Serving The Lord "Right Merrily"

When I lived in London for two years I used to attend a dance class twice a week. It wasn’t like social dancing or ball room dancing, but the kind of dancing you see in the film “Footloose”. I actually owned and wore leotards and leggings – note the plural! The one thing that I didn’t like was the mirror. It was across one wall of the studio and the idea was you were supposed to look at yourself in the mirror as you danced and check your posture. I have never really been into mirrors. The less I see of the whole of me, the better I like it. I am not one for preening.

At the age of twenty two I was one of the oldest in the class and certainly one of the least agile. I did have a lot of determination and plugged away at the choreography to learn the routines. It was like being on the cast of Fame Academy! I just saw it as being a way to let off steam. I was teaching, at the time, in a tough East End of London Secondary school where you got to confiscate guns and knives and where the pupils did sometimes literally swing from the light bulbs!

I had forgotten all about that when I was in a shop a few months back and they were doing a clear out of all DVDs and CDs and things. I picked up a dance DVD produced by the Pineapple dance studio in London. It promised that I can learn the latest dance moves. They are probably not the latest any more!

There were no leotards and leggings but loose baggy t-shirts, trousers with the crotch somewhere down by the knees, baseball caps on backwards and a choreographer that kept saying “Go, girl!” Do I qualify as a girl at my age?

I guess these things are not designed for the overweight woman of advancing years. I was managing quite well for the first eight bars. I managed the turn, the star jump and unfolding my arms in front of me. Things deteriorated rapidly with a complex footwork routine, thrusting out my ample bosom in various directions. Then we were supposed to crouch down and shimmy upwards whilst gyrating the bum. It was all very Hip Hop and in the end I abandoned myself to the sheer joy of flinging my arms and legs about to the music. (I bet King David didn’t employ a choreographer when he danced before the Ark of the Covenant as he brought it into Jerusalem!)

I know that I probably had the option of sitting down for half an hour and praying, or doing an in depth Bible study, or even just soaking – but you know what? I really enjoyed my prancing about and I laughed so much that my sides ached.

In a recent visit to London, Joe and I went to Covent Garden. There is a church there – St Paul’s. It is dedicated to actors. All around the walls there are plaques in memory of different playwrights, actors, musicians and artists. One of them, I am not sure of the name, Margaret Someone-or-other, particularly stirred my spirit. The epitaph read “She served the Lord right merrily.”

May that be said of me – “She served the Lord right merrily.”

Because You Needed Me

I have recently changed my Bible study notes. There weren’t any copies left of the ones I usually buy. It has made me realize how much of a “quiet time” rut I have got used to.

This morning as I read and meditated on the apportioned verses from Acts 10, I made expansive notes on things that came to mind. Once I had put down the pen, quite pleased with what I had thought about – the Spirit spoke. “Now that your mind has finished speaking – what does your heart say?”

The chapter starts - “In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.”

What my heart has to say? I can see why God responded to Cornelius. He was devout and God-fearing. He was generous and giving. He prayed a lot. He was the kind of man that God could use. He was more than half way there. Even as a Christian, I am tempted to line myself up against him and come to the conclusion that I don’t measure up.

Reading back in the previous chapter was God claims Saul on the road to Damascus, again, I can see why. Saul with all his passion and his understanding of scripture – God could direct it all for His purposes. Within days of his encounter with God, he is preaching to the Jews, proving that Jesus is the Christ, persuading them, arguing with them and leaving them all baffled and astonished. I can see why God picked Saul.

My heart has to say – why me? I wasn’t particularly devout. I have always believed in God, but God-fearing is something different. I feared many things, God included, but in a scary judgmental kind of way. Generously giving? The moths in my purse were rarely disturbed. I have difficulty letting go of my “rainy day” mentality and confess to being a bit of a hoarder. I maybe gave, but never generously. I was never the widow with her mite casting her last few coins in the offering. Did I pray to God regularly? No. Like most people I prayed those selfish emergency prayers and I “wished” nice things for other people.

God spoke to me as I was thinking all of this. “I didn’t choose you because I needed you. I chose you because you needed Me”.

Enough said!

Best Laid Plans

According to the route worked out by the AA on their rout planner website the journey to my sister’s house in Northampton should have taken just over twenty five minutes. It was really only the last five minutes that we lost it. The instructions said “At roundabout take the 2nd exit onto the A4500”. Maybe the AA man who made up the route didn’t know about the road works. There were too many traffic bollards and not enough road signs and we ended up in the centre of town, with the market on just to our right and a church just behind us.

We had a mobile phone and a phone number. My brother in law rattled off a list of instructions over the phone. It included things like “There will be a brewery on the left” and “Drive past Asda on the right”. Needless to say we got lost again and ended up in a Netto car-park. My husband was getting tetchy in the passenger seat and my mother, in the back, on the verge of a diabetic hypo, was humming loudly to stop herself stressing out!

“No more instructions! Just come and find us!” was the next phone call, which he did. Following someone is not easy.

My husband was looking at the defunct AA plan, trying to match up where we were going with the instructions on the print out.

“None of these roads are mentioned,” he informed me. It did seem a very long journey and not just the five minutes we expected.

We finally pulled up in front of a house neither of us had seen before.

Yep, they had moved house. My sister was rolling about in merriment, quite tickled with the idea that if we had not got lost we would have been knocking on the door of a house currently owned by a pleasant Asian couple!

On the way home, my mother and my husband discussed the virtues of buying a satellite navigation system!

Any Dream Will Not Do

I promised faithfully to behave myself on Tuesday evening. I am a participator by nature. I am a joiner-in. As much as I would sometimes like to stand cool and collected at the side of the track saying, “Jolly good show” I just don’t have it in me. So when Joe and I found our seats in Row B of the dress circle in the theatre, ready to sit down and enjoy Lee Mead in “Joseph”, I was under strict instructions not to join in!


Joe and I had faithfully watched the BBC programme to select the man to be in the title role. Joe had found his own way of identifying the different lads in the competition. Let me see…there was “Boy Band Joseph”, “Serial Killer Joseph” (his eyes were too close together) “Glaikit Joseph” (a Scots expression that signifies clue-less-ness – the boy had said something like he was just realising it was a contest six weeks into it!) and of course “Real Joseph” – Lee.

Joe promised that he would take me to see the show for my birthday – and he lived up to his promise.

When I was much younger, I was very involved in drama. I think my first appearance on stage was in a local village pantomime – Robinson Crusoe. I was a pygmy.

Watching the children on stage reminded me of the grease paint and rehearsals to learn the lines and the choreography.

Watching Lee Mead navigate his way through all the songs and scenes, I couldn’t help but totally disagree with the lyrics of the last song “Any dream will do” is a lot of rubbish. I have to admit that I am coming to really appreciate the talent that it takes to write a song – find a tune that holds up and lyrics that matter and “Any dream will do” just doesn’t hold up.

Winning the BBC programme and appearing on stage every night in a loin cloth is not just “any dream” for Lee. It is “The Dream” and anything else will not do. It was not difficult to see that he was enjoying every moment of the show. He was living the dream and it wasn’t just any dream.

Any dream will not do! And people who settle for “any dream” that isn’t “The Dream” will never be fulfilled.

Digging in the Desert

Imagine, if you will, an army of soldiers in the desert. Behind them are miles upon miles of sand dunes and rocky terrain. They have been marching for seven days. They are on their way to the border of the neighbouring country to put down a rebellion. The last sip of water has been drunk.

There are no wells, no streams, no springs, no reservoirs, not even a stagnant pool – nothing but sand in all directions, and vultures circling high above their heads.

If your name was Joram and you were the King of Israel, right about now you would be cursing a few people. God would be at the top of the list. Things are not going to plan and some one is to blame.

If your name was Jehoshaphat and you were the King of Judah, you would probably have a more positive outlook and suggest finding a prophet to ask God what they should do next!

Enter Elisha stage left!

“…the hand of the LORD came upon Elisha and he said, "This is what the LORD says: Make this valley full of ditches. For this is what the LORD says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD.”

There was nothing that the eye could see, or would see, that water would be provided and yet God promised through Elisha that “this valley will be filled with water.” There was nothing that the eye could see or would see that water would be provided yet they dug a series of trenches to collect the water.

If you were there, with your spade, digging a trench, with nothing you could see to give you any encouragement that there would be water – how would you dig?

Would you scan the horizon looking for a cloud – even though you had been told there wouldn’t be one? With every thrust of the spade into the sand, would you be muttering under your breath? The trenches you are digging look pretty much like graves, don’t they?

Or would you be so convinced that God does exactly what He says that you fill your mind and heart and spirit with the picture of this trench you are digging overflowing with water? You can almost see the sun glinting off it! You can almost taste the water, sweet and cool on your tongue.

“The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water”

I know what kind of trench digger I would like to be!

Rediscovering Weetabix

“This is really quite nice!”

These words were said by me, to myself, twenty or thirty years after I had sworn never to to buy, eat, look at, smell, touch or go anywhere near Weetabix!

