Why I Needed To Stop Blogging

I haven't blogged in a few weeks.

When I started writing back in June last year, I never intended to write every day, it just sort of happened: I kept finding and noticing things to write about. Things that I wanted to share.

But over time, I think writing almost became a religious ritual. It was still interesting to write, God was still revealing Himself and truths about Himself, His world and myself to me, but I felt a pressure to write, rather than always writing because I wanted to.

I also have a tendency to get caught up in patterns which I think will make me feel better - usually because I think that, with the right formula, I might just crack this longing-to-be-perfect thing and might finally attain it.

Now, writing a daily blog may not seem like a massive thing - certainly not a reflection of perfection, but I can get so caught up in doing things 'right' or 'well' that for me, making sure I wrote daily was becoming a god to serve, not a way to serve God.

Writing about a relationship with God was starting to replace a relationship with God.

So I stopped.

And I needed to not do something 'perfectly', to not keep it up, to be myself, to be real and, most importantly, to accept those 'imperfections' in myself.

The prophet Joel writes,

"The Lord says, 'Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts.'"
[Joel 2:12 NLT]

God is not interested in the content or regularity of my blog, so much as He is interested in the contents of my heart and the regularity of time spent with Him.

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. 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Heart of Worship

I have spent this evening working on writing worship songs with some friends.

 

We have had a brilliant evening playing around with words and melodies and meanings.  And we have produced something with which we are all really pleased.

 

At one point in the evening we were wrestling with an awkward line which didn't seem to fit, but which we didn't want to lose.

 

It felt as though we were struggling and trying too hard to make something fit, that it became a bit artificial.  It was no longer an outpouring of our hearts: our syllable-counting, make-it-rhyme, neat-and-tidy minds got in the way.

 

We played around with it for a bit and then just left it for a while and started just singing what was on our hearts. 

 

And in all of that, we refocused on what was important - on what we were singing and why we were singing it and, most importantly, to whom we were singing.

 

And as we sang, the line made sense.  It fitted.  Without forcing or coercion.  We realised what mattered more was what was on our hearts. 

 

Becasue our worship and praise to God should be a response from the heart

 

"For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

 

[Luke 6:45 NIV]

 

As Matt Redman sang,

 

"I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And it's all about you

It's all about you, Jesus."

 

 

The heart of worship is the worship of our hearts.

 

It's all about Him.  And it's all for Him.

 

 

 

Empty

Today I feel exhausted and fed up.  I feel empty.

 

My heart feels heavy.

 

Jesus said in Matthew,

 "Out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks."

[Matthew 12:34 AMP]

 

Whatever my heart is filled with - whatever your heart is filled with - whether love, or anger, or envy, or frustration, or grief, this is what overflows and spills out into our words and our actions.  This is what spills out into our lives. 

 

Perhaps that is why the writer of Proverbs urged us to guard our hearts, as they are the wellspring, the source, of all life [Proverbs 4:23].

 

If I am not regularly spending time with God and letting His truths soak into my heart, all I will have to offer - all that will 'flow out of my heart' - is what I can muster up myself.  And on a day like today, that is not very much.

 

We need to keep returning to God and to His Word, to be filled up again and again and again, so that we overflow with His love and grace and acceptance and mercy.

 

For no one else has the words of life.

 

As Simon Peter said,

“Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life."

[John 6:68 NIV] 

 

 

 

The Strangeness of Silence

I don't like silence. 

No, that's not quite true - I like (and sometimes demand) silence when I'm talking - especially to a class.  But I don't like to be in silence.  I don't like to be surrounded by it.

If I'm at home, I'll often have the TV on in the background, even if I'm not really watching it.  Or I'll put some music or the radio on, just so that I'm not in silence.

I had the very odd experience of being in a room of 300 people yesterday which was silenced by someone.  It felt unnatural and uncomfortable. 

We don't like to be silenced.

I think our modern understanding of silence has negative connotations of punishment or poverty: punishment for bad or antisocial behaviour - we make people work in silence and take away their right to speak; or poverty if people can't afford, or don't have, TVs or MP3 players to fill their silences.

We don't see silence as a privilege.

We don't see it as a privilege and most of us are scared of what we might find in the silence.

If we strip away the competing voices and distractions, if we silence the noises which surrounds us, we are left with ourselves.  With our own hearts and our own thoughts and our own voices. 

And sometimes we don't want to hear those things.

Sometimes we'd rather hide in the noise than deal with the deep longings and desires and dissatisfactions we find in our own hearts.

But the Bible tells us that sometimes we need silence.

       "This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

       'In repentance and rest is your salvation,
       in quietness and trust is your strength.'"

       [Isaiah 30:15 NIV, emphasis mine]


        "I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
        Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
        my soul is a baby content.

           Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
        Hope now; hope always!"

 

        [Psalm 131:2-3 MSG]

Sometimes we need to mute the world, in order for us to hear the true longings of our hearts and to listen for God's voice.   

And it is in the silence that we will hear the still, small voice of God.

MOT

I've been thinking about my car's MOT today and about how important it is for our vehicles to have regular 'check-ups', to make sure that they are safe and reliable and roadworthy.

 

In the same way, it's important for us to give ourselves regular 'MOT's too. 

 

We need time and space to examine our hearts and our minds and to see what state they are really in.

 

So often, we rush through life meeting deadlines and completing projects and we don't give ourselves any time at all to stop and reflect on what's going on in our lives.

 

We need to take time to reflect on what has happened in our lives and what we've learnt and how we've changed and grown.  We need time to consider how our skills and gifts have grown and to question how we've been using and developing them.  We need time to reflect on what God has been showing us and how He has been shaping us.  We need time to look into our hearts and see what's there.  And sometimes, we need time to attend to what we find there.

 

The Bible tells us to

      

        "Keep vigilant watch over your heart;
        that’s where life starts."

 

        [Proverbs 4:23 MSG]

 

Our hearts are the driving forces behind our lives: they reveal our deepest desires and direct our actions.

 

If the heart is where life starts, we need to be aware of what's going on there.  We need to be aware of jealousy or bitterness or resentment.  We need to be aware of disappointments and desires and dreams.

 

We need to make sure that we give ourselves time to reflect on the state of our hearts and to act on what we find.

 

We need a regular, honest, purposeful MOT.