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Dealing with Change, Living the Life

All about change

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August seems like the perfect time to send a holiday postcard, so here’s one from the week my family and I spent traveling through Shropshire, Cheshire and the West Midlands on a canal boat.

Water doesn’t like to slope, so when the great engineers who built the canal systems encountered a landscape that needed to be climbed, they built amazing water-filled lifts called locks. Each lock is a chamber with heavy gates at each end which can be filled up or emptied of water so that the boat can rise up or lower down to the level of the next stretch of canal.

To fill the lock you use a turning handle to wind up heavy paddles in the gate which let water into (or out of) the chamber at a tremendous rate creating a huge amount of noise and splash. We quite enjoy working the locks but there’s no denying that it’s really hard going! Pushing the gates open against the weight of the water, closing them again, winding up the paddles, waiting for ages for the lock to fill then pushing the gates at the other end open is slow and heavy work, but it’s amazing to witness the extraordinary power of all that water moving from one place to another.

And it’s necessary: without these powerful level-changers it would be impossible to travel through the ups and downs of the British countryside.

I’ve written before about the seasons we go through in life, being a child, being a parent, being a parent of children who have grown up, living in one place or another, working, retirement…

Often it’s the shifts between seasons that are the hardest to deal with. The parts where you’ve said goodbye to what was, but haven’t really stepped into what is next. Those times, like the minutes that the boat is in the lock, can be turbulent, a bit scary and slow in passing.

The locks reminded me this week that change, even good change, like getting married, having a child or starting a new job, can be really hard work.
Like traveling through a lock, there is a cost to change which is measured in effort and in unsettling turbulence but there is also a sense something incredibly powerful is going on somewhere below the surface. The other hung it’s reminded me is that change is also really necessary if you want to continue on with your journey.

I often describe myself as being change-intolerant, a natural settler. But I also really want to keep pressing onwards towards what’s ahead and like water, life doesn’t slope, so there are bound to be locks ahead.

The challenge to me is to willingly step into times of change, to accept the turbulence and scariness with faith, because I’ve realized that even if the only way forward is through locks, that’s the way I want to go.

Remind me of that when I’m complaining about it 🙂

Living the Life

Sailboats and Rowboats

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I’ll start with a confession…  I wasn’t going to post this week, I’m so tired that I was going to give myself some grace and not write anything, have a day off..

But then all day this thought that I read about in someone else’s blog* has been in my head, and it’s ministered to me so much and so deeply that I thought I’d share it with you, just in case you needed to hear it too…

“You are designed to be a sail boat, not a rowing boat”

I love this so much.  I love that all the power to do anything God asks me to do comes from him.  I love that I was never meant to serve him out of my own strength, out of my own effort.

My job is to put up the sail, his job is to provide the wind –  so simple, and so true.

No-one who has ever sailed a boat would want to row it across the lake instead.  No-one who has felt the exhilaration of catching the wind and feeling a boat suddenly accelerate across the water would prefer to slowly drag heavy oars.  It’s not that sailing is effortless, but it is less effort than rowing, and so much faster and so much more fun!

I know this.

And yet when I am tired, when life seems overwhelming, when everything is a bit too much – that’s when I start rowing.

True.

Honestly, how sad is it that I pronounce myself too tired to put up a sail and then pick up the oars?  That when I have no strength, that’s when I start trying to do things in my own strength? I’m smiling as I write this, partly because it is just that ridiculous and partly because I can hear the theme of what God has been saying to me for weeks echoing in the words.  I’m clearly a slow learner.

When you realise your hands are empty, when you come to the end of yourself – that’s a good place, that’s when he can begin.

So this is my new piece of advice to myself:

Whatever you do, don’t try to row.

Grab hold of whatever strength you have left, and use it – to walk into his presence and to put up your sail.

sailboat

And if you find there’s no wind today, no power to help you move forwards, don’t panic – it just means that today is a day to be still. To be still and know that you are you and God is God.

and that’s OK.

*This postcard was inspired by a great blog I follow written by theologian, teacher and asker-of-awkward-questions, Ian Paul… I painted the picture straight away and put it on the wall because I knew it was such an important bit of life to me –  you can read the original here.

