I once got into a debate about the first question that God asks Adam in the Garden of Eden – the “Adam, where are you?” question. I have heard it preached that God knew exactly where Adam was hiding. He didn’t ask the question because he didn’t know. He asked the question so that Adam would have the opportunity to confess and open up. My friend argued differently. God, walking in the garden in the cool of the evening – well, that was God in human form, walking, as in Jesus. In human form God doesn’t know everything. In human form he has the same limitations as every other human being. I am not sure that I agree with him.
At the end of the gospel of John, there is another question asked. This time it is Jesus asking Peter whether he loves him. He asks him three times. Some people will pick up on the number three and say that asking the question three times corresponds in some way to the three times that Peter denied that he knew Jesus. There are other people who will delve into the various Greek words for love used in the passage. Jesus was asking for a different kind of love, a self sacrificing love, and all Peter could offer was a friendship kind of love. Eventually Jesus concedes that friendship, for now, is enough. Perhaps Peter had realised in denying that he knew Jesus, he hadn’t shown any of the self sacrificing love then, and perhaps in a similar situation he would behave the same, and Jesus needed to know that. He couldn’t make any guarantees that he wouldn’t let Jesus down again. No more brash promises this time. No more passionate declarations. He knew his limitations.
I got to thinking about this whole question thing. Peter’s third answer contains the declaration “Lord, you know all things.” If God already knew where Adam was, and Jesus already knew the level of love Peter was capable of giving – why do they ask the question anyway?
Sometimes there are questions that we will not ask ourselves. Adam, after he had eaten the forbidden fruit, might have had a lot of questions buzzing around in his head. Why on earth did I eat the stupid apple? What have I done? What will happen when God finds out? How could I have been so stupid? Sometimes when you put something into words it makes it real, not that it wasn’t real before. Words are creative. Perhaps silence is a way of trying to prevent creation in some sense. Until you say it, it isn’t real.
By asking the question, God is inviting us say something that needs to be said so that we can move on. God did not want Adam to spend the rest of his life hiding behind trees in the Garden of Eden. Once the rebellion, the disobedience is out in the open and acknowledged, the relationship between God and Adam is redefined and Adam left Eden to begin a different stage of his life.
Sometimes the question is asked so that we can voice the answer and prove that we know it for ourselves. Peter is not just telling Jesus what kind of love he is capable of showing, but also telling himself. Maybe in the telling other people are eavesdropping. The disciples need to know that in the absence of Jesus that they can rely on Peter to not desert them.
I hesitate to think about the questions that God, or Jesus, might be asking me because I am too afraid to ask those questions myself. Asking questions is like testing and probing and that can be an uncomfortable thing. Sometimes we would rather not know. When my eldest sister was first diagnosed with diabetes, her doctor told her to tell the rest of us to get tested. My mum was diabetic, now she was and perhaps that meant it was inherited. I put it off for a while, but eventually underwent the tests to discover I was OK. Another of my sisters just refused. She decided that she would rather not know.
Maybe all that Jesus really needed to hear wasn’t that Peter loved him, but that Peter knew “Lord, you know all things.” When we know that He knows all things we can be secure.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A Tale of Two Houses
I seem to remember someone telling me a story a long time ago to describe what happens when a person becomes a Christian.
It’s like a person living in a house that comes under the ownership of a new landlord. Things begin to change. The new landlord for example installs double glazing, so out goes the old wooden frames, which, let’s admit it, were a bit rotten anyway. He has gets rid of the old boiler and puts in central heating. You have nice warm radiators about the place, on a timer switch. You are going to be making significant savings on your gas and electricity bills. The old bathroom suite, with the leaky taps, and the large stains are replaced with something white and gleaming, new wall and floor tiles too. The kitchen also gets the make-over. Gone are the old miss-matched cabinets and the fridge that hums noisily in the corner. He has even put a dishwasher in for you.
Sometimes the landlord consults you about the changes he is making; sometimes he just does it anyway. Like, for example, yellow wall paper in one of the bedrooms might not
be your first choice. You would prefer carpets to the wood flooring and the scattered rugs.
The place is shaping up really nicely. The landlord has invested a lot of time and energy and resources in the house and it has become a really nice place to be.
Then one morning there is a knock on the door. Don’t worry. It’s not the old landlord wanting his property back; although he has been known to shout swear words through the letterbox. The locks have been changed, and he can’t get in, and if he did, the landlord would have him arrested for trespassing. No, it’s the landlord with his arm around a stranger you have never met before.
“Come on in,” says the landlord, “Have a good look around. See what I have done to the house.”
Now this might be all well and good, if you weren’t still lounging around in your pyjamas, with your teeth un-brushed. As the stranger disappears into the kitchen to admire the dishwasher, the landlord turns to you to explain.
“When I became the landlord, the house became mine to do with as I wish. You live in the house, but it’s not really yours any longer. I didn’t make these changes just so you would have a more comfortable life. I want other people to be able to see that I’m a good landlord – the best there is. What better way than to show them your house?”
End of story. I will leave you to work out the meaning.
Early this morning I couldn’t remember what brought the story to mind. I am down to lead the meeting on Sunday and I might have been sifting through sermons I preached a long time ago, forgotten by now, that I could just dust off, breath new life into, resurrect if you will.
“What about part two?” said God, in his most obscure voice. “You know that life isn’t like that, the nice house, the make-over, the dishwasher and all that. What happens five years, or ten years down the line?”
What happens, apparently, is that one morning you wake up with a sore head. You are laying in the hall with a bruise the size of a duck’s egg. You don’t want to look too closely at the cricket bat someone hit you with. There might be blood on it. There’s been a break in.
You drag yourself into the sitting room. The television has gone the DVD player and the collection of DVDs. The ornaments off the shelf, which may not have any value to anyone but you, have been smashed one by one. The sofa has been disembowelled. Offensive graffiti has been sprayed over the walls. In the kitchen, all the cupboards have been emptied, the plates and cups smashed to smithereens, the packets of flour and sugar opened and emptied on the work tops. The microwave is missing and the door of the dishwasher has been wrenched off. The bathroom is bad. They have taken a sledgehammer to the tiles, and that brown stuff on the walls has a particularly foul smell. It’s definitely not brown paint.
There’s another knock at the door. It’s the landlord. Looking through the spy glass, he has a stranger with him. It’s not the man from the insurance. Actually, now you think about it, you know the man. He was the visitor you saw earlier – when you hadn’t had time to dress.
Are you going to open the door this time?
You see, that is my life right now! I had a break in (not in real life). The old landlord perhaps, or a gang of thugs he knew, couldn’t get through the door, so he bashed in a window. I didn’t invite him in, put the cricket bat in his hand and invite him to knock me unconscious. He just did it. He wreaked havoc. He destroyed things that meant nothing to anyone else, but everything to me. He left destruction everywhere.
The temptation is to lock the door. How can it help anyone to see me amidst all the damage?
Yesterday, a friend of mine was brave enough to unlock a door and invite me in to her heart. She had suffered a spiritual break-in and robbery. Her “house” had been ransacked and she was left in tears. She didn’t put a cloth in one hand and a bottle of detergent in another, but I found myself starting to gather up the fragments of the broken ornaments.
It’s what you do in those moments where a powerful testimony lays. I wish we never experience the break-ins, but we do. Let’s not lock the door, to each other, on our messes.
It’s like a person living in a house that comes under the ownership of a new landlord. Things begin to change. The new landlord for example installs double glazing, so out goes the old wooden frames, which, let’s admit it, were a bit rotten anyway. He has gets rid of the old boiler and puts in central heating. You have nice warm radiators about the place, on a timer switch. You are going to be making significant savings on your gas and electricity bills. The old bathroom suite, with the leaky taps, and the large stains are replaced with something white and gleaming, new wall and floor tiles too. The kitchen also gets the make-over. Gone are the old miss-matched cabinets and the fridge that hums noisily in the corner. He has even put a dishwasher in for you.
Sometimes the landlord consults you about the changes he is making; sometimes he just does it anyway. Like, for example, yellow wall paper in one of the bedrooms might not
be your first choice. You would prefer carpets to the wood flooring and the scattered rugs.
The place is shaping up really nicely. The landlord has invested a lot of time and energy and resources in the house and it has become a really nice place to be.
Then one morning there is a knock on the door. Don’t worry. It’s not the old landlord wanting his property back; although he has been known to shout swear words through the letterbox. The locks have been changed, and he can’t get in, and if he did, the landlord would have him arrested for trespassing. No, it’s the landlord with his arm around a stranger you have never met before.
“Come on in,” says the landlord, “Have a good look around. See what I have done to the house.”
Now this might be all well and good, if you weren’t still lounging around in your pyjamas, with your teeth un-brushed. As the stranger disappears into the kitchen to admire the dishwasher, the landlord turns to you to explain.
“When I became the landlord, the house became mine to do with as I wish. You live in the house, but it’s not really yours any longer. I didn’t make these changes just so you would have a more comfortable life. I want other people to be able to see that I’m a good landlord – the best there is. What better way than to show them your house?”
End of story. I will leave you to work out the meaning.
Early this morning I couldn’t remember what brought the story to mind. I am down to lead the meeting on Sunday and I might have been sifting through sermons I preached a long time ago, forgotten by now, that I could just dust off, breath new life into, resurrect if you will.
“What about part two?” said God, in his most obscure voice. “You know that life isn’t like that, the nice house, the make-over, the dishwasher and all that. What happens five years, or ten years down the line?”
What happens, apparently, is that one morning you wake up with a sore head. You are laying in the hall with a bruise the size of a duck’s egg. You don’t want to look too closely at the cricket bat someone hit you with. There might be blood on it. There’s been a break in.
You drag yourself into the sitting room. The television has gone the DVD player and the collection of DVDs. The ornaments off the shelf, which may not have any value to anyone but you, have been smashed one by one. The sofa has been disembowelled. Offensive graffiti has been sprayed over the walls. In the kitchen, all the cupboards have been emptied, the plates and cups smashed to smithereens, the packets of flour and sugar opened and emptied on the work tops. The microwave is missing and the door of the dishwasher has been wrenched off. The bathroom is bad. They have taken a sledgehammer to the tiles, and that brown stuff on the walls has a particularly foul smell. It’s definitely not brown paint.
There’s another knock at the door. It’s the landlord. Looking through the spy glass, he has a stranger with him. It’s not the man from the insurance. Actually, now you think about it, you know the man. He was the visitor you saw earlier – when you hadn’t had time to dress.
Are you going to open the door this time?
You see, that is my life right now! I had a break in (not in real life). The old landlord perhaps, or a gang of thugs he knew, couldn’t get through the door, so he bashed in a window. I didn’t invite him in, put the cricket bat in his hand and invite him to knock me unconscious. He just did it. He wreaked havoc. He destroyed things that meant nothing to anyone else, but everything to me. He left destruction everywhere.
The temptation is to lock the door. How can it help anyone to see me amidst all the damage?
Yesterday, a friend of mine was brave enough to unlock a door and invite me in to her heart. She had suffered a spiritual break-in and robbery. Her “house” had been ransacked and she was left in tears. She didn’t put a cloth in one hand and a bottle of detergent in another, but I found myself starting to gather up the fragments of the broken ornaments.
It’s what you do in those moments where a powerful testimony lays. I wish we never experience the break-ins, but we do. Let’s not lock the door, to each other, on our messes.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
On being a Sloth
I am not sure if this is an endearing quality or not, probably not after sixteen or seventeen years, but my husband has a tendency to repeat a story, telling it as if he hasn’t already told me. I used to interrupt and provide the ending, but now I listen as he tells me (for the umpteenth time). He gets so much delight in the telling, and I don’t want to spoil that!
Perhaps I am slowly turning into my husband, but I am also repeating stories! This morning I was reading an e-zine, an on line magazine written by Christian ladies. One of the articles that caught my interest was one in a series about the seven deadly sins, not in this case Celtic football clubs back line of defenders!) Today was the turn of sloth.
The emphasis of the article wasn’t about pure laziness or anything, but how it related to our walk of faith. Wikipedia defines sloth as “spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive”. The lady who wrote the article defined it as “the failure to utilize ones talents and gifts”. I am not even going to pretend that I can make the excuse that I don’t know what my talents and gifts are. I don’t always put myself in an environment where I can put them to use. Our church is involved in a coffee shop/chat/fellowship event called “Catalyst”, so I headed down to see if there was something I could contribute.
I am not at my most comfortable talking to people I don’t know, but that wasn’t required of me. I fell into conversation with a lady I met there before. After half an hour or so, we stopped talking and my friend looked at me and said, “We’ve had this conversation before!”
How many months ago? Two, possibly three months the conversation had turned to gift and talents, and the things that we could be doing to utilize them. Neither of us are “utilizers”. We know what the gifts are, and can see areas where we can put those gifts into action. But, sadly, that’s where it all stops…at the planning stage. Part of it is that we are not entirely convinced that we can do what we think we can do. What if it all goes belly-up and we are left with egg on our faces?
I was reading about faith this morning – Hebrews 11 faith – that marvellous line up of faith heroes (and heroines!). “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” We may heave learned the verse off by heart, but I living it is a little more challenging. There are no foolproof guarantees that the things we could be doing to utilize our gifts and talents will not go belly-up. But there again, we won’t know until we try it.
I think we both tried to take another step forward – to make ourselves accountable to each other to take that next step. We didn’t really succeed. Neither of us would just say to the other “Let’s go for it and see what happens!” I guess that makes the two of us sloths.
Catalysts cause changes to happen. I rather think this conversation has caused a tiny change in me to happen. I don’t want to be a sloth. I desperately want to utilize the gifts and talents I have. I want to do that much more that I want to avoid egg on my face! We are stepping forward…just a millimetre!
Perhaps I am slowly turning into my husband, but I am also repeating stories! This morning I was reading an e-zine, an on line magazine written by Christian ladies. One of the articles that caught my interest was one in a series about the seven deadly sins, not in this case Celtic football clubs back line of defenders!) Today was the turn of sloth.
The emphasis of the article wasn’t about pure laziness or anything, but how it related to our walk of faith. Wikipedia defines sloth as “spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive”. The lady who wrote the article defined it as “the failure to utilize ones talents and gifts”. I am not even going to pretend that I can make the excuse that I don’t know what my talents and gifts are. I don’t always put myself in an environment where I can put them to use. Our church is involved in a coffee shop/chat/fellowship event called “Catalyst”, so I headed down to see if there was something I could contribute.
I am not at my most comfortable talking to people I don’t know, but that wasn’t required of me. I fell into conversation with a lady I met there before. After half an hour or so, we stopped talking and my friend looked at me and said, “We’ve had this conversation before!”
How many months ago? Two, possibly three months the conversation had turned to gift and talents, and the things that we could be doing to utilize them. Neither of us are “utilizers”. We know what the gifts are, and can see areas where we can put those gifts into action. But, sadly, that’s where it all stops…at the planning stage. Part of it is that we are not entirely convinced that we can do what we think we can do. What if it all goes belly-up and we are left with egg on our faces?
I was reading about faith this morning – Hebrews 11 faith – that marvellous line up of faith heroes (and heroines!). “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” We may heave learned the verse off by heart, but I living it is a little more challenging. There are no foolproof guarantees that the things we could be doing to utilize our gifts and talents will not go belly-up. But there again, we won’t know until we try it.
I think we both tried to take another step forward – to make ourselves accountable to each other to take that next step. We didn’t really succeed. Neither of us would just say to the other “Let’s go for it and see what happens!” I guess that makes the two of us sloths.
Catalysts cause changes to happen. I rather think this conversation has caused a tiny change in me to happen. I don’t want to be a sloth. I desperately want to utilize the gifts and talents I have. I want to do that much more that I want to avoid egg on my face! We are stepping forward…just a millimetre!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Paul Not With You
My family have a particular way of greeting me when I have gone down to visit on my own. It consists of looking over my shoulder as I walk through the door and saying, “Joe not with you?” There is more than a tinge of disappointment in the voice and the smile flickers just a little. Joe doesn’t believe it happens, but then, he has never been a witness to it happening. He wondered when I went over to Spain to visit Mike whether anyone there would look over my shoulder, as I walked through a door and ask, “¿Dónde está Joseppi?”
