27 March - Holding your breath

Readings:
Psalm 93
Rom 5

In the last week I read up on the Crimea a bit to try and get some perspective on what's going on out there. In the process I came across an image of a hauntingly beautiful painting of a stormy Black Sea. It was painted by a Russian master called Aivazovsky. He was born in a port city on the Black Sea and became renowned for his seascapes. I love the picture, and set it as my desk top background on my laptop. I enthusiastically showed it to my father in law who spent upward of a decade at sea, assuming he'd also love it. He shook his head as he looked at it. "It may look nice from the land" he said, "but when you're at sea that is horrible". 

Mighty floods represent a deep and ancient common fear. The world looked in disbelief and horror at YouTube clips of the awful tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. Waves of up to 30m high struck Indian Ocean coastlines, leaving a trail of devastation and over a quarter of a million people dead. The Bible generously uses imagery of mighty floods, from Noah and the ark all the way to Jesus' story of the two guys building their houses respectively on sand and rock. A flood is an apt image for an impending threat so overwhelmingly big and destructive that it cannot be resisted. The prophets spoke for instance of the massive foreign invading armies coming at Israel in terms of floods. (See Isa 8:6-8 for example).

Real waters aside, we can all feel from time to time that something is threatening to overwhelm us just like a flood would. It could be a situation at work or in our families. Maybe a friendship is being drowned in an issue too big to resolve. For one person it can be sickness, for another addiction, failure, bankruptcy, or depression. It is a terrifying thing to be confronted by something over which you've got no control, and which has the capacity to bring destruction en masse to our lives. Psalm 93 brings a word of hope for those in times like this:

The floods have risen up, O Lord.

The floods have roared like thunder;

the floods have lifted their pounding waves.

But mightier than the violent raging of the seas,

mightier than the breakers on the shore - 

the Lord above is mightier than these!

When the flood waters strike, there is only one thing to so. You take everyone you can with you and you head for high ground as fast as you can. When everything around you are moving, you need to move to something that will not. 

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; 

my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield and the horn of my salvation, 

my stronghold.

Ps 18:2

From the ends of the earth I call to you, 

I call as my heart grows faint;

lead me to the rock that is higher than I

Ps 61:2

26 March - Blindness is consensual

Reading:
Isa 6

It appears to me that God likes subtlety, like it is his preferred way of engaging with us. Why is it that the prophetic books for instance, which were to be understood as the very words of God, had to be written in such floral language. I like reading the Prophets, but sometimes, as I plowed though several chapters of simile and hyperbole, I think to myself that I could have easily fitted its message into a straight sentence or two. For centuries now we've had to plunge into the syrupy depths of lyrical prose to try and figure out what actually happened to the poor Moabites. Why? Unless I have it wrong, we basically read the Bible for two reasons; we want to learn from it what we should believe and understand how we should live. This exercise can get real tricky, having to extract such important contemporary insight from reams of ancient narrative, poetry, lyrical prose and the like. Our heads just don't work like that. Who would have read 7 Habits for Highly Effective People or How to Win Friends and Influence People if all self-help books were written as historical narratives or lyrical poems?

Today's reading, Isaiah 6, is just like that. It seems a bit harsh at the first ten or twenty readings, since God basically proclaims that people should not hear, see or understand, for if they do they would come to their senses and not incur his wrath. If someone had to start their Bible reading journey with Isaiah 6, he'd probably end up thinking that the Christians' God enjoys punishing people, and that the crucial information required to avoid certain obliteration is maliciously shrouded in innuendo and mystery to shield it from discovery. Nothing could of course be further from the truth, but you still don't see missionary types hanging out in shopping mall parking lots on Saturday mornings handing out tracts containing Isaiah 6. It's a chapter, like so many others in the Bible, requiring a bit of additional perspective.

Part of why Jesus came to live among us was to show us what God is actually like (see Col 1:15). It comes as no surprise then that Jesus taught in parables (sigh!). He liked saying things indirectly. His disciples were apparently not so poetically inclined. After hinting and alluding for days around the drama around Lazarus, and them still not getting it, even Jesus eventually came to a point of giving up (probably rolling his eyes), and spelling it out: "Lazarus is dead." Straight talk, at last. It solved the mystery, straightened out the ambiguity and ended the discussion. No theologians required anymore. Everyone now knew what the case was with Lazarus. Why didn't Jesus just start there? But no! His teaching more often than not left his audience nonplussed. What kind of a way is that to teach? In stead of people engaging with the point you make, they are left wondering what the point actually was if ever there was one. Their Master's teachings regularly left the disciples with blank stares, shaking their heads and shirking at one another. One day they couldn't handle it anymore, and they came to Jesus, probably utterly frustrated, asking what's with the parables (Mat 13:10). Jesus answered them with another parable. Great!

