Short-Term Memory and Cups of Tea

I have an awful short-term memory. 

When it comes to jobs I need to do, unless I write it down on something that I can't lose (usually my hand), I will immediately forget whatever it was.  There is not even a trace of the thought or an inkling in my mind.

This is most annoying for other people when they have asked me to do something and I completely forget.  I don't even remember until they remind me.  It would be annoying for me, too, but I never even remember that I have forgotten something ...

However, this isn't always bad news: it is a long-standing joke in my family that almost every time I make myself a cup of tea, I forget that I have made it.  Even if it is right next to me, if I am not looking directly at it, it is quite literally a case of "out of sight, out of mind."  Just as I start to think I really fancy a cup of tea, I turn around to be reminded that I have already made one!

I think I sometimes have a similar attitude with God.  I forget the little things that He has done for me - out of sight, out of mind - and I need to remind myself regularly.

I realised this when I came across an old journal the other day.  It was full of things that I was praying about and working through at the time, things that have now been resolved.  But until I found that book, I had completely forgotten that God had answered and resolved those prayers.

It was really special to read back over that journal and see the ways in which God has answered those prayers, even in the last few months. 

That's why, for me, it's so important to write things down - I don't want to forget what He has done, so that I don't forget what He is capable of.

I love this passage in the Psalms which reminds us to remind ourselves of what God has done -

"Once again I'll go over what God has done,

lay out on the table the ancient wonders;

I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished,

and give a long, loving look at your acts."

[Psalm 77:11-12 MSG]

Whilst I may have an awful short-term memory, God never forgets the promise and the covenant that He made with us:

           "He remembers, remembers his Covenant—

           for a thousand generations he's been as good as his word."

 

           [Psalm 105:7 MSG]

 

Let's remember to regularly remind ourselves and each other of what God has done (and continues to do), for us.

And if you ever want me to do something for you, write it down.

A Balanced Life

I am sure we are all familiar with the phrase "a work/life balance". 

However, I would venture to say that, whilst we are familiar with it in principle, it is rarely a reality in our lives.  Instead, for most of us, our lives are dominated by our work.  Far from the '9-5' cliché, we find our work encroaching on our evenings and our weekends.  With a growing trend in flexi-hours and working from home, we are now unable to easily separate these two aspects of our lives.

Sometimes I feel that my attempts at a work/life balance are rather like a fat kid on a see-saw.  They are unfairly weighted.  My life is dominated by my work, and my attempts at a 'life' are like the weasly kid suspended in the air at the other end of the see-saw.

This is something with which I have wrestled and struggled for a long while.

I felt that work was something to get through and something to endure until the weekend.  It was separated from the rest of my life and was of no importance to God.

But recently I feel that God has been showing me how important my work is, and how important work is to all of our lives.

God created Adam and Eve to work in the Garden of Eden.  Work wasn't a punishment, but a blessing:

      "God created human beings;

      he created them godlike,

      Reflecting God's nature.

      He created them male and female.

      God blessed them: 

      'Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!

      Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,

      for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.'"

     

      [Genesis 1:27-28 MSG]

God cares about my work along with all other aspects of my life: my friendships, my relationships, what book I'm reading, what film I'm watching, what I'm enjoying, what I'm struggling with. 

He cares about it all, and He wants us to acknowledge Him in it all.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

[Colossians 3:23 NIV]

Rather than striving for a work/life balance, I am aiming for a balanced life.   A life balanced with work and relaxing and resting and playing and studying and relationship and solitude and eating and fasting and praying and thinking and indulging and refraining and talking and listening ...

A balanced life.

Rubble and Rebuilding

Walking home this afternoon, I spotted a derelict building that I have never noticed before.  The windows were blocked up and ivy was crawling up the walls.  As I glanced to the left, I saw a pile of rubble towering over the nearby car park.

A picture of despair and hopelessness.

Or is it?

My first reaction was to think: What a shame.  A beautiful old building has gone to waste and a pile of rubble has been left behind where another building once stood.

However, whilst these two things certainly wouldn't make it into a promotional ad for the town, God showed me something beautiful about them.  They are not an end in themselves.  They are a sign of hope and potential, a signal of something new on the way.

Sometimes we need to be broken in order to be rebuilt.

