Outrageous Grace

Grace.

 

My first thoughts when I hear the word grace are of forgiveness and second chances and 'how sweet the sound'.  But they're quiet, unassuming, gentle ideas.  'Grace' conjures up someone who is just too nice, someone who is slow to anger and quick to forgive.

 

It is a sanitised, domesticated, safe word.

 

But it is not what God means by 'grace'.

 

Yes, God is slow to anger, quick to forgive and quick to love.  But His grace is also outrageous.  It is offensive and provocative and unbelievable.

 

It doesn't make sense.  It doesn't add up.  It isn't fair.

 

Those who are 'good' are no more entitled to it than those who are worse than the worst.  It has nothing to do with us and everything to with Jesus.  It is free for those who want it.  It is available to Christians, Atheists, 'good' people, charity workers, those in need of charity, the homeless, teachers, the uneducated, doctors, the sick, lawyers, law-breakers, children, adults, men, women.  It is available to all who want it.

 

It can't be bought, it can't be fathomed, it can't be exhausted.

 

I love this verse in Romans which describes it:

"Sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace.  When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.  All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it.  Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."

 

[Romans 5:20-21 MSG]

 

The aggressive forgiveness we call grace.

 

Grace is not gentle, or softly-spoken.  It does not tiptoe around the edge of awkward situations.  It does not turn its back on our sin.

 

Instead, it plunges into our chaotic, sinful mess and invites us into life - deep, fulfilled, whole, true, eternal life.

 

Perhaps instead of singing John Newton's famous hymn, we should sing,

 

Outrageous grace

How fierce the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

 

 

The Problems With Being Over-Prepared

I like to be organised.

 

I don't mean just a little bit organised, I mean completely, utterly, totally organised.  I like to be prepared for a range of events; I like to anticipate alternative outcomes and I like to feel that I would know how to react or respond to each of them.

 

To this end, I am often thinking about the future - I will run through things in my mind which could occur tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even several years from now.

 

I like to be prepared.

 

But sometimes this obsession with the future leads me to forget about what's going on right here, right now.  I end up thinking so much about what might happen, that I forget to live in what is happening.  I worry too much about tomorrow that I forget to enjoy today.

 

Jesus warns against this fretting about the future in his sermon on the mount.  I love the beauty of this verse -

"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.  God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes."

 

[Matthew 6:34 MSG]

 

The thing about tomorrow is that we have no idea what it will hold.  And I can imagine a thousand different possibilities, but I won't know if I am right until they do - or don't - happen.

 

There is no point me fretting and worrying and 'preparing', and wasting time doing all of these things, when I don't know if the things I am preparing for will actually come to pass.

 

Instead, I want to learn to give my entire attention to God right now - to live in today and to entrust tomorrow to Him.

 

 

 

 

Here I Am To Worship

We've been talking this evening at worship: what worship is, what it means to worship, how we worship.

 

Taken from the Old English 'weorthscipe' meaning worthiness, worship means to acknowledge the worth of. 

 

When we worship God, we are acknowledging who He is and, therefore, are acknowledging His worthiness.

 

But worship isn't something we do for half an hour in church on Sundays.  Or during the week when we listen to a 'worship' CD.  It's not even really about singing.

 

Yes, singing is a large and significant part of worship, but true worship is about living a life which acknowledges God's worthiness in all areas.

 

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well:

"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God.  Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.  That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.  God is sheer being itself - Spirit.  Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

 

[John 4:24 MSG]

 

 

I love that line - those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. 

I love it and I am deeply challenged by it.  I'm not sure that I've very comfortable simply and honestly being myself: I'm not sure I feel enough.  Sometimes I like to dress myself up in different layers of disguise.  I'm not even sure I know what it means to be simply and honestly myself.

But I want to start to find out.

I want to say, as Tim Hughes sang, "Here I am to worship."

No pretense, no disguise, no distraction.  Not just here I am for 20 minutes.  But every day, every moment - here I am to worship.


 

 

 

 

The Writing's On The Wall

I spent ages this afternoon at work redoing some wall displays.  I do find a bit of staple-gunning quite therapeutic...

 

However, today I had a marvellous brain-wave and I'm not sure why it has never occurred earlier.  Instead of stapling everything to the backing paper - key information, titles etc., I put the backing paper up and then simply wrote onto it.  No faffing about printing titles to go on the display.  No extra waste of paper.  No waste of time.

