50 Days of Light - Epi(b)logue

I just wanted to take the time to thank everybody for all your support and lovely comments over the last seven weeks while I've been writing this blog. It's been a wonderful time for me, a time full of expectation and purpose, and each day I have come to God not knowing what things might come up - or whether or not I might have anything at all to share in my blogs - a bit scary really, but every day something has come. I have not shared every detail of my experience, because some things are just too personal, but I have wanted to be open and honest about my thoughts and feelings, my questions and some of the answers that came my way. I would also like to thank my lovely family for bearing with me during this time, as it has sometimes taken as much as two and a half hours out of my day.

I think, in the past, I have been a little scared of spending agenda-less time with God Himself, because, 

you know, he is God, and can be a little scary at times. It has been easier to read the Bible and take some time to offer Him my list of prayers. This is all well and good, but, after all, He wants a relationship with His children and what I have come to realise over these last weeks is that it is the best place just to be with Him. It's not scary, He won't demand things of me like a stern taskmaster, and it's simply a place of freedom. It's a place to be myself, to escape any difficulties life might throw at me, just for a few minutes, and it's a place of stillness where I can release my worries and receive His joy and reassurance. 

Yes, I seem to have stopped biting my nails (time will tell whether I start doing it again!), and I didn't find it hard to have a rest from watching dramas and films. I think what comes to me is that the amount of time we have in life is a gift from God, and we are responsible to Him to use it wisely. Having time to unwind is fine, but, like drinking alcohol, the amount we do it can grow if we don't keep an eye on it. Having a complete break is good, as it puts things into perspective. Some people don't watch much television so might find this doesn't apply to them, but it's equally unhealthy to work from dawn to dusk and have no time to reflect on our priorities. Spending time with God makes us whole. :) :) :) :) :)

So for now there will be no more blogs, although I may do some in the future. For now I will be concentrating on the '40 days with Jesus' we are doing as a church, focussing on the 40 days after Jesus' resurrection before His ascension to be with His Father. So all that is left is for me to wish you all shalom, and ...... enjoy the lovely spring weather!

Day 50 - Time to Party!

This morning, at church, I was singing with great enthusiasm, enjoying being with my friends, worshipping God, when suddenly I couldn't sing any more. The truth of the words sunk right down into my consciousness: death has lost its sting because our resurrected King has rendered it defeated! When we talk about death, here, it's not just about physical death, but about the power of death in our education, culture, relationships, marriages and lifestyle. Death pervades everything - everything is tainted with corruption, which is basically the outworking of death - except where the kingdom of Heaven breathes new life. Hallelujah for Easter Sunday, hallelujah for the resurrection of Jesus! 

God's kingdom - here now - explosions of salvation all over the world, where lives are touched by the presence of God - where selfishness is thrown out and love reigns - where purity and honesty fill lives which are reborn and changed into lives filled with the Spirit of God - where dancing is full of joy and worship, and there's no longer any sexual innuendo in humour or need for alcohol in order to have a good time. You know, it's time we believers in the Lord Jesus showed the world how to party! Out with the bland and in with colour! Let's not spend our days stuffing takeaways, but cook wonderful meals and take time to enjoy them with our friends! Let's dance and sing and laugh and laugh and laugh some more! We should tell more jokes and listen to more music with live instruments (you can tell I'm a musician!), climb more mountains and read more poetry. 

And we should not be afraid of giving ourselves to change the world a little bit at a time.There will be a time for crying out to God in prayer, for fasting and weeping for the world and its people, but let's not be bland! (If you want to know what God thinks of blandness read Revelation chapter 3 when He speaks to the Laodiceans)

Jesus is not dead, He's alive and He wants us to be alive too.

 It's time to party!

Day 49 - Waiting

So, I'm nearly at the end of my 50 Days of Light. As I've been waiting in God's presence I've found myself asking so many questions. A certain amount of light has come to me, but in some ways I feel I have more questions now than I had at the beginning. I like solving problems and I like to see a way round a problem to find a solution. So I'm going to continue to wait on Him after the 50 days are over. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, after all....... if I need to know anything, I've come to the right place!

Today I find myself thinking about waiting. Jesus' friends were waiting, after His death, but were not sure what they were waiting for. The women were waiting for the Sabbath to be over so they could anoint the dead body with spices and the men were just......waiting. They probably felt nothing.... numb. They had no faith that He would be resurrected, not a single one of them. Waiting without hope is deathly. 

People wait for many things: a hospital test result; a baby to be born; in a queue at Madame Tussaud's; for a loved one to appear at an airport; or for their much longed for holiday in the sun. The action is the same, but the experience is so different. 