I rather think that when Barnabas arrived in Cyprus that there were more than a few people looking over his shoulder asking the question, “Paul not with you?” as their gaze fell upon the strange young man, John Mark.
There had been a strong disagreement between Barnabas and Paul, not about where to go, but who to take along with them. John Mark had let them down before and Paul wasn’t about to trust him a second time. Barnabas was not about to abandon John Mark, so Paul and Barnabas parted company.
As I was reading the account I wondered…
Would Paul have ended up in a prison in Philippi if Barnabas had been with him? I don’t know if Barnabas was Paul’s voice of reason, reigning in his passion and zeal which could be scary at times.
How did John Mark feel about being the cause of the split? I can’t imagine that there wasn’t a lot of side-taking over the whole issue. The congregation seemed to pray over Paul and Silas before they sent them off, but Barnabas and John Mark seemed to leave without anyone waving goodbye.
How did Silas feel filling Barnabas’ shoes? It’s like Alias Smith and Jones when Pete Duel steps out of the role to let the other guy take over. Are there always going to be awkward comparisons?
Did Paul remember the day when Barnabas turned up in Tarsus one morning inviting him to join him in Antioch? The disciples had written Paul off. They were not sure how ex-an-enemy of the church he was and whether he could be trusted, but Barnabas saw something in him to be nurtured and encouraged. Barnabas trusted Paul where others wouldn’t…now Paul was “the others” not trusting John Mark to come good in the end. He came good in the end, and when Paul was in prison, he specifically asked Timothy to send John Mark to serve him.
Would I want to be John Mark with Barnabas, or Silas with Paul? Let me be John Mark any day. I fear that I am a slow learner who needs gentle nurturing, not a wild adventurer that clings on to Paul’s white knuckle roller coaster ride.
I rather think that when Barnabas arrived in Cyprus that there were more than a few people looking over his shoulder asking the question, “Paul not with you?” as their gaze fell upon the strange young man, John Mark.
There had been a strong disagreement between Barnabas and Paul, not about where to go, but who to take along with them. John Mark had let them down before and Paul wasn’t about to trust him a second time. Barnabas was not about to abandon John Mark, so Paul and Barnabas parted company.
As I was reading the account I wondered…
Would Paul have ended up in a prison in Philippi if Barnabas had been with him? I don’t know if Barnabas was Paul’s voice of reason, reigning in his passion and zeal which could be scary at times.
How did John Mark feel about being the cause of the split? I can’t imagine that there wasn’t a lot of side-taking over the whole issue. The congregation seemed to pray over Paul and Silas before they sent them off, but Barnabas and John Mark seemed to leave without anyone waving goodbye.
How did Silas feel filling Barnabas’ shoes? It’s like Alias Smith and Jones when Pete Duel steps out of the role to let the other guy take over. Are there always going to be awkward comparisons?
Did Paul remember the day when Barnabas turned up in Tarsus one morning inviting him to join him in Antioch? The disciples had written Paul off. They were not sure how ex-an-enemy of the church he was and whether he could be trusted, but Barnabas saw something in him to be nurtured and encouraged. Barnabas trusted Paul where others wouldn’t…now Paul was “the others” not trusting John Mark to come good in the end. He came good in the end, and when Paul was in prison, he specifically asked Timothy to send John Mark to serve him.
Would I want to be John Mark with Barnabas, or Silas with Paul? Let me be John Mark any day. I fear that I am a slow learner who needs gentle nurturing, not a wild adventurer that clings on to Paul’s white knuckle roller coaster ride.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
I Sing Because I’m Free
It’s not often that you hear loud, exuberant singing anywhere these days outside of football grounds. Our workplace was privileged to have a group of young Zulu warriors perform a routine of songs and dances.
It was all very energetic. The dances were done to the beat of a single drum and it brought to mind the old Tarzan films, or that golden oldie of a series “Daktari”. It was very atmospheric, even in the confines of a modern hall with bleacher seating. There was nothing sedate about the dances – lots of stamping, shaking spears and shields and scary chants.
In between the dances, they sang some wonderful gospel hymns. One young lady sang a solo “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. It was far better than anything that the X-Factor auditions have come out with. Her voice – she hit every note crystal clear!
The song lyrics are amazing anyway, but when you know that the person singing them has every reason to curse God rather than praise Him, the effect is even more uplifting. The young people come from Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa. HIV and Aids are serious problems, dragging families into poverty - no running water, no electricity, no health services and no employment opportunities. It makes you wonder where God is in all of that.
The chorus of the song has the lines “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free”. Hearing the young lady sing those words, so powerfully, really spoke to me. I had been thinking about singing earlier on in the week. I had been reading Psalm 125, a psalm of ascent. The idea of actually singing while ascending a hill or mountain genearally doesn’t occur to me – I’m too busy trying to breath. The idea of singing while climbing a metaphorical mountain, times of sorrow and hardship, doesn't always occur to me either – I’m too busy wiping away tears!
So, yes, the whole singing thing! In church, lately, I have not participated as vocally as I used to. Partly, it’s the nature of some of the songs – although they might express what I feel, the tunes are a little challenging – moving octaves and stuff.
“I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free”.
I am free, but I don’t always live like I’m free.
I don’t have any visible shackles or chains, but I allow other people to bind me with invisible ones by the way I seek their approval, and mould my life to meet their expectations. I sometimes allow difficult circumstances to tie me up. My freedom has been hard won. It is something to be treasured, not casually or carelessly bartered away.
It’s time to start living like I’m free.
It was all very energetic. The dances were done to the beat of a single drum and it brought to mind the old Tarzan films, or that golden oldie of a series “Daktari”. It was very atmospheric, even in the confines of a modern hall with bleacher seating. There was nothing sedate about the dances – lots of stamping, shaking spears and shields and scary chants.
In between the dances, they sang some wonderful gospel hymns. One young lady sang a solo “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. It was far better than anything that the X-Factor auditions have come out with. Her voice – she hit every note crystal clear!
The song lyrics are amazing anyway, but when you know that the person singing them has every reason to curse God rather than praise Him, the effect is even more uplifting. The young people come from Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa. HIV and Aids are serious problems, dragging families into poverty - no running water, no electricity, no health services and no employment opportunities. It makes you wonder where God is in all of that.
The chorus of the song has the lines “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free”. Hearing the young lady sing those words, so powerfully, really spoke to me. I had been thinking about singing earlier on in the week. I had been reading Psalm 125, a psalm of ascent. The idea of actually singing while ascending a hill or mountain genearally doesn’t occur to me – I’m too busy trying to breath. The idea of singing while climbing a metaphorical mountain, times of sorrow and hardship, doesn't always occur to me either – I’m too busy wiping away tears!
So, yes, the whole singing thing! In church, lately, I have not participated as vocally as I used to. Partly, it’s the nature of some of the songs – although they might express what I feel, the tunes are a little challenging – moving octaves and stuff.
“I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free”.
I am free, but I don’t always live like I’m free.
I don’t have any visible shackles or chains, but I allow other people to bind me with invisible ones by the way I seek their approval, and mould my life to meet their expectations. I sometimes allow difficult circumstances to tie me up. My freedom has been hard won. It is something to be treasured, not casually or carelessly bartered away.
It’s time to start living like I’m free.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
You’re Amazing!!!!!!!!!!
There was a newspaper article a few weeks ago where Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church for England and Wales (note the absence of Scotland there!), suggested that social networking websites, texting and e-mails were undermining community life. People were no longer having face to face encounters with real people, but were stuck behind a computer, or hunched over a mobile phone, “talking” to cyber friends. People were losing the skill of reading a person's mood or body language. It was all having a very "dehumanising" effect on our lives.
I doubt that I would ever have found my brother Mike without Facebook. I can’t see that Mike would have written a letter, or made a telephone call or simply just turned up on my doorstep one sunny afternoon. It is more likely that being on the computer anyway, writing one of his witty articles for Costa Life Magazine, he would have popped over to Facebook to see who was posting…and found me.
I confess to liking Facebook! I have 72 “friends” some of whom I have met face to face, some of whom I share more than a few chromosomes with and some whose names I know from the interests we have in common. There are one or two genuine “strangers”.
What I really like about Facebook at the moment is one of the messages that pop up in my notifications. It says, in capital letters “YOU’RE AMAZING!!!!!!!!” It is linked to an on going poll about who likes who! I rarely make the top ten of the best liked among my friends, but I find that the words YOU’RE AMAZING lift my spirit! It may only be a computer generated message to tell me to waste a little bit more time selecting ten of my pals to nominate, but sometimes I just need to be reminded that I am, indeed, amazing!
I have to admit that I would rather someone told me face to face that I am amazing. Over this whole year so far I think I have been pretty amazing! We all need someone to tell us that we are amazing, rather than have them scrutinize our lives to highlight the not-so-amazing things that we do!
I challenge myself! Don’t leave it up to a computer generated message to say to someome “YOU’RE AMAZING!!!!!!!!”
I doubt that I would ever have found my brother Mike without Facebook. I can’t see that Mike would have written a letter, or made a telephone call or simply just turned up on my doorstep one sunny afternoon. It is more likely that being on the computer anyway, writing one of his witty articles for Costa Life Magazine, he would have popped over to Facebook to see who was posting…and found me.
I confess to liking Facebook! I have 72 “friends” some of whom I have met face to face, some of whom I share more than a few chromosomes with and some whose names I know from the interests we have in common. There are one or two genuine “strangers”.
What I really like about Facebook at the moment is one of the messages that pop up in my notifications. It says, in capital letters “YOU’RE AMAZING!!!!!!!!” It is linked to an on going poll about who likes who! I rarely make the top ten of the best liked among my friends, but I find that the words YOU’RE AMAZING lift my spirit! It may only be a computer generated message to tell me to waste a little bit more time selecting ten of my pals to nominate, but sometimes I just need to be reminded that I am, indeed, amazing!
I have to admit that I would rather someone told me face to face that I am amazing. Over this whole year so far I think I have been pretty amazing! We all need someone to tell us that we are amazing, rather than have them scrutinize our lives to highlight the not-so-amazing things that we do!
I challenge myself! Don’t leave it up to a computer generated message to say to someome “YOU’RE AMAZING!!!!!!!!”
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Because He Loves Me
"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation."
God loving me is something that to me is a given. It’s knowledge that is so deeply embedded into my heart and woven into my spirit, that I never doubt it.
The times when the storm clouds gather, the sea begins to churn and my little boat of a life is tossed about and on the brink of being engulfed, it never occurs to me that God has stopped loving me.
I have never posed the question “If God loves me, why do bad things happen to me?” Bad things just happen. It’s a fact of life.
Is me loving God also a given? Is the knowledge of my love so deeply embedded in His heart and woven into His Spirit, that He never doubts it?
“Because he loves me…” isn’t “if he loves me” or “when he loves me” or “for as long as he loves me”. God knows my heart. When Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, it wasn’t some insecure person needing affirmation who was asking. When he asked Peter the question, he already knew the answer. He asked it to give Peter the opportunity to know the answer for himself. In knowing the answer, Peter has a security that armed him for the battle to come.
“Because he loves me” isn’t “because he reads the Bible” or “because he prays” or “because he goes to church every Sunday”. I could do all those things and they might not be an act of love at all. Because I love him, I do all those things because they give me the chance to draw near and spend time with the one I love.
Today, when I read the words “Because he loves me..” I knew they were words spoken to me by God. He knows that I love him.
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation."
God loving me is something that to me is a given. It’s knowledge that is so deeply embedded into my heart and woven into my spirit, that I never doubt it.
The times when the storm clouds gather, the sea begins to churn and my little boat of a life is tossed about and on the brink of being engulfed, it never occurs to me that God has stopped loving me.
I have never posed the question “If God loves me, why do bad things happen to me?” Bad things just happen. It’s a fact of life.
Is me loving God also a given? Is the knowledge of my love so deeply embedded in His heart and woven into His Spirit, that He never doubts it?
“Because he loves me…” isn’t “if he loves me” or “when he loves me” or “for as long as he loves me”. God knows my heart. When Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, it wasn’t some insecure person needing affirmation who was asking. When he asked Peter the question, he already knew the answer. He asked it to give Peter the opportunity to know the answer for himself. In knowing the answer, Peter has a security that armed him for the battle to come.
“Because he loves me” isn’t “because he reads the Bible” or “because he prays” or “because he goes to church every Sunday”. I could do all those things and they might not be an act of love at all. Because I love him, I do all those things because they give me the chance to draw near and spend time with the one I love.
Today, when I read the words “Because he loves me..” I knew they were words spoken to me by God. He knows that I love him.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Talking Hands
“When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively.” (Matthew 6:3 The Message)
This is the bit in Matthew about giving, and not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. It’s about being open handed and generous and not keeping accounts, or collecting Brownie points or Blue Peter badges along the way.
I am thinking how hard it is to give quietly and unobtrusively.
My right hand would like to do a bit of boasting to my left hand. My right hand would like to list every good gift given, or deed done, neatly in some leather bound ledger, carefully add up all of the numbers, climb up on a rostrum beneath a million lights and present some kind of medal to itself. Yes, my right hand thinks some kind of reward is in order. My right hand is worried about being taken for granted.
My left hand is trying to remind the right hand that God is more than aware, not just of the gifts given and the deed done, but also the thoughts behind the gifts and the deeds! The state of the heart matters more than the gifts or the deeds.
My right hand doesn’t want to listen to my left hand. My right hand knows my left hand is speaking the truth…but sometimes truth hurts. My right hand wants its five minutes on the soap box! It wants its moment of glory.
My left hand wants all the glory to go to God.
My right hand, deep down, wants the same.
Together, both hands are lifted to the heavens in praise to God. Without Him there would be nothing to give, and no one to share it with!
This is the bit in Matthew about giving, and not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. It’s about being open handed and generous and not keeping accounts, or collecting Brownie points or Blue Peter badges along the way.
I am thinking how hard it is to give quietly and unobtrusively.
My right hand would like to do a bit of boasting to my left hand. My right hand would like to list every good gift given, or deed done, neatly in some leather bound ledger, carefully add up all of the numbers, climb up on a rostrum beneath a million lights and present some kind of medal to itself. Yes, my right hand thinks some kind of reward is in order. My right hand is worried about being taken for granted.
My left hand is trying to remind the right hand that God is more than aware, not just of the gifts given and the deed done, but also the thoughts behind the gifts and the deeds! The state of the heart matters more than the gifts or the deeds.
My right hand doesn’t want to listen to my left hand. My right hand knows my left hand is speaking the truth…but sometimes truth hurts. My right hand wants its five minutes on the soap box! It wants its moment of glory.
My left hand wants all the glory to go to God.
My right hand, deep down, wants the same.
Together, both hands are lifted to the heavens in praise to God. Without Him there would be nothing to give, and no one to share it with!
Monday, September 14, 2009
A single golf ball
Abundance is defined as “an extremely plentiful or over-sufficient quantity or supply”
Take for example golf balls. Just right now we have an extremely plentiful and over-sufficient quantity of them in our house, in a broken brown leather hold-all just beside the backdoor.
A friend of ours works at the city’s recycling centre. My husband mentioned to him in passing that he was on the look-out for a set of golf clubs. Last year sometime, he and a friend at work knocked a few golf balls into a few holes – not a proper round by any means, just a few holes. I don’t think the words “natural talent” came into their conversations, but they enjoyed themselves.
On our next visit to the recycling centre, with the flair of a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat, our friend showed Joe three sets of golf clubs. He chose one set and spent the afternoon, splashing around in the kitchen sink, washing and polishing each club. Only the putter was missing.
Another message to our friend and he turned up in the doorstep with half a dozen putters, the leather hold-all bursting with golf balls and a carrier bag full of multi-coloured tees.
Imagine if Tiger Woods had just the one single golf ball to play his tournament with. Just one little white ball with its two hundred to three hundred little dimples on it. Imagine if his wife told him that if he lost that one ball, his life as a golfer would be over. How would that affect the way he played the game? Would he play any risky shots?
