Home » Thoughts for the Week » Look to the horizons… (20 July)

Look to the horizons… (20 July)

This week’s thought was written by Beth Powney, EBA Regional Minister

‘Look to the horizons…’

I read this quote last week on the Lectio 365 app and it has stuck with me all week.

‘May [I] Know the wisdom of deep listening, the healing of wholesome words, the encouragement of the appreciative gaze, the decorum of held dignity.  The springtime edge of the bleak question.  May [I] have a mind that loves frontiers so that [I] can evoke bright fields that lie beyond the view of the regular eye.  May [I] have good friends to mirror [my] blind spots.  May leadership be for [me] a true adventure of growth.’ (John O Donohue quoted in the Lectio 365 app 13^th July 2022)

As you read this, I wonder which phrase jumps out at you?  For me, today (and it is a different one each time I read it) it is this one:  ‘May [I] have a mind that loves frontiers so that [I] can evoke bright fields that lie beyond the view of the regular eye.’

As someone who regularly drives across the Cambridgeshire or Norfolk fens, as I read the phrase  ‘evoke fields that lie beyond the view of the regular eye’  I immediately think of a hundred different scenes that I have viewed across those fertile fields where horizon and sky meet so clearly in the distance.  It is the seeing so far into the distance, unhindered which appeals to me and which I will miss.  I think these views can cause you to look beyond and think beyond the present moment and situation.  I believe that often in our lives our sight is often impeded by preconceptions, stumbling blocks, past disappointments, thoughts of ‘if only’ so that we struggle to see the ‘ fields that lie beyond…the regular eye’.

On holiday I read a book (non-fiction) called ‘Brave Hearted’ by Katie Hickman, which was about the frontier women of the American West.  A staggering, sometimes shocking and incredible book bringing to life these long forgotten frontier women.  They saw the bright fields beyond, they saw and embraced a distant frontier, sometimes with no choice, sometimes with great intention.  It made me think about how small I keep my horizons.

I wonder are we able to let God cause us to gaze far into the distant horizon, as if there were no barrier to what could be?  Are we able to embrace with Him, unknown frontiers which may come to us intentionally or unintentionally?  Are we willing to look beyond and believe in bright fields which are white for the harvest for Jesus?  I pray that we each will.