Surviving Tough Times

On faith, hope and being sure

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Are you sure?

On the one hand there are some things that I am, absolutely, sure about… I’m absolutely sure that I belong to God and that I can call him ‘Abba’.  I’m sure that he is bigger, more powerful, more beautiful, more just, more gracious and more loving than I or anyone else can imagine.  I’m sure that I although I am one of the millions that he loves fiercely, that his love is in no way diluted, and that I am precious to him.  I’m so sure of his forgiveness and grace that I know I can lean back into them and believe that I am accepted in spite of my past, present and future mess-ups.

I’m sure.

And yet.

It doesn’t take much to leave me feeling like this daisy, adrift on the ocean.  A few mistakes, someone angry, a stinking cold, a friend leaving the country.  All that ‘sure-ness’ can melt into weariness, shaken-up-ness and not-sure-I-can -hear-God-ness in a matter of days.

So when I came to God on tuesday morning to ask him for a picture to put in a postcard for today, all I could see was this daisy, floating on the ocean.

Two things are true about it:

One- the daisy is tossed about, but not sinking.  It’s not sinking because its petals are wide open, and its petals are open because it’s facing into the light and the warmth of the sun.

Two – even though it’s affected, pulled up and down and this way and that by the movement around it, this tiny daisy is anchored, deep, deep down below the waves, into something solid.  The rope that ties it is slack so that there is length to cope with the rise and fall of the waves and tides, but it’s strong.

It was only after I’d painted this anchored daisy that I read the verse from Hebrews:

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure, It enters the inner sanctuary, behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus has entered on our behalf.

Hebrews 6:19-20

It’s not the only place I’ve heard about hope recently.  On yesterday’s news the newly-elected prime minster of Greece claimed that this week’s election outcome was a ‘victory for hope’.  Many, many people there are hoping for an easier future.  
Hope is extraordinarily powerful thing, and when that hope is shown to be false it can be utterly crushing.  Unfortunately, when you’re being tossed about by the waves having your hope-rope anchored to anything that is in this world is just like being anchored to another set of waves, there’s no guarantee of stability coming.

The hope that the Bible holds out to us is in a different league altogether. As Hebrews tells us, it is anchored not in this world, but on the other side of the curtain, in the place where Jesus has gone ahead of us, in the presence of God.

It’s a mystery, but it’s a bit like my anchored daisy.  Deep, deep, down and beyond it is fixed irrevocably to something other than the ocean. Something solid and unmoveable, something which contains the ocean itself.

Here and there, in places, a gift of faith solidifies that hope into sureness.  And as I’ve painted and pondered  I’ve realised that this shaken-ness, the tiredness from the wind and the waves doesn’t make me ‘not sure’.  It just reminds me that sure-ness is not a surface feeling. It goes much, much deeper than that: Sure-ness is hope soaked in faith, over and over until that hope has become somehow more real than the ‘reality’ of the waves, and is anchoring my heart way beyond this particular storm, and into God himself.

However you are currently being shaken, whatever storm you are living through, or watching people close to you live through, try keep your face turned towards Jesus. Then your petals will stay warm and open and you you will be able to rest on the surface of the waves. Remind yourself often of the hope that you have as a child of God, and then ask him for the gift of faith, so that your hope become strong and solid, and then whatever happens, you will still be able to say, ‘I am sure’.

Living the Life

Frogger

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Ever feel stuck?  Like there’s no way forwards?  Like you’re living in the consequence of decisions made a long time ago, and that the dead end you’re now in is inescapable?  You need to think about Frogger.

Frogger was a game I got mildly addicted to a long time ago when my teenagers were still toddling.   It mostly involved hopping a little frog around on lily pads and getting it to the other side of a road or a river.

The picture I had today was of a frog who had hopped out along a particular line of lily pads, and then got to the end of the line.  He looked across and saw other frogs hopping along another line of lily pads and thought ‘oh well, that’s it then, I went the wrong way, I blew it’.