My husband could play a different ball for every hole on the golf course, week in, week out, for the next few years and still have golf balls to spare. He doesn’t need to play safe because he has an abundance of balls in a brown leather hold-all just beside the back door. He can loose balls by the dozen and there are always more balls to play with!
Sometimes we live our Christian lives like we are playing golf with a single ball. We play so safe and take so few risks worrying about loosing the little we think we have. We don’t seem to realize that God has given us access to His abundant resources – like the brown leather hold-all just beside the back door.
We can give, and give and keeping giving to the needy world that we live in and always have more to give away.
Let’s stop playing with a single golf ball!
Take for example golf balls. Just right now we have an extremely plentiful and over-sufficient quantity of them in our house, in a broken brown leather hold-all just beside the backdoor. A friend of ours works at the city’s recycling centre. My husband mentioned to him in passing that he was on the look-out for a set of golf clubs. Last year sometime, he and a friend at work knocked a few golf balls into a few holes – not a proper round by any means, just a few holes. I don’t think the words “natural talent” came into their conversations, but they enjoyed themselves.
On our next visit to the recycling centre, with the flair of a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat, our friend showed Joe three sets of golf clubs. He chose one set and spent the afternoon, splashing around in the kitchen sink, washing and polishing each club. Only the putter was missing.
Another message to our friend and he turned up in the doorstep with half a dozen putters, the leather hold-all bursting with golf balls and a carrier bag full of multi-coloured tees.
Imagine if Tiger Woods had just the one single golf ball to play his tournament with. Just one little white ball with its two hundred to three hundred little dimples on it. Imagine if his wife told him that if he lost that one ball, his life as a golfer would be over. How would that affect the way he played the game? Would he play any risky shots?
My husband could play a different ball for every hole on the golf course, week in, week out, for the next few years and still have golf balls to spare. He doesn’t need to play safe because he has an abundance of balls in a brown leather hold-all just beside the back door. He can loose balls by the dozen and there are always more balls to play with!
Sometimes we live our Christian lives like we are playing golf with a single ball. We play so safe and take so few risks worrying about loosing the little we think we have. We don’t seem to realize that God has given us access to His abundant resources – like the brown leather hold-all just beside the back door.
We can give, and give and keeping giving to the needy world that we live in and always have more to give away.
Let’s stop playing with a single golf ball!
Mike
Too late, we found each other, you and I
So little time together, then goodbye
We swapped our stories ‘neath a Spanish sun
Comparing scars from battles lost and won
You chose to fight alone, my help refused
Your heart, your spirit often battered, bruised
Our choices made, our paths would rarely meet
I missed you, felt sometimes, not quite complete
One day the door you’d closed was opened wide
Inviting me to come and step inside
Gone was the boy, the brother that was you
The man you were, I never really knew
Too short a time to laugh, to talk and share
To mend the bridges, broken things repair
We are strangers who discover we are friends
And share a sunset as the long day ends
(c) M J Kerr Sept 2009
So little time together, then goodbye
We swapped our stories ‘neath a Spanish sun
Comparing scars from battles lost and won
You chose to fight alone, my help refused
Your heart, your spirit often battered, bruised
Our choices made, our paths would rarely meet
I missed you, felt sometimes, not quite complete
One day the door you’d closed was opened wide
Inviting me to come and step inside
Gone was the boy, the brother that was you
The man you were, I never really knew
Too short a time to laugh, to talk and share
To mend the bridges, broken things repair
We are strangers who discover we are friends
And share a sunset as the long day ends
(c) M J Kerr Sept 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Eau de Anchovies
My husband has recently discovered that he likes anchovies. He has taken to asking for extra anchovies on things like pizza. For Christmas I tracked down a tube of anchovy paste, something that looks like a toothpaste tube, and he spreads it on his toast in the morning.
The tube is in the fridge. I wouldn’t say that it is a smelly tube, or that when I open the fridge door, a waft of anchovy smell floods out, but there is some kind of smell exchange going on.
My lunch the other day consisted of a tin of soup, a pot of yoghurt and a pear. The soup was untouched by the smell of anchovy, but the pot of yoghurt, not the yoghurt itself, just the pot, reeked of anchovy, and the pear, which hadn’t been in the fridge, but had nestled up against the yoghurt pot in my lunch bag, also stunk of anchovy!
The fragrance of anchovy was everywhere lunch connected – on the yoghurt pot, on the pear and on my hands! I don’t like anchovies!
One could move on at this point to talking about the woman who broke the alabaster jar and poured perfume over Jesus’ feet. The fragrance filled the room and clung to the fabric of everyone’s clothes. People were marked out, not by anything they said, or did, but by the fragrance that they had been with Jesus.
The fragrance that seems to mark me out these days is sorrow. This week sees the final hurdle, my brother Mike’s memorial service in Rugby. Few of the family were able to travel to Fuengirola for Mike’s funeral and cremation so a memorial service has been organised for family and friends to say their goodbyes. Joe and I still have travel arrangements to make but we will be there.
I would like to think that this memorial will mark the end this year’s difficult time, but I think that would be naïve. Sorrow doesn’t seem to be a clean or precise emotion that is attached to a single event, but much like the anchovy paste in the fridge, it has touched all sort of things and permeated them particulalry in my relationships with firends.
It feels like sorrow can be a lonely road. Prolonged sorrow changes a person and the way he or she look at things. I am still on that road and looking for a way out. Is there a short cut I can take? I don’t actually believe in short cuts. As much as I would like the sorrow to end, I believe that there is precious treasure along the path to collect. By finding a quick ay out, I don’t get to claim the treasure.
I might have longed for the company of more people to walk with me and to comfort me along the way…but God has never been absent. His fellowship has been always sweet. His fellowship has been my treasure.
The tube is in the fridge. I wouldn’t say that it is a smelly tube, or that when I open the fridge door, a waft of anchovy smell floods out, but there is some kind of smell exchange going on.
My lunch the other day consisted of a tin of soup, a pot of yoghurt and a pear. The soup was untouched by the smell of anchovy, but the pot of yoghurt, not the yoghurt itself, just the pot, reeked of anchovy, and the pear, which hadn’t been in the fridge, but had nestled up against the yoghurt pot in my lunch bag, also stunk of anchovy!
The fragrance of anchovy was everywhere lunch connected – on the yoghurt pot, on the pear and on my hands! I don’t like anchovies!
One could move on at this point to talking about the woman who broke the alabaster jar and poured perfume over Jesus’ feet. The fragrance filled the room and clung to the fabric of everyone’s clothes. People were marked out, not by anything they said, or did, but by the fragrance that they had been with Jesus.
The fragrance that seems to mark me out these days is sorrow. This week sees the final hurdle, my brother Mike’s memorial service in Rugby. Few of the family were able to travel to Fuengirola for Mike’s funeral and cremation so a memorial service has been organised for family and friends to say their goodbyes. Joe and I still have travel arrangements to make but we will be there.
I would like to think that this memorial will mark the end this year’s difficult time, but I think that would be naïve. Sorrow doesn’t seem to be a clean or precise emotion that is attached to a single event, but much like the anchovy paste in the fridge, it has touched all sort of things and permeated them particulalry in my relationships with firends.
It feels like sorrow can be a lonely road. Prolonged sorrow changes a person and the way he or she look at things. I am still on that road and looking for a way out. Is there a short cut I can take? I don’t actually believe in short cuts. As much as I would like the sorrow to end, I believe that there is precious treasure along the path to collect. By finding a quick ay out, I don’t get to claim the treasure.
I might have longed for the company of more people to walk with me and to comfort me along the way…but God has never been absent. His fellowship has been always sweet. His fellowship has been my treasure.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Covering Up
I often imagine that I am on one of those TV morning chat shows – the ones that leaf through the newspapers and pick out interesting stories of the day. As I leaf through my morning paper (a very rare event seeing as we don’t have morning papers delivered!) I mentally select the ones that I would highlight, and rehearse the comments I might make.
The article I came up with was a commentary on the way in which X-Factor selects the auditions that it televises. Some of the acts, without doubt, are not really up to scratch. We have all seen them, cringed at them or laughed at them maybe. There are some things that aught not to be televised.
Why do people do it? They really haven’t got an ounce of talent for singing, dancing, spinning plates or whatever it is that they are doing. Why do they insist on parading their lack of talent in front of 4 million viewers? Do they really think they are good? Have they not asked an objective observer to check them out first before they head for the stage?
I am glad that I am as old as I am, and that in my day they didn’t have these reality shows. I have a feeling I might have strutted my stuff – or my absence of stuff – before an audience of 4 million had I had the chance! Youth has a way of convincing us of things that just aren’t true. Since I am now grown up, I now see the stuff in a mature and sensible light, and know that the 4 million who saw would have cringed, or laughed at me.
Why do other people who should know better allow them to do it? It seems to me that we live in a world where some people take delight in exposing, and laughing at the weaknesses of others. Someone else’s humiliation should not be another person’s entertainment.
Somewhere in the Bible it encourages us to cover one another’s weakness up – not one another’s sins. Way back in the Old Testament, Noah’s sons walked backward into a room, holding a blanket, to cover up the nakedness of Noah who had got drunk and exposed himself.
If only the producers of X-Factor would walk backwards across a stage, holding a blanket, to cover up the lack of talent in some of their contestants and prevent them from exposing themselves!
The article I came up with was a commentary on the way in which X-Factor selects the auditions that it televises. Some of the acts, without doubt, are not really up to scratch. We have all seen them, cringed at them or laughed at them maybe. There are some things that aught not to be televised. Why do people do it? They really haven’t got an ounce of talent for singing, dancing, spinning plates or whatever it is that they are doing. Why do they insist on parading their lack of talent in front of 4 million viewers? Do they really think they are good? Have they not asked an objective observer to check them out first before they head for the stage?
I am glad that I am as old as I am, and that in my day they didn’t have these reality shows. I have a feeling I might have strutted my stuff – or my absence of stuff – before an audience of 4 million had I had the chance! Youth has a way of convincing us of things that just aren’t true. Since I am now grown up, I now see the stuff in a mature and sensible light, and know that the 4 million who saw would have cringed, or laughed at me.
Why do other people who should know better allow them to do it? It seems to me that we live in a world where some people take delight in exposing, and laughing at the weaknesses of others. Someone else’s humiliation should not be another person’s entertainment.
Somewhere in the Bible it encourages us to cover one another’s weakness up – not one another’s sins. Way back in the Old Testament, Noah’s sons walked backward into a room, holding a blanket, to cover up the nakedness of Noah who had got drunk and exposed himself.
If only the producers of X-Factor would walk backwards across a stage, holding a blanket, to cover up the lack of talent in some of their contestants and prevent them from exposing themselves!
Thursday, September 03, 2009
The Need to Connect
Yesterday was not such a good day. I have felt so isolated from people. With my church family it is not so much isolation in terms of yards or miles. It isn’t that I have isolated myself and not talked to anyone about the traumas of the year so far. It is just that it’s not their sister, or their brother that has died. Hugs may reduce the yards or miles to nothing at all, but there is still distance. They may imagine how I feel, but for many imagination is all they have to play with. Their families remain whole and complete, struggling perhaps, but not broken into bits. I have very specific needs that it appears they just can’t meet! They congratulate me for being strong, and they don’t see how perhaps on the inside I am not strong at all.
My own family lives hundreds of miles away. They are close enough to each other to meet up (which they don’t take advantage of), to offer comfort and solace. They feel the empty spaces left behind by Linda and Mike and they can talk to one another.
Last night I just wanted to be down there, with them, gathered together, knowing that they knew how I felt because they felt it too. And I was miles away…isolated.
And then my youngest sister phoned!
Suddenly I felt connected. It was just such a blessing to talk to someone who really knew what I was going through, someone who knew what they could say to me that would really touch my heart and bring comfort and encouragement.
I was smiling by the time I put the phone down at the end of the conversation.
I was reading 2 Corinthians 9:8 - “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” The timing of the call was so spot on – that was God’s “all grace” abounding to me. All the things we spoke about were all the things I needed to hear. I felt less alone.
My own family lives hundreds of miles away. They are close enough to each other to meet up (which they don’t take advantage of), to offer comfort and solace. They feel the empty spaces left behind by Linda and Mike and they can talk to one another.
Last night I just wanted to be down there, with them, gathered together, knowing that they knew how I felt because they felt it too. And I was miles away…isolated.
And then my youngest sister phoned!
Suddenly I felt connected. It was just such a blessing to talk to someone who really knew what I was going through, someone who knew what they could say to me that would really touch my heart and bring comfort and encouragement.
I was smiling by the time I put the phone down at the end of the conversation.
I was reading 2 Corinthians 9:8 - “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” The timing of the call was so spot on – that was God’s “all grace” abounding to me. All the things we spoke about were all the things I needed to hear. I felt less alone.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
How It Makes Me Feel
It would appear that in the Bank Holiday TV ratings, ITV with its lavish production of “Wuthering Heights” lost out to the BBC with its one off drama “Framed”. I just happened to be watching “Framed” and I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The story began with the National Gallery being flooded out due to a leaky roof. They decided to temporarily store the gallery's precious paintings in a disused slate mine in Wales – which is what Churchill did during the war – and I have been to said diused mine! The curator, played by Trevor Eve, had the job of living in a nearby cottage and looking after the artwork and choosing one of the paintings to be sent back to the gallery in London for viewing every month.
The curator saw the paintings in terms of the quality of brush strokes, the clever use of colour, the arrangement of objects on the canvas or unusual perspectives.
Later on in the drama, the butcher from the little nearby town was allowed to see some of the paintings in the mine. A picture by Monet of a boating lake reduced him to tears, and it turned out that his son had died in the village boating pool and he had been responsible for having the place closed on health and safety grounds. Seeing the picture brought back all the memories. The picture made him feel, not the loss of his son, but the loss of something in himself, a kind of gradual shutting down of so many aspects of his life.
I can remember having “Art Appreciation” lessons at school. Yes, in art classes, we got to play with paint and other forms of media, but there were times when we got to look at famous pictures. They were just prints of the pictures – not the real thing. I just remember that I didn’t get it. I couldn’t seem to see the quality of the brush strokes or the clever use of colour! I failed to appreciate the art!
Looking at the butcher, looking at the Monet picture, and looking at the tears flowing – I got it! Art is about how it makes you feel!
A friend and I had a long discussion over a delicious (and expensive) slice of cake the other day. We were talking about religion. He is not religious and went to great lengths to explain why he believed the Bible was outdated, had been changed often to suit the politics of the day and did I know that men had swapped and changed bits of it to keep the poor, or the women, in their place? I have done a theology degree and I know such stuff. The one question that I didn’t ask was “How much of the Bible have you actually read?”
It seems to me that my friend was rather like the art curator. He could talk about textual criticism and translation and the politics of the day. Me? I am like the butcher. I read the Bible and it makes me feel things.
I see aspects of my own life reflected in its words. I see challenges to tackle. I see solutions to the problems I face. I see questions I don’t know the answer to. I see things that make me cry, sometimes with joy, sometimes with sorrow. Sometimes I feel that I will never measure up – and sometimes I realise that I don’t need to. I see God’s grace on every page.
The story began with the National Gallery being flooded out due to a leaky roof. They decided to temporarily store the gallery's precious paintings in a disused slate mine in Wales – which is what Churchill did during the war – and I have been to said diused mine! The curator, played by Trevor Eve, had the job of living in a nearby cottage and looking after the artwork and choosing one of the paintings to be sent back to the gallery in London for viewing every month.
The curator saw the paintings in terms of the quality of brush strokes, the clever use of colour, the arrangement of objects on the canvas or unusual perspectives.
Later on in the drama, the butcher from the little nearby town was allowed to see some of the paintings in the mine. A picture by Monet of a boating lake reduced him to tears, and it turned out that his son had died in the village boating pool and he had been responsible for having the place closed on health and safety grounds. Seeing the picture brought back all the memories. The picture made him feel, not the loss of his son, but the loss of something in himself, a kind of gradual shutting down of so many aspects of his life.
