The Edge of the Abyss

One of the paintings in the Munch exhibition yesterday by which I was mesmerised was called 'Girls on the Bridge'. 

 

 

There are, in total, 12 different versions of this painting - it seems it was a theme and an idea to which he returned several times, each time capturing a slightly different aspect or angle of the subject.

 

Critics have formed different opinions and ideas about the painting and its meaning.  In particular, they have been mesmerised by the dark depths of the river swirling below the bridge and what it might represent.

 

Munch himself revealed some of the symbolism of the imagery in his paintings - especially the darkness - in the following quote:

"My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss."

Sometimes in life we can feel dangerously close to the edge of the abyss.  We can fear falling into the bottomless chasm and being unable to get out again.  We all go through periods where we feel 'down' and experience bouts of depression - some longer than others - and we just can't seem to lift ourselves out of our own pits.  We try to join the "swirling mainstream of life" but, like Munch, we feel lost in the chasm.  We question ourselves and our lives and our God.  And none of the answers we find seem to satisfy us.

 

When we are in these dark times, it is easy to feel that we won't ever find our way to the surface again.

 

We need someone else to rescue us - someone to reach down into the depths and pull us to the surface.

 

And this is exactly what God says He will do:

 

         "But me he caught—reached all the way

          from sky to sea; he pulled me out

          Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,

          the void in which I was drowning.

          They hit me when I was down,

          but God stuck by me.

          He stood me up on a wide-open field;

          I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!"

 

          [Psalm 18:16-18 MSG]

 

Whilst we may find ourselves at the edge of the chasm, we will never be lost there forever: as soon as we cry out to God, He will always reach down and rescue us and bring us to the surface.

 

 

 

True Colours

Today I have been to the Edvard Munch exhibition at Tate Modern.

It was completely fascinating.

Although most famous for his work "The Scream", this exhibition focused on his other work: paintings and sketches and photographs which considered the themes of loneliness and loss, and the view of the artist through his own eyes and those of others.

One of the most fascinating things was that in 1930 he suffered a haemorrhage in his right eye. Given that his left eye was already damaged, he was unable to paint for several months until his sight gradually returned to his right eye.

However, during this period of recovery, Munch still sketched and painted. He painted what he could see through the pain and through his suffering and there was an entire room dedicated to these works called "The Averted Eye."

These paintings ranged from colourful concentric circles to 'ordinary' images - him in bed, the view of the room around him - dominated and distorted by smudges and circles: he literally drew what he could see.

It seems that even though his work was affected, he continued painting and made the most of his situation. He had learnt to see potential in his problems, hope in the middle of his hurting.

You could say his haemorrhage revealed his true colours.

"His notes around this time suggest that he understood that the damage to his eye had enabled him to experience new visual sensations that would not otherwise have been available to him." 

[My guidebook]

We have the same choice: so often when we face setbacks, we stop working. We focus on the smudges and blurs in our vision and are unable to see past them. But if we are like Munch, we will learn to see the potential in our own problems and the scope in our setbacks.

Life won't always be easy; sometimes the worst things we could imagine will happen. But in those times we can decide whether to give up, or to persevere in spite of difficulties.

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way." 

[James 1:0, 2-4 MSG]

When troubles and trials come your way, trust in God and look for the potential. Let them reveal your true colours.

Forget Everything You Thought You Knew

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found the trailers for the Paralympic games on Channel 4 really inspiring over the last few days.

 

Images of people who have overcome huge adversity and have shown tremendous resilience and perseverance to compete in the games.

 

The 'tag lines' have really made me think too:

 

Forget everything you thought you knew about strength.

 

Forget everything you thought you knew about humans.

 

The suggestion is that, as the games unfold over the next 10 days, our thoughts about what strength really is and what it is possible for a human to achieve will be completely challenged and transformed.  Any preconceived ideas we may have had about what can be achieved will be blown away.

 

It's easy to form opinions and preconceptions and we all do it all of the time - we base our understanding of the world on our own ideas and our past experiences and our understanding of the world.