Have you ever noticed how you can be walking over something for days without noticing it, until someone asks you to look for it. Then, what was obvious all along but missed, becomes visible to you. The reason for the sudden change is that now you were looking for what you couldn't see before. God's way of speaking indirectly seems to be drawing a line though humanity. On the one side are those who want to see and hear, on the other side those who don't. The mystery-laden imagery reveals (not determines) which side of the line anyone is on. It shows whether they want to hear or not. Many people - it turns out - doesn't want to hear. They want to live as they choose, not as they're told. In Matthew 13, referring back to Isaiah's prophesy, Jesus explained that in reality when people do not understand, it is because deep down they do not want to understand. Calloused hearts is not something that were handed out to them, but something they had chosen.

When Isaiah saw the Lord, he cried out in shame, recognising his own state. As a result of his confession he was cleansed. Isaiah's response to revelation is in direct contrast to the response of the people of Israel he was sent to. They could have also received the purifying touch from the altar had they wanted it.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 

for they will be filled.

Mat 5:6

25 March - A very expensive miracle

Readings:
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95

When Jesus was tempted in the desert he resisted the devil by appealing to the Law, saying that you may not put the Lord your God to the test (Dt 6:16). What did he mean by that? The direct implication is that if Jesus jumped and expected / trusted / hoped that God would come to his rescue, it would have been to put the Almighty to the test. Expecting / hoping / trusting is pretty much on the operational side of faith as well. Could it be that faith, either misplaced or applied for the wrong reason, would have constituted the outlawed testing of God?

Faith, it turns out, is proved empty if it doesn't translate into action. (James Ch 2. Blast!). To live by faith means to believe against appearances, and to subsequently put yourself at risk by acting on your conviction - even in deviance of common sense - in trust of God. It is to live beyond your own means and capacity, thus putting God into motion. Faith means that you live in such a way that if God doesn't come through, you'd be in great big twang. Now to me it seems like the line between living by faith and putting the Lord to the test could be precariously thin.

We all know the old 'faith' scripture about it basically being the assurance of what we don't see (Heb 11:1). You can pore over that scripture for years, write a book about it and still be dabbling in the shallow end of the mystery of faith. We don't get it, but it doesn't mean we're completely left in the dark. To me there appears to be something very simple about faith, as well as something very tricksy:
Simple: Faith is basically about trusting God.
Tricksy: The object of faith is basically to trust God (not to get stuff out of him).

Israel's temptation to put God to the test also came about in a desert, just like Jesus centuries later. The nation was already living in some serious faith. They broke camp and wandered back into the desert at God's command. To live in the desert is to live at fairly radical risk. When times became tough though, and they faced an immanent crises, they doubted whether they were actually in God's will or not. The Bible says they grumbled against Moses, threatening to stone him. They were thirsty and felt at risk. Israel asserted its cumulative voice, demanding water from Moses. They unionized, and it worked for them. They got what they wanted; water. I wonder if they ever realised that in the process they lost much more than they ever gained.

The Lord says, "Do't harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, 

as they did at Massah in the wilderness. 

For there your ancestors tested and tied my patience, 

even though they saw everything I did. 

For forty years I was angry with them, and I said,'

'They are a people whose hearts turn away from me. 

They refuse to do what I tell them.'

So in my anger I took and oath:

They will never enter my place of rest.'

Ps 95:8-11

24 March - New water for old thirst

Readings:
John 4:5-42
Psalm 11

A day or two ago we considered the story of the woman who suffered from constant bleeding and today we read about another woman, one with a very different problem. The first woman experienced a flow from her being that resulted in daily, incapacitating loss. Sin (in the sense of the human condition) systematically hemorrhaged her vitality. It kept her life small and brought with it much suffering, shame and social stigma. It made and kept her poor. The second woman had - in a strange way - almost the inverse of the problem. She was religious, steeped in sin, and had no flow from inside her. What was supposed to flow from her - a bubbling spring of living water - was dry. What is even more strange though is that their contrasting ailments resulted from the same source: sin. Both of them met Jesus, and were never the same again.

The story of the woman at the well is like a cryptic little self-contained gospel. I like the story because the woman is such a feisty one.  If Jesus met a decorous woman at the well there would have been no story, because she would have dropped her gaze and her shoulders and said "yes sir, no sir". There would have been no impertinent questioning, no challenge to Jesus' leading answers, and no revelation and mass salvation. But in the Samaritan woman at the well we have the prevailing religious paradigm of the day standing up and challenging the New to come.

