lent day 16 Back then

I was listening to the radio the other day - a show where an artist interviewed another artist of a different genre about their work and inspiration.  I was driving so wasnt paying full attention but part way through the conversation someone said '  back then we were just kids'.  And for some reason that phrase jumped out at me and set me off on a trail of thinking which ended up in a poem.

i know you had a poem yesterday so I do hope you will forgive me :)   I leave you to think your own thoughts about this.

Back then

Back then there was no black and white
No gay or straight, no left or right
No rich or poor, no strong or weak
No silver spoon or rough street speak
No beauty queen or ugly freak
Back then we were just kids

Back then was no designer gear
No them and us, no-one to fear
No smart or dumb, no fat or thin
No predestined to lose or win
No labels meaning out or in
Back then we were just kids

We were just kids but then we grew
into adults who somehow knew
that 'we' were not the same as ' them'
the owners/workers, women/men
the protestant or catholic mass
disabled, homeless, different class
it's all important now to me
Im a grown up now you see
Back then we were just kids

Lent day 15 - winter

God's artistry on a winter morning

The frosted morning biting black
gives way to opalescent hues
as sparrow, blackbird, wren and tit
begin to tell their morning news.

In distant reaches of the dawn
the winter sun begins to speak
his memories of warmer days
when he was young in strength and heat

The trees, undressed save for the frost,
in bitter rows resent the cold,
hibernating till the day
when spring once more her green unfolds.

How quickly is the night time past;
the moon, however, full and bright
is not so keen to go to sleep
and vies with sun to give her light.

And now the clouds are tinged with pink
the town awakes to do its duty
so many tardy waking souls
have missed this gift of winter beauty.

© Caz Hamilton


Today as we all have a little moan about the weather and how cold it is, and worry about the snow and the heating bills I thought I'd just remind us all how fortunate we are to live in a country which experiences seasons.   How blessed we are to be able to look out of our windows and watch sunrises and moonrises and rainstorms and rainbows.   How amazing it is that we have weather in all its variety with all it brings us.   I am so glad I don't live in a part of the world which is prone to drought or endless winter or searing unbearable heat.   God has put me here, and I am thankful.   As I sit and watch the beautiful snowflakes from the window of my heated home I shall be glad and rejoice in this day that the Lord has made.   I hope you will too ❄

Lent day 14 - Luke 4

Isnt it funny how you can read and hear something a gazillion times and then suddenly understand something you have never quite understood before?   I heard this scripture read again in church on Sunday and it connected in my mind with the blog I posted a few days ago about the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness.   These are the words He spoke immediately after that and I'm pretty sure the baptism-temptation-mission declaration are strongly inter dependent.  Without the affirmation of God at the baptism Jesus might not have been able to face down His enemy in the desert.  And without resisting the temptations Jesus would not have shown that a man could carry the mission of God's heart whole-heartedly.

But what really struck me today as I read the Isaiah scripture again was that Jesus states that He has come to the poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind and oppressed. 

There are many people I've tried to talk to about Jesus in the past.  The ones who have responded have been poor, brokenhearted and captive.  The ones who haven't have been materially comfortable, emotionally pretty stable and healthy, reasonably powerful - they haven't needed Jesus ( or at least they havent perceived that they have any need of Him) and therefore when I have presented Him He has seemed an irrelevance.

I know that we are commissioned to preach the gospel to everyone and that God doesn't want any single person on earth to perish.  But today as I re-read Luke 4 I do wonder if we will always get  better response from the same sort of people Jesus spent time with when He was here.

We tend to spiritualise things and read metaphor into words like captive and oppressed.  But what if the anointing of God is actually in prisons?  What if Jesus is most powerfully at work in bereavement counselling sessions and foodbanks?    I think He is.   And where He is, that's where we should be also.    

  It also strikes me that only part of Jesus's mission statement involved preaching and speaking.  Some of it involves healing and some involves setting free, which seem to me to be intensely practical and active things.   So perhaps the anointing of the Holy Spirit is on our doctors and nurses and dentists and therapists.   And perhaps He is also pouring Himself out over lawyers and barristers and judges and parole officers.   Maybe, whether they know it or not, anyone who is working on behalf of the oppressed and the downtrodden is carrying the yoke-breaking, curse shattering, life giving promise of God with them.

