We’ve just started a house group in our dining room. One thing that stayed in my mind from last time was Psalm 23. Yes we all know it off by heart but I thought, for myself as much as anything, I fancy doing some short [maybe] blogs around it.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
Psalm 23:1
As a child I remember learning it as “the lord’s my shepherd I’ll not want” from the hymn. And did think it was odd that we were singing about someone we didn’t want. Though now I do think that often we do not want God to lead us through quiet calm places but want them to lead us to our “ministry”/”our calling”.
Now as I read this version from the NIV I know that it means that by allowing God/Jesus to lead me as a Middle Eastern Shepherd would I have enough.
That word Enough again. I have enough of everything I need always and forever and I will not be “be in want” of anything else.
And here is another quote to help us remember that with God we have enough, that we want for nothing.
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
waiting for the tide to change – Hornsea, May 2024
As you know we went to see del Amitri and Simple Minds in concert on Wednesday. The lines from del Amitri’s song “Nothing Ever Happens” keep buzzing in my head.
Nothing ever happens, Nothing happens at all
the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before
It is full of songs like “While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing” and more along this vein. Check out the link because it comes with the lyrics.
When singing it Wednesday and most of the day after I got to thinking, in the melancholic way of how passionate I was 35+ years ago to change the world. Then I got caught up in having children and that whole living thing that happens. And I have enjoyed it so it isn’t like I’m moaning. But I did wonder why things really hadn’t changed and we are still ruled by Prime Ministers and bankers and “captains of industry” who can still buy up paintings, sculptures, footballers, etc for more than it would cost to build and equip and staff a hospital or school or even a prison. Goodness what could happen if our prisons were not places of increased trauma but of true reformation. But that’s another post!!!
Then this morning my friend sent me through Matthew 18:18-20 to do with something else we’d been talking about. But it was verse 18 that seems to fit in with my ponders around why things haven’t changed. [Note too there is no condemnation – but this is an observation!]
[Jesus says] I promise you that God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth, but he will not allow anything you don’t allow
Matthew 18:18 Contemporary English Version
I wonder if this is not so much allow as to say “yes that’s ok” but we allow by not saying “No”, by not praying “this should end”. Or we moan about those who have got into leadership but we don’t pray for them or pray in people who would “get it” more.
So we meet, we walk, we eat together, and we moan the state of our government – local, national and international. We moan about the state of our health service, our education system, our justice system, our welfare system, our global care of others, of climate change, etc, etc, etc but we still, in a way, allow it but doing nothing.
Now I know I am as bad as anyone else on this. I get overwhelmed by it all and it is easier to moan about it. But I’m wondering, as I write this, if I’ve made things too hard – for myself and for others.
This verse goes on to say
I promise that when any two of you on earth agree on something you are praying for, my Father in heaven will do it for you. When two or three of you come together in my name I am there with you
Hey that is so easy. Only two of us have to agree and God will make it happen! Wow! do we find it so hard to agree with someone? Not in the surface things but deep in our hearts?
You know what is interesting with these three verses? They come between Jesus talking about dealing with how we should be forgiving each other and then how often we should forgive. I wonder if forgiving has something to do with praying in harmony and agreement with each other.
I’m thinking of situations where I know I “should be” praying for someone but I’m a bit grouchy that they’ve let themselves get into this situation again when if only they had listen to me they would be well/able to do x/in the “correct” situation, etc, etc. Bit of pride there!!!
Thinking back to the moaning scenario – I don’t think, now I’ve thought about this – that we can do, as I have done before, just go “oh let’s now pray about them/for them/for the situation.”I think we have to “release thefetters of fault that bind us as we let go of the guilt of others/loose the cords of mistakes that bind us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt” [Two version of Aramaic translations of The Lord’s Prayer] In other words we need to forgive ourselves for moaning and bitching and we then need to forgive those we’ve been moaning about bitching about of the things that they have missed out and don’t see.
So I don’t just say “Oh it’s ok for someone to buy a painting for the price of a hospital wing” or whatever but after having a good moan I firstly need to say “God of Creation please forgive me for moaning about this person/situation and please forgive them for using their money in a way that seems selfish to me”.