I am waiting with anticipation for the Holy Spirit to move in greater power than I have ever known in my lifetime. I am waiting in the faith that there will be a turning to God among the people of Britain that the land has never seen the like of before. I know that the Lord has no favourites and He loves all the nations, but I have a particular love for this one, and I know He loves it too. So I'm still here, Lord, and I am waiting in anticipation.

Heart racing,

eyes raised to heaven,

smile says it all;

it's coming, it's coming.

Like a baby bird

waiting for the juicy worm

I'm ready, I'm ready.

Waiting here

For you. For you.

Day 48 - A Story

Well, from my mountaintop experience yesterday I have come down to earth with a bump. I am home, and it is Good Friday. I have to admit that I feel churned up inside. My mind is searching the mind of God as to why it all had to happen this way - why your own son, God, and why such a horrific death? One thing I know is that if it could've been any other way, God would have taken it. 

I think about how He stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac and how child sacrifice was commonplace at the time. It seems people thought their gods needed appeasing and the best way to do it was to murder their own children. Surely, God, you didn't need appeasing in the same way as these so-called gods?

 Here is where my imagination takes me today - a story:

I have a picture of God and He is made of fire, so bright and so hot, no one could come near. He is like the sun. Each of His children is born free. Free to follow, free to choose, free to stray. Each one, each day, accumulating evil to themselves rather like the many coins we saw hammered into the fallen tree trunks in the Lake District, impossible to extricate. God the Father with His father's heart of love, wants to take each child into a warm embrace, but knows that should He choose to do that, we would burn up in His pure heat and laser brightness, because we are so entwined with evil and darkness. The Son agrees on a plan to rescue us from that separation, by burning up in our place. He is born as one of us, except sin cannot touch Him and evil bounces off Him like a water droplet on a hot griddle. Death can not touch Him in His purity, but He runs towards it and embraces it, and He offers Himself up like the burnt offerings of old. He becomes like a magnet and all the weights and sins and wrong choices of humanity are attracted like iron filings to His sacrifice. Imagine all those coins embedding themselves into Him and as God the Father holds Him in His warm embrace, Jesus just burns up into death. So that would be the end of the story: all our impurities have been burned up with Jesus and we are now free to live again in God's presence...... except death couldn't hold Him..... oh just wait and see what happens next.........   

Day 47 - I Believe

Wow -the sun came out today! What a difference it made to the whole place! We had a lovely time walking up the 'Old Man of Coniston' and the views have been stunning. Sunshine makes the world bright and cheerful doesn't it?

In the C.S.Lewis story 'The Silver Chair', the children go on a quest to find the lost Prince of Narnia accompanied by a strange creature called Puddleglum. Their search takes them deep under the ground into an underworld ruled by a mysterious 'Green Lady' who is really a witch, where they find Prince Rilian and try to make an escape. However, the Green Lady returns and using her magic she lulls them into a sort of trance where she convinces them that there is no such place as Narnia and that there is no such thing as the sun.... remember, they have been living underground for quite a while at this point. This is Puddleglum's shining moment. He places one of his feet into the fire in order to bring him to his senses and says something which wakes the others from their trance. Here is a slightly abridged version of his speech:

'Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in this case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well it strikes me as a pretty poor one. So that's why I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it and I'm going to live as like a Narnian a I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for overland.'

I sat quietly for a few moments in the local parish church today. Underneath a circular ring of lamps hung a piece of paper on which the local children had drawn a picture of Jesus' head, with a sad face, and the lamps seemed to be the crown of thorns on his head. Very effective, I thought, in these days as we run up to Easter. 

In our society today are very vocal voices of atheism, ridiculing the traditional Christian beliefs as fairy stories. All I can say is that, if they are only made up stories, I'd rather spend my life as a Christian than any alternative anyone else can come up with!. And I'll close with the words of Jesus' disiples when others were leaving Him and He asked them if they wanted to leave too,

 "Where would we go to? You have the words of eternal life."

Day 46 - Like Sheep

As I sit here in my time of quiet tonight my eyes are drawn again to the lovely painting of the Lake District Fells, but this time I notice something I didn't see yesterday. It is a small figure in the shadowy foreground followed by a handful of sheep; he is a shepherd. Sheep and shepherds feature often in the Bible. Jesus described Himself as 'The Good Shepherd' and He tells the story of a shepherd who leaves the rest of the flock to search for the one sheep that had wandered off and was lost. I spent much of my time today walking up a hillside in hail, rain and snow at different times, and 'enjoyed' the sensation of dampness and cold for quite a lengthy period of time! The sheep we spotted on the mountainside at least had woolly coats to keep them warm! 