I'd like to think so.

lent day 13 - uninspired

Was on Facebook earlier and telling a friend that I was feeling uninspired about the blog.  What could I write about?  He suggested, somewhat tongue in cheek I suspect,  that I write about being uninspired.  And as I started to think about that.....

To inspire literally means to breathe in.  Im pretty sure that all true inspiration comes from breathing in the ideas and heart and mind of God.  All the great inventions and discoveries of the world have come about by people grasping something divine, ingesting it and then seeing it come to be.  Be that a work of art or a piece of music or a scientific discovery or a mathematical formula.  Every good and perfect gift comes from God.  He spoke in the very beginning and His DNA went forth into the universe and is still there sustaining all things.  Every breath we take, every move we make, is only possible because of I AM
. 

So when I am UNinspired...... I clearly haven't been breathing.  I have not sat down and spent time just absorbing the spirit of God, letting His presence fill me and filter through me into my thinking and imagination and writing.   Which is why I started writing these blogs in the first place .  To MAKE me focus, breathe, wait, and get inspiration.

God is the author of all beauty, all creativity, all invention.  He is colour and light and music and perfume.  His desire is that we become beautiful, creative, inventive ,colourful. musical, sweet fragrances on the earth.  Sit with Him for a while and breathe in His essence.  Let Him fill you with His fullness so that you can overflow into an uninspired world

lent day 12 - kindness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1yQstWOh_s

I was at a course in church yesterday - all about the Kingdom and the Holy Spirit and stuff.  As sometimes happens at these things, you find you are supposed to be there for one thing and God decides to do something else 😇 

Part way through the day a word of knowledge was shared and the chap who responded was someone who is very new to the things of the Spirit.  He has been a Christian for decades but belonged to a church which didn't really pursue spiritual gifts.  So even being prayed for in front of a group was quite a step for him.   He closed his eyes and put his hands in his pockets.   But then he hesitantly took his hands out of his pockets and held them at pocket level slightly open.  And I knew this was a huge step for him.  Within moments of people starting to pray for him the Holy Spirit was all over him.  He was breathing really heavily and vibrating and swaying.  After a couple of minutes someone came over to him and raised his hands up and continued to hold them there for the duration of the praying time ( which was probably 15 or 20 minutes)   Not much was prayed.  There was no need. God was clearly at work.  Soon the tears started to come.  There were several moments when we thought he was going to hit the deck.  I was so touched by what God was doing - even though I didn't really know what it was.  I just knew that a huge transformation was taking place and that this guy's life would not be the same afterwards.   I knew that because this sort of encounter has happened to me.  It is profound and inexplicable and deeply healing, cleansing and good.

When he opened his eyes and wiped his tears and fell into a chair he looked completely wasted.  As though he had climbed a mountain or suffered a tremendous shock or something.  He couldnt speak for a few minutes.  And then he said that now he finally understood why people sometimes fall over when they are prayed for.  He said it had taken a huge amount of control to stay standing up.  He now understood what people had been talking about when they spoke of the power of God.  He had met the Holy Spirit in a powerful encounter.  The encounter had taken years of theology and knowledge and suddenly made it all real and relevant and life giving and powerful.

I cant wait to see what happens in his life over the coming weeks.

As I watched God at work yesterday I was once again overwhelmed by His kindness to us.  God is the kindest, most gentle, most loving, devoted Father you could ever imagine.  He absolutely LOVES to bless us.    He is not angry with us, disappointed in us, impatient at our faults and failings, bored by our prayers, frustrated at our lack of progress.  He isn't even cross about our sins.   He LOVES us.  And it is His kindness which melts our hard hearts, causes us to fall in love with Him over and over and therefore turns our faces towards Him and away from the temptations and distractions of the world.    Once we have tasted and seen how kind He is we don't want to go running after other things.  Once He has lavished His goodness on us ( that's a great word isn't it - lavished ?) nothing else is going to compare.

If kindness is the hallmark of God's interactions with His people then surely it has to be the hallmark of our interactions with each other too.   God's people need to be known for showing grace, mercy, gentleness and generosity to those around them.   We do this so much better from a position of overflow than one of emptiness.  I'm pretty sure my friend who received prayer yesterday will be dripping God all over the place this week 😊  The people he drips on will notice the difference.
So today lets take a few moments to stand with open hands and receive the kindness of God.  Let's open our eyes to see all the places in our day where He is being good to us.  And let us determine to overflow His loving kindness into the places we walk.