It’s easy to feel that one choice you made or that was made for you has messed everything up… that you’ve gone off on a diversion from the main route and can never go back.  Like somehow you will never be able to live fully in the goodness of what God intended for you because of one foolish/stupid/scared choice you made and there is no way to get back onto the right track again.

Of course we do often have to live with the consequences of our choices… but the truth about frogger is that there’s always an alternative route… even if it looks like there isn’t.  Any moment now a new lily pad will pop up, or even better, a floating log will come along to hop on to and take us somewhere completely new!

When we get to one of these ‘dead-end’ places, we have another choice: We can sit on our lily pad feeling sorry for ourselves, wondering if God has forgotten us, berating ourselves for the decision we made that has got us into this place, putting all our faith in our stuckness or we can call out to God and trust that he is able to do something about it.

And of course- he can.   There’s never only one route across the river, and as I was thinking about last week when I wrote this, our God is a the master of reversing impossible situations.  He isn’t just creative -he is Creativity.  Finding new ways to get you to where he wants you to be is as natural to him as breathing is to you.

‘You are stuck, it’s hopeless, there’s no way out’ is one of the regular often-used lies of the enemy.  It’s designed to paralyse you, to stop you from realising that there never was one perfect, easy route across the river; that everyone either makes stupid choices, or encounters obstacles and that our creative father constantly builds new routes for us.

If you’re feeling stuck today, like you hopped off the main path and onto an inescapable road to nowhere, take a real step and ask God to help you let go of that lie.  Reach out and catch a hold of the truth that he has never for one moment forgotten you, and ask him to help you grasp the truth that your life is a constantly growing ‘new creation’ and that he has more enough power to build you a new route across the river and into the places he has called you to be.

My problem is often that I want to see the path marked out in front of me.  I want to be able to think, “oh I’ll hop there, and then there, and then there and that will take me to where I want to be”.  My life just isn’t like that.  I often cannot even imagine how God is going to take me into the things he’s spoken to me about, let alone plan the route!

So my struggle is to choose to trust in the God of floating logs and suddenly growing lily pads instead of trying to plot my own course all the time… frogfeat

Whatever your struggle is, I pray that God would speak to you today and that he would open your eyes to trust in his extraordinary creativity and love for you.  It will be worth it.

 

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

When climbing a mountain…

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Intrigued?  Well, I’m not surprised.  I didn’t know what one of these was called either (had to google it 🙂 ).  It’s a piton.  Mountain climbers hammer them tightly into crevices in the rock face so that they can attach their safety ropes through the hole.  A vital piece of rock-climbing kit.

When God showed me this picture, I imagined what it would be like if, exhausted from a difficult climb, beaten back by the weather, you were to come across one of these, already firmly in the rock face and ready to clip your harness on to.  What a relief I would feel if it were me, and how grateful to the climber that scaled this wall before me and left me something to take a hold of.

So today’s postcard is an encouragement to start nailing in some of these beauties, both for those who scale the walls you’re climbing after you, and for your own benefit (just in case like me, you have a tendency to revisit the same challenges).

The first time I really noticed how this could work was when I was in a tiny church choir.  One day the choir leader played us a piece he planned for us to sing. It was extraordinarily complex and difficult with solos and harmonies and even a rap(!), so we reacted in some disbelief!  But he believed we could do it, and as a group we somehow just chose to take his faith and believe it.  It was as if we reached out with our Karabiner clips in our hands and clipped our harnesses onto the faith he was holding out.

Our faith in God is like that, we have the ability to hold it out to others and say “here-  hold on to mine, I’ve scaled this wall before you”.

I can’t tell you exactly what the pitons you put in will look like, they might be a word,  an action, scripture glued to a mirror, a testimony, a song, a journal entry, a book, a blog post, a status update, a tweet. But I do know that when we start to hold out the faith we’ve gathered to others it will multiply.  Whatever they say about problems, faith shared is faith (at least) doubled!

While a piton has to be strong, the real strength is in the rock.  The job of the piton is simply to enable someone to anchor their heart to the Rock of Ages, into the ultimate strength and safety of the Living God himself.

piton feat

If you’re climbing in a storm,  look out for what others have left for you.  When you see it – choose to reach out for it and clip yourself on!

