Sharing lives with 5 other women from church, the highs, the lows, the struggles to work this God thing out in reality. Back to drumming again and the joy of twisting rhythms around each other and laughing at our tired aching hands. Remembering the long suffering patient nature of our Father.
Thankful: Day 1
40 Days
I’ve been vaguely pondering this thing called Lent recently. Mainly I’ve been trying to not ponder it because of the angsty moments Christians seem to have about it. There are two main camps on the issue, those that are embracing the chance to get a bit more focus in their day to day living and remember Jesus by giving up something or taking up something and those that are delighting in the freedom that they don’t have to. Sometimes everyone becomes a bit too smug about their interpretation of what Lent is or isn’t about and whether we should be celebrating it. That’s really the problem, it’s kind of up to you whether you want to chose to partake in this festival or not, being shouty about whether we should or shouldn’t be doing it isn’t going to help, nor is parading your Lent virtues or rejection of the whole thing. I think Jesus told us to do somethings behind closed doors for a reason. Fasting or not fasting is between you and God, and maybe a few close friends to help you along the way.
At the very least (failing not to nail my colours to the mast here..) Lent is a brilliant lead into Easter, reminding us of our broken weak state and setting us a marker point in the sand as we see again our need of a cup, a tree and an empty grave.
Whenever I’ve thought about stuff I might do or not do for Lent I generally come up with a list of things that really should be part of my life anyway as part of living well in this walk with the Maker thing. One of those is thankfulness. Thankfulness seems to have a strange kind of power in our lives, a lack of it leads to not being content, fear, forgetting who is in charge of this world. Last night in our small group we read these words from 1 Thessalonians 5: 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Giving thanks takes us out of ourselves and puts the emphasis on someone else, giving thanks in all circumstances is a world away from the slightly insane notion of giving thanks for all circumstances, giving thanks brings a recognition that there is someone to thank.
I’m not all that great at giving thanks in all circumstances, but that shouldn’t be a barrier to me because above all this is God’s will for my life. I spend lots of time trying to work out if I’m doing God’s will and worrying about where my life is going. I really should pay more attention to the glaringly obvious truth in front of me. Here it is, God’s will for my life, the thing we all want to know. It is:
Be joyful, pray and give thanks.
In every circumstance I find myself in.
Maybe God really is more concerned about the direction of our hearts than that exact place where we can feel like we’re fulfilling our destiny in life.
All these preamble leads me to a choice. I can choose to be thankful and I’m going to try and do that here. Each day. Not to show off about my amazing life to the world (3 readers who still read this blog) but to have a space to remember each day that there are things to be thankful for. Finding them might be fun. Finding them in the black days that descend on my mind will be a challenge but it might just be worth it to attempt to follow God’s will for my life.
Anyone want to join me?
One step too far for Jamie?
I’m starting to worry about Jamie Oliver. Seriously. We all know the rabidly enthusastic chef, love him, hate him or worship him there is barely a moment when he’s out of our sight and not giving us the latest update in his plan to save the world. This is a guy who probably needs to chill out just a little bit. I’m starting to worry about his Messiah complex and think that maybe he might need to spend a little time at home with his family and kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the man, I would love to chat to him over a pint, I like the cooking shows, I love that husbandface makes many lovely Jamie recipes. I like eating at his restaurants when the cash flow allows and I was impressed with the whole 15 idea. Changing the school meal system, well someone had to do it, getting the whole of America to eat sensibly might have been a wonderful ambition too far and now we have him trying to transform the school system by planting an eclectic bunch of people in the public gaze with no training into a class of students who have had issues at school. Unsurprisingly they find it hard and, judging from the first programe at least, aren’t all that good at it. The most important thing I think we learn from Jamie’s latest world saving endeavours is that teaching is a skill, not everyone can do it, it requires training, a constantly creative inventive brain and commitment. It requires you to be more than a knowledge fountain (watching David Starkey actively insult a student after they fail to be engaged with his mumbling about artifacts was awkward viewing). Maybe encouraging actual teachers in their jobs might have been a better thing to do.
I admire Jamie for trying but I think maybe, just maybe, the time has come to stick with cooking and with maybe seeing his family from time to time. I’m torn between applauding him for his passion and ambition and telling him to chill out, have a cup of tea and go play with his kids for a while. Sure. he’s a one man world saviour but surely even saviours have limits? As one writer in the Guardian this weekend pointed out- where next, Jamie transforms the NHS? Jamie enters the Houses of Parliament? Jamie sorts out peace in the Middle East?
Get up?
I’m not talking to God right now. I’m not sure why. Well, I have my theories. Mostly they revolve around being tired of the whole circular process. You might be familiar with it if you’ve been a Christian for a while. The weary process of sin, guilt, turning back and resolving to change and three days/hours/minutes later finding yourself in the same position again and again and again. I’m bored of it. I want real lasting change. I want to not ignore my Maker. I think if he really does exist then it should be a whole lot easier to walk next to him.
I know some of the answers, if I could just believe his love more, if I really grasped the gospel, if I remembered that it’s about his love and not my faithfulness, if I remembered that it’s not about my efforts, if I remembered that it’s not about me anyway then all would be fine. But the cycle continues, I forget these things, I demand perfection from myself and I want to give up if I don’t get it. I want to pray, I want to live by faith, I want to be deeply engaged with this world, I want to be disciplined. I want to remember it’s all about His love and not my efforts to please him. But I find myself again and again on the floor, muddy and dirty from the fall.
So I’ve stopped getting up. I’ve tried to ignore this whole stupid process. Well. I’ve tried but it seems that even that luxury is not to be afforded to me.
