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.

Love Is A Verb

I have been enjoying another series of the Gilmore Girls this evening. 

 

At one point, Lorelai and her daughter (who is at University), have been communicating via email.  Lorelai complains that Rory has been writing really brief emails and hasn't been including enough information:

 

She says,

"You're not even using verbs.  That's not a relationship.  Relationships need verbs."

 

Relationships need verbs.

 

As Newton Faulkner sang,

 

         "Love, love is a verb

         Love is a doing word."

 

 

Love should be something active.  Love is more than just words. 

 

It is easy to tell someone you love them, so much harder to show them.  Loving someone in actions takes effort.  It requires time and energy and compromise.  It is so much easier to simply say you love someone.

 

But God didn't just say He loved us.  He showed us His love.  He sent His Son to die for us to show us His love.  The cross is a display of His powerful, passionate love.

 

John urges this in his first letter:

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

 

[1 John 3:18 NIV]

 

It's easy to say you love someone.  But love is a verb.

 

It's Not Me, It's You

It's not you, it's me.

 

And so ends many a film or TV relationship.  Unable to compromise and make things work, a couple will break up, with one person uttering these infamous words and blaming the breakdown of the relationship on their own failures and shortcomings.

 

We seem to apply the same idea to a relationship with God, too.  We seem to think that God's love is influenced by our failures and shortcomings.  We think it is dependent on who we are and what we've done or not done.  We seem to think that we can alter His opinion of us by doing the right thing.

 

But having a list of 'dos and 'do nots' is religion.  Not relationship.

 

When it comes to a relationship with God, it's not about me.

 

When it comes to God's love, it's not about us or what we do or don't do.  It's about Him.

 

I recently read or heard (I can't remember which and, annoyingly, I can't remember where), an argument between two people about whether or not God could and would love them.  One of them said, "But you don't know me.  God couldn't love me.  Not after everything I've done."

 

This is something that many of us can relate to - it resounds deeply inside us.  You don't really know me - you don't know what I'm like.  If God knows everything about me, then He couldn't love me.  I'm not good enough.

 

But the second person in the above argument replied brilliantly: "You're right, I don't know you at all.  But I don't need to.  I know God.  And I know that He's a God who loves us relentlessly."

 

When it comes to a relationship with God, it starts and ends with Him.

"We love because He first loved us."

 

[1 John 4:19 NIV]

And

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

[1 John 4:9-10 NIV]

 

It doesn't start with us, and it doesn't depend on us.

 

It's not me.  It's You.

 

 

 

 

 

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.