 

My wall suddenly transformed itself into a giant (pink) 'whiteboard'. 

 

It made the job so much faster.

 

In the book of Daniel in the Bible, he describes writing on the wall.  Except it's not his writing, and it's not a display at work.  It is God's hand writing a warning to the King at the time, Belshazzar.

 

The message is that Belshazzar has been 'weighed' and has been found to be wanting.  He doesn't measure up.

 

If God were to 'weigh' us, too, we could expect a similar message: none of us 'measure up' on His scales.  But the good news is that we don't have to.  If we trust in Jesus, when God 'weighs' us, He weighs Jesus instead.

"But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."

 

[Romans 3:21-26 NIV]

 

We have all been found wanting.  There is no one righteous, all fall short.  But through the grace of God poured out for us in Jesus, we find ourselves measuring up.

 

For us, the writing on the wall is a reminder that whilst, by our own merits we are absolutely lacking, through Christ, we are enough.  We measure up.

 

 

 

Single-Tasking

I am the Queen of multi-tasking.

 

And I take great pride in my ability to juggle several things at once.

 

I am nearly always doing at least two or three things at once.  And even when I am doing just one thing, my mind is always elsewhere.

 

I am always busy, always thinking about different things, always focused on several ideas.

 

I hardly ever switch off.

 

And I am exhausted.

 

So I want to learn how to stop.  I want to learn how to slow down.  I want to focus on just one thing at a time.  I want to learn how to still my heart and my mind and my soul.

 

I want to become a competent single-tasker.

 

"Be still and know that I am God."

[Psalm 46:10 NIV]

 

Without moving or doing or thinking, I want to learn what it means to know that God is God.

 

There is definitely a time for multi-tasking and there are definitely things in my life which require this skill.  But my relationship with God is not one of them.

 

I don't want to pray or read the Bible with my mind elsewhere, with my heart elsewhere. I want to learn how to be a fully committed single-tasker. 

 

I imagine it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and frustrating at first, as I am so used to multi-tasking. 

 

But it will be worth it, if it means that I really do know that God is God.

 

 

Spring Cleaning

I always get the urge to spring clean at inconvenient moments: 10 minutes before I need to leave the house in the morning, or just before I leave work.  Sometimes the mood takes me just before bed.  Whenever it hits, I feel almost compelled to clean and tidy and sort right then.

 

There is no stopping me.

 

However, I can rarely conjure up this same spirit of ruthless sorting, organising and tidying when I want to.  I'm still able to sort and tidy, but not with the same gusto as when these spring cleaning moments occur.

 

Today was such a day.

 

I was just about to leave work when I was overcome with a desire to sort out all of the miscellaneous paper work which has been accumulating around my desk.

 

I felt so much better post-tidy.  I could see my desk again, things were organised and I felt that order had been restored to my world.

 

Sometimes I feel like I need a thorough 'spring clean' in my heart and in my mind, too.  I need to sort through all of the miscellaneous paperwork which has accumulated - the thoughts and beliefs, the doubts and disappointments and dreams - and I need to tidy them up.  Some need to be kept for the future and stored away.  Some should be thrown away and some can be recycled and made into something new.

 

I love this passage in Isaiah which describes this spring-cleaning process, this starting again -

 

"They'll rebuild the old ruins, raise a new city out of the wreckage.  They'll start over on the ruined cities, take the rubble left behind and make it new."

 

[Isaiah 61:5 MSG]

 

As it seems that Spring is perhaps finally arriving and as I start to spring-clean the places in my life, I want to spend some time spring-cleaning the places in my heart as well. 

 

 

 

I Like Myself The Way I Am

I was feeling a bit blue this afternoon about one thing and another and I happened to catch the end of the film 'Penelope'. 

 

I remember watching it at some point in the past, but I couldn't remember the whole storyline.

 

Penelope is a girl born with a curse - she has the nose of a pig.  And because of that, she is rejected by everyone apart from her parents and is forced to live at home, never leaving the house.

 

She misses out on so many things, because she is concerned by what people think of her and by the unkind things that they say to her.

 

Naturally, she is self-conscious and insecure.  She doesn't really love herself.

