Anita Mathias | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Good News for Those who’ve Blown It

By Anita Mathias

Image: Caravaggio

You can live with Christ in the closest possible

Intimacy; have a Spirit-given breakthrough

Understand that he is the Son

Of the Living God, know

He speaks the words of eternal life.

You can see him on the mountain, transfigured.

And then… babble,

Something about building booths,

Because you don’t know what to say

But you must say something.

And so bossily,

Despite having seen him transfigured,

You decide to take charge, and take him aside and rebuke him

When he tells you that suffering was always part of the plan,

And you get called Satan,

Not long after you have been called blessed.

And then…what you can do,

Is declare you will never ever fall away from Jesus,

Even if everyone else does,

And then you do just that….deny him

Three times.

And then, when Jesus gives you another chance,

You blow that too,

And instead of contemplating your fate

Which Christ has just revealed to you.

What you do is competitively obsess over John’s fate!

* * *

You can love Christ for many years,

And be 83 pounds overweight,

You eat in a sloppy, unthinking way; eliminate exercise

Deal with your feeling through food.

You can lose your temper with some regularity; take offence,

Write people off. Of course you can!

* * *

Your vessel of clay may be different,

Alcoholism perhaps; drugs; an abortion; divorce,

A sexual history so chequered you’d rather not think about it,

Or perhaps you been good for so long,

That you feel very bad and angry inside.

* * *

It’s not the vessel of clay that counts,

It is the treasure within.

Your simple love for Christ,

Your desire to follow him,

Though you, so often, forget him.

For one day, your vessel, my vessel, Peter’s vessel

Shall all be cast away on the scrap-heap of discarded things,

And what matters shall shine forth: the treasure within:

The heart he always loved; the heart that loved him back,

Though it got side-tracked–so very often.

My Big, Fat, Frivolous Prayer Which Made Dreams Come True

By Anita Mathias

: Towers surrounding Piazza Cisterna, San Gimignano, Tuscany.; “Dreaming is a form of praying, and praying is a form of dreaming,” Mark Batterson

I was wandering around Tuscany last week, loving the tiny walled cities, the watch-towers (torre), bell-towers (campanile), the warm, funny people, and the excellent, gargantuan feasts, six and seven course meals. The elegant hotels and the massive repasts, the table littered with fine wines, were organized by the tour group, ATG. I would normally have contented myself with two courses, and good-enough accommodation, but I enjoyed it, as a one-off treat!

Oh, I suffer from wanderlust, a craving which got into my bones from reading, and watching movies, and looking at art, and I have travelled as much as I could afford throughout my adult life.

* * *

Piazza Duomo, San Gimignano, Tuscany.

I founded a small company in July 2007, an immensely stressful experience at first, as I had no business background.

A few months later, a Swedish friend described Stockholm, and the elegant canals that ran through it with Baltic palaces and mansions on either side. I longed to see it, but could not see how we could ever afford it, with all the money from the business going to pay private school fees and the mortgage, or being ploughed back into the business.

But as our friend spoke, the thought struck me like an electric shock, “Anita, pray. Pray that your business will provide enough for you to see Stockholm.” And suddenly that impossible dream seemed entirely possible.

And my eyes filled with tears, because I immediately knew that, of course, if I prayed, it was possible. It definitely was possible.

* * *

And over the next couple of years, we had lots of orders for the unusual stuff we sold from Europe. And each time I stuffed envelopes to Copenhagen or Stockholm or Oslo, or Malta or Corfu or Granada or Ravenna or Bologna or Donegal or Brittany or Strasbourg or Corfu or Istanbul or Geneva or Slovenia or Finland, I’d pray, “Lord, ‘my’ stuff is going to these places. One day, may I sell enough of them that I myself can visit these places.”

But our product list was then small, and the costs of the business were high–economies of scale and experience not having kicked in–that I could not see how it could ever be possible.

But I kept praying.

And we worked hard, too hard perhaps, because having taken on the challenge of building a business, it became our main, obsessive interest which absorbed all our energy and passion.

* * *


Il Campo (the main square), with town hall and bell tower, Siena.

