IT'S TIME TO COME OUT OF THE CAVE AND ROAR!

In the last few months, so many of us have been hiding away in the secret place with God, keeping our eyes firmly fixed on Him, riding through this storm under the protection of His wings, or at least trying or learning to. However, I have such a strong sense

It is time for us to come out of the place of hiding and ROAR!

This is not a roar of pain, anger, frustration or distress, but a ROAR of praise and worship, a ROAR OF VICTORY!

Used with permission: https://pixabay.com/photos/lion-predator-mane-big-cat-yawn-3317670/

While our natural eyes may be looking and only seeing defeat, discouragement and despair, I believe it is time for us to take up the authority we have in Jesus, and to come out on the offensive. It is time to storm the enemy’s camp with the surety that we already have the victory. This is not about the physical realm, although it will surely be impacted. It is very much a spiritual act, but it is burning in me that we do it in a physical way, and that way is through very overt worship.

For those in my area, in Melbourne and Victoria, we may be being told we are back in that place of “lockdown” and “shutdown” and the weather may even seem to agree, with promise of a snap freeze and snow down to 400m. However, our hearts and voices cannot be locked down, shutdown or frozen without our say so. I declare

It is time to arise and to release a shout of praise, a shout of victory. Our victorious King Jesus, Yeshua Messiah, has won!

We need to live in accordance with this belief rather than agreeing with all the negative that is swirling around.

This is not about civil disobedience. It is something we can do from wherever we are. For me, it has looked like taking my music and worship flags out into my garden and singing and dancing in praise of God (if we can do this without annoying our neighbours). I have also found myself singing full bore in the car as I have gone about my other responsibilities – the other day I felt compelled to crank up the stereo and my voice and open the sunroof. Do it to whatever capacity you can with the words Holy Spirit gives you. Do it boldly. Do it whether you feel like it or not! The feelings will come as you release the sound.

This is not about whether others may hear or not. It is about changing the spiritual atmosphere. It is about releasing the sound of heaven on earth.

It is about releasing the reverberations of the coming of King and His army of angels. It is the thunderous cheer of the rising Bride, preparing to meet Her Groom.

And as we sing, as we praise, as we make a joyful sound to our Lord, I see strongholds being shaken and falling, roots from the past being loosened and removed, spiritual giants coming tumbling down, the hidden plans of the enemy not just being exposed, but being brought to nothing.

Psalm 24 (NIV) is a great starting point:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it on the seas
and established it on the waters.

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?
Who may stand in his holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not trust in an idol
or swear by a false god.

They will receive blessing from the Lord
and vindication from God their Saviour.
Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is he, this King of glory?
The Lord Almighty—
he is the King of glory.”

Awaken, My Bride: A message to the Church (Part 3)

As I read Isaiah 52 a few weeks back, I felt and heard Jesus’ heart-cry for the Church, His Bride. This is my sense of what He is saying:

Awake, awake, my precious, beautiful Bride, My Church.
For too long, you have dressed in the way of the world,
Trying to look like the world
In the ineffective hope you will become more acceptable, more attractive.
But it is time for you to cast aside these garments,
Which are shabby rags in comparison
To the glorious, majestic robes of My love and power
I have already provided you with.
In My garments
You will rise up as the magnificent, noble Queen I have longed for,
Shining in My glory.
My deep desire, the ache of My heart, is for your purification,
Your cleansing from those who refuse to have their hearts circumcised,
Who refuse to allow My blood to cleanse them.
This is not about outward appearances,
But about the deep affairs of the heart.
Only those whose hearts are purified,
Whose hearts are set on Me alone
Can truly be My Bride.
Oh that you would Come away with Me.
Allow Me to break off the chains that have held you captive to the world
For far too long.
Shake off the dust of the past, allow the chains of the world to fall from your neck,
It’s time for you to step out of the world’s control, direction and domination.
It’s time for you to step up onto the throne I have for you to share with Me alone.
Although you allowed yourself to be sold for no gain,
Remember that I have purchased you, redeemed and restored you,
Not with money, or anything the world deems valuable,
But with My Blood.
I am calling you out from your dwelling place in the world,
From living in that place of slavery,
Although you have longed to fit in, longed to adapt and conform,
It’s time to recognise you are actually an alien, a foreigner, there.
It’s time to make the move, to come and live with Me permanently,
Under the protection of My Name,
Really knowing Me,
Knowing intimately who I AM.

Preparing the ground: A message for the Church (Part 2)

I often sense God speaking to me through spiritual parallels of what I see going on in the natural world around me. A little while back I felt Him speaking to me about the Church as I overhauled a section of our garden.

We live in a cottage that is over 100 years old, situated on around an acre of land. Although the garden is well-established, it ended up in disarray as the previous owner aged and was no longer able to keep up. It has taken much time and effort to restore and rebuild, as has the house. Although there are some “good bones” to it all, including some amazingly beautiful specimen trees of great height and strength, there have been many areas which ivy, blackberries, wisteria, “weed trees” - those growing in the wrong places - and a myriad of other weeds and pest plants had overtaken. Some plants lacked proper tending or pruning and have grown crookedly or in an unbalanced way. While we have been able to salvage many, others have needed complete removal.

In the past, my gardening had consisted of merely adding plants to fill the gaps just to keep the garden going and provide less space for weeds. It gave me little overall satisfaction. More recently, I have felt energised to make a fresh start on some areas.

I began completely revamping one of the garden beds removing many weeds and unhelpful or struggling plants that were in the wrong place. Much of the area had very little growing in it, and those things I had planted were generally quite unproductive. As I started digging over the soil, I found the reason:

The soil was choked and hardened by masses of tangled roots from previous plants long since gone.

It took a great deal of work to get it ready for re-planting. This was the prompt for the thoughts that follow.

As I removed new plants from their pots and placed them in the hole in the garden bed, which was now very easy to dig due to our excellent mountain soil, I thought about how much joy there is in planting:

Most of us love to plant, but how little do we enjoy the hard work preparing the soil for the planting.

In the past, I have often been in too much hurry to see the end result of planting without doing the preparation. I had really not put in the effort to establish a good environment for the plant to grow well. Sometimes I have put plants in inappropriate places simply because I like them, not because they are right for the environment or position. Subsequently they have really struggled and not grown well, or simply died.

What I felt from God was something of a caution, or advice.

We are living in a season where many are sensing a great move of God. Things are stirring and shifting and the hunger for revival is rising. In among all this, I sense what God is showing me through my garden is not only what He is doing in the Church, but also about how we need to cooperate with Him if we want the change to be lasting.

Preparation is an essential beginning.

For at least the last decade or more, there has been a sense for me that God has been pruning, removing, digging up, stirring up, relocating His people. It has came with the feeling that the time for us to get on board and work with Him in this had a limit: if we refuse to move, or to allow the pruning, we will get left out/behind in what He is going to do next – such an important part of preparing His Bride. Just as with my garden,

God wants a Church that is well-prepared so it can grow well.

I believe church communities must be prepared to reassess what they are doing, to be prepared to rein some activities in, to prune them back and decrease the focus on them. Others simply need to go completely – they are either total weeds, taking over a distracting from God’s work, or they are in the wrong place – might be lovely somewhere else, but not for what God is doing in that particular community.

There are other places where there are still roots from things long gone. These are more difficult to remove. They might be belief systems about “how church works” or structures within church systems that no longer feed anything, but simply cause a blockage and prevent further growth and sustenance. They may have once been good, but are now simply a hindrance to further growth.

In a nutshell, I believe that while there are aspects of our faith communities that are like my strong, beautiful trees, that give structure and form, there are many aspects of how we “do church” that are past their prime and are no longer functioning or productive to our purpose. They may have simply been “place fillers”, or even worse, weeds; things we did to look productive or fill our space. Some of them were things we just wanted to do because we liked them, or they looked good in another church community, but in the long run they have either had no purpose, or not been productive in the way we might have wished.

As I mentioned in Part 1, we really need to reassess how we “do church” as a whole – come back to our true vision and calling, as The Church and as church communities and even as individuals. Along with the previous questions, we might ask these:

What is our calling in the community we are part of and how is the best way to do this with our resources, both human and otherwise?

Are we prepared to scrutinise every aspect of our church life in partnership with the Holy Spirit to determine our best way forward to be the most effective we can for the Kingdom?

Are there areas of our community life that we declare “untouchable” – sacred cows that tolerate no reassessment? These are often the areas in most need of change!

No going back: A message for the Church (Part 1)

As I have been watching churches scramble to bring some sense of normalcy and connection into their congregations at this time, when everything seems to have been tipped upside down, I am reminded of a dream I had just over two years ago.

It was quite a graphic and disturbing dream and everything was in full colour. In the dream, I was in something like an observation room overlooking a surgical theatre. All was pristine white, and there was a very large man lying on a gurney or operating table. Even as I looked, I realised he was fat because he was pregnant, and indeed, was in the process of birthing. It disturbed me and I was thinking, “That’s unnatural, but I guess it is to be expected these days”.

As I watched, there were three or four other men around him, all in white coats (like doctors), and as I wondered how he could physically give birth, they started to cut him open. They were behind him, and started cutting up along his spine starting at his buttocks and then, to my further horror, started peeling off his skin. He was screaming out in pain, and as I watched in revulsion the men were saying, it’s ok, he’ll be all right as we have another skin to replace this one with. At this point, there was another man standing in with them, watching, and I understood that they were going to give his skin to the original man. At this point, the dream was disturbing me so much I woke up.

Creative Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wings_Laparoscopic_operating_theatre.jpg

Reflecting and praying into what this dream means, I have sensed is that it is a message about the Church. There are several points that stand out to me.

