Not a Sparrow or a Glutton

^“If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.”  Exodus 12:4

It was the eve of the exodus from Egypt.  God was about to loose the Angel of Death on the Egyptian households.  Pharaoh’s continued hard heart had led to this moment.   Most people are familiar with what happens next.

My husband and I qualify as a small household, which means that if we were part of the Israelite nation at the time we would have been sharing a lamb with our nearest neighbour.  I confess that even with living where we do for the last twenty years we know very little about our nearest neighbour. 

It was not just sharing the lamb with them, but taking into account the number of people there and how much lamb was needed in “accordance with what each person will eat”.  I can just about deal with the numbers.  I know how many children there are having taught more than a few of them.  It is the appetite of each family member that would have me flummoxed.   That kind of knowledge is beyond me.  If it was my neighbour who was providing the lamb it is unlikely they would know how much I or my husband would eat.

God assumed when he gave that instruction to Moses and Aaron that it would present no problems.  The community was close knit.  They lived together in the ghetto that was Goshen.  They had a shared experience of suffering and a shared experience of joy.  They shared the same faith, bruised as it was. They knew exactly how much each person would eat.

Today many of us do not enjoy that kind of close community.  There are some people that make it their business to know everyone else’s business – but I am not one of them.

Take it into the church setting – would that be any better?  I suppose I am lucky that being a part of a small fellowship I have the opportunity to discover my neighbour’s appetites.  Some people I know better than others.  There are some people I more naturally move towards than others.  Others require a little more work to find the things we have in common, or create something on which we can build a relationship.

It requires honesty and openness.  I have begun to think about what people think about me that isn’t true.  And not just what people think about me – but what I think about myself that isn’t true either.  If I think about myself as a victim, for example, I live my life that way and other people see that and see me as a victim too.  If I pick at my food, like a sparrow, in public, but gorge myself in my own home – people see the sparrow, not the glutton.  When the neighbour finds the lamb to share with my household, he provides for the sparrow he sees, not the glutton I hide from him.  He is not able to meet my needs because he doesn’t know what they are.

There have been too many occasions lately where I have not been the “me” I really am.  The “me” I am is not really that quiet and silent.  I am not aloof and unfriendly.  I am shy and take a while to feel at home enough to unlock myself.  I am worth getting to know.  There is wisdom in me that doesn’t always lie on the surface.

If you are buying a lamb to share with me – I am not the sparrow or the glutton but somewhere between.

The Un-Persecuted Church

It might have been just a week ago, maybe a little longer than that, when I was invited to join a day’s fast for the persecuted church in Asia.  There were other issues heavy on my heart at the time, and it seemed the ideal opportunity to bring them before God.

There was a Facebook page with lots of encouraging Bible verses.  People were also posting their prayers.

The only verse that came instantly to mind was Matthew 5:10-12 - “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

What a privilege the church is Asia was being given!  What an opportunity to deliver a powerful testimony!  As much as I could say Amen to all the prayers people posted about God’s hand being on the believers there – what caught my spirit was “How blessed!”

Where did the church lose its courage?  We seem to put a very strong emphasis on safety and comfort.  We want people to like us.  We want them to bow to our superior knowledge about God and allow us unhindered freedom to demonstrate our faith.  When someone is sacked because they wear a cross, or because they pray for a patient in hospital – they don’t feel blessed but hard done by.  When we read news items that mock and ridicule our faith, we write a letter of complaint and seek to silence the dissenter.  We feel ourselves to be victims but we don’t feel blessed.

I was reading an article on the internet this morning about a mega church in the USA.  Apparently it was common knowledge that a worship leader was having an affair with someone else in the church.  It was only a worship leader, so no one expected anyone to kick up a real fuss about it.  Chances are it might have been more serious if it had been an elder.  Indiscretions were often swept under the carpet rather than acknowledged and dealt with. 

The article went on to talk about how stagnant some of this church had become.  They had started life as something new and original and people flocked to them but now something newer and more original had come along.  There was an exodus of people leaving to join the new movement. If they wanted to halt the exodus they needed to do what the newer churches were doing and let go of out-dated ways of doing things.

If I was God I would be very disappointed in a church like that.

What they really need is a healthy dose of persecution!

I remember being weaned as a baby Christian on testimony books like Nicky Cruz and “Run Baby Run”.  One of the books I read might have been entitled “Sergei”.  It’s a long time ago.  The story was about an underground church in the Soviet Union as it was then.  One of the soldiers was Sergei.  He had the job of tracking down the church’s hiding places, arresting the believers and “persuading” them that being a Christian was a bad thing.  One church member, a girl, was arrested on three different occasions and severely beaten by Sergei.  The fourth time she was arrested, another soldier was about to lay into her with fists flying when Sergei stepped in to stop it.  He couldn’t understand why she was still a believer despite the beatings.  He became a believer himself through her testimony.

Isn’t it possible that the reason why the church in some places like the UK has a hard time attracting people is because it appears to have nothing people are looking for?   Make no mistake, people are looking for something – and it’s not something new and original in terms of worship, sermons or whatever latest fad is being offered up to draw people near.  The church has become so like the world to appeal to the world that what made it distinct from the world has been lost.  I’m not even sure the church has realised it has gone.