In 2009, two years after starting the business, we explored the whole of Norway, which we had long wanted to; and in 2011, we explored Sweden, and, yes, Stockholm, and canoed down the river, with the Baltic palaces on each side; and in 2012, Denmark. I love Scandinavia.

Last week, as we walked the streets of Montalcino, Tuscany, I told Roy about the prayer I had prayed in 2007 as Goran had told us about Sweden, and about how it has been lavishly answered. Since 2009, we’ve taken the girls to all those magical places I mentioned earlier.

* * *

Why did God answer that totally frivolous prayer?

Well, why not?

I think that is how the Lord of Universe sometimes views our prayers. Much as we should view our child’s request for an ice-cream on a hot day when we have money in our pocket.

Why not?

And perhaps he will use my love of travel in the story of my life. I have three big prayers about how I want him to do so!

* * *

Perhaps my prayer was answered because God is a father, and delights in giving us what we ask for.

Think of a child climbing into her father’s lap, saying, “Papa, may I have a doll house for Christmas?”

And if there is room in their house for the dollhouse; and if the father can buy it while meeting his other obligations; and if the child can be counted on not to scatter the doll’s house furniture throughout the real house; and not to swallow bits and pieces; and if it will be a pleasure, not one more stressful bit of clutter, sure he will give it to her.

And so, when I figuratively climbed into his lap, in 2007, and said, “Father, I want to see Scandinavia. Father, open up Europe and the Europeans to me. Father, please ensure that this business I am establishing will provide our family enough money to travel widely in Europe,” he could have said, “Oh, Anita, your business really is writing. Wait. Your writing will enable your travel. And that will give you more joy.”

And in retrospect that is what I should have prayed for.

But I asked for my little business to prosper so my kids could go to the best school for them, which was expensive and private, and so he said, “Yes, child, okay,” and it happened to me as I prayed for.

* * *

He is our Father, and he encourages us to pray outrageous prayers, and because he is a kind, even indulgent father, he often grants them.

Not always, of course, but climbing into his lap, and whispering our heart’s desires into his ears, is one of the things which will change the course of our lives more than anything else! I am convinced of it.

What you pray for consistently has a tremendous, seismic, thoroughly under-estimated effect on the course of your life.

Living in the “Flow” of God’s River

By Anita Mathias

Whoever seeks to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:39) NIV.
If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. (Matt 10:39) New Living Translation.

* * *

Time cannot be saved; it is a river. It flows, 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week. You cannot save it.

Use the hours well, make them shine, and when you cannot, release them without recrimination into the river of time. Already, the giver of good gifts is sending you more.

* * *

Strength cannot be saved. The more we spend it, the more we exercise, the more our strength grows. Are our bodies telling us something?

* * *

Ideas rust and atrophy when saved. But creativity blooms in the expending of it.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes,” Annie Dillard writes in The Writing Life.

* * *

I reflect on these things, and squirm, since, for much of my life, I have been exceedingly precious, careful, indeed stingy with time.

Donald Miller says in Blue Like Jazz, “I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil, but rather have us wasting time.” I tend to believe him

And so I have been too careful with time, grabbing too much for reading and writing, instead of investing in friendships and activities which would perhaps have brought happiness or health or peace or growth, the rough edges of my character smoothed away.

And I used to burn out with metronomic frequency, growing too tired to read and write.

* * *

Money is the other thing people try to save.

I was relatively relaxed about money as a single woman. When I married and decided not to work for money (except for spells of teaching creative writing at William and Mary and the Loft at Minneapolis), I tried to be careful with money because of guilt over wasting money Roy had earned. And when I was preoccupied about saving and investing–and what a dreadful use of time all that was!!– money was not particularly plentiful.

However, I gradually began to see money as a river from God, some of it flowing to me, giving me the desires of my heart, and some of it flowing through my hands to other people. God was giving me that money to use, or spend, or give away. This river is not to be dammed up and saved, just enjoyed; held lightly, not held on to–for there is plenty more where that came from.

Sometimes I “lose” money, make unwise decisions; sometimes, I am taken advantage of, and money flows through my hands to someone else. That is okay; it is the nature of the river.

When I relinquished my concern about finances to God and turned my attention to other things, they were no longer a particular concern. There seemed to “always be enough.”

