Stand Up For....

"Stand up for your rights!" - you hear it a lot these days. We seem to be obsessed by our "rights" - and what we consider to be our basic rights seem to be getting more and complicated as we go forward. And I'm a believer in a lot of the basic things that are defined as human rights - equality, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and conscience are all things that are very important to me, even if my reason for believing in these things is perhaps different from the secular view.

But, the thing I struggle with is that, almost inevitably it seems, when we stand up for our own rights, we are trampling over the rights of others - so often, as we assert our right, it is at the expense of someone else's. But because we are individuals, living in an individualistic world, then we seem to think its okay to do that - we stand up for our rights, they stand up for theirs, and somewhere, where they clash, we try and hammer out (often through the courts) some understanding of which rights are more important, and therefore who gets their own way this time. 

Wouldn't life be different, if, instead of spending our time trying to assert our own rights, trying to stamp our feet and make sure we don't miss out on our dues, we put the same amount of time, energy and effort, into making sure that the things we do, the choices we make, don't impinge on the rights of other people. A world where people looked out for others first, and ourselves a distant second, a world where instead of looking for fault in other people we took a long hard look at ourselves first. Perhaps someone should suggest.... or indeed, perhaps they already have...

You never know, it might take off - perhaps we could call it "community"!

 

Out of Control!

I don't usually think of myself as a control freak. To be honest, I'm not really organised enough to be a control freak - usually I manage to get myself to the right place at the right time with the right things I need, and if I've managed that, then I've done alright - for anything more complicated I rely on the wonders of an electronic diary and of my fabulously organised wife!

So, being completely in control isn't usually something that worries me. But this week, I've felt completely and totally out of control, and I haven't liked that feeling much. Most people reading this will probably know that we're in the middle of some pretty major building work at home at the moment, and the challenge of juggling the main contractor and the things we need to do for him, along with the plasterer, plumber, electrician, carpet fitters and decorators - alongside the fun of annual insurance renewals, MOTs, Car Tax its just getting too much - and thats without considering my paid job or my voluntary role as Church Treasurer! At the moment I feel very much like a juggler who has just dropped most of his balls and doesn't know how to pick the dropped ones up without also dropping the few that are still circling!

And yet, Psalm 46 tells me:-

"He says, 'be still and know that I am God

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth'"

Where in my schedule do I have time to stop and be still - and yet, unless I do, the world is going to keep spinning around me, more and more balls tumbling to the ground... Perhaps its time to stop writing about this and start trusting in the God who manages and sustains an infinitely more complicated building project than our loft conversion - the entirety of history - and still has time to love and care about me...