I think we need to be careful, when we are looking deeper at something from the Bible to not just look at that verse but to look around it. It is put where it is to tell a whole story not part of one.
So Yes God will allow what we allow and not allow what we don’t allow but, I think, this will only come about when we forgive and pray with hearts in harmony with each other and with ourselves.
But I got to chewing this over. Do we really emerge from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly and that’s it? What happens to those who back slide, loose faith, etc etc? Do they just “die” and that’s it? And what about those people who say they are Christians but don’t quite look like new creations. I know the me of 30 years ago isn’t the me of now but I didn’t change instantly. I am very much a work in progress.
So anyway we got to chewing over this verse – which I think we all should be doing rather than just accepting the interpretation of the person at the front or some book or blog we read.
The NRSV version that our church uses says
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view., we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Not “you are a new creation” but “there is a new creation”. We no longer look from a human point of view but from the point of view of Christ. And Christ Jesus looks at us with no condemnation, no fear, no anxiety. He doesn’t look at us as if we are an issue, a problem that needs solving or sorting. He looks at us with unconditional love.
So this go me thinking – especially as we approach election time – as how do I look at the political situation in my town, my country, my world? At the education system, the health system, the emergency services, the welfare state, etc, etc, etc? The ecology system, global warming, pollution, etc?
I have to say that more and more I am learning to look at my fellow humans as people that I need to learn to love unconditionally and not problems that need solving or people I need to judge – however kindly that might seem at times.
Talking of people – in the park yesterday someone showed me how looking at someone in Christ was. Now I don’t know where this fellow dog walker is with God but we all walked passed this person sat on the bench drinking a can of beer at 8am. Some of us nodded but some walked on without noticing him. This fellow dog walker stopped chatted to him, noticed he had a swollen arm and suggest ways he could help himself. When I said something about getting this drinker to hospital the dog-walker said how this man had to choose for himself. He made me see this other man as a human being with choices he could make and not an issue that needed sorting.
Henri Nouwen’s says
Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering.
What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant [people], we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference.
And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. . . .
Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.
But finding a quick cure is not “being in Christ” but is being in self. So to be “in Christ” we all need to be seeing our fellow man and our world through the eyes of new creation. Nothing changes but the way we look at things.
For instance have you ever been somewhere and before you’ve gone you’ve thought “this is going to be hard work and I know I’m not going to like it” and guess what? Yup it is hard work and you didn’t enjoy it. But what happens if you say “I do find these situation hard but I want to go and I want to enjoy it and I want to flourish and see others flourish”. Guess what? You go and you have a good time and something good comes from it. Etc, etc.
When we look through the eyes of Christ, the eyes of God, which is what I think “in Christ” means – looking through Christ/God’s eyes and heart, then we see the whole world and everything in it with unconditional love. That doesn’t mean it is perfect. That doesn’t mean we should just let it be. But it means we can look with love and compassion not at a problem needing fixing.
Like I say I am getting better at doing this with people but with the bigger things like climate change, people trafficking, our crazy political leaders – national and international, our health care, education, welfare, etc I am still working on.
I am a work in progress but my heart is to learn to burrow deeper and deeper into Christ so I can see with their eyes that “the old has passed away” and be able to exclaim “see everything has become new!”
Does the title of this blog jar with you? How often do we think we should be useful? should be “doing something worthwhile”? Even with God we think we ought to be useful – even when we stop to pray we think it should be useful and praying about stuff to help God with their sorting out of the world.
Now I am not against social justice or supporting and helping other people. I fully agree with James’ words that “faith without works is dead” [James 2:26] but I do think, as much as that means working with God and supporting people and nature and issues that need support, I think it also means a faith that works in the knowing there is enough and that when I pray “God’s will be done” that I have changed something. That change doesn’t happen because I’m amazing but because I believe God is amazing.
I have really been enjoying this latest run of meditations from Henri Nouwen looking at solitude with God. And it is in here that he explores the ideas of us emptying ourselves of everything as we come before God, knowing God has enough for us, but also is great enough to sort the whole world out by themselves.
