a sermon on Isaiah 58:9b-14

The book of Isaiah is a fascinating text. Like the view from the top of The Rock, it’s best taken as a whole vista, not just little snippets of verses out of context.  The basic theme of Isaiah is one of falling away from God and taking up idols; of threat of judgement, of offered redemption, and of the blessings which will flow from acceptance of God’s mercy. It’s a picture of God never turning his back on his people even though they grieve his heart with their sin. The whole book is a pointer to the coming of Jesus and his offer of redemption for us at the cross.  There’s this pattern of demolition and reconstruction;  of judgment and salvation.   Then in the last chapters of the book, there’s a hopeful picture of the new Jerusalem which has resonance with heaven for us.

Now, when I said that the book is best taken whole, I was just showing off, so you’d know that I did actually have a scant knowledge of the book, and I want to actually just speak on a one verse which jumped out at me when I read it. Verse 11 says this:  “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail”.  

I watched a documentary recently about a young Canadian man, Robert Bogucki who went on a journey into the Great Sandy Desert to try and find God.  (Incidentally, the Great Sandy Desert is the one in north west  Western Australia, inland from Broome.  It’s roughly the same size as Japan, and it’s surrounded by other deserts). He wanted to fast in the wilderness, like Jesus. He set out on a bicycle with a few belongings and a bible.  But as he got further and further into the desert, the bike was useless in the unrelenting landscape and he discarded it and continued on foot.  Eventually, of courses, he became lost and in grave peril. When his bike and belongings were found, a search was launched using police and aboriginal trackers.  But he wasn’t found. His father eventually came over here with his own search team and found his son, alive, but only just. He’d been 6 weeks without food and 12 days without water and had lost 30 kilos.  The documentary describes how he kept finding water in the most inhospitable of places;  he would dig into the sand to find water seeping up, or he would follow birds which led to waterholes, and he was able to survive.

Most of us would not seek God in such an extreme manner. But all of us encounter times of adversity when we seem to be in a spiritual desert. We’ve all had times when God seems far away and nothing we do seems to bring Him closer. We’ve all had times when the circumstances of our lives are difficult and hard to live through.  But take heart, these times are essential to us finding God, in a way we never could, if all our time was spent in watered and fertile comfort.  Just as Robert  found water in the driest place on earth, not only can we find God, but we can be as these verses in Isaiah describe;  like a watered garden;  strong, resilient, satisfied, contented, a spring whose waters do not fail.  We can be like this, because this is what Jesus becomes to us in times of adversity.

How can this be?  Let’s look at the preceding verses.  There’s a kind of spiritual physics here;  when you do this, there is a certain outcome.  The whole chapter is a discourse on what true fasting is.  It’s not just going without food;  it’s looking after those less fortunate;  it’s relieving those who are oppressed;  it’s giving food to the hungry.  When we do these things, we are promised God’s favour.  Listen to these lovely verses again;  “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;  when you see the naked, to cover him … Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily;  your righteousness shall go before you;  the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.  Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. If you pour yourself out for the hungry then shall your light rise in the darkness”.  This is not just a set of rules though.  You do this, and you get what you want;  you follow the rules and God blesses you.  These things are not just a set of rules and regulations;  they are God’s precepts.  So I think this says that even in the midst of our own trouble, when we continue to live according to God’s precepts, we find God.  Our living this way, becomes a seeking of God and he will never let us go unsatisfied.  Rather, he uses these difficult times, to weed out the dross of our lives;  There is a saying from Arabia;  “too much sun makes a desert”.  It’s true.  If our lives were all comfort and ease, our souls would become cluttered with worldly stuff.   As life still thrives against the odds in desert places, so God’s life becomes a source of refreshment and vitality and streams in dry places, when we continue to trust him.  He becomes a lifeline, like water found in a dry creek bed.  In the natural world, creatures adapt to living in the desert.  One of the inhabitants of the desert, is a tiny lizard, which can survive when the temperature on the sand reaches well over 50 degrees C.  It does so by lifting it’s body up away from the burning sand so that it’s vital organs are kept cooler.  So, in parched difficult times, the stuff we don’t need (like resentment anger and selfishness) are dropped (with God’s help).  In times of difficulty, for example, when someone faces a life threatening illness or loses a loved one, the importance of say, getting back at someone for some slight, seems less important than it did before;  we simply don’t have the energy for it anymore because we see how petty it is.  We can move past it more easily, because in the face of our own, or a loved one’s impending death, it simply isn’t important any more. The harsh light of desert experience can shine a refining light into our hearts.

There is so much imagery in the Bible about trees.  I won’t mention them all, but one of one of my favourites is from Psalm 1, vse 3…. Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord;  he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it’s fruit in its season and it’s leaf does not wither.  There is a season for everything going well; but there comes a time to most people when things perplex and trouble us.  Whatever our circumstances, when we keep our lives anchored in God’s word and in seeking him, then we are like the image of this tree.  We won’t wither and we’ll bear fruit when it’s time.  When I first moved into my present house, there was a lovely standard weeping cherry in the amongst a garden with other plants, but over the ensuing years of drought, it didn’t really do well.  As each season passed, more and more of it died off.  Thinking I would do it a favour, I installed the polypipe dripper system in the whole garden.  It seemed to make no difference and I finally decided I’d pull it out and plant another one. 

The older I get, the more I think that adversity and suffering are God’s hand as much as when everything is going well, and as much as the physical and fiscal things he gives us.  He is the Lord God, and he doesn’t just go around mopping up after the evil one’s schemes.  He is always sovereign. 