Lent day 11 - the will of god

I first read Thomas Merton many years ago.   I read No Man Is An Island very very slowly because it seemed to me that every sentence was a profound sermon in itself.   I was reading some parts again yesterday.

Here is what Merton has to say about the will of God.  Read it slowly and digest it.  It is nourishing stuff

“First of all, let us not all be too glib in our statements about the will of God. God’s will is a profound and holy mystery, and the fact that we live our everyday lives engulfed in this mystery should not lead us to underestimate its holiness. We dwell in the will of God as in a sanctuary. His will is the cloud of darkness that surrounds His immediate presence. It is the mystery in which His divine life and our created life become “one spirit,” since, as St. Paul says, “Those who are joined to the Lord are one spirit” (I Corinthians 6: 17).

There are religious men who have become so familiar with the concept of God’s will that their familiarity has bred an apparent contempt. It has made them forget that God’s will is more than a concept. It is a terrible and transcendent reality, a secret power which is given to us, from moment to moment, to be the life of our life and the soul of our own soul’s life. It is the living flame of God’s own Spirit, in Whom our own soul’s flame can play, if it wills, like a mysterious angel. God’s will is not an abstraction, not a machine, not an esoteric system. It is a living concrete reality in the lives of men, and our souls are created to burn as flames within His flame. The will of the Lord is not a static center drawing our souls blindly toward itself. It is a creative power, working everywhere, giving life and being and direction to all things, and above all forming and creating, in the midst of an old creation, a whole new world which is called the Kingdom of God. What we call the “will of God” is the movement of His love and wisdom, ordering and governing all free and necessary agents, moving movers and causing causes driving drivers and ruling those who rule, so that even those who resist Him carry out His will without realizing that they are doing so In all His acts God orders all things whether good or evil for the good of those who know Him and seek Him and who strive to bring their own freedom under obedience to His divine purpose All that is done by the will of God in secret is done for His glory and for the good of those whom He has chosen to share in His glory!” 

― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

Lent day 10 - ups and downs

A few years ago I was really struggling.  Life had not turned out as I had imagined it would.  I was a bored and lonely housewife miles away from friends and family with three demanding children and a largely absent husband.  I was doing the ironing one evening and found myself in floods of tears, breaking my heart over I knew not what.

' What on earth is the matter with me Lord?'  I blubbed in frustration

' You are disappointed' was His reply.

He was right.  I was.

I've just been thinking about Jesus and His baptism, followed immediately by His 40 days starving, cold, alone and under enemy attack in the desert.   He went from the wonder and delight and joy at hearing the audible voice of God commending Him and acknowledging Him to..... well, I presume to feeling utterly despondent and defeated at hearing the taunts of the enemy for forty days.   Interesting isn't it?  I've never seen that before.  God spoke once from heaven.  Satan spoke over and over in the wilderness.   God confirmed Jesus's character and destiny '  You are MY Son and You are more than good enough'    Satan attacked His character and destiny ' IF You are the Son of God.....'
The high point seems fleeting in comparison to the low which followed.

Sound familiar?

I wonder why it is that on this road we are walking so often the highs are shortlived and the attacks are sustained and wearying in the extreme.   It is so tempting to fall into the ' it's not fair'  mentality.  Which leads to disappointment.  Disappointment sucks faith and hope right out of us and starts to sow bitterness and resentment.  And before we know it we have turned our backs on the God of the high places and are wandering off into the territory of the wild animals.

Perhaps we need to understand something.  Perhaps the way this works is that God sees the trials coming and He prepares us for them by affirming us, encouraging, building up, speaking identity and destiny over us.  He knows that we need to stand on these words, believe them and let them become part of us so that when the enemy comes and fights dirty we are ready.   Jesus was ready.  He didn't sit in the desert moaning that God had forsaken Him.   He didn't complain about His lot.  He knew that the Holy Spirit was leading Him and held onto the words His father had spoken over Him at His baptism.   Im sure He didn't enjoy His encounters with the devil.  I imagine they were very very tough.  I don't suppose He really knew how long the desert time would last.   He probably could have chosen to go home and walk away from His mission at any point.   As can we.

This Lent let's take a moment to re-visit our high points.  The times in our lives when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God spoke to us, touched us, delivered or healed us.  Did something amazing that could only have been Him.   Let us remember what it felt like to know  His favour and pleasure and that we were His.  Let us re-read the scriptures which changed our thinking and transformed our lives.  Talk to the people who witnessed the transformations we underwent.    And then let us face the wilderness with courage and confidence.  Secure in the knowledge that we are sons of God.  On a mission. Destined for victory. And our Father is well pleased.