Over the last few decades, as many branches of the Church have struggled with decline in numbers, various groups have investigated what needs to change to remain relevant or in touch with the general population, to bring people back in or keep them from leaving. To this end,

there have been numerous attempts to “birth” something new.

While not all of this has been negative, in a number of circumstances, all we have really been doing is changing the outward appearance (the “skin”) without actually changing the fact that underneath we are still operating out of “man’s” flesh or the ways of the world. In short, I believe we have often been trying to birth the things of man, rather than things of the spirit. It reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the new wine in old wineskins, except this is trying to put new wineskins on old wine. However, I believe the old ways of doing things will no longer work; they are causing too much pain  - it is time for the Church to come into a new season of the Spirit in every way.

It’s time for NEW wine in NEW wineskins!

I see that this way of operating, looking to ideas of human origin has invaded many branches of the Church, whether traditional, charismatic, Pentecostal or otherwise alternative. Wherever we are tangled up in the difference between what we “should do” and how to “be” the people of God we will continue to struggle. This is both at a personal and corporate level, although in many scenarios, what some leadership carry can infect the congregation adversely as well.

To me, the underlying issue is whether our mode of operation is from the perspective of the knowledge of good and evil (i.e. “this is right, this is wrong”, “do this to be a “good Christian”, to have the “favour of God””) or whether we are truly connecting people with the life source, allowing Holy Spirit to be their Guide and Counsellor, helping people to be connected first to God and then to each other, so that each person’s identity is firmly in relationship with God, rather than looking constantly to church leaders to know how we must behave and whether or not we are on the “right path”.

Over the last few years, it has become very clear that we are moving into a new era. The era of the Church being the primary focus in relation to our faith is quite abruptly over, I believe. With COVID-19 and the lockdowns, we have been catapulted out of the comfortable nest of “church-life” into the air, to living out “Kingdom life”. This is not to say that Church is over, but I certainly believe it is being stripped of all that needs to go. We are being released from all those things that have tied us to the ground and prevented us soaring as we are meant to.

The KINGDOM ERA has begun!

Part of another dream I had a couple of months back also relates in here. In the dream, I was hanging out washing (just doing normal life), and as I did, I became aware of a swirling mist coming down through the trees. (We live in the mountains, with tall forest around us.) Just as I was wondering if it was actually mist or whether it was smoke from someone burning off (either of which was going to disrupt what I was doing!), I smelt the smoke, but also started hearing the crackling of burning green leaves. Things then happened very rapidly, with the crackling getting louder and louder and then the very large (20+m) pittosporum trees across the road from us suddenly bursting into flame. Even as I called 000, emergency services, I got a text on my phone stating, “we are aware of an incident in your area”. Straight after this, I got a call from a firefighter (I could see him in uniform – whoever said dreams had to be practical!), asking what was going on. As I looked back to the trees, I realised that the fire had already gone out. All that was left was blackened branches against the sky, with one central branch still burning.

As I explored the meaning of this dream, which again, I felt was about the Church, I feel the important part for this discussion is about the leaves. As I was looking into the significance of the type of trees burning (which didn’t really turn up much for me), what I was aware of is the fact that they are very prolifically leafy, which has its benefits. However, it reminded me that when trees produce a great deal of leaves, this can inhibit their ability to produce fruit. In fact, leafiness, to an extent, can be inversely proportional to fruitfulness.

The message to the Church as I see it is that much of what we have been doing has been producing leaves not fruit. God, in His gracious mercy, is giving us the opportunity for radical change. In this time of inability to continue with “business as usual”, we have a unique opportunity to really dig deep and reassess what is important for the Church, the Body perhaps especially down to how we are structured. As restrictions pare us back to the bare bones, will we continue to desperately scramble to work out how we can continue with “business as usual”, or are we ready to go on the Holy Spirit ride of our lives for something completely new?

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Is 43:19

As others have observed, the time for “cookie cutter” or “church franchising” is over. It is time to stop looking to what has worked elsewhere and simply adding it to our own model and hoping for the same results.

We have to look to God alone for our unique way forward.

To help us move ahead and find the new that God for us, the questions below are a starting point:

“What is God’s vision for our village/town/region?”

“What has God placed in our area is unique or particular to us in our role to enlarge and release the Kingdom of God where we are?” 

“What is already going on that doesn’t match up with that vision?”

“What are the gifts and abilities God has already placed in our community to bring about this vision, that illuminate our role in this?”

“How can we work with the other communities of God in our area to bring about this vision?”

Sour lemons

A number of years back, I had a dream I was looking for lemons on my lemon tree. To my astonishment, I suddenly found lemons the size and shape of footballs where there had been none. At the time, I felt God promising me a time of fruitfulness where I would be astounded by the size of the fruit that “suddenly” appeared.

Shortly after this dream, we moved that lemon tree into a different place in the garden. Over the past couple of years, we have been waiting for it to produce any fruit at all. Last year we got some flowers, but they never quite held on long enough to give us lemons. However, this year we SUDDENLY have a bumper crop of lemons growing on our tree, and guess what? Some are the shape of footballs! (Although not quite that big – but they are big.) Added to that, I am picking my second crop of raspberries and they are also enormous.

There are two things I am sensing from God in this.

The first is that a time of great harvest and great fruitfulness is coming. As you might recall, my word for this year is “abundance”. Well, we have definitely had abundant rain so far this year, and now, an abundance of lemons on the way! With a number of prophetic words that we are heading for a massive spiritual harvest in the next little while, I am taking this as an affirmation. The work of the past is about to bear fruit!

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal 6:9)

And then I was thinking about the significance of lemons. Although I really like lemons and use them a great deal, they are not a fruit many people just peel and eat. Being sour, some people reject them completely. We have a saying when something is bad or useless, particularly around cars, that it is a bit of a “lemon” – it doesn’t do what it should very well. However, when lemons are combined with other ingredients, many delicious and health giving foods can be made: honey and lemon tea; so many lemon slice recipes; lemon and sugar on pancakes; lemon chicken – are you hungry yet?

It reminds me of the saying:

What do you do when life hands you lemons?

You make lemonade.

And then I remembered of a third aspect of lemons. Every now and then you get one that seems full of pips/seeds – the sign of new life! Every seed has the prospect of become a new lemon tree, which in turn may produce many more lemons, each with their own seeds, and so the cycle continues.

While many may feel we are in a time when “life” has handed us a truckload of lemons, we could see it as a time of great sourness. However, when we combine those lemons with the good God has already given us in terms of our other resources, time, energy and gifts and abilities, we are also being given an amazing opportunity to be producing a great deal of quality lemonade. And who knows how many seeds might come from them, too?

If you are not sure what to do with those things that potentially leave a sour taste in your mouth, the “lemons” you have at this time, ask God and dream big – you may be surprised at what He and you together can bring out of this time!

You have been granted immunity!

A couple of nights back, I woke up about four times. Each time it was like someone was rousing me, and the word “immunity” was rattling around in my mind.

In the morning, I had a proper conversation with Jesus as to what this was about. Knowing He doesn’t do fear, nothing I had come up with in the night had been landing comfortably. A couple of things then came to mind.

The first was the idea from television game shows where a person is “granted immunity”. The second was a question:

“If you knew you had immunity, what would it be like?”

Immediately I felt His joy and I knew the answer:

FREEDOM!

As I looked further into the understanding of what immunity can mean, three things came to the fore.

In law, to be granted immunity means not being punished.

In health, having immunity means not getting sick.

In the tv shows, being granted immunity means you get to stay in the game.

While many of us would probably like to know we had immunity to a certain virus-that-shall-not-be-named, I don’t think God gave me this word as that sort of promise. I sense that it is actually about having immunity to the WORLD and all the dis-ease that it carries.

So what does this mean for us as followers of Yeshua?

It means those same three things:

We are freed from condemnation and punishment.

We are freed from the sickness of fear, worry, despair and hopelessness.

We get to stay in the game so we can help others to walk in the same way.

This Easter, when so much is different and for many, so much is so difficult, our freedom is so much more important to understand. But it is not freedom as the world sees freedom. It is not about freedom to do as we please or to break out of our “stay at home” regulations. It is freedom in our relationship with God to come before Him, to have true and ever deepening relationship with Him, to experience the depths of His love, His grace, His mercy, His joy, His hope for the future in spite of all we see going on around us.

At Easter, we remember what Jesus won for us on the cross, that through His death and resurrection, we are set free from the effects of the virus of sin and brokenness. No matter what our past, what our struggles, we can find freedom from them as we can now come before the throne of grace and mercy with complete confidence of our acceptance there. The blood of Jesus is more than enough to set us free from all the world would like to throw at us.

So I take this word, “IMMUNITY” and I throw it out to you to claim as your own, as a special Easter gift from King Yeshua.

Feel free to take hold of it, ask God what it will look like for you to live in immunity and pass it on to someone else who needs it! You can’t lose.

Blessings to you and yours this Easter,

Ruth.

“This is why we do not lose courage. Though our outer self is heading for decay, our inner self is being renewed daily. For our light and transient troubles are achieving for us an everlasting glory whose weight is beyond description. We concentrate not on what is seen but on what is not seen, since things seen are temporary, but things not seen are eternal.” 2 Cor 4:16-18 (CJB)

(If you are struggling to experience this freedom, I would like to encourage you this Easter to seek God, to set aside time and ask Him to show you the next step, or even to take away those things that hold you back, that keep you stuck in the fear and despair cycle. And if you are really getting nowhere, please message me. I have some tools that can help, and if needed we can still meet over the internet. Don’t stay stuck – there is so much more coming in the days ahead, so much that God is wanting us to partner with Him in as we see His Kingdom come on this planet. Don’t miss out!)