A few years ago I decided to take the scriptures used in Handel's Messiah and read them through each day during Lent. I had a wonderful time concentrating on the many verses that foretell the coming Messiah. One Easter - oh, it must be about twenty years ago now - I listened to a broadcast of the work on the radio and I can only describe it as quite a spiritual experience, I was so moved by the unfolding story of God's plan of salvation for the human race. It remains one of my favourite pieces of music of all time.

Tonight, one of the movements of the work comes to mind, and of course, it is the one about sheep!

"All we, like sheep, have gone astray, We have turned, every one, to his own way..."

The music is so funny, really funny, and Handel built into the melody a wandering which so well describes sheep wandering off. It is so lively and fresh, yet as I listen to it again tonight, I am quite taken aback by the ending, which is suddenly in the minor key and is so beautiful....set to these words, 

"And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

Earlier this evening we watched a few minutes of a program on the television which was all about neighbourly disputes; it was a terrible program with the people involved unable to see life from anyone else's point of view. 

"We have turned, every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all...."

 If only they knew.  

Day 45 - Catching Fire.

Today as I wait here, my attention is caught by the beautiful framed picture on the wall. It is a painting of some of the mountains in the Lake District, enshrouded by mist; what an atmospheric scene. Today was a little stormy, to say the least. Although we managed a walk around the tarn during a dry spell, we decided not to attempt any uphill climbs. Later, having had a lovely time in one of the many tea shops, we drove up a little pass through the hills, stopping at the top to look at the view. My son and I walked a little way up the hill in the blustery wind. I suddenly found something stirring inside me, a sort of deep yearning. I realised how much I had been missing the mountains! 

I think I have inherited two main loves from my Dad: a passion for music and a love of the great outdoors, and in particular, mountains. Most of our holidays, when I was a child, were spent in Scotland, and I have many happy memories of walking in the hills. There is something so wonderful about the wildness, the feeling of being on top of the world, and the sense of achievement at having conquered the mountain.

I know that the thing which caught my heart at that young age was not actually the act of walking up the mountain, but the awesome sense of the presence of God. It's so strong it's almost tangible.....you can almost taste it! I know that I caught this love from my Dad, and a phrase comes to mind: some things are best caught, not taught! I take no credit for the phrase, because I heard it somewhere, but it is so true. We learn so much in school that is forgotten so quickly, but it's the love of something that we catch from certain teachers that stays with us. In particular I remember an English teacher at school and a music teacher at college who really inspired me.

So we need to catch a love for God. Jesus spent much of His time inspiring twelve men, and some women also, with a passion for knowing Him better. When the fire is stirred in you it will never leave. So catch the fire! And some of us need to stir up the flames which were once so full but are now nearly out. My inner mountaineer was re-invigorated today by simply being there...... get yourself where the presence of God is and start to get hot again!   

Day 44 - Slave or Free?

We travelled to the Lake District today for a short break, but typically, the rain has been coming down in torrents! Still, it's good to be sitting in God's presence, waiting for Him to speak. I'm thinking again about freedom and I'm also thinking about slavery. 

In the story Jesus told about the son who took all his inheritance money early and spent it on wild living, when the lad came to his senses and returned home, he offered himself to his father as a servant, because he felt so ashamed of himself. But the father in the story refused to accept him on those terms and treated him as a most beloved son. This is how our father God sees each one of us. We are His children, not His slaves.

And yet.....so many times in the New Testament the apostles introduce themselves as 'bondservants', or slaves, of Jesus Christ. As it is so clear that Jesus wants us all to have total freedom, why would they do that? I said yesterday that serving self is no life of freedom, so how could serving Jesus be different? The difference is in the choice: we choose to serve. Just as Jesus, at any moment, could have walked away from going to the cross, but chose to do His Father's will, so we choose to do God's will. Instead of bringing rules and laws into our lives, we suddenly become freer than we've ever been, because the power of the Holy Spirit working within us makes it all so easy. It's like driving a car with power steering after years of struggling without it.

But this is not always our experience. The giant of 'selfish desire' rears up in us and we obey its demands, sometimes steamrolling our way over other people as we go. Learning to 'walk in the spirit', as the Bible calls it, (Gal 5:16) takes time and patience. God's got oodles of it.......patience, I mean! So let's not be hard on ourselves. We're getting there!