It’s in the desert where our true relationship with God is formed.   And Like Robert in the Great Sandy, we become focussed on the really important things which ensure our spiritual survival.  I think this is the answer to the great “why” of bad stuff happening to us.  Have you been through a hard rocky experience lately?  Take heart, God is at the centre of adversity;  he may not have brought it, but he has allowed it;  God made the great Sandy Desert as well as the mighty Murrumbidgee and he has promised us his presence whether we are in the drought of the one, or the watered places of the other (I must say here how lovely it is to see the Bidgee with lots of water between it’s banks at the moment;  haven’t seen that for a while).

We can become so strong spiritually when we endure the desert of adversity or pain, or uncertainty or suffering.  We can become spiritually “well watered”, even though our outward circumstances seem to be the opposite.  Be aware though, that this may not become evident at the time.  When we are stuck in the parched places, the watered garden seems a long way off.   

And the lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places.

Let’s just get back to the book of Isaiah for a moment. It’s set in the time of the exile of the Israelites from their promised land;  God warns them to stop rebelling and repent; he uses their enemies Assyria to chastise them;  then He uses Babylon to take them out of their land;  they are refugees. Then God uses Cyrus of Persia to set them free and take them home. We can see how God uses their adverse circumstances and their rebellion to bring about their eventual spiritual good;  he brings them back into the fold of his favour.  He never lets them stay in their desert of disobedience but always has their spiritual well-being in mind.  And so it is with us.  He uses all the times of our lives to bring us closer to him.  And that’s a good thing, even if at the time, it seems so difficult to live through.

  Amen

I hate it when the car breaks down

The car still isn’t fixed.  It broke down on Monday on the way to work and I had to get towed.  Last week it was the engine housing;  this week it’s the computer.

I got stressed when it broke down.  I think my blood pressure went way up – my heart pounded and I had a sort of pain in my chest.  It’s a throwback to breakdowns passed, especially the one when I broke down 3 times in the one journey, with the same problem, on lonely roads, with the kids, night descending, and costing hundreds and hundreds of dollars, which I didn’t really have.  It was a time in my life, year after year, when everything, big and small, went wrong.

Any wonder that when I break down, the anguish of it comes back a bit. I still carry a sort of resentment towards God for all those dark years, when nobody helped; nobody understood, nobody helped me fight my corner.  All God seemed to do was allow more bad things. 

I know His purpose was to make me rely on Him. He let the devil trick and savage me all through those years.  It was like a trek off into the wilds;  so much darkness; so much despair;  so much conflict in every arena of my life. All to a backdrop of grinding hard work frugal living.

Now, here I am still holding the banner of the risen Christ;  still living by the precepts of the  Suffering One.  I’m still on the treadmill of low income and frugal living, with loneliness as my companion.  It’s just how it is.

I guess I know the nature of Christ and what it means to be a Christian, which is a little more founded in reality than those cardboard cut-outs who cry into my puzzled face “I’m off to Paris!  Isn’t God wonderful!”.  (pukeness-making I reckon).

I know what it is to live in the Spirit and soar with the Eagle (spiritually), with the light of God on my back.  I understand that the light and the soaring are perhaps as tangible and real, when I’m trudging through mud, as it is when I’m in a sunny meadow.  The Spirit and the light are the same whatever my circumstances.

The only thing that stops me soaring is that I’m still a frail human being and have become used to the easier path, when I’m not struggling with the pain of divorce or the loss of a son, or even the car breaking down.  I’m like everyone else – I don’t want to have my faith tested with suffering and loss.  It’s easy-peasy being a banner-bearer when nothing much goes wrong. The fact that it has been tested with these things, only makes me more susceptible to little things going wrong. 

To be honest, I don’t know why I’m still on the treadmill of working when I’d rather give up, and the alone-ness gets to me at times.  So when the car broke down the second time, it triggers the puzzled bewilderment which is still a part of me, and I wonder again, just what on earth was the purpose of all the designed and designated suffering?

But I don’t have the energy to rail against it anymore. I’ve resigned myself that this is God’s lot for me now until I reach “Aslan’s country”;  heaven;  the real Life for which this life has been a preparation.

I just hope God hasn’t got any more bloody awful surprised in store.  If He can’t allow good things (and when I’m in my right mind, I know I have many of those), I wish He’d keep the bad to himself.  I do SO get sick of being changed from glory to bloody glory!

I do get angry with God sometimes. But I SO don’t want to “do” anger either, and being thankful is a way to counter anger.  Anger is exhausting, futile, defeating of joy, hard going, depressing and affects no-one except me.

Sometimes too, God seems silent.  He never answers prayers I ask for myself – even when I was at my wit’s end (many times).  It’s the cost of being an Intercessor for others.

Sometimes He seems silent;  the great Silence from Him who supposedly craves our fellowship. Sometimes, I feel like I’m slowly falling out of love with God. I am tired of making the effort, when I so obviously, so fully misunderstand His ways and purposes.  Or, rather, I keep reverting back, like a blueprint I can’t erase, of a Providential, caring Father-figure God.  I expect Him to look out for me;  to be on my side, stick up for me, provide a little help when life robs me of the good crop I’ve sowed.  But that never seems to happen (or when I’m …. Admitting it now…. Depressed…. That’s how it seems)

Instead, when I am thankful to Him for all the positives of some loss He’s allowed, He allows more loss; just to be sure I have been tested enough.  And really, even though I have this idea in my head of a Providential God, what’s actually in my emotional, spiritual self is this silent, testing, hard-hearted God who looks away at my distress, who looked away at the struggle and suffering of Christ on the cross.