* * *

Hmm. Would this work with time too?

“Wasting time?” My father used to ask me with the expression of greatest disapproval and severity (though most of the time, I wasn’t!), and I turned the same disgust on myself if I judged myself to have wasted time.

But I now see “wasted time” as seeds. It’s inert; it seems nothing good came out of it. But put into God’s hands, who knows what beauty may emerge from those seeds?

* * *

So my time challenge is two-fold. To see time as a sparkling river coming towards me, and seek to use it well, while being totally relaxed when things don’t work out as I hoped, and time, apparently, has been wasted.

More, to learn the habit of surrendering my day and its hours to God, giving them to him, asking him to bless them, and work in them. (I haven’t yet learnt this habit!).

* * *

And—here is the challenging part: deliberately “lose” some time, give some time away for the sake of Jesus.

How can I do this?

Now, because my domestic skills are meagre, and because my husband is practical, I do not do much in the way of cooking, shopping, laundry or housekeeping. We have a cleaner who also does some housekeeping. We have gardening help. And Roy who works from home, keeps it running efficiently.

I have often spent more hours serving my church, in leading Bible Studies and speaking, than in serving my family

But for the sake of Jesus, I am planning to help my family in a tiny specific way.

It probably won’t be noticed, except by Jesus for whose sake I am doing it, but it will bring more peace to my soul, and since Jesus says that he who loses his life for His sake will find it, it will be a counter-intuitive surprising way of “finding” time!

So be it. Amen!

On Long Walks, Spirituality and Creativity. And Images of Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

By Anita Mathias

I discovered a new pleasure this year which has become vital to my spiritual life and my ability to hear and God; my emotional balance and shalom; my psychological well-being; my ability to deal with stress; my creativity, and my happiness.

And no, it’s not prayer, though prayer, theoretically, offers all these benefits.But we are body as well as spirit, and so it is something akin to prayer–long walks.

* * *

I started long walks in January because I had signed up for a pilgrimage to Tuscany on the Via Francigena.

I was not fit, and have not found it easy to acquire the new habit of long walks every day. There have been many, many days lost because it was cold, icy, rainy, or I was too absorbed in my writing.

But I have got back to the stamina I had 16 years ago, when Zoe was 2, and I used to walk with other mums, pushing her in her stroller, for the whole 4 mile trail in Kingsmill, the beautiful resort-like community in Williamsburg, where we lived for 9 years.

* * *

It’s just a first step. Having been sedentary for so many years, four miles is a challenge! And my speed, I have discovered is not yet normal-person-speed.

So here I am on this pilgrimage in Tuscany on the Via Francigena, and I quickly discovered that I hadn’t trained sufficiently!

So I am doing a “pilgrimage lite” which has included exploring: San Gimingnano on Sunday, Volterra on Monday, Monteriggioni and Siena on Tuesday, more Siena today.

* * *

One of my personal mantras is, “If you can not succeed, fail better.” Success is the result of a dozen, or a hundred “better failures.”

So though I have failed in my training for this pilgrimage—I did not get my stamina up to 11-14 miles a day (more like 4!) or my speed to 2. 25 miles an hour on hills—I am going to continue long walks, which give me the opportunity to spend long concentrated hours with God, and tie in with my love of travel.

* * *

Oh, I love travelling. I am, sadly, somewhat addicted to books, reading, writing, and the internet, and getting away is the only way to unhook myself from these things.

Getting away re-sets my mind. Left to myself, I begin to run down after some time. It takes me longer and longer to get going, and longer and longer to get my work done.

After a break, however, I come back with a new mind. Refreshed, able to read fast, think fast, write fast, and write for long hours.

* * *

Also, it is, sadly, easy for me to get my life, my heart, my spirit, and my schedule slightly unaligned with God. And, if one is even slightly unaligned with God, if you lean slightly away, what you land up with is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Very beautiful still, but, well, if it were not shored up by engineers and millions of euros, a disaster in the making.

But when I travel, when I walk alone contemplatively, when I walk in the hills or on the beaches, praying, I slowly re-align myself with God. I ask if I am on the right track. I ask him to reveal the plans he has for the next six weeks of my life, and the next year, or decade.