Judaism excluded other nations from God's covenant, and woman were in many ways considered second class. (They were for instance excluded from serving in the priesthood). Jesus broke through both these barriers, to the shock of both the woman and the disciples. She questioned his ability to deliver on his invitation: "You have no bucket and rope, and the well is very deep." She questioned his qualification: "Do yo think you greater than Abraham who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he did?" She questioned him on the rules of worship. Jesus explained that worship was moving to a whole new center altogether, no temple or mountain but spirit. The old water had to be taken every day. It was hard work. The new water is not drawn up though human effort. It is given and received. It lasts forever, becoming a source. She was sold and ran off to call her people.

Jesus started the conversation by asking for something, but in the end he gave something. When the Samaritan woman ran off with the Good News Jesus still didn't get his drink of water.

22 March - Walking on quicksand

Reading:
Mark 6

In order for us to cope within any given context we need to know something about the rules of engagement of that particular context. You would not do well in a rugby match if you think you're in a soccer match. Even animals adapt their behaviour when they realise their context had changed. If unable to adapt, they perish. We have tried to make sense of our context - the reality we find ourselves in, this life on earth - since the beginning of time. We refer to our understanding of how this reality really works as our worldview. As Christians, we try to fashion our worldview as closely as possible from what we learn from reading the Bible. For thousands of years people have wrestled with what we find in scripture, attempting to reconcile it with our life here on earth. We still build on the insights of some of the great interpreters like Augustine.

If the reality we find ourselves in can be pictured as a swampy, marshy landscape of treacherous quicksand, our biblical worldview gives us solid, secure places to put our feet, a bit like stepping stones across a rushy river. Some of the stepping stone-paths are familiar and obvious. They make sense and we walk across them daily without even looking down at what we're standing on. Some of them are more tricky - perhaps just under the surface of the murky water, and it is hard work to negotiate our way through there. It is even harder to convince a skeptic to follow us across. An example of this could be our theology of suffering - the great "evil-in-a-world-created-by-a-good-God" dilemma. We can read the clever peoples' books and offer answers, but it still leaves us uneasy. It is counter-intuitive. We lack the eternal perspective to find any form of justification for the magnitude of the collective human evil and suffering through the ages. We walk across these paths if we really have to but we avoid it as far as possible.

Every now and then though, we encounter something that really messes with our heads. The Bible is infallible, but it seems our worldviews are not. We are confronted with something, and when we step forward on the stepping stone of our worldview, we can feel it slowly sinking away under the weight of reality. We have to step back and we stand: stumped. What we are confronted with has implications, and the implications have some more implications. We are left looking around. Where to now?

"And because of their unbelief, he couldn't do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them." (Mk 6:5)

21 March - Borrowing the wand

Reading:
Mk 5

Imagine that Jonah refused to go to Nineveh, even after his inner space experience. What would have happened to the 120 000 people of Nineveh? They escaped God's proclaimed judgement as a result of their response to Jonah's preaching (and the grace of God I know). If Jonah ducked for good, would God just have sent someone else, or would Nineveh have reaped the devastating consequences of their way of life? Where does God's sovereignty stop and people's free will start? There are two main streams of thought in theology with which to approach this issue. The Calvinist approach leans much more to God's sovereignty: God's will is absolute and shall transpire with or without man's interference. The Arminian approach shifts the weight to our free will and choices: God chooses to work through people, and if they do not co-operate, there will be a real effect on God's will coming about.

 I never thought of ourselves in the Charismatic tradition as leaning particularly in either direction. However, a couple of years ago we spent some time at a ministry in England which is much more in the Reformed tradition, and thus much more Calvinistic in their understanding. The contrast to 'our way' suddenly became very blatant to me. We are much more Arminian than I ever thought. An example of where I saw this working out was in our attitudes in prayer.

When we really pray there is a sense of urgency in our hearts and even a subconscious,unexpressed anxiety. It is like we feel deep inside that if we do not pray, or if we pray poorly, that God's will shall be compromised. We are his co-labourers, and if we mess this up God's desired outcome - in the short term anyway - will suffer. If this was not the case, why pray seriously, and indeed; why pray at all?  When we prayed with the Reformed guys though, even when they prayed about weighty matters, there seemed to be a peace surrounding them. To my unaccustomed heart their attitude felt somewhere between indifference and passivity (which it was not). I found the contrast glaring.

