of inexpensive, non-valuable and irrelevant paper snippets floating around. Occasionally I’ll plunder the pile and find one of the “free movie ticket” freebie that my Moviewatcher card gets me here and there. So there’s some use to it all.
4. What is the most supernatural event you have experienced? Did you feel there was a specific reason that it happened to you?
Ummmm. It’s hard to pin down the most supernatural event. I think the telling thing - more so guilt inducing than anything - is how far back I have to go before I find a story to tell. It feels a little hypocritical to say I believe that God is living and active today, that He’s about the same stuff as in the bible, and then wimp out on opportunities as they arise. I hear stories from people I trust completely so why do I have to go back in time so far before I can tell tale of something He’s done? Have I been so afraid to risk and so lacking in faith?
Back in May of 1990, I was due to go to the youth camp at Hollybush farm (where Hollybush Christian Fellowship meet). A friend was going to pick me up from my house so I got my backpack ready and put my wallet into it for safe keeping. The car arrived outside and honked its horn and I raced out and jumped in. It was only after we had got to Hollybush that I realized all I had were the clothes on my back, having left my backpack on the couch at home! I prayed and felt reminded of Matthew chapter 6
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
So I pushed aside issues of not having a tent, or food for the weekend. In the evening meeting they invited people who wanted to be healed (physically) to come get prayer at the end of the service. I couldnt see too well from the balcony, plus I wanted prayer for something anyhow so I wandered down to the front, standing at the left side of the stage. A guy with a club foot was sitting on the stage edge about 4 feet from me. As people prayed for him I was shocked to watch his foot rotate back into a healthy position: God healed him of the condition completely. I chatted with another guy who told me that he’d come to camp with his children, had a large family tent for himself plus a smaller one that the kids were in, and that he had space in his tent for another person. He offered not only to let me use his tent and spare sleeping bag but also to feed me all weekend.
The rub came at the end of the weekend when I had to pay for the camp. I walked into the office and explained that I left my bag at home. They offered a reduced cost, and as I pulled out the contents of my pocket, it was precisely the right amount to be all square on costs. So, a weekend of faith building, of seeing God heal someone with my own eyes (not just in stories from other folk) and of direct provision. “Naturally supernatural”, as they say.
5. How old were you when you first realized that YOU were the adult now?
I dont really feel like I am “an adult” yet. I’m 35 at the time of writing and inside me I am still feeling like an imposter - you know how it is in the movies where the child pulls on his father’s clothes and suddenly all of the people treat him as if he’s his dad? (think of the familiar format used in “13 going on 30″, “Big”, and so on) Maybe it will dawn on me fully at some point?