I can remember having “Art Appreciation” lessons at school. Yes, in art classes, we got to play with paint and other forms of media, but there were times when we got to look at famous pictures. They were just prints of the pictures – not the real thing. I just remember that I didn’t get it. I couldn’t seem to see the quality of the brush strokes or the clever use of colour! I failed to appreciate the art!
Looking at the butcher, looking at the Monet picture, and looking at the tears flowing – I got it! Art is about how it makes you feel!
A friend and I had a long discussion over a delicious (and expensive) slice of cake the other day. We were talking about religion. He is not religious and went to great lengths to explain why he believed the Bible was outdated, had been changed often to suit the politics of the day and did I know that men had swapped and changed bits of it to keep the poor, or the women, in their place? I have done a theology degree and I know such stuff. The one question that I didn’t ask was “How much of the Bible have you actually read?”
It seems to me that my friend was rather like the art curator. He could talk about textual criticism and translation and the politics of the day. Me? I am like the butcher. I read the Bible and it makes me feel things.
I see aspects of my own life reflected in its words. I see challenges to tackle. I see solutions to the problems I face. I see questions I don’t know the answer to. I see things that make me cry, sometimes with joy, sometimes with sorrow. Sometimes I feel that I will never measure up – and sometimes I realise that I don’t need to. I see God’s grace on every page.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Where Eagles Soar
In the final weeks of his life, there had been lots of heated discussions about my brother, Mike.
One discussion was about whether sometime in those final weeks he came to faith in Christ. In the red corner were his friends that said, “Definitely not!” If he had made some proclamation of faith, it was the pain speaking, or the drugs. In the blue corner were the evangelicals. They had talked with him and prayed with him. They were there when he took a first, and perhaps only, step of faith.
Another discussion, linked to the first, was about Mike’s funeral. In the red corner were his friends. Having expressed no sense of religious faith to his friends they wanted a funeral where religion was absent and unacknowledged. I can see their point. Whatever else Mike had been, he had not been a hypocrite. He would have despised something marked by hymns and bible readings. In the red corner were the evangelicals. They wanted something traditional, with a church minister presiding. They wanted something sombre and sober, something quiet and respectful.
The red corner won. Mike had chosen the music – Eric Clapton, The Who and some other favourite band. The congregation were invited to write on Mike’s coffin with a selection of coloured pens, and to cover it in flowers before it was taken away to be cremated.
Outside, we made our way back to the cars, ready to drive down to “The Pig and Whistle” for drinks and a buffet. Out of the chimney from the crematorium a trail of smoke was pouring. I wasn’t watching the smoke, but something else in the sky. It was an eagle soaring high that held my attention. In slow, silent circles, the eagle surfed the air currents.
Did you know that as a Christian symbol, the eagle represents salvation, redemption and resurrection?
Some people just saw an eagle.
Some people missed the eagle and just saw the smoke coming out of the chinmey
Me? I saw the eagle and I heard God’s message to me – Mike saved, redeemed and, one day resurrected.
One discussion was about whether sometime in those final weeks he came to faith in Christ. In the red corner were his friends that said, “Definitely not!” If he had made some proclamation of faith, it was the pain speaking, or the drugs. In the blue corner were the evangelicals. They had talked with him and prayed with him. They were there when he took a first, and perhaps only, step of faith.
Another discussion, linked to the first, was about Mike’s funeral. In the red corner were his friends. Having expressed no sense of religious faith to his friends they wanted a funeral where religion was absent and unacknowledged. I can see their point. Whatever else Mike had been, he had not been a hypocrite. He would have despised something marked by hymns and bible readings. In the red corner were the evangelicals. They wanted something traditional, with a church minister presiding. They wanted something sombre and sober, something quiet and respectful.
The red corner won. Mike had chosen the music – Eric Clapton, The Who and some other favourite band. The congregation were invited to write on Mike’s coffin with a selection of coloured pens, and to cover it in flowers before it was taken away to be cremated.
Outside, we made our way back to the cars, ready to drive down to “The Pig and Whistle” for drinks and a buffet. Out of the chimney from the crematorium a trail of smoke was pouring. I wasn’t watching the smoke, but something else in the sky. It was an eagle soaring high that held my attention. In slow, silent circles, the eagle surfed the air currents.
Did you know that as a Christian symbol, the eagle represents salvation, redemption and resurrection?
Some people just saw an eagle.
Some people missed the eagle and just saw the smoke coming out of the chinmey
Me? I saw the eagle and I heard God’s message to me – Mike saved, redeemed and, one day resurrected.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Mad Mike - (What I Said at the Funeral)
My husband, Joe, has this thing that he says to me when we are away on holiday. “What do you prefer?”, he says “Cruising down Loch Ness or teaching third year RE?” or perhaps, “What do you prefer? Walking along the Champs Elyses or teaching third year RE?” The answer is usually a no brainer. Today, if someone were to ask me, “What do you prefer? Speaking at your brother´s funeral or teaching third year RE? The answer for once might be “Teaching third year RE:”
If you are hoping that I will be able to fill in some of the blanks of Mike´s life, you will be disappointed. I believe that many of you know him better than I ever did. Growing up together I was never curious enough to ask questions and he was not often around to supply information. Besides, I am a girl, and his sister!
When Mike was first diagnosed with cancer, I came over to spend time with him and give him some support. He had been admitted to Costa del Sol hospital waiting test results. One Sunday I had taken the local bus out there. I assumed that Mike was fielding a dozen visitors and I could cadge a lift back. It turned out to be just Mike and me, for six and a half hours, sitting on the terrace, drinking coffee by the cupfuls. He was in the mood for talking and I was curious enough to ask questions. On the bus back to Fuengirola, two thoughts came to mind.
Firstly, I really didn´t know my brother at all. Even the things I thought I knew turned out to be very different. After six and a half hours I might have known a few more facts, a few opinions, but I really didn´t know him.
Secondly, after six and a half hours of talking to him, I wasn´t even sure that I liked him very much.
Three or four months down the line, I can still say that I´m not sure that I knew the man, but I am sure that I liked him.
Life, for Mike, at least in the UK, was like wearing poorly fitted clothes. Too tight at the neck. Too short at the arms. He didn´t appear to be comfortable. However, there were one or two exceptions.
He loved school and won a scholarship to Lord Wandsworths College. He was a boy with the brain the size of a planet, and went on to join MENSA. The teacher in me disapproves that such a boy, with such a brain, never really put it to good use!
Michael loved music. He had a ear – two ears, in fact – that lead him to teach himself to play the piano. He eventually joined a band, as all musicians do – a Genesis tribute band. I heard him play once. Mike´s taste in music was very different from my own. I was into Donny Osmond and swooning over Puppy Love. Mike was into something heavy, which played at the right volume, shook the floorboards of the house. He tried to lure me away from Donny, spending hours compiling a tape of music tracks from his collection that he thought might appeal to me. I would like to say that I still have the tape, but I suspect that I wiped it and used it to record a Barry Manilow LP.
Michael loved his son, Elliot. It was his second spell of fatherhood. He was a little older for sure, a little wiser, debateable, and tried not to make the same mistakes as before. He loved Elliot dearly, and was immensely proud of him. He didn´t feel quite the same way about Elliot´s mother. It broke his heart when they parted and he lost touch with Elliott.
Then there was Fuengirola. If ever there was a perfect fit for anyone, for Mike, this was it. The years that he has spent here have been his happiest. The beaches, the bars, and the beautiful women – what more could he ask for? Feungirola became his home, and all of you became his family, and writing became his passion.
Richard and I, on behalf of the rest of the family, thank you for looking after Mike so well.
Finally, a last memory, and one of the most enduring. The year was somewhere between 1976 and 79. I was at university in Durham, Mike was at art college in Gloucester studying photography. The students union has bussed me down to London, to join a protest march. I was not political, I didn´t know what we were protesting about, so I went shopping instead. I was on Regent´s Street, on a busy Saturday afternoon. It was swarming with people! Suddenly I was accosted, attacked even. A bear of a man wound his arms around me and pulled me into a strong hug. It was Mike, perhaps also supposed to be marching, but skiving off.
“Hello, Mel,” he said, “Fancy meeting you here.” The odds against our meeting…well, I´ll leave you to work them out.
I am convinced that, in heaven, just beyond the pearly gates, somewhere along the heavenly equivalent of Regent´s Street, I will yet again be accosted, attacked even. A bear of a man will wind his arms around me and pull me into a strong hug. Yes, it will be Mike again.
“Hello, Mel,” he will say, “Fancy meeting you here.” The odds against our meeting…in my favour this time!
Thank you, every one of you, for joining us to celebrate Mad Mike´s life and to mourn his loss together.
If you are hoping that I will be able to fill in some of the blanks of Mike´s life, you will be disappointed. I believe that many of you know him better than I ever did. Growing up together I was never curious enough to ask questions and he was not often around to supply information. Besides, I am a girl, and his sister!
When Mike was first diagnosed with cancer, I came over to spend time with him and give him some support. He had been admitted to Costa del Sol hospital waiting test results. One Sunday I had taken the local bus out there. I assumed that Mike was fielding a dozen visitors and I could cadge a lift back. It turned out to be just Mike and me, for six and a half hours, sitting on the terrace, drinking coffee by the cupfuls. He was in the mood for talking and I was curious enough to ask questions. On the bus back to Fuengirola, two thoughts came to mind.
Firstly, I really didn´t know my brother at all. Even the things I thought I knew turned out to be very different. After six and a half hours I might have known a few more facts, a few opinions, but I really didn´t know him.
Secondly, after six and a half hours of talking to him, I wasn´t even sure that I liked him very much.
Three or four months down the line, I can still say that I´m not sure that I knew the man, but I am sure that I liked him.
Life, for Mike, at least in the UK, was like wearing poorly fitted clothes. Too tight at the neck. Too short at the arms. He didn´t appear to be comfortable. However, there were one or two exceptions.
He loved school and won a scholarship to Lord Wandsworths College. He was a boy with the brain the size of a planet, and went on to join MENSA. The teacher in me disapproves that such a boy, with such a brain, never really put it to good use!
Michael loved music. He had a ear – two ears, in fact – that lead him to teach himself to play the piano. He eventually joined a band, as all musicians do – a Genesis tribute band. I heard him play once. Mike´s taste in music was very different from my own. I was into Donny Osmond and swooning over Puppy Love. Mike was into something heavy, which played at the right volume, shook the floorboards of the house. He tried to lure me away from Donny, spending hours compiling a tape of music tracks from his collection that he thought might appeal to me. I would like to say that I still have the tape, but I suspect that I wiped it and used it to record a Barry Manilow LP.
Michael loved his son, Elliot. It was his second spell of fatherhood. He was a little older for sure, a little wiser, debateable, and tried not to make the same mistakes as before. He loved Elliot dearly, and was immensely proud of him. He didn´t feel quite the same way about Elliot´s mother. It broke his heart when they parted and he lost touch with Elliott.
Then there was Fuengirola. If ever there was a perfect fit for anyone, for Mike, this was it. The years that he has spent here have been his happiest. The beaches, the bars, and the beautiful women – what more could he ask for? Feungirola became his home, and all of you became his family, and writing became his passion.
Richard and I, on behalf of the rest of the family, thank you for looking after Mike so well.
Finally, a last memory, and one of the most enduring. The year was somewhere between 1976 and 79. I was at university in Durham, Mike was at art college in Gloucester studying photography. The students union has bussed me down to London, to join a protest march. I was not political, I didn´t know what we were protesting about, so I went shopping instead. I was on Regent´s Street, on a busy Saturday afternoon. It was swarming with people! Suddenly I was accosted, attacked even. A bear of a man wound his arms around me and pulled me into a strong hug. It was Mike, perhaps also supposed to be marching, but skiving off.
“Hello, Mel,” he said, “Fancy meeting you here.” The odds against our meeting…well, I´ll leave you to work them out.
I am convinced that, in heaven, just beyond the pearly gates, somewhere along the heavenly equivalent of Regent´s Street, I will yet again be accosted, attacked even. A bear of a man will wind his arms around me and pull me into a strong hug. Yes, it will be Mike again.
“Hello, Mel,” he will say, “Fancy meeting you here.” The odds against our meeting…in my favour this time!
Thank you, every one of you, for joining us to celebrate Mad Mike´s life and to mourn his loss together.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
A Great Wall Builder
It has been almost twenty years since I moved up to Inverness. I left Rugby to work on a gospel outreach team, a Go Team, in 1989 and arrived in Inverness sometime in September or October. It was a challenging year and so absolutely the right place to be for me at that time
I remember a visit from Andrew Owen, who was the pastor of a church planted in Glasgow (who has gone from strength to strength forming the whole Destiny Church movement). There was a GO team in Glasgow at the same time, so I guess he wanted to try to build bridges and offer support and encouragement.
At the end of one of the teaching sessions we had an opportunity to ask questions, not just about what he had been talking about, but about his own personal walk of faith. I seem to remember asking him about what word of scripture he was chewing over and being challenged by. I can’t remember what he said because as soon as he had finished telling me, he turned the question back to me. What word was I walking with right there and then?
If someone asked me that question today I might flounder a bit, but then, there was only one word.
“You have not gone up to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD.” Ezekiel 13:5
Quite how I had come across it, I don’t know, but it burned in me. So many Christians are not able to stand firm in the battle because of holes in the walls, holes in their knowledge of God. The battle rages and they get injured. Some leave the faith completely, all because of too many holes in what they know about God. I was determined that I would fill in the holes, that I would make the wall strong, so that when the battles were fought, people wouldn’t be needlessly injured.
I would like to think I impressed Andrew!
I didn’t want to just fill in the holes for people, although it did lead to a lot of preaching and teaching, but I wanted to teach people how to fill in the holes for themselves. That approach wasn’t always successful. I had a long history of bible studies and intense prayer meetings gifted me by the Brethren Church. I had a natural ability to study, to read and meditate and shape the right bricks for the right holes. I found the whole process thrilling and stirring, and few people I knew shared my passion.
This morning I sat down with a cup of coffee to just be with God.
“Can you feel the wall against your back?” said God.
“What wall?” said I.
“The wall, that over the last twenty years, you have strengthened by filling in the holes.” He answered. “All that time you thought you were filling in the holes to keep other people safe, you built yourself a solid wall. For the last six months a battle has raged, a serious battle. The wall was built so well, so solidly, that nothing has been able to breach it or to bring it down. You have been safe!”
If God had had a glass of something, water from a rock perhaps, He might have raised it in my direction with the salutation, “To a great wall builder!”
Thank you, God, for teaching me to build walls.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Empty Chair
There ought to be three places to sit in our front room. There is a sofa along one wall, comfortable green leather. It a sofa that is not really for sitting on, but begs to be lain upon, all stretched out. There are two arm chairs, one of which reclines when you pull a lever.
Three places, but only the one, the sofa is really used and most times usable. One chair has been bagged by the ironing. The pile expands and contracts are regular intervals, as ironing is done and distributed to cupboards and drawers, only to be replaced by the next batch off the line. The other chair, the reclining one, is often the dumping place for coat hangers, bags, coats, read and unread newspapers and other stuff.
Yesterday I made a special effort to clear the clutter from one chair. I wanted one of the chairs clear in case of visitors. I had had an especially distressing day. News from Spain was grim. The doctor from the hospice had been in touch to say that Mike’s condition had further deteriorated and the weeks or months we had anticipated had dwindled down to merely days. He told us that it was perhaps time to come out.
I have always known that there will be an end to face. I just hoped it wouldn’t come. I cried, cleaned the kitchen, cried some more, half cleaned the bathroom, cried some more…you get the picture. And I cleaned off one chair, just in case I had a visitor, who would come to cry with me.
My mother used to have a particular bee in her bonnet. She is quite obviously disabled, partially sighted, partially hearing, very shaky on her legs. The church knew that she was not able to make her own way to church, but there was always this insistence that she phoned someone to ask for a lift. My family are usually very good at looking after mum, but things happen, and the shopping doesn’t always get done. When friends in the church find out that she is not being looked after they ask, “Why didn’t you phone?”