In Mark 5 we read some stories that can motivate sides of the argument. Jairus's little daughter died. Her condition was obvious, and the local community noisily bewailed it. They were unmovable in their diagnosis, even in the face of Jesus challenging their clearly observable, verifiable  fact. The conviction of the crowd made no difference to Jesus. He walked into the house and the little girl walked out. God is sovereign.

On his way to Jairus's house however, Jesus suddenly realised that - to his surprise - someone had used his healing power without him agreeing, giving permission or even knowing about it (unless he faked his surprise, which will launch an even bigger theological conundrum). A woman who suffered from a debilitating affliction crept up from the back and, in the chaos of the crowd, touched his robe in the hope of supernatural healing. Jesus didn't see her coming, but he felt power leaving him. She was healed, and once she identified herself, Jesus told her that her faith is what made her well, not his power or God's grace. It is not the only story like this in the Bible. Our free will gives us access to (if I can borrow from CS Lewis) "the dignity of causality."

So where does this leave us. I don't know. Smith Wigglesworth, a legendary ministry man who did many wonderful miracles, apparently said something which spoke of his own understanding of the dilemma:

"The Holy Spirit moves me, and when he doesn't, I move him." 

19 March - The gift of sin

Readings:
Phil 3:12-21
Phil 4

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Then you will experience God's peace, which

exceeds anything we can understand.

His peace will guard your hearts and minds

as you live in Christ Jesus. (4:6-7, NLT)

This bit of scripture describes what God wants for us when we find ourselves in trying times, yet more often than not it just doesn't work like that. When we pray about the stuff we worry about, we only want to embrace the peace of God once the worrisome issue is resolved. Though a completely rational and natural response, this is to completely miss to point. 

As far as I can tell, we are not God's hobby. Creation is not a doodle he made while he was on the phone. God made us purposefully and for relationship, and the reason he must have done it (if I may be presumptuous enough to venture into such conjectures), is because he wants to relate. God is love; he wants someones to love, and (if we can project our image back onto him), he wants to be loved. 

For some befuddling reason, beside being creatures who love, God wants us to also be creatures who have faith. I don't get it. We need to live by faith in order to prepare for an eternity in which we will need no faith! Angels don't have faith because they don't need any - they see things how they are. We however have to peer through murky glass, and we are perplexed. People who theologise the existence of evil into a neat, manageable conceptual package has simply not seen enough of it. Being a Christian though means that we accept that whatever we encounter in life on earth - whether good or bad - has been allowed in order to facilitate that primary goal. We need faith. We must learn to love and trust the God we don't see and don't really understand. 

When life becomes really difficult we are so quick to conclude that where we find ourselves must be against or outside God's will. In Acts 17 however we read that God puts people in very specific, unique circumstances "in the hope that they might grope for him" (verse 17 - NKJV). I always find this such a humbling scripture. God is hoping that we will reach out, will "grope" for him. He wants to come through for us. He wants to rescue us. He wants to give us more and more experiences to build our faith on. 

There is all this stuff we worry about. Somehow God allowed that stuff to be there. When we pray about it, our peace should come from the knowledge that God heard us. The request lies with him now. That aught to be enough. 

18 March - Bitten by your walking stick

Readings:

Mk 8:31-38

Ps 121

Moses got this neat trick from God in that he could turn his staff into a snake by simply throwing it on the ground. The first time it happened Moses ran for his life. To turn the snake back into his trusty staff he had to grab it by the tail (which must have thrilled him). I wonder how many miles Moses spent on the road to the Promised Land keeping a beady eye on that stick of his? He probably put it down real carefully when going to bed at night, just in case... Perhaps he prudently left it outside the tent at night? My guess is that he gave it to some oblivious fool as a gift soon after leaving Egypt, and just got himself another one. 

At times I wonder whether some of the good things in our lives aren't a bit like Moses's staff. They're desirable, good things, and we work to get them. They are blessings from the Lord. But later we find that on the other end of the blessing there is a head with a forked tongue, and it bites. Like security for instance. It is a blessing from the Lord. (See Ez 34:27 as an example). When there is no security in a country or a family, quality of life plummets. Everything is reduced to fighting for survival. But once security is achieved - usually through the sacrificial lives of others - it eventually results in a sense of self-sufficiency, and with it comes a dreadful arrogance. Isn't that where Europe and the UK are at? Apparently John Wesley also bewailed this phenomenon. Through his ministry, drunkards became Christians, became good, conscientious, hard-working people, acquired the so-called Protestant work ethic, consequently became wealthy, eventually felt they didn't need God anymore, and forsook the very One who brought them wealth in the first place. 

