Worth Dying For

I read this yesterday and am still reeling;

"Scripture does not call us to change. Scripture calls us to die."

Wow.

On the uncomfortable-scale, this rates pretty highly. You can't really go in for half measures here. You can't be just a little bit dead.

It's all or nothing.

But why?

Why must we die? Why not just alter ourselves little by little? It doesn't need to be that drastic, does it?

Well, yes.

If we want to enter into the fullness of life that God promises us, we need to stop living our own 'full' lives. We need to acknowledge that we cannot be full or complete in our own strength or by our own efforts. We can only find this fullness in God.

And what's more, this 'new' life from God will be beyond anything we can imagine right now.

I'm not sure why, but it's pretty easy to imagine God as some sort of cosmic killjoy and to imagine that His version of a 'new' life would be dull and boring and the exact opposite of what I would hope for.

But I am beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, God's version of a full life might be better than my own.

"So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children."

[Romans 8:12-16 MSG]

 

Now that's worth dying for.

Let It Snow

This time, it really might snow.

 

I am beyond excited at the possibility.

 

I have been checking a variety of weather reports throughout the day - apparently it should reach us early tomorrow morning, around 5 o'clock.  I am seriously considering setting my alarm for 5, just so I can look out to see if it really has snowed this time.

 

All of this excitement and eager anticipation has made me think about how eagerly I anticipate the things that God is doing in my life or the lives of others, or how excited I get about it all.

 

If I'm honest, I'm probably more excited about the snow.

 

But the Bible urges us to be excited and expectant:

 

"This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike 'What’s next, Papa?'  God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance!"

 

[Romans 8:15-16 MSG, emphasis mine]

 

Maybe I'm more excited by the snow, because it's something clearly visible.  It's either snowed or it hasn't, there is no middle ground.  But when it comes to working out what God's doing in my life, I'm not always so sure.  It's not always so black and white.

 

But perhaps that's because I'm not really looking out for it.  Perhaps that's because I couldn't often describe my attitude as being 'adventurously expectant'.  I don't read my Bible as often as I've been checking weather reports today - checking for regular updates.  I dont' often lose sleep over what God might be doing next.  I don't often set my alarm early just to see if God wants to speak anything into my life.  In fact, I never set my alarm early to see if God wants to speak into my life.

 

But I wonder what might happen if I did.  I wonder what might happen if I was as excited and eager and expectant about God moving in my life as I am about the snow.

 

If I really asked God, "What's next, Papa?"  I wonder what might just happen.

 

 

Tomorrow Never Arrives

I have just read this brilliant, but lengthy passage in a book called 'Cold Tangerines' [by Shauna Niequist], that I wanted to share:

 

I have always, essentially, been waiting.  Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have.  In my head, I was always one step away.  In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly.  In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized.  Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids.  For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.  And through all that waiting, here I am.  My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start.  I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything.  I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me.  I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment.  I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

I can completely empathise with her thoughts.  It is so easy to set things up in our lives as signposts or markers - things which, when reached or achieved, will satisfy us and complete us.

 

But the problem with waiting for tomorrow is that tomorrow never arrives.

 

These are our lives and we're living them right now.

 

Our lives are full of adventures which can be celebrated and experienced - if we choose to look for them and embrace them.  They are made up of lots of tiny 'Big Moments'. 

 

 

"God's Spirit beckons.  There are things to do and places to go!  This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"  God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children."

 

[Romans 8:14-16 MSG]

 

Our lives have begun. We need to live them.

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing is Wasted

Is there anything that epitomises Autumn more than an apple crumble?

 

The soft and sticky sweet cinnamon-spiced apples topped with crunchy crumbs of crumble - delicious!

 

I made one this evening after I realised that I had a fruit bowl full of apples which were a little bit past their best.  I didn't want to throw them away and waste them, but they were fluffy and floury and didn't taste at all nice on their own.

 

However, in the crumble, they were absolutely delicious.

 

It is easy in life to throw things away when they seem 'past their best'.  Things that seem dried out and past it and of no use anymore. 

 

But the Bible says that God uses everything for our good:

 

"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

 

[Romans 8:28 NIV, emphasis mine] 

 

Rather than throwing out the things in our lives which seem too far gone, God can use them to develop our character and to make us more like Him.  In His hands, nothing is wasted.

 

I think the words of this song are absolutely beautiful: 'Nothing is Wasted' by Jason Gray -

 

"The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope's a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow

And nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

It's from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what's lost will be found again

Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

From the ruins
From the ashes
Beauty will rise
From the wreckage
From the darkness
Glory will shine
Glory will shine."

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.