If you’ve taken on a difficult face and made it to the top.  Look for the faith that you grew on the journey and then choose to find a way to hold it out for others.

And please, please comment below about the ways God is speaking to you that you could hold out the faith you’ve collected to to others and then comment again about the ways you’ve done it and seen faith multiplied in other people.  In the words of the Lego Movie – that would be awesome!

If you’re interested in more of what I think faith is and isn’t you could read this:  Faith and the Flying Fox or this: Ready to Walk on Water

Living the Life, Surviving Tough Times

Changing the ground

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This is the plant that ‘would never grow’.

Years ago, when my parents moved house, they brought with them a  large rhododendron in a wooden pot that was a favourite of my Mum’s. The pot was old and failed to  survive the move, so my stepfather stripped what was left of the wood away and planted the Rhododendron straight into the soil of the garden.

And my Mum, who is the only one of us who has any clue at all about gardening said,

“it will never grow”

Because, she knew what the rest of us didn’t: that some plants need a particular type of soil to flourish.  Rhodedendrons need to have their roots in acidic soil, not in the chalky clay of an Essex garden.  So it really didn’t stand a chance…

However, 25 years later, here it is – not just surviving but thriving.  A great big green and purple horticultural-impossibility!

You see, it turns out that even though most of the garden behind our house does indeed have very alkaline soil, the corner where this shrub was planted is in the shadow of a centuries old oak tree.  Year after year that oak has been releasing hundreds of leaves, which fall in a thick layer over this part of the garden.  And year on year many of those leaves have been absorbed into the soil and have changed it.

The oak tree has changed the soil around it from a place where the rhododendron had no hope of surviving into a place where it has been able to become glorious.

When my Mum emailed me a snapshot of it a couple of weeks ago,  I heard God whisper two things into my ear.

Firstly:

“don’t give up on people – you don’t know as much as you think you do”.

I do have a tendency to fall into a trap of thinking I know things.  Accepting that God knows better than I do is a good place to be.  Conventional wisdom says: ‘that plant can’t survive in that place’ but God says – ‘There’s a bigger picture’

and second,  a challenge:

“Be an oak”

Because this plant is under the edge of an oak tree, it’s alive and blooming, even though the soil is naturally hostile to it.   Some people are living their lives, day in, day out, in environments that are hostile to their faith.  Conventional wisdom might say that their walk with Jesus has no hope of surviving, let alone thriving…

But you and I can choose to be oaks.  We can choose to be continually releasing grace, hope, compassion, truth, faith and love.  And even when it feels as though those ‘leaves’ are just falling to the ground, unnoticed by anyone, they are making a difference…  soaking into the soil and changing it…

It lifts my heart to think that I could be an oak tree in someone else’s life,  quietly releasing what it takes to support life, changing the environment, making a difference.  I’m not even entirely sure how, but I’m up for finding out.  you?

all is not always as it seems
sometimes
you and I

can change it

Mum's Rhododendron

 

reflect greens

 

For your journal

What do you think it takes to be an oak tree?  Ask God to speak to you about how you’re already doing this, and how you could do more.   If you have any ideas, please comment them below!

Maybe you feel more like the Rhododendron, struggling to survive in a hostile world.  Perhaps you need to find a place where you can be in community with some oak trees and to choose to receive whatever it’s going to take for you to grow.

 

 

 

 

Identity, Living the Life

Superhero Socks

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This is my sweet five-year-old, dressing up in her fifteen-year-old brother’s superhero socks. He has a wide collection, and likes to wear them mismatched as a tiny but significant (?) piece of rebellion against the oppression of school uniform…

I’ve been thinking about superhero socks a lot this week.  In my last postcard I mentioned IHE’s -Impossibly High Expectations – and the potential they have to limit us from being all God created us to be.  And I’ve been thinking about my own, and how to describe them to you, so that you can spot yours!