We all face challenges, and Christian-types like me habitually ask God to transform our curses into blessings. Yet, once we become used to the blessings, we turn to the blessings in times of need in stead of to Him who made and gave the blessings. We grab the snake by the tail but it doesn't turn back into a stick.

I lift up my eyes to the hills;

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, 

the Maker of heaven and earth (and of the hills)

17 March - Longing for greatness

Readings:
Rom 4
Gen 12:1-9

I wonder if, deep inside, we all have longings for greatness? Not in the being-a-celebrity-with-no-cellulite sense of the word, but more by way of leaving an indelible mark upon the world. The world should know and feel that "jan was here!". Egotistical? Perhaps. What are the alternatives: Longing for mediocrity? Longing for obscurity? (An attractive option at times). Longing to just be left alone? (A very attractive option too much of the time). Not longing at all? (Then you're in the wrong religion - try Buddhism). Psalm 112 asserts that a righteous man will be remembered forever and that his righteousness will last forever.

The problem with attaining greatness is of course that some greatness is required in order to attain it. I don't know about you, but I've kind of given up on aspirations of getting a Nobel Prize, finding a new continent or ending a world war through my military prowess. Is there any greatness in me, or am I doomed to live my life - like so many do - with a pervasive sense of not-quite-making-the-grade? For those among us with spiritual aspirations, the Bible heroes do not make things easier. A friend of mine speaks of Joseph, David and Daniel as "the superstars". What makes someone a superstar is that there's no-one else like them. That's me right there, unfortunately. I'm not like them. Neither am I anything like the many other historical figures I look up to. But I may have found a loophole. Abraham.

It's been a while since I read the whole story of Abraham beginning to end. From what I remember though, he was a pretty normal guy. When he left Haran at the age of 75 in response to God's call he was fairly wealthy. That means that he was probably at least reasonably talented, intelligent, conscientious and entrepreneurial. His business acumen is not however what made him great. The Bible highlights one, but I can suggest two qualities that account for his legacy:

Firstly, though financially he did well in Haran, I'm sure that Abraham was uneasy with the local religion of his people, just like the magi in Elliot's poem who, after seeing Jesus:

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

In a world saturated with idolatry Abraham already clung to the real God, and he knew that what was around him wasn't real. He was not cool with it. When God called, he was ready to go.

The more orthodox fact about Abraham is that he had great faith. He still believed when the window within which God could come through had already closed. To do that makes a hefty demand upon the rational soul, but not an unattainable one.

Abraham was the original pilgrim, in the world but not at home in it, wealthy but not owned by his wealth, following his God out of a sea of gods. God doesn't ask us anymore to sacrifice our only sons, thank goodness, but He does ask us to trust him against the odds, and in variance with the prevailing wisdom. I can never be like Joseph and Daniel, but perhaps I can be a bit like Abraham ..?

15 March - Singing in the rain

Reading:
Mark 4

At the end of another long day of ministry, Jesus and his band of not-so-merry men crossed over the Sea of Galilee in search of some much needed rest and personal space. Jesus fell asleep in the boat probably straight away. If the disciples were looking forward to a bit of a respite themselves they were about to be disappointed, for the storm that mounted rose to become life-threatening. As their fear escalated into sheer panic, they woke Jesus. He stilled the storm and then sleepily turned to question his freaked out men for their fear and lack of faith. They were obviously not listening to his teaching that day. My guess is that Jesus went straight back to sleep.

My gut feeling is that Jesus was a bit harsh in this instance. Fear is a valid response to a massive storm if you're sitting in a tub of planks in the middle of some sea. Earlier that day however, in his Parable of the Sower, Jesus listed three things that will render our lives unfruitful; three things that can cause us to stand before God one day with empty hands: The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things. The test that the disciples failed that day was that they succumbed to the worries of this life.

How we choose to handle ourselves in the face of crises is evidently very important - in fact, it seems that it may have eternal consequences for us. We all find ourselves in threatening situations from time to time, whether it be related to health, finances, relationships or physical security. Being alive means that there is an ever-present host of potential looming disasters. There is a natural response to threat that is common to all except the psychos. God however implores us not to respond in natural terms to impending threat. He pointed to the lilies in the field and birds in the air to emphasize his commitment to look after us. Maybe the whole point of the dramatic episode on the boat was that Jesus wanted to show us that he is quite capable of handling our storms (in his sleep, so to speak).

To trust when evidence suggests the contrary is a choice, and not an easy one. It requires something from us. In the face of looming, impending threat, the question is not whether God will take care of us, but whether we will trust him to. More depends on it than we think.