Lent day 9 - inheritance

In 1966 Billy Graham came to London and preached a televised message which reached into households across the UK.  One of those households was that of my great Auntie Gladys  ( Auntie Glad) who got down on her knees in front of the telly and gave her life to Jesus.   Her life was eternally transformed and everyone in the family recognised ( but not necessarily welcomed) the change.

I was born in 1966 - so all in all it was a fairly monumental year  😇

Growing up I remember occasionally hearing about ' mad Auntie Glad' who preached at everyone and went on and on about ' being saved'.   I never met her - she was my Dad's Aunt by marriage so was really on the fringes of our extended family.  But her reputation went before her and she was a bit of a legend for all the wrong reasons as far as my family were concerned.

I was in my late twenties when I was between jobs and houses and decided to go and stay with my Dad for three months.  Looking for a church,  I asked Dad if he knew of any local fellowships and he said he thought that there was one in Ripon - a nearby town.  He thought it was perhaps the church that his Auntie Glad went to.    Off I went one Sunday to explore - and there she was.  A tiny white haired old lady who was standing at the door greeting everyone who entered with a huge hug.   She introduced herself to me as ' Auntie Glad - I'm everyones Auntie here'  and I was able to tell her that in actual fact she really WAS my Auntie Glad because I was Mike Pearson's daughter.  Her face was a picture.  She had tears in her eyes as she told me that she had regularly prayed for my Dad when he was a young man but that she had lost touch with that side of the family over the years.  Her delight in discovering that her prayers had been answered in the next generation was palpable.  She hugged me and prayed for me and invited me to lunch and we chatted and connected and marvelled at the goodness of God that we had found each other.

Not long after that Auntie Glad went to be with the Lord.  And today Billy Graham has joined her.  The fruit of his preaching way back in the fifties and sixties was a spinster called Gladys.  The fruit of her prayers in the sixties and seventies was me!   So I feel especially thankful to Billy Graham today.

I heard him preach at a mission in Edinbugh in 1991.  Nothing he said was particularly astounding and his delivery wasn't particularly gripping or exciting.  But the anointing for evangelism was truly amazing.  I saw thousands of people leave their seats to go down on the pitch of Murrayfield stadium and give their lives to Jesus that day.  Thousands of ordinary people like my Auntie Glad whose lives, I trust, were transformed and whose prayers went on to affect those who came after them.  Ripples spreading outwards across the world.

Who was praying for you before you knew about it?  Who was praying for the person who ended up leading you to God?  Who are you praying for now ?  How many ripples are we all creating for God?

Billy Graham was a faithful servant and a wise disciple.  He made more ripples than most.  I hope he enjoys the reward the Father has ordained for him in heaven.

Lent day 8 - secret heroes

Its 100 years since some women got the vote.   And there has been a lot of publicity over recent days about those suffragettes and the lengths to which they went in order to bring their cause to public attention.   Some previously untold stories about ordinary women who did extraordinary things for the cause are coming to light.   We should have known about them before - but the very nature of their protest meant they were hidden behind the scenes.   Only alot of digging by historians has unearthed some of the facts.

There has been a news item running over the past few days about a man who has just been jailed for 32 years for running the largest paedophile operation ever uncovered on the internet.   For four long years the police and crime agencies across the world searched for this man who had numerous identities and knew how to hide himself on the dark web.   They first worked out that because of the times of day he was making posts online that he was probably in the UK.  That he was probably male and probably educated.  That narrowed it down to 32 million people.

For four years a team of people trawled through the depths of human depravity which is internet child abuse.  All the time narrowing down the field bit by bit.  And in the end they got their man.

As I was listening to the news yesterday I found myself silently thanking those poor souls who probably sacrificed their own mental health and spiritual well-being in order to protect children and vulnerable people from harm.   We have no idea what goes on behind the scenes in hidden places every day.   Someone in my family used to work in anti terrorism.  Of course nobody ever really knew what he did 9-5 - but occasionally he would let us know that terror plots were being foiled all the time due to diligent police work and the unsung heroes of detection and prevention.