Just a storm in a teacup?

One of the things God has been teaching me in the last few years is to walk with Him moment by moment, day by day, becoming more reliant on Him for each step. As we walk into this season where our lives are being radically impacted with rapid change, this is even more important.

I come back to a word He gave me a while back:

“You only get grace for WHAT IS not WHAT IF”.

Each moment and circumstance we find ourselves in, He will give us the grace for at that time – generally not before it occurs.

A couple of weeks back, I had some quite clear words from God. The first was that this is a “storm in a teacup”. Far from diminishing the severity or seriousness of what is going on in our world, this is simply about perspective. Perspective is so important at this time.

If we connect with all the world is telling us about doom, gloom and our powerlessness in the face of tragedy and disease, it will leave us without hope.

However, there is another perspective.

Yes, from our human perspective, that tea cup and “storm” may be the size of the earth - enormous to us. And like the disciples in the boat with a storm raging, we can feel as though Jesus is asleep – we can’t understand why He is not more concerned, why He isn’t doing more. Given the scope of what is unfolding and the absolute focus from media, it can be so difficult to turn our focus elsewhere.

However, there is another perspective and this is the one we need to grab hold of. From God’s vantage point, the earth is more the tea cup size, even smaller. He is more than able to deal with any storm on our planet.

He has not been caught by surprise and He is not disrupted!

Sure, we get to join with Him, with what He is doing, through prayer, through loving each other, even though that might need to be in more creative ways. We don’t have to partner with panic and fear and anxiety. They are already working well in our communities without our help!

(C) https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-jimig

Alongside this picture of God’s perspective on this “global pandemic”, I was asking Him what He wanted me to know about the way forward. I love His sense of humour, because straight away I sensed, “Have I told you it is time to panic, be anxious or worry?” I said, “No”. And His response, “Then it is not time to panic, be anxious or worry!”. Something shifted in me, and as crazy as it might sound, deep in my core I sensed His lack of fear or worry – I connected with it.

If He is not worried, neither do we need to be.

Friends, we all like to feel that we are doing something to help when disaster strikes or even looms. The best thing place to start with is to deal with our own fears and anxiety. Just as the cabin crew tell us on airplane flights – you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can help others.

The way we do this at this time is through our connection with God. The difficult part of this (and I know, because I have struggled with it too!), is getting ourselves still before Him, stilling our racing thoughts. One way to do this is to tell Him all you are really feeling and ask Him what He wants you to know about it, or how He feels. As I have done that myself, I have repeatedly seen His face fill with anticipation and excitement – there is a sense that He is about to do something amazing. The words, “Just watch what I am about to do!”, come to mind.

In terms of other aspects of managing ourselves through this, as numerous others have already pointed out, minimising our interaction with worldly news and media is really important. Yes, don’t disconnect entirely, but if we spend too much time there, we can open ourselves up to get infected with fear and panic which is not of God.

Just as we are “socially distancing” physically to prevent any infection from the virus, we also need to do this from those who are obviously carrying the “virus” of panic and passing it on to all and sundry.

If we deal with ourselves and press into God we will find He is faithful. He will give us what we need – starting with His peace and comfort. We can pray – but we also need to move from the desperate, begging prayers into prayer that waits on Him what His solutions. How can we be light, peace and comfort in the now too obvious darkness? What does He want to shift in our ways of seeing life and false comforts and refuges that we have packaged around us? How does He want to stretch and shift us and mold us into new ways of being?

While it is difficult to be stripped away from so many of those things that have been our “always”, there is another aspect of this situation that is opportunity: it is an opportunity to shift things up, to cleanse and remove things that have held us back, distracted us or filled our time with “must”. In this time, there is an opportunity to reassess the things that we have thought were essential to our lives, that we couldn’t do without (like toilet paper!).

What does that look like for you?

CAST OUT YOUR NET AGAIN!

For the last couple of days, the sense of “try again” has been nudging at me and today it landed with the words, “CAST OUT YOUR NET AGAIN”.

For numbers of us, we have been trying to press into something we have believed is from God, trying to see the way forward, try to get some traction or fruit from what we have believed God has been calling us to, but it has been hard labour for little, if any evidence of productivity for our work. Sometimes it has seemed completely fruitless, a waste of time and it would have been better to have stayed in bed, BUT, today, I have such a sense of urgency around these words:

CAST OUT YOUR NET AGAIN!

You may recall that there are two stories, two times that Jesus said something like this to His disciples. The first time was at the beginning of His ministry, when He was speaking to the crowd on the shore, teaching them the word of God, from Simon Peter’s boat.

“When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

(Luke 5:4).

If you remember the story, Simon Peter says yep, been there, done that, all night, caught nothing, very tired, but I will humour you and have another go”. (Paraphrased by Ruth)

The second time was after the resurrection (see John 21:6). This time there was no questioning, but simple obedience - they suddenly knew who the stranger was: it triggered their memories to the other time. This time Peter didn’t bother waiting, but jumped out of the boat to get to Jesus. His response was immediate, with no uncertainty or reservation.

Both times, obedience in the face of weariness, hopelessness, despair and past failure led to an ABUNDANCE of fruit. Don’t miss out!

If you have been in a place where you have believed you are following instructions, following what Jesus has called you to, but have been feeling as though it is all just hard work and it is never going to be different, then the challenge is laid here before you:

CAST OUT YOUR NET AGAIN!

It may be in applying for that job or course, it may be financial investments, it may be trying for reconciliation in a relationship, or healing in your family, or using a gift or ability God has given you, or any number of other dreams you have been pushing into. It may be praying again for a situation you have all but given up on. You may have experienced disappointment, hurt, rejection or just plain fruitlessness in the past, but today, Jesus calls out to you:

CAST OUT YOUR NET AGAIN!

Don’t let your weariness, disillusionment or hurt hold you back.

NOW IS THE TIME!

It may be for this very day, very moment, or it may be as you are seeking Him for His plan for your year. Don’t give up, don’t turn away, don’t believe the lie that it will never work, or that you heard wrong, or did something to mess it up, or prevent it from happening, turn back, pull out your net, muster all your strength of will and throw it out again. I believe Jesus has a wonderful surprise for you when you do!

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

2020: It’s time to LEAP into ABUNDANCE

At the beginning of a new year, loss is not what we really want to focus on. However, loss is such a reality for many of us. Here in Australia, where much of our country is suffering crippling drought compounded by devastating bush fires, many are painfully aware of the experience of loss. Of course, we only have to flick on the news to realise that war, economic hardships, unrest, to name only some of the issues, leave few in our world untouched by encounters with loss.

When we live with enough profound and deep loss, though, it can threaten to become our identity. Like Naomi in the book of Ruth (my Bible just flipped open at this passage this morning!), we can decide to allow it to change how we see ourselves, our life and our future. We can believe that our life will never again be “pleasant” (the meaning of Naomi) and that we are destined to experience only “bitterness”. Just as Naomi asked to be called Marah, (which means bitter), we see this to be our lot for life.

In life, most people suffer terrible loss at some point. If you have, you understand the crippling, soul destroying vacuum that threatens to overwhelm all desire for living further – the inability to even hope that you might feel joy, or even peace, again. Loss and all its associated grief and pain can become a black hole in our being which seems as though it will swallow up all goodness and hope that may ever come our way for all our future. Indeed, it appears that it may well even have stolen our future, to the point we can see nothing ahead for us but continuing pain and bitterness.

In the past, as we have stepped into the new year, I have asked God for a word for the year ahead. Reflecting back, I can see they have been very accurate, although not necessarily in ways I expected or hoped.

At the beginning of 2017, the word was “resilience”. I remember well my disappointment with that one! Just as with learning patience, I knew resilience can only develop by going through tough times. As I look back through my blogs and journaling, I know that year did not produce many of the answers, breakthroughs and promises I was hoping to see. But woven through, I see the unwavering hand and love of my Father, drawing me deeper into Him, teaching me to focus more and more on Him and not my circumstances, building my faith and my ability to hold on to Him even when I don’t see the answers I want come to fruition. In the face of unrelenting disappointments and a lack of restitution of those losses we have felt God’s promise to restore, we have been learning the resilience to simply continue to stand when that is all we can do.

In 2018, to my excitement, “anticipation” popped into my consciousness. The desires of my heart that I was anticipating did not materialise, though. However, shifts have come in situations, relationships and the “bigger picture” I believe that God is more interested in. These have well answered (and continue to answer) the excitement of my anticipation.

This morning I was reminded to ask God if He had a word for me this year. As I put my knife into my nearly empty marmalade jar to scrape some out for my toast,

I felt Him whisper the word “abundance”.

Don’t you love His sense of irony!

Now, although I really like that word, there is a hesitation in my soul to be leaping in joy. So many hopes and promises we have been waiting on for years have not yet materialised. It does not quite feel safe to believe that I am hearing right.

Am I really hearing that? Or am I just making it up in my head because it is what I want?

I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment. After many years of feeling though we have been just getting by, continuously scraping the bottom of the barrel of our reserves (of energy, hope, finances, faith to name a few), the idea of abundance is even a little scary - it means letting go of mindsets that have become “normal”.

However, as I have been learning, it is so important that I don’t overlay this word with all I think it should mean.

I need to wait on Him to show me what abundance looks like in His realm; wait on Him for the abundance He wants to give me.

Which returns me to loss: surely the opposite of abundance.

What do we do with loss and how do we experience abundance when our losses seem irreplaceable?

First, for me, is the ever-deepening revelation of what God’s abundance is about.