So I’m left with this suffering Jesus who must understand what it’s like to be rejected and un-helped by Father God.  I know too, that if I turn away and leave God out of my life, I am unhappy and left exposed, without shields or protection, to the demons of depression, self-pity, anger and despair. (shudder).

So, up I go again, to turn to the light of the “looking-away God” and the unearthly, unfathomable, joyous song of the Sprit, and to the suffering, bewildered, anguished figure on the cross, who said “why have you forsaken me God?”.

And I understand that. And I think “this is the narrow door”

And I go through it again.

After all, God doesn't really promise that nothing bad will happen.

He just promises an unending supply of hope, strength, courage and even joy, to cope with it all.

He will never leave us, or forsake us, actually  The forsaking is not an earthly, tangible, riches, comfort arena. 

It’s a spiritual arena;  He will never leave us to battle our demons;  our struggles;  our doubts, alone. He will never throw us into a spiritual arena which we cannot win over and emerge triumphant and whole.

I just wish I could get that bit through my head. 

Self Esteem... a different approach

Many of you will be familiar with the traditional folk song “There is a ship”.  One of the verses goes like this:  There is a ship, and it sails the sea, it’s loaded deep, as deep can be;  but not as deep as the love I’m in;  I know not if I sink or swim”. 

There have been many times in my life, when I have been so desperate, so downcast, so despairing, that I didn’t know if I was sinking or swimming.  In fact, there have been years on end in my life, when I was only just keeping my head above water, in every sense of the word;  emotional, physical, spiritual and mental. And I want to tell you, very briefly, how I emerged from this dungeon into the sunlight of the best self-esteem I’ve had in my life.

A big cause of all this angst was my marriage breakdown.  God has created us all with a unique “self” – a blueprint of who we are, and it’s one of the most precious things we are given.  Lots of things build on that blueprint – life experience, parents, friends, even place.  To have that crushed and manipulated and denied, is a terrible thing.  This is what my husband tried to do to me over many years. He did it by alternate, deliberate episodes of carefully crafted apparent care, thoughtfulness and love, then terrible vengeance, deliberate hurting, rejection and dominating criticism. This emotional blackmail is a terrible form of control and destruction. It leaves the victim anxious, demoralized, bewildered. In those final, terrible days, before he left, there was only a fragment of my self left.  My ex husband took it, trampled on it and walked away.  It left a great hole in my inner being which was spent, empty, unrequited;  a wasteland of broken reeds; a mourning which was unsoothed and uncomforted. But I don’t want to dwell on that. To be fair to him, I don’t think he realized he was doing it.  He was acting out his own terrible form of selfish instability and rebellion.  I never understood why he felt he had to treat me in this way, or even more, why he went on to treat our children in this way too. I don’t care any more;  it’s no longer important.  But when he found, after 17 years of marriage, that he  couldn’t be the complete keeper of my soul, mind and spirit, he threw me away. After all that, one of the last things he said to be was “you were never good enough”.  Yet, here I am today stronger, self-reliant and with a much larger, more defined and healthier self esteem than I’ve ever had.  How can that be? So after all that rejection and anguish, how can I possibly stand here and tell you about self-esteem? There are many paths to self-esteem;  indeed self-esteem is a multi-layered thing, existing in our personal thoughts about ourselves, our ability to relate to people and our ability to perform our jobs. It’s influenced by many things, not the least of which is our experience in childhood, especially from our parents.

We tend to think these days that self esteem is given by how we look, the kind of job we do, the sort of car we drive, our place in the community, and especially by how much money we have.  The more of all these we have, the better we should feel about ourselves.  Thus says the media, the motivation gurus, our  society, even our friends.  

Here I am;  someone with none of the generally accepted requirements for self-esteem.  I have no status (in fact, I have what I call anti-status, because I’m a single parent).  I perform an essential but mind-numbingly ordinary job; I have no wealth;  I drive a fairly  old car and up to a few years ago, I lived in a fibro house.  In the world’s eyes, I have failed at marriage.  I should feel bad about myself.   But still, despite these things, there has been this rising of self-worth, like a clear calm stream; an awareness of true self-worth, falling on my battered senses, with the cadence of a beautiful and serene melody.

How can it be that my sense of worth increased, rather than decreased? Let me share with you just a few things I’ve learned:  And we could spend ages on this topic but let me give you just two.

1 Bring all that happens to you, to the cross of Jesus. I had to try and understand why it was that this man could treat me like a doormat.  It was not a pleasant process and it took years of prayer and pondering and ploughing through my life, my attitudes, my Christian beliefs. I knew I had lots of very good qualities in my character, but I also learned how vulnerable I was to people who would bully and hurt me.  To be absolutely honest, one aspect of the Christian ethic, (ie wives should be submissive to their husbands) if taken the wrong way, can breed a terrible sort of man, and they will always be drawn to a woman who takes the “treat others better than yourself” verses more to heart. But I don’t want to dwell on these verses, but rather on our working with God, to  achieve all that he wants for us and for his glory.