Or how about the scientist I was listening to on the radio who has spent his life researching genetics? He is now able to identify a cancer gene which runs in families resulting in every member eventually getting colon cancer.  His research has led to the ability to not only spot who has the gene but work out how to treat it - thus saving entire families from the certainty of early death.   An unassuming hero.  There must be millions of people around the world doing jobs we know nothing about which are contributing to the peace and prosperity and safety and health of the planet.  And not necessarily people who are foiling international crime rings or discovering cures for cancer.    There are people removing fatbergs from our sewers and servicing passenger airlines to make sure they fly and doing all manner of behind the scenes things which make our lives run smoothly.

So today I'd like to pray a blessing on every person in the world who never gets thanked.  To those who work in secret to keep us safe.  The people who can't chat about their jobs after work and who are dealing with things from which most of us would run a mile.   God says that the good that is done in secret will eventually receive a reward.   I hope that many of those who work for good in secret will be in heaven.  I think I'd like to thank them myself.

Lent day 7 - addressing God

Over the past year or so I have found myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the way I
and others address God.
I've spent decades being perfectly happy to say things like ' Come Lord Jesus' or ' Come Holy Spirit'.  Until recently I've had no problem whatsoever with asking God to draw near or be enthroned on our praises.  But now all of a sudden Im starting to wonder if the way I speak to God isn't just the teeniest bit.........wrong.

Yesterday evening I was at the healing service I go to every month.  I lead the worship. There are two prayer slots where we pray for Northern Ireland - health, education, politics, church etc and then there is personal prayer for anyone who wants it.  It is a quiet, understated service and I love it.   Yesterday we had a couple of minutes silence at the start and the usual intonation ' Come Holy Spirit' was uttered.    In my mind's eye I saw that the Holy Spirit was already there.  He didn't need an invitation and He wasn't waiting to be asked before He decided to turn up.   I saw Him like a cloud of tiny fragile and incredibly beautiful butterflies hovering over us.  Asking Him to come was pointless.  He was there already.  But He wasn't able to settle on us until we had become still and quiet.

It occurred to me that what we should probably have been praying was something along the lines of  ' Still me Lord until I am aware of Your presence'

In worship I very often envisage myself coming into the presence of God.  The doors of the throne room opening and me drawing near with multitudes of others all praising and expressing our love to Jesus.  It seems to me that the very essence of worship is drawing near and bowing down.  Why then do we continually ask God to come to us?  It seems all backwards to me.   Am I being ridiculous??  Is it just a matter of semantics which is entirely unimportant or does the way we address God say something about the way we think and feel about Him? 

I suspect that our thinking about God is way way way too small.  Which is hardly surprising.  We make Him the same size as us by speaking about Him as though He is a person who we can invite to our Sunday services or our prayer meetings in the same way we would invite someone to lunch.    But He is God of the universe.  He holds the stars in His hands.  He is the beginning and the end.  He formed us in our mother's wombs, has all our days written in His book and knows every hair on our heads.   He is being worshipped in heaven by a gazillion shining angels and the whole of creation.  He is so incredibly gracious and kind to us - He doesn't seem to get offended when we order Him about and tell Him what we want Him to do.  He smiles at our foolishness when we ask Him to bless our feeble endeavours and cheers when we do sometimes work out that in fact we are supposed to be joining Him in His.

We have much to learn.

Lord,  I'm so sorry that most of the time I reduce you to my size and speak to you as I would speak to one of my friends.  You are so much bigger, holier, more incredibly powerful than anything I could ever imagine and You deserve to be addressed with reverence.  Please would you teach me how to speak to you in ways that please you.  Thank you for your kindness in not minding too much when I get it wrong. Thank you for your butterfly Spirit who is always hovering and waiting for an opportunity to land in my heart.

lent day 6 - Ps 43

A few years ago as a ' spiritual exercise' I decided to rewrite the psalms in my own words.   It was a really interesting thing to do.  When you are trying to paraphrase something you have to think about it carefully.  You have to try to see what it is really saying and then translate that into something which is meaningful and which makes sense.   And then theres the extra challenge with some of the psalms of trying to get across the mood of the writer.  Sometimes sad, sometimes angry, often questioning, they are writings full of emotions.

Yesterday I was reading Psalm 43.  It is one of the many psalms which start off with a bit of a lament and a moan  ' why are all these people around me being so deceitful and arrogant and ungodly? Evil seems to be winning.  And why are You ignoring me in the midst of all this trouble?'