Day 43 - Flying

I think I've always wanted to fly. I used to love skiing, as a child, though I've not actually had the chance to do it since I was a teenager. The nearest I get to flying these days is whizzing down the hills on my bike with the wind in my hair.....wheee!!! One of my favourite composers (I have many!) is Sibelius, and I sometimes sit with my eyes closed, listening to one of his symphonies, imagining I am gliding over beautiful mountain ranges like an eagle. Flying represents freedom.

Jesus spoke a lot about being free. He said that if we abide in his word, we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. He also said that if He makes us free we will be really free. (See John's gospel chapter 8)

In our society today we talk a lot about the importance of having freedom of speech. But there has never been, nor ever will be, true freedom of speech. We have to fit into the norm of what is fashionable at the time, or we are ostracised and criticised.

True freedom, of course, is the freedom that Jesus offers. It is not the freedom of pleasing ourselves, because our selves are actually hard task masters who are more like slave drivers whom we have no choice but to obey. Nor is it freedom to serve materialism, because living to acquire more and more possessions gets a hold on us and we end up its slave also. The list goes on.... what about serving a skill, like being a committed musician or sports personality? There are rewards, but perfection always eludes us and many find their relationships suffer because of the huge demands on their time and energy.

So what is the freedom that Jesus draws us into? It is actually the freedom not to please ourselves, not to serve money or family or prestige or reputation or perfection. It is a place of being content with what we have, who we are and where we are. Flying. 

Day 42 - The Power of One

Another busy day...... so I'm sitting here in a quiet corner, in between rehearsal and concert, in God's presence, while people walk on by. I'm thinking about a story I read today about a young girl who made such a godly impact on her village that the whole atmosphere of place began to change. This is the power of one life. This is the way to change the world.

The power of one moment. Who knows if that smile you gave turned someone's life around and prevented another suicide? I spoke to an elderly couple tonight who were struggling and needed to find a taxi. All I could do was to point them in the right direction, but a friendly face in the crowd can make all the difference.

The power of one word, spoken in love, could be the encouragement  needed to give the impetus to keep going when a person is near to throwing in the towel.

And the power of one decision - of course the biggest decision - to give a life to the Lord Jesus, to serve His purposes, in the case of an evangelist like Billy Graham, could literally be the difference between life and death to thousands of people.

Lord, help me to value each moment, so I can make the most of every opportunity that comes my way. Each moment, each decision, each word spoken, this one life, lived for love, each day.......  

Day 41 - Relationship

Today, in the stillness, I'm thinking about my relationship with God. How can you have a relationship with a being so high above you in intelligence, in love, in spiritual stature, in power, and someone you can't even see or hear or touch? I suppose the answer is that I just sense His presence with me and hear His voice speaking in my imagination. I have learned to exercise spiritual senses of seeing and hearing and touching and even smelling and tasting. And I know He's there with me, even if sometimes I can't sense His presence. As I read the Bible I learn about His character even if it is like looking through a dark window. 

So prayer is simply communicating with Him through songs, silence, just chatting, asking for things and saying sorry sometimes. It's about being ourselves. But you know, sometimes we haven't spent enough time with ourselves to know who we are, and God actually knows us much better than than we do. It's no good trying to hide anything! But that's the beauty of it: He loves and accepts me warts and all. 

I asked for something recently that didn't happen. I've been reading in John's Gospel (chapter 15) how Jesus says we'll receive what we ask for if we are 'abiding' in Him.....wonderful word, that.....it kind of means settling in a place and making it your home. I'm not worried that my prayer didn't get answered how I wanted it to be, because my relationship with the Lord is more robust than that. I know he has my best interests at heart and I put my trust in His judgment. There are many prayers that do get a 'Yes' from Him, and anyway, I just have to admit that I don't know everything..... yes, I know, it's hard for us to admit that sometimes! 

Once, when I was staying at a pastor's house, I heard him praying in his room, and for a few moments I eavesdropped on the landing! His prayer was so simple, coming from this spiritual giant, and I was quite taken aback. He was simply asking God to bless certain members of his congregation. Let's not complicate things... here are three facts: I don't know everything, He does, and He loves me. That'll do for me. 

Day 40 - For us.

Over the last few days I have found myself thinking about why it was that Jesus needed to die on the cross, so naturally, as I come into God's presence today, I bring my thoughts and questions to Him. I don't understand much about life, the universe and everything...... (even if the answer is 42!...for the uninitiated, read 'Hitch hiker's Guide to the Galaxy!')) But there are some things I know in my 'knower'!

• I know, looking at creation, that if there is a God, then He has to be good - there simply is too much beauty around for any other possibility to be viable. 
• I know that the presence of evil permeates human nature in such a way that it is not possible to extricate it, in the same way that once too much salt has been added to a meal, you cannot take it out.