The problem was Weetabix was the only cereal we ever had at home for years. It took a long time to persuade my mother to start buying Cornflakes as an alternative. And then of course for the next few years it was only Cornflakes. Eventually, we again persuaded mum to try buying Rice Krispies. Thankfully I left home long before I had developed an aversion to Rice Krispies. There was no mixing the cereals.

So for years on end I have never been able to get over my Weetabix and Cornflake phobia! My husband loves Cornflakes and buys the occasional box, but I come out in a cold sweat every time I have to touch the box to move it to get to something behind it!

Despite having eaten Weetabix for most of my childhood, if you asked me what it tasted like, I honestly can’t remember what it tasted like – only that I didn’t like it! It is a clear case of familiarity breeds contempt!

I bought a pack a few weeks ago. Weetabix have distinctly fewer Weight Watcher points than some of the other breakfast cereals and they also have a low GI rating, which means they keep you filled up longer. So I fought against my Weetabix aversion, slipped two in a bowl, cut up a banana, dowsed it with milk and was quite surprised. It was nice! It wasn’t a case of holding my nose and gulping it down bravely – like I sometimes do with my porridge (which also has few WW points and is low GI). Yes, Weetabix is back on the menu!

I have had an opportunity to visit a number of different churches on a Sunday morning since we began meeting on an evening. The last time that I worshipped in a “denominational” church was probably in the late 1980s. Since then I have thrived, spiritually, on a diet of worship songs, guitar and keyboard music, various school halls, chairs, small congregations and an avoidance of anything that looks remotely like tradition.

Sunday mornings have been a little like re-discovering Weetabix! The things I thought I disliked about “denominational” churches don’t actually exist. Every place I have visited so far has been vibrant and full of life, not steeped and stagnant with tradition and hierarchy.

I thought I knew what Weetabix tasted like and I was wrong. I thought I knew what a typical church meeting in a “denominational" church was all about - but I was wrong.

I still haven’t tried the Cornflakes though!

Flaounes and Festivities

I suppose that you could call it home sickness, although I am not a Cypriot! I spent a few years living and working in Cyprus and Easter time was my favourite time of the year. Just for a short few weeks every bit of waste ground and every dry river bed was covered in flowers. New life was evident all around.

I miss the way that the Cypriots took time to celebrate Easter. Sometimes we are so keen to throw off traditions frightened that they will suffocate our faith, but the Greek Orthodox Church revels in traditions. They involve all the physical senses of the body to capture the spirit.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon making flaounes – small Easter cheese cakes. The plan, sometime this afternoon is to take them around the neighbourhood and share some resurrection joy.

In Cyprus, people greet each other with the words “Christos anesti!” (Christ is risen.) to be answered with the words “Alithos anesti!” (He is risen in deed). So that is what I aim to try out with the neighbours.

I am not much of a baker, so my faounes are always a hit and miss affair. If the cheese mixture is too wet, there is tendency for it to spill out of the pastry shell. I have more spilled flaounes than not, but they taste fine.

I was at an Easter service this morning in my local church. It was billed as a family meeting, and the place was filled to capacity with every generation.

I can remember my own Sunday School days. It was a small chapel the other side of the village. For weeks before the Easter service we practised our “lines” and learnt to march in an orderly line to deliver them loud and clear to the congregation. It was rehearsed carefully and everything went according to plan.

This morning it was like my flaoune mixture – a bit messy and spilling out of the pastry shell! The kids had a part to play being given coloured balloons and encouraged to do a Mexican wave for Jesus! It wasn’t rehearsed. No one had learned their lines! It was messy! It was noisy! It was fun! It was life! It was – unexpected.

I had never been inside my local church before. I expected pews – but they had row upon row of seats. I expected Sunday best coats and hats and I got jeans. I expected a hymn book and got a huge screen and a projector. I expected an organ and got a band. I expected a straight jacket and got a people freely expressing their love for Jesus. I expected to feel like a stranger and got treated like a friend.

The Scars on My Heart

My ears ache
Dreading to hear the words
You will not say

My will demands
Your silence
And yet pain consumes all will

Just say the words
“Father, save Me..”
And I will rush to Your side

I will rip the nails
Dragging them bloodstained
From Your palms

Gently will I ease away
The twisted thorny crown
From Your brow

I will rock You in my arms
Bestow a tender kiss
And breathe new life into You

Just say the words
“Father, save me..”
And I will

But in saving You
I will condemn to death
A hundred generations of new sons

And so I turn away
And hear You cry
“Why have You forsaken me”

My heart breaks
Because I mustn’t answer
And then it is finished

The scars on Your palms
Are there for all to see
But no one sees the scars on My heart


What if Jesus had called out to God, not "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", but "Father, save me!" I don't think that God could have resisted. It is in His nature to save. As much as God the Son went through the agony and pain the cross demanded, God the Father went through the pain of having to witness it and having to restrain himself from interfering.

Gethsemane

I came home from a Christian celebration of Passover. The taste of wine, unleavened bread and roast lamb was still on my lips.

Closing the car door, I happened to glance at the night sky. There was an almost full moon, a scattering of stars and traces of clouds.

I wondered if as the disciples and Jesus as they left their Passover meal to head out towards the Garden of Gethsemane glanced up at the sky. Did they see an almost full moon, a scattering of stars and traces of cloud?

I went to the Garden of Gethsemane once. I can remember being very disappointed because it didn’t look like a garden. There were no lawns or flower beds. I was thinking in terms of English country gardens and all that was before me was a bunch of trees. It was just an olive grove.

I would like to say that I walked among the trees and connected with God, thinking that here among the olive trees, my Saviour walked. I’d like to say that just as He prayed, pouring out his soul before the Father, that I too knelt and prayed. I would like to say that just as Jesus surrendered to the Father’s will, that I too surrendered.

Maybe I did, but I don’t remember.

Last night I connected. Thousands of miles away from Gethsemane, I thought about them leaving the upper room, the taste of wine, unleavened bread and roast lamb on their lips. The words of the Exodus story and God’s mighty deliverance of Israel from Egypt were still ringing in their ears.

They were standing on the cusp of a new world. In a few short hours so much would be dismantled – a curse, a curtain and an old covenant. Something altogether new as about to step into the centre of the stage – a new kingdom and a new king, a new life and a new beginning, a new community and a new commitment.

History almost repeats itself – God delivers another bunch of slaves from another tyrant! This time around I was there - God delivered me!

Saying it with verse

Do you know how many cards there are to send to someone who has been promoted? None at all! I spent a while scanning the shelves looking for a card for Joe to congratulate him on his promotion. I had to settle for a blank card with a picture of chapagne bottle on it and come up with my own cheerful congratulatory message inside!

I went into a shop today
To buy a card for you
Of “Happy Birthday” “Get Well Soon”
There were more than a few

Giving birth or moving house?
A million cards to choose
For weddings and retirements too
There’s cards to spread the news

Now if you left your job, oh yes
There is a card to buy
But mere promotion to B2
Those cards, they don’t supply

If Hallmark cannot say the words
“Congratulations, Joe”
I’ll write my own inspiring verse
“Well Done! My cute wee beau!”

A Mother's Pride

Last night my husband and I were obviously reading from different scripts or singing from different song sheets! My script was all about cleaning the house! We have guests staying with us later on in the week and the spare bedrooms would not pass a governmental health check! Actually, it’s not just the spare rooms – the whole house has been deteriorating around us. So, yes, my script has included lots of polish and hovering and ironing and stuff.

My husband’s script – well I am not quite sure what he was up to.

He has recently been promoted at work and came home, quite a lot later than I expected him to I might add, to show me a letter confirming his new status and details of his new salary. I should have been able respond with more than just a grunt, but I just refused to drop the resentment that had built up in me as I had worked on alone with the cleaning.

The evening progressed with him in the dog-house and me on my high horse, the two of us like two marbles coldly clinking together in a half cleaned jar!

Later that night as I wrapped myself in a book, Joe started to talk.

He told me about a day when he was ten or eleven. He had passed something like the 11 Plus test and had won a place at the local grammar school. He came from a very working class background and finding the extra money needed for all the items of the school uniform was not going to be easy. He remembered his mother taking him up to the school. It was way out of her comfort zone. She was absolutely frightened at meeting the whole school community, who were just from almost another planet, but she pulled herself to her full height and walked in the door. She charmed everyone in sight. She was more Roman Catholic than most of the Marist Brothers that taught in the school.

It was just that picture of her standing outside the gates determined that she would not let her son down that he was telling me about. She was proud of him for passing the exam and getting the chance to go to that school.

As he told me the story of his mother, with tears in his eyes, he ended with the words – “My mother would be proud of me today!” (Joe’s mum is in a nursing home, lost in dementia, and rarely connects with the real world these days.)

I am very proud of him and I thought I had said so. I suppose there are just some things you need to say over and over again.

My Year of Jubilee

It was my fiftieth birthday on Friday and, unlike so many people reaching a milestone like that, I am thrilled to be this age! Part of it comes from looking much younger than my years. I have had a hard time convincing people that I am fifty. Perhaps if there were a few more obvious wrinkles and stuff I might feel differently.