Why didn’t I phone and ask someone to come around and sit with me, cry with me? I think it’s because there are some things you shouldn’t have to ask for. It should just come under the label of “family”. If should simply be offered because you care enough to offer it. I am fed of carrying my sorrow to someone else’s doorstep.
The chair remained empty.
An empty chair is not necessarily a silent chair! It just seemed to be telling me how little I was cared for. By the end of the day I had wound myself up tightly into a ball of hurt and resentment.
God talked to the ball!
First of all He reminded me that, sad as it is, people will inevitably let you down. As much as we would like to lean on people, sometimes the fall over and take us with them!
Secondly, in Matthew 5 it reads “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” I liked that! It’s not “might be” or “should be” but “will be”.
Thirdly God spoke about the other empty chairs in other people’s homes. Did I think that maybe I could go and sit in those chairs and cry with other people?
What a challenge! What a ministry! I’m still working on an answer.
Three places, but only the one, the sofa is really used and most times usable. One chair has been bagged by the ironing. The pile expands and contracts are regular intervals, as ironing is done and distributed to cupboards and drawers, only to be replaced by the next batch off the line. The other chair, the reclining one, is often the dumping place for coat hangers, bags, coats, read and unread newspapers and other stuff.
Yesterday I made a special effort to clear the clutter from one chair. I wanted one of the chairs clear in case of visitors. I had had an especially distressing day. News from Spain was grim. The doctor from the hospice had been in touch to say that Mike’s condition had further deteriorated and the weeks or months we had anticipated had dwindled down to merely days. He told us that it was perhaps time to come out.
I have always known that there will be an end to face. I just hoped it wouldn’t come. I cried, cleaned the kitchen, cried some more, half cleaned the bathroom, cried some more…you get the picture. And I cleaned off one chair, just in case I had a visitor, who would come to cry with me.
My mother used to have a particular bee in her bonnet. She is quite obviously disabled, partially sighted, partially hearing, very shaky on her legs. The church knew that she was not able to make her own way to church, but there was always this insistence that she phoned someone to ask for a lift. My family are usually very good at looking after mum, but things happen, and the shopping doesn’t always get done. When friends in the church find out that she is not being looked after they ask, “Why didn’t you phone?”
Why didn’t I phone and ask someone to come around and sit with me, cry with me? I think it’s because there are some things you shouldn’t have to ask for. It should just come under the label of “family”. If should simply be offered because you care enough to offer it. I am fed of carrying my sorrow to someone else’s doorstep.
The chair remained empty.
An empty chair is not necessarily a silent chair! It just seemed to be telling me how little I was cared for. By the end of the day I had wound myself up tightly into a ball of hurt and resentment.
God talked to the ball!
First of all He reminded me that, sad as it is, people will inevitably let you down. As much as we would like to lean on people, sometimes the fall over and take us with them!
Secondly, in Matthew 5 it reads “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” I liked that! It’s not “might be” or “should be” but “will be”.
Thirdly God spoke about the other empty chairs in other people’s homes. Did I think that maybe I could go and sit in those chairs and cry with other people?
What a challenge! What a ministry! I’m still working on an answer.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
12,000 Hours
According to one of the newspapers today the average woman will spend 12,000 hours, the equivalent of one year and four months of their lives, crying.
I guess that makes me not average! I feel like I have notched up a goodly number of hours of the last six months or so in tears on a fairly regular basis. Does it make a difference too if those tears are gentle weeping that you can mop up with the back of your hand, or the overflowing dam of body wrenching sobbing? The way I have cried recently doesn’t qualify as anything less than a monsoon!
I was talking this morning with a friend, trying not to catalogue all the sad details of Mike’s cancer. She already knew about my sister, Linda and all the heartache of her loss, but she wanted to know so that she could know what to pray for.
As well as myself, my mother and my eldest sister are the only others in the family that enjoy a vibrant relationship with God. I am not sure how well they have weathered the storms of the past six months. There are been no shipwrecks, but a few masts have fallen, and a sail or two has got ripped. It has not been a comfortable ride.
Neither my mum, nor my sister, has had the chance to go out and see Mike and I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad one. Sometimes what we imagine turns out to be a lot worse than reality.
For my mum it’s not an option. She is not well enough to travel and I think that seeing Mike the way he is would bring back some very painful memories. My dad died of a very similar kind of cancer. For my sister, it is a choice not to go. She thinks that she would cry too much and upset Mike. She doesn’t think she could handle it. Personally I think we are always a lot stronger than we imagine ourselves to be.
Anyway, at the end of talking all these things through with my friend, she reached over and gently touched my arm.
“You do know,” she said, “that God loves you very much.”
I have to confess that I bit my tongue hard. Words would have spilled out!
If this…nightmare…this six month stalking by disease and death is about God loving me…what would it all look like if God didn’t?
OK I know that all this stuff is not happening because God loves me! It’s happening because I live in a fallen world…because these kind of things just happen…because…I don’t really know why it’s happening.
What would it look like without God’s love? I would feel very alone, completely broken up inside, hopeless and helpless.
As it is there are times when He graciously blows away the clouds and the sun shines!
I guess that makes me not average! I feel like I have notched up a goodly number of hours of the last six months or so in tears on a fairly regular basis. Does it make a difference too if those tears are gentle weeping that you can mop up with the back of your hand, or the overflowing dam of body wrenching sobbing? The way I have cried recently doesn’t qualify as anything less than a monsoon!
I was talking this morning with a friend, trying not to catalogue all the sad details of Mike’s cancer. She already knew about my sister, Linda and all the heartache of her loss, but she wanted to know so that she could know what to pray for.
As well as myself, my mother and my eldest sister are the only others in the family that enjoy a vibrant relationship with God. I am not sure how well they have weathered the storms of the past six months. There are been no shipwrecks, but a few masts have fallen, and a sail or two has got ripped. It has not been a comfortable ride.
Neither my mum, nor my sister, has had the chance to go out and see Mike and I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad one. Sometimes what we imagine turns out to be a lot worse than reality.
For my mum it’s not an option. She is not well enough to travel and I think that seeing Mike the way he is would bring back some very painful memories. My dad died of a very similar kind of cancer. For my sister, it is a choice not to go. She thinks that she would cry too much and upset Mike. She doesn’t think she could handle it. Personally I think we are always a lot stronger than we imagine ourselves to be.
Anyway, at the end of talking all these things through with my friend, she reached over and gently touched my arm.
“You do know,” she said, “that God loves you very much.”
I have to confess that I bit my tongue hard. Words would have spilled out!
If this…nightmare…this six month stalking by disease and death is about God loving me…what would it all look like if God didn’t?
OK I know that all this stuff is not happening because God loves me! It’s happening because I live in a fallen world…because these kind of things just happen…because…I don’t really know why it’s happening.
What would it look like without God’s love? I would feel very alone, completely broken up inside, hopeless and helpless.
As it is there are times when He graciously blows away the clouds and the sun shines!
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Butterflies That Flutter By
Pretty, fragile butterfly
Why do you just flutter by?
I look and ponder, wonder why
Next door’s flowers catch your eye!
I have to admit that the man next door has done a wonderful job with his garden. It is real display of vibrant colours from a million bedding plants. It’s a garden that I wouldn’t mind sitting in.
Yesterday, walking from the car to my front door, I espied a trio of white butterflies flitting from flower to flower in my next door neighbour’s garden. There was so much colour and variety to catch their attention and keep them flitting around there all day.
Walking up the path to my own front door, I was aware of the lack of butterflies in my own neglected patch of grass and weed-infested borders.
“Where are my butterflies?” I whined!
“Where are your flowers?” said the voice in my head.
This year has been not a vintage year in terms of gardening. So much time and energy has been spent on other things that I have not got around to the garden. Holidays, and what I do in them, have been hijacked by one family crisis after another.
Make no mistake, my garden will never have the million bedding plants that next door has…I am too miserly to spend that much money at the garden centre! I wouldn’t be able to create the vision of beauty that exists next door. But…normally it’s not so bad.
So I spent an hour or two digging up two small flower beds. I pulled out the weeds, and made a million spiders and beetles homeless. All the best plants at the garden centre had been snapped up much earlier on in the summer, but I found a few daisies, carnations and Latin-named beauties on the sale shelves.
It’s not really the garden that I worry about. It’s the metaphorical one…the garden of my soul. I am not sure there is much planted their either. There is nothing there to attract the butterflies…those people seeking something that sustains and nourishes them.
And yet the spiritual garden isn’t as empty as it seems. Other people seem to see the flowers there that I can’t see. I didn’t plant them…but them I am not the only one who tends my garden, am I?
Why do you just flutter by?
I look and ponder, wonder why
Next door’s flowers catch your eye!
I have to admit that the man next door has done a wonderful job with his garden. It is real display of vibrant colours from a million bedding plants. It’s a garden that I wouldn’t mind sitting in.
Yesterday, walking from the car to my front door, I espied a trio of white butterflies flitting from flower to flower in my next door neighbour’s garden. There was so much colour and variety to catch their attention and keep them flitting around there all day.
Walking up the path to my own front door, I was aware of the lack of butterflies in my own neglected patch of grass and weed-infested borders.
“Where are my butterflies?” I whined!
“Where are your flowers?” said the voice in my head.
This year has been not a vintage year in terms of gardening. So much time and energy has been spent on other things that I have not got around to the garden. Holidays, and what I do in them, have been hijacked by one family crisis after another.
Make no mistake, my garden will never have the million bedding plants that next door has…I am too miserly to spend that much money at the garden centre! I wouldn’t be able to create the vision of beauty that exists next door. But…normally it’s not so bad.
So I spent an hour or two digging up two small flower beds. I pulled out the weeds, and made a million spiders and beetles homeless. All the best plants at the garden centre had been snapped up much earlier on in the summer, but I found a few daisies, carnations and Latin-named beauties on the sale shelves.
It’s not really the garden that I worry about. It’s the metaphorical one…the garden of my soul. I am not sure there is much planted their either. There is nothing there to attract the butterflies…those people seeking something that sustains and nourishes them.
And yet the spiritual garden isn’t as empty as it seems. Other people seem to see the flowers there that I can’t see. I didn’t plant them…but them I am not the only one who tends my garden, am I?
Let Daddy Deal With It
One of my nieces has just posted up a rant, for want of a better word, on her facebook page. It’s the summer break from her university course, and I suppose that seeing as she is not using her room, the landlord has rented it out to someone else. However, she had paid August’s rent. It turns out that the July tennants are still there although they were meant to leave at the end of the month. My niece is paying her landlord for someone else to be in her room...so she’s not happy.
Her post ended with the words “I don’t know what to do:( xxx”
My adivce was to ask the landlord for a refund!
Sometimes I forget how not everyone is as old and cantackerous as I am. I have no hestitation in recognising those times when someone has stamped on what I think are my rights. Some people call it assertiveness. At times I have it in bucketloads!
My niece’s response to aksing for the refund was “daddy's gonna call up and have a go”.
“What?” thought I. “Fight your own battles, girl!”
Quick as a lightning flash, the Holy Spirit spoke.
“Why don’t you let ‘Daddy’ call up and have a go?”
I have been in too many battles over the last few months – not with landlords and rent refunds. My battles have been the spiritual ones. They have been about how to hold on to joy in the midst of so much pain, or how to hold on to hope in the midst of so much suffering. I had thought it was all about being strong and not letting go.
I see now that perhaps it is not about that at all. It is about stepping to one side and letting my heavenly “Daddy call up and have a go.”
Let Daddy deal with it!
Her post ended with the words “I don’t know what to do:( xxx”
My adivce was to ask the landlord for a refund!
Sometimes I forget how not everyone is as old and cantackerous as I am. I have no hestitation in recognising those times when someone has stamped on what I think are my rights. Some people call it assertiveness. At times I have it in bucketloads!
My niece’s response to aksing for the refund was “daddy's gonna call up and have a go”.
“What?” thought I. “Fight your own battles, girl!”
Quick as a lightning flash, the Holy Spirit spoke.
“Why don’t you let ‘Daddy’ call up and have a go?”
I have been in too many battles over the last few months – not with landlords and rent refunds. My battles have been the spiritual ones. They have been about how to hold on to joy in the midst of so much pain, or how to hold on to hope in the midst of so much suffering. I had thought it was all about being strong and not letting go.
I see now that perhaps it is not about that at all. It is about stepping to one side and letting my heavenly “Daddy call up and have a go.”
Let Daddy deal with it!
Friday, August 07, 2009
The Un-rescued
“God knows there's a purpose,
God knows there's a chance,
God knows you can rise above the darkest hour
Of any circumstance.”
Bob Dylan
I was listening to a sermon earlier today on Act 5, the bit where the apostles are put into prison by the jealous leaders of Israel. An angel rescues them. Next day when someone is sent to fetch the prisoners, they discover the door still locked, the soldiers on guard still doing their job, but the birds have flown the coop.
The preacher lamented that in today’s world, there are no angelic rescues.
Even in the early church, not everyone got angelically rescued, or rescued at all in fact. The apostles in chapter 5 got rescued, so did Peter later on, but James didn’t get rescued. He was put to death with the sword.
If I had been James, I might have been a little put out – that is before being decapitated.
Why do some people get rescued and others don’t?
It’s all about what serves the purposes of God and what brings him the greater glory. Yes, it has got to be pretty glorious to testify to opened prison doors. Maybe that is the kind of testimony that appeals to people – deliverance and freedom.
I think that the un-rescued, the ones that get put to death with the sword, speak a testimony that may not appeal to people who prefer to be delivered, but to the unseen heavenly hosts, to the rulers and principalities in the spiritual realm.
My brother finds it difficult that I can still believe in an all powerful, all loving God despite all the horrors of this year – my sister’s illness and death, his own advanced cancer and soon-to-be death. If God loved me, why did he allow these things to happen?
If God loved James, why did he allow him to be beheaded? Did he love Peter more?
I trust that the events that I have lived through these last few months, and my faith, battered rather but still there, serve God’s purpose. It’s not that I have not had my tantrums, not shed my tears, not questioned the reason for it all, not beaten myself on occasion for not praying more, for not stretching out a potentially healing hand – I’ve have done that and more. I can remind myself that this short stretch of tough times doesn’t outweigh the thirty years or more of fellowship and friendship with God and that there is joy yet to come – in this life and in the next, but it doesn’t stop me hurting now.
The powers and principalities would like to see me throw in the towel. They would like to remind me that I didn’t sign on for any of this. All credit to me that I lasted as long as I did. I fought a good fight. I can walk away with dignity!
Where is the glory to God in that? Do I just hang around with God because of the perks? Isn’t that what Satan said of Job? That he was just sticking with God because God treated him nice? Take away some of the treats, Satan challenged, and you wouldn’t see Job for dust. And Job’s reply (amid all the tears):-
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.” Job 13:15
God knows there's a chance,
God knows you can rise above the darkest hour
Of any circumstance.”
Bob Dylan
I was listening to a sermon earlier today on Act 5, the bit where the apostles are put into prison by the jealous leaders of Israel. An angel rescues them. Next day when someone is sent to fetch the prisoners, they discover the door still locked, the soldiers on guard still doing their job, but the birds have flown the coop.
The preacher lamented that in today’s world, there are no angelic rescues.
Even in the early church, not everyone got angelically rescued, or rescued at all in fact. The apostles in chapter 5 got rescued, so did Peter later on, but James didn’t get rescued. He was put to death with the sword.
If I had been James, I might have been a little put out – that is before being decapitated.
Why do some people get rescued and others don’t?
It’s all about what serves the purposes of God and what brings him the greater glory. Yes, it has got to be pretty glorious to testify to opened prison doors. Maybe that is the kind of testimony that appeals to people – deliverance and freedom.
I think that the un-rescued, the ones that get put to death with the sword, speak a testimony that may not appeal to people who prefer to be delivered, but to the unseen heavenly hosts, to the rulers and principalities in the spiritual realm.
My brother finds it difficult that I can still believe in an all powerful, all loving God despite all the horrors of this year – my sister’s illness and death, his own advanced cancer and soon-to-be death. If God loved me, why did he allow these things to happen?