It’s not easy to ignore God. You’d think it would be, what with him being not very visible to the naked eye. I can’t see him, touch him, taste him or smell him. (what would God smell like anyway?) I find it hard not to ask him for things, not to thank someone, to change my prayers into wishes, hopes and dreams. I find it hard to look at a sunset without the context of the Creator. I find it hard to love my husband and impossible to not ask someone for help in doing that. Left on my own I’m not very good at functioning.
I know this makes me a lame ass in most peoples eyes. What a crutch, one week without talking to your invisible friend and you’ve gone insane. One week trying not to ask for help from someone and you’ve proved how pathetic you really are. Come on, pull yourself together, you don’t need help, you need to get it together, of course you can love people without this invisible friend you seem to need. Of course you can deal with the hard stuff on your own.
Sigh. Sad thing is I need Him. Slightly better thing is that I want Him. Slightly awesome thing is that He wants me. I can’t read my Bible in a disciplined manner, I can’t pray in a regular way, I can’t even believe the beautiful truth that it’s about more than that most of the time, I can’t love, I can’t reach beyond myself without help.
There are logical reasons to keep getting up, there are historical reasons to keep getting up but the only reason I do is because there is a hand holding out to me and a voice calling. Talitha Kum. Little girl. Get up.
Seems like I can’t escape long suffering patient love after all.
Posted in Life on the journey
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How did we end up here?
I’ve started to notice a problem in how I view God and in how I relate to him along this journey. There seems to be two gods knocking around. There is the God who loves us, who calls us, who comes looking for us, to welcome us into his family, who seeks us out as he sought out Adam and Eve when they hid from him in the garden. A God who loves welcoming people into his family, forgiving them, washing them clean and helping them live. A God who did everything to make that possible and transformed the world through his death and resurrection. And then there is the god I seem to functionally believe in each day, who is different. This second god isn’t one I’d ever tell people about, isn’t one I’d say I believed in but if you saw how I live, the large pile of guilt I carry around, the insecurity and the fear you’d think my god was a bit crap.
I don’t think I’m the only one. In fact I know I’m not. It scares me that I’m not. That we have got so used to living with the second kind of god, the one who makes us feel inadequate most of the time, who gets frustrated with us when we don’t get this Christian life thing right, who once he’s got us in with the shiny exterior of his promises just turns out to give a boring guilt ridden trudge through life. It’s like the wonderful wooing seeking God is just for people who don’t know him yet and once we sign up to life with him we get the small print shown to us. We’re left in a broken down theme park wondering why none of the rides work, wishing we could get out to the shinny happy theme park down the road which isn’t run by anyone and everyone seems to be having a much better time.
How did we end up here?
Becoming a child of God was meant to give us real hope, real security, real peace and best of all a life of love. A life that enabled us to stand freely as sons and daughters, loved and cherished so we loved and cherished those around us. Where did that beauty go? Do we even know the worth of that kind of life anymore?
What we’ve ended up with is a life that doesn’t work, we are scared to believe in an everlasting love, we’ve got so used to our walls of protection and ways of living that letting go seems beyond us. We are used to feeling guilty and dealing with that by doing a bit more bible reading, praying for 5 more minutes, doing more at church, listening to a Christian song, giving some more money, getting on the welcome team, doing another course and hoping the shine from that will keep us going through today. It doesn’t, because it was never meant to. We’re not able to keep going in our lives by the amount of Christian sub culture stuff we can cram into it. We keep going by breathing in the deep deep love of Jesus.
The trouble is, I don’t think we know how to do that, I think we’ve become so used to the lies around us that we’ve lost what it means to be loved and to love. God came for us to set us free from us, from the self obsession in our hearts and to join in the dance of love within himself. He still calls out, where are you? He still comes looking for those who are his children. Once we’ve joined the family he doesn’t lay out a 5 point plan of how to stay in his good books. His love is fresh today, new every morning. So what stops me holding out my hands and receiving?
Just me.
I am my own worst enemy. I don’t want to hold out my hands because deep down I think I know best. I don’t want to live this life of love, I want to stay in the broken down world stuck in guilt and shame. I am twisted at the deepest level so that sometimes I prefer trying to sort myself out to asking for help from the one who loves me most. Because I know he’ll love me and then ask me to love others, to put others first and me second, to trust so much in his crazy self giving love for me that I don’t demand it from all around me and to trust so much in his never failing love that I don’t frantically try and plan how I’m going to be loved and adored tomorrow. His love never fails. I fear that it will and so I hide in the walled garden of my self protection and shame.
Thankfully that’s not the end of the story. I fear that it is. That my pride and stubbornness have shut me out of joy for good, that I am stuck in a land where I can’t go back to the life I once had because I know too much truth, but I can’t go forward into the land of freedom and joy because I am too stubborn and proud. It is not the end of the story. God exists here too, in the inbetween world of my guilt and shame, He comes looking for me and for you, he comes searching again for his children and asks “Where are you?” He comes, the lover for the loved. He comes, because he is able to humble those who walk in pride. Even my pride is not too much for Him, even my refusal to turn is not too much for him as he comes and patiently waits, patiently woos and patiently knocks down my walls of self sufficiency.
There is a land beyond our guilt ridden, pride invested landscapes and there is a God who comes into our landscapes, scoops us up from the messes we have made, puts his arms around us and welcomes us back home. Time and time and time again. He never stops. This isn’t a once in a lifetime offer, this is a daily, hourly experience. We have a God who never gives up on us. Like a father who never stops lifting his small child out of the corner he has got trapped in, from the mud he’s covered in, from the places he’s scared by we have a God who comes for us.
Try believing that just for a moment today….
The Long Walk Home 