In James’s example as well as saying about when you see someone hungry or in need you help them, the example he uses at the end is Rahab. Rahab believes that the God of the Israelites is greater than the gods of her people so, as well as hiding the spies, also ties a red cord to her window so that she gets rescued and becomes part of the Israelite nation. So more than just doing good things!
In Nouwen’s meditations he says how we need to empty ourselves of everything to truly be with God. That also means all our anxieties and worries. I think sometimes when we come to God to pray about something we come with it as an anxiety so that when we do pray about it we are praying from a place of nervousness or fear. We are not praying from a place of openness and trust. So we often pray “God, can you just do x,y&z” rather than “Amazing God I trust you and place this situation into your hands to do as I know you know best” and then leave it with God.
Jesus said to his followers that he now called them friends not servants [John 15:15] which means he now saw them as people to hang out not to tell them what to do, or them to ask things of him. I met with a friend the other day. Whilst we were together we chatted, shared our lives, suggested supportive things to each other, but on the whole just unloaded a bit. At the end she said she enjoyed being with me because she could say things to me that she would like to say to the people concerned but struggled to say. She isn’t going to now say those things to the people we were talking about but she says she now feels like she can deal with the situation. I know that I feel the same too when I’m with friends I can be myself with. Like I’ve left a bit of something that was on my mind with them. Not for them to fix but because they are my friends.
I think that is a bit like God wants. Not for us to come to God to get them to sort out things but for us to unload, to empty ourselves but then we can sit in companionable silence with God because we are empty. And we can then know that actually God, the Creator of the Universe, doesn’t want to be with us because we can help them with their plans for humanity but so that we can know how “useless” we are before them but how loved we are.
Nouwen also believes that as we empty ourselves of our need to be useful so we give more room for others – friends, family and enemies – to join with us and to sit with us and our amazing God. He believes that when we are trying to be “useful” to God we try to control the situation too much.
In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus said “”Focus your light within us and create your reign of unity now. Your will come true in the universe [all that vibrates] just as on earth [all that is material]” [Aramaic version] or “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Empty ourselves of mithering at God and open ourselves up to being loved for our uselessness by the awesome creator of the Universe who was and is and is to come!
Single focus dog. Photographed by myself Cardiff April 2024
This week I have been distracted by many things. I’ve got 3 workshops I am running with funding from Creu Conwy which seemed to have taken ages to finalise but now are imminent. The first two are next week! Also they are in the evening – one from 5-7pm and the other from 6-8pm, times when I am usually in that downward curve energy-wise and just want to mooch about and watch TV. Though I have had a few nights where I have been functioning after my 6pm deadline – once with a new churchy-style group that we’ve started in my house and a couple of trips to the cinema with hubby. But I’m panicking about these workshops because I will have to be the one who is fully alert.
It has amazed me how quickly I get distracted. I’m also doing an online writing course which is great but again is making me worry about that old adage of “not having enough time”. How many times have I written about not having enough. Perhaps I need to be reading my writings not just writing them??
But it also means that, even though I have been reading my Bible meditations and thinking I’ve not been thinking deeply. Not letting things penetrate into my heart.
This week’s Henri Nouwen thoughts are about Celebrating and how one needs to be in that moment to really celebrate, how lots of what and when we celebrate is a going through the motions rather than actually celebrating. So the event is something that sits between the stress of planning and the anticlimax after the event, but that celebration should be a lifestyle thing. I need to remember that I am to enjoy running these workshops and not just caught up in the preparation and then the feedback.
So once again I am like Martha [Luke 10:38-42] where Jesus says “Martha you are worried about many thing but the better thing is to sit at my feetlike your sister“.
I was worrying about things. Ok not little things. These things are quite big – running these writing workshops, not being too exhausted because of the time I am doing them, getting the work handed in for the writing workshop I have paid for, and the having enough sleep, time, ability!