If God loved James, why did he allow him to be beheaded? Did he love Peter more?
I trust that the events that I have lived through these last few months, and my faith, battered rather but still there, serve God’s purpose. It’s not that I have not had my tantrums, not shed my tears, not questioned the reason for it all, not beaten myself on occasion for not praying more, for not stretching out a potentially healing hand – I’ve have done that and more. I can remind myself that this short stretch of tough times doesn’t outweigh the thirty years or more of fellowship and friendship with God and that there is joy yet to come – in this life and in the next, but it doesn’t stop me hurting now.
The powers and principalities would like to see me throw in the towel. They would like to remind me that I didn’t sign on for any of this. All credit to me that I lasted as long as I did. I fought a good fight. I can walk away with dignity!
Where is the glory to God in that? Do I just hang around with God because of the perks? Isn’t that what Satan said of Job? That he was just sticking with God because God treated him nice? Take away some of the treats, Satan challenged, and you wouldn’t see Job for dust. And Job’s reply (amid all the tears):-
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.” Job 13:15
Monday, August 03, 2009
Sorrow - Up-Close and Personal
I am not a happy bunny right now. We have just returned from a visit to my brother in Spain. The week before we arrived he had been transferred to a cancer hospice in Malaga. None of his friends knows whether this a permanent move, or just a period of respite care to put him back on his feet.
He is looking very fragile, very thin, very cancer-ravaged. He has good days and bad days, times when he seems a little lost to himself, other times when he is his usual rude and irreverent self. Whatever…it all spells out a gradual decline. He is hoping he will still be around for his birthday in October, but others aren’t so sure.
Seeing it all happen and being so very far away leaves me feeling very helpless. Tack on to that my sister’s very recent death and it’s not just helplessness that I’m dealing with, but often hopelessness too.
I know that, as Christians, we are never without hope, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t feel it sometimes.
Yesterday at the church meeting people had opportunities to share testimonies. Many of the folk have just got back from a church holiday. A friend of ours spoke about his mother’s illness and how they thought that there would be an operation involved, and how there had been a dramatic improvement in her condition. The operation wasn’t needed and it opened to door to praying together.
Why, I wondered, do these things happen to other people’s families, but not mine?
Another friend earlier on in the week had tried to encourage me with the words, “Everyone dies some time.” But they don’t! Many of the friends I know may have family who are seriously unwell, they may have spells in hospital, they may fear that the end is near for them, but each and every time, there seems to be a dramatic recovery involved. That does not seem to be the way for my family. It feels like everything is unfair. I want to rejoice with them in their victories but it feels like it is all being soured by my own family’s deaths and illnesses.
Why are these things happening to me and my family? Why does it seem like I am being singled out? Why isn’t some of the death and suffering of the last few months being spread around rather than just piled one me? I have never been so up-close and personal to constant hurt and sorrow before.
God’s answer? “Why not you?”
There are some that think that faith in God, a vibrant relationship, is like some wonderful vaccination against hurt and injury. That’s what we tell the world sometimes, that if they come to Jesus he will sort out all their problems and life will be so much better. There is a truth in that – life is better, problems do get sorted, but there is no immunity, no wrapping up in cotton wool. We are not untouched by sorrow. .
I know that through my sorrow, God is present.
He is looking very fragile, very thin, very cancer-ravaged. He has good days and bad days, times when he seems a little lost to himself, other times when he is his usual rude and irreverent self. Whatever…it all spells out a gradual decline. He is hoping he will still be around for his birthday in October, but others aren’t so sure.
Seeing it all happen and being so very far away leaves me feeling very helpless. Tack on to that my sister’s very recent death and it’s not just helplessness that I’m dealing with, but often hopelessness too.
I know that, as Christians, we are never without hope, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t feel it sometimes.
Yesterday at the church meeting people had opportunities to share testimonies. Many of the folk have just got back from a church holiday. A friend of ours spoke about his mother’s illness and how they thought that there would be an operation involved, and how there had been a dramatic improvement in her condition. The operation wasn’t needed and it opened to door to praying together.
Why, I wondered, do these things happen to other people’s families, but not mine?
Another friend earlier on in the week had tried to encourage me with the words, “Everyone dies some time.” But they don’t! Many of the friends I know may have family who are seriously unwell, they may have spells in hospital, they may fear that the end is near for them, but each and every time, there seems to be a dramatic recovery involved. That does not seem to be the way for my family. It feels like everything is unfair. I want to rejoice with them in their victories but it feels like it is all being soured by my own family’s deaths and illnesses.
Why are these things happening to me and my family? Why does it seem like I am being singled out? Why isn’t some of the death and suffering of the last few months being spread around rather than just piled one me? I have never been so up-close and personal to constant hurt and sorrow before.
God’s answer? “Why not you?”
There are some that think that faith in God, a vibrant relationship, is like some wonderful vaccination against hurt and injury. That’s what we tell the world sometimes, that if they come to Jesus he will sort out all their problems and life will be so much better. There is a truth in that – life is better, problems do get sorted, but there is no immunity, no wrapping up in cotton wool. We are not untouched by sorrow. .
I know that through my sorrow, God is present.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Thou Shalt Not Eat Your Neighbour
I was watching a documentary last night. It was exploring parts of the Pacific Ocean, predominantly an area of dead sea. It isn’t dead sea as in the Dead Sea, where, apparently there is so much salt in it that you can float and your newspaper doesn’t get wet, but dead in the sense that there is very little surface plankton. We all know that plankton is like the one ingredient of the food chain that nature, as far as the oceans go, just cannot do without. It’s what the small fish, and the big fish feed on, and then the even bigger fish eat the small and the big fish. Without the plankton, there’s no small fish, big fish or even bigger fish.
To grab the viewers interest the programme began by describing a whaling ship from long ago. Although the dead sea part of the ocean is not where lots of fish make their home, lots of fish have to pass through it to get to where they want to go, whales included. Where there are whales, there are sometimes whaling boats. The oil produced from whales was valuable and worth the effort taking a boat out into the middle of nowhere to get the whales. The whalers targeted the calves knowing that would draw the bigger ones in closer.
In this particular voyage, the whales retaliated. One big bull of a whale rammed the ship and sank it, leaving all hands on board to get into the life boats. There were three lifeboats that set off. There was land, not exactly close by but accessible, had the prevailing winds been in the right direction. They headed off for the coast of South America a few thousand miles in the opposite direction.
Had they not been in the dead sea part of the ocean, being very good fishermen, they might have been fine, except for a lack of fresh drinking water. But the dead sea bit of the ocean was fish-less, because it was surface plankton-less, so they caught nothing. Had they known more about that area, fish-wise, they might have known that at night time, what little fish life there was rose to the surface. We are talking about little fish…very little fish.
Only one boat eventually arrives in port ninety days later carrying just two people. It would seem that they came up with a solution to the food crisis. They cast lots to decide who to kill and eat. Yes, they resorted to cannibalism.
I would like to say that I am one hundred percent sure that when faced with inevitable death that can only be surmounted by eating someone, I would prefer to die. I can’t imagine me eating anyone. I am more likely to say “Kill me, Eat me”. I don’t mind being dead and getting eaten. Eaten alive? No. It’s probably the dying part of it that I wouldn’t look forward to. I wouldn’t want that bit of it to hurt.
Would anyone criticise the survivors for surviving in such a way? Under normal circumstances most people don’t eat other people, but these were not normal circumstances. The rule, “Love your neighbour…don’t eat them”, no longer applied in the conditions they found themselves in.
It is easy to look at the lives of other people from the viewpoint of the conditions that we find myself in, rather than the conditions that they find themselves in. We don’t always know their conditions, and yet make our judgements about people. We think, often wrongly, that with a little bit of hard work and effort they could change their conditions for the better. With a little bit of hard work and effort, we could be the ones that change their conditions, or at least help them to change it themselves.
To grab the viewers interest the programme began by describing a whaling ship from long ago. Although the dead sea part of the ocean is not where lots of fish make their home, lots of fish have to pass through it to get to where they want to go, whales included. Where there are whales, there are sometimes whaling boats. The oil produced from whales was valuable and worth the effort taking a boat out into the middle of nowhere to get the whales. The whalers targeted the calves knowing that would draw the bigger ones in closer.
In this particular voyage, the whales retaliated. One big bull of a whale rammed the ship and sank it, leaving all hands on board to get into the life boats. There were three lifeboats that set off. There was land, not exactly close by but accessible, had the prevailing winds been in the right direction. They headed off for the coast of South America a few thousand miles in the opposite direction.
Had they not been in the dead sea part of the ocean, being very good fishermen, they might have been fine, except for a lack of fresh drinking water. But the dead sea bit of the ocean was fish-less, because it was surface plankton-less, so they caught nothing. Had they known more about that area, fish-wise, they might have known that at night time, what little fish life there was rose to the surface. We are talking about little fish…very little fish.
Only one boat eventually arrives in port ninety days later carrying just two people. It would seem that they came up with a solution to the food crisis. They cast lots to decide who to kill and eat. Yes, they resorted to cannibalism.
I would like to say that I am one hundred percent sure that when faced with inevitable death that can only be surmounted by eating someone, I would prefer to die. I can’t imagine me eating anyone. I am more likely to say “Kill me, Eat me”. I don’t mind being dead and getting eaten. Eaten alive? No. It’s probably the dying part of it that I wouldn’t look forward to. I wouldn’t want that bit of it to hurt.
Would anyone criticise the survivors for surviving in such a way? Under normal circumstances most people don’t eat other people, but these were not normal circumstances. The rule, “Love your neighbour…don’t eat them”, no longer applied in the conditions they found themselves in.
It is easy to look at the lives of other people from the viewpoint of the conditions that we find myself in, rather than the conditions that they find themselves in. We don’t always know their conditions, and yet make our judgements about people. We think, often wrongly, that with a little bit of hard work and effort they could change their conditions for the better. With a little bit of hard work and effort, we could be the ones that change their conditions, or at least help them to change it themselves.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Uniquely Me
As if I actually needed any more books, but there was a sale on! Books that had begun their shelf life at a respectable £7 or £8 were now on offer for a lot less. Sticky labels, one on top of the other marked the gradual drop down in price until it reached ridiculous, pocket change numbers. I guess they are just not the flavour of the month in terms of authors or subject matter.
One of the books, “Devotion – a Raw-Truth Journal on Following Jesus” is a month’s supply of devotions looking at the character traits of the disciples. I picked it up this morning to test drive the first day.
The opening chapter was all about being aliens and sojourners in this world. As Christians our values are not the same as the world’s and we are somehow out of step in our thinking. We are the odd ones out, or rather we should be, but all too often we are indistinguishable. We don’t always like to be different.
Today’s Top Ten encouraged me to write a list of things that make me different from everyone else.
1. I have my own unique history – no on else has lived my life
2. My relationship to God is uniquely mine
3. My fingerprints are different
4. My reactions to situations are different
5. I have my own cocktail of strengths and weaknesses
6. The prescription for my lenses are unique to me – my glasses are useless to anyone else but me
7. My DNA is individual
8. The particular combination of things I like and don’t like is different
9. The freckles and moles that mark my body are not like anyone else’s
10. The gifts and talents God has given me, and the opportunities to use them are different.
I could have written that I look different from anyone else, but that isn’t really true. There is the well known idea that we all have a “twin” somewhere in the world. Mine happens to live in Northampton-shire and, although not an actual twin, my sister and I do get mistaken for one another.
Every snowdrop is unique. God made them unique. I am unique. God made me unique. It’s time to enjoy my uniqueness!
One of the books, “Devotion – a Raw-Truth Journal on Following Jesus” is a month’s supply of devotions looking at the character traits of the disciples. I picked it up this morning to test drive the first day.
The opening chapter was all about being aliens and sojourners in this world. As Christians our values are not the same as the world’s and we are somehow out of step in our thinking. We are the odd ones out, or rather we should be, but all too often we are indistinguishable. We don’t always like to be different.
Today’s Top Ten encouraged me to write a list of things that make me different from everyone else.
1. I have my own unique history – no on else has lived my life
2. My relationship to God is uniquely mine
3. My fingerprints are different
4. My reactions to situations are different
5. I have my own cocktail of strengths and weaknesses
6. The prescription for my lenses are unique to me – my glasses are useless to anyone else but me
7. My DNA is individual
8. The particular combination of things I like and don’t like is different
9. The freckles and moles that mark my body are not like anyone else’s
10. The gifts and talents God has given me, and the opportunities to use them are different.
I could have written that I look different from anyone else, but that isn’t really true. There is the well known idea that we all have a “twin” somewhere in the world. Mine happens to live in Northampton-shire and, although not an actual twin, my sister and I do get mistaken for one another.Every snowdrop is unique. God made them unique. I am unique. God made me unique. It’s time to enjoy my uniqueness!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Oh Deer!
It is just typical, isn’t it? We spent the last couple of weeks in work melting with the heat pouring through windows, and as soon as my holidays kick in the clouds gather, the rain falls, thunder and lightning storm across the sky. OK I realize that I am living in Scotland and one cannot guarantee good weather, but it just seems a little unfair.
The same batch of washing went back on the line this morning, after having been hauled in twice before. The cloudless blue sky, according to the weather forecast, wasn’t going to last.
I completed a few essential tasks and then decided to pack a picnic lunch and head for the hills while it was still dry. Just above Loch Ness there are a number of smaller lochs away from all the Nessie hunters and tourists.
There was a sign just before the road dwindled into a single track which informed me that work was being done up ahead. I assumed it was resurfacing or something, but overhanging branches were being cut down, left by the side of the road, to be picked up later. Single track roads are not very wide to start with, so trying to manoeuvre around piles of debris was a challenge. Passing the lorry that was cutting down the branches was even more challenging.
I parked in a long lay-by beside Loch Dunchelchaig and headed off down the path that followed the shoreline and plunged deeper into the surrounding woods. I had the camera fully charged and ready. I always hope to catch a glimpse of something interesting but lack the skill to capture the moment on film.
Imagine my surprise to encounter the smallest of fawns tottering around on the path just ahead of me. It wasn’t big enough, or wise enough to disappear into the forest, and just looked at me. Eventually it stumbled over to the edge of the path and into a nest of heather.
I half expected mummy deer to appear out of somewhere, and do the mothering thing of scaring me in some way or another, but the baby seemed to be on its own. I wondered if mummy deer had got shot, or had an accident. Perhaps the fawn was orphaned. The one thing I needed, but didn’t have in my rucksack was a feeding bottle filled with deer milk, and I thought for a while about dismantling my chicken sandwich and sharing it. I wondered whether I ought to call someone, a rescue home for lost deer.
I so wanted to pick up the fawn and take it somewhere safe.
Common sense prevailed. Just because I couldn’t see mummy deer, didn’t mean that she wasn’t around somewhere. Picking it up, feeding it my chicken sandwich, was probably the worst course of action I could have taken. What might work for a human baby (feeding it a chicken sandwich?) doesn’t work for every other species on the planet.
How little I know about the workings of nature! How much I am divorced from it all, living in my terraced house, driving about in my red car, buying my food cellophane wrapped from the supermarket!
And how little I know about the Creator of all this nature! Am I equally divorced from him too?
The same batch of washing went back on the line this morning, after having been hauled in twice before. The cloudless blue sky, according to the weather forecast, wasn’t going to last.
I completed a few essential tasks and then decided to pack a picnic lunch and head for the hills while it was still dry. Just above Loch Ness there are a number of smaller lochs away from all the Nessie hunters and tourists.
There was a sign just before the road dwindled into a single track which informed me that work was being done up ahead. I assumed it was resurfacing or something, but overhanging branches were being cut down, left by the side of the road, to be picked up later. Single track roads are not very wide to start with, so trying to manoeuvre around piles of debris was a challenge. Passing the lorry that was cutting down the branches was even more challenging.
I parked in a long lay-by beside Loch Dunchelchaig and headed off down the path that followed the shoreline and plunged deeper into the surrounding woods. I had the camera fully charged and ready. I always hope to catch a glimpse of something interesting but lack the skill to capture the moment on film.