On the surface, we can make abundance about material “stuff”: Prosperity in our goods and provisions and good times. At a slightly deeper level, we might make it about our relationships with family and friends, or even about opportunity to serve God.

However, I can’t help but reflect on this abundance through the lens of Matt 6:19-21

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Much of what we consider to be abundance and provision from the Lord (which it is good to be grateful for), can become our mainstay: when we put our trust and value into these things, they become props to our sense of well being and safety.

It is only when we suffer the loss of them that we realise what poor gods they make.

So then, what sort of abundance from the Lord can we and should we rely on? What does He really promise?

Galatians 5:22-3 springs to mind:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

(If you read this in context of the rest of the passage, the message becomes even more plain. However, this is a blog, not a sermon!)

The obvious problem with stuff and even relationships is that we can suffer from the loss of them. There are times where we have no ability to control that loss. In our relationship with God, though, His word promises us that nothing can separate us from His love (Rom 8:39). By extension, that means no matter what loss we experience in the physical realm, we still have access to those fruit of the Spirit, in abundance.

I know that these sorts of words can seem exceptionally trite and even unfeeling in the face of loss. However, this is something I have personally and painfully experienced. There have been a number of losses for me over the years that have felt like they have broken my heart and destroyed my life and future. And I know am far from perfecting living out of these words to the contrary.

More lately, though, I have started to get a picture of what it is like as we set our faces like flint toward God. When we feel like the situation in Isaiah 50, where it seems as though everything and everyone is against us, as though the pain, loss and destruction will never end, we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, (Heb 12:2). As we do this, in the picture I am seeing, the troubles and issues of this life become smaller and smaller and impact us less and less. Instead of our love, joy, peace, and hope coming from those things God provides us with, they come from Him directly. Nothing can separate us or sever that relationship unless we allow it (Rom 8:39).

A couple of years back, I was reading Psalm 23 in the Complete Jewish Bible. I didn’t get past the words “I lack nothing”. (Check out my blog on this here.) The landing point was that if I really believe this - that with God as my Shepherd I have no lack - I have to surrender the lack or loss I am experiencing to the Lord as well as all else.

Turning our faces toward 2020, we will only be able to receive and have space available for filling with all the abundance He promises as far as we commit to handing Him all those places of loss in our lives and our being that threaten to suck us dry and rob us of every good our Father has for us. (If you are not sure how to do this, it can be as simple as speaking it out loud, “Father God, I hand You all those places in me that have experienced loss. Please fill me afresh with Your abundance.”)

In the past weeks, I have been sitting with something I was sensing God was saying to me through my gazanias. (For those who don’t know, these are a flowering plant, as pictured here.)

The last six months or so, have found me energised to do much more work in my garden than in the past. There are places which have needed a complete start over and God has really been talking to me on a number of fronts through this (which may be another blog!).

As I have renovated my garden, though, it has included shifting some plants to fill spaces in different areas. My gazanias were one of those shifts.

These plants had been sitting in my garden doing very little for a number of years, despite the fact that they are known to be very resilient and prolific, both in growth and flowering. When I moved them, it was only a matter of a couple of metres distance, and I divided each plant in two.

Well! As we have SHIFTED into Summer, these plants have SHIFTED into overdrive. They have at least quadrupled in size and where in the past they may have produced maybe one or two flowers each year, this year they have been literally covered in flowers already, with more coming up behind. An overwhelming abundance!

What is different?

I can look at an obvious answer, that they are now getting that bit more sun compared to where they were. They are also not crowded out by weeds and other plants any more. Perhaps I have watered them more. However, the SHIFT was perhaps most important to them.

Like these plants, (who didn’t get a choice, but I believe they are happy with the choice I made!), sometimes

we have to allow God to SHIFT us if we want things to be different.

Saying we want to stay where we are and Him to move the sun and everything around us to give us “better growing conditions”, is probably not going to cut it with Him. In fact, when we start to dictate the conditions we want, we start to set ourselves up as god.

To allow the SHIFT to happen, though, we not only need to be prepared to let go of what we have and where we are, but also what we don’t have (our lack) and the pain and grief (and loss) of the past.

If you haven’t realised yet, 2020 is a LEAP year. As I have reflected on what this might look like, I keep getting a picture of a mountain goat LEAPING up onto and over boulder after boulder, higher and higher up a mountain, with great speed and agility. If you have ever seen how goats can jump, you will know that they can LEAP on and over obstacles that seem insurmountable. (Check them out on YouTube if you don’t know what I mean.)

I sense that this year, as we connect in with what God is doing

there is opportunity for us to LEAP up the mountain of obstacles that have held us back in the past, HIGHER and HIGHER in faith,

until the pain, grief and losses of the past are but distant memory. And here, we can experience the true abundance of His fruit, His love, peace and joy. However, we will not be able to do this holding onto our past losses, pain, grief, guilt, sadness and disappointments, to mention a few.

My encouragement:

Bring Him your empty marmalade jar, the yawning chasm of your losses and emptiness. As you lay them at the foot of the cross, consecrating and leaving them with Jesus, you create a different kind of space that He is more than willing and able to fill with His very great abundance.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Eph 3:14-21

If nothing changes, nothing changes

Social media gets a bad rap for being shallow and filled with pretention. However, every now and then something pops into my social media feed that impacts me at a much deeper level. Such was the case a few days back when I came across this beautiful painting of the wise men looking over Bethlehem by Jeremy Thomas (check him out HERE) in one of my favourite groups.

As I enjoyed the intricate details he had included, something about their stance resonated with me. There was a sense of weariness and longing:

(C) Jeremy Thomas. Used with permission.

“It’s been such a long journey and we still have a way to go…”

But along with this, there was a sense of anticipation:

“We can just about touch our destination – there is a clear light at the end of the tunnel!”

Thinking about the ramifications and depths of this, the realisation there was a reason these men started out on their trek suddenly hit me. I found myself questionning what was it that propelled these people to go on such a long search? At an obvious level, we are told that they were people who looked at the signs in the sky that pointed them towards the birth of a new and important king. However, why were they looking? What started them on that journey?

They didn’t see an advertisement in a newspaper, on a flyer in their mailbox or online. They didn’t get an invitation to a conference, a guest speaker or even a party. There was no job application or even anointing or appointing (that we know of!) from their local church.

What I sensed about these men was that they were watchers and observers. They were watching for something, waiting for something: for a change, for a new season.

And I would guess the reason they were watching and observing was because they were not satisfied with the way things were; they were not satisfied with the status quo. They wanted, desired and hungered for change; for things in the world they lived in to be different. Something was missing from what they knew of life.

While we don’t know anything more about them than the fact they were from the east, we do know that the land east of Jerusalem is all rugged and mountainous desert. Not much lives there.

They came from a barren place and they knew it.

This was not a journey you would undertake unless you were really, deeply seeking something you couldn’t get staying where you were. It was a dangerous and uncertain journey across territory filled with lawlessness. There were no MacDonald’s to eat at, no service (petrol/gas) stations and probably even the wells were few and far between. Death by bandit, starvation or thirst was pretty certain for those who were not wary or well prepared.

But still, they were desperate and hungry enough to take the journey to find the One who was to be King of the Jews. They knew their spiritual need and sought to satisfy it. They also knew how to interpret the spiritual meaning of signs in the natural world.

In our western world of plenty, of satiation even, I sometimes wonder if we even have the capacity to recognise our poverty. It reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis,

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

As I look around me, I see we are still chasing answers from gods made from stone, metal and the words of ideology; gods made by the hands and minds of people; gods without the power to give us any answer, let alone solve our problems or provide for our needs.

These wise men, these magi, they knew they had a lack; they knew something was missing, incomplete. And they were prepared to lay it all on the line, even to death, to find the answer.

Heading into another Christmas - which is all about this Christ-child these men sought - like them, we will only find Him as the answer if we are aware of our lack, if we are aware of our need and prepared to do something about it.

In the middle of a season our world tells us is all about giving (consuming) and family (my comfort and safety) - which all really is just “ad-speak” for “spend obscene amounts of money” - is there space for us to lay it all down, step aside and allow our real needs to speak out? Can we make time to stop and listen to the cry of our hearts, that deep place where we really know that something is missing that only Jesus fills?

Are we prepared to make the sacrifice to take the dangerous journey acknowledging the true wasteland of living without Jesus as King, face the threat of death and destruction (of our society’s ideals/idols) associated with making the shift in our beliefs to what is truly important?

Because we all know:

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

Can you be content with that?

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)

The antidote to your weariness

In historical battles, armies met face to face. The aim was to drive into and through the enemy lines. In particularly fierce battles, as an army pushed through, soldiers could often find themselves alone on the other side, in enemy territory. A rallying call would then be issued by the standard bearer, to call the soldiers to fall back and regroup, so that they could fight together again. The standard or ensign bearer held the banner or flag aloft, which was there to remind them who they belonged to, who they fought for and why. As long as that banner was still held up, they were not overrun, they were not defeated.

Often, as they pushed out, the cry was:

“For King and Country!”

Sunday night, I was at a gathering of local Christians where we were asked if anyone was feeling weary. Without hesitation, nearly every adult there raised their hand.

In my interactions elsewhere, I am aware that this is not a unique scenario. Many of us are weary, feeling isolated and like we are alone in enemy territory. Sometimes we wonder if the battle will ever end and whether we still have it in us to fight another day.

So I want to issue a rallying call.

I am raising the banner of Christ high and calling us back to refocus and remember.

At this time of weariness and even some hopelessness, I call us back to look again to King Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith; to look to His glory and majesty and be reminded that the victory is already won through His death and resurrection.