14 March - We're not grasshopper-eating types

Reading:
Mark 3

I think we underestimate John the Baptist. Jesus did make the comment about John being the greatest of all people in the Old Testament dispensation (Mt 11:11) - a sweeping statement indeed (think Moses, Joseph, David, Samuel, Daniel etc). Yet we still don't get the picture, or at least I don't. Chew on this: It appears that basically the entire Jewish nation, excluding the religious professionals, were baptized by John (Acts 13:24, Lk 7:29-30). Imagine that. John was a grasshopper-eating weirdo. He was abrasive and out in the sticks. You had to go to him, he was not going to come to you and he was probably going to call you names. He doesn't give the impression of being very polite or considerate. For a ministry man he was remarkably uninviting. But here's a guy with a spirituality, a persona and a ministry powerful enough to coax a whole nation of sin-loving people from their cities and their fields to submit to the brown waters of the Jordan under his rough hands.

Now we know that John's ministry made the way for that of Jesus, and that Jesus himself wasn't much of a baptizer. He focused on other pressing issues us Bible readers are real familiar with: preaching the kingdom, healing diseases and chasing out evil spirits. Yet there's an element to Jesus'ministry that is central to his purpose, one that is in contrast to how John went about his. Jesus didn't let all of Israel pass through his hands. He called some guys closer to himself, and he gave them authority to do what he himself have been doing (Mk 3:15, Mt 10:1). Then he sent them out. And since then, Jesus' disciples have both been ministering God's grace to the world and making disciples. Hence us.

Now here's my point. Being a Christian automatically makes us idealists: there's an ideal, and we aspire to it. But the ideal is not to be a big shot like John. We are all called to minister God's grace to the world in any and every way and opportunity the Holy Spirit prompts us. But perhaps the thing most central to God's kingdom any of us can do is to gather a handful of everyday folk around ourselves, to pray for them, encourage them, equip them, serve them, love them and to send them out.

13 March - Tempting, but no..

Readings:
1 Pet 3:13-22
Mat 4:1-11

How does the story about the temptation of Jesus speak to you? There are some transcendent truths related to the narrative - some aspects which speak universally. It is for instance historical, not mythical - the whole affair actually happened. It also demonstrates how Jesus identified with us in our weakness. He was tempted just like we are by stuff that was actually really tempting to him, and at a time when he was at his weakest. We read that he "suffered when he was tempted." (Heb 2:18). It is reassuring to know that our God is not aloof to our realities.

There are however some lessons we can take in a more personal capacity. All four the temptations boiled down to a short cut: He was not simply tempted to prove that he is the Son of God, to satisfy his gnawing hunger, to experience God's supernatural protection and exaltation, and to gain supreme control of the kingdoms of the world. All these things were going to happen anyway and I'm sure Jesus knew it. The temptation was to get it all without having to bear the cross. He was offered the ultimate short cut.

How does this apply to our lives? In many ways of course, but today I let it question the way in which I tend to pray for myself. Do I honour God's process in my life, or do I constantly ask for the short cut? Jesus himself had to learn obedience from what he suffered (Heb 5:8), an utterly baffling scripture. But my prayers for myself are filled with pleas to circumvent suffering. Maybe it's ok, I don't know. Jesus also prayed for the cup to pass if at all possible. It wasn't.

11 March - Broken on the stone

Reading:
Isa 55

I've been wondering about Maslow's pyramid since 1992 when I encountered it for the first time in Psychology 101. Basically it scales our human needs in an ascending order, understanding that the lower needs need to be satisfied before we would aspire to the highest. No-one would for instance be concerned

about their personal status (esteem needs)  if they can't breathe (basic needs). The top of the pyramid, in other words, represents the highest human aspiration or need: self-actualisation - the ultimate luxury.  As a Christian, that is quite a hard thought for me. It just doesn't feel right. Isn't the Christian life self sacrificial rather than self actualising? Just like Jesus? But this is a self defeating argument, because if you aspire to deny yourself, and you succeed, you fulfilled your aspiration and in doing that actualised yourself. You'll have to start all over again. Furthermore, as a Christian, I have very definitive higher order aspirations. I want to become more Christ-like. I want to overcome the sins I habitually battle with. (They're all very minor off course). So I've been going around Maslow's bush for the last 22 years. (Occasionally, in case someone thinks I'm a complete compulsive nut of sorts).