So here is God's predicament: how could He release humanity from the grip of evil and death without destroying us? It is true that He could have made robots who would just obey His every command, but He wanted us to be free to choose. OK.... so He decided He wasn't going to destroy us, so His next option was to destroy death and nullify its power over us.

God cannot die, it is completely opposed to His nature, which is the personification of life itself. He had to actually become human in order to take on death, rather like Hercules had to fight Cerberus to get back from the Underworld. (It's amazing how some of these old legends can have some truth mingled in with the stories.)

So Jesus had to die in order to come back to life. It was through His resurrection that death was dealt that final blow! Death couldn't hold Him, and now it will not hold us!

Maybe the reason for dying that particular death on the cross will be the subject of another time, but it is enough for now to know the truth of the words from the first letter of John (chapter 3) in the Bible:

'By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.'

Day 39 - Rich and Poor

My time of waiting on God has been in two stages today. I spent half of it in the middle of the night, where I spent most of it in prayer about various things and for people. This afternoon, as I sit here, I find myself meditating on the schism between the rich and the poor. 

We are each dealt a hand in life. We have no say in what circumstances we find ourselves in or what family we are born into; it is what we do with it that is important. I don't believe it was ever God's intention for any of us to suffer in the way that so many have done over the years throughout the world. OK, I know it's the 'free will'' argument over the people who question, 'How can there be a God of love if there is so much suffering in the world?' This is not the theme of my blog today. Rather, it is to do with the relationship between the rich and the poor.

Rich people sometimes blame the poor for being lazy when often it is simply not the case (as in a mother who has to hold down a day job and an evening job to keep her family alive) or they mistrust their motives (as in the recent publicity about benefit fraud). It is true we have to find a way of giving the poor dignity so that they are not just receiving free hand-outs but able to earn their way out of poverty, however, the rich need to understand the great leg up they have had by being born into a wealthier home. On the part of the poor, they sometimes greatly despise the rich: how much people have criticised the bankers, and the M.P.'s for using their expenses allowance unlawfully, when many people are happy to call off sick when they want a day off work or claim for more than they are due. 

We do have a very unequal society where people are valued by how much money they have, and greater academic results (and better schooling) is rewarded financially whereas hard working carers, shop assistants and manual workers earn so much less. How do we decide a person's worth? 

The Kingdom of God, although not a socialist democracy, is a place where all people are equal, all giftings are recognised and valued, and any who have money should bless those who are lacking. In this world at present we will have inequality, there will be the 'orphans and widows' just like there were in Jesus' day, children brought up in dysfunctional families who drop out of school, and those suffering from ill health who cannot work, but those of us who have money should be generous. And let us not despise the rich, but thank God for benefactors and those who are willing to use their money for good.

Day 38 - Waste?

There is good waste and there is bad waste. Industrial waste flowing into our rivers is bad waste, but well rotted horse manure on our gardens is good waste. We need to know the difference. 

Our society is obsessed with productivity and efficiency, driven by greed. How often the story goes of an ever decreasing work force trying to manage the same work load? It results in long, long hours and more people going off sick with stress. 

I don't like wasting time. I find punctuality difficult because I like to fit in as much as I can before leaving! I am slowly learning the lesson that getting places early produces less stress..... and who knows if the extra time spent waiting on the station platform could be an opportunity for God to speak into my life, or time to read a book or just chat with someone? On the contrary, hours spent surfing the internet or gaming late into the night is probably a poor use of time. You could say that all the hours I am spending waiting on God throughout these 50 days is wasted time, but I look on it more as an investment. I'm investing in my future, and hopefully helping a few people as I go.

Wasted space? They want to pack as many tiny houses into our green spaces as they can. Those little parks are places for children to play and mums and dads to chat and dog-walkers to breathe in some fresh air for a few moments before they commute into work. We need to think carefully where are the best places to build.

How about wasted money? We had an expensive family holiday a couple of years ago. Having four children on a musician's budget has meant that we've had many an enjoyable camping holiday over the years, but a little inheritance money encouraged us to travel further afield. Later in the year when money was tighter I was tempted to think that the money spent was a waste of resources, but it was actually an investment in our family relationships, and we had fun! However, perhaps we need to assess how much we spend in coffee shops over the year, and maybe we don't need quite as many new clothes! We need wisdom to know what is money well spent and what is waste.