What is important is to be honest before God, and bring him all that’s happened to us, and ask him to help us cope with it.  Some people find this difficult and perhaps if we didn’t have times of suffering, we would never be forced to look deep into our own hearts and discover all the imperfections there.  People who are not self-aware are the worst kind of selfish people.  They deny their faults and blunder through life, hurting anyone who gets in their way.  Jesus loves us no matter what faults we have, and when we become aware of them, he is able to heal us.  One pitfall of examining ourselves is that we can get stuck in it and become too introspective and become overwhelmed with what’s happened to us.  If you only look at this aspect, you’ll trudge down the steps of self pity and it will become harder to trudge back up again into the light of healing.  You need to be kind to yourself but not self-indulgent.  You have to be willing to get to know yourself, warts and all, and in the presence of God, allow him to begin a healing process. God’s strength is made perfect in weakness.  Listen to 2 Cor 12:9-10. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2  Make God’s precepts your own value system and stick to them, no matter how others treat you. The getting of true self-esteem involves more than just pampering ourselves, and stroking our own ego;  it has nothing to do with positive self-talk (although that has it’s place);  it has nothing to do with retail therapy;  it has nothing to do with power over others;  it has nothing to do with the house we live in or our address.  It has nothing to do with “things” at all. Rather, it requires a personal resolve to stay true to our own value system, when it would be easier to cop out and behave with no personal integrity.  It requires digging deep into who we are, building a set of values, and living according to those values.  It requires conviction, courage and tenacity to stay true to our value system, when life’s unkind face would have us compromise and behave less gallantly. 

When we resolve to face the ravages of life with goodwill and a strong desire to do the right thing, as dictated by our own value system;  When we behave with personal integrity despite the injustices, the hardships, the terrible jostling of our souls;  when we  endeavour and endure with our own set of ideals when it would be far easier to give in and become lesser people,  we reap the reward of a quiet, growing confidence that we matter, that we can achieve; that we are people  who can face some of the storms of life and emerge stronger. We like who we are.  We have earned our own respect. This is why God commands us to live this way.  Priceless treasure.

For the Christian, this goes against all the worldly advice about self esteem.  Bless those who curse you.  Forgive those who wronged you.  Pray for those who spitefully use you.  Can you imagine the corporate world giving this advice to their people?  But, when we do this, we are changed;  we learn to value what’s happened to us less, but value ourselves more. Where’s the sermon I did about as we do God’s precepts we are changed? 

The other less travelled path to self esteem is the old fashioned notion of living with regard to how we treat others.  This goes against all the modern preaching about demanding MY rights, pursuing MY dream, protecting MY interests, grabbing as much money and status for MYSELF as I possibly can.  Could it be that this kind of thing actually encourages bad self-esteem?  Depression, which has connections to self-esteem, is almost to epidemic proportions in this country.  Could it be that we’ve lost sight of a nobler belief system which values how we treat others and nurtures  our own personal self respect at the same time?

What if the very fabric of our self-esteem has nothing to do with money or class?  I mean the very deep-down blueprint of what makes us who we are and how we value ourselves.  Money, status, power;  these are outward things, imposed or gained, or given or worked for, or even taken.  These are open to decay by shifting fortune, illness, chance even.  These things… status and power are so closely linked to wealth.  And wealth is such a fickle, deceitful thing.  Wealth is fool’s gold.

What if true self-esteem grows out of something less tangible, yet more within our control?  We can choose our own value system;  we can choose to follow it.  It’s the following of it when it would be easier not to, which ploughs the ground of our character, and produces a great crop of the beautiful flowers of self-value.  For me, there will always be a little wasteland of barren ground inside me, which is my divorce and other painful things. We all have these patches of wasteland inside us. But there is also a verdant garden of these beautiful flowers, and they will always self-seed, as long as I continue to water them with the living out of my personal value system. 

This holding on to God and His precepts in times when the world wants to kick our heads, is what makes us strong;  it’s like a quiet, life-changing journey… I call it a low miracle.  God is able to take something so negative and so destructive and turn it into an unbreakable confidence in His power;  a sense of self which is not selfish, but whole and  strong and nourished;  it’s this kind of self esteem which can put others’ needs first, without feeling down trodden;  it can develop healthy relationships with others because it’s not super sensitive to criticism.  It can assert it’s right to be treated properly, without feeling guilty.  It doesn’t come from asserting our rights, it comes from living out God’s precepts in the face of what others do to us. 

If someone says to us “you were never good enough”, what would God have us do?  The easy answer is hate that person and use every means available, even our children, to get back at that person.  It’s would be very easy to plunge into recrimination and self justification.  But what does God bid us do?  The answer is one of the hardest things you’ll ever be asked to do.  It’s Bless those who curse you and spitefully use you;  it’s “do not return evil for evil”, it’s “turn the other cheek” and most importantly, it’s “forgive those who’ve wronged you, as Christ as forgiven you”.  This is not easy and there will be hills and vallerys;  the road will be rough and stony, but I guearantee, when you obey God’s word in the face of what people do to hurt you or dominate you, it will be a road that leads to a new confidence, a sense of self-worth which is deep and powerful , not based on the world’s fake, skin-deep offering sof “Your’re worth it” or “it’s all about me”.

Guess who's moved? Oh trite saying, you offer me no help!

I went to a Lenten Bible Study last week.  It was called "Finding God in dark places" and was run over a series of weeks preceding Easter.  I went twice but found the experience a bit unhelpful.  I've known a lot of dark places in my life, and when confronted with questions about how and where is God at such times, I found that I talked about my own dark times a little too much.  And I found that some people didn't understand why I thought God was hard to find during times like this. I also discovered that speaking these demons out loud connected me with them and exposed me to some sad thoughts about them.

For example, when I said that I sometimes felt far away from God, because of some of the things which I've experienced at the hands of others, an older lady piped up straight away and said "if you feel far away from God, guess who's moved!".  I thought it was a trite and indifferent way to answer someone who has just confessed to being unable to feel close to God because something terrible has happened.