On Thursday, during a prayer meeting, God said, “Do you know, Mel – it’s your year of Jubilee?” Jubilee years were celebrated every fiftieth by the Israelites and all the instructions are in the Old Testament.

I know about Jubilee years because the concept crops us in one of our units of work – to do with debt cancellation. The Jubilee Debt Campaign that began in 2000 picks up on the practice of cancelling debts.

Doing a little bit more reading up on it – there are essentially two aspects to a Jubilee year - rest and release.

The rest part of it is a reminder that it is linked into the idea of a Sabbath day rest. Just as on the Sabbath day the Jews were restrained from everyday tasks, the ground they grew their crops on also had a Sabbath rest. Every seventh year the soil was rested and the Jews just ate what grew naturally. A Jubilee year is a Sabbath of Sabbaths.

Picking up on this idea of rest, my first inclination was to announce that I would be stepping down from leading worship, preaching, teaching Sunday school and attending mid-week meetings. Rest, eh? No work? The idea didn’t last that long as the Spirit quickly corrected me that is was the absence of “unnecessary work” that was called for. All the energy that I expend on fretting and worrying and striving for stuff – that was what one was to cease doing!

As time goes on, when you have been a Christian fro a while, things creep in – you add to what God has already done – attending meetings, reading the word, praying – some of these things become opportunities for collecting “Brownie Points”. You add to God’s salvation and have a list of “must dos” that you don’t really have to do at all. You do them not to earn Brownie points but because you love to draw close to God. Resting is about not giving that kind of stuff Brownie point power, but just reminding yourself it is all down to the blood of Jesus alone.

The release bit of Jubilee happened when everyone was released from the debts they owed others. Not only were the debts wiped away, but everything you had sold to pay off your debts, whether that be property, personal belongings or yourself into slavery – everything was restored back to its original owner. You owed nothing and you possessed everything. It happened perhaps once in a lifetime if you lived that long!

Release for me comes in receiving back all the stuff that I have “sold” over the ages. My debts were wiped away on the cross and the day I accepted Jesus invitation to surrender everything was restored to me. However, life kicks in and however much you like to think otherwise, over time you might surrender things that you shouldn’t, perhaps for an easier life. You might surrender your passion because when others stomp on it, you withdraw just a little. Disappointments perhaps have a way of redefining your picture of God, or your expectation of what He would wish to accomplish through you. I know that these things are always something you should fight for, and go back time and time to God to have corrected. But wear and tear corrodes many things given enough time.

I am not the same person I was when I became a Christian many years ago. I have gained a lot I never had before, but I have also surrendered at lot of things I should have held on to. This Jubilee year I aim to receive those things back by the grace of God.

I am not sold into slavery but have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb ant it is time to let go of the slave mentality!

So for my Jubilee year I will establish the habit of resting and letting loose the Brownie points, and I will have released to me all the things I am entitled to have. It promises to be a humdinger of a year!

The Three Egg Omelette Challenge

On a Saturday morning we like to watch a cookery programme called “Saturday Kitchen”. They have guest chefs who demonstrate favourite recipes, celebrities that choose their food hell and food heaven for the viewers to vote on, and there are always a couple of viewers invited on to the programme to be the guinea pigs and taste the various recipes.

One regular feature of the programme is a challenge for the guest chefs to make a three egg omelette in a little time as possible and depending on how quickly they do it, they get posted onto a leader board. We are talking about mere seconds! What they call on omelette looks suspiciously like scrambled egg to me and not the least bit appetising.

I am into week two of my hunt for the man! Seeing as I didn’t find him at last week’s church meeting, I thought I would try another church.

It feels like a three egg omelette challenge taking the opportunity to visit other churches in the morning now that we are meeting in the evening. However much I want to just take the meeting as it is, there is the inevitability of comparing one with another, and also comparing them with my own church.

With the three egg omelette challenge there are things that they all have in common – three eggs, a pan, oil, heat, a whisk, seasoning and a ticking clock. The end result for the most part looks rather similar too. What’s different, although not really that different, is the actions of the chefs. Some of them want to be on the leader board so they rush and hurry and serve up a pile of goo on a plate. Others, although they also want to be on the leader board, also want to serve up a proper omelette and they seem not to be able to lay aside cooking protocol!

What would be the things that churches have in common – worship songs perhaps? The sermon? The welcome when you arrive? The tea and coffee at the end? None of that really matters to some extent if you don’t encounter God! It is nice to be welcomed when you arrive – and I have been made to feel very welcome. The worship songs – today’s church pips the post rather. Not because the songs were familiar – they weren’t. The musicians were good. It wasn’t so much them as me – I was ready to worship and wanted to connect. The sermon this time around was challenging, not that last’s week’s wasn’t! The tea and coffee – the first church was better – much nicer biscuits!

But did I connect with God? Yes I did, but I missed my own church family very much. Many of the avenues that I connect with God don’t come in isolation. It is not the words or the music that always does it – but the familiar faces and the way my church family look at me. It is a familiar smile and an affirming nod from someone I know that makes my encounters with God to be so much more real. I know where I stand with them. I am not a stranger or a visitor but an essential part of their encounter with God too.

Fakes and Counterfeits

I was listening to the radio this morning. There was a report about a bank that had taken delivery of a consignment of gold bars from a country in Africa. They were in the process of writing a letter of complaint to the government of the country because it turned out that the bars weren’t gold at all but bars of iron coated in a layer of gold. The subject of the report was about fakes and counterfeits. There was a counterfeiter who made such a good job of copying a twenty pound note that the bank of England couldn’t tell the difference and had to re-commission a new bank note altogether!

It reminded me of one of the very first articles I posted on the Faithwriters’ site many years ago.

100% Cashmere

Just over a month ago I got my eyes tested. I wasn’t told anything I didn’t already know. The glasses I had so tenaciously hung on to for years were no use. They were well past their sell by date and probably doing more harm than good. They were certainly no use for reading the labels on tins as I did my weekly shop in the supermarket.

Labels are amazing things. So many big claims in such small writing. A newspaper article that sticks in my mind highlighted the problem about labels. A certain brand of cashmere sweaters claimed to be 100% cashmere. It was boldly announced on the label, along with the instructions of how to wash said cashmere sweater. Tests later proved that it was not 100% at all but actually 95%. The last 5% was something else.

It made me wonder for a moment the nature of the test. What did they do to unravel the identity of the fake 5%? It made me wonder for a moment about the testee. What clues lead them to question the truth behind the label?

It made me wonder for a long time about the claims of other labels? What other things were being boldly announced as 100% the genuine article when all along there was a fake 5%?

When I surrendered to Jesus many years ago, I accepted a label. I live my life day by day before my friends and neighbours. They look and watch my every move, to see if what I have is worth it. As I deal with all that life throws at me – and it throws things quite forcefully, they look and watch my every reaction, to see if what I have makes a difference. I accepted a label but does the way I live my life match up to its claims? Every time I choose to climb a mountain of faith in my own strength I show the world a fake 5%. Every time I fail to turn the other cheek, every time I hold on to both my tunics with grasping fingers and every time I fail to turn away a harsh word with a gentle whisper, I show the world a fake 5%. God has written 100% on my label and given me the resources I need to be the genuine article.

Pub Pastor

When the street pastor initiative started up in Inverness I always thought that it would be something that my husband would get involved in. Unlike me his is a people person. I like the four walls of my house and pottering around inside. He likes to be out there among people.

I discovered last night that my husband like his own four walls – the inside of a pub! We were on our way out for a meal last night to celebrate my birthday. We hadn’t booked anywhere. We planned to have a meal and go to the cinema but were not sure which way around we would do it. In the end we plumped for the meal first.

We didn’t factor in meeting up with a friend of ours. Once he found out it was my birthday, he insisted we join him and his girlfriend for a drink, except it wasn’t just him and his girlfriend and it wasn’t just one drink and it wasn’t just the one pub either!

Everywhere we ended up, people beamed as Joe walked through the door. There would be handshakes and hugs – who says that the church has a monopoly on getting tactile?

At each venue I would be introduced with the line “And this is my wife..” I am sure that if Joe had been introducing them to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she couldn’t have got a better reception. Their high respect for Joe just transferred itself to me! I don’t know what Joe had said about me, but I was treated almost like royalty!

Over drinks Joe just distributed the love of Jesus.

Just as the pen and paper and words are my natural environment, I discovered that for Joe, the pub is his. He was in his sweet spot – talking to people, listening, giving advice and encouragement, gently rebuking where necessary. He dealt with everyone with such gentleness and he exuded joy. Part of the joy was because I was with him and sharing a part of his life that I hadn’t really experienced before.

I was very conscious of my own behaviour while I was there. I am really quite a shy person (aye right!) and my natural inclination is to withdraw. Some people can misinterpret that as being stand offish so I made a grand effort to initiate conversations. I didn't want to let Joe down. It is not my natural environment but I adapted to make myself at home.