On reflection: having an impossibly high expectation of myself is like being quietly stalked by a Superhero.  This SuperSomeone tiptoes along behind me, like a malignant imaginary friend, waiting for  the moment to point out my inadequacies, show me how I could do things better, or encourage me to aim ridiculously high.  Next to her, I always feel pretty rubbish really.
Now, while it’s perfectly OK to enjoy a good superhero story, and even (in some circumstances) to wear the socks; I’m sure you’ll agree that to believe that you can be a superhero is a dangerous, possibly even life-threatening delusion.

But, we all seem to do it. We all seem to invent a ridiculous, superhuman version of the role we’re in, and then expect ourselves to be it : SuperSomeones.

My loudest and most powerful Supersomeone is ‘SuperMummy’. She stands in the background of my life, ever ready to rear her (very beautiful and perfectly made up) head at any opportunity. For some reason she is most likely to manifest the night before the children’s birthdays, or Christmas, when she’forces’ me to organise beautifully themed birthday parties, icecakes until 3 in the morning and try to make everything  ‘just perfect’.

If I ever take my eyes off Jesus and let them settle on SuperMummy, I’m done… I come to a few days later, confused and exhausted, wondering (again) why on earth I thought I needed to do all that stuff.

You see SuperMummy always wears make-up, is slim, has beautiful hair, can wear scarves stylishly, bakes perfectly, has a beautiful home (she found that piece of furniture in a second-hand store and distressed it herself) and a high-powered career, is amazingly spiritual, never shouts, and can preach in high heels without falling over. SuperMummy reads bedtime stories to all of her children every day, never forgets the PE kit, or shows up with kids in uniform on Mufti day, can instantly find a protractor the night before Maths exams, runs the PTA and never misses a dentist appointment…  Gosh, she can probably service the people carrier (minivan) as well.

SuperMummy does NOT exist… But do you know what? if I let myself be conned into trying to be her, I may not exist for very much longer either.  Trying to be a superhero is exhausting and dangerous… and not what Jesus has asked us to do.

Whoever you are, and whatever stage of life you are at, I bet you
have a SuperSomeone.. A SuperPastor, SuperDad, SuperFriend,
SuperDaughter, SuperWorshipLeader, SuperChristian.  Walking
quietly beside you, whispering over your shoulder, “You need to be more like me”  Do you know what? –  You need to get rid of them, right now, whatever it takes.

SuperWhatever will distract you from what God is calling you to be and to do, he or she will suck all the life out of you, exhaust you, whisper ‘try harder’ over your shoulder until you can’t manage another step and then show you all the ways you’ve failed.

Whatever you think about what he has written or said since, a few years ago Rob Bell, in a very popular book called Velvet Elvis had a moment of pure genius. Writing on this subject he said:

‘KILL YOUR SUPERWHATEVER… ACT NOW… SHOOT FIRST!’

At the moment we fell into his arms and surrendered to him, God our father gave us a gift to help us defeat the Supersomeones. An enormous endlessly supplied water cannon, filled with… grace.

There is grace enough to cover ever one of your imperfections… and mine. There is grace to not to have to be perfect, to be a superhero. In fact, Grace says “you aren’t a superhero, I didn’t make you that way”.

Of course, our kids, work colleagues, churches, friends, families, need us to try to be ‘good-enough’, but there’s a loooooong way between that and a superhero.

So there’s my challenge for you for the week: ask God to shine his light on your inner Superwhatever; ask him to show you where you have ridiculously high standards of yourself and then apply a ridiculously generous amount of grace…. Shoot first.

superherosocks feat

For your journal:

Is it time for you to give up wearing some superhero socks?  Have your worked out who your supersomeone might be?  Spend some time asking God about it this week.

Then set yourself some challenges… For me, shooting grace at the supermummy meant making some good-enough decisions, some of which I found very hard. ( Buying a pile of chocolate muffins instead of baking a birthday cake is one I especially remember:)

What challenge will you set yourself to be ‘good-enough’ this week?

 

P.S.  In case you don’t scroll down that far… Commenter Deborah wrote this, and I think it’s great:

‘What other approval is there, that compares to the voice of God whispering to my heart, “You’re mine”.’

 

 

 

Living the Life

Immeasurably More

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Please, may I have some more?