Bible studies like this are always swayed a bit by who else goes.  I went 3 times in the end and  in the three times I went, this trite answer was expressed twice.  Each time it was expressed from someone from the "religious" group of people who are in every church.  They are the ones who turn up for church with a puddle-deep faith and social-club enjoyment of the gathered congregation.  They are often comfortable people with black and white, nailed-down Christianity which has never really been put to the test. (ie they believe that God provides and honours us by making us prosperous, and they are prosperous so they never have to question why God would allow all their money to be taken away).   So the trite answer fits them but it makes me very disquieted, because all of those nailed down values I used to have have been tested and tried in the furnace of suffering and loss. The "religious" among us are always ready with the trite answer which mostly implies that it must be something you have done wrong which has caused you to fall away from God.

The fact is though, that there IS truth in that phrase.  I am happiest and closest to God when I make a conscious decision to follow him for the abiding peace He gives.

But it means offering up, over and over, the mortal death blows of suffering and puzzlement at the adverse and strife-filled situations and circumstances I've experienced.  It means offering these up to the Suffering Jesus on a regular basis and saying

"Here, take my wounds;  take my circumstances.  I will never understand in this life, why you allowed them for me.  But I acknowledge you as Lord of all of them.  I accept them.  Have mercy on me because I keep wanting to criticise your dealings with me.  Help  me to trust you anyway."

It's when I make  the conscious decision to look  up from the wreckage of my fallen and crushed dreams;  look beyond my self-pity and see the Crucified one and the light of heaven in His face, that I know peace and contentment, even in the midst of loss.

My vision has shifted from earthly values to His heavenly ones, and I know it is me who HAS moved.

Yet, despite all this, there are still times in the very practical and harried and impacting day to day life, and I battle with these unanswered big questions, when heaven's door remains shut and silent to my strained and puzzled prayers.

Perhaps it's God's way of telling me
"You cannot know these things yet.  Wait and follow; look over the wreckage of all you hoped for.  To me.

I will always have abundant peace to offer you, despite the ruined buildings in your journey and the broken ground which has marked your way.

Keep coming.  Keep coming, with faith, not with sight;  keep coming with heavenly values and treasures, not earthly ones."

Those who lose their life for my sake, will find it

I cannot stop following Christ.  But I find it so difficult at times. I get tired of setting my face to it and treading the journey.  The road is narrow, and few find it.

Yet, if I don't follow;  if I allow my heart and soul to be side-tracked down a selfish, godless path, I know my life would be drained of all richness and strength and compassion.  And grace.

I noticed a woman crossing the road the other day;  as I drove past, she was walking out, to cross.  She was beautifully dressed;  lovely lime green linen top and cream pants.  Gold necklace, rings.  Her hair and makeup were perfect.  She exuded expensive and stylish taste.  But what I also noticed was her face.  She was scowling. It seemed like the default setting of her face.  She had such a hard-looking countenance.

Of course, we can't judge a book by it's cover, but alternatively, who we are on the inside eventually and inevitably finds it's way out, and imprints the calibre of our souls, on our faces.

Perhaps my face might look hard-bitten and scowling too, if I stopped following the Servant King;  the Suffering Jesus; the Intercessor Saviour.

I find it so hard to follow this Jesus because his precepts are so very likely to cause me to be open to the vulnerability of honesty,compassion, servanthood and self-sacrifice. Sometimes, I would rather follow a one-dimensional Good Shepherd Jesus who only claims to look after my material and physical comfort.  (The Good Shepherd never promised that, but it doesn't seem to stop me wanting to follow this Fairy Godmother deity).

It would be easier not to follow at all.  I would be free to think only of my own comfort and desires;  to get what I want even if it meant treading all over other people's dignity and feelings;  I could treat people with the contempt they might deserve and get my own back once in a while.  I could be absolutely committed to getting what I want out of life and damn everyone else.

Instead, I can always hear the Spirit of this redemptive, outrageously gracious Jesus, calling me to a different way of treating others;  a way that looks out for their interests before my own;  a call to ever more refined holiness and selfless attitude. This cross-wracked Jesus who forgives those who tortured him, calls me to return good for evil.

It's a big ask.

But the Servant King;  the suffering, forgiving One who called me long ago to follow, calls me still.  Indeed, he will not let me go.

He promises nothing can separate me from His love.

But sometimes, it doesn't feel like love. Sometimes, I remember so keenly, all my sorrow;  all the things, by His sovereignty and this broken world (and my own naivety), have been taken from me.  The very precepts He exampled me to follow, have allowed others to inflict great wounds upon me. And he wants me to return good to them?  To bless their very heads with kindness and forgiveness?!

Yes.  How else can I be healed from their viciousness?  By becoming like them?

That will never work.

I carry, always, these wounds in my heart, and cry to Him and say "Why have you allowed these terrible things for me?!?"

And He replies:

"Because you are my child and these things have always been waiting on the path for you.  Would you rather have travelled them without me to help you bear them? Take heart, strong one, they have given you garments of sanctity and fragrances of grace.  They have given you much richness to take with you to heaven.  These others, who have chosen the easier path will not be so well-dressed. You cannot know all the answers until the Great Resurrection Day.  Your choices were anchored in my precepts and will be rewarded in my own time."

"You chose the way of humility and meekness which will often allow others to hurt and mistreat you.  I could not stop them from hurting you because they must make their own choices too. Just like my choice of the cross allowed men to crucify and vilify me;  if they have done it to me, they will do it to you"

This is not always the answer I want to hear because I am tired sometimes. My will to keep following the path of selflessness which Christ has trodden, falters.   Have mercy on me;  I know the cost of following and I don't always want to do it. But always, when I take my eyes off the Christ and tread my own path, I am never as happy;  don't have the same peace in my heart.

The great paradox of following is that as you give up your life for His sake, you find it, in greater richness and meaning.  You also have a great anchor which keeps you strong and stable and well-adjusted.

The by-product of following Christ... is happiness. No matter what.

And who doesn't want that?