* * *

We explored bits of Switzerland, France and Italy last month in our camper van. And just on our way to Dover, we were caught in the most dreadful traffic jam and were barely crawling. I’m reading Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, which was also on my iPod, but I can no longer easily read in a moving car.

So Zoe suggested listening to the book, and following along, as a dual pleasure which I did for a bit, and enjoyed

And then, I thought, “Heck why all this striving? I am the child of a good God. Let me just rest in his love.”

I thought of Wordsworth’s poem, “Expostulation and Reply,”
“Nor less I deem that there are Powers

Which of themselves our minds impress;

That we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, ‘mid all this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

Ah, doing nothing, resting, waiting. How alien to this modern world of scrambling, doing, achieving!

I closed the book, turned off the iPod, lay down, and rested. If God were to speak to me, fine. If not, I was content to rest in his love.

* * *

And he did speak that holiday, in fiction. Short story after story came, holy and mysterious, and I rapidly wrote them down. I told them to my husband and children; they got emotionally involved and totally drawn in. One was heart-breaking and ethically ambiguous, having come in a dream, and the children were outraged and saddened by it. I think the stories were lovely, and they came in their own tone and voice.

They belonged to a sort of dream-time, written in our camper van in Switzerland, Italy and France. I returned from holiday on August 15th, and I have not looked at them since.

What’s going on? Fear that they were not as good as I remembered? Interestingly though, letting first drafts sit is standard creative advice.

* * *

And now again on this holiday, short stories are coming, one or two or three a day, and I am rapidly writing them down.

Anyway, I need to have a plan if I am to finish in addition to my blog and my memoir. And part of having a plan is to have a trigger, a specific time/slot when I am going to write them.

So on my return from Tuscany, I am going to devote the first half-hour or so of the day to working on these stories. Quiet time, I will still have, even if I put it second; and the memoir, I am deep enough into that I will still write even if it’s in the semi-comatose last hour of the day.

And I might also work on my stories last thing at night for as long as my mind works. The writer Andrea Barrett once told me that her most creative times are first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

So I might experiment with last thing at night, the sleepy, in-between phase, when the stern critic, the assaulter of creative work, is off dozing, and the muse appears, in her voluminous garments, and says, “Come, Dance.”

Anyway, enjoy images of Lucca which we visited last month. I particularly enjoyed walking around the city walls.

Aerial view of Lucca. The green strip round the old city is the top of the very wide Renaissance wall. (credit)

San Frediano

The Duomo (Cathedral)

San Michele in Foro

photo

In which Failure can be a Greater Blessing than Success

By Anita Mathias

Pastor, pastor Adam Barton, Adam Barton Akron Ohio, Akron Ohio, Akron, Ohio, Adam Barton, pastor Adam Barton Akron Ohio, reverend, minister, The Chapel, Pastor Adam P. Barton, Adam P. Barton, famous art worship1[1]

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I would like to have been successful in everything I did the first time round. Sure, I would.

And some things I have failed in, yeah, sure, I would rather have been successful in.

However, what failure has taught me is to learn to lean.

In that way, ironically, it has brought me peace, even more perhaps than success which merely propels you up the ladder, substituting one level of hard work and stress for another.

* * * *

I am learning to substitute God-confidence for self-confidence. When faced with something challenging, I say to myself, “Well, who knows how I am going to manage that, negotiate that, keep my head above water during that, but I guess I will lean on God, and God will help me, and will tell me what to do, minute by minute.”

The Song of Songs has a beautiful line, “Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her beloved?” (Song of Songs, 8:5).

She who has failed, who is no longer supremely self-confident, who knows she needs to lean. That’s who.

* * *

I am reading the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob is self-confident, tricky, unscrupulous. He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. He exploits Esau out of his birthright, deceives Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing.

And all this achieves is that Jacob is now on the run from Esau, hiring himself out to his uncle Laban, who tricks him into serving seven years for Leah whom he does not want, besides the seven year for Rachel, whom he does want.

But Jacob is strong and he does it.

And Leah gives him four sons.

* * *

Jacob has been unstoppable. Smart, strong, hardworking, tricky, manipulative.