 

Even if sometimes we're wrong.

 

And we do it with God too.

 

I heard someone say recently about Jesus - Most people think Jesus was a nice guy in a nightie, walking around in sandals politely asking people if they wouldn't mind behaving a little bit better.

 

But that's not the Jesus we find in the Bible.

 

Jesus was passionate and compassionate.  He was giving and forgiving.  He reached out to the outsiders of society, the ones that no one else would touch or acknowledge and He healed them - both physically and emotionally.  He gave hope to the hopeless, direction to the lost, and significance to the meaningless.  Ultimately, He gave Himself for us*:

 

"He set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human.  It was an incredibly humbling process.  He didn't claim special privileges.  Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion."

[Philippians 2:6-8 MSG] 

 

What if the stereotypical image we have of Jesus, or His dad (old bloke, long beard, white nightie) is wrong?

 

What if we need to redefine and rethink our thinking?  What if we cast aside our preconceptions and our prejudices and discovered what Jesus is really like?  What if we collapsed the walls of our thinking and took God out of the boxes we have created in our own minds?

 

What might happen?

 

Forget everything you thought you knew about God.

 

 

* And all without mention of a nightie.

Digestives

Is there a more perfect biscuit than the humble digestive?

 

Sweet enough to dunk in your cup of tea (and better than some biscuits at holding its shape), yet salty enough to not make you feel sick after half a packet.*  Essential for any cheesecake base and delicious sandwiched together with chocolate spread.  Unassuming and humble, the digestive biscuit is both a British tradition and a household staple.**

 

Apparently the name 'digestive' came from the belief that these biscuits were good for your health and your digestion in particular.  Partially because of the sodium bicarbonate in the original recipe and its use to relieve indigestion, and partially because of the use of whole wheat flour, which is also good for digestion.

 

In the same way that digestives are good for our health, the Bible is good for our spiritual health and well being. 

 

But we shouldn't just read it - it was meant to be chewed over.  We are meant to meditate on it, to get the most out of it:

"Study this Book of Instruction [the Bible] continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it."

 

[Joshua 1:8 NLT] 

 

Meditating on the Bible is similar to chewing and digesting our food.  We chew it slowly, letting the different juices and flavours seep out.  And we keep on chewing and digesting throughout the day - reflecting on the different things that it reveals and working it out in our own lives - learning to follow and obey what it says.

We won't learn much if we treat the Bible like ice-cream: something that we swallow quickly and which dissolves on the way down, before we have had the chance to meditate on it. 

We need something to chew on.

"But don’t just listen to God’s word.  You must do what it says.  Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.  For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.  You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.  But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."

[James 1:22-25 NLT]

 

Digestives: good for our health.  Digesting God's Word: good for our spiritual health.

 

 

* Although I do strongly object to its accompaniment to the cheeseboard.  That's just wrong.

** And currently on offer in Sainsbury's.

Behind the Scenes

A rainy bank holiday seems to lend itself perfectly to a Downton Abbey marathon.  And that is exactly how I have spent today.

 

I'm always torn as to whether I would prefer to be 'upstairs' or 'downstairs': obviously upstairs get beautiful dresses and have a relatively easy life, but downstairs is full of intrigue.  Plus, I've always liked the idea of using servants' staircases and 'secret' passageways.

 

Watching it today, I was struck by how invisible some of the servants were - and had to be.  Their job was to serve the family without being seen. 

 

They worked behind the scenes.

 

Daisy, who usually works in the kitchens, is told off in one episode for still being above stairs lighting fires when the family are up - there is the fear that she might be seen.  The family, of course, know of her existence (after all, they hired her), but she is never meant to be seen by them.

 

It got me thinking about the way that we serve and our attitude towards it: sometimes we are quite the opposite of invisible.  If I have to get up early to set up stuff for church, I'm going to put it as my Facebook status - here at 8am!!!  If I'm the last one to leave because I'm packing everything away, I'm going to be sure to mention it in a conversation next week.  If I have to pay for something with my own money, I'll drop it into a conversation, by telling everyone that I "don't mind at all".

