The Long Walk Home

5 Moments of just enjoying stuff.

1. Re watching Red Dwarf last night. Oh the teenage memories.
2. Talking to a friend from my old youth group last night. It had been a while.
3. Finding myself insanely dancing around my kitchen to the most cheesy rock ever written, I think it was Hall and Oates with Hey you. Hmm
4. Having a stack of ‘boy’ Dvd’s on my shelf, lent to me by a colleague- apparently it is a crime that I have never seen Die Hard.
5. Watching the West Wing, again, and again, and again. I have no idea what they are talking about most of the time, but they do say it very eloquently.

Sometime ago I heard a talk on the beatitudes (the bits in Matthew 5 about Blessed stuff- why are they called that?) and the bloke doing it gave us some of his rewrites getting at the meaning behind each one. They came out like this:

Well done to those who know they are broken and frail and are in need of God.

Well done to those who cry at the ravages of evil in themselves and in this world and who want something better.

Well done to those who are humble enough for God to have his way, not always thinking they know better and who are willing to follow God’s plans. Who are fiercely ready to be led.

Well done to those who are passionate about doing the will of God and who are willing to let go of the praise of people.

Well done to those who are willing to forgo the ways of this world in its vengeance and indifference. Who will love even when it is not due.

Well done to those who love the good and desire that good in all things.

Well done to those who try to restore relationships, not manipulating or loving power.

Well done to those who are willing to forgo personal safety and comfort because of the Kingdom.

I’ve been musing on reality and living in it lots over the last few days. Jesus seemed to want us to live in the realites of the unseen kindgom and let that impact, blow through, overwhelm and embrace the visible stuff around us. These “well done’s” seem to express all that living in the Kingdom of God means each day.

A friend asked me once, what five words would I want to say to someone if I could only say five words. My words were: there is more than this.

If there were not more than this, if we were not holding out for something better, if there was no way home we would not find ourselves in these positions. If there was nothing then I would not be in this state of thoughtfulness tonight, at another friend going across to the other side of the world to bring reality into peoples lives. If there was not more than this where would we be? Would we stay inside and build our nests, or would we seek the ever increasing need to find something more, something outside our world to define us, to ease the hunger within.

But we delay, we hold back, we say “there is something more”. There is a story that defines us all, that tells us of who we are and where we are going, there is a story that is true whether we believe it or not. There is a story that we live by. That drives us to tell others about it’s beauty and truth. That causes us to delay what we want right now. That hopes in something better to come and that shapes the way we make sense of the walking around, living, breathing that we do each day.

There is a story that holds truth greater than the greatest friendship, that is worth the sacrifices people make for it. There is a purpose to the denying of what I want right now. Because when we take up our crosses and follow there is a place to follow someone to. A place which when what we see now is compared to it, what we see now will seem dark, dingy and murky. There is a purpose to this pain.

Jesus, the defining moment in history and reality. Whose life and death and life again we are all bound up into. The man, the God who walked this earth. Who calls us to follow where he trod. Whose power is at work today in our lives, enabling us to say no to the stuff in front of our eyes and to say yes to the stuff that is to come. That enables me to not hold tightly to friendships that I know will one day last forever.

I sound sure, don’t I… Believe me, most of the time I’m not sure. Some of the time I look up at the stars and fail to believe that there is a creator who knows my name and could care about me. Who really is in charge. It doesn’t get easier. There is no point when it becomes easy to persevere. But I am aware of a greater truth than my feelings about this world. A truth I want to line my feelings up with.

There is Hope. And a whole cloud of witnesses who blazed a trail for us to follow.
“Instead, they were longing for a better country- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them”.
Faith- the journey towards the better country. Where the stuff that I held so dear here will made complete, fulfilled or be reduced to the sham they were. Friendships I cling to, the desperate desire to be no 1 in someone’s life, the need to be comfortable, accepted and secure. All these good things, that in the wrong hands can be turned to rubbish, will be redeemed.

And we will stand on that day. Knowing that there was more than this.

Seeing as the summer is drawing to an end, here are some thoughts on what to do with the precious ammounts of warm sunny days, before the delights of warm winter fires, crisp autumn days, frosts and blue skies come upon us.

1. Sit on a beach and watch the sun dancing on the sea, contemplate the beauty in this life and the thought that one day we’ll have that much beauty forever.
2. Go for a bike ride whilst you can, and experience the unutterable joy of freewheeling down a hill with the wind in your hair and no frozen lungs.
3. Sit outside in a garden and read a book.
4. Go into town and do coffee continetal style in the open air.
5. Walk around barefoot, especially on grass or sand.

Enjoy.

It’s been an intense two weeks. So incredible to be in community with other people doing the same job, to get involved in each others lives, to love care and support each other. It’s been amazing to spend two weeks doing the things that are so rare with other colleagues in this job. Praying with each other, seeking God’s work in each others lives, helping each other help others. I’ve loved it, and it has made coming home easier, knowing that there are people out there who understand and know the nature of this job.

I’m also tired, from the struggle to keep on trusting that God does know what He is doing with people, that he will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear and from helping others in that struggle. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the call in life, to keep on struggling and helping others along the way. But I am tired.

And the only place to go in that tiredness is the arms of my Father, who has more than enough strength and grace for me and my friends. To recognise how much does not depend on me but on Him. Sometimes the darkness seems so dark, the night never ending and the candle burning far too low. Sometimes hope is as elusive as the morning mist. Sometimes I want to stop the world and end these situations in my friends lives.

But I trust that there is one who did stop the darkness, who stopped the world one day and took on the darkness. The one who faced the worst darkness of all. The one who struggled and overcame and who calls us to follow, to experience his unending strength in the darkness. It is to Him that I pray for the strength that raised Jesus from the dead to work in my friends lives and in mine. The night rages on in our hearts, souls and bodies, but it is hardly Gethsemane. The firstborn from the dead has won. There is a morning to come when we shall awake, when the struggles of this life will seem as short lived as dew on a bright sunny day. Lets live for that day.

And so, what until then?
“The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides quiet waters. He restores my soul.”. The road ahead is long and rocky, but I have a friend who I stumble over mountains with, a guide who will never leave my side and a hope that shines brighter than the sun. One day the dawn will break and we who shudder in the dark will be warmed by the sunlight on our backs, will roll down hills, play in the valleys and shout aloud on the mountains. Hold on my friends, hold on. There is more than this.