Had God not intervened, Jacob would, in fact, have been condemned to a hard life of getting everything he wanted through cleverness or trickery or hard work. What a treadmill!

So God, for now, does not allow Rachel to bear children.

* * *

And Jacob is faced with something hard, something inexorable which he could not get around by trickery, or deceit or even hard work.

He is faced with his powerlessness in all the really huge things—such as life itself.

And in despair, Rachel says, “Give me children, or I’ll die.”

And Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children?” (Gen 30:2).

* * *

And this perhaps is a turning point in the story of Jacob.

He has reached a barrier which neither charm, nor guile, nor hard work could cross.

He needed God, and acknowledges his need for him.

And from this point, his story begins to turn.

* * *

All his trickery achieved was that instead of gaining Esau’s birthright, he had to run away from home with just the clothes on his back, fleeing from Esau’s wrath.

But now, broken, he acknowledges his powerlessness and need for God.

And God begins to bless him. Though his bumbling experiments with cattle breeding have no basis in science, God allowed them to succeed (Gen 30).

By the end of the chapter, we are told, “Jacob became exceedingly prosperous, and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants and camels and donkeys.” (Gen 30:43).

He has moved from the realm of addition, of what we can achieve with our puny efforts, to the realm of multiplication, of what can happen if God steps in to bless us.

* * *

Not everyone comes to the end of themselves, to the end of their resources to make things happen, to the point of exhaustion, when you throw your weapons down in helplessness.

For me, reaching that point has consistently opened the door to better things, to learning to listen and lean.

My first business, embarked in 2006, with enthusiasm, but without much prayer, was unsustainably exhausting. It was through desperate prayer, that, in 2007, I “heard” God whisper the idea for a new business, which now supports our family.

And, in 2006, my memoir had reached top agents in the UK and the US, but each wanted changes, and I didn’t know how to make them, and had lost enthusiasm and love for the project, and so laid writing down, to found a business so my girls could go to the very academic private school I judged right for them.

I resumed writing in 2010, after “hearing” God suggest blogging, and the pressure of writing every day in public smashed my perfectionism about writing, my fear of writing anything that was not unassailable, my preciousness, my fear of criticism.

When I first started, a mean reader at a Writers’ Conference criticised the grammatical structure of a sentence, and I lost confidence, more so when a powerful woman assailed my style, (along with lots of praise, but the criticism froze me). Now when my writing is criticised, I no longer take it personally. I say “Yeah,” and fix it. Or “Yeah,” and leave it.

I am constantly putting my writing in God’s hands, again and again, because it is the easiest thing to take out of his hands. But in his hands, it has the possibility to reach more people, and do more good than it ever would in my own hands, so take it, Lord Jesus, bless it.

In which Change can come like Magic and Miracles, or through Grace-and-Sweat

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

They had heard of this amazing man who could heal.

And so, giving up a day’s wages, they go off in search of him.

Their mates say, “Heck, if this man were God, he could heal you without you going off to find him. God is everywhere.”

But, half-forgetting they cannot see, they are missing no opportunity to “see God.”

They are not missing their great chance, their big break, oh no, and so they go tap-tapping in search of him, buffeted by unfamiliar crowds, asking directions as they go.

They follow the noise, the shouts.

And as these intensify, they shout, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”

And they follow him indoors.

Looking at them, he holds their hands, so they know he is talking to them, and asks,

“Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Matt 9 27-31

* * *

^“Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. Do I believe he can?

He will know if I bullsh*t him.

But I do believe he can, that’s why I have been chasing him all day.”

“Yes, Lord,” they replied.

“Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you,” (Matt 9:29).

And their sight was restored.

According to your faith will it be done to you.

* * *

What would have happened if they had not believed?

It’s chilling to think of it. They would have continued begging for the rest of their lives.

They would not have chased Jesus, being buffeted by the crowds They would not have called out to him loudly, risking people’s sneers and laughter at their outrageous, childlike faith. They would not have followed him indoors.

They would not have answered “Yes, Lord,” when he asked them quietly, seriously, “Do you believe that I am able to do this for you?”

They would not have been healed.

* * *

None of us is entirely sole or whole.

