Green Living

International travel is a discombobulating thing. You wake up in the oldest parish in the Kingdom, and you go to bed in the Bible belt. One day you're at Tescos in a small but perfectly formed market town, the next, you're pondering BBQ pigs feet. The only thing that really stayed the same was the hideous weather both sides of the Atlantic, weather that we avoided thanks to the quick thinking and re-routing of a very helpful United check-in man.

But for all the thousands of miles clocked up above an ocean since 2008, it's always been crossing the border that's been the most fun. Before i got my green card early last year, i had a visa for entry into the USA, and i was often pulled into secondary, as i came back from England. Secondary is the place where you spend time proving to the TSA agents that you are who you say you are, and wonder when you'll be let through those door to carry on your life as normal. Now i've got a Green Card i don't need to do that any more. I line up with Rachel, and the border agent takes my finger prints and lets me though. There's nothing to worry about. I live here, they're expecting me, i'm home.

But still i get nervous. They start building as i get off the plane and build to a crescendo as i join the back of the line. It's daft and it's pointless. 'Permanent Resident,' the card says, remember who you are.

Remember who you are. Isn't that the point of discipleship? Remember that in Christ you are looked on, loved, and listening to as God's own Son. Remember that He stands there, speaking for you, defending you. Remember who you are, permanent resident, remember who you are born again son.

Remember who you are and quit panicking as your cross the border. Remember the forms and the background checks? Remember who you are, and stop doubting God's love for you Christian. Remember His blood, His resurrection.

So discipleship becomes remembering, and reminding others who you are. Your spiritual equilibrium has been knocked sideways by sin? Well, you knew you were sick when you came to the doctor right? Your joy is being sapped by disobedience? Then remember who you are, and go, sin no more.

Bible reading becomes a feast at the family table, not a to do list. I stop worrying how i can be like the Patriarchs and realize they were basically sinful men whose only hope was God. I've got that covered!

 If we are to grow and thrive in 2014, it must be a year of remembering who we are. Empty by ourselves, but filled in Him. Dead by ourselves, by alive in Him, outside by ourselves, but brought in and welcomes by an eternal life, despite ourselves, because of Him.