fix your eyes

I've just looked at my calendar and realised that this post comes a week late, but that has been a blessing in disguise as so much has happened in this past week. Just a quick update about me, I’m now settled in a church called St. Nicholas’ where I am receiving some amazing and inspirational teaching. I will be having a meeting with the youth work co-ordinator next week about contributing to church life. I’ve just got back off of a college CU weekend away in Scotland and am so excited about the way in which I can see that I have grown in my faith since I arrived in Durham and how much god has spoken to me in the short time I've been here. One phrase that has been a recurring theme in the teaching I’ve had here, has been that I am to fix my eyes on Jesus, and his plan for my life. Although I’ve only just arrived here, God is already directing my thoughts to my year abroad in third year and making sure I stay focused on his purpose. My weekend away was full of conversations that have lead me to a greater understanding of what God has in store for me and has also meant I now have some resources to start researching what I want to do.

Despite this long-term focus, God has definitely called me to be in the present and is challenging me and some of my friends to start living radically different lives for Jesus, so as to be a good witness to our non-Christian friends. Although there are a large proportion of Christians here, especially in college, this has meant I’ve had fellowship like I could never have imagined and also that for some of our peers it’s the first time they’ve met and been friends with Christians, certainly such a large group and they’ve seen something different in us. One friend has been asking questions about Jesus and last Sunday decided to attend a ‘taste and see’ event run by one of the local churches, a service particularly designed for people with no experience of church.

Please pray that he keeps taking small steps to a better understanding of life in Christ and also that God really speak to him in the next weeks and days, especially about some of his bigger issues (he doesn’t understand why he needs forgiveness). Also pray that I might rise to the challenge of living radically for God and that we as Christians could live in a way which really reveals more of him to non-Christians

Thank God so much for all his answers to prayers and his revelations both in the extraordinary encounters and the ordinary and day-to-day.