But, by virtue of living in a world in which powers of evil prowl, in which they are people who do not hesitate at evil, in which there is some evil in each of us, we are all in need of healing. We all have areas of dis-ease, and dysfunction, whether physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual.

And what do we do with our areas of brokenness and blindness. How do we change?

* * *

I can tell you one way we are guaranteed NOT to change. And that is business as usual.

Continue doing what you have been doing before. Hope you lose weight, write more, read more, wake earlier, become a little bit tidier, and you have basically guaranteed business as usual.

* * *

How do we change then? How can light shine on our dark spots?

Remember that there is a healer. Go to him for healing. Go every day.

* * *

There are two ways healing comes, multiplication and addition. Magic, or Grace-and-sweat.

Instantly, by a sovereign act of grace, people have been delivered of their addictions to alcohol, or cigarettes or chocolate or coffee.

But healing also comes, slowly, step by step, working with Jesus. When we sense the cue to unhealthy behaviour, chocolate when we are stressed for example, we substitute a healthy behaviour: prayer, or a quick walk. (Read The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg on this).

Similarly, poetry can come in a flood, magic, multiplication, or more likely, through mastery of one’s craft, along with a little bit of inspiration (literally, the spirit within you).

* * *

The key question to ask when faced with areas of disease and dysfunction in our lives is this:

Do I believe that Jesus and I together can change this?

* * *

I am battling with changing a lifetime of habits of comfort-eating, and eating what is quick, convenient and tasty rather than what is the greatest blessing to my body. And a lifetime of sedentary habits.

I have lost 13 pounds since I started this adventure. The key question as to whether I will continue losing weight is this:

Do I believe that Jesus and I together are able to do this? Change sloppy eating, and sedentary habits.

If I do believe that change is possible, and I do, I will keep reviewing my simple rules: Eliminate sugar, drastically limit white flour, eat lots of fruit and veggies, go easy on fat. Don’t eat when not hungry. Walk every day.

* * *

Other areas of my life in which I am working for change.

2) Writing, aiming to write 400 words a day on my memoir, in addition to a blog. (This is working!)

3) Reading more, which makes one’s thinking, sensibility and writing style more sophisticated.

Everyone wants to read more, and the key to doing so is to have a plan and believe that you and Jesus together can change your life enough to make space for what you really want to do. My current plan is to increase a page a day until I am reading 45 pages a day. Also, having started at a book a month, I am aiming at reading each book in one day less, (currently at 18 days a book).

4 Waking early. I am currently waking at 6.40 a.m. and love it. Love getting my quiet time done, important email caught up on, newspaper scanned, and blog posted by 10 or 11 a.m.

I am dreaming of 5 a.m. for both spiritual and literary reasons—both writers and great Christians swear by the benefits of waking at 5!

And I believe that Jesus and I together are able to do this.

* * *

So perhaps these are the steps to health and wholeness

1) Admit you have a problem, that you are not living the life you want to.

2) Ask Jesus for help. It may come “magically,” a lifting of the cravings for chocolate and sugar as happened to me. It may come slowly, as in me learning to enjoy long walks.

3) Have a plan, worked out in consultation with Jesus in prayer

4) Believe that Jesus and you together are able to do it.

In which God says, “Child, Name your Destiny”

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

In the beginning,

God said, “Let there be light.”

And he let the water teem with living creatures,

Birds flying above the earth,

The land full of wild animals and livestock.

And the Lord God brought all the beasts of the field,

And all the birds of the air,

To Adam, and said, “Name them.”

And he waited to see “what he would name them” (Gen 2:19).

And he says to us today, “Name your future.”

* * *

In the beginning of our lives, God made us.

He decided our race, the country into which we were born,

the family into which we were born, their wealth and education.

He decided the features of our face.

He chose our IQ.

He smuggled gifts, like treasure, into us,

which we would slowly discover,

Music, chess, maths, or poetry, perhaps.

And then he says, “Child, name your life.

Will you be happy, though waves will batter you ?

Will you be kind, when tempted not to?

Will you be calm, when stress assails?

Will you make friends, when it’s easier to be solitary?

Will you learn to write, though sloth tempts you?

What will you do?

Will you work hard when you don’t have to?

Will you chose discipline?