I call us back to remember and be reminded of the way in which we have experienced the Kingdom break through in the past, so that we can hold on to the hope that it will again; that victory in this battle is close at hand – we are coming to the final push! Just as we are feeling pushed to - or even past - our limit, we need to dig deep and hold on. We need to regroup and reconnect with like-minded friends, who will also help us keep our focus on our King.

Victory is coming!

On Sunday night, as we prayed into this weariness I was reminded of Ephesians 6. In this allusion to the battle there is a point where we are called, when we have done all else, simply to stand. Sometimes that is all we can do.

“…after you have done everything,…stand”

Recently, God has repeatedly reminded me of the importance of this in a number of scenarios. Sometimes that is all He is asking us to do. Sometimes, rather than all the other things we believe we might be doing in our ministry or life in general, what we are actually doing is simply standing in a space, and through that very act of obedience we are holding ground that otherwise the enemy would have overrun. Raise your banner high! Hold your ground!

And even as we stand there, HIS banner over us is His love, which keeps us and protects us.

Keep standing firm – He is coming!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Heb 12:1-3

"I WANT TO LIFT THE ROOF OFF!"

Sunday morning a couple of weeks back, I was sitting reflecting on how much I was feeling the need to break out, how much my house seemed to be confining me, like the roof was pressing down on me and I just really wanted to be outside. I had been feeling this way for the last couple of weeks and had put it down to the end of a winter being couped up inside. However, as I was thinking, the words “I want to lift the roof off” came into my mind. I sort of pictured a space where you could have a house with a roof that opened out or something and was thinking it was still a little cold and wet for that when it came again stronger:

“I WANT TO LIFT THE ROOF OFF.”

I had the sense that God was speaking to me, that He had more to say, that there was a spiritual aspect to this and so I started to explore this idea. Straight away, I saw two aspects to this.

The first aspect was in relation to those of us who have felt hidden away; for those who have felt that this season of isolation and hiddenness, of doors not opening and things not proceeding will never end; for those who have felt like the “glass ceiling” is holding them back: There is a sense that God is about to LIFT THE ROOF OFF and release each person into so much more than we could ever imagine.

I had a picture of something like one of those clown tricks, where they take a stick and flick it out and it turns in a bunch of flowers. It was like this but that was a really poor imitation of what God is going to do. What I saw was people bursting forth as if out of nowhere and unlike the trick, or an explosion, where once the energy is spent from the spring or device behind it, that is the end, this would not go back in, and it WOULD NOT STOP. The energy in this bursting forth, or explosion will continue to expand exponentially and would be contagious. These people bursting forth in the picture do so with exceedingly great joy and are filled with praise and worship. They carry the Kingdom of God with them and it is CONTAGIOUS, so spreads like a virus (but in a good way!). Like a jack-in-the-box, as the roof is lifted off, there will be a springing forth!

The second aspect of the roof being lifted off is to do with God and our view of Him. What I felt Him say is:

it is time to let Him out of the box or containment that we have had Him in.

Whether it is out of fear of losing control, or fear of the unknown or fear because of past hurts and disappointments, God wants us to let Him out, to allow Him to lift the roof off our expectations and experiences of what it means to be His children, to be His body, to be His bride, His friends; to raise us up to a whole other level, way outside of what we have experienced before.

It is time to stop thinking small and controlled, comfortable and safe and hidden away and time to let the roof be lifted off to be open to His breath of fresh air, the new things He wants to do in us and through us.

For some time I have been feeling so strongly that it is time for us to stop just holding the ground we have, to stop just playing a “defensive” game of “if we just hold on to the final siren, that’s all we need to do and that is all we can expect” to actually being on the offense. That doesn’t mean we get to be offensive (in a bad way) - although we surely will be offensive to some, just as Jesus was – but it means we change our game plan. We go out and be the Kingdom, day by day, hour by hour. We have to be willing to lift the roof off all our self-protection and self-serving, to be willing to be open to the elements and trust God to be our protection.

It is in and from this place that God will show Himself able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

If you are willing to brave all that it means to have the roof lifted off, join me in this prayer:

Holy Spirit of God, we invite You to come into our homes, into our lives, into our church in Your great power to lift the roof off all that holds us back, all that keeps us boxed in, and all the ways in which we have kept You boxed in. Help us to let go of all our past fears, hurts and disappointments, so we can step with You into all You have for us. Blow afresh over our lives, releasing us into the new level of freedom You desire us to walk in, for the glory of Your Kingdom and You.

I will give You my heart, Jesus, but I don’t want to…

Hearts have been on my radar more recently, popping into my vision in weird ways, as shown in these photos. They are reminding me of a time in my journey where I “foolishly” asked Jesus if there was anything He wanted me to bring to Him for healing. His response: “Would you bring Me your broken heart?” Seems fairly innocuous, doesn’t it? After all, the idea of “giving our hearts to Jesus” is fairly prevalent in Christian circles.

But I was shocked.

Shocked by the fact that He would need to ask, and even more shocked by the fact that I was really struggling with actually giving it to Him. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to! I was scared and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was ready to trust Him with my heart. After all, it had taken a fair battering over the years and was only just getting some healing. I wasn’t ready to risk getting hurt again.

And yet…and yet…I had been learning that Jesus is trustworthy. He had brought such healing into my life, such transformation to the way I functioned and viewed the world. And so, with tears streaming down my face, with trembling and uncertainty, I pushed through and said, “Yes…Yes, I WILL give You my heart!”, with all the strength I could muster. It felt so right, but so hard at the same time. It wasn’t pain free or fear free. However, something shifted from that time. My shell of self-protection was dissolving. In its place, I was learning to live under the protection of the Most High. It is a position that doesn’t always “feel” safe, but in reality, no where else is safer.

So, in these images of hearts that have literally been in my path, I feel there is an invitation for anyone else who is in need of some heart healing:

For those who feel their heart is torn, left abandoned, lost and far from home;

For those whose heart has become dried out, brittle, prickly and hard;

For those whose heart seems half buried under the weight of sorrows, of the stones and dirt thrown at them, or just the burden of life…

Or anyone else who is struggling to trust again, struggling to even breathe, there is an invitation to bring your heart in whatever state you find it to the gentle Shepherd, the King of kings, the Healer. He is trustworthy and faithful and if you let Him, He will not only protect your heart - taking care of it as the precious jewel that it is to Him - but He will heal and restore you, too! All you have to do is say, “YES!”

**The song “O Come to the Altar”, by Elevation Worship has been going around my head alongside this post - it is quite powerful. (Click on the link to listen)

If this is something you don’t know how to do, want help with, or want to know more about, please feel free to message me below, via the contact page, or through Facebook.

A new commandment I give unto you: Thou shalt not offend me!

As many are aware, it seems that our language is being hijacked in a variety of ways. Certain words are being used to manipulate and control people, to corral us into a narrow set of acceptable behaviours and beliefs. In many ways, hard fought freedoms from constraints of one religion are being replaced by the constraints of another, albeit unnamed or recognised as such.

A couple of years back, the catch cry word was all about tolerance. There was a strong push from the media for everyone to be tolerant of others (particularly around certain agendas), with the most stupendous comment I heard being, “I’m intolerant of intolerant people”. To me, this demonstrated the whole problem of how this word was being used in a nutshell. The truth is, tolerance isn’t tolerance unless I am allowed to disagree with you.

More recently, we have upped the anti on this by adding a new commandment:

“Thou shall not offend me.”

And I have to say, lately offence seems to something of a disease, its contagion infecting many from every spectrum of society.

So the question is, when was the last time you found yourself getting offended? Or perhaps a better question is how often do you find yourself getting offended?

To make it a little clearer, feeling offended is usually that spark of anger rising up because of something someone else has said or done; the outrage or indignation that cries out, “How dare they!” It is that heightened sense of wrongness, that we may or may not acknowledge outright, which quickly takes over our thoughts and conversations.

Offence seems to be very much a go to for many of us at this time about a wide range of issues, be they personal or more global.

Right now, some would probably respond, “But I have a right to be offended! What “they” do/say is offensive!”

As much as it may be true that some behaviour is “outrageous” or even an offense in the strictest sense, our response of offense in return is far from helpful to us, though. In my own journey, offence was something that held me trapped for many years.

Offence creates a fence between you and me

Going back some time now, I lived with offense as a primary protection mechanism. Because I was quite insecure and my sense of self was lacking, getting “prickly” was a way of keeping myself feeling safe. Basically, if I wasn’t feeling safe, getting offended toward someone helped me keep my distance and make them the problem, not me. Cutting them out of my relationships seemed the best option.

Whether or not they were the problem is irrelevant in the long run (and let’s be honest here, sometimes it is the other person, but sometimes it is also “me”!). Even when someone does behave in a way that is truly offensive and hurtful,

my response is always my responsibility.

I have a choice of whether or not I want to carry the burden of offence.

And it is a burden, very closely related to unforgiveness. When I am carrying offense towards others, either individuals or those with differing beliefs or ideas of acceptable behaviours to me, I am setting up a barrier, like a wall or even “a fence” (pun intended) to create a division that says “like me: not like me”. The more people I have offence toward, the further that fence has to go, and I have to maintain it, watch it diligently (just like Mexico), or before you know it, there will be an invasion of those I find offensive. But suddenly, while I am busy keeping them out, building that wall, I will find myself trapped and alone in a cage all of my own making.

Offence creates division and disunity in our society.

The bottom line is, if I am not prepared to allow anyone to offend me in anyway, I can either not have relationship with anyone (because no one is perfect), or I will have strict protocols which will drive most people away.

