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"Nudgement"

As we progress through the season of Lent, we are urged by the lectionary aa well as by the words spoken from the front of the churches to consider how we live and what we do with our lives. Many of us take up a new spiritual practise perhaps denying ourselves something we enjoy or adding something to our daily routine that we think will benefit our spiritual growth in the long run.  What we can seen to be doing is in fact judging our lives and then trying to make them  better by doing ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’.

Quite a while ago I received a note from one of the readers of this blog and it has stayed with me over the time since it landed in my inbox.

‘I just coined the term "nudgement" for myself this morning.  I was thinking of how EFM interprets "judgement" as something that surprises you or that you weren't expecting, which is a gentler notion of "judgement" than some of us grew up with, something that is enough out of the ordinary to urge us out of our ruts or old conceptions of things.  Maybe what we perceive of as a breaking of faith is an urge to a different kind of faith.... not that there aren't enough soul destroying events going on in the world and enough jerks to deceive us and enough rugs pulled out from under us to upset our nice calm lives, too!’

While I really like the word  ‘nudgement’, which seems to be infinitely softer than the word judgement and yet has a sense of forward movement to it, it also seems to express the sense of judgement the reader reminds us of  - ‘something that surprises you or that you weren’t expecting’. The examples the reader gives of just what those things are that surprise her or that she wasn't expecting, are surely things we have all experienced at one time or another.

But my question to myself [and to you] this Lenten season is do we recognize these things as ‘nudgements’? Do they surprise us? Do they urge us out of our rut? But more importantly, what are we being 'called' to do about them? 

 Have they, in fact, made any difference to our lives?

Comments

  1. J!July 27, 2019 at 8:29 PM

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  2. J!July 27, 2019 at 11:17 PM

    Interestingly, I just now thought of this concept, 'nudgments' while drafting a blog post on the differences between Christ's chastening of His own versus judgments to those who are not in Christ. To us who are saved, Jesus took upon Himself our judgment(s), but as we walk out our salvation, He lovingly disciplines us as disciples and pupils. Here's the rub: when we are not attentive to His nudgments, He ramps up the pressure because of His love. Eventually, with enough pressure, stronger nudgments may very quickly LOOK and FEEL like harsh judgments! Lesson: be daily attentive to learn, hear and follow His voice saying, 'This is the way. Walk in it.' In John 10, Jesus iteratively released faith-filled words about us, His future followers, concerning our ability to learn/know, hear and follow His voice. When we align our faith, words and actions with what He says about us, the FRUITS of His faith-filled words will develop and manifest in our lives. As we do, we will more easily perceive His nudgments, and will no longer require discipline that may look and feel like judgments. His nudgments will become less surprising, and we will more easily/quickly follow/obey them. Hope this is clear. Bless The Lord~
    J!
    Life in the Key of 'J!'

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