 

It is not until the end of the film that she realises that the one person's opinion that influences and affects her self-esteem is her own.

 

I love this line at the end of the film when she realises this - "I like myself the way I am."

 

It is such a powerful moment.

 

I don't always believe this about myself.  There are lots of things that I would like to change about myself, but I want to start saying this over myself.

 

I want to speak God's words over myself:

 

“You are my Son [daughter], chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”

 

[Luke 3:22 MSG]

 

I love these words in the chorus of 'Beautiful' by Mercyme -

 

       You're beautiful

       You're beautiful

       You are made for so much more than all of this

       You're beautiful

       You're beautiful

       You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His

       You're beautiful

 

 

The Hurt And The Healing

This evening I have been to watch a contemporary dance performance which considered the themes of loss and reconstruction following loss.

 

It was a fascinating portrayal of how loneliness can feel and how other people are essential in carrying us through times of bereavement and in helping us to restructure our lives.

 

There were six dancers in the piece and each one of them, at one point in the performance, was the 'odd one out' - the one by themselves.  The one dancing alone.  The one who was experiencing loss of some kind.

 

They each had a moment of dancing solo.

 

But then the other five would come and gather around them and physically support and strengthen them.  They would dance alongside them and lift and carry them.

 

It was a beautiful image.

 

And it was another wonderful picture of what God imagines the church to be like.

 

Paul writes,

 

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t.  If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing.  If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance."

 

[1 Corinthians 12:25-26 MSG]

 

I love that line: every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. 

 

In the same way that the dancers in tonight's performance were all involved in each other's hurt and healing, this is what God envisions and longs for in His church.

 

 

 

 

Everyone Has A Part To Play

Two nights ago I went to a concert performed by the Philharmonic orchestra.  It was completely wonderful.

 

We were really close to the musicians and I loved watching all of them following their music and working together to create a beautiful harmony.

 

It was really interesting to focus on one group of musicians at a time and to watch them closely: they would often sit still for minutes at a time with no notes to play.  But they still followed the music, waiting for their parts and they were as much a part of the performance as anyone else.

 

I found this particularly fascinating with the triangle player ('Triangulist'?).  He sat through the first two movements of the symphony without moving or playing a single note.  But as the third movement began, he started to play.  I loved seeing how he felt just as much a part of the performance as did the rest of the musicians.  He was engaged with what was going on and was proud of his part.

 

Everyone had a part to play.

 

If they had all played the same thing at the same time, the music would certainly have been loud, but it would also have been dull.  It was the harmonising, overlapping, complementary sounds which enriched the performance.

 

In the same way, the church is like this.  Everyone has their own part to play, their own role to fulfil.  Sometimes this can mean being in the limelight; at other times it will mean sitting quietly and watching someone else playing their part.  Sometimes we will be the soloist, the centre of attention, at other times our role will be to support.

 

Paul's description of the church like a body is useful for us here,

"A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge.  It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together.  If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so?  If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body?  If the body was all eye, how could it hear?  If all ear, how could it smell?  As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.  But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance.  For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of.  An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster.  What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place.  No part is important on its own."

 

[1 Corinthians 12:14-20 MSG]

 

No matter what our strengths and weaknesses, we all have a part to play.  No part is important on its own.

 

 

Many Hands Make Light Work

I have been absolutely fascinated watching the builders across the road from me today. 

I have quite literally stopped what I've been doing for 20 minutes at a time to observe their progress.  The flats have shot up - even since yesterday - and I am amazed at the pace of their work.

I noticed today how all of them have their own, individual jobs to complete which fit into the bigger, overarching job.  Some of them were moving bricks with machines.  Some were carefully spreading cement and laying bricks and checking they were level.  Some were filling in the gaps between the outer and inner walls with insulation.  Some were moving and rebuilding the scaffolding surrounding the site.

All of them had their own job to do and all of them were working diligently.

Many hands make light work.

I think it is probably no coincidence that I was listening to 'Build Your Kingdom Here' by Rend Collective when I first paused to watch the builders earlier (listen to it here -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcSWpVKKMcs).

The words of the chorus are -  
 

"Build Your kingdom here
Let the darkness fear
Show Your mighty hand
Heal our streets and land
Set Your church on fire
Win this nation back
Change the atmosphere
Build Your kingdom here
We pray."
 