In their book, 'Deep Church', Frog and Amy Orr-Ewing outline four key processes for the rebuilding of the church, based on Haggai 1.  I think that the principles are just as relevant to us as we seek to rebuild ourselves:

Some rubbish needed to be cleared - reformation.  Some stones could be retained as good material - retrieval.  But new wood was needed from the mountains - renewal.  And a promise of acceptance, salvation and glory remained - revival.

We can't rebuild without sometimes first unbuilding and getting rid of what has gone before.  Sometimes we need to remove false ideas and ideals; we need to demolish and destroy lies and strongholds which have choked us.  We need to get rid of what was, to make way for what will be.

But that doesn't mean that we need to get rid of everything in order to rebuild.  Sometimes we can use the rubble and fashion it into something new.  This is one of my favourite verses in the whole Bible: 

"You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again."

[Isaiah 58:12 MSG]

 I came across this profound statement the other day (on this blog - http://brokencameras.com/tag/pain/) and I have been thinking about it ever since:

"Ruin is the starting point of transformation."

I know that in my own life, it has been in moments of complete brokenness, when everything I have lovingly built up has been razed to the ground and the foundations themselves are shaking, that I have found new life.

And in this broken state, Jesus promises to be close to us and to help to rebuild us:

"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners."

[Isaiah 61:1 NIV]

Sometimes we need to be broken in order to be rebuilt.

Fresh Start

This afternoon, I went to watch the new Batman film. 

I really enjoyed it and there were lots of things that stood out for me.  However, to avoid ruining any of the twists if you have yet to see it, I will keep my comments short and spoiler-free.

One of the main things that I found really significant was how one of the characters is completely driven and motivated by a desire for a fresh start and a new identity.  And she will do anything to achieve this.

She is so desperate to wipe away the trace of her past and who she was, that she will stop at nothing until she has got what she wants.

Her desire for a fresh start and to be able to wipe the slate clean is one that we can all empathise with.  We have all done or said or been things with which we're not especially proud.  We all have, as Lord Grantham says in 'Downton Abbey' "chapters we'd rather keep unpublished."

And the good news is that when we put our trust and our hope in Jesus, we are given a fresh start.  We are made new:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"

[2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV]

Whilst we receive a brand new life the moment we turn to God, we are always in need of another fresh start and another fresh start and another fresh start.

And with Jesus, if we ask, there will always be a new beginning, a chance to wipe the slate clean and to start over:

          "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
          for his compassions never fail. 
          They are new every morning."

          [Lamentations 3:23 NIV emphasis mine]

I love this prayer of David for a fresh start and new life -

         "God, make a fresh start in me,
         shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life."
         [Psalm 51:10 MSG]

We all long for a fresh start, but we don't have to pursue it with all that we have.  We simply have to ask.

What if God Was One of Us?

I had this old song by Alanis Morissette stuck in my head the other day -

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

If God had a face
What would it look like?

The Bible says that God did become one of us through His Son, Jesus.  In Jesus we see the fullness of God and His heart for us.

"We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created."

[Colossians 1:15 MSG]

But I often wonder, if Jesus was around today, what would He be like? 

I saw this picture today of a modern stained glass window which a teenager had designed to show Jesus in a 21st Century context.

If Jesus was around today, where would He be?  What would He be doing?  Who would He be with?

I don't think He'd be at church. 

Whilst He lived on earth, Jesus rarely hung around with 'religious' people.  He was usually found with those on the outskirts of society, with those who really needed Him and were aware of their need.  He befriended the lonely and despised (Zacchaeus); He healed the perpetually sick (the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years); He comforted the mourning (Mary and Martha); He fed the hungry (the feeding of the Five Thousand); He forgave the 'sinful' (the woman caught in adultery), and He affirmed the outcasts (the Samaritan woman).

What would this look like in our age and our culture?

Who are the lonely?  Who are the hungry?  Who are the sick?  Who is mourning?  Who needs to know comfort and forgiveness and affirmation?

The Bible says that we have Jesus' spirit living within us; we get to be Jesus to the world.  We get to share His love to those around us.  And when we do, it is as though we are doing it for Him.

        "I was hungry and you fed me,
        I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
        I was homeless and you gave me a room,
        I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
        I was sick and you stopped to visit,
        I was in prison and you came to me.

        ... Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that 

        was me—

        you did it to me."

        [Matthew 25:36, 40 MSG]

I know that most of the time I don't reflect Jesus or live out His love for other people.  But as I grow closer to Him, I hope that my life will look more like His.

God did come to earth and live as one of us.  And now He challenges us to live like Him.

Imperfectly Perfect

I recently found myself in a place which prided itself on its perfection. I was greeted promptly by a smiling and helpful receptionist; I was offered free tea or coffee in a pristine white cup from a friendly waitress whilst I reclined in a comfortable brown leather sofa.

Everything seemed perfect.

Except for me.

And I felt completely out of place. I felt as though my presence undid the work of 'perfection' that these people had strived so hard to achieve.  I felt uncomfortable and inconspicuous.  Because human perfection is always contrived and artificial.  It is a carefully crafted artefact, or a performance which we admire from a distance.  It doesn't invite us in, it distances us.  It doesn't affirm us, it criticises us.

It is something which intimidates us.

And it is something with which I have struggled for most of my life. 

I thought that I had to be perfect in order for people to like me - do the right thing, say the right thing, be the right thing.  There was no room for error.  And so I panicked when I made a mistake or 'failed'.

My least favourite Bible verse for a long time was Jesus' words to His followers -

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

[Matthew 5:48 NIV]

I struggled enough with being perfect in human eyes, let alone in God's eyes. 

But when Jesus talks about being perfect, He doesn't mean for us to be perfect in a human way.  It doesn't mean being on your best behaviour and never putting a foot wrong.   It means to be perfected - to be made complete, with nothing lacking or missing - in the same way that God is complete.  It denotes wholeness and a sense of peace as our striving comes to an end. 

True perfection is not something that we can achieve if we just try harder;  it's not something that can be artificially manufactured; it isn't a show that we put on.  It is something that comes from within and can only be realised when we understand our identity in Christ.

God's perfection, in contrast to human perfection, is embracing, inviting, forgiving, reassuring, affirming and enabling.  It meets us and accepts us where we are; it welcomes us in.  It isn't ashamed of our imperfections, neither does it deny them.  It acknowledges our weaknesses and lovingly completes us.

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

[Matthew 5:48 NIV]

Be perfected, made whole, complete, peaceful, assured, in the same way that your Heavenly Father is. 

I am not perfect.  But in Him I am.

Imperfectly perfect.

Verbs

To this day, I can still clearly picture and recite several irregular French verbs.  For our GCSEs, we were given a table which we had to memorise and it has remained ingrained in my mind ever since.

 

 

 Je vais

Tu vas

Il/elle va

Nous allons

Vous allez

Ils/elles vont

 

 

I have been thinking today about different verbs.  And, in particular, the difference between being and doing. 

I haven't really done much today, and that sits uncomfortably with me.  I am not very good at being and not doing. I feel guilty or lazy if I am not in action. I feel that I ought to be doing something all the time. And I think I worry about it because I still easily slip into thinking that my worth or my identity comes from what I do, not who I am.

 

 

We are human beings, but so often we identify ourselves as human doings.  We are concerned more by our actions and our roles than who we are when no one's looking and we are just still.

We fear that if we are still, we will lose sight of ourselves.

Perhaps this is why God reminded us to

“Be still, and know that I am God."

[Psalm 46:10 NIV]

My identity doesn't come from myself.  I am not defined by what I do or don't do.  I am defined by what Jesus has done and by what God says about me.  I am His child, His precious daughter [2 Corinthians 6:17].

When I am tempted to keep busy to feel better about myself, I need to stop what I am doing and remind myself of who God is and what He has done.  For that is where I find myself.

I have been listening to this song a lot lately.  It is called 'Beautiful' by MercyMe and is, as the name suggests, a beautiful song about our true identity.

The days will come when you don't have the strength

When all you hear is you're not worth anything

Wondering if you ever could be loved

And if they truly saw your heart they'd see too much
You're beautiful

You're beautiful

You are made 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
I'm praying that you have the heart to fight

'Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight

For all the lies you've held inside so long

They are nothing in the shadow of the cross
You're beautiful

You're beautiful

You are made so much more than all of this

You're beautiful

You're beautiful

You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His