 

But is that really the servant heart that Jesus calls us to?

 

In the Sermon on the Mount, He said to His disciples -

"Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it.  It might be good theatre, but the God who made you won't be applauding.  When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure — 'playactors' I call them — treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds.  They get applause, true, but that's all they get.  When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks.  Just do it — quietly and unobtrusively.  That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.

 

[Matthew 6:1-4 MSG]

 

Jesus calls us to work behind the scenes, unobtrusively, quietly, humbly.  Serving others in the same way that He served us: without drawing attention to our efforts. God sees what we do in secret - behind the scenes - and He rewards us for it:

"Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

 

[Matthew 6:4 NIV] 

 

When it comes to serving, like Daisy, we should be invisible.  People should be able to see what we have done, but they don't need to know who has done it.  Our aim should be for people to see Jesus through our acts of service, not for them to see us.

"In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

 

[Matthew 5:16 NIV]

Storms and Tempests

Yesterday, I went to watch a production of The Tempest. 

 

It was quite fitting as we had had heavy thunder and rain all day.  In fact, I don't remember ever hearing thunder that loud before.  It sounded both like gunfire (although I'm not sure I've ever actually heard gunfire before, apart from on TV, so what I imagine gunfire sounds like), and someone hammering a sheet of metal.

 

It was noisy and powerful and overwhelming.  And once I got back to my flat, it was exciting.

 

But being caught in the middle of a storm - whether literal or emotional or spiritual - can be terrifying.  We feel out of control.  Powerless.  We are reminded of how small and vulnerable we are and it scares us.

 

The disciples experienced this powerlessness and fear:

"One day Jesus said to his disciples, 'Let's cross to the other side of the lake.'  So they got into a boat and started out.  As they sailed across, Jesus settled down for a nap.  But soon a fierce storm came down on the lake.  The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.

The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, 'Master, Master, we're going to drown!'  When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves.  Suddenly the storm stopped and all was calm.  Then he asked them, 'Where is your faith?'"

[Luke 8:22-24 NLT]

 

When we face storms in our own lives, it can often feel like God is taking a nap.  We wonder how He can be sleeping through it all.  We listen for His voice and look for His fingerprints on the situation and are met with silence. 

 

I listened to someone talk on this passage recently who said, "Like the disciples, we want to shake Jesus awake and say, 'Don't you know what I'm going through?  Don't you care?'" 

 

Don't you care, God?

 

Yes. 

 

Our God cares.

 

The God we cry out to in our storms is the same God to whom the disciples cried out on the lake.  He cares as much about our storms and tempests and trials and troubles as He did about those of the disciples.  And He is longing to calm them for us.

 

Often, in my experience, I have noticed that He will calm us and give us His perfect peace [Philippians 4:8], rather than getting rid of the storm itself.  He enables us to endure the situation - we can weather the storm.

 

In his song, 'You Never Let Go', Matt Redman writes -

 

Even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life

I won't turn back, I know you are near.

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

 

When the storms come, we can ask ourselves, as Jesus asked the disciples - Where is your faith?  Is it in the changeable, stormy circumstances?  Or is it in the One who can quieten and calm the storms with His voice?

What's the Catch?

I've been shopping today for the first time in a while and I was amazed by how many sales and 'offers' there were around.

 

£20 off when you spend £100.  Come in to claim your free gift worth £15.  Buy two, get one free.

 

Offers which, on the surface, seem good. 

 

But there is always a catch.

 

I have to spend £100 to get £20 off.  I have to purchase several items and sign up to monthly emails to get a 'free' gift.  I have to buy two of something (which I might not even need or want), in order to get a third (again, which I might neither need nor want), for 'free'.

 

'Free' doesn't really mean 'free' anymore, does it?