The other aspect of offense is that it leaves me in a place where I never have to question my own behaviour or beliefs. This is perhaps the most dangerous characteristic. If I don’t allow you to have a different belief or idea to me, or behave in a different way, then my behaviour and beliefs are the only right ones. Anything else is offensive! I am safe here and no one is allowed to judge me or tell me otherwise. Again, a very lonely place.

So, what is the answer? People are broken, they do behave in offensive ways. How do I not live under this burden of offense and still be safe?

For me, this comes back again and again to my relationship with God. I have to find my identity, my sense of self in Him. Unfortunately, this requires something else difficult. Accountability, transparency, ruthless honesty about myself. I have to be prepared to come to Him with all my own brokenness, hurts and false beliefs and be prepared for Him to shift, mend, heal and change me. The good news is though, however painful this may seem at the time, on the other side is true freedom – not only from my own brokenness and pain, but it also helps me deal with the brokenness of others without causing them further damage.

Next time you feel that slippery hand of offense around your heart, squeezing you to the point of outrage, take it to Father God and ask Him: “What do You want me to do with this? What do You want to do in me? How do You want me to respond?” You might be surprised at His response.

Love, judgement and Israel Folau – maybe we got it wrong!

In the last month or so, the sharp rise in the open hostility of certain Christian groups toward other sections of the Christian community on social media has stunned me. The level of condemnation and vitriol seems to have escalated to the point that I wonder if there is any space for restoration of unity. I find it disturbing and disappointing to say the least.

How do we find a way through this mess of differing opinions when our emotions are running so high?

The latest outcry, of course, has been around groups within the Christian body raising funds for Folau’s legal case to dispute his dismissal. One question being raised is whether this is an acceptable use of people’s private funds or whether these funds should rather be spent helping those who are in need in our communities.

In reading some strongly expressed comments denouncing those who had given to the Folau fund, I found myself wanting to respond equally ferociously with, “How dare you judge others on what they spend where when you spend your money doing xxx!”- until the mirror reflected back my own judgements on the rights and wrongs of our spending!

Whichever side of the fence you sit (or even if you are like me and sitting firmly on the fence over much of the circus surrounding this issue), one thing is plain. The spiral of division and judgement into hatred within the Christian community in Australia seems to have escalated in the last months - or was I just blind to it?

Believing as I do that unity is of particular value and importance in releasing the qualities of the Kingdom of God on earth, my prayer is that we start to take our judgements of others to God instead of each other and see what He might have to say about them.

If I take my accusation to God about what someone else spends their money on, for example, I think He might well come back and confront me with some of my spending. If I bring my judgement of another’s lack of love toward a particular group, the lovelessness in my own feelings for that “unloving” person may become the topic of conversation.

Lately, I have started to realise just how many judgments I make, moment by moment, day by day. Many of these are so “normal” to me I cannot see that different may be ok or may even have an extenuating explanation. It can be as simple as judging whether everyone else should enjoy something as much as I do (aka: food; music; cold weather; certain smells) to how people behave on the road, treat their children, keep their house/workspace/car, how they dress, what they do with their time and so on and so on. Some of this comes from an inherent belief that “my way is the right way” (which is where our stereotypes and many of our negative opinions of certain people groups comes from), but sometimes I think it is about something else.

One of the valued traits of Christianity is the idea of justice and mercy. The recognition of God’s heart toward those who are most vulnerable and in need in our communities has become front and centre for many Christians. The recognition that our faith isn’t and shouldn’t be all about our own comfort and safety has shifted many from a place of complacency and perhaps self-centredness.

However, as we step into this place of awareness we can become even more conscious of others who are not on the same journey. Because it is of such importance to us, we cannot fathom why they would not understand. We then make the next leap to believe that we are the one to tell them they should get on board with the same agenda!

It is so tempting to be the warrior out there fighting for truth, justice and liberty/tolerance or whatever other noun is flavour of the month. In my own journey, I have to admit to failing to understand why people don’t see what I am involved with as important as I do. Seeing the struggles and horrific lives some people live, the passion to make things better can be overwhelming.

Unfortunately - and I think this is where the rubber hits the road - we are not always happy to stop there. We can have such a strong desire to make someone to pay. Someone is to blame for this, so retribution is a vital part of the process. Or so we think.

And it is here that judgement comes marching in. I set myself up as the judge and jury to decide who must pay, how much and why. I assume I know the hearts, minds and motivations of others before I have even asked or know anything about what is going on for them now or in the past, or what their story really is. Unfortunately, relationship is often the first casualty when we choose “truth” over unity.

This quote from “The Shack” (Wm Paul Young) discussing the “choice to facilitate relationship” by meeting a person at their own level really spoke to me:

“You don’t play a game or color a picture with a child to show your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship. You will even lose a competition to accomplish love. It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect.”

Sitting in judgement, carving off large swathes of people because we assume we know what they think and why is so destructive. In the end, the only winner is the enemy of our souls.

I know I have grappled with the idea that people need to know the truth of their behaviour: something has to be done to protect those in danger and why not me? And there is truth in that.

However, when I think about the times I have been most open to change myself, it has been when someone has approached me with loving kindness. When we come to others from a place of offence, it rarely ends well. In fact, rather than coming to us with a list of our offences, we read in Romans 2:4 (NIV) that it is God showing us His kindness that helps us toward repentance. Awkwardly, He expects the same from us. Paul is pretty blatant here:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”

I am confronted again and again by my own lack of checking in with God about my way of thinking and responding to others. I guess it is a major part of our journey with Him – learning to stop and listen to His heart, to listen to what He thinks and see things from a better perspective: His. My prayer is that we can all step back from this mess, reassess our own part in it and contribute to the clean up before it is too late.

And Israel Folau? Its really not about him at all, is it?

Do you have enough faith to get you through this?

I think the first time I felt disappointed with God was when I was about 5 years old. My mother was pregnant with my youngest sibling and given I already had three brothers, I was desperately praying that this one would be a girl, a sister for me. And he wasn’t.

I am sure I am not alone in having experienced this sort of disappointment:

“God, You have the power to do what I want, what I believe I really need – and yet You don’t. What is the story? Why not?”

If God loves us, why doesn’t He always answer our prayers the way we would like?

My most recent ponderings on this topic started from a totally different scenario though, so join me on the journey!

A little while back, I quite suddenly became very conscious of the rows of trees lining the path (as in the photos) at the old golf course where I walk our dog. As they caught my attention the words, “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…” dropped into my mind. I had such a sense of not just those witnesses listed in Hebrews 11, but my own physical ancestors lining the way, as though I was in a marathon, and they were watching, cheering me on, encouraging me to keep going.

Weeks later I had a dream about running in the wilderness. I was trying to escape and evade “baddies”. With me was a companion, who was alongside me all the way as I ran as fast as I could. Even as I realised we had got away, I also realised my companion was on a horse. As I woke up, it was with the thought that it would have been much easier to get away if I had just got on the back of his horse (not to mention the question of why I hadn’t noticed it earlier!). Another aspect of the dream was that my companion was not at all worried, flustered or breathless from running. He was just with me.

The meaning of this dream was quite obvious to me. My constant companion is Jesus. With Him, I don’t have to work hard to stay safe. The question of why I didn’t notice the horse, or get on it bothered me though. I asked God the question of what I should do differently to not be living out of my own strength. Immediately the words, “fix[ing] our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” popped into my mind.

Looking this verse up, surprise, surprise, it was the second half of the instructions regarding the cloud of witnesses:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” (Heb 12:1-2)

In my dream, I was focussed on escape, not on Jesus!

Years ago, I was taught “whenever you see a wherefore or therefore, ask what its there for”, so I thought I’d better re-read Hebrews 11. Toward the end of the familiar passage is the list of gruesome, almost “Monty Python-esque” torture people had undergone for the sake of a promise: “Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated… yet none of them received what had been promised” (Heb 11:36, 37, 39).

When we come back to chapter 12, then, this cloud of witnesses are those who have struggled, who have suffered, many for a promise they never saw fulfilled. And we are told that it is on the back of the faith of these witnesses that we are to continue running with perseverance, that we are to throw off everything that holds us back.

Somehow, even though we read so much evidence to the contrary in the Bible - even the early apostles and disciples who walked with Jesus and were eyewitnesses to His death and resurrection, suffered difficulties and pain, to the point of being stoned, beheaded, imprisoned, shipwrecked and hungry – we still have some vague (or otherwise) belief that our lives should be trouble free and filled with every good thing. Why do we think that because we live some 2000 years later that we should have lives that are so much easier with no suffering and problems?

Coming back to where I started, along the journey I have begun to realise that our idea of what is good, what is helpful and what are blessings might just be very different to what God’s idea of these are for us. While we so often look for His help and blessings to be along the lines of no troubles and many goods to make our lives more enjoyable and easy, perhaps God’s purpose for our lives here on earth is divergent to that picture. If I were to ask most, they would agree that our purpose in God is to become more like Jesus – that is our goal. Funnily enough (or perhaps not!), Jesus’ focus was far from on His own comfort and freedom from trouble.

A great quote from Smith Wigglesworth I saw recently has stuck with me. He said:

“I don’t ever ask Smith Wigglesworth how he feels!” I jump out of bed! I dance before the Lord for at least 10 to 12 minutes – high speed dancing. I jump up and down and run around my room telling God how great He is, how wonderful He is, how glad I am to be associated with Him and to be His child.”