Imagine my surprise to encounter the smallest of fawns tottering around on the path just ahead of me. It wasn’t big enough, or wise enough to disappear into the forest, and just looked at me. Eventually it stumbled over to the edge of the path and into a nest of heather.
I half expected mummy deer to appear out of somewhere, and do the mothering thing of scaring me in some way or another, but the baby seemed to be on its own. I wondered if mummy deer had got shot, or had an accident. Perhaps the fawn was orphaned. The one thing I needed, but didn’t have in my rucksack was a feeding bottle filled with deer milk, and I thought for a while about dismantling my chicken sandwich and sharing it. I wondered whether I ought to call someone, a rescue home for lost deer.
I so wanted to pick up the fawn and take it somewhere safe.
Common sense prevailed. Just because I couldn’t see mummy deer, didn’t mean that she wasn’t around somewhere. Picking it up, feeding it my chicken sandwich, was probably the worst course of action I could have taken. What might work for a human baby (feeding it a chicken sandwich?) doesn’t work for every other species on the planet.
How little I know about the workings of nature! How much I am divorced from it all, living in my terraced house, driving about in my red car, buying my food cellophane wrapped from the supermarket!
And how little I know about the Creator of all this nature! Am I equally divorced from him too?
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Essential Difference Between Dr Who and God
I sat down last night to watch the final instalment of the Torchwood series that has been showing throughout the week. It was compelling viewing, but I have to admit that it was dark and very disturbing. It seemed to portray the very worst of humanity, particularly from those who make the decisions that affect everyone else. I hated the way they decided which ten percent of the nation’s children would be offered up the aliens so save the other ninety percent.
I seem to remember that in the fifties and sixties the films about alien invasions that were around were not really about alien invasions at all, but commentary on political matters. The aliens were communists, or asylum seekers, or refugees. You just needed to decipher the code. One wonders what the axe the writer was really grinding – the unfairness of school league tables, and how their use can be abused perhaps.
One scene that stood out for me was when Gwen and the children were hiding in the barn. She was making a last film for future generations to find that would explain what went wrong with the world. Talking of Jack’s friend, the Doctor (akka Dr Who), she wanted to know why he wasn’t there. The way she understood it was that the Doctor turned up in the bad times to rescue people. He was there when all hope seemed to be extinguished. He dropped in from nowhere, pointed his sonic screwdriver at the bad aliens and saved the day.
So why not this time? Perhaps this time, Gwen mused, they didn’t deserve saving.
Earlier on the government had decided that there were some people who were potential parasites in society. There were some children who would never have a positive contribution to make. They would be the ones on benefits, the ones who couldn’t get a job, the ones who were more than likely to end up in prison. There were the ones who were worth less than others, the ones they could afford to give up on.
How opposite to the gospel! The truth is that none of us is worth saving – regardless of our potential earning capacities, our talents and abilities, or the lack of them. We love to construct league tables and make comparisons. We love to line ourselves up and shove other people to the back of the queue. It makes us feel better to think that we are better than someone else.
Gwen thought there was some requirement for Dr Who to rescue everyone, because that is what he did. In the same vein, I often think that God ought to drop in more often and intervene. There are so many times when I feel that I am on my own, that the help I expected hasn’t turned up, even at the eleventh hour!
Sometimes it is tempting to draw the same conclusions as Gwen – I don’t deserve saving. I am so glad that faith tells me that isn’t so, in capital letters, written in think black maker pen, in permanent ink. OK I do not deserve saving, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get saved! If it was ever about who deserved what, none of us would be around. God’s grace gives me what I don’t deserve – a vibrant relationship with the Living God, oft-times incomprehensible, sometimes silent, frequently unpredictable.
I don't always get rescued the way I want to be rescued, or when, but I do get rescued at the very end of the story.
I seem to remember that in the fifties and sixties the films about alien invasions that were around were not really about alien invasions at all, but commentary on political matters. The aliens were communists, or asylum seekers, or refugees. You just needed to decipher the code. One wonders what the axe the writer was really grinding – the unfairness of school league tables, and how their use can be abused perhaps.
One scene that stood out for me was when Gwen and the children were hiding in the barn. She was making a last film for future generations to find that would explain what went wrong with the world. Talking of Jack’s friend, the Doctor (akka Dr Who), she wanted to know why he wasn’t there. The way she understood it was that the Doctor turned up in the bad times to rescue people. He was there when all hope seemed to be extinguished. He dropped in from nowhere, pointed his sonic screwdriver at the bad aliens and saved the day. So why not this time? Perhaps this time, Gwen mused, they didn’t deserve saving.
Earlier on the government had decided that there were some people who were potential parasites in society. There were some children who would never have a positive contribution to make. They would be the ones on benefits, the ones who couldn’t get a job, the ones who were more than likely to end up in prison. There were the ones who were worth less than others, the ones they could afford to give up on.
How opposite to the gospel! The truth is that none of us is worth saving – regardless of our potential earning capacities, our talents and abilities, or the lack of them. We love to construct league tables and make comparisons. We love to line ourselves up and shove other people to the back of the queue. It makes us feel better to think that we are better than someone else.
Gwen thought there was some requirement for Dr Who to rescue everyone, because that is what he did. In the same vein, I often think that God ought to drop in more often and intervene. There are so many times when I feel that I am on my own, that the help I expected hasn’t turned up, even at the eleventh hour!
Sometimes it is tempting to draw the same conclusions as Gwen – I don’t deserve saving. I am so glad that faith tells me that isn’t so, in capital letters, written in think black maker pen, in permanent ink. OK I do not deserve saving, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get saved! If it was ever about who deserved what, none of us would be around. God’s grace gives me what I don’t deserve – a vibrant relationship with the Living God, oft-times incomprehensible, sometimes silent, frequently unpredictable.
I don't always get rescued the way I want to be rescued, or when, but I do get rescued at the very end of the story.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
My Day of Tambourines and Dancing
“Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful.” Jeremiah 31:4
This small sentence caught my eye as I was reading through Jeremiah 31 because it contains so much promise and so much hope.
I actually own two tambourines. One is a small one, a kind of tourist souvenir of a tambourine that hangs on the wall in the down stairs toilet.
The other is a real musician’s tambourine. It was on one of my Christmas lists long ago. I was a part of the worship team in the church and lamenting that I didn’t play an instrument, apart from my voice, which on a good day, was passable. I had the heart for worship but had not yet developed the vocal chords to match. I thought that a tambourine would make me feel that I had something musical to contribute. My sense of rhythm turned out to be as hit and miss as the vocal chords. It isn’t the easiest of instruments to wield, not made to measure and a little too heavy for my wrist.
Just lately there hasn’t been that much that prompts me to pick up a tambourine and join in a dance with the joyful. I am more likely to be comfort eating in the café exchanging woeful tales with anyone that will offer a shoulder, or a box of tissues.
That’s what I meant about promise. God doesn’t offer empty words as comfort and encouragement. He knows that there will be a day for tambourines and dancing, because He stands outside of time and He sees it.
He sees what I cannot see right now and tells me that my day for tambourines and dancing is just around the corner.
(Picture from www.nataliedee.com)
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Girlie Grunts
I don’t normally watch the girlies at Wimbledon. Mostly it’s the grunting and the squealing that puts me off. It just seems very unnecessary. Also most games seem to be over very quickly, with the winner winning very easily…well, one would assume it was an easy win with 6-1 6-2.
I watched the semi final between Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva. My husband has taken a liking for the other Russian…Safina, so I was killing time waiting for that game to begin.
I suppose if you watch something long enough you are bound to get involved. As much as admire the William’s sisters, I like it when they get beat. And it looked like Serena was getting beat at one stage.
There was one point in the match where the grunting and squealing transformed into something else. Whereas it had just been irritable background noise, in one game where Serena was serving and it was a deuce battle, the grunting almost became snarls and hisses. If you could have translated the grunts I really think a dialogue was going on between them across the net as the ball thundered past.
“I’ll be blowed if you are going to take this point off me!”
“You try and take this point and I will scratch your eyes out!”
“This is my game, get your stinking paws off it!”
“Take that (whack) and that (whack) and that (whack) and there’s more where they came from!”
“Over my dead body!”
I don’t think I have ever heard anything so intimidating. For that single game there was so much ferocity in the grunts and the whacks. It was scary. If I had have been on the receiving end…I would have run away. I would not have snarled back!
I was thinking about the verse in Romans 8:26 “but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
When I groan it tends to be pitiful stuff. Things are going wrong. I am on the brink of tears. I am feeling frustrated. It’s like I am on the verge of some kind of breakdown.
Imagine then if the groans of the Holy Spirit are like those girlie groans in the tennis match, those really intimidating ones. Imagine that you could translate them.
“You (as in the enemy) are not going to snatch this victory away from Mel!”
“You try and take away her healing and I will scratch your eyes out!”
“This is her time with God, get your stinking paws off it!”
“Take that (whack) and that (whack) and that (whack) and there’s more where they came from!”
“Because of Christ’s resurrected body you will not prevail!”
Wow! So much ferocity, so much intimidation...and the enemy on the receiving end of them runs away!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
What does Grace Look Like?
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16
It’s a well known verse. You may be one of those people who learned it by heart when you were a child.
I have to confess that when I have read this verse I have always focused on “approach the throne of grace with confidence”. I have always thought of the attitude in which we come.
Once while on holiday in Paris, I was approached by a beggar. That’s not entirely true. The beggar didn’t do any approaching at all. I suppose I did the approaching since the beggar was in my path. She was kneeling on the floor before me with her hands held out in supplication. I was moved to compassion and thought that no one ought to be in that position, kneeling before another person, hands held out. There was something about the posture of the woman that stirred my spirit.
Thinking later about it, I was glad that I do not need to approach the throne of God like that…on my knees, my eyes to the ground, holding out my hands in supplication. That is not confidence or boldness.
This morning, it was the end of the verse that captured by attention, the bit that I know is there but don’t really look at “that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
“Grace to help us” isn’t an escape hatch to avoid the troubles we go through. Too often what I am looking for is a way out rather than a way through the difficult times that I am going through. I want not to feel so torn up inside. I don’t want my brother to be have cancer, or to think about another funeral on the horizon. I want stop crying. I want my sunny days without clouds.
God doesn’t offer that. He offers grace to help us in our time of need.
What does that look like? We had a visit from a friend of ours last night. She and her husband have some kind of time share arrangement. An apartment near Feungirola, where my brother lives, is available to them for a week in July. They have offered the apartment to us if we want it, so that we can spend time with my brother.
That’s what grace looks like!
It’s a well known verse. You may be one of those people who learned it by heart when you were a child.
I have to confess that when I have read this verse I have always focused on “approach the throne of grace with confidence”. I have always thought of the attitude in which we come.
Once while on holiday in Paris, I was approached by a beggar. That’s not entirely true. The beggar didn’t do any approaching at all. I suppose I did the approaching since the beggar was in my path. She was kneeling on the floor before me with her hands held out in supplication. I was moved to compassion and thought that no one ought to be in that position, kneeling before another person, hands held out. There was something about the posture of the woman that stirred my spirit.
Thinking later about it, I was glad that I do not need to approach the throne of God like that…on my knees, my eyes to the ground, holding out my hands in supplication. That is not confidence or boldness.
This morning, it was the end of the verse that captured by attention, the bit that I know is there but don’t really look at “that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
“Grace to help us” isn’t an escape hatch to avoid the troubles we go through. Too often what I am looking for is a way out rather than a way through the difficult times that I am going through. I want not to feel so torn up inside. I don’t want my brother to be have cancer, or to think about another funeral on the horizon. I want stop crying. I want my sunny days without clouds.
God doesn’t offer that. He offers grace to help us in our time of need.
What does that look like? We had a visit from a friend of ours last night. She and her husband have some kind of time share arrangement. An apartment near Feungirola, where my brother lives, is available to them for a week in July. They have offered the apartment to us if we want it, so that we can spend time with my brother.
That’s what grace looks like!
Approaching the Throne of Grace
Despite this being a weekend, my body was in wake-up mode. Last Sunday we were talking in church about being people who spent time with Jesus. When Peter and John came up before the Jewish council, what set them apart from just being uneducated men was the fact that they had spent time with Jesus. Too often, even in my quiet times, I am not spending time with Jesus, but just ticking a mental box somewhere, that I have “done” it.
I was reading the end few verses of Hebrews 4, about Jesus our High Priest, and the confidence with which we can enter the throne room of God. I was reminded of a FW challenge entry I wrote based on how Aaron, the first High Priest, entered into the Most Holy Place.
Into the Most Holy Place
Aaron rolled over, the faint light of dawn seeping through the window. The space where his wife would normally be sleeping was cold and empty and her lingering fragrance was absent. Soon the Day of Atonement would be over and their enforced celibacy would come to an end. Today he would enter the Most Holy Place making a sin offering for the people.
Aaron Phillips rolled over, the shrill siren of the alarm clock drumming through his head. Rubbing his forehead, he tried to massage away the beginnings of a headache. He couldn't remember how many bottles of beer he had drank last night. Sighing, he rolled on to his stomach. Getting up on a Sunday always seemed to be such a battle. He tried to remember last week's sermon - just in case the pastor asked!
Aaron stood in the sanctuary, a bowl of clean cold water beside him on the floor. The water against his skin felt refreshing. As he washed every area of his body he reminded himself that he belonged wholly to God. Reaching over, he carefully stepped into the linen clothes, inhaling their freshness. He tied the linen sash about his waist, and patiently wound the turban around his head. He flexed his shoulders, ready for the burden of the ephod.
The shower sprayed hot water in a power jet against Aaron's skin. He lathered a palm full of shower gel into a white froth and smothered his chest arms. He hummed tunelessly, trying to remember the songs from the live band that had been playing last night in the club. Wrapped in a towel, he opened the wardrobe door, flicking his way through the hangers. The dark blue weave of his suit would best highlight the blue flecks of his hazel eyes.
The bull stood patient and placid as Aaron ran his fingers down its legs, checking that there were no imperfections. He could feel the strength of its muscles beneath the hide. He imagined the swift slash of the sharp knife against the bull's throat, the warm rush of blood spilling over his fingers and gushing into the bowl. The ram was less placid ,rather skittish, shuffling about on its hooves and Aaron knew that it would take a lot of his strength to hold it still.
Aaron upturned the cushions on the sofa searching for his Bible. A glass of orange juice held at a hazardous angle drizzled a sticky trail down green leather. He yelled to his wife, asking her if she had seen his Bible anywhere. He pulled books from the bookcase selecting the ones with likely looking spines - anything with black leather and gold writing. Suddenly Aaron remembered that the Bible was probably still in the boot of the car, nestled up against his tool kit.
Aaron walked towards the entrance of the most Holy Place. Lighting the incense in the basket, he watched a cloudy mass fill the place where he stood, and twitched his nose at the strong fragrance. It was essential that he wait long enough for the smoke to fill the room before he entered. Aaron knew well enough that no amount of smoke could hide him from the awesome God, but the smoke was there to remind him that he could not look upon the face of the Almighty God and live. Just before he stepped into the smoke filled room, Aaron checked the rope tied about his ankle. If anything were to go wrong, and God found cause to destroy him, at least his body could be pulled out of the room. Aaron felt his heart shiver fearfully as he entered into the Most Holy Place to an encounter with the Living God.
Aaron pulled neatly into the last car parking space outside the church. He dismissed the thought that he aught to show consideration to the couple following behind him. He didn't recognise them and thought they must be visitors. Aaron glanced at his watch, calculating the possible timing of the meeting, hoping he would be home for the start of the game. He ran his hand over the gleaming red bonnet of his car, thinking it might be an idea to take it over the car wash later this afternoon. There was a slight chill in the air and Aaron shivered as he opened the church door. He never entered the Most Holy Place and missed an encounter with the Living God.
(I am glad that we don't need to enter God's presence the way that Aaron, the High Priest, had to. But neither should we enter with the mind-set of my character Aaron Philips)
I was reading the end few verses of Hebrews 4, about Jesus our High Priest, and the confidence with which we can enter the throne room of God. I was reminded of a FW challenge entry I wrote based on how Aaron, the first High Priest, entered into the Most Holy Place.