David is famously referred to in the Bible as a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22) - quite an accolade, to put it mildly. We all know of David's dubious reputation (adulterer, murderer, serial polygamist, terrible father etc), but also of his bravery and passion. We know that he loved God, but so did many other Old Testament characters. So why is David singled out? We cannot know of course, but we are all free to guess, so here's mine: Consider Jesus' tale of the Pharisee and the tax collector going to their prayer meeting. The guy who had his life together, who approached a degree of success in becoming the kind of person he wanted to be (more Christ-like, in our terms), failed to please God. The one who was still a rat and knew it was approved. The older brother who did his best all his years and never dragged on a stompie behind the tree was dismissed; the ruinous, squandering, drug addicted, prostituting one was approved, not for what he did, but for recognising his condition. Where does this leave us? Becoming a better person seems to be a hazardous activity. Perhaps I'll be thinking about old Masow's pyramid for another 22 years.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 51:17

He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, 

but he on whom it falls will be crushed.

Matthew 21:44

10 March - The sinrise

Readings:
Gen 2:4-25
Gen 3

My YouVersion devotional today speaks on the morbid topic of sin: "The tradition of Lent - a forty day sacrifice - is one way of mourning the death that sin has caused in our lives." Easter is our annual reminder of the execution and resurrection of Jesus, and part of what we need to spend a bit of time on, is why He needed to be crucified in the first place. So even though I quite honestly don't feel like it, I think it's right to pause on the topic of sin a bit.

Genesis 2 & 3 tells the sad story of the sinrise. Though it happened thousands of years ago, it is easy to recognize the pattern being played out many millions of times over throughout history and right into our own lives. We still doubt God and yield to temptation when deep inside we know we're messing up and that we're going to be sorry. In our guilt we still run away from God instead of running to him. We try to cover our shame ourselves - pathetic really. (When last did you rub your armpit (etc) with a bit of fig leaf!) We still, instinctively, offer excuses and attempt to shift the blame to our circumstances and onto others. Paradise was lost and we still daily loose it. It is miserable.

In the cool of the early evening breezes, God used to come and walk with his beloved couple in the garden. They sinned and hid, but as the day drew to a close, God didn't stay away. He still came. He knew what they did and that there had to be consequences, but He was gentle with them. He spoke to them kindly, even though they refused to own up. He had to force them out of paradise, into the hardship they chose for themselves, but He made them clothes. Pain and suffering entered our existence, but He chose to enter there with us.

God didn't let the story end there. He wrote many subsequent chapters and He is still part of our story as we are part of his. We still live in a world of sin, but we are can look forward, according to his Word, to the great sinset and paradise regained.

8 March - Come to me

Reading:
Mark 2

Mark 1 ends with Jesus ducking and diving in the "lonely places", away from the villages and towns.Yet Mark 2 starts off again with Jesus back at "home" in Capernaum, in a house and immersed in crowds spilling out onto the streets. That's the setting for the story of the five guys wanting to get to Jesus, one of them having to be carried. Except that they couldn't. It reminds a bit of the stories we've heard of people trampling each other trying to get in at big massive department store sales. There's simply no way to get to the front.

One of the ways in which we can think of Scripture, is as an invitation. The narrative, the poetry, the prophets, the letters, the message, it all boils down to an invitation to come to God, to come back to him, to continue coming to him. It is an enticing invitation. How is it then that people find reasons to decline (Mt 22:1-10) or postpone (Lk 14:15-24 - which is the same as declining really)? The five guys at Capernaum didn't decline or make excuses, but they still found it real hard to respond to the invite. Circumstances were against them. They pushed through though, and when they got to Jesus, there came the surprise: "Son, your sins are forgiven." What an odd thing for Jesus to say! The paralyzed guy didn't confess or repent. He probably didn't even want forgiveness - he wanted to walk. But he responded to the great call of Scripture; "Come to me", and in doing so, he got a lot more than he bargained for.

That is why we observe Lent. It is just another way for us - in community - to respond to this deeply personal call from God ringing out through the ages.

"The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life".  Rev 22:17

Some more of the "Come to me" scriptures:  Isa 55:1-3 / Mt 11:28 / Mt 19:14 / Jn 5:40 / Jn 7:37

7 March - Drawing crowds

Reading:
Mark 1

The first chapter of Mark gives a punchy rendering of how Jesus launched his public ministry. Baptism, solitude and temptation, calling the first disciples, and then heading off into ministry sunset. No more easy solitude from then on. Whatever he does draws crowds, entire towns in fact and even districts. So whatever it was that Jesus did (healing, exorcising, teaching with authority) obviously worked for first century Middle Easterners. (Mark prudently leaves out the bit about turning water into wine, which may or may not have drawn its own bit of crowd). 

So as far as launching a new ministry goes, Jesus seemed to have it down to a tee. His responses are a bit baffling though. I'm not sure what he saw that we don't, but Jesus didn't sign them up for discipleship courses. No. Jesus fled. (got that..?) Is it just me, or does that seem a bit counterintuitive for someone set on starting a new world wide religion?