 

There is always a catch.

 

Is that why we struggle to accept Jesus' words and promises?  Eternal life, forgiveness for all of the things we've done wrong, and a restoration of our relationship with our heavenly Father.  For free?

 

Is there a catch?

 

Yes. 

 

But not for us. 

 

Jesus has already paid the price to secure these things for us.  He laid down His perfect, flawless life as a sacrifice, or an exchange, for us.  He, quite literally, paid the cost on our behalf, so that we can enjoy the freedom that that brings.  We can have eternal life, we can receive forgiveness for the things that we've done wrong and our relationship with our heavenly Father can be restored.

 

Because Jesus paid the price.

"God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ."

[2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT]

 

In the examples from my shopping experience: Jesus has paid the £100, I just get to use the £20 off.  He has purchased several items and signed up for the emails; I get the free gift.  He has bought two items and given me the third for free.

 

It is free only because Jesus has paid the cost.  We get all of the benefits without having to pay any of the costs.

 

Is there a catch?  Yes.  But Jesus has already paid it for us.

Connected

Last night I found myself watching 'About A Boy' on TV. 

 

I haven't seen it in years and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.  Not least because I am a bit of a Hugh Grant fan. 

 

The film primarily follows the lives of Will - a 38 year old single man who has never worked a day in his life - and Marcus - a teenage boy who lives with his depressed mother and struggles to fit in at school.  This unlikely pair find their lives overlapping and discover that they have a lot to learn from each other.

 

At the beginning of the film, Will explains how he sees himself and his life:

 

In my opinion, all men are islands.  And what's more, now's the time to be one.  This is an island age.  A hundred years ago, you had to depend on other people.  No one had TV or CDs or DVDs or videos or home espresso makers.  Actually, they didn't have anything cool.  Whereas now, you see, you can make yourself a little island paradise.  With the right supplies and the right attitude, you can be sun-drenched, tropical [...] And I like to think that perhaps I am that kind of island.  I like to think I'm pretty cool.  I like to think I'm Ibiza.

 

This is an island age.

 

Isn't that the message we receive from the world?  We don't need other people for our happiness.  We can satisfy ourselves.  We can please ourselves.  We can fill our lives with things and experiences and technologies.  We can surround ourselves with people without ever having to really connect with anyone.  We don't have to risk being vulnerable or inconvenienced or uncomfortable.

 

But that's a lie.

 

We all need connection.  The grand narrative of the Bible is a story of people disconnected from God and from each other, seeking reconnection in a whole variety of ways.

 

In his book 'Sex God', Rob Bell writes,

The story [of the Bible] begins with humans in right relationship - in healthy, life-giving connection - with their maker.  All of their other relationships flow from the health of this one central relationship - people and God.  They're connected with the earth, with each other [...] Then everything goes south.  They choose another way.  And they become disconnected [...] We're severed and cut off and disconnected in a thousand ways, and we know it, and we feel it, we're aware of it every day.  It's an ache in our bones which won't go away.

 

Like Will, we can deny this "ache in our bones", this need for other people.  We can live separate lives and never let people get too close.  But we won't really be living.  Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all connected.  We affect other people and are affected by other people.  The Bible says,

"We are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around [...] Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we?"

[Romans 12:4-5 MSG]

By ourselves, we don't amount to much.  We need other people.

 

By the end of the film, Will's attitude has changed: 

Every man is an island.  And I stand by that.  But clearly, some men are part of island chains.  Below the surface of the ocean they're actually connected.

 

We are all actually connected. And that is where we find our meaning.

 

 

Pregnant

No, this is not an announcement.

 

I'm not pregnant, but I know a lot of people who are.  I seem to have reached that age where I am surrounded by families who are expecting.

 

And it's got me thinking about 'expecting' in general. 

 

Whilst it's good to look forward to things and to be expectant, sometimes we can end up looking forward to them so much that we forget to live in the moment.  We set up markers in our lives and eagerly anticipate them, imagining that our lives will be so much better when they arrive. 