As I watched the builders today and listened to this song, I was struck by how it offered a beautiful picture of the church: everyone working together on different jobs, to build God's Kingdom on earth. 

We often pray the words of the Lord's Prayer - "Your Kingdom come", but we don't often acknowledge our role in bringing - or building - this Kingdom.

God has a part and a purpose for each of us.  No matter who we are, or how we got here, we all have a role to play in the building of His Kingdom.

"God is building a home.  He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building.  He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together.  We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home."

[Ephesians 2:20-22 MSG]
 

Many hands make light work.

Vantage Point

From my first-floor flat, I have a brilliant view into the construction site just across the road from me.

 

I noticed earlier that, because of all of the boards surrounding the site, it is virtually impossible to see anything from ground level.  So, whilst someone walking or driving past would only be able to see the very tops of the scaffolding poles, I have a perfect view of everything that is going on.

 

I have watched the ground being dug up.  I have watched the foundations being established.  I have seen the huge breeze blocks being laid and built up.  I have watched the piping going in.  I have watched the insulation being added, before the outer bricks were layered up.

 

I have watched it all.

 

In the same way, I think that when God is working in our hearts, He has this same vantage point: He can see over the 'walls' and watches every little change and development that is going.

 

But sometimes we - and others - can't see past the walls.  We don't have the bird's eye view that God does.

 

So we have to trust that He is doing what He says He will do.

 

We have to trust Paul's words to the church in Thessalonica:

"The One who called you is completely dependable.  If he said it, he’ll do it!"

 

[1 Thessalonians 5:24 MSG]

 

We might not always be able to see what is going on, in the restoration work of our hearts, but we can always trust the One who is overseeing that work.

 

 

 

 

Loving At All Is A Risk

I had the TV on in the background today whilst I was doing some ironing.  I'm not sure what was on - if it was an advert, a trailer, or part of a programme - but I heard the following line, which has been stuck in my mind ever since:

 

"Loving at all is a risk."

 

Love is a risk.

 

C. S. Lewis famously wrote,

 

"To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

 

Last week, I watched a bit of the second Pirates of the Caribbean film.  The 'baddie' in the film is Davey Jones: a man who had his heart broken once and, to avoid further pain, removed it and locked it away in a chest.  He carries the key to the chest about his person at all times, to prevent it ever being touched, or hurt, or broken again.

 

I know there have been times when I have felt like doing the same (obviously metaphorically, not literally).  I have been tempted to shut down my heart, to close for business, to put up a 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' sign.  I have been tempted to shut down and shut the world out.

 

But whilst shutting our hearts down like this will certainly minimise pain, it will also numb all emotion.  We will be safe from harm, but we will also be cut off from true love, real friendship, genuine happiness.  We will miss out on all of the good things that life has to offer.

 

Love is a risk.

 

And we see the ultimate risk-taking love when we look to the cross.  There we see a naked, beaten, vulnerable man bearing His soul to show us His love.

 

Even with no guarantee of the return of our love or affection, God loved us.

 

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

[Romans 5:8 NIV]

 

God showed His love for us.  Powerfully, passionately, personally. 

 

Loving at all is a risk.  But it is worth it.

 

 

Watch What You Say

I talk to myself.  A lot.

 

I talk all the time about all sorts of things.  When I'm driving, when I'm cooking, when I'm cleaning etc.  I'll have conversations about all sorts of things: reviewing things that have happened during the day.  Imagining alternative things that could have happened.  Inventing conversations with other people.

 

Most of the things I say to myself are irrelevant and unimportant. But sometimes I catch myself telling myself how stupid I am, or how I'm not good enough.  Sometimes I hear myself talking negatively and I haven't even noticed myself doing it.

 

And it always seems that the negative things stick.

 

As Vivian says in 'Pretty Woman' -

"The bad stuff is easier to believe.  You ever notice that?"

 

But the Bible tells us how important the words that we use are -

 

          "Words kill, words give life;
          they’re either poison or fruit—you choose."

 

          [Proverbs 18:21 MSG]

 

 

The words that we speak are like seeds which grow either into flowers or weeds.  What we say affects what we believe and how we treat others and ourselves.  If we are always speaking negatively to and about ourselves, we will find ourselves believing these things.