Interestingly the other night I was awake worrying about, of all things, having enough energy and enough time, exasperated by being awake from 3.30-5.30am. I had a full day in front of me and a long list of planning not just for the workshop but other things that I had to do. But, as you’ve probably already guessed, I got everything that needed to be done on the list completed and even managed to stay up till 10pm with my husband watching TV as well has having walked my 10,000+ steps. It was as if God was saying “look you can do it. All will be well”.
Also I do know I have the ability to run these workshops. I do an amazing job every Tuesday fortnight with my regular group and can pull things from the depths of my brain when needed. I know I can do it but I get distracted and once I get distracted I move away from God and also move away from celebrating the joys of being alive.
As I’ve said before though, there is an order for how this comes about. To really be able to feel I have enough I need to be at Peace. From that place of Peace comes a deep Joy and only then do I believe I have Enough. And what has gone on this week is that I had to realign my autonomic nervous system back to a place of peace – which does just take a few moments of breathing and looking at the window, of remembering what I have to be grateful for, and forgiving myself and others. For me going through the Lord’s Prayer but an Aramaic translation, helps me.
Only then do I start to remember that deeper joy that is a bedrock not a happy feeling. And it is then that I feel like I have enough. Today it means I can say “I have enough time to do a blog post – with many pictures – before going away for the weekend even though my first workshop is Tuesday”.
My whole thoughts have been consumed by these workshops to the point where a friend asked me for coffee and I said I was too busy!!! And also nearly didn’t go south with my husband to see his Mum which has now turned out to be a trip to see my Mum too. Goodness me! Fancy me thinking I don’t have enough time to see family or friends! As well as the Lord’s Prayer I did have to have a chat with my covid-bird to be reminded that friends and cups of tea are important.
Lines written just after taking a photo of this little shell on the beach. It really struck me how it was just there, wide open, and just being. Then yesterday I read Josh Luke Smith’s latest Main Event email and felt somehow the two things smooch together. It is about our attitude – hence the beatitude/be-attitude title
Josh shares how the word “meek” in the verse “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” means “Praus”. Praus was a Greek word to mean
… an animal that had been trained and domesticated until it was entirely under control, such as a horse that responded to the slightest movement and direction from its rider when being ridden into battle. Likewise, the person who is praus is the one who has every instinct and every passion under perfect control …
It doesn’t mean, as I have heard preached and taken to believe – and seen people try to act out – that mild, subservient, wishy-washy type of person that none of us really wants to be or to be around. It means something strong. It means someone who has such deep inner strength that they can keep every instinct, every passion, every desire, every need under total control.
How often do we see this in our leaders? How often do we see it in ourselves?
I don’t know about you but I want that. I want to be able to hold every instinct and passion in perfect control. Not so it is bubbling under the surface. Not holding it there with resentment. Not holding it there to “be a good Christian”. But holding it there because I know that I can trust God in every thing.
Having ridden horses I know that even though every horse I’ve ridden has been properly trained and brought into “praus” I know that the ones I’ve ridden best on are those who trust my leading. When I am uncertain the horse hasn’t trusted me. Watch the dressage on the Horse of The Year show sometime. These horses are big beasts who could do anything but they are in “praus” and they trust their riders.
I think one of the reasons why it was so prophetic when those Horse Guard horses ran amok in London was because they exploded out of that place of having their instincts under total control of their rider, that when the loud bang happened they no longer trusted their riders, but also that, I think, the riders panic too. We have heard a lot from this about the horses but nothing about how those riders felt as the loud crash happened. Were they not so experienced? We don’t know. But there was a disconnect between horse and rider, a lost of trust, so that those horses responded to their base instinct and ran. Read Sue Sinclair’s prophecy here
So how do we get ourselves to that place of “praus” where all our instincts and passions are under control? How do we pray for our leaders so that they can led from that place?
I think, as with the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 steps program, we need to believe in something higher than ourselves and we need support from others. Even with the QEC healing, though my practitioner doesn’t believe in God she does hand things to the Universe. It isn’t all about “me” . Those horses don’t give up their natural instincts because they think it is a good idea. They do it because they trust in that higher power. The same with my dog. So much of his life is built on trust.
So when Jesus says “blessed are the meek” remember that to be meek is not to be weak but to be so strong you can let go of your own needs and trusts in a higher power to set you fully free.
