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.