The fragrance of Christ is Amazing.

I had occasion, last night, to attend a meeting, at which I am not permitted to contribute, except when asked something specific.

This meeting always starts with a devotional and because I feel a bit like I don't belong, and shouldn't speak, I don't contribute to these discussions either.

Last night the short devotional was on the well known verses in Romans 12: 1-2:  "Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice", and "do not be conformed by the world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind".

The leader of the devotion commented on how easy it is to be sucked in to all the terrible events which go on in the world, and how hard it is to bring any conversation about what happens in the media, round to the things of God. It is indeed.  How can you even begin to talk about God in the face of violence, people smuggling and corruption on a world scale?

But I don't think that's what God wants us to do.  He wants us to share the good news of his gospel, but we can't do this by contriving a conversation about Him, with people who don't particularly want to hear it.

The leader said that he hardly ever talks to people about God because of how difficult it is to introduce God into a conversation around what happens in the world.

But I often find myself talking about God to people.

I think my Learned Leader last night, got it all wrong.  You can't preach at people, banging on at them about what happens in the media and what God might think about that, or how they should respond to God.

You can just talk to people in your own circle, about what they want to talk about.  You enter into their world, with them and wait to see what they might say to you, about what troubles them. It's all about them. You listen, and sometimes they will tell you their fears;  they might tell you their joys.  They might even tell you of the things they have done, which they are not proud of.   You sit with them, and hear what they say. You don't judge. You can't talk at them, always with your answer ready, to show them your brilliant doctrine, or your enlightened spirituality.

They don't care about that.

They care about what is happening to them at that moment, in their world. And if you can be in that circle, with them, for even a brief moment, you might be able to be the fragrance of Christ to them;  not with your amazing wit, or your intelligent answers (save those for the public arena if that's your thing) or even your vast knowledge of the Bible.

They will pick, every time, when it's all about you.

But when you step into their space, at their level, with what's it like for them uppermost in your mind, you might be surprised how many times God is there with you.  And them.

Sometimes, for  me, it's a conversation, brief; an interchange, perhaps at the fish counter outside the local meat shop;  a conversation which might lead to them sharing with me, say, that they are awaiting tests from an oncologist.  It's the tiniest of moments, but when I enter that moment with them, I often find that it's not a chance to contrive a conversation about God, or a lesson on doctrine, or a judgment on where their life might be headed, but simply a chance to care for them, in that moment.  They know it's genuine.  I've may not have even mentioned God.  But God is there, nevertheless, in that moment.  As sure as I know my own name, I know he's there, with them and with me.

And I leave it to Him, to decide what to do about them.  I pray for them too.  I leave them in His care.

The power to be the fragrance of Christ is in those kinds of exchanges.  Not in the contrived conversations of people who think they are Spiritually Better than secular people. It's the power of God to use you because you are an empty vessel;  a channel through which God's love passes.

Amazing.

60 year old scaredy cat has first go at canoeing

I am a fearful person.  All of us are prone to some kind of human frailty, be it pride, anger, gluttony, greed etc.  For me, it’s fearfulness. And I have never been much good at having fun either…

But last weekend, I had another opportunity to overcome fear, and have fun too.

I spent the weekend at Minnamurra, just south of Wollongong (NSW, Australia). I stayed with my family at a beautiful beach-house situated right on the water. They were holidaying there and invited me to stay for a couple of nights!  Lucky me!

 

The first morning I was there, my daughter, her husband and little 3 year old, set off in canoes to paddle across the lagoon – a tidal river inlet open to the sea.

But I was too scared to go.  I doubted my dodgy heart’s ability to keep up physically to the exertion I thought might be required to paddle the canoe across the water. I pictured myself being propelled by the incoming tide, way up the river, against my feeble attempts to stay on course.  I always imagine the worst possible scenario.

So, instead, I sat on the wooden boardwalk, my feet dangling over the edge.  I was safe.  But I felt so alone; so defeated by my fear. I watched my family paddle off and land on the other side of the inlet; my little Grandson with his life jacket on and sitting in the front of his mother’s canoe.  They pulled their canoes up the beach and disappeared into the scrub, through the track which led to the great expanse of ocean on the other side. Harry had all the essential equipment with him (besides the life jacket) – big toy dump truck, bucket, spade etc.

So, I sat there, and, as often happens, the sadness of being alone, and the prospect of another 20 years of being alone, began to take hold of me.  But I have learnt, by bitter experience, that this kind of thinking too easily becomes the catalyst which opens the door to depression.

I looked at the stretch of water;  it did indeed look fairly innocuous. There was a wide expanse of shallow water and a deeper channel in the middle.  Life has chucked some pretty awful things at me, despite my tendency to cling to the sidelines. And I have proved over and over that the way to overcome fear, is to face it, confront it, and bluff it back.  I might be a fearful person, but I have had to face a lot of terrible stuff, alone; things which would turn the bravest of us, into scared rabbits. So, I thought perhaps I would have a go at it;  after all, it wasn’t white water rafting for goodness sake!

So, next afternoon, on the incoming tide, (if I’m going to get carried by the current, it might be better to be carried inland, rather than out to sea, although as my friend quipped .. “but Susan, you might have been rescued by a hunk!"  We laughed like school girls J)

So next afternoon, we set out again, and this time I ventured forth, with my little pink paddle at the ready.  It was a bit tricky getting the hang of dipping alternatively – first one side, then the other… and OK, I did a few 360 degree turns but finally I managed to zig-zag my way over. I did it!

I didn’t get propelled inland by the current.  And… it wasn’t as much physical exertion as I thought it would be, so I didn’t get out of breath.