I’ll finish with another quote from Josh’s Main Event email –
Jesus said to them, “If you live in submission to God, if you pursue reverence and become Praus, everything you long for, you’ll receive” In the words of Eugene Peterson, “You’ll become proud owners of everything that can’t be bought”. You may not have material goods, land and gold (that you’ll only fight to hold onto and own), but you will have your soul and a place in God’s new creation where everything that has been lost and stolen will be restored.
And pray that we can all be like that shell waiting, trusting, and knowing.
Renly wondering why I’m taking a photo of the shell but trusting that it is something he needs to be involved in too
Have you ever wondered what sort of boats the Peter, Andrew, James and John had? Do you imagine them as more primitive versions of modern boats? Above is a historic print of Hebrew fishermen so is probably similar to the boats the Biblical fishermen used. It isn’t that big! No wonder when the storm rose the seasoned fishermen were scared. They had probably lost friends and family in an Galilean storm.
So hold this in your head. These men are seasoned fishermen. They might not be very old but they have been fishing since they could stand, probably. And probably from generations of fishermen.
Read Luke 5 from the beginning because often when we hear Bible stories we start in the middle.
At this point Jesus is just a itinerant preacher. According to Luke’s account he’s been baptised, been tempted in the desert, has read scripture in his local synagogue and nearly killed for it, and has started healing. He turns up at Lake Galilee and starts teaching the people about God. It is all getting a bit crowded and probably unsafe so he gets into Peter’s boat and asks him to take him a bit away from the shore. Probably so he was he was just a bit too far out for people to wade out to meet him.
At this point, I think things were probably pretty normal. Itinerant preachers sharing God’s word were not unusual at this time. From what I’ve read even healing people was not unusual. Things going on God-wise in the region. But the next bit is where things get different.
Jesus the carpenter and itinerant preacher tells the seasoned experienced fishermen to go into the deeper water and put down their nets.
Now Peter and his crew have two choices – either tell Jesus that he’s being daft or do it. And this is where the miracle comes in for me. For me it isn’t that they then catch lots of fish after and unsuccessful night’s fishing but it is that they obey the carpenter!
Their success comes from believing the words of the carpenter/itinerant preacher/stranger.
We’re never told what Jesus was preaching when he was in the boat. Just that it was the Word of God. [Usual Bible stuff of details, which 2000 year on could be very important] But I don’t think it was just the quantity of fish caught that caused Peter to repent and for all the others to give up their livelihoods and follow Jesus. Preachers says it was the authority he spoke with or the words he used. But I’m left to wonder there if there was authority then how come the people in the synagogue turned on him? Where was the authority there?
There is something going on between these skilled and seasoned fishermen and this stranger which is not revealed fully. We can only guess why one group of people is willing to obey and another want to kill him.
In previous posts I’ve put about how we can often only reach people if we have been through similar things to them but this has made me think otherwise.
I wonder if we truly believed and trusted Jesus would we have that same power? Could we then help those whose journeys we don’t know or understand?
Jesus did support the fishermen by giving them something to support their families with but he didn’t put them right. I wonder if too often we barge in and think we know the answer when we haven’t checked with God “where the fish are” so to speak.
I often think when we read the Bible we don’t engage with it as we would a regular book. I do wonder if it is because we’ve heard the stories too often, or they are shared as a part of a sermon to show something else, or as children we’ve already seen the simplified pictures. When I read a book I am lost in it. I empathise with the characters, decide if I like them or not, create images in my head of what they look like. I am part of that book and, especially if it is a good book, I devour it. It is also why those of us who are intense readers find it hard to watch the film of the book because the director and producer’s ideas of what people look like, how they react to things, is often different to ours.
I do my best with many Bible story to engage with them though actually the Bible is written in a form that, even though I like writing it, I struggle to read – the short story. The Bible is a series of short stories or pontificatings. It is not a novel one that stays on a single story for 300+ pages.
I’ve just randomly opened my Bible in the gospel of John. In a double page spread there are 5 different stories or themes. If I want to make the most of it I have to spend 5 different periods of time really getting lost in that. Something I’m not good at but also something I think we all, in our instant McDonald’s culture, struggle with.