It is a cry we hear all the time in our modern world.  ' If God is so good and so kind and just then where is He when the twin towers are falling or the refugees are starving or the earthquakes and tsunamis are happening?'   We need to be ready with an answer to that question because it is one which comes up time and time again.  Im somewhat comforted to know that even David asked it - and also answered it in the next breath.  His answer is interesting.

To the question ' Where are You God'  what we usually mean is ' Why are you not in the place I expect you to be - in the middle of the trouble?  Sorting the famine.  Stopping the accident or the cot death. '  The question supposes that if we shout at God loudly enough He will come to us where we are.

But David seems to have found an alternative answer

3 O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your dwelling.

4 Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy; yes, with the lyre will I praise You, O God, my God!

David understands that what needs to happen is not for God to move into our space and our mess but for us to move into His presence, His light and life and truth.   When we praise Him we see Him as He is.  When we enter into the holy of holies we step away from the mess in our thinking and see from an entirely different perspective - an eternal one.  We understand that God is huge and mighty.  He is strong and holy.  He is all powerful and all present and has the universe in the span of His hand.  In that place the sins of the world are as a drop in the ocean.  In His presence is joy because we suddenly see the woes and trials and troubles of this life in the light of His amazing salvation plan.

And then we can say with David

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Lent 5 - telling it as it is

Funerals.  I've been to a few too many in recent weeks.  I always feel they are rather odd occasions - a mixture of well behaved , solemn ritual and leaking, seeping grief.  We are pretty rubbish at death in our buttoned up, hide it away, never speak of it, it can't happen to us society. I suspect the african cultures who wail and scream probably do grief better than we do.  There are definitely downsides to being polite and reserved.

I heard two pretty impressive stories at two different funerals which I'd like to tell you.

The first concerned Robert who was tragically killed a few weeks ago.  At his funeral the story was told about him buying a car which had a number plate which Robert recognised could be worth some money.  He researched it, sold it, and then took the money he had received from the sale round to the original owners of the car and gave it to them.

Good story eh?

Yesterday at Heather's funeral someone told me that. as a schoolteacher for many years, Heather had once come across a young man who was bullied by his peers and not very popular at all.  Socially awkward and with few friends this young man found himself without a date for the school leavers formal dance.  Heather hired him a tuxedo and partnered him to the dance where the two of them proceeded to have so much fun that the bullied student became the star of the show.

I didnt know either of these things about my friends.  They were small details of their lives which had happened unbeknown to me.  But both incidents show them for the people they were.  Kind, honest, generous, sensitive, righteous.  Listening to these and the many lovely and kind words spoken about my friends at their funerals made me wonder what people would say about me at mine.   And it also made me realise that we are really bad at telling people what they mean to us when they are alive.

Im really glad that the last time I saw my friend Heather, a couple of weeks ago, we parted by hugging.  Heather said ' I love you'  and I said ' I love you too' - and we grinned and waved goodbye not ever thinking that it would be the last time we would see each other this side of heaven.   After her funeral today I went to sit with Gladys for a while.  She is 93 and dying.  She hasn't eaten for over a week and is now asleep for most of the time.  I probably wont get the chance now to tell her what I feel about her and how much she means to me.  But that doesnt matter because a couple of times over recent years I have written her a card telling her what she means to me.  And on at least one occasion we have had the conversation face to face : ' I love you - but I love you more!'

I have been very blessed with some amazing people in my life.  If you are reading this you are probably one of them.  I have probably never told you that I am so thankful for your friendship. Maybe I haven't taken the time to let you know what it is about you which makes you special.  Why I like you so much and the difference you have made to my life.   For the rest of Lent I'm going to try to do something about that.  Maybe you could too?   Take a few minutes to write an email or a message or a card to someone you appreciate and tell them the sort of things you might say at their funeral.  We all take each other for granted way too much.  And we all think we have plenty of time.....

Lent day 4 - blue tits

Was at a loss for something to say today until I spotted this posted by a friend on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/BBCSpringwatch/videos/1651017271658441/?hc_ref=ARQZQLWKDITslY8XWmgMozZdGExcC0gTD4YtyJ9t3C71JqCbEDR-nXfb7nZYt4OE3no

Love that!! 

And the moral of the story is.......

You were born to fly

And the tigers you fear are not actually tigers.

And even if they were ( and they aren't) - you can fly!!!

So, tigers?

 No problem!