Will you work on your dreams?

Choose your look.

Will your face be marked by kindness?

Will you keep your body strong?

Will you have a beautiful garden?

Will your home exude peace?

Will you wake early, watching my sunrise?

Will you chase me when you don’t have to?

Will you walk with me as your friend?

Will you enter my rest?

Child, today, I give you the rest of your life.

You are free to choose how to live it.

Child, today, choose your destiny

Name it.

What We Sow, We Reap because God, the Great Mathematician, the Impartial Referee, Keeps Score

By Anita Mathias

Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Matt 7:2).

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. (Matt 5:7).

As a man sows, so shall he reap. (Gal 6:7).

These principles run though Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

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I’ve been following Christ with increasing seriousness for 24 years now–but have loved Christ for much longer.

However, I no longer play Scripture roulette—try to find a verse which will tell me what to do and will provide a way out of the maze of decision.

When I don’t know what to do, I seek the face of Jesus and the voice of the Holy Spirit. And then, or concurrently, I look for principles running through scripture.

* * *

And this is one: that what a man sows, he shall reap.

Believing it is a practical version of what Proverbs calls, “the fear of the Lord.” We are careful in our behaviour, especially when no one is watching, when we can get away with things, because God is watching, and what a man sows, he shall reap.

When we have the upper hand, when we can get away with things, when no one will ever know, when we can, with impunity, be mean, cruel or dishonest—the secret good or evil we then do determines the course of our lives, and the sweetness or bitterness of them. It determines the things that happen to us. It determines our destiny.

How so? Because a very good mathematician is keeping score. Because an impartial referee is watching the game.

* * *

Jacob cons Esau out of his birthright and his blessing because he could, because he could get away with it, he thought.

And yes, well, desperate with hunger Esau promises that Jacob could have his birthright as the eldest son (a double share of the inheritance). And Jacob then lies to Isaac, claiming to be Esau, so getting the blessing Isaac intended for Esau.

And God watches it all, and God does not like it. Instead of receiving the blessing Isaac intended for Esau, Jacob goes through 20 years of unhappiness as a hired man, while Esau stays home and becomes very rich, being blessed in exactly the way his father wanted him to be.

* * *

Jacob falls in love with Rachel, “who is lovely and form and beautiful”. Leah, we are told, had weak eyes, which, in the years before corrective lenses, probably affected her facial expression as she scrunched up her eyes to see better, and her posture as she stooped to see.

And Jacob, after serving seven years to pay the bride price for Rachel, gets Leah, whom he neither loves nor wants. He then has to serve yet another seven years for Rachel whom he does love and want. Fourteen years to pay bride prices while Esau stayed at home hunting, and marrying a third wife with family wealth, building up a small army of 400 men (Gen. 32:6).

Jacob is tricked in a way ironically parallel to his own deceptions. He who tried to trick his older brother out of his birthright now is tricked out of seven years salary for a older sister he does not want.

But Laban had no idea of how Jacob had tricked Isaac and Esau. It wasn’t exactly dinner table conversation. But God who watched everything allowed Laban to deceive Jacob as Jacob had deceived Esau and Isaac.

* * *

We reap what we sow because character is destiny, I feel convinced. Have you come across a lovely kind person whom everyone likes? Talking to them you largely hear good things about people, about how people were lovely to him. Were Jacob such a person would Laban have had the heart to trick him so cruelly? Very likely not.

Do you know bitter, abrasive, power-hungry, manipulative people? They are angry about many things, cross with many people. In a weird way, like appears to be attracting like.

The universe reflects your character, measure for measure. Your life often serves up to you what you are, measure for measure. Now, this perhaps sounds like something from The Secret.

But, in fact, it runs through the Bible: what a man sows he shall reap. The measure we give is the measure we shall receive. Measure for measure.

* * *

Jacob whose name means deceiver is deceived and things do not go well for him until he seeks to be blessed by the source of all blessing who blesses him with the ambiguous blessing of a limp, a reminder in his flesh that if he, Jacob, the manipulator, is going to live the rest of life under God’s blessing, he MUST rely on the source of all goodness and blessing for blessing, and not on his own ingenious tricks and stratagems.

anita.mathias