6 March - Real trust

Readings:
Psalm 34
2 Cor 2:5-13

"Even young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing". 

Psalm 34:10

Do I really believe this? 
How would my life be different if I did?

5 March, Coming back to God

Readings:
Joel 2:12-17 (the classic Ash Wednesday reading)
Mat 6:16-21

Our natural tendency is to drift, to slowly resort back to what is easy and immediately gratifying. From time to time God calls us back to him. It is always effortful to bear out against the drift, but that is the call. We need to reassess and recalibrate our habits and priorities. We need to nestle back into God's presence, his love,his provision and his call upon our lives again. 

Lord, please give me grace to hear you in this time, and to respond to your voice with conviction and in loving devotion. 

Lent 2014 - Let's ...

(This post could possibly make more/any sense if you already read the preceding one).

Mel & I have been talking for quite a while about doing Lent again this year. We've been disheartened however by a most imposing barrier - time. Lent hardly seems worth it if we're not going to do it in community, but to find a slot for another weekly meeting (that suits everyone) seems like a losing endeavour. Hence the blog. (That is also why we're starting late. I only thought of this since Lent started).

For those - if anyone - who would like to join us, this is what I suggest:

• I selected a Lent devotional reading plan for myself on Youversion on my phone. The plan I selected is called Devotions for Lent from the Holy Bible; Mosaic. I'm three days into it and so-far-so-good. I recommend that you do some kind of daily reading. There are many Lent reading plans available online if for some inexplicable reason you don't like mine. If you're not keen on the online thing however, I do have a couple of book-version Lent devotionals for the-kind-of-persons-who-return-borrowed-books to lend. Not all of them are that great though. 
• I'll be posting a personal thought on the daily reading every day on this blog, except when I have no worthwhile thought to share in which case I promise not to share it. 
• You are cordially invited to publish your worthwhile thoughts or worthwhile comments on other worthwhile thoughts on the blog as well. It's meant to be a journey in community. 
• I'm hoping that this online dialogue will make up for the weekly meeting that none of us have time for. 
• Closer to Easter, we can do a movie night and watch The Passion of the Christ together.

I hope to hear from you and to enjoy your insights. 

A personal history of Lenting

I'm not an experienced observer of Lent. In fact, I've never formally done it with a local church, going through all the motions and  adhering to all the observances. I've only been at it a couple of times, mostly with a handful of friends or maybe with just Mel (my wife). So I'm probably doing it wrongish, which is ok I think. I haven't heard about a big rule-book somewhere secret. It has always proved to be an enriching journey. So here we go again. Please use the blog to share your thoughts and comments too.

The first time Mel & I did a Lent fast, we didn't actually even know about Lent. We just felt to do a partial 40 day fast which happened to fall over the same period as Lent. We did a "bitter-sweet" fast (the brainchild of a mutual friend). It basically translates into eating nothing sweet (in order to seek sweetness in another Source), and not saying any bitter words (not saying negative things about other people, even if completely justified). It turned out that the 2nd part of the fast was by far the hardest, and the sweet one was hard enough.

The way to approach the whole concept of fasting is important - make-or-break for me. We're not fasting to achieve some level of spiritual maturity, or to prove something to anyone, or for health, or to be a good Christian or any of that stuff. The focus is not in the withholding. We're fasting in order to focus on the Lord - to lean in towards Him. We're not fasting from, we're fasting to - and not to something, but to Someone. Unless I do it like this, fasting for me is purgatory, except nothing gets purged.

So what we've done in the past is the following: (bulletted else it takes too much writing to say it all)

• We Lent in community, usually a small group of friends.
• Every one hears for her/himself from the Lord what she/he should fast.
• Every one gets something to read for the time, usually a dedicated Lent reading that accompanies or focuses quiet times during the Lent period. 
• Once a week we'd get together for decent coffee (bummer if that's what you're fasting) and share some of our insights and experiences of the week, and pray for one another. 
• At the end of Lent, somewhere just before Easter weekend, we'll watch Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ together. 

Without exception we found Easter being much more meaningful and enriching when we approach it in this deliberate way. 

Some people feel uncomfortable participating in something like Lent, feeling that it's going back to dead traditions or Catholicism or something like that. I don't feel that way at all and will be happy to have a chat with you over a cup of coffee if you're keen. In case someone wants to read up a bit more on Lent, here's a good link: (please note that there are some real poor ones out there as well)

http://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2012/02/what-is-lent/