Over the meal – we finally made it to a restaurant three hours later – he told me, “Maybe none of those people will ever make it through the door of the church, but they know who Jesus is because I have told them!” He told me one story after another of all the broken lives we had met that night and how he tried to be Jesus to them – not judging, not pushing them, just loving and accepting.

Joe isn't a street pastor. He is a pub pastor - without the jacket!

I was so proud of him last night.

Man Hunter

I placed myself geographically in a place where God could make the dream a reality. I walked into the city centre and found a church.

I guess that it is part of human nature to make comparisons. You line up the familiar alongside the unfamiliar rather like lining two DNA profiles to see if they match!

Obviously the people were not going to be familiar, although I was recognised from the International Friends as having been on the trip to Cawdor Castle last year. I sat next to a really nice lady who pointed out various people.

The worship consisted of a string of cheerful songs. I coveted their flute player! The songs were not familiar but they were easy to pick up and played and sang with lots of enthusiasm.

There were one or two times when, had I been in my own church, I wouldn’t have hesitated to share something, but I wasn’t sure what was allowed and what wasn’t. I was waiting to see what other people would do and take my cue from them. It was all very structured, well behaved and polite. My friend, Mark, is always encouraging us to be messy and I have to admit that I missed that!

I am not quite sure what I was expecting. It would have been very amazing to have seen the man from my dream, and even more amazing to have prayed for him, but it didn’t happen.

Perhaps I was too passive in the whole thing. I might have been there in the body, in the church, and to some extent I might have been there in the spirit too – but I didn’t really push any doors to see if they would open. I took the spiritual temperature of the meeting – perhaps with my dodgy spiritual thermometer – and decided to not press it.

There have been times in the past when I have stepped out and done something unexpected and the whole meeting has shifted as a result – for the good, I hasten to add. I just didn’t do it today. I am not sure whether to kick myself for my lack of courage or congratulate myself for my restraint!

I really don’t so strangers that well! With people I know I am perhaps a bit of an exhibitionist and quite the extrovert – but in unfamiliar surroundings I lie low! Maybe this whole “find the man and pray with him” is not about finding the man at all, but finding myself in every situation and expressing “me” freely.

Dreaming Big Dreams

If I thought my dolphins and sharks dream was revelational – to me at least – last night’s dream was a real blast! I am still reeling from it!

It had the unique distinction of being a morning dream! I had woken up at seven, thought about getting up, decided not to and fell back to sleep.

The dream took place in an unfamiliar church and there wasn’t anyone I knew. I was a visitor.

Let me back track a little. As well as the talk about dreams at the mid-week meeting I had been contemplating the story of Paul’s conversion. God had firmly told Ananias to go to Paul and lay is hands on him and “release” him into the ministry that God had prepared for him. Ananias had no concerns about whether he had heard God correctly, or felt worthy enough to do the task – the kind of things that hold us back. His concern was with whether Paul was perhaps worthy of the gift about to be bestowed. Well, he did it. He went, found Paul, laid his hands on him and released him into what God had for him to do. It’s all very well God giving people dreams – Paul had a dream that he believed was God given – annihilating the early church. It took Ananias to be the instrument whereby God directed and channelled the gifts Paul had been given.

So back to the dream. Thinking about Ananias and laying hands on people to release them into what God want for them – there was a man in my dream. He had dark brown hair. I could probably identify him from a police line up. I felt a stirring to lay my hand on his shoulder and pray for him, but because I was a visitor, I didn’t have the confidence to do so.

It was the end of the meeting and he was about to leave the building and something stirred in me and I shouted to him to stop because God wanted to do something. He turned around. I was mortified to discover I had got the wrong person. I had made a mistake and stopped the wrong person.

He came over to me. I could see that he was much smaller than the person I was supposed to talk to and much younger. He stood in front of me expectantly. I was hunting around for words to tell him that he wasn’t the man and he must have misinterpreted my silence.

“I know what this about,” he said. Well, he certainly knew more than I did at that point. We walked over to the stage and sat down. He confided in me that he had been struggling lately. He was the picture of the successful Christian but deep down he saw it all as a smokescreen. He was “working hard” at being a Christian, but he knew that he didn’t really have a faith. He knew that he had never asked God to be lord of his life and he was scared to do so because he thought he would fail.

I can’t remember what I said. I know that what ever it was, God used it to speak to the man. I rested my hand on his shoulder and assured him that it was not his problem but God’s. God would make Himself responsible for the man’s faith and growth.

There were tears streaming down his face and he didn’t pray any words out loud, but he opened his heart to Jesus. He face was flooded with joy and he crumpled to the ground. I don’t know whether this church was used to seeing people slain in the Spirit, but a number of people came to look at what was happening.

I was beside him, still with my hand on his shoulder. I was about to launch into some great releasing prophecy over him when he touched my hand and said, “No more words. All that needs to be said has been spoken.”

He got up and we both went for a cup of tea. Pathetic ending I know, but that’s how it ended!

I woke up and the first words to come to my mind were “Which church, God? Which church will I meet this man?”

See, one of the things about moving in the gifts of the Spirit is that you have got to move! There is no point about having a stirring dream if all it does is stir and there is no action. It is not by accident that our own church has shifted its meetings to an evening for a while, leaving me free to roam around a few other churches – to visit. Yeah, the plan had actually been to enjoy a morning lie in, but that may be not God’s plan.

I looked through the adverts for churches in the local paper later on in the morning. I was looking for something to kind of leap of the page. Nothing! I am not even sure that the man of dreams will be there, but obedience has got to start somewhere, right? If he is there will I step out and have a go? It is all a bit out of my comfort zone and part of me is scanning the landscape for a bolt hole!

Sharks and Dolphins

In our mid-week meeting we were praying about our local church – not the church universal, or even the body of Christ in Inverness, but just our small fellowship. We were praying specifically for gifts of the Holy Spirit to emerge and be practised and someone mentioned dreams. It was the desires, aspirations, hopes and dreams thing, but also the night time dream thing – a combination of them both.

Well. I dreamed – the night time dream thing! It wasn’t very inspirational. A couple of friends of mine invited me along to swim with dolphins. There was a really sheltered bay and the water was teeming with fish and there were perhaps half a dozen dolphins, their shiny black backs undulating just above and below the surface. One of my friends had stitched together a swimming costume for me that was a little larger than I was.

I was standing beside the water about to launch myself in when there was an almighty burst of spray. A shark launched itself out of the water and landed just a few feet from me.

Now for most of you that might be totally meaningless, but not to me! Before you start to get yourself concerned that I have been swimming in shark infested waters – a few of weeks ago I watched a nature programme. I say watched in the true sense as the volume was turned down at the time. We were paying a visit to family in Glasgow at the time and my husband and his brother were talking football. TV, satellite TV, repeats stuff ad finitum so I got to see the programme again.

It was about a bunch of lifeguards who decided to swim across the bay. Half way across they were joined by half a dozen dolphins which began to do something curious. They circled around the swimmers herding them closer together. It was frightening for the swimmers because the dolphins were very, very close, flapping fins at them and bumping against them. They kept up the activity for about an hour. Every time one of the swimmers tried to leave the circle they would get chased back in. Just as mysteriously as the dolphins arrived – they left.

It turned out, what the swimmers didn’t know, was that there was a shark. Outside the circling dolphins was a shark attempting to get in and attack the swimmers.

It would appear that what the dolphins did was normal behaviour for them in the sense that is what they do when they have younger dolphins and mother dolphins to protect. They circle them to stop the shark getting in. The shark will not take them all on as they act together. It’s unusual in the sense that they extended their protection to people.

Sharks and dolphins in the same dream led me to thinking about the programme. I suppose in the past few weeks I have felt many areas of my life to be under threat. Who are my dolphins? Who are my sharks? Sharks need not necessarily be people – but in my case I can point to a couple. Sharks are perhaps easy to identify! Who are my dolphins? There is nothing worse than feeling under attack and also feeling that no one is on your side! But I have my dolphins! I have loving and caring people all around me. And I have God!

He Talks to Me

In my morning study book we have been dashing through Job at breakneck speed picking up gems every now and then. I have read through Job so many times and each time there is always a light shining on something new that I never noticed before. I think we are getting to the end. God joins in the conversation.

Job 38:1-3 says “Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

Reading through the chapter you begin to realise that Job is not getting the answers he is looking for. Question after question is shot at him from the Almighty! There was no way that Job had an inkling of any of the answers.

But you know what really struck me? I don’t think Job cared a jot about the questions God was asking, or was the least bit anxious that he didn’t know the answers. I think that what soared through him at that moment was indescribable joy! God was speaking and it didn’t pretty much matter what He was saying. Just to hear God’s voice – possibly with a clarity he had never experienced before – joy pulsated through Job!

The silent one was no longer silent. The trial that caused the most grief wasn’t the boils on his body that he scratched with a bit of broken pottery. Loosing his children was pretty rough too, and the sheep, and camels – but loosing a sense of God’s presence far outweighed them all.

There is something that Elihu says to Job earlier on in the conversation in Job 33:14 –“For God does speak - now one way, now another - though man may not perceive it.” There is almost an arrogance that says that because I cannot hear God speaking, He is not speaking – He is silent. God speaks but we just don’t perceive it.