I’m sure all you big brave people (physically fit, normal–hearted people) are thinking “What’s she on about – it’s just paddling a canoe”, but I felt as though a cosmic billboard somewhere should read “60 year old scaredy cat has a first go at canoeing!”.

And as we headed through the track to the beach, my daughter turned around and quipped “Lesson one, in learning how to have fun, is complete”. (with a nod to the movie Nanny McPhee).

And Mary pondered these things in her heart....

I loved it when my babies were tiny scraps of new humanity, freshly come from that unknown, eternal place to which some of us return.  Their eyes were briefly-opened windows to that world, though we scarcely knew it.  We looked and marvelled and gave thanks for them;  they were living evidence of miracles.

Then they grew to not-always-beguiling toddlers;  unique, demanding, wonderful.  They stained their clothes with busy and curious fingers, dipped in all manner of things, to find out how the world worked.  They were delightful;  they were exasperating;  they caught at my heart;  they tried my patience.  They were sheer hard work but in the midst of the toil they shared the unripe essence of themselves with me and I was blessed.   They slept, and with that slumbering, poised in innocence and beauty, they let me catch my breath.  Sometimes now, my arms ache to hold them as babies again.

Summers came and went;  still they grew, pulling me headlong into parenthood.  Bikes, barbie dolls, cubby houses, books at bedtime, homework and sleep-overs;  braided hair and ballet lessons.  Gap-toothed grins and butterfly kisses;  they printed themselves on my heart with indelible ink and I’ll never be the same.  All the while,  they waited with energetic impatience for each new experience.  They were living, complex stories being written on a beautiful parchment of change.

Inevitable time marched them into adolescence.  They became changelings;  an all-at-once mix of child and grown-up, held in their metamorphosis by awkward grace and boisterous confidence.  They still bore childhood’s sweet traces, but their adult self dawned in self-conscious adolescent posturing.  They disassociated themselves from childish ways, at once with painful regret and joyful eagerness;  they could still touch childhood’s consciousness, but listened with straining senses, for the adult song which could not be silenced.

My lovely son, Ben, who, against the odds, taught himself to be a steadfast, loving, dependable man, died when he was 27. My girls remain, like precious gems in a sea of sorrow. My girls are thirty-somethings now with babies of their own.    To me, they are like fine sturdy ships poised to set sail across a deep and unknown sea.  They have chosen their life paths and I must let them go;  they must dance their own joy;  fall against their own life’s hard rain, make their own choices.  But my love and prayers will always go with them.  Homecomings and safe harbours will always be theirs.  They have their anchors in the deep, still waters of Christian faith.  We are closer in  different  and enduring ways.   I must let them go and yet they will always stay in that exquisitely unique place which is a mother’s heart.  I can never let them go. 

 This bond between us  is stronger than anything.  It was forged in the furnace of commitment, heartache, hardship, diligence…. and love.  It is a lasting testimony to the Heavenly Father’s love for us. 

 

(This is the intellectual property of Susan Starr. Please do not use it without permission)

What to do when things go wrong; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Lamentations3:19-26

I’m sure all of you will be familiar with the books “Anne of Green Gables”.  Perhaps the blokes won’t be so familiar with them, but I bet some of the ladies will have read them when they were girls.  Or, the younger generation may have watched the TV movie of the books, made in the 80’s.  My girls loved this;  they watched it over and over.  I too, loved it.  I love a good, happy ending. There’s a bit in the start of that where Anne (who is the heroine) and prone to catastrophe, says to Marilla, who adopts her from the Orphanage where she has spent her early childhood years. Anyway, in this scene, Marilla and Anne are heading off up the stairs after some disaster or other in which Anne has been to blame.  Anne says to Marilla, something like “that’s what I like about going to bed;  when you wake up there’s a new morning, with no mistakes in it yet”. 

And that’s a truth which can serve us well too.  In a way, it’s almost a paraphrase of the reading from Lamentations 3: 19-26.  Let me just read you these few verses again “The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall.  My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.  But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope;  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The verses in the whole book of Lamentations must be some of the most harrowing in the bible.

Listen to this from Chapter 1: "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see.  Is any suffering like my suffering,  that was inflicted on me,  that the LORD brought on me  in the day of his fierce anger? "From on high he sent fire,  sent it down into my bones.  He spread a net for my feet  and turned me back.  He made me desolate,  faint all the day long. "My sins have been bound into a yoke;  by his hands they were woven together. They have come upon my neck and the Lord has sapped my strength.  He has handed me over  to those I cannot withstand.

These are harrowing words;  the writer of them was in a desolate and miserable place.  We’d rather not go there;  it’s too awful;  too uncomfortable.  But life is a precarious and fickle thing;  it rains on the just and the unjust and we wouldn’t be part of humanity if we didn’t experience times when we feel that everything goes wrong, and life becomes difficult;  when the fat hits the fan. If life gets tough enough, we might even question if God really cares for us at all.  It would be natural to do that; the writer of Lamentations did it;  the writer of many of the Psalms also experienced this kind of doubt.

It can be a time when our Sunday School idea of a loving shepherd, always looking after us, is shattered.  It doesn’t make sense;  we have all this bad stuff going on in our lives and where is God.  Why isn’t He doing something?  Why isn’t he picking us up and making it all better?  What do we do when we experience this kind of upheaval?  How do we cope with the difficult stuff? 

I’d like to give you just 4 things we can do:

 

1        The first is we can keep going.  There are heaps of references in the bible about perseverance and endurance:

1 Timothy 4:16:  Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Hebrews 10:36:  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
James 1:12:  Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
James 5:11:  As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered.