This has confronted me greatly. So often, my focus is on how I feel about everything, from physically to emotionally and even spiritually. Returning again to my starting point, it has been easy to wonder what God was thinking giving me four brothers. However, as I have grown, I have come to realise that every part of my life has influenced and changed me. I have a choice about whether I embrace those things I would have liked to be different or continue to fight God about them. I can work with Him through them to become more like Him, or get angry, disillusioned and create distance between us. While I may not always see the benefits of the path He has me on, I do have the choice to trust Him that there are benefits!

Coming back to Hebrews 12, I am reminded that through all of our circumstances, our focus is to be on Jesus alone. Sometimes, though, in the middle of these circumstances, we can find it difficult to find the faith to even look in His general direction. As we read in verse 2, however, we can see we actually don’t even have to find that faith! It is Jesus who gives us faith – He is the author: the One who initiates, creates, gives the spark to our faith; and He is the One who perfects our faith: brings it to completion and fullness. All we have to do is respond and take the next single step He lays before us. And meanwhile, we are cheered on from the sidelines by those who have gone before!

To manifest or not to manifest: Is God’s tangible presence essential to faith?

The other day I observed two women standing side by side receiving prayer for the ministry they jointly led. One was immediately physically impacted, bending almost double and clearly touched emotionally. The second woman stood virtually stock still and did not appear to be affected at all. What was going on? Why the difference?

In circumstances like these, it can be quite easy to make our own judgements. In polar opposites, we may see the first woman as being overly emotional and easily influenced, or that the other woman is hardened, not open to what God is doing. Either way, it is likely we are coming to our conclusions by making each person responsible for what God may or may not do in their life.

The topic of physical or bodily manifestations from God can produce different reactions in us depending on our own experience. For some, there is perhaps cynicism and even doubt about whether they are Godly or otherwise. For others there can be a tension because they rarely or never experience these personally. For yet others, the presence (or lack) of such manifestations are used as a measure of how close they feel to God.

For myself, I have grappled with the concept of physical, bodily manifestations of God’s presence from time to time over decades. It probably started when some kids in the youth group I was leading had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that literally left them shaking. Having virtually no previous experience of anything like this myself, the fact that they started competing to see who would shake the most did not help at all!

The struggle has continued over time, particularly because it is not something I experience much myself. More recently, I read a book about this phenomenon, trying to understand more about it. I had wondered, again, whether I was the problem. At times when others were rolling around laughing, couldn’t walk, or were just flat out on the ground, I have felt almost like an observer. It was with some interest that about halfway through the book, I read that the author was in a similar position to myself.

As I have wrestled with developing a theology around this, having numbers of friends who have had experiences that they have in no way sought, I was not finding answers in a hurry. And I do have to admit, there have been times where I also have wondered whether some of these manifestations are actually from God. We have seemingly little direct evidence from the Bible, although the descriptor in Acts of the disciples appearing drunk is certainly probably similar, and we know God used the voice of a donkey, manifested superhuman strength in a broken man (see Samson), spoke from a burning bush, and burnt up offerings soaked in water, just to mention a few other incidences of His physical manifestations. It is possible, and who are we to limit or define what is acceptable?

At a recent event, I found myself confronted by this situation again. The worship in music and song was polished but heartfelt. Many people were in the “zone”. But I was struggling to even find much energy to worship. I felt as though I was working hard to feel anything or even participate.

In the middle, I kind of gave up on the corporate worship and sat down to have my own conversation with God. And I found myself back with a picture I had had a few times lately.

It was a picture of a hedge maze or similar - a bit like a movie scene, where it is all misty. As I was moving through the maze, I would catch a glimpse of the edge of a garment or just the sense of movement, which I realised was Jesus.

Even as I saw this picture, I felt frustration and tiredness welling up in me:

Why? Why can’t you just sit with me? I am tired of playing this game, of having to chase You. Why can’t you come to me?

When I started to write down what I was seeing (because it helps me to hear what God is saying sometimes), I realised that Jesus was actually calling to me:

“Come on, come with Me, come in deeper!”

There was a sense of excitement and joy in His voice. At the point of my weariness, He was automatically by my side, but there was still this pull, this encouragement that He wanted me to come further into the maze. In that place, I started to feel, “Ok, if you really want me to, I will trust You, I will accept Your call to me.” It was invitational, and as such, became intimate between Jesus and myself.

Shortly after unpacking this vision, I picked up a book someone had given me to read. In the first few pages was a section titled, “Hiddenness and Manifestation” (In “Prophetic Wisdom”, by Graham Cooke). Here Cooke explores this whole issue, particularly from the view of the judgements we make about each other around this. I realised, afresh, that these manifestations have very little to do with us - they are up to God. He decides who to and how He will manifest Himself. We can’t position ourselves or even make God “show up” in this way. (As soon as we try to make God do anything, we are entering the dangerous zone of manipulation and control  - scarily similar attributes to witchcraft!)

In addition, as Cooke pointed out, the times of God’s hiddenness, far from Him withdrawing Himself from us, are actually about Him drawing us in deeper to Himself, just like my maze picture. While we may receive blessings from the times He chooses to manifest Himself, when He doesn’t, when we don’t sense Him, He is still there, but simply wanting to teach us about Himself in a different way. The message I clearly got from God was that His times of hiddenness are times when He wants to increase our intimacy with Him and our faith in Him. He wants to show us other aspects of Himself.

In all, it reminds me a little of what Paul wrote in Phil 4:12:

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation”.

Even though this is in a slightly different context, it is simply another reminder to me to let God be God - He will turn up in whatever form He wants, when He wants, and I can be secure in the knowledge that He will never leave or forsake me, and that He is near. I walk the journey with Him whether my senses agree or not.

And, back to the place I seem to keep landing: it is all about rest. We don’t need to work so hard, but simply rest in Him, in the truth of His word, such as “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb13:5), and “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). We may not get a physical sense, or even an emotional one, but this is a true faith that is pleasing to God (Heb 11:6). Jesus Himself said, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). After all, we are called to follow Him, not to create our own agenda or cast Him in the image and form we would like!

Sometimes something has to die for there to be space for life

Our neighbours are getting ready to build their new home. It is quite a huge task, not the least of it including the removal of a number of trees. And these are not your average suburban bushes, but towering 40+ metre (120+ft) mountain ash, up to 100 years old. As these giants started to come down, my days were rendered with a backdrop of the whine of chainsaws, the cracking of timbers and the massive, ground shaking thump as they were felled.

Part way through this process, I found myself starting to feel some grief about the fact that something so magnificent and beautiful had to die to make way for a home. But right into the middle of those thoughts and feelings came a reminder of who our God is:

He is a God who creates space for life.

One of the most profound examples of this comes from Genesis 1:1, where God creates the earth as void – the whole earth is created as a space for life - and then God fills it with an incredible abundance of life.

Unfortunately, we have spent much of the intervening time re-filling our days with, and even chasing after, that which is not life and does not lead to life. We’ve done it since the fall, where we believed the lie of the enemy of our soul: that which looks good is good for us.

We have often crammed our lives so full that there is no longer any space for God and the life He has for us.

Recently, in conversations I had as I organised a prayer event, I came across numbers of people who said how much they wanted to be part of it all, a time to stop and seek God, but just didn’t have the space. This was not just individuals, but also a number of churches – their programs and schedules were already too full to be part of even an hour.

Over the past year or so, God has been highlighting to me the need to be careful and to really seek Him regarding those things that I allow to fill my time. The last little while, this has intensified to the point where it is getting to the daily, to check in with Him: is this ok for me to pick up?

As I reflect on the idea of these giants, I really feel that there is a strong call from God to His people - both at an individual and a corporate level – to reassess what we are doing.

Are there giants that we have allowed to fill the space God has given us for life, within our days, our families, our church communities that actually need to be removed or even put to death?

Have our programs, our activities, our busy-ness grown so huge that we don’t have time and space left for that which - if asked - most of us would put a high value on: our time with God, worshipping Him, praying, and simply waiting to hear from Him?

Sometimes, as I look at our church services, perhaps the one time in the week we deliberately put aside for God - I feel that we can do the same even there – program out any space for Him. Often that time is tightly regulated: how long we worship in song, how long we pray, how long the message can go for, so that we can rush out and get on with all the rest of our lives.

Are we willing and open for God to break into our sacred places and override us?

My challenge to myself and to you is to set some time aside in the next few days – or even over Lent – to allow, or take back, some time for God to speak into those things filling our days. Ask Him if there are things He wants us to do less of or even stop? Are there giants in our lives that He wants to root out to give space for Him again? It may cost and be awkward – some people may not like it, nor understand; it may even cause some whining, upheaval and mess, but I promise you, it will be worth it!

Do you remember your first love?

With Valentine’s Day safely out of the way, it seems a good time to reflect on love. My thoughts have particularly focused around the topic of first love. For many of us, looking back on our first love can leave us with warm fuzzy feelings - for me, looking back on this cute very early photo of my parents’ relationship certainly gives me a different perspective!

But is there anything new that can be said about first love?

When I hear the term “first love”, it usually takes me straight to Revelations 2:4-5. How many messages have you heard where this passage is used to try to kick start a congregation into activity? The disappointment God had with the church of Ephesus was that they had forsaken their first love. He calls them back to “doing those things you did at first”. Many a pastor or leader has called out a congregation on the same. It can seem quite a harsh word, but I am wondering if there could be some connotations of this topic that are less about condemnation and more a call to be…well...loved.

As 1 John 4:19 was quoted in a message I heard the other day, I had one of those moments where I lost track of where the speaker was going, because I was getting my own download:

“We love because He first loved us.”

“First love”!

The passage in Revelations is usually presented from the perspective of when we first loved God and that it is our love for God that motivates us, energises us, provokes us to action. But perhaps this is all wrong. In fact, I think it is categorically wrong!