 

When I graduate, when I get a job, when I get a better job, when I get a promotion, when I have more money, when I buy a house, when I find 'someone special', when I get engaged, when I get married, when I have children ...

 

The problem is, if we're always looking to the next marker, we don't live a full life right now.  We look to the things on the horizon and miss the things at our feet.

 

It's a bit like waiting for something you've ordered to be delivered.  You're told it will arrive between 12 and 6, so you wait in to make sure you don't miss it.  Every time the doorbell goes, you think it will be the delivery; every time a car or van slows down outside, you rush to the window.  You don't want to start anything or settle down to any job or task, because your mind is elsewhere.

 

And of course the delivery never arrives before 6.

 

And so we waste the whole day.  Never fully committing to anything else, never really starting or getting stuck in.

 

But Jesus says that He came to give us a full life, and not just when we die - a full life now:

"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

 

[John 10:10 MSG]

Jesus doesn't want us to wait for something significant to happen before we start embracing this full life.  He wants us to enter into it now.  We can wait for the markers in our lives to arrive, but we can wait actively, preparing ourselves and making the most of the time.  Waiting is essential for growing us and developing us and disciplining us and teaching us.  It is as essential for us as it is for a pregnant mother waiting for her baby to develop.

 

Paul says in Romans, 

"That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy."

 

[Romans 8:25 MSG] 

 

The time we spend waiting is only wasted time if we waste it. 

Deep Clean

I am now back home after six days at Momentum.  And I am clean.  Properly, deeply, glowingly clean.  I have had the longest shower and have scrubbed and lathered and rinsed away all of the mud and dirt.   I have detoxed and I have deep-conditioned.

I am clean.

This morning, knowing that I would have a proper shower when I got back home, I made do with a liberal application of perfume.   Whilst it worked as a temporary fix, I didn't feel properly clean.  My fingernails were muddy from taking down the tent, my hair was  frizzy from the damp and my clothes were creased and crumpled.  The perfume made me feel cleaner, but not properly clean.  

It was a short term fix, but it wasn't a deep clean. 

Sometimes we do the same in life: we are more concerned with sorting out the superficial.  We spray perfume on the situation, rather than giving things a deep clean. 

Jesus spoke of something similar when He criticised the Pharisees for only caring about the appearance of things, for only focusing on the surface:

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees.  Hypocrites!  For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence!  You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too [...] you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.  Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness."

[Matthew 23:25-28 NLT]

 

It is always much easier and less time-consuming or costly to fix the outside of a problem, to give the appearance of having resolved it.  It is always easier to say the right things and pray the 'right' things, to spray perfume instead of washing the inside - cleaning our hearts.  We don't have to make ourselves vulnerable, we don't have to put in much effort and we don't have to face discomfort.

But we are not really clean.

And whilst other people might believe we have really resolved the problem, whilst we ourselves might believe it, God always looks at our hearts.

"The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 

[1 Samuel 16:7 NLT] 

 

It is more costly and time-consuming and uncomfortable, but cleaning the inside - resolving the heart of the matter - is always worth it. 

Please Take Off Your Shoes

There is a sign in the prayer room at Momentum asking people to take off their shoes or wellies as they come in. Given the heavy rains and muddy ground, and the fact that people are sitting on the floor in here, it is understandable.

But it got me thinking about Moses' encounter with God. And about Moses' shoes. Moses sees the burning bush and is stopped in his tracks. Then God speaks to him:

"God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, 'Moses! Moses!'

He said, 'Yes? I'm right here!' God said, 'Don't come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You're standing on holy ground.'

[Exodus 3:4-5 MSG]

Remove your sandals from your feet.

You're standing on holy ground.

I've never really stopped to wonder why God told Moses to take off his shoes. And what that had to do with holiness.

According to Matthew Henry's commentary, it was a sign of respect. In the same way that we might "doff our hats".

But no one really wears hats anymore - let alone doffing them - do they?

