Friday 5 February 2010

The Vicar writes...





Dear All,

Your inner world matters. We all have one. It is the place where our self esteem lives; where our inner thoughts dwell, and the place from which our hopes and dreams come.. There are times when our inner world is disturbed. This happens in disappointments, in betrayals and in personal crises.....that is anytime when life becomes personal. It is not just present events that can do this. The past has the capacity to disturb our present inner world and fears of the future can also do the same. Sometimes present events link us to difficult times in our past when our inner world was disturbed and it happens all over again. At such times the outer world becomes more essential for us.

All of us need a reference point and when our inner world cannot give this, we need some external point we can trust. At such times, solid Friends, Family, Church or routine might be a help. Prayer is always valuable as a steadying influence on our inner world, but we may need external help too. Pastoral support can walk with you as your inner world reaches a place of balance. Belonging to a church congregation, developing a spiritual discipline of prayer and bible study and joining a small group in the good times can all be essential if life turns sour for us. It will mean we have a better chance of getting through the trial unscathed.

Sometimes we do not recognise our inner world is being disturbed so we do not address it early enough. Let me give you some possible warning signs

(a) a need to be in control


(b) a distrust of the motives of previously faithful friends


(c) obsessive patterns of behaviour ( which are a way of trying to cope with anxiety within)


(d) inability to relate to God in worship


(e) a proneness to being a recluse


(f) cannot cope with any change however good it may be


(g) difficulty in decision making


(h) difficulty in talking


(i) inability to honour others


(j) tendency to be negative or critical and thanksgiving seems hollow


(k) find it difficult to receive help


(l) you feel a distance between what you are as a Christian outwardly and what you are inwardly

We are still responsible for the choices we make. Here is some advice.

(a) Don’t stretch out into the new until you are settled on the inside. Important things can always wait. And it is seldom that urgent and important match.


(b) Hold to the old routines that you know are safe and good even when you do not want to.


(c) Avoid withdrawal, This can be like a drug that feels good but returns to sting you. Withdrawal also opens the way for addictions and other unhelpful choices to bring “comfort”


(d) recognise that you might not see things as they really are, so do not act on what you think until you have reached a place of rest inside.

When life in our outer world is tough we retreat to our inner world. Jesus designs us that way. We must however develop our inner world to match our outer world. Many adults fail to do this. They leave any focus on their inner world behind and continue though to develop their outer world. This is one of the reasons why so many find life crashing around them

Some Christian leaders have been stretched in their outer world into revival, or further Christian ministry, but their inner world was not developed to match this new outer world and into the gap between their inner and outer world, comfort addictions grew to their eventual downfall.

God is calling us to develop our inner world. He is calling us to pray together; to study the bible, to trust one another as friends, to gather as a network, and to be bold in all we do.. We have prayed for God to change our town, for people to come to find Him as Lord and Saviour, for churches to grow and lives to change. Let us indeed have an inner world to match when God answers our prayer so we are equipped from the inside to help foster the work of God in those we meet and the situations we face.


Jonathan Couper












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