 

The bad stuff is easier to believe.  The good stuff is harder, much harder to believe.  But is also essential.

 

And it is essential that we speak the good stuff about ourselves, until we believe it.

 

 

 

 

Feel The Fear

I often find that, when our ears and eyes are open, God speaks in the most remarkable and unexpected ways.

 

I have been worrying and feeling anxious and fearful about something all week.  And then, today, I read this.  Despite the grammatical error, it spoke to me. 

"I put fear away and done it anyway."

 

Fear.

 

It grips us and strangles us and chokes the life from us.

 

But it doesn't have to.

 

Fear is a choice.  We can't decide whether or not we will feel fear.  But we can choose whether or not we let ourselves become paralysed by it.

 

God promises,

 

 

           "There’s no need to fear for I’m your God.
           I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you.
           I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you."

 

           [Isaiah 41:10 MSG]

 

 

With God on our side, we don't need to succumb to fear.  He will give us strength and will keep a firm grip on us.  He will keep us steady.  He will hold our hands as we walk through the fear.

 

We can choose to feel the fear, but not be stopped by it.

 

With His help, we can choose to say, 'I put fear away and done it anyway'.

 

 

 

 

Too Many Clothes

The rail in my wardrobe has broken.

 

I heard an unidentifiable crash a few evenings ago and now have a clothes rail which is hanging at an acute angle.  I have tried to screw it back in place, but I think I need some heavy duty toolmanship to properly sort the problem.

 

Of course, it would be easy to assume I have too many clothes and therefore ought to sort through them and decrease my wardrobe.

 

However, I hope instead to find someone with an electric drill who can help to re-establish the rail and restore harmony to my wardrobe.

 

Sometimes in life, I have too much in my wardrobe, too.  I am trying to carry too many things, or deal with too many things, and the 'rails' bend and break from the strain.

 

But Jesus tells us that we don't need to carry a heavy load.  In fact, if we follow Him, we have an easy load to bear:

"Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

 

[Matthew 11:28-30 NLT] 

 

And in another translation,

 

"I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

 

[Matthew 11:30 MSG]

 

Often, we try to cram too much into our 'wardrobes'.  We hold onto things that no longer fit or suit us.  We can't bear to part with our old outfits.  And we do it because it feels safe and comfortable.  We would rather have too much and feel secure, than have an empty wardrobe and wonder who we are.

 

But we weren't made to carry a heavy burden.  We were made for a light load.  And when we try to carry or hold too much, we end up with broken rails.

 

I want to learn to accept Jesus' words and live freely and lightly in a spiritual sense.  But I think I'll keep the clothes.

 

 

 

 

Why I Struggle With 'Holiness'

When I hear the word 'holy' in relation to a person, I think dull, boring, judgemental, critical, holier-than-thou.  I  don't imagine I will have anything in common with them and I don't really want to get to know them.

 

When I hear the word 'holy' in relation to God, I think distant, separate, untouchable, wouldn't understand.  I picture the holiness of God as something that I would be scared to approach, for fear of my own undeniable and inherent unholiness.  Even though I know the Bible says we can approach God's throne boldly through Jesus, the idea of God's holiness still makes me feel uncomfortable.

 

But when I hear holiness like this, my thoughts change:

 

"Holiness is the most attractive quality, the most intense experience we ever get of sheer life - authentic, first-hand living, not life looked at and lived from a distance ... Holiness is a furnace that transforms the men and women who enter it.

 

Wow.

 

 

This view of holiness is interesting, beautiful, attractive, life-giving, transforming, inviting.

 

And this is what Jesus offers.  Holiness, a whole-life.  Aren't they the same thing?  Holiness is a full life, a real life, an exciting life, a transformed life.  And it is a life that is possible through Jesus.

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

 

[John 10:10 MSG] 

 

This is the view of holiness I want. This is the kind of holiness I want in my life.

Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

Forrest Gump once said, Life is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you're going to get.

 

I have been working my way through a box of chocolates this evening, but the thing with most chocolates these days is that you know exactly what you're going to get because they come with a small description of the contents of each chocolate.  If there's something that you don't like, you can avoid it.  Equally, if there are one or two that you are particularly fond of, you can easily make sure that you get to enjoy them before anyone else.

