Passionate Spirituality 8: Pregnant?

Incarnational Spirituality Luke 2:33-35

Mothering Sunday: I think I might be a bit pregnant...

No one is ever slightly pregnant. Its a yes or no situation. But its a long time coming. There's a lot of waiting, hoping, doubting, struggling, limitation, plans, hopes, dreams, fears.... but there is an endpoint.

Simeon is pregnant.

He's been pregnant for years. He's been waiting for the Messiah. The Hope of a Saviour has been incarnated in him. It has occupied his mind and his body. He has been “looking for” it for many years. He has developed it into a universal salvation – a light to lighten the gentiles/nations. He had arranged his days around watching in the Temple, praying, being on the lookout for God's promise. Now he rejoices because the birth pangs have begun. His task ends as the new life begins. It's called mothering.

Are you pregnant?

Life experiences.... Babies obviously, education, business opportunity, career change, creative project, DIY, Olympics, retirement. Anything that you order your life around before it has actually come into being. This project is incarnated in you. It occupies your mind and your body.

Are you pregnant with Kingdom expectations.... Faith, understanding, witnessing, holiness, spiritual gifting, peace, justice, conversion of children or partner... Are there things of God which you order your life around before it has actually come into being. Its part of your life – a core part, not an add on. Religion is not like an enthusiasm like Rugby, Eastenders, Knitting, Computer Games – it has to be embodied. This “now and not yet” is incarnational spirituality.

God is Pregnant

Mothering Creation = Conception – Ante-natal – Birth – Neo-natal – Post-natal – weaning – training – releasing. Where is creation now?

The Gentiles are not yet all enlightened. The Kingdom is not yet complete.

God's people have been squalling babies, precarious toddlers, obnoxious adolescents, dismissive adults, insatiable beggars.... there have been the odd bunch of daffs, but they have often forgotten Him.

Jesus came down to earth, not because the signal was poor, but because only in human life could God's love be fully expressed for us. It had to be incarnated.

God accepts the limitations, the pain, the sword piercing soul stuff .

Because it is worth it. “that you might have life. Life in all its fullness.

4. Incarnational Exercise: This encourages us to see God active in the ordinary and the everyday. It appreciated that the creator is alive and active in his creation and the the saviour is alive and can be encountered in all God's children.

When Life Hurts

Where is God when things are all going wrong?

Think: Where are things painful for you

• personally, family, community,
• national or international situations?

Tell: Try to express your feelings to God.

“When I see …. I feel......”

Read: Luke 2:33-35. Just because there is pain, it does not mean that God's will is not being done. Think about Mary. Luke 1:38.

Cross: look at or hold onto a cross. Remember that Jesus dies to take all our sin and shame. He knows how you feel. He is with you in this.

Jesus: How might you “be” Jesus, getting along someone else in pain.

(Picture: Image credit: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/photo_12495323_stages-of-pregnancy-of-the-woman-a-profile-full-growth-it-is-isolated-on-a-white-background.html'>galdzer / 123RF Stock Photo</a>