Lent day 3 - cracks

I was driving yesterday and doing what I nearly always do in the car - listening to Radio 4 and ' thinking in a God direction'.   I wouldn't go so far as to call it praying.  But it is sort of listening to the radio and tuning into God at the same time.  What I hear over the airwaves quite often gets me thinking God thoughts....... although of course sometimes the radio content is merely entertaining or distracting and I probably should just switch it off and pray!!

Yesterday when I switched on it appeared to be half way through a broadcast of a rather odd play.   I wasn't paying attention really cos I didn't know what was going on..... when all of a sudden I heard a woman say   ' Why didn't anyone notice the cracks appearing?'   And for some reason those words smacked me in the face and wouldn't leave me alone for the rest of the day.

In the wake of yet another high school shooting in the USA it is not difficult to ask that question of the young man who posted on social media that he was going to become a shooter and then took a machine gun into his school.  'Why didn't anyone notice the cracks?'   Close to home we will all know someone who has self harmed  ( If you think you don't know anyone, you do.  You know someone who smokes or drinks or overspends or overeats.  And you probably know someone who cuts themselves or punches walls - its just that they might not tell you they do that)  The cracks can be well papered over for a long time before they start to show.  And that's the problem.  Like a sink hole forming deep underground everything can be hidden for years before suddenly, something triggers the collapse and everything crumbles. 

Two days ago a friend of mine called an ambulance for their elderly and very poorly mother.  The ambulance came and took her to hospital where she proceeded to wait for ten hours on a trolley to be admitted.   That's pretty grim isn't it?  But it is not the half of it.   Apparently the ambulance crew are not allowed to leave the patient at the hospital admissions desk until they have been booked in and admitted.  So for ten hours  TEN HOURS the ambulance crew had to sit with the old lady.  There were only two ambulances on duty that night.  Sixty calls went unanswered whilst the crew sat in the hospital unable to respond.   What is the likelihood that someone died because there was no ambulance available??  Why didn't anyone notice the cracks and DO something.  Years ago.  I'm not a political beast really but..... seriously.    A year ago a friend spent 40 minutes doing CPR on her dying husband whilst waiting for an ambulance to come from a station just round the corner from her house.   She didn't make a complaint despite the ambulance driver telling her she should.   Her husband died.  She had bigger things to think about at the time.

It seems to me that silence is our enemy.   Cracks appear and get papered over.  Cracks appear and we don't like to mention it.  Cracks appear and we get used to the cracks and convince ourselves that they won't get any bigger and that we can live with them.  The cracks are sometimes our own but often they are other peoples.  We hesitate to get involved. We don't want to complain about the ambulance or the school bully. 

What would Jesus do?

It seems to me that Jesus confronted cracks wherever and whenever He saw them.  Cracks of hypocrisy and religious bigotry.  Cracks of sin and sickness.  Fault lines in people's characters ( He was really good at that!)  Holes in people's theology.  Holes in people's hearts.   Jesus didn't paper over - He exposed.  But mostly He did it in a kind, loving way which showed people an alternative to living with cracks.  He promised wholeness and strong foundations. ' I will build my church and the very powers of hell will be unable to put the smallest dent in its walls'     ' You must be born again - start afresh with no cracks, smooth and perfect as a newborn baby.... and the Good News is, you can!'   When Jesus looks at me He sees every crack and weakness.  He knows that if He leaves that hairline fracture, by next week/month/year/decade it will have opened up to be a fissure which could swallow me.

This Lent let's be brave and come to Jesus with our faults and failings.  Allow Him to speak to us about them, challenge and confront us if necessary, and dismantle us so that we can be rebuilt again faultless and without blemish.   And let us be bold to address the cracks we see appearing in the people and structures around us.  We are Jesus in this world and we need to be doing the things He did.  Scary and uncomfortable but urgently important if we are to stop our world from crumbling to dust before our eyes.

Lord, help us to see the cracks in ourselves and those around us and to know what to do about them.  Give us discernment, wisdom and compassion. Help us not to walk by on the other side.  Give us grace for messy people and situations.  Let us see beyond the faults into the heart.  Let Your kingdom come and Your will be done

Amen

Lent day 2

I spent most of yesterday battling with technology and being super frustrated that I couldn't make my work laptop do what I wanted it to do.  I'm supposing that this is not the fault of the hardware - or indeed the software.  It just boils down to the fact that I'm not used to the programmes loaded onto this particular computer.  I need to work out where things are and how it all works.  Once I've got used to it I'm sure it will all be fine.  But for now its downright annoying.  I kept losing documents I was working on..... couldn't get the printer to print anything..... and then to top it all off I reached up to a shelf to get a file and the whole lot came crashing down on my head sending lever arch files all over the office!!!   Arrrrrgh.     