There’s something quite awkward about asking for more…   And that awkwardness often stops me from asking.  Somehow the vision of a grubby little boy with an empty bowl swims into my mind.  But before I find myself humming songs from Oliver…

To be clear, I’m not talking about material wealth here,  although it may for many be quite reasonable to ask for more of that..  Today though, I’m thinking about other things I’d like more of:  faith, wisdom, passion, courage, forgiveness, healing, ability to receive God’s love, love for others, a sense of the presence of God…

But for some reason I find coming to God and saying “please, I want more” really difficult.   I feel I should stand back and let others go ahead of me.  Asking for more when I have already received so much from God feels greedy.  Worse than that it makes me feel as though I’m somehow not grateful enough for what I’ve already been given.

(Also, written on the wallpaper inside my head is a little sign that says “It’s not OK to ask for stuff” which applies in a million other situations, not just this one. – God and I are in the process of rubbing this -and some others-out, but that’s probably another postcard)

But for each of us, it is without question true that God has more for us in our relationship with Him.  More understanding, more faith, more peace, more presence, more.  And his pockets don’t hold a limited amount:  If he gives to me it doesn’t mean that someone else will miss out, if he’s already given me some faith I don’t have to say “OK thank you that will do”.   This isn’t a tea party at a little friend’s house my friends,  you don’t have to smile a polite smile and say “thank you, that was lovely, I’m full up now”.

I wonder what you hear from God when you look at this postcard of the ocean.  Every time I stand by the sea I think about this…  I scoop up as much water as I can hold in my hands and I think “this is how much of God’s presence, power and peace I have experienced so far’… and then I look up at the sea.

The difference between the water I can hold in my hands and the contents of the mediterranean… and then the atlantic is beyond my ability to comprehend.  It’s extraordinary to even to try to think about it.

That’s how much more there is to explore of God my friends, that’s how much more he has for you.

Immeasurably more.

You just need to ask.

MorePC

 

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.

Ephesians 3:16-21 NIV

reflect blue

For your journal:  What do you want to ask God for ‘more’ of?   What stops you from asking?

Dealing with Change, Surviving Tough Times

The Hardest Cut: on the experience of pruning

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Ouch.

A while ago, not for the first time,  I went through an experience of pruning:  Of God removing from my life something I love, something I’m good at, something that I was (and am) unwilling to let go of.  Familiar story?

john 15

I can deal with God cutting away parts of my life that aren’t fruitful! But here Jesus talks about pruning the healthy branches of a vine, cutting back branches that are bearing fruit.  And that’s much harder to get my head around…

I’ve been involved one way or another with church youthwork for about twenty years, and I love it.  So it was very hard when a few months ago God asked me to lay it down.  I’m ashamed to say that he had to tell me a lot of times and in several different ways.  And I wrestled with it, I was angry with Him about it, but eventually I got the message, waved the white flag and stepped down.

And it really, really hurt… (still does a bit)

In the middle of that time I painted a picture.  I’ve never grown grapes, but I have grown and pruned roses, so I painted a rose bush… and a gardener.   The message God spoke to me through it really helped, and if a pruning-time comes, I hope it will help you too.

You prune rosebushes back for two reasons: so that they will grow into a more balanced shape, not becoming lopsided or straggly; and so that they will bear even more flowers.  So pruning, though it seems harsh, actually makes the rose bush much more beautiful.

After I’d finished the painting I noticed two things:

The first was that the branch is not being pruned away because it is not being useful or beautiful or because it is ‘bad’ at the job it was supposed to be doing.  It is not diseased, or flowerless… but its time has come.  When God takes you out of a ministry or situation, it is not necessarily an indication of His judgement on the job you were doing.  God often calls us to stop doing things that we are good at!

pruningdetailThe second was that the healed wound from a past pruning is clearly visible.  And so is all of the growth and beauty that came about because of that cut.  It stands as a testimony that pruning has brought fruitfulness in my life and is promise of more roses yet to come.