Into the Most Holy Place
Aaron rolled over, the faint light of dawn seeping through the window. The space where his wife would normally be sleeping was cold and empty and her lingering fragrance was absent. Soon the Day of Atonement would be over and their enforced celibacy would come to an end. Today he would enter the Most Holy Place making a sin offering for the people.
Aaron Phillips rolled over, the shrill siren of the alarm clock drumming through his head. Rubbing his forehead, he tried to massage away the beginnings of a headache. He couldn't remember how many bottles of beer he had drank last night. Sighing, he rolled on to his stomach. Getting up on a Sunday always seemed to be such a battle. He tried to remember last week's sermon - just in case the pastor asked!
Aaron stood in the sanctuary, a bowl of clean cold water beside him on the floor. The water against his skin felt refreshing. As he washed every area of his body he reminded himself that he belonged wholly to God. Reaching over, he carefully stepped into the linen clothes, inhaling their freshness. He tied the linen sash about his waist, and patiently wound the turban around his head. He flexed his shoulders, ready for the burden of the ephod.
The shower sprayed hot water in a power jet against Aaron's skin. He lathered a palm full of shower gel into a white froth and smothered his chest arms. He hummed tunelessly, trying to remember the songs from the live band that had been playing last night in the club. Wrapped in a towel, he opened the wardrobe door, flicking his way through the hangers. The dark blue weave of his suit would best highlight the blue flecks of his hazel eyes.
The bull stood patient and placid as Aaron ran his fingers down its legs, checking that there were no imperfections. He could feel the strength of its muscles beneath the hide. He imagined the swift slash of the sharp knife against the bull's throat, the warm rush of blood spilling over his fingers and gushing into the bowl. The ram was less placid ,rather skittish, shuffling about on its hooves and Aaron knew that it would take a lot of his strength to hold it still.
Aaron upturned the cushions on the sofa searching for his Bible. A glass of orange juice held at a hazardous angle drizzled a sticky trail down green leather. He yelled to his wife, asking her if she had seen his Bible anywhere. He pulled books from the bookcase selecting the ones with likely looking spines - anything with black leather and gold writing. Suddenly Aaron remembered that the Bible was probably still in the boot of the car, nestled up against his tool kit.
Aaron walked towards the entrance of the most Holy Place. Lighting the incense in the basket, he watched a cloudy mass fill the place where he stood, and twitched his nose at the strong fragrance. It was essential that he wait long enough for the smoke to fill the room before he entered. Aaron knew well enough that no amount of smoke could hide him from the awesome God, but the smoke was there to remind him that he could not look upon the face of the Almighty God and live. Just before he stepped into the smoke filled room, Aaron checked the rope tied about his ankle. If anything were to go wrong, and God found cause to destroy him, at least his body could be pulled out of the room. Aaron felt his heart shiver fearfully as he entered into the Most Holy Place to an encounter with the Living God.
Aaron pulled neatly into the last car parking space outside the church. He dismissed the thought that he aught to show consideration to the couple following behind him. He didn't recognise them and thought they must be visitors. Aaron glanced at his watch, calculating the possible timing of the meeting, hoping he would be home for the start of the game. He ran his hand over the gleaming red bonnet of his car, thinking it might be an idea to take it over the car wash later this afternoon. There was a slight chill in the air and Aaron shivered as he opened the church door. He never entered the Most Holy Place and missed an encounter with the Living God.
(I am glad that we don't need to enter God's presence the way that Aaron, the High Priest, had to. But neither should we enter with the mind-set of my character Aaron Philips)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Hands Held High
I was reading this morning from the account in Exodus of Joshua fighting the Amalekites down in the valley while Moses stood on a hill with the staff of God in his hands held high. I wondered if Joshua could actually see Moses. Come to think of it, it doesn’t matter whether Joshua could see the hill or not. In the midst of the swing and clash of steel he couldn’t really afford for his eyes to stray to a hill behind him. A glance backwards to the hill might have been enough time for the fatal thrust of the enemy blade to kill him.
Did Joshua know what was happening on the hill? Had he made the connection between what Moses was doing on the hill, and how the battle was turning for him, or for his enemies? I suspect not, seeing as the account ends with God telling Moses to write down what happened and to make sure that Joshua gets to hear it all.
Joshua might have thought it was all up to him and his troops to save the day. Those times when they were winning might have been just because of effort on their part, of a second wind blowing in their direction. The times when they were loosing might have been down to weariness on their part as they had been fighting for the better part of the day. It is only in hindsight that he can join all the dots together to see the picture of God’s intervention.
Sometimes I think that I must be like Joshua right now. My battle isn’t physical one. Much as I would like to have a flesh and blood enemy that I could see, and a gleaming sword to swing at them, that’s not the case.
I think that my enemy is a big black hole of sorrow that would love to just suck me in. The Amalekites appear to me as dark thoughts, or a sense of helplessness or a wave of anger at the way in which what is happening to my family is unfair and God chooses not to intervene to stop it all.
I picture another man with His hands held high.
”Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” Romans 8:34
There is nothing to say what posture Jesus has adopted as He intercedes for me, but just as Moses stood on a hill with his hands raised high, interceding for Joshua on the battlefield below, something in my spirit tells me that Jesus is standing with His hands held high in heaven, before the throne of God. He doesn’t hold a staff like Moses, but clearly visible are the scars on His palms which remind God that Jesus died for me, that He has a claim upon my life.
I can’t see this particular hill, or this particular man. Like Joshua I am too busy with the clamour of the battle, but He is there nonetheless. And with him rests my victory.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Hug
Have you ever felt in need of a hug? It has to be the right kind of hug! Too many people who hug me are too tall and I find myself almost nestled beneath their armpits. We are not like two jigsaw pieces that slot neatly together. I want to be able to rest my chin on someone’s shoulders but to do that they would need to be kneeling down!
I dreamt about a hug one night. I am not even sure that it qualified as a dream because I wasn’t quite asleep at the time.
I had been thinking about my brother. I wasn’t asleep. The rumble from the air conditioning unit on the wall was keeping me awake, as was the slightly louder rumbling from my husband stretched out next to me.
I was thinking that my brother was probably lying awake too. The tumour on his back doesn’t really allow him to lie down in a comfortable position. Sometimes the morphine has worn off and he the pain is gnawing away at the edges, or not so much gnawing as biting viciously.
I thought to God that it would be nice if someone could just hug him so that he would feel better. Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if I could just hug him and some of my strength could just pass through my skin and through his and into his body and just ease the soreness he was feeling?
I had a picture in my head. It was as if I was watching. I saw God give my brother a hug. It wasn’t an embarrassing pat on the back, and over and done with in as short a time as possible. It was a solid hug, and through it, God imparted strength and comfort. There was nothing awkward in the giving or the receiving.
As God hugged my brother, I couldn’t help but smile. I felt more at peace than I had done for a long while.
God’s a good hugger!
The Time We Have Left
There is one prayer meeting, and I have been to few, that really sticks out in my mind. I suppose that if I could describe it in one word it would have to be “right”. There was no hype about anything, no whipping up emotions. It could have been a departmental meeting I was at. It was about conducting business…business in the heavenlies!
What happened was that there was a list, an agenda, if you will. They would take an item from the agenda, and then pray about it. They would get passionate in their prayers, but then, during a natural lull, someone would ask, “What do you think God is saying about this?”
They would be quiet for a while, and then someone would give insight into what they thought God was saying, and then they would all begin to pray again, taking a slightly different direction or focus. At the next lull, it would happen all over again, someone asking what God was saying, the silence, the insight, they continued prayer in the slightly different direction.
It was like correcting the cannon direction in a war. Moving it slightly to the left, or the right, or upwards, or downwards.
Eventually they reach a point where there was nothing left that needed to be said and move on to the next item. It was not your run of the mill, predictable prayer meeting, and you really felt that you were conducting holy business. No words were wasted. There were no long stretches of silence, but nothing said was irrelevant or waffle.
I suppose that to do that you would have to trust the sensitivity of the people involved in the praying. I am not sure that I would trust myself that much!
They came to one item which involved a young boy diagnosed with cancer.
They began praying fervently for God’s intervention and his healing touch. I am sure you can supply the words! They were looking for the cancer to be stopped in its tracks, for tests to come back clear.
The lull came, along with the question, “What do you think God is saying about this?” The answer supplied was that the boy was not going to recover. There wasn’t a day of recovery written in his book.
My jaw dropped! I thought that it was a given that God healed. You prayed for healing, sometimes you got it, sometimes you didn’t.
The nature of the prayers changed dramatically. The prayers were about comfort, and strength, and inner healing for the boy and his family through the time ahead. This was not a demonstration of a lack of faith, but a response to a word of knowledge.
I learned something about praying that night. It is not just what you say that counts, but what you hear from God. Too often I am more concerned about what I say on the matter rather than what God has to say on the matter.
There have been times when I have shared with friends that my brother is dying of cancer. There have been some that have not known what to say. There have been others who have been quick to testify of other people they have known who have been diagnosed with cancer, given months to live, been prayed for and then in a subsequent test, there is no sign of the tumours.
I prayed a lot for the recovery of my sister when she was unwell. I rebuked the illness. I found words in my daily readings that built up my faith. The times when I felt faithless I felt that I was letting her down, or letting God down, or just plain jinxing her recovery. So much energy expended and she passed away. I wouldn’t say that I stopped believing in God, but I was wary.
I should have spent more time asking the question, “What do you think God is saying about this?” rather than just presuming the given that God healed, that you prayed for healing, sometimes you got it, sometimes you didn’t.
I spoke to a work colleague yesterday about my brother’s diagnosis. It is cancer, in its later stages, inoperable, terminal, with a six month use-by date. My colleague’s response was to ask what my brother intended to do with the time left to him.
I had been so focussed on praying for healing, or praying for salvation, so that if the healing doesn’t happen at least he gets to go to heaven.
Inside of the question of what my brother is going to do with the time left to him, comes another question.
What am I going to do with the time that I have left with him?
I want to enjoy his company, share a tinnie or two, to laugh with him, to cry with him, to tell him funny jokes, to sit on the terrace and watch the sun go down of an evening!
What happened was that there was a list, an agenda, if you will. They would take an item from the agenda, and then pray about it. They would get passionate in their prayers, but then, during a natural lull, someone would ask, “What do you think God is saying about this?”
They would be quiet for a while, and then someone would give insight into what they thought God was saying, and then they would all begin to pray again, taking a slightly different direction or focus. At the next lull, it would happen all over again, someone asking what God was saying, the silence, the insight, they continued prayer in the slightly different direction.
It was like correcting the cannon direction in a war. Moving it slightly to the left, or the right, or upwards, or downwards.
Eventually they reach a point where there was nothing left that needed to be said and move on to the next item. It was not your run of the mill, predictable prayer meeting, and you really felt that you were conducting holy business. No words were wasted. There were no long stretches of silence, but nothing said was irrelevant or waffle.
I suppose that to do that you would have to trust the sensitivity of the people involved in the praying. I am not sure that I would trust myself that much!
They came to one item which involved a young boy diagnosed with cancer.
They began praying fervently for God’s intervention and his healing touch. I am sure you can supply the words! They were looking for the cancer to be stopped in its tracks, for tests to come back clear.
The lull came, along with the question, “What do you think God is saying about this?” The answer supplied was that the boy was not going to recover. There wasn’t a day of recovery written in his book.
My jaw dropped! I thought that it was a given that God healed. You prayed for healing, sometimes you got it, sometimes you didn’t.
The nature of the prayers changed dramatically. The prayers were about comfort, and strength, and inner healing for the boy and his family through the time ahead. This was not a demonstration of a lack of faith, but a response to a word of knowledge.
I learned something about praying that night. It is not just what you say that counts, but what you hear from God. Too often I am more concerned about what I say on the matter rather than what God has to say on the matter.
There have been times when I have shared with friends that my brother is dying of cancer. There have been some that have not known what to say. There have been others who have been quick to testify of other people they have known who have been diagnosed with cancer, given months to live, been prayed for and then in a subsequent test, there is no sign of the tumours.
I prayed a lot for the recovery of my sister when she was unwell. I rebuked the illness. I found words in my daily readings that built up my faith. The times when I felt faithless I felt that I was letting her down, or letting God down, or just plain jinxing her recovery. So much energy expended and she passed away. I wouldn’t say that I stopped believing in God, but I was wary.
I should have spent more time asking the question, “What do you think God is saying about this?” rather than just presuming the given that God healed, that you prayed for healing, sometimes you got it, sometimes you didn’t.
I spoke to a work colleague yesterday about my brother’s diagnosis. It is cancer, in its later stages, inoperable, terminal, with a six month use-by date. My colleague’s response was to ask what my brother intended to do with the time left to him.
I had been so focussed on praying for healing, or praying for salvation, so that if the healing doesn’t happen at least he gets to go to heaven.
Inside of the question of what my brother is going to do with the time left to him, comes another question.
What am I going to do with the time that I have left with him?
I want to enjoy his company, share a tinnie or two, to laugh with him, to cry with him, to tell him funny jokes, to sit on the terrace and watch the sun go down of an evening!
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Climbing Mountains
“Who may climb the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?” Psalm 24:3
I read the whole of Psalm 24 this morning, but the bit that caught my eye was this verse about climbing the mountain of the Lord. In the NIV it’s called a hill rather than a mountain. A hill doesn’t seem so daunting. You can climb a hill and maybe you get out of breath a bit, if you’re me. Mountains are a different type of climb!
As I read the words, they reminded me of an article I had posted at faithwriters.com on the topic of endurance. I likened it to a mountain climbing experience I had when I was on a Geography field trip at school. One big mountain, one short Mel, one ever-stressed heart, one huge distance lagging behind everyone else, one very red face and one kind teacher who dropped back to walk with me and encourage me that the view from the top was worth the climb.
Thinking in terms of spiritual mountains and challenges in the article I wrote these sentences: “Some mountains move when I apply my mustard-sized faith in prayer. Other mountains are for climbing. True wisdom is being able to distinguish between them.”
How much effort is wasted when we try to climb a mountain that God had ear-marked for moving! How much angst we go through trying to move a mountain that God has set aside for climbing! “True wisdom is being able to distinguish between them”
I am not sure if I am half way up a mountain that I ought to be moving out of the way by faith, or half way up a mountain that I am supposed to climbing! If I am supposed to be moving it, I am not sure that I possess the mustard sized faith to do the job. I have taken a bit of a battering faith-wise over the last few months. If I am supposed to climb, I am not entirely convinced that the view from the top is going to be that spectacular!
Guess who needs wisdom?
I read the whole of Psalm 24 this morning, but the bit that caught my eye was this verse about climbing the mountain of the Lord. In the NIV it’s called a hill rather than a mountain. A hill doesn’t seem so daunting. You can climb a hill and maybe you get out of breath a bit, if you’re me. Mountains are a different type of climb!
As I read the words, they reminded me of an article I had posted at faithwriters.com on the topic of endurance. I likened it to a mountain climbing experience I had when I was on a Geography field trip at school. One big mountain, one short Mel, one ever-stressed heart, one huge distance lagging behind everyone else, one very red face and one kind teacher who dropped back to walk with me and encourage me that the view from the top was worth the climb.
Thinking in terms of spiritual mountains and challenges in the article I wrote these sentences: “Some mountains move when I apply my mustard-sized faith in prayer. Other mountains are for climbing. True wisdom is being able to distinguish between them.”
How much effort is wasted when we try to climb a mountain that God had ear-marked for moving! How much angst we go through trying to move a mountain that God has set aside for climbing! “True wisdom is being able to distinguish between them”
I am not sure if I am half way up a mountain that I ought to be moving out of the way by faith, or half way up a mountain that I am supposed to climbing! If I am supposed to be moving it, I am not sure that I possess the mustard sized faith to do the job. I have taken a bit of a battering faith-wise over the last few months. If I am supposed to climb, I am not entirely convinced that the view from the top is going to be that spectacular!
Guess who needs wisdom?
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