What's the lesson?

Well, its funny. Recently I've been meeting lots of people who have a really good solid church background but have had little or no experience of the Holy Spirit.  In fact some of them have been taught that He should really be avoided at all costs.  They have felt the nudge to leave their traditional  churches in the search for more and now, having landed in a charismatic fellowship,  they are suddenly being opened up to all the possibilities of a truly spiritual life.  God has brought them out of the old and is showing them new things.   It's been a long time since I've had the chance to witness a group of people unfurling in their understanding and experience.  It's lovely.  Their eyes are wide every time they understand another aspect of who He is and what He wants to do.  They are having to learn new skills - familiarise themselves with a new keyboard and new programmes as it were.   It can be a challenge.  When you are used to doing things one way and then you are shown a new way to operate it can take time to adjust.   God is kind and patient with us.  We need to take care to be kind and patient with each other.

It makes me wonder what new skills am I learning at the moment?  How am I being challenged and stretched to move into more of what God has for me?  When was the last time I had an upgrade, or a download or a system reboot ?  If God is always doing new things , if He is infinitely creative and if He wants me to do the things Jesus did and more...... then I should be constantly walking on the edge.  Not quite knowing what I'm doing.  Working out what I'm doing wrong and how to do it better next time. Asking for help from those who have gone before and taking instruction when I need it.



I'm not really doing that at the moment.


Are you?


 

Day 1 Ash Wednesday - welcome to the Lent Blog

It is that time of year again already.  Time to look forward to the most important time in the year - Easter.  Time for another year of Lent blogging.  Some reflections of life and faith to try to create a Godly focus.  So happy you can join me again over the next 40 days.

Im starting this year's blog on a rather serious note. 

At the start of 2018 the leader of my church ( Lisburn Vineyard) Andy Masters addressed the church
and said that he felt that God had told him that the coming year was going to be a battle.  But that we were not to be afraid of the giants in the land.  Rather we were to keep our eyes on the prize and trust that God was going ahead of us and with us into the year and that if we were obedient and stayed close to Him we would come through the battle into new places of victory and take territory from the enemy.

The afternoon of the day he preached that message one of our congregation was murdered in his own home.

The church was in shock.  It seemed like a rather terrifying response from the enemy to the battle we had declared.  Andy led the church brilliantly through the disbelief, shock, grief, fear that hit us as a result of Robert's death.   Eyes on the prize.  Do not fear. Hold firm and run the race........ and then just last Sunday another tragic death.  This time not someone from our church, but from another congregation in our town.  A very well known and much loved teacher who was a friend to lots of people in our church and to many many others.  She was killed when her car collided with a bus.  Yet more shock and disbelief.  And a sense that Andy's words at the start of the year hold more weight than we imagined possible at the time.

Christianity is not all blessing and joy and peace and hope.  Running alongside those things there is warfare in heavenly places.  There is an enemy who is out to kill and steal and destroy.  There is a narrow path and a narrow gate.  And there is the challenge to believe that God is good ALL the time. Regardless. Full stop.  End of.


We can happily sing and say that God is good when life is good and all is well with the world.  We can praise Him when our bellies are full and there is cash in the bank and we are in good health.  It is not so easy to rejoice when the redundancy comes or when our child is being bullied at school.  It is so much harder to believe that God is good when outrageous acts of cruelty and violence crouch at our door - or worse, break down our door and take up residence in our lives.   And yet our praise is His battle cry ( as the old song put it so eloquently)   The enemy wants to turn our hearts away from God in bitterness and anger and grief.  When we respond in the opposite way - with praise and hope and forgiveness and love the enemy is utterly defeated.  He recognises that he has no power over us - no matter what he throws at us our spirits are untouchable.  With Job we can say ' yea though he slay me yet will I hope in Him' and really really mean it.   Invincible. Victorious. Unbroken. Free

If there are strange and difficult things happening around you at the start of this year then take heart.  God is on the move.  He is upping the ante.  We are being called to stand in the battle.  We have stones in our pocket and we know how to use them. We shall see the giants fall. Do not be afraid. Stay close to Jesus and do what He tells you to do.

Sorry that this was a bit of a sobering opening to this Lent season...... but it was what was on my heart to say.  Please do share your thoughts as we go forward together into the next 40 days.