In a society which doesn't know how to respect its elders, or itself, or its own bodies, how do we understand what it means to show respect for God? And why does it matter?

Taking off our shoes is vulnerable: not many of us like our feet. Depending on the ground, it can be painful. If our feet are not that fresh, it can be humiliating. Sometimes our shoes denote our profession, and so removing them is a reminder that we come before God as people, not professionals.

Removing our shoes as we come to pray reminds us that God is God and we are human: we are vulnerable and broken people meeting with a holy God.

We don't have to physically remove our shoes every time we pray (and it wouldn't always be practical), but it is a good reminder for us as to the attitude of our hearts. When we pray, we make ourselves vulnerable and strip away our earthly labels. We realise we have nothing to bring and we encounter the Holy God. And, by His grace, we are not consumed.

Old and New

One of the things that has made camping at Momentum much more bearable is the fact that I know someone with a shower.

A proper shower.

A warm shower, behind a door that locks, for which there is never a queue or a feeling of having to rush so the next person can use it. At Momentum, there is little more one could ask for in a shower.

And so every day I have managed to fit in a shower at some point and have been so grateful to scrub the mud from my body and to feel clean again.

However, after every shower, I have had to walk back to my own tent and, to do that, I have had to put my dirty clothes back on. They're not that dirty, but they're the clothes I had on before I had a shower.

Whilst I'm clean, it doesn't make sense to put old, unclean clothes on.

But how often do we do that as Christians? We have been made clean and have been offered new 'clothes', but we put on the 'clothes' of the old life again.

"You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it ... So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

[Colossians 3:9-14 MSG]

We have been washed and made clean by Jesus' blood, yet we often return to our old clothes: our old patterns of life, our old thoughts, our old addictions. But that's wrong. God has cleaned us up and has given us a new wardrobe. Let's wear it. Our old clothes have no use anymore.

So whilst I need mine to get back to my tent, in a spiritual sense, our old clothes are redundant.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

[2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV]

Afterthought

One of the things I have loved about camping is being able to see so many stars every night.

There is no light pollution in the middle of the campsite and the sky seems to stretch out endlessly.

I love looking up at the sky and waiting as my eyes adjust and more stars appear one by one by one. Until the whole sky is littered with silver sequins and I realise just how small I am and how huge God is.

And what I can see doesn't even begin to encompass all of God's creation. It doesn't even begin to reflect the hugeness of the Creator.

In the creation story in Genesis, it describes how God created the sun, the moon and the stars:

"Then God said, 'Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.' And that is what happened. God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars."

[Genesis 1:14-16 NLT]

I love the last sentence. Five words. It is almost an afterthought, a post-script. No hype. No exaggeration. No embellishment.

He also made the stars.

God doesn't need our exaggeration or embellishment. We don't have to hype Him up. He is awesome. Without our help.

Sometimes, by exaggerating what God is like in human terms, we actually distort our view of Him. We think we have understood Him better but, really, we have made Him into something we can contain and control and comprehend.

But that is not who or what God is. He is incomprehensible. And we need only look at the stars to be reminded of His greatness and His magnitude.

Camping

I don't really mind camping.

I'm not a 'hard-core' proper camper: I have an air bed and have just been in search of a socket to plug in my hair straighteners (camping and curly hair is not a good combination). But I do quite enjoy a couple of nights in the outdoors.

I like the fresh air and the fact that you can see the stars and the fact that life slows down a for a little bit.

However, I think that I like these things most because I know that I am only camping for a few days.

If it became a lifestyle, if I knew I had to live in a tent for the test of my life, I think the novelty would soon wear off and I would get tired of it.

I'd find the space confining and restricting; I'd get annoyed that I can't stand up properly; I'd find it irritating that I couldn't always have a hot shower. My air bed would soon deflate and so would my enthusiasm.

The Bible says that it's the same with our earthly bodies: the physical bodies that we have here on earth are like tents: they are temporary and a poor reflection of the heavenly and eternal and glorious body that we will have after death:

"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh."