Does God intend that we don’t hear him? Was perceived silence part of the suffering Job went through?

There are obviously times when we distance ourselves from God through our actions. There are times when we deliberately stick our spiritual fingers in our ears because we don’t want to hear. But what about the times when we long to hear his voice and we just don’t “perceive it”?

Does God’s silence achieve a God-given purpose? Are the times that God chooses to withdraw just as important as the times when he draws close enough to hear the whispers?

I don’t have any answers – I am just musing, just posing some unanswerable questions of my own!

This Moment

One of these days I will make better use of a diary! I make prolific use of notebooks! I don’t just use one note book, write in it until it is empty, but have half a dozen scattered about the house. I will just pick up the nearest to hand and start writing in it! One of these many note books has the rota of who is speaking and who is leading worship for the next few weeks. Can I find it? Absolutely not!

However, in the browsing I came across a few lines of a poem that I had been inspired to write:-

This Moment

Sometimes we think
We have forever
But we have
Just this one moment
If we wait for what we think to be
A better moment
We miss the chance
The flame never gets ignited
It never burns
We don’t have yesterday
We may not have tomorrow
We have just now

Typing it out here I have just remembered what the context was. It was in a mid-week meeting. A friend was sharing with us the sad news of the death of one of her relatives. As she talked, she smiled, as she shared stories of some of his activities. He had been a Christian, a very vibrant Christian. He was sold out for Jesus and talked about Him to anyone he met. It wasn’t in a heavy “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” type of sharing, but something natural and easy.

He had been ill. An operation perhaps. I am not sure of the details, but his death was unexpected. It impressed on me that sometimes we lack a sense of “now”. I know that God has often pressed me with the knowledge that I live should be living in the present tense. I shouldn’t be living on past glories, or hindered by past defeats. Neither should I be simply looking to a “better time” – like the summer holidays, or the weekend, or a future time when I can really put God at the centre of my life, in a way that I don’t think I can do right now. There is always going to be something that could distract and divert my attention.

Now is the time – not some indefinable day in the future.

Bystander Apathy

This phrase, “bystander apathy”, has really caught my attention. It cropped up in a newspaper article in one of the Sunday heavies.

The article was based on a book called “The Lucifer Effect” and asks the question as to whether we are all capable of evil. That kind of goes without saying! I suppose it is more about the level of evil we are all capable of doing.

The author of the book had been looking at the articles of the horrific treatment of prisoners in war time situations and it brought back to mind an experiment he had done some forty or fifty years ago. He had taken a bunch of volunteers. Some were assigned to be prison guards and some were assigned to be the prisoners and then he watched how they behaved.

It didn’t take long for people to become immersed in their roles, with the guards clamping down quite formidably on any prisoners they did not think were towing the line. It didn’t take long either for the prisoners to either rebel and be on the receiving end of ever increasingly harsh measures, or passively accept it as their lot.

Bystander apathy was demonstrated by those who were not directly involved. They might have been another “guard” watching what was happening, or a fellow “prisoner” who witnessed the harsh measure inflicted on others. What was evident is that they did nothing to stop what was happening. The pressure to “go along with it” is apparently powerful enough for people not to act. It is all too easy to think “if that was me, I wouldn’t keep silent”, but according to the author, in the same situation we would do the same thing!

The volunteers were, under normal circumstances, nice boys from nice homes – but the situation they faced brought out the bad in them. The volunteers weren’t bad people, but the environment they found themselves in almost encouraged them to be bad.

In some of the early chapters of the book of Job, he voices his desire to have his life end not because it is a bad life right at that moment, which it was, but because he doesn’t want to let God down. Paul said something similar in one of his epistles. He was stuck in jail and voiced his concerns that he might find the whole thing too much and end up betraying god through unrighteous words or behaviour.

There is no doubt that a difficult situation doesn’t help! We can make the difficult situation an excuse for harsh words, a snappish attitude or a lack of grace.

The hope for the prisoners and the guards came in the form of the “heroes”! The Hope of humankind! They are “ordinary people who do extraordinary things when other people are doing bad or doing nothing.” In this experiment there were individuals that “blew the whistle” and told people they had gone too far. They brought a swift end to the experiment by speaking out. They were not on the receiving end of nay abuse, but saw that others were, and didn’t like it. They had the ability to empathise.

Is that not what intercession and prayer is all about? We may not be on the receiving end of a difficult time, but we notice that other people are. Sometimes we are in a position to act practically. All the time we are in a position to pray.

It seems to me that we have a choice. We can sit in bystander apathy, seeing things and not rousing ourselves thinking perhaps that we can make no difference to the situation, or we can be a hero.

I would like to think that I have it in me to be a hero!

Pencil Fetish

I went to a prayer and worship meeting on Friday night. It was an inter-denominational thing to pray for the city, particularly the street pastors that were out that night. There was an ice-breaker to help everyone feel more comfortable and get to know one another. It involved sharing a little bit about yourself – where you came from, a mini-testimony, not of how you came to Christ, but something about the week and how you had seen God at work. You were also supposed to share “something whacky” about yourself to demonstrate that you were “just a normal person like anyone else”. Why do you have to be whacky to be normal?

One man shared about going to the dentist – I can’t remember what the whacky bit was, but we laughed. A lady shared about her recent travels to Kenya and having to pluck a chicken. She didn’t have to actually kill it or gut it, but plucking was a first for her. Another woman just simply refused to reveal anything whacky – and we had spent quite a bit of time talking and we itching to pray, so no one minded.

My whacky revelation? I discovered recently that I have pencil fetish. Working where I do, discarded pencils litter the ground, not quite like confetti, but a short walk generally reveals one or two. I lend out so many pencils, and they frequently don’t make it back to my desk. I get through my quota quite quickly and end up having to buy more, so picking up the ones that others drop is good stewardship in my book.

There is book loitering on my desk about preserving the environment. It contains a million hints about the kinds of things we could do to be green. One of the suggestions is about using a biro till it runs out. It doesn’t mention pencils, but I would imagine that it ought to be the same.

Every time I pick up a pencil I have this thought that I am rescuing it! A pencil is designed for a specific purpose. Imagine if it had feelings. Lying on the grass by the edge of the path, abandoned and unable to fulfil its purpose has got to be frustrating – so I pick it up, clean it up a bit, sharpen it and stick it among all the other rescued pencils so it will get used.

It seems to me that church is a bit like that that! Haven’t we all been rescued? None of us before we came to Christ were fulfilling the purpose that we were designed for. Cleaned up a bit? Sharpened? Perhaps that’s stretching the metaphor too much.

Someone "Going Viral"

My paraphrase of the opening verses of the book of Job might go something like this:-

In the city of Inverness there lived a teacher whose name was Mel. She was blameless and upright; she feared God and shunned evil. (NB Some early manuscripts omit this verse!)

She didn’t have any sons or daughters but taught many children at the local high school. She owned no sheep, or camels, no oxen and no donkeys, but had a gerbil once upon a time. Life might have been easier if she had a large number of servants.

All in all she was a pretty great woman. (NB – some early manuscripts omit this verse too!)

Her classes at school used to enjoy their lessons and they would learn a lot and pass their assessments first time around. Mel would mark their books and write encouraging comments to stir their hearts and provoke them to great achievements. (NB – most commentators agree this is complete fabrication!)

Early in the morning she would pray for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my pupils have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Mel’s regular custom. (NB – commentators dispute the accuracy of this verse too.)

The Test

One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"

Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Mel? There is no one on earth like her; she is blameless and upright, a woman who fears God and shuns evil."

"Does Mel fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around her and her household and everything she has? You have blessed the work of her hands, so that her classes work hard and achieve good exam results. But stretch out your hand and strike everything she has, and she will surely curse you to your face."

The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything she has is in your hands, but on the Mel herself do not lay a finger."

Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

We all know what happened next. In the original story Job was besieged by one disaster after another and through it all he did not sin “by charging God with wrongdoing.”

I have had a Job kind of week. I have to admit that it hasn’t been one disaster after another – just the one disaster that is fast spiraling way beyond anything I had anticipated.

No Sabeans have attacked and carried off my donkeys. No fire from heaven has fallen and consumed my sheep. The Chaldeans haven’t swept by to take my camels and there has been no mighty wind blasting the houses of anyone I know.

Someone has “gone viral” on me by setting up an internet web page on one of the social networking sites and apparently filling it with unpleasant stuff. I say apparently because I have not been able to access the information – not that I really want to.

I spent the first afternoon in tears. I felt that everyone was laughing at me behind my back and smirking that they knew something about me that I didn’t! Then I got organized! I rounded up a posse and took on the cyber slime-ball! I can’t think that I have ever written memo and emails so strongly worded like that before. If I had been on the receiving end I would have been very scared! I didn’t mince my words or pussy foot around the edges. It has been a week of rallying the troops and stuff.

The result was that the site has been erased, the culprit caught – and one would like to think it is all over, but there are ripples in the water. A friend came by to tell me that he thought I had handled the whole thing really well!