And further to this, in 1 John we find a book that is all about God’s love for us - in a nutshell, it tells us we really cannot give love to anyone else, including God, effectively, or maybe purely, unconditionally, unless we have first experienced Father God’s love for us.

However, I think we can take this back even further, even back before creation. In 1 John 4, the fact that God is love is mentioned twice. This tells us that

before anything was created there was love.

In turn, this means that all of creation was created within the context of love; creation is a product of love. If we understand all of creation in this way, we can start to understand God’s love for creation: His love is intrinsically interwoven into every aspect of creation. We are bonded together with all of creation by God’s love. Sit with the connotations of that for a while!

Unfortunately the separation that occurred between us at the fall, meant that our relationship with the rest of creation was also fractured.

Instead of being bonded in love, we are now in competition for love.

We have put conditions on love and we live out of those conditions.

And so, for most of us at least at some level, we still believe that, or act as if God’s love is conditional on our behaviour. We still live our lives at certain points feeling distant from God because we feel we may have failed Him, that we may not be living out of our “first love”, or that our continuing mistakes prohibit us from His love. We work so hard to make ourselves acceptable to Him, to make ourselves good enough to deserve His love.

Two verses stand out for me in opposition to these thoughts. The first is Romans 5:8,

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Surely this is a central (if not the central) facet of the Gospel message: We don’t have to be good enough to receive God’s love, to get to have relationship with Him. In fact, He already went ahead of us and fixed the problem before we could even try! This is so liberating. This is FREEDOM!

God’s love is not based on our performance! Hallelujah!

The second verse comes from the story of the “sinful woman” who came into a dinner Jesus was at and washed His feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, kissed them and then anointed them with fragrant oil. When the Pharisee Jesus was eating with got upset by this, Jesus talked about the experience of forgiveness, ending with the statement that she who was forgiven much, loves much, while those who are forgiven for little, love little. (Luke 7:36-50)

Over the years, I have often reflected on this. While we can read it at surface level, particularly that some are worse sinners than others (aka, “I thank You God that I am not as bad as that tax collector/banker/politician over there”), I personally don’t believe this. I think that it probably relates more to how much we have experienced or seen our own sinfulness and brokenness.

There have been suggestions that this woman was perhaps the woman caught in adultery. Her sin was in full view, and she was about to be killed for it, had Jesus’ wisdom not prevailed. She could not escape, hide, or minimise it. Jesus’ forgiveness for her was the very difference between her life and death.

Unfortunately for many of us, we don’t see this distinction clearly at all. We often have no idea or perception of the way in which so many of our actions, attitudes or words are heading us down the path that leads to spiritual death. We are in happy oblivion or denial. It is only as we become aware of how destructive our brokenness is, that we realise more fully how lost we were and what danger we were in.

It is from this perspective that we begin to have a “grasp of

how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”

(Eph 3:18). If you read the whole passage here, it returns us to our experience of God’s love for us.

The reality is that we don’t have a capacity for love outside God. If we want to love God more and love others more, then we have to humble ourselves and allow Him to love us: to pour His love into us and over us, again and again. As we are filled again, our response is naturally to love Him in return, and from here, our love flows out to others.

It can be a challenge to return to the first time you were really aware of experiencing God’s love. For some of us, it is a very long time since we have truly experienced the absolute joy found in the realisation of how much God loves each of us. For some, sadly, we may not feel as though we have ever really experienced this love. It may be that although we have given intellectual assent to the idea of God’s love for us, we still grapple with living from this place. The place of experiencing God’s love for us, however, is a place of surrender. Unless we are prepared to let go of some of our ideas and beliefs about the way in which the world operates, to humble ourselves and accept our need, it can be quite difficult to allow God to unleash His love on us.

My prayer is that you have had at least one experience like this that leaves you aching for more. It is not a place we can reach through our own efforts, though – in the end, it is a place where we have to believe that Jesus’ gift was enough to allow us to come into this Holy Place. We have to be prepared to lay down our pride and self-serving. We have to be prepared to be vulnerable, naked and exposed before our God. And it is in this place we discover that His love for us is unending and yet somehow the beginning of it all.

“We love because He first loved us!”

Quit trying to be good enough: It’s never going to work.

At a time when many of us have already realised how unrealistic our New Year’s resolutions were and probably broken most of them, I find myself reflecting again on the standards we set ourselves, so often based on comparing ourselves with others or our perception of where we should be. And I have found God taking me to a deeper level of dealing with this in my own life. Typically, though, I find it has its roots in my early life.

Way back when I was in high school, my subject reports consisted of just two characters: a letter grade and an effort score. (Effort of 1 meaning you couldn’t have tried harder, to 3 being minimal to no effort.) While my parents didn’t say much - positive or negative - about the grade, they did have questions on anything less than a “1” for effort. The idea that the grade doesn’t matter as long as you tried your best seems to have much merit, but the problem is, how do I measure “my best”? What are the indicators that I have done just that?

Fast forward into adulthood, and I wonder how many of us don’t continue to struggle with (at least at some level) the idea “if I just work harder, am more consistent with my effort, keep pushing through, I will be able to perform. I will make it.” (Whatever “it” is).

The truth is, that we live in a world that IS driven largely by performance and outcomes, and the idea that any one can achieve whatever goals they like if they just put in the effort. Even in Christian circles, we honour and extol those who, by their hard work, intelligence, diligence or ingenuity excel and produce “amazing outcomes'“, either in their own “personal bests”, in business or in some other way rise to the top of the heap in their field. We buy into the lie that if we just put in more effort, if we try harder, we too can arrive.

But what are the measures we are using and are they correct?

When life is not heading in the direction I would like quickly enough, I seem to find myself back on this merry-go-round again. Inasmuch as God has taken me on a journey of breaking free from the performance trap, from the just work harder, focus more, set more achievable goals, have more accountability cycle, it is still easy to measure myself by my lack of achievement compared to others, whether this is real or perceived. When God was speaking to me about this at an earlier time, I was in the supermarket and the register went mad, printing out something like a metre of docket, all with the word “approved” printed over and over. The checkout lady was very surprised, “I don’t know what that’s about, but at least you know you are approved!” Ok, ok, I get the message - please don’t embarrass me any further, Dad!

Coming up to Christmas, I was determined to work hard to enjoy the season more than previous years. However, despite my best efforts, I found myself almost feeling ‘kicked off’ that merry-go-round. There was a sense of watching so many I know riding the crazy carousel of all the Christmas activities, while we stood by, feeling on one hand quite disconnected, while at the same time not wanting to be part of it - this madness that is perhaps more akin to a hurricane or tornado than a carnival ride.

Perhaps this is a little cynical, but from the sidelines, this was how I was feeling. And while there was an almost perverse desire to get on board and be part of it, at the same time, I felt incapable. Tied up in the middle of this was the feeling of isolation or even alienation. I wondered again if I was actually the problem.

In the middle of it all, I found myself wondering where God was and feeling disconnected from Him as well.

What if it is me?

What if it is my lack of effort that leaves me feeling distant.

And then I realised that I had painted Him in the colours I was viewing the world through: Perform, do what’s expected, keep marching, keep working hard for all the hours you are given. I realised that I didn’t feel like I was up to scratch with Him, either. Not good enough, not doing enough.

So I had to step back. Step back into remembering that His love isn’t conditional. His love for me isn’t based on what I do or don’t do or participate in, or even on anyone else’s approval or expectations. I can REST in His love whenever I want, without waiting for or even asking for anyone else’s approval.

One of the main things I felt God prompting me about in the last six months or so is to really check myself with the comparison game. This has been in quite a different context to the past. It is about checking my drive to be part of what others are doing that, for them, is very much in line with what God is doing and is calling them to do. What He has been showing me is that I am me, not them, even if we do have similar drives, gifts and callings.

He has been prompting me to not just get on board because it is a God-thing, but to ask whether it is mine to engage with. He has been saying to me, “Yes, it is good, yes, it is about Me and what I am doing My Kingdom, but I have something else over here that I want you to do. You are separate. You are different, but that is good, that is how I created you and what I created you for. Don’t try to be someone else, and you don’t have to get involved in everything I am doing, only what I ask you to.”

It fits in well with the verses where Jesus said that He “only did what He saw the Father doing” and “only said what He heard the Father saying”, which has become a little of my mantra over the last months. Jesus could have quite easily burnt Himself out with all the need around Him. It was vitally important that He was in close relationship with His Father in order to keep on track as well as deal with the demand and even the rejection. He had to know who He was, His purpose, and what His Father was about. He took regular time out to refresh and to listen.

The same is true for us.

We must be cautious about drivers like “God is up to amazing things” or “can’t wait to be part of this”, or even “you don’t want to miss this!” While it is great to be part of it all, if these things detract or distract from what God really wants us to do, we run the risk of missing what He has for us.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t work hard, make commitments or set goals, join in. Quite the opposite. However, we do need to be careful of why we do this, why we push ourselves.

We must carefully assess the motivations of our hearts.

• Is it about being a “better Christian” or being more Christ-like?

• Is it about performing for those in our circles (be they church, family, friends or colleagues) or about the fruit of the Spirit at work in and through us?

• Are we following the trend, the herd, or the Spirit? (And sometimes that is hard to discern!)

The challenge for this year: STOP. WAIT. ASK. Check your spirit. Is it FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), or are you released/called to be part of it?

Oh yeah, and don’t bother working so hard to meet everyone else’s approval and expectations (or your perceptions of these!). It doesn’t work, you won’t ever live up to all the expectations out there, and besides, you already have the approval of your Heavenly Father. What more could you need?