God sometimes takes away or asks us to give up things which we are good at and which we love.  And it’s not always clear why!  It may be that he needs to make space in your life in order to do something else. Perhaps  He wants you to stop putting energy into supporting an old branch and pour that energy into growing a new one.   Or it may be just that He wants you to do something where you’ll need to lean on Him more.  

What is certain is that to be pruned is part of ‘normal’ Christian life. For me the challenge is to surrender to it quickly rather than sink huge reserves of effort into resisting it;  to accept it as part of the ongoing careful work of my Father.

Looking back now, six months on, I can see the fruit of having allowed God to make some space in my life for other things.  If I’m honest I can also see how it would have been so much less painful for me if I had listened and responded the first time I heard God speak on the matter!

So now I’m asking God what else in my life has to go.  If He needs to make more space or wants me to be more focussed, I want to volunteer to make the cut!  Will you join me?   He might ask you to give something up… He might not.  Either way, surrender to the gardener is the road to more growth, more blessing and more fruitfulness.  I recommend it.


pruning

Living the Life

Faith and the Flying Fox

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I don’t often feel faith, it’s much more likely in any given situation that I’ll be feeling terror.  But to my great relief I’ve finally concluded that faith isn’t something you feel, it’s something you do.  And in some ways that’s much easier!

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I’ve come to believe that ‘faith is being certain of what we do not see’ can also be read ‘faith is hearing God, and then acting like you believe what He says is true.  For example:  Father God says that I am his precious child, that I am beautiful, that I am valuable.  Honestly, a lot of the time I struggle to feel like these things are true.  But I know they are, so I try to behave like they are.  I’m not pretending, – I’m lining my behaviour up with what I know to be true.

My kids went on a really high flying fox once… It was as much as I could take to stand on the ground watching them…  They were 40 ft or so up in the air and had to step off the platform and put their entire trust in the harness that strapped them to the wire.

That’s a great picture of faith – Standing on the edge of what feels safe, gripped by fear, but trusting that God has said this is the right thing to do and stepping off anyway.  Much, much easier to write down than to do!   On the flying fox, even when you have just seen your brother fly down in front of you and you know it is safe, it’s really hard to step off.  And sometimes it’s like that when God asks you to do something ….  

But the faith isn’t in the feeling. – It’s in the jumping.

The other thing I remember clearly about watching this zip line in action was the pep-talk on how to land safely:

“What you must do” insisted the instructor, “is start running while you are still in the air,  a long time before you hit the ground, or you will just wipe out”  And he wasn’t kidding!  As I watched people fly down the wire at great speed,  it was clear that those who began the action of running before their feet hit the ground managed to stay on their feet; and those who forgot were dragged unceremoniously through the mud.

Faith is being certain about the things that God has promised but you are not actually experiencing yet.  On the flying fox, the ground is coming, and you have to start acting like the ground is there before you actually get to it.

If God has said you’re going to have a ministry with young people, start talking to young people in your church.  If God has said He wants you to lead worship one day, learn an instrument.  If God has said to you that you are going to see people healed when you pray for them, start praying for the sick (and keep going until people start being healed).

I have a friend who dreamed one night that she was on a stage in a huge auditorium, talking about Jesus to thousands of people.  In her dream she was terrified – she could never stand up in front of so many people and yet she felt that this was a dream from God calling her to be prepared to preach.   Her response wasn’t to say “I could never do that” or to sit around waiting for it to happen.  She went out the following week and joined a public speaking club!  Isn’t that great?  Even if the reality of the dream is still a long way off, she’s getting ready for it.  That’s faith.

I don’t know what God has called you to do.  I do know that for many of you, you’re also not quite ‘there’ yet.  You’re still in the time of waiting.  But faith begins to act like you’re there a bit before you are. It  stretches out; it gets trained and equipped; it looks stupid; it cries out to God for help; but it starts running…

Live in faith.  Then, when your feet hit the reality of what God has promised… you will be ready.

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 Things to think or journal about:

Come before God today and ask Him to remind you of things He has promised you.  The many beautiful promises of scripture, or promises He has spoken to you personally.  What would it look like if you were to live as though that promise is a reality?  Is there a small step you could take this week into living in the light of that promise? If there is, then take it!  Jump!