Job was just minding his own business when God underlined and highlighted his life to Satan. He put Job under a spot light and challenged Satan to test him and try to prove his theory that Job’s faith was based on something other that God himself.

I am not Job and I wouldn’t presume to suggest that my week compares with Job’s tragedies. Job's response had implications that went far beyond the physical world. God could turn and rebuke Satan for his foul accusations because in the end “Job didn’t sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” Job proved that possessions given and taken away were not the source of his security, but that his faith was in God alone.

How we handle trials and tribulations isn’t really just about the physical world either. There is a powerful testimony in the heavenlies and to powers and principalities when we come through. We don't always come through unscathed and we might limp for a while, but there is a greater glory being achieved through it.

Who am I?

I was doing a "My Documents" clearout on the computer. I came across this post that I had written but never posted onto the blog.

Who am I?

I bought myself yet another book the other day! This is despite the fact that I have a bookshelf of books that I have not thoroughly read! It seems that I have discovered lately that not only do I enjoy writing poetry, but I also enjoy reading it. The book, “Who am I?” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is based on a poem of the same name that he wrote while in prison.

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

March 4,1946

The first three verses are about how other people see him. They remind me of a scene in “The Shawshank Redemption” in which one of the prisoners, Red, is trying to describe the main character, Andy. He talks of the way he walks around the prison exercise yard, not as a prisoner, but as someone taking an afternoon stroll in the park. Andy does not take on the spirit of the prison but remains untouched by the cynicism and defeat that clouds all the other inmates. It is the kind of thing that the prison guards say about Bonhoeffer – yes, he is in prison, but he has not taken on the spirit of the prisoner.

The rest of the poem is about how Bonhoeffer sees himself – and it is so different. To others he is calm and composed, smiling and cheerful. Peeling back the surface, he admits to feeling caged and unquiet, worrying about his friends, weary and unable to pray.

As much as I would like to write a poem like his, I am not sure that I could be that honest with myself, or be prepared for others to see that kind of rawness. I think I spend a lot of time protecting people from the pain that I often feel. They have enough on their plate, and they need to be encouraged, so I present them with someone who triumphs over adversity, someone who determines to see a glass half full – someone who always has a the unmoving rock of Christ beneath her feet.

But the truth is, like Bonhoeffer, peeling back the surface reveals a very different kind of person. There is an unmoving rock beneath my feet – I see it in faith, not always in reality. There is someone who triumphs over adversity - but the adversity hurts big time and sometimes the fight is a lonely one. The glass isn’t just half full – but overflowing – but sometimes I am too tired and too bruised to drink.

Just as I am not always who I am, sometimes I don’t think I really allow God to be who he is. He longs to peel back the surface too and be Himself – someone much more impressive, more vibrant, more involved that I allow. He is not the silent partner in the business, but the initiator of all that happens.

If I had a resolution for the year it would be for me to be who I am, consciously living in the company of the God who is who He is!

Lingering

It was a stressful day yesterday. I could feel myself coming apart at the seams. God just said, as I fumbled for the front door key at the end of day, “Come and sit with me.” I dug out a few candles with a nice vanilla fragrance, found a music CD that I hadn’t listened to for a while, and then climbed into bed and chilled. I suppose technically I was soaking. I spent the next hour or so listening to the lyrics of the songs, pouring out concerns before God and praying too about the needs of other people on the prayer list.

I got to a stage where I felt settled and at peace. All the things that had been stressing me out were no longer rocking my boat. I was about to launch off the bed and do a spot or ironing or something when God’s next word was, “Linger.”

When I buy petrol for my car I usually buy just enough to cover the needs of the week. The tank is only ever half full. Very rarely, apart from journey’s down to see my folks in Rugby, do I fill it to the top. It gets filled on a Thursday and by the following Thursday we are into the “red warning light” dashboard thing. There is always just enough and no more.

God was telling me that I am a bit like that at times. I collect what I think will be enough resources for the day in my quiet times. But I don’t have “extra”. I am not necessarily overflowing. His suggestion that I “linger” was about reaching the overflowing stage! I lingered, listened some more to the music, prayed some more.

I was reminded of Joshua in the book of Exodus.

Exodus 33:11 “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.”

While Moses returned to the camp, Joshua stayed behind in the tabernacle with God. He lingered! I wonder what he and God spoke about, or whether they just shared companionable silences. Joshua developed his own relationship with God and when the time came took over the leadership of Israel.

But before he led, he lingered!

Chosen

Because
God chooses
The foolish things of the world
To shame the wise

Because
God chooses
The weak things of the world
To shame the strong

Because
God chooses
The lowly things
The despised things
The things that are not
To nullify
The things that are

God chose me
Foolish
Weak
Lowly
Despised

I am content
To be chosen
By God

"Go visit someone"

I was settling down this afternoon, after a morning of doing stuff, to open my Bible, dive in and soak. I had my Bible study notes, a notebook and a pen and prayed for revelation – something I hadn’t seen before, or a clearer picture of something that was familiar. I was just about to step on my spade ready to dig when God said, “Go visit someone!”

I am a homebody. I like my own company for the most part. I like me and the empty room. My husband is not a homebody. He likes to be with people, enjoying company and chat. Often during the holidays, he will ask me who I saw that day. He knows how much I indulge the hermit in me!

I decided to go and visit a friend I had not seen for a while and although Joe and I intended to visit over Christmas we never quite made it. The Christmas presents for her and the children were still beside the front door, as they had been for the last few months! I thought that I might as well deliver them! I thought maybe I could induce her to come for a walk. (Weight Watcher’s weigh in night – I put on a pound!)

We talked for a while. We talked about church. I told her all about our involvement with Healing on the Streets and Street Pastors. She was very encouraged by it all and thought that “once upon a time” she could see herself doing something like that, but not anymore. She remembered the days when she was on fire for God, but how with her illness things had become difficult to manage.

We piled into the car and visited another friend neither of us had seen in a while. This other friend is someone who you just can’t help confiding in and sure enough, over a cup of tea, my friend admitted just how lonely she had been feeling. Sometimes making and keeping friends was a difficult business. I know that for many people I am hard work, but my friend is even harder. Part of it is down to her medication and the side effects. She just unloaded all her concerns and frustrations and as we watched we could almost see the weight on her shoulders being lifted! She worked her way through a box of tissues and between sniffs and apologies told us just how things really were.

After an hour or so, there was silence. It was a comfortable silence. I don’t think anyone offered advice. Sometimes advice is not what people are looking for – they just want someone to listen. I could see that things were being mentally taken note of and I knew that once we had left the house lots of the things talked about would be prayed about!

The afternoon that I had planned for myself turned out to be very different. I did exactly what God had planned for me – I visited. A lot of what God wants to teach is on the job. There is a time for reading and learning and there is a time for doing and learning.

Planning for Failure

I have just spent the last half hour or so working out the mechanics of how to do all the things I need to do today and for the early part of the week without the use of the car.

I have never been very prompt about things like MOTs and after lots of nagging from my husband (who doesn’t drive, I have to add), I finally got around to arranging for the car’s MOT this morning. I was faintly alarmed to find out that the garage just did MOTs. There were no racks of tyres just in case of too little tread, no interesting shaped boxes anywhere to cover exhausts and brakes and stuff.

My first thought after surrendering the keys was, “When it fails….where can I take it and how long will they take to fix all the bits that need fixing?” The mechanic assured me that he knew a few people. In all my car owning and driving years I have never had a car pass the MOT first time around.

The next hour was spent kicking around the town, drinking tea, checking my watch and checking that my mobile phone was switched on. It’s a Monday, a Weight Watchers weigh day, so cakes and tea were not on the menu!

I went to the library and got myself a pin number to play on the library computers for a while. There was a notice about switching off mobile phones. I knew that my phone was not switched off and felt very ill at ease and didn’t use up my allotted minutes.

I am not good at waiting! Eventually I decided to head back to the garage.

I was just a street away when the mobile broke into song. The mechanic told me the car was ready to collect. It has passed. Not with flying colours I hasten to add. There was something about the nearside front suspension that right now was fine, but probably would need some attention in the not too distant future.

So, with my mind all busy on covering the bases “when she fails”, I hadn’t given much thought about passing. In my minds eye I had already spent a huge amount on replacing bald tyres and brake pads!

Anyone who cared to flick their front room nets and look out that morning would have seen me doing a short but very heart felt happiness dance on the pavement!

Part of my problem is that I don’t know enough about my car. I find it challenging enough to find the right hole to pour the oil into. I don’t know where all the bits fit together and what things should look like under the bonnet.

When I think about God, and His reaction to my reaction to the trials that test my faith – I can know that He is not planning for failure. He is not thinking about how to “fix” the myriad things that could go wrong. God knows what goes on in the deepest parts of me – those parts that are too deep for me to have an inkling about.

When I get tested, it is not to see which parts of me will break. It is to see which parts of me remain in tact – so that I can know just how strong my faith is, and do my little happiness dance on the pavement.