[Corinthians 5:1,2,4 NLT]

Our earthly bodies are 'tents' which are fine for our time here and the work that God gives us to do. However, they are flimsy and sometimes uncomfortable, and that reminds us that they are not our permanent homes. We have an eternal and permanent house to look forward to.

I love this translation from the same passage in 2 Corinthians:

"He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less...Cramped conditions here don't get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead."

[2 Corinthians 5:5-6 MSG]

So, in the same way that at the end of the week I'll be glad to get back to my more substantial flat, when I am frustrated with my earthly body, I can take comfort that it is not my permanent residence.

Roundabouts and Road Maps

This afternoon I made my way down to the Royal Bath and West Showground to spend the next five days at Momentum.

Although I have made the journey about 10 times before, I can never fully picture the route. I forget how many roundabouts there are and whether I turn right or left at them.

However, I have come to stop worrying about making the right turning or knowing my whole route in advance. Every time I came to a junction or a roundabout, I found that I instinctively knew the way and remembered it from the past.

I wish that I had the same faith and confidence in my journey with God.

Instead, I often find myself longing to know the whole route before I've even taken the first step. I want to know in advance how many 'roundabouts' I'll encounter and how many junctions there are. I want to have warning of any roadworks or delays.

I don't like not knowing.

But I am realising slowly that maybe I don't need to know everything in advance. Maybe all I need to know is the One who is leading me and guiding me.

God says in Isaiah,

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'"

[Isaiah 30:21 NIV]

I don't need to know the route in advance. I don't need a road map which depicts my entire journey. I just need to know the One who knows. And the more I get to know Him, the more easily I will recognise His voice.

And, when the time comes, I will know whether to turn to the right or to the left.

4 Degrees

I heard on the radio the other day that with the advent of Facebook and Twitter and other social media, there are now only 4 degrees of separation between everyone on the planet.

4 degrees.

I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows me.*

But what does it really mean to 'know' someone?  Is it enough to simply know their name?  And does that really make us 'friends'? 

In his book "The Best Idea in the World", Mark Greene writes,

"We are globally wired, but relationally disconnected, touched a million times a day but rarely embraced."

The internet and modern mobile phone technology have changed the face of our relationships: we send texts and emails instead of talking on the phone or meeting face to face; we communicate with people through 140 characters or less instead of engaging in extended conversations; we ‘follow’ people, whether they want us to or not (which, in 'real life' would perhaps be classed as stalking ...).  On Facebook, we can 'become' friends with someone instantly: we meet them at a party or at church or through a friend of a friend and that same day we become 'friends'.

We are in danger of reducing the meaning and value of friendship.  People become commodities to acquire rather than valuable image-bearers of God to love and to serve.**

Jesus set the example for our friendships by modelling the kind of love He wanted us to have for each other:

This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you.  This is the very best way to love.  Put your life on the line for your friends.  You are my friends when you do the things I command you.  I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father."

[John 15:12-15 MSG emphasis mine]

In stark contrast to a society which collects 'friends' like Pokémon, Jesus calls us to genuine, deep spirited friendship.  The kind of friendship which spends time getting to know someone, which values their individuality and loves them.  A friendship which wants the best for them, even at the expense of ourselves.  A friendship which is modelled on Christ's self-sacrificial love for us.

In Philippians, Paul writes,

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favour: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.  Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top.  Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.  Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage.  Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

        [Philippians 2:1-4 MSG] 

If Facebook had a 'Friend Clause' - by clicking 'Add Friend' you are committing to put yourself aside and put this person first - I wonder how many 'Friends' I would have.  And how many I would add.

* I may well have missed out a link here; maths is not my strong point.

** Don't get me wrong: I use both Facebook and Twitter daily and am not criticising them in and of themselves; I think they are brilliant tools for staying in touch with people.  However, I think there is a tendency to mistake online communications for real connections, which leaves both us and others dissatisfied.