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What is born of the Flesh
is Flesh ... Fr Chris Thomas from the Emmaus Family of Prayer writes about the importance of listeningto the Holy Spirit and being guided by God in our plans instead of relying on our own strength
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At a recent editorial meeting we sat around the table in Allen Hall and prayed. As we prayed one of our group read from John's Gospel "What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is born of the spirit is spirit". When he finished reading it John said 'that's from John chapter 3 verse 6, I nearly fell off my chair as that reference to that Scripture, John 3:6, had been in my mind from the moment we began to pray. I hadn't had a Bible to my hand and so the Lord had obviously used someone who had. It was a reminder to us as a group that listening to God and allowing God to work within us is of paramount importance when attempting to proclaim the gospel. Not to listen and not to allow the Spirit to work within us deeply converting us daily to the things of God is to begin to make the mistake of doing things in our own strength rather than in the strength of God. I don't know what to do When I was appointed to St Helen's in 1985 as a Youth Chaplain things fell apart. What had been a thriving town Youth service became a shadow of its former self. I tried everything. I ran programmes of different types. I organised Youth days and Youth retreats. The numbers continued to fall until the moment came when a day was organised and no young people turned up at all. I was a failure! I'd ruined the work with young people. I was no good at it. I can remember in my prayer time crying and saying to God 'I don't know what to do.' Within seconds the answer was there. In the depth of my being I knew that I was to go to the town centre parish and celebrate Mass. I went not knowing where it would lead. The first night twenty young people came. Within a year almost 100 young people were gathering every week. Out of that group grew a retreat team that would work with other young people on parish days. We had a music group who were known all over the diocese. We had young people trained to work in schools sharing their faith with others. Difference between good ideas and God ideas Nothing I'd done before had been wrong. It had all been good but there's a difference between good ideas and God ideas. It was only when I had seemingly failed that I was able to hear what God wanted. What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is born of the spirit is spirit. The phrase comes from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus who we hear came by night to see Him. Nicodemus is a man living deeply in the flesh doing things in his own strength as all the Pharisees did - keeping the law and fulfilling their obligations. Relying on themselves in much the same way as I had relied on myself all those years ago in St Helens. Letting go and letting God be God
Nicodemus has to be willing to let go of the manipulation and power that has been the focus for him and the other Pharisees. Letting go and abandonment are the only ways to know the truth of love. 'So Nicodemus,' says Jesus 'are you prepared to surrender to the power of love.' In the same way how prepared are we to surrender to the power of love. Until we do we'll operate from the flesh and the ego and our own strength rather than from the power of God within us. Most of the time we're afraid to let love move at will because of where that might lead us and so we retreat into our own strength and our own ways of doing things. It's scary to hand over control and to let go. It's only when we have the courage to do that however that we begin to recognise what God wants. So the invitation is to go to Jesus and let him teach you through the power of the ever-creative Spirit. It's then in the power of that Spirit that we go out to the world proclaiming the power of God's love.
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Nicodemus
is invited to open himself to the power of the creating a Spirit,
the power of unconditional love and let God do what God wants to do.
That can be difficult for us to do. We like to hold on and keep control
and sometimes we have to fail badly as I did, before we'll hand things
over and let God show us the way. 