HYOC stories and poems

The Highland Year of Culture has just recently come to an end. I purchased a book of short stories and poems written by school pupils. Some of them wrote poetry about aspects of nature – salmon leaping at Shin Falls, the tranquillity of Loch Ness. Other pupils used Highland myths and legends to create their own stories. Still other pupils were asked to create Highland characters and base a story around them.

One boy had written his story about a church minister who moved from the Highlands down to Glasgow in the 19th or early 20th century. He ends up in a wealthy parish with a church full of old people. The writer describes wonderfully the way in which the minister sinks beneath the covers of complacency and looses his passion.

It is quite a sad tale about regret and about the feeling that he let go of his dreams and settled for something less that what he was meant for.

He does one act of compassion towards the end of his life to resurrect his faith, heading down to the sleazy part of the city to “rescue” a prostitute and her child. It doesn’t turn out as he expects. She is convinced she has slipped too far down the path to hell to be worth saving and he cannot persuade her otherwise. She doesn’t turn her life around and thinks he has failed and sinks into despondency. It is not until the end of his life that he comes to realise just how much his kindness touched the life of her child.

It wasn’t the most cheerful of stories, but throughout the story the gospel message was really clearly told. The love of God and His compassion for people was so beautifully explained.

It is so overtly “gospel” and I just love that it is in the book for people to read.

I'm giving up!

It’s Pancake Day today. Not having all the ingredients to fill the pancakes with, we popped into a shop to pick up some cream. I am well aware that in the good old days lemon and sugar was all that was required, I happen to like mine filled with sliced bananas and a squirt or two of cream.

I asked the shop assistant where to find some toffee sauce or chocolate sauce, which I didn’t actually buy in the end. Once she realised that I was making pancakes, her face took on a very nostalgic appearance. There may be quite a few people who make pancakes, but I wonder whether they know why!

Incidentally, I can remember many years ago, going on a youth weekend thing. It took in Pancake Day so we made sure that we had all the necessary ingredients. It was before bananas and cream filled pancakes! It must have been some log cabin affair as I remember a large beam and a competition to see who could toss a pancake over the beam and land it back in the pan! I didn’t win. My pancake didn’t quite make it over the beam and required someone to climb up and pull it down!

Pancake Day is followed by Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent, the period of time leading up to Easter. You are supposed to give something up.

I suppose I could give up chocolate – but that is a kind of given since I am back to attending Weight Watchers meetings.

I have been thinking that rather than give up something edible I would like to try to be a bit more creative. I am going to give up my negative and pessimistic responses to challenges.

That should make for a very interesting few weeks!

Offensive prayers

Psalm 46 begins with “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear.”

We met together for the second time at work this lunchtime for prayer. It was so encouraging seeing most of the same faces from the last meeting, plus a few new faces!

It is certainly good to be reminded that God is a refuge and gives us strength and helps us in our troubles, but to some extent there is a danger of what I call “defensive praying”. There is no doubt that sometimes the workplace gets to be a bit of a battlefield and there are times when we need God to be a refuge and a help in our troubles. We end up praying for courage and boldness – which is not a bad thing. However, the focus seems to shift onto us somehow and how we need to feel a little more secure to step out and witness.

I am reminded of the church in the book of Acts. I would have to say that their praying was “offensive”! They were taking the battle to the enemy and not merely seeking to be fixed so they could play their part.

Because God is our refuge, because God is our strength, because God is always ready to help and not just in times of trouble, we should be released from fear and take the battle to the enemy.

What we do is not as important as what we call on God to do on our behalf!

Spot-on prayers

Praying together during the Sunday morning meeting, a friend of mine prayed that as I read scripture and spend time in personal worship during this week, I might be have a better revelation of God, rather than a better revelation of “what I must do” in response to what I have read.

This is so spot on!

I read the word and I seek to find out how it must be applied – which is not bad thing! The problem comes when that is all I look for and I forget to see something great about God!

Take James for instance. I was reading the opening few verses where it says that “God..gives generously to all without finding fault.” I wouldn’t say that I totally glossed over that, but what I spent more time thinking about the part that says “he (the man asking for wisdom) must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like the wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”

How much more built up will I be if I focus on the God who gives generously to all and who doesn’t find fault rather than trying to fix my doubts and wave-tossed faith?

Hairy Tale

I would have to admit that I am probably what is known in the hairdressing trade as a nightmare customer! Two things particularly single me out.

Firstly I am a drifter. I rarely see the same hairdresser twice in a row. I notice people’s hair in a way in which perhaps I am blind to other things. Months, if not years ago, I was standing in the queue at the bank. When it came to my turn, the woman behind the counter had a really nice hair cut. I asked her where she went and she told me the name of the place and the stylist – Emma. I managed to visit Emma twice before Emma moved on to other heads in other salons.

If I particularly broke and in need of a cut and colour and I really can’t make it till pay day, there is a place in town. The average age of the clients is sixty and I tend to have more hair on my head than them and the stylist usually has to pop to the hairdressing shop to get my colour because purple and pink rinses are not what I am looking for!

If I am feeling flush and in need of a cut and colour I will head out of town. There are one or two places that I have been where they cost the earth but they do a good job.

If I simply just in need I head for the nearest salon, the only one in town that has a card written out for me with all the details of previous encounters. The lady that manages that one also runs hairdressing courses at the college, so she allows the newly qualified to build up a bit practice. The question about how long they have been working here is usually met with the answer “This is my second week.” It used to freak me out, but I am consoled that hair grows and paper bags come in all shapes and sizes!

Secondly, the other reason why I probably scare hairdressers comes when I take out the picture and place it on the counter. Despite being something of a wordsmith, describing what I want is difficult, so I have a picture. I don’t demand, “Make me like this!”, but it comes close. I don’t think I have ever been unreasonable. I have the required amount of hair for most pictures I have shown them. I have to say that I can only think of one time when have looked anything like the person in the picture!

So having said all that, I headed to the nearest salon. The girl was just in her second week of the job but…here is the but, the manager was in the shop. The sense of peace that descended was amazing. Knowing that the novice was being watched over every step of the way by the experienced manager made a huge difference to how I felt.

I am sure that is how the man with epileptic boy felt in Mark 9:14-29. The “novices” who had been in the job for not a very long time were unable to cast out the demon. After Jesus comes down from the mountain after the transfiguration, you can almost feel the sigh of relief wash through the father of the boy and the disciples! What they were unable to do, Jesus does.

When Jesus is present with us, there is a confidence in what we and what we say.

I surrender all

A document was thrown at us at work this week briefly looking at some of the changes we had been making over the last year or so. It made the point that although everyone had adopted the changes on the outside by doing what was required, there were some people who hadn’t changed their thinking on the inside. They were just obeying the “letter of the law”. They were doing it because they had been told to, and probably if left alone long enough and not nagged, they would revert to their old ways of doing things! For other people, the change had happened on the inside and they could see why the changes happened and they could understand all the benefits and they were exploring what else they thought needed to change that hadn’t been suggested as yet!

Let’s guess where along the line I stand, shall we? In terms of my job, I am somewhere along the “seeing why it’s necessary” bit and standing on the brink of “exploring what else needs to change”.

Based on what I said at a recent mid-week church meeting it would seem that I am not even willing to consider just “doing it”.

The change is about the times of morning meetings. The suggestion was to begin meeting in the afternoons or evenings as opposed to mornings. There are a number of issues that have highlighted the need to at least consider the change of time. The conditions under which we rent the venue are perhaps changing, the people that we are meeting through the various ministries we are involved in would be better served with an afternoon meeting. There aren’t any other churches like ours that meet at any other time than in the morning.

There are very few things that I say that I would label as purely immature but my comment, “I will just change churches,” was one of my truly selfish moments! Every church in my thirty something Christian life has always met in the morning, apart from the occasional few months where they trialed an evening meeting. There is just something for me about mornings.

I don’t think there are any theological reasons that I can come up with to support my morning meeting insistence! I know that it was early on a Sunday morning that Mary went to the tomb and witnessed the resurrected Jesus. I would be in a poor state if it was only on a Sunday morning that I witnessed a resurrected Jesus. He is there every day at any time for me to meet and fellowship with.

Even as I was making my stand the words of a song I had been listening to earlier that evening ran through my head. “I surrender all I am. To the Saviour who surrendered all for me.”

I think there are so many ways that our church has changed over the last couple of years. We are just not like many other churches. Not in our size, not in our outlook, not in our vision. I mean al of this is a good way. Being small we are close to one another, we cannot hide in the background or get lost in the crowd. In our outlook we are not inward looking. We don’t need to be repaired and put back together. In our vision we are stepping out of the church walls to heal people on the streets, to get involved in street pastors helping people in a variety of ways. We are a very unique set of people! God uses us – not that he doesn’t use any other church.

To get to where we are has required a lot of disassembling of my long held ideas of what church is about. That word “surrender” keeps cropping up in my life. God keeps on asking me, as he does every other child, to surrender – surrender and hand over what I think matters and allow him to show me what really does matter. It is not an easy thing sometimes to surrender! I don't often go down without a fight - even with God.

Church isn’t there soley for my comfort and my edification. It is there to reach out to the world. It is there for the people who need to be shown the love of God in a rainbow of ways.