I guess this means that sometimes we just have to put our nose to the grindstone and doggedly keep going; to make up our mind to persevere.  We put our feet on the worn path we know, and we walk it, even when we don’t want to.  You might have to do this, for example, when you have young children who need your care and guidance.  I’m sure there were times when my kids were little when I’d much rather have been out in the garden or lazing on the beach, but that wouldn’t have done them much good. There are times in our lives when life will be a slog.   But listen to the verses in Lamentations… God’s mercy is new to us each morning.  His refreshment is always ready to revive us. And keeping on keeping on doesn’t mean we can’t tell God what we feel.  Is our life difficult and fraught with sorrow or hardship?  Keep going, but tell God you’re sick of it;  tell God you wish it was different;  tell God how hard it is.  Remember his mercy and faithfulness are always there. Keep your spiritual eye on Jesus, the perfector of our faith.  He is our example and friend.  Imagine that you are following his lead, placing your feet in the imprint of his footprint as his foot leaves it.  When all around is maybe crumbling, changing; is chaos or unknown we can  keep going, keep plodding.  I say plodding because sometimes life throws us burdens and worries which cause us to plod under the weight of them.

2        The second thing we can do is to keep on praising him and thanking him, despite what else is happening and despite what we are feeling. 1 Thess 5:18 “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” How hard is this?!   How can we thank God when we’ve just lost our job, or a loved one has died, or been given terrible news of illness?  How can we praise him just the same in the face of these things?  We are at a low ebb emotionally.  Every thing is bleak.  We stumble and fall, sprawled headlong on to the dirty floor of despair, looking at our circumstances or our loss or our anxiety.  How can we thank God?  This is very difficult and seems to contradict what I’ve just said about telling God what we feel.  Because when things go wrong, we won’t feel like praising or thanking!

But here’s the thing, you can do both.  You can say to God “I feel terrible, but because you’ve said to give thanks in all circumstances”, I will, even though I don’t feel like it. You are God and you own  and control everything;  everything eventually is or will be in subjection to you.  I chose to follow your word and the example of the Christ.  Thank you for the circumstances I’m in”

You can, in the face of awful stuff, actively look for things which are NOT so bad, or are good.  If you’ve lost your job, give thanks that you have some training or experience, which will enable you to get another job; or you might have savings you can fall back on for a while.  Give thanks for our welfare system which will provide for us for a while. How can you give thanks when you’ve lost a loved one?  You can give thanks for that person’s life.  I’m not saying this thanking and praising is easy;  it’s hard finding something good in all circumstances. What happens when we do this though, is that our will becomes stronger and our emotions follow.  Our mind has made the decision, and our emotions follow and it becomes a healing process.  It also takes time;  you can’t give thanks for something bad soon after it’s happened.  But over time, you can. And a word of caution here, this is not a magic bullet; or a wonderful formula;  it won’t make all the bad stuff go away.  You will still wake up in the morning and nothing’s changed, but God’s faithfulness is still there, and you will have placed a brick, to build a set of steps which you climb to overcome whatever has happened to you. You are building a relationship with the living God and will eventually sit atop the mountain of pain or regret or suffering.  And you will have gotten there by giving thanks in all circumstances.

3         The third thing we can do, is keep reading the Bible.  The bible is our instruction manual.  How do we know that God’s faithfulness is new and available to us every morning, if we don’t read it in his word?  How will we know that giving thanks in all things is a step to overcoming, if we don’t read it in the bible?  How do we find the courage to endure unless we find it in the bible?  Even these verses in Lamentations… they are so ominous;  we plough through them and all is gloom and angst.  Then we get to verse 22, (the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases etc) and we come upon them, like emerging from a dark tunnel out on to a grassy bank with a view of the sea beyond.  There is such wisdom and encouragement in the Bible.  If you’re like me, it can also be like eating a dry biscuit on a hot day; not so good.  But please persist.  It’s one of the ways we can stay close to God and a closeness to God is the secret to living a triumphant life.  So, if a set time works for you, then find a set time.  If it’s just when you get a few quiet minutes, then do it that way.  But find those quiet minutes and read the Bible every day.

4        The fourth and final thing we can do is adjust our ideas of how we think of God.  This comes back to what I said at the beginning.  We have a Sunday school image of God as someone who makes things better, looking after us.  And he does, but it isn’t always in the method we think he’ll use.  He uses the good and the bad in what is a fallen world;  a world over which we have scant control. As we negotiate our way around and through the various obstacles and events, we begin to see that God’s blessings to us are always ultimately spiritual ones, for our eternal good, not only for our temporal, physical or immediate enjoyment or comfort. God will always use the bad things to bring eternal good for us.  He will always bring good for evil;  peace after suffering;  relief from angst;  joy for sorrow and in the journey, we learn what’s good for our soul’s health.  This is always what is most important to God – our soul’s well being;  our “end game”;  our spiritual destination.  This is what 2 Tim 1:1 means “for the sake of the promise of life in Christ Jesus”.  That’s spiritual Life, with a capital “L”.   Without it, we can’t cross the great chasm of spiritual death that separates us from God. The constant will be God.  God to enfold us, God to surround us,   God in our speaking, God in our thinking.  God in our sleeping, God in our waking, God in our watching, God in our hoping, God in our lives, God on our lips, God in our souls, God in our hearts. God in our sufficing, God in our slumber, God in our ever-living souls, God in our eternity.  The life we have in Christ Jesus is what stands between us, keeping our faith, our ability to function when the bricks of our soul's house start to crumble through trouble or suffering.  It’s what gives us the victory when the world pushes us around and gives us grief. We can rise again, with the steadfast love of the Lord shining on our heads, new each morning.  Amen.