 

Sometimes I wish life was like a box of chocolates.  It would nice to be able to select the things that you'd like in your life and to avoid those things that you're not that keen on.

 

Unfortunately, however, we don't get to pick and choose our way through life.  Nor do we get to read all the 'ingredients' of different events and circumstances before they happen.

 

But whilst we don't know what is coming our way, God does.  And He remains the same throughout it all.  Constant, faithful, on our side.

 

"When you go through deep waters,
I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour."

 

[Isaiah 43:2-3 NLT]

 

Whilst we don't know what life will bring us, we do know the One who will walk with us through everything that life throws at us.

 

 

Losing Faith

It's another Gilmore Girls evening for me.

 

In the episode I've just been watching, one of the characters fears that she has lost her faith, so her friend goes round to give it back to her.

 

It's an interesting concept: losing your faith.

 

No matter what we believe, there are always moments when we question our beliefs.  There are moments when we wonder if what we believe is really true, when we doubt ourselves and our faith.

 

But doubt is not the opposite of faith, or the absence of faith.  It is an integral and inseparable part of faith.

 

In fact, even if you lose faith in something and stop believing it, you will unintentionally and automatically start believing in something else.  We all have faith in something: God, religion, science, nature, ourselves ...

 

Faith is believing in things that we can't see, or don't know for sure.  If it could be proved indisputably, it would be fact.

 

The Bible says,

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

 

[Hebrews 11:1 NIV]

 

Doubting is not the absence or loss of faith, but rather the strengthening of it.

 

Without questioning and doubting and wrestling, our faith never grows or develops.  It is through this doubting and refining and redefining that our faith is strengthened.

 

We cannot have faith without doubt. 

 

 

Love Yourself

Loving yourself is not terribly British.  Blowing one's own trumpet or singing one's praises seems unnecessary.

 

We Brits are far more likely to talk ourselves down, to feign 'humility' or 'modesty' by saying that we're not all that good at something actually, or we must have just got lucky.

 

We don't really celebrate ourselves (at least, not out loud for other people to hear us - for fear of seeming arrogant and conceited), and we don't really know how to love ourselves.

 

But until we can love and accept ourselves, we will never be able to truly love others.

 

You can't give something you haven't got.

 

There is an assumption throughout the Bible that we will love ourselves.  And love ourselves well.  In fact, Jesus said that the second most important command was for us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves [Matthew 22:39].

 

Loving ourselves is important.  It is fundamental.  Brene Brown writes,

 

"Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do."

 

And as Carrie Bradshaw says in Sex and the City -

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all, is the one you have with yourself."

 

I love this passage in Ephesians about love -

"Mostly what God does is love you.  Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us.  His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.  Love like that."
 

[Ephesians 5:2 MSG]

We can only love like that - giving everything of ourselves to others without trying to get something back - when we are secure in ourselves and when we have accepted God's love for us and have begun to love ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Because You're Worth It

I've started reading a really interesting book today called 'The Gifts of Imperfection' by Brene Brown. 

 

As someone who constantly battles with perfectionism, the idea that imperfection could be okay, let alone a gift, is quite a difficult one for me to swallow.  However, the first section that I've been reading has been really interesting.

 

In one of the early chapters, she describes the concept of worthiness - feeling worthy, or good enough, for love and belonging -

 

"The biggest challenge for most of us is believing that we are worthy now, right this minute.  Worthiness doesn't have prerequisites.  So many of us have knowingly created/unknowingly allowed/been handed down a long list of worthiness prerequisites [she continues to list the 'prerequisites we conjure up to become 'worthy' of love and belonging] ... We are worthy of love and belonging now.  Right this minute.  As is."

 

I love how this concept of worthy right now is seen in Jesus and beautifully displayed through His ministry.  Jesus reached out and touched the blind, the 'unclean', the rejected.  He touched the outsiders of society and called them worthy.  And in declaring them worthy, they became worthy.

 

It is the same with us.

 

He reaches out to us and embraces us, no matter where we find ourselves, or what we have done or thought or believed.  And He declares us worthy.  Because of His great love, manifested in His death for us on the cross.

 

"Immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us.  He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ [...] Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah."

 

[Ephesians 2:4, 6 MSG] 

 

We can't earn God's love.  But we don't need to.

 

We are worthy because He says we are.