I am not praying that we become a persecuted church – although maybe I should.

I pray that our witness to the world would stop being so pale and insipid.

Our lives luke-warm no power or clout
So God in Heaven spits us out

How to Pray

For those who keep asking God to teach them how to pray - here's my answer!

How to Pray

Begin your prayer with silence

Resist the urge to speak

Too many words can hamper as

The Father’s face you seek

You need no holy phrases

Or hallowed thees and thous

The spirit stirs the tongue to speak

The words your heart allows

Don’t wait for days of sunshine

Or days of storm and cloud

Your presence is His throne room

Is every day allowed

Remove the masks and make-up

The things you hide behind

God sees the heart within you

Your naked frame designed

Prayer must not be one-sided

For God has things to say

Concerning how you live your life

Before the world each day

Seek out that quiet refuge

Where spirit bows undressed

In sharing joys and sorrows

Your soul finds needful rest

The Independent on Sunday Happy List

This invitation appeared in the Independent of Sunday a week or two ago.

“Our sixth annual Independent on Sunday Happy List is now being prepared, and we're seeking nominations. The Happy List is our antidote to all those rich lists, wealth lists, and celebrity lists, and celebrates 100 people who give back; those who, without thought of personal gain or recognition, make Britain a better, more well-adjusted, and happier place.”

I said to my husband that I would nominate him.  He just grinned, knowing that I say a lot of things that I never always do. 

Here’s my nomination.  I don’t have his permission to go through with the nomination, so it will merely be a blog post.  Those readers who know Joe don’t have my permission to use the material.  Joe hates the limelight and I am not about to thrust him into it – and neither are you!

I would like to nominate my husband, Joseph Kerr, for the 2013 Independent on Sunday Happy List.  Joseph lives in Inverness and works for the Scottish Crofting Commission.  He has worked with the Commission for a number of years and is well respected in the crofting community.  For a while he was responsible for grants and development and was known as the “mannie with the money”.  More recently Joseph has provided legal support for the Crofting Commission and been able to steer the Commission through changes to crofting laws.

There are many people in his work place who have been a part of his team at one time or another.  He is a good manager.  He is able to bring out the best in people.  At times it seems like he collects all the waifs and strays in the workplace.  Under his leadership they feel valued.  Being given good support and training they flourish and many of them move on to promoted posts within the commission or elsewhere.

For a number of years he was the chairperson of his local branch of the PCS.  As a union man he is concerned that those in management positions should respect the the working conditions, pay and pensions of his members.  He is always available to talk with colleagues who need advice or support. 

He is well liked and respected by just about everyone.  He sees the best in people and accepts people for who they are. 

He is a kind and generous person.  Not so long ago he asked me if a lady from his work could stay overnight one day a week.  She was travelling quite a long distance and with recent road works, she was leaving home very early in the morning and getting home very late.  He thought she needed a break.  Sometimes he asks me if we can provide some support for other friends.  We have bought more than a few packs of nappies for strapped-for-cash young mothers.  Yes, the initiative usually comes from him, but as I rub shoulders with him, I am becoming kinder.

 

 

Living in a Good Land

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”  (Deuteronomy 8:7-8)

I came across this verse a few weeks ago.  I was off work with a viral infection.  There used to be a time when colds lasted three days.  On the third day I would rise from the sick bed, get dressed and go back to work.  There was always a residue – a sniffley nose, perhaps, or a bit of a gravelly voice, but I could function.  These days I seem to take a little longer to bounce back.

I remember reading this verse and thinking it was so not my experience.  I wasn’t living in a good land but a very miserable one.  Bread might have been plentiful in the bread bin, but I had no appetite to eat it.

The verse became a rallying point for my spirit and I was stirred to pray.  In prayer I claimed the good land that God intended me to possess.  I claimed fruitfulness and refreshing.  I claimed abundance in every aspect of life.  I claimed wholeness and satisfaction.  I claimed enough and more to share with others.

I might have done some claiming, but nothing really changed.  I was still ill.  I was still coughing and sneezing and mopping up mucus.  Nothing in the physical world changed, but I was convinced that something in the heavenlies had changed.  I felt that a battle had been won on some higher plain.  I might have been physically done in, but in my spirit I was a victor. 

The verse became a rallying point again today.  It was nothing to do with praying for my own needs this time, but praying for others. 

Friends and family seem not to be living in a good land right now. 

I don’t have any answers to pull them out of the mire they have sunk into.  The things that work for me, don’t always work for other people because we are wired differently.   Sometimes there is nothing that I can do to physically help.  I live too far away.

So I prayed.  On their behalf I claimed fruitfulness and refreshing for them.  I claimed abundance in every aspect of their life.  I claimed wholeness and satisfaction.  I claimed that they would experience enough and more to share with others.

I remember Martin Luther King in one of his speeches declaring that the fight has been a long one and he needs some victories.  I am feeling much like that.  The battles my friends and families are fighting are not like the three day viral infections, but seemingly endless with no light at the end of a tunnel.  They need some victories.

Lord, let them see and experience the good land you have brought them into.