Finally, I am thinking about love. Sometimes it seems as if our love is wasted on an elderly relative with dementia, who only growls at us in return, or a smile is not worth the effort if our work colleague continues to give us the cold shoulder. Look upon it as an investment. We are investing in our own peace of mind and in who we are becoming as people, and we are doing what Jesus says we should: showing His love to the unappreciative, and one day, who knows, they may respond.

Day 37 - Let it Go!

This morning I spent £86.64 at our local supermarket. We are so blessed in our country to have so much choice and the money to enjoy it! But even so, money matters cause us so much stress. 

Jesus knew this and he spoke so beautifully about how God does not want us to worry about provision, recorded in the Gospels (see particularly Luke chapter 12). So... I used the word 'provision'. This means that God promises to provide for us, not that we should be lazy and expect it, because hard work is a good thing, but that our Father just wants to bless us. 

Money. It has a hold on everyone who uses it, if they let it. We are so prone to greed, and often it's the ones who have the most who are most unwilling to give it away! The Bible mentions money so many times I think it must be important for us to sit up and take note. In the first few centuries of the Christian Church there was a false teaching which has been called 'gnosticism' which is basically the separating of the so called 'spiritual' side of life from the ordinary, or 'secular'. What Christianity actually teaches is that we are whole people and God is interested in all aspects of our lives. Actually, how we deal with money is the barometer for our whole life. 

What it boils down to is this: do we trust God to provide for our physical needs or is He only Lord of our spiritual lives? Is He real and does He really care? Read the Luke scripture and you will see that He cares a lot. The way we show Him how much we trust Him is to give our money away joyfully and without worrying where the next meal is going to come from. Our capitalist society could actually work if the rich shared what they have with the poor! In St Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 9, it says 'God loves a cheerful giver'. Some people have said that the meaning of the word 'cheerful' comes from the same meaning as 'hilarious'. So why the hilarity? Because with giving comes freedom from the tyranny of having to own stuff, and freedom from the fear of not having enough! I'm in, Lord! That's how I want to live! :) :) :) :) :) :) :) 

Day 36 - Safe Place.

So what do we do when it all goes wrong? Usually we struggle through difficulties in life ...... minor illnesses or injuries, low on money, an argument or two, and we come out the other end a bit battered but still standing. But what do we do with suicidal depression, death, divorce, a child off the rails and on drugs, or a major illness?

Before Jesus went to his death on the cross, a Roman form of torture and execution, he spent some time wrestling in prayer with his father in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but yours be done" There are two things which come to me as I ponder how it is that Jesus should find the strength to go through with this. The first is that he decided beforehand what he would do, and the second is his relationship with his father. 

So I challenge myself, should I ever have to endure much suffering in life - will I blame God and believe that He is not, after all, a God of love, or will I continue in my faith and not allow my heart to become bitter? I choose the second option because the first is unthinkable. It reminds me of something I once said to my husband, "If we ever break up, can I come and live with you?" The other option seemed unthinkable! 

My other thought is about relationship; Jesus' relationship with his father was stronger than any adversity he might have to face. We only have to look around us to see that God is good - surely the beauty in the world is too awesome to believe otherwise. So if He is good and He loves me, I can trust Him with even this.

He is my safe place. 

Day 35 - What a Creator!

As everyone is out this evening, I decide to have my time with God in the bath. I feel so relaxed, lying here surrounded by the soothing warm water. It's so quiet, but when I put my head under the water I can hear my own heart beating. I think about the little baby in the womb I saw recently in an internet video, filmed in an ultra sound examination. The little thing was pushing itself off the walls of the womb with its little feet and seemed to be playing and having fun. Life is wonderful. This gets me thinking about when it begins. 

People think that a baby is not really a person until it is fully formed, that it is simply a collection of growing cells. So.... there must be a point at which the 'thing' becomes human. In the Bible it says in the book of Genesis that God 'breathed the breath of life' into Adam, and he became a living being. There may be some people who think you're not really alive until you are breathing. When I was a child, I was not fully formed. My thought processes were not mature and my body was smaller, but all the way through I was 'me', sure enough, and even though I cannot remember much of my early years, I know I was human. My belief is that our humanity begins the moment sperm penetrates egg and an explosion of life takes place: not fully formed but 100% human. 

Here's my second thought.... Are you a 'creationist' or an 'evolutionist'? When did humanity begin? I don't know for certain whether Moses wrote the book of Genesis, but I do know that he wasn't around when God created the earth, and yet I believe that he was inspired by God to write the story. Yes...I use the word 'created' because I believe in a creator God, through whom all things came to be. And I believe totally in the Bible and have come to rely completely on its wisdom. I find the book of Genesis more and more fascinating the more I read it. But none of us was there in the beginning. However, I do not think it wise to pick and choose which Bible stories we believe and which we don't believe. I believe in Adam and Eve, in the great flood and in all the miraculous provision of the story of Moses leading the people of Israel though the desert. I also believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Miracles happen. 