To make the most of these vignettes of not just Jesus’s life but lives of all those in the both the Old and New Testaments we need to fill in the backstory, the emotions, the “what comes next”, the whys, the scenery, who else was there, etc, etc, etc. We get this with a novel, and even a short story. The author does that for us. But in the Bible no one does that and then a preacher will pick out bits to make a point but will not often flesh out the story. But even if they do it isn’t ourselves doing that in our own imaginations for ourselves.
Though that word is often a frowned on word to use by some denominations when reading the Bible – Imagination! For some it is as if the words are set in stone. Though what stone can often be a challenge if you dared ask the question. [I have posted on this before in various places. Here’s one of them]
I’ve been told that The Chosen is a great series to watch which does flesh out the Bible stories. I have to be honest and say I haven’t yet seen it. Though I wonder if some of that is me just being reluctant to watch the film about a good book I’ve read in case the production disagrees with my interpretation? I’m sure there will come a point when I know it is the right time to watch it
Tomorrow I’m going to reveal why I picked the above as the title for this piece. I want to go no further with this thought at the moment.
Trees over the road from my house. Were the people of Jericho lined up on a street siilar to mine? And did Zacchaeus climb a tree similar to one of these? Photographed by myself May 2024
As you can tell from previous posts I like to imagine myself in the Bible stories. For me it helps me to ask questions of what was really going on, which leads me to question many of the things that get taught from “up the front”.
The story of Zacchaeus [Luke 19:1-10] did this to me along with something my husband said about a talk that he’d heard on this story, amongst other things.
The story in a nutshell is about a greedy tax collector climbs a tree to see Jesus. Jesus sees him and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house, which upsets the local people and then Zacchaeus repays the money he has exhorted from the people.
Note –
Zacchaeus was a Jew working for the Romans and not just taking taxes but ripping off his countrymen, some of whom would have been his relatives. That’s something we forget in our society where so many of us live so far from our parents, children, relatives.
When Jesus says “I want to stay with you today” or in some versions “eat with you today” it wasn’t just Jesus. It would have been his whole entourage. Imagine says the King coming to your town, noticing you and saying he was going to eat with you. You would then be having to provide food for about 20+ people not just a tete-a-tete with King Charles
Many sermons talk about how amazing Zacchaeus was to give back for times what he had taken. That wasn’t a revelation to Zacchaeus. That was him fulfilling the law. The giving half his wealth to the poor was the awesome bit. – Do you ever wonder what those people who were repaid did with the 4 times repayment? Did they then squirrel it away or were they generous with it?
As I pondered this story I wondered how much time Jesus and Zacchaeus actually spoke to each other. I got to wondering whether as the entourage of disciples, etc were settling into Zacchaeus’s house whether Matthew [an ex-tax collector] came along side Zacchaeus and had a chat about Jesus, forgiveness, a freer way of life, and all the other benefits he had discovered of letting go of that old life of cheating, of fear, of being ostracized, etc. I wondered if it was through that conversation with someone who had “walked the walk” that converted Zacchaeus?
By this point Jesus had sent out the 72 in groups of 12 [Luke 10:1-23] – 2 disciples and 10 others possibly – to “heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” [Luke 10: 9] So all the disciples and at least 60 others from the group were evangelising and healing. So why would Jesus then take back the reins when he had already sent them off on their own?
Well I don’t think Jesus did take back the reins. I believe he was secure in his identity and his calling that he didn’t feel the need to always be in control. I really do believe that he allowed the conversation to flow and to see what happened. It was obvious Zacchaeus was starting on that journey of wanting to change when he climbed the tree to get a better look at Jesus and, I think, Jesus knew that.