Something Less Glorious

I wrote a phrase this morning in my note book during my quiet time. It has lodged itself in my spirit and refuses to be silent!

The story in 1 Kings 14 is about Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. He is not turning out to be a good king. The King of Egypt swoops down, attacks Jerusalem and carries off the treasures of the Temple. He takes everything including the gold shields that Solomon made.

What does Rehoboam do? Well, he doesn’t chase after the King of Egypt and claim them back. He doesn’t amass another pile of gold and made some more. He replaces the gold sheilds with bronze ones. They only get taken out on special occasions and the rest of the time they are locked away in the guardroom!

The phrase that I wrote? “Rehoboam makes do with something less than glorious.”

I am challenged by that! How many of us make do with something less than glorious?

Perhaps bronze was stronger than gold and much more practical for shields. It looks like they are only there for show anyway. It is not as if they appear to be spear-stopping shields. You get the impression that he makes the replacements bronze so that they are not worth stealing.

I am reminded how often the devil swoops in to try to steal the treasure that God imparts. Sometimes we don’t put up much of a fight! We don’t always chase after him and claim it back!

Sometimes what we replace that treasure with is something less glorious! We perhaps allow our picture of God to get smaller or we allow our vision to be less clear. We count ourselves unworthy of involvement in his Kingdom building. We start to perhaps generate a quality of life that doesn’t draw the attention of the enemy the way it used.

We settle for a Christian life less glorious that the one God mapped out for us!

I had a good think today about the treasure I feel that have been stolen from me by the enemy. I have a choice to stand by and let it happen, and fashion out a poor replacement for what has been taken. Or I could chase after the enemy and claim it back!

The Spirit is urging me to claim my treasure back!

So what do you need to know?

I was talking a few weeks ago with a friend of mine who had recently got engaged. Falling in love changes people. I have just been watching one of my all time favourite programmes – Joan of Arcadia. In a previous episode Joan had kissed Adam and this one was about working out whether the kiss meant anything significant. A visiting speaker to the school gives them a lecture about love and relationships and likens romance to a virus – it messes up with the normal function of the brain!

My friend was sharing with me that she and her fiancée plan to see a pre-marital counsellor! My initial reaction was to subdue an outbreak of hysterical laughter. I cannot imagine in a millions years that the suggestion of Joe and myself seeing a pre-anti-or-post marital counsellor as a thing to do! He doesn’t have a high opinion about counsellors. There is no problem that he can’t get sorted out by talking things over with a friend over a couple of pints while watching a football game.

Apparently the idea of these pre-martial counselling sessions is to provide an opportunity to raise issues that might not crop up in ordinary conversations. If you go into a relationship knowing the answers to the big questions I suppose they think that the relationship is that much more secure.

Had I perhaps been to a pre-martial counselling suggestion would I have discovered just loudly my husband snores at night? Would I have discovered that any set of twenty two players and a ball, from any obscure football league in the world would hold his attention like nothing else? Would I have discovered the depth of passion that he has for politics, staying up all night to watch the results of the general election? Would I have found out that anything dipped in batter and deep fried is infinitely more appetising than mange tout chopped into a salad?

I have enjoyed the discoveries I have made being married to Joe. Perhaps if I knew it all beforehand I would not have thought I was up to voyage and abandoned ship. As it is, Joe completes me in a way that I would never have imagined. I am not the same person I was before I met him. I am fulfilled.

Being Fearless

I made a small step yesterday to be fearless. I have a lot of concerns about things but I don’t always say anything. I play the ostrich – stick my head in the sand and hope it all goes away. Part of the trouble is that I fool myself into thinking that certain people are more spiritual than I am. I think they have a better handle on something, or a clearer vision than I have. So I keep quiet.

I am sure there are times when it is a good idea to keep quiet – but I have learned from experience that sometimes my thoughts just simmer and boil and I get spiritual indigestion. It gets to a point when it spills out and not always in the healthiest manner!

Sometimes the worship group begins with the opening phrase “What do you want to do…?” There are times when I have something I want to do. I have spent time preparing myself and have got something burning on my heart. I don’t always have the courage to speak out and we end up doing something that although it might be good to do, it wasn’t what God had planned, because the person God shared the plan with kept quiet! I have often gone back to my car kicking myself for not speaking up!

Yesterday I had my answer to “What do you want to do…? I wanted to talk about things that I thought were going well, or not going so well. I wanted to talk about how some of the changes we had put in place had affected me. I admitted to some of the things I struggled with. It wasn’t a list of complaints. I also had a few answers up my sleeve to some of the problems I was experiencing.

Suddenly we were all talking. We were suggesting ways that we could make more effective use of the time we have available.

What I loved about the meeting was the absence of finger pointing. Worship isn’t about playing the notes of a song in the right order, with the right rhythm, so singing pitch perfect. It is about serving God and serving one another.

I felt very encouraged that we not only listened, but we sought out solutions. There was an attitude of surrender. Sometimes we hold very strong opinions about things and we want to insist on our way of doing something. We fight tooth and nail to hold the ground we stand on. I have been in meetings like that, and been thoroughly mauled! Last night was not one of those nights.

I left feeling very built up and encouraged!

Thanks Mark, Sue and Kyle!

Storming a Stronghold!

I had a very encouraging time at work today. I am not sure if I mentioned in a previous post but someone had approached me some time last year, very tentatively I might add, to see if I was interested in attending a prayer meeting.

I suppose that just because you are known to be a church goer, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have a living and breathing relationship with God. A prayer meting at work had been something that I had thought about years ago, but never had the courage to pursue it.

My young friend had the passion and pursued it! He talked to the senior management conscious that we live in a secular society and sometimes it is not “cool” to express Christian values. He got the go-ahead and we had our first meeting at lunchtime today.

For me, at least, there was an unquestionable excitement. We might be planning to meet only once a month – but we are meeting! God has got a foothold in what often seems to be the enemy’s stronghold! I was excited that there were people gathered who wanted to bring God into the work environment and seek His perspective and involvement in daily affairs. There was a feeling of knowing that someone, God, was big and powerful, and on our side.

The other noticeable thing was the attention paid to who walked through the door! I felt like I wished I could hand out badges that said “Proud to be a Christian!” There were a few surprises – people I didn’t expect to be there.

If you could imagine the French Resistance during the war – they know there are allies and supporters, but you don’t ever meet them face to face. People tend to keep pretty much under the radar. Suddenly we are all sticking our heads above the battlements and making a declaration. We get to see who is on our side!

Many of the prayers focussed on the desire to witness. Many of us actually wanted to share our faith but lacked courage. We were worried that we would mess it up and say the wrong thing. I am not sure that it was people’s ridicule that we feared – but more about the damage we might to someone seeking faith if we said the wrong thing.

My young friend who organised the meeting was so encouraged – he just about floated out the door!

Less Than a Conqueror

I missed the word at church yesterday because I was doing Sunday School. While the children and I acted out the Parable of the Sower, and pretended to be seeds, and birds and weeds, the rest of the church were being told that it was OK to fail – I think! We live in a success orientated world where failure is frowned upon, and sometimes rather than try something and fail to do it, we just don’t try in the first place. Once you have failed, people define you by your failure and you don’t often get a second chance!

God had been speaking to me days earlier, when I was thinking about planning for the coming year. I won’t say that I made a New Year’s resolution, because I didn’t resolve anything – but the single word that God gave me was “fearless”. It wasn’t just one word at all, but two – “Be fearless.” Not doing things because I think I might fail is a perfect description of how I often act, and that is not the way I am designed to be by God.

If you count up all the times in scripture that God says to people “Do not be afraid,” and think about all the people God said it to – it wouldn’t surprise me if it came out as the number one thing that God said! It didn’t matter if it was a seasoned warrior like Joshua, or a frightened man threshing wheat in a wine press like Gideon - they all needed to hear the message.

Someone last night gave me permission to feel less than a conqueror! I have a fairly stressful job and like most people doing my job, I get stressed out. I am well aware that I have access to a whole pile of resources that other people don’t have. I have God on my side. I have access into His throne room. I have His perspective on the situation I have to deal with. I have a wonderful Christian family that give me tremendous support.

With all that in place I still feel stressed out at times! I get drained – physically, emotionally and spiritually. And people don’t say it, but I feel it, that I should not be stressed out – not with all the resources I have been given. The Bible says that I am more than a conqueror, but I don’t feel it! I don’t particularly want someone to pray over me. I don’t particularly want wonderful sounding encouragement either. I just want hugged. I want time and space to bounce back in my own time and not feel pressured into being always victorious! I have no intention in revelling in my misery - but I just need time to right my boat and adjust my sails.

When Job went through his time of testing, his friends at the start just sat with him and didn’t say anything. It was only when they began to talk, and offer their perspective on his suffering, that they added to his suffering, rather than relieved it.

Last night someone was sensitive enough to say that sometimes we don’t need the powerful prayers, or the stirring words – but just someone to be there and supply a cup of tea. Sometimes we just need someone to be there, and say nothing.