But I don't think God ever intended to give us every detail - our brains are very small when it comes to understanding, But one thing I do know..... we are made different to other living creatures. We are more than our intelligence, we are spiritual beings with a soul and we are made for relationship with our creator. The eclipse of the sun was fun, yesterday, wasn't it? What a creation! What a creator!

Day 34 - Facing Giants

Interesting, isn't it, that after yesterday's blog an old fear should raise its head in my life. I sit. tonight, in God's presence and ask Him for help. Lots of thoughts immediately come flooding into my mind.... I'm going to try and verbalise them for you.

There are giants ready to intimidate us if we let them. Here are a few:

Fear - paralyses us and robs us of joy.

Lust - a strong desire for someone or something that completely overwhelms us.

Envy - Similar to lust, we find we MUST HAVE what belongs to others....at any cost.

Despair - engulfs us in a bubble so anything anyone does to try and help us is completely useless.

Anger - overtakes us like a strong man and any attempt to fight it is feeble when it rears its head.

Hate - all consuming, it becomes our life's purpose.

There are many more, but I felt that these are the big ones. Well, I looked at the Bible story of David facing the giant Goliath and a few thoughts came. Firstly the old YWAM (Youth With A Mission) phrase seems important here: 'come in the opposite spirit'. This is what David did. The giant came towards him completely covered in armour and carrying the best weapons a fighter could have..... and he was really strong.... and BIG! So David runs towards him and all he has is a slingshot and a handful of small stones. Opposite spirit.... David had no armour. But he did have faith and if his faith was wavering he didn't show it - he spoke out words of faith to Goliath, "This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you." Strong words from a lad facing a super-large trained fighter! What we say out loud is more important than we think. But the giant had a weak spot! ....and David hit it, with his first stone.

OK - back to our giants. Here are a few ideas of how to throw a little stone at them:

Fear - first we have to run towards it, like David did. (All our being will want to run away or cower at its feet) Actually, fear likes to hide in the shadows and thrives on the unknown... so expose it! Name it and speak words of faith. Then throw your stone, not forgetting to use your slingshot (faith), with which it will travel at greater speed and accuracy. So what is the stone? Laughter... just laugh at it, and sing your heart out in praise to God! That's a good way of throwing stones at most giants! Here are some other ideas you could try with the other ones:

Lust, greed and envy - try giving away what seems to have such a hold on us. By giving we will dislodge the stronghold of grasping greed.

Despair - seriously, try dancing. It is the opposite of what you feel like right now, but it works, I've tried it.

Anger - there's a desire to control here, so in submitting to others is our saving help.

Hate - what else but loving against the odds can break the stronghold of hate in our lives. It's a decision to be kind when all your being wants revenge.

So ..... sorry it's so long tonight, but I thought it needed a little more than usual. And as I said last night, sometimes we need help from others, be they friends, pastors or trained counsellors. I finish my time tonight with rather a loud song of praise.... with the cat on my knee!

Day 33 - Finish the Job.

As I sit here tonight, I become aware of something.... I have more-or-less stopped biting my nails. This has happened over the course of the last few weeks, as I have been spending more time with the Lord. Maybe I have been feeling more peaceful, because I know it tends to spring from an inner agitation. I definitely feel more peaceful. But when I say 'more-or-less', I mean that there is one finger I keep picking at.... the little one on my right hand. This gets me thinking.

It seems to be a hard thing to completely finish something. After we'd built an extension to our home and done all the decorating ...... what a lot there was to do!......there was a skirting board that never quite got finished. I think it was a number of years before we actually got round to finishing the job! In the history books of the Bible it tells the story of Israel and Judah and of their kings. Some of the kings were pretty bad, and some of them were good, but for quite a few of the good ones it says they 'did what was right in the eyes of the Lord', but later it says they 'did not remove the high places' (eg., see 1 Kings 15:14). So they did a lot of good and followed God's instructions, but still allowed people to worship false gods on the high places. Why? Maybe they thought it wasn't important ('out of sight, out of mind'), or maybe they wanted to please the people, or maybe they simply ran out of steam! (For non Brits that just means they got tired!) Whatever the reason, they just didn't finish the job they set out to do which was to make the land a place where the Lord was King. They left a bit. 