But I also think too often we have church leaders who want not just be the one who says “wow that is awesome. This person has found freedom in Jesus” but they want to control the whole thing. They want to be the ones to take the credit and to make sure things are done “the right way”. I don’t think Jesus cared about “the right way” at all. I believe Jesus was all about the “heart way”
I think Jesus knew we can only fully change and fully come to know him and truly following him if we chat and get to know people who’ve been in our position. The reason that Alcoholics Anonymous is so successful in helping people be free of alcohol is that it is run by those who understand the problems that come with alcohol and how easy they found it to be addicted. It also works because there are no leaders. Each person is encouraged to lead a meeting after a certain period of being “dry” and all are always able to tell their story and their journey. And it is that which helps others in the group, no matter what stage they are at, to continue in their healing.
I can support friends who’ve been through similar journeys to myself and can be supported by friends who “get it”. All of us struggle when someone comes in to “put us right” or as Christine Sine says “to demolish rather than renovate” us
I also think we too often hide behind leaders and will say “they didn’t say to do it” rather than be led to do it. Sue Sinclair of Christian Watchmen Ministries says “An intercessor … actually a ministry for every one of us.” but how often do we bemoan that there’s “no one praying” or “no one telling us to pray”.
I don’t think Jesus told his disciples what to do. I think he showed them the way but let them outwork it within their own personalities and own recovery and own life experiences. But I do think he expected them to do. As I write this I wonder if when he picked “the 12 apostles” he picked them from a larger group who had been following him because they were the ones who didn’t wait to be told to do but just got on and started talking to people because they had picked up Jesus’s heart?
So from this I know I need to walk out in who I am and talk to those that I connect with, who understand me and I understand them, but also I need to always be connecting with Jesus so I know his heart for each and everyone of the lovely people that pass my way.
So let us all be bold and step and stop waiting for some leader to tell us what to do!
Renly 12 years ago. He would only have been 5 months old. Photographed by myself April 2012
Renly, my little dog, has not been well the past few days. He had a bad stomach and didn’t eat much, had diarrhea, and had to sleep in the dining room because I was exhausted by taking him out in the night many times and decided it was better to clear the dining room floor and get some sleep. He seems to have slowed down with his illness. He is over 12 which actually puts him a similar age to me this year!!! But it got me thinking about his mortality and that thing about pets not living forever.
I’ve also been doing some journaling around questions from Speaking into the Chaos, a Josh Luke Smith course that I would highly recommend. From that came this
For the question “what one wound of humanity’s heart I would heal” I wrote –
“the one wound I would heal in humanity’s heart is the fear of not having enough – enough time/money/friends/health/food/space/resources. I believe if we believe we have enough then we actually appreciate, treasure and are generous with what we have rather than squander or horde it as we do now. We squander and horde in equal measure because we are afraid there is not enough. Fear makes us consume more than we need. Once humanity can truly believe there is enough to go round then there will be no need to horde, squander or fear others will take it, take what we do not need. There will be no need to fight for it or over it.”
Then Friday afternoon I read The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom. which challenges thoughts about measuring time, worrying about time, trying to control time, not wasting time, etc. One of the characters wants to live forever, another wants not live any more and the main protagonist wanted to measure time. I want to give you this quote though from near the end
“Do you understand now?” he asked [Dor speaking to Victor who wanted to live forever] “With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we have.”
p 218 The Time Keeper
I think these thoughts sit together and are something that I pondered in yesterday’s blog, and which, I think, Jesus’s followers on that first Pentecost were healed of. They didn’t need to control time, to worry that there wasn’t enough time or enough resources. They were at peace with what they had or maybe held each other accountable, reminding each other that there was enough.
And it that knowing there was “enough” time, money, resources, food, friends, space, etc that meant they could go off across the world taking what they knew of Jesus freely and without control to other nations. That let them be able to morph and adapt what they knew of Jesus not into a religion but into a way of life. They had no fear of there not being enough or of having to control things. They were free. And that freedom meant they were able to die wherever and whenever the Spirit led them
Sometimes I think we encourage each other to be afraid that there isn’t enough time, money, space, food, friends, etc, etc. Our accountability isn’t to be free of that fear but to make sure we do lots and keep busy because … well because God might catch us just hanging out and being!!!
We need to find that freedom of encouraging each other to accept and believe there is “enough”and that we do “enough”, to remind each other we are loved unconditionally and that all of life is special.
Aspirational Adventures 