Some of us have places in our hearts where we don't allow God access. Maybe there's a difficult relationship we have swept under the carpet, maybe there's a secret addiction we would rather no one knew about, or it could be an ongoing fear that we can't shake off. We kind of get used to having these things in our lives and find it difficult to believe that we could change. 

I believe that God wants us to be one hundred percent whole and healed! The first step is to admit to the Lord and to ourselves that we need help. Prayer is always a good starting point. However, sometimes we need to ask for help from others, and that can take a lot of courage. I believe it's worth it.

Day 32 - Called

When I was a young Catholic we used to talk about our 'vocation'. This meant the direction in life we would go as called by Almighty God. For some this would mean the 'religious' life, for others marriage and family, for others it would specifically refer to their job - doctor, teacher, nurse, missionary, hairdresser, etc. When my sister asked me, as a ten or eleven year old, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had two things in mind: a violinist or a nun. The former won the toss.... although.... there was a calling from God there to come to Jesus and live my life for Him, and I have never looked back after doing so at the age of nineteen.

These days it seems that the main driving force behind our children's life choices is to do with self. They are asked questions such as these: what are their strengths; what sort of lifestyle do they prefer; and what will make the most money? Sadly, many make no reference to God in their life choices, nor do they even consider whether they can do some good in the world. 

A calling can also be to do with lifestyle as well as career. Some people have given themselves to fostering children, housing asylum seekers, simply bringing up their family as best they can, being generous with their money or using their home to show hospitality to friends and family. I have seen my gift as a musician as also a calling from God. I believe music has a power to draw people into a closer relationship with God as it demonstrates so much of his glorious creation and the beauty of His nature. 

Sometimes, though, I have looked at others who work in the caring professions, or who work oversees helping the poor, and I have wondered about the choice I have made. "Would it not have been more worthy to do something more practical to help the world?" I have asked myself. But I don't think it is right to compare ourselves with others.

In the end it comes down to calling. What have I done with what God has given me? And new callings can come at any moment in our lives; they are not solely for the young. maybe God is calling you to something new? Why not ask Him now?

Day 31 - Still Here!

Tonight as I sit in God's presence I am thinking to myself, "What's the point? Is God even here? I've taken on more than I can handle here, and my poor family has to keep putting up with me disappearing off on my own.... and to top it all, I just keep nodding off in my chair, I can't keep awake! Am I really waiting on God or am I just wrapped up in my own thoughts?"

Maybe you've found yourself doubting a venture you're embarking on and find yourself, like me, losing heart. Well, this morning I read Psalm 27 and the verses at the end suddenly came back to me. Here they are:

'I would have lost heart unless I had believed

That I would see the goodness of the Lord

In the land of the living.

Wait on the Lord;

Be of good courage

And He shall strengthen your heart;

Wait, I say, on the Lord!'

God wants us to have strong hearts. Sometimes we get it muddled up and think the best way is to harden our heart. But, actually, a hard heart can smash whereas a strong heart bends like a tree in the wind. A strong heart can be hurt, oh yes, but how much better to allow our heart to hurt a little than to keep people at arm's length and shut out love from our lives.

So I'm still here, Lord, waiting for you. 

Day 30 - Words

There are many ways of communicating with others. We say 'I love you' when we hug and kiss, 'I reject you' when we refuse to look at someone or spend time with them, 'I'm happy to meet you' when we smile and 'keep your distance' when we scowl. Sometimes we try to hide what we're feeling on the inside when we speak. We might say how much we enjoyed someone's party when in reality we felt lonely and couldn't wait for it to end, or we might praise a person who we think will be influential in our next career move, even if we actually despise them and think they're incompetent. Words. 

But words are powerful. With them we create and with them we tear down. Jesus said that every careless word that a person speaks will go before them and be weighed by our Father God on judgment day. That's a scary thought. Jesus also said that what we say flows directly from what is on the deep inside part of us. He described a person to be like a tree bearing fruit: a good tree will bear good fruit and a diseased tree will not. In the letter of James in the Bible he wonders how can it be possible that we build people up with our words one moment and tear them down the next? 

I want to be a 'good tree'. I have done and said many hurtful things in the past, some intentional and some merely thoughtless. But I have brought the shreds of my own efforts to be good, to the foot of the Cross, and I have known what it feels like to be forgiven, and it feels good.... it feels clean. Lord Jesus, I am sorry for the people I have hurt in my life, but I'm moving on now. My new name will be ' Encourager'; my new name will be 'Hope Breather'; my new name will be 'Light Bringer'; my new name will be 'Caring' and 'Compassionate Giver.' What will yours be?