Blog Through The Bible Project Archives - Dreaming Beneath the Spires

On why God Permits our Weaknesses and Frailities to linger, and on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit–and its limits!

John the Baptist’s preaching caused a revival, of sorts. “The whole Judaean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.” (Mark 1:5)

This explosion of popularity did not throw him off course. He did not try to hold on to his momentum or his platform. He stayed focused on the Message-giver, and his message was one of utter simplicity. “There is one greater than I. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.”

That simple promise of John still speaks to us today, whose experience of the Spirit in our daily lives resembles occasional sips of champagne rather the wisdom and peace that comes from a steady abiding.

John’s message is one of hope: There is one more powerful than I who will baptise me with the Holy Spirit.

Lent, New Year…we traditionally take stock of our lives and plan to revise them.

And the best way is with the power of the Spirit, with the power of Jesus, not with the power of our weak and fickle wills.

Let’s take a peek at some of my New Year’s goals, which, sigh, I have made before.

I would like to sleep early, and wake early.

I would like to be more active, and eat healthily.

I would like to be tidier and more organised.

I would like to be more productive, and finish the book.

I think I omitted an important element in New Year’s resolution making. Instead of focusing on my struggles with discipline in early rising, healthy eating, exercise, housekeeping, and productivity, I should ask for Jesus to baptise me with the Holy Spirit as I tackle discipline.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit comes in all the forms and shapes and variety of God himself. It was for me a seismic, one in a life-time event. But what I rely on more is a daily filling.

As a good father does not give the son who asks for bread and fish snakes and scorpions, Jesus says, so if we ask for the Holy Spirit, for help to do what we must do, he will give it to us. (Luke 11: 11-12). Fresh bread, sufficient for the day. Tomorrow we will be hungry, and we must ask again.

I need to focus on Jesus, clothed in light, who breathed on the disciples, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and they were transformed. Ask for his interventions in my little struggles with disciplines, things you can’t go over, you can’t go under, you have to go through.

I’d rather read than declutter, but I should declutter significantly because I am planning to move… There is one greater than I who will baptise me with the Holy Spirit, and with the power to do what I have to do. Come, Holy Spirit.

I’d rather eat comfort food, and surf the net rather than eat nutritious food and exercise. But there is power, there is one more powerful than I, who will baptise me with his Spirit again, and give me power to do what I must do. Come, Holy Spirit.

I want to stay up late, reading or surfing. It’s more appealing to sleep in or read newspapers or magazines or Facebook rather than finish my book. But there is power to do the right thing, there is one more powerful than I, who will baptise me with the Spirit, and who will help me. Come, Holy Spirit.

The place of helplessness is the ironic place of power, because we need to really, truly come to it to lean on the one stronger than ourselves.

* * *

Besides, all these tedious old resolutions are part of the idols of our age. Clean eating. 10,000 steps. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Productivity.

But Jesus said nothing about them in his long great sermons on record, The Sermon on the Mount, and the Upper Room Discourse, or in any of his red letter teachings.

His focus was on the heart and spirit, the secret thoughts and emotions which no one else guesses at. The ways we disobey the teachings of Jesus in our innermost thoughts affect the course of our lives, and our peace and happiness far more than the habits of health and productivity.

If Jesus were to help us make New Year resolutions he might say, “Stop judging!! Stay in your own lane. Turn that judging energy into improving the speed and elegance of your own race. Ask me for help in seeing yourself clearly, and when you have seen the beam in your own eyes, ask my help in removing it.” He might say, “Do unto your family and friends what you would they do unto you.” He might say “Give,” or “Forgive. Cut the tangled fishing line of grievances, and see how much lighter you feel.”

And these things my wonderful Jesus might say are infinitely harder than New Year resolutions–Wake earlier. Eat healthily. Write more. Be tidier. And, as we follow where Jesus leads step by step in the minutiae of our daily lives…(I love the German word for discipleship, Nachfolge, follow after)…these things fall into place.

* * *

So, through will you and I then go to our graves as perfect human beings, without all these weaknesses and limps and thorns in our flesh that keep us humble?

I have two stories…

The powerful, brilliant, spiritually gifted, dynamic St. Paul, he who heard the voice of Jesus, who had a vision of heaven, was beset by an annoying “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass” him. His weakness could have been physical, emotional, or spiritual… He emphasises, however, that it came from Satan, not God. He is also clear that God could deliver him from it, in an instant, with “one touch from the King.”

Three times he asks God to free him from it, and Christ refuses to. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” Christ replies.

In his neediness, Paul will have to learn to rely on Christ’s power, which he would not need if he was self-powered, Paul-powered.

Paul concludes that he will delight in his weaknesses and hassles which will teach him to rest on Christ’s power, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Sometimes God lets our struggles, difficulties and problems linger, so that we learn to trust him, discover his power, and live and act out of his empowering. Or merely to keep us humble. To keep us walking, instead of running, and collapsing in burnout.

* * *

And sometimes the weaknesses we lament are just part of our make-up, the way God created us, the shadow side, the necessary adjunct of our strengths. The awkwardness and extreme introversion Donald Miller, whose memoir A Million Miles in a Thousand Years I am listening to on audio in the car, mentions in Blue Like Jazz, his highly original memoir, perhaps provided the necessary space for his independent thinking on faith, love and “how then should we live.”

A last story. All his life, the great Christian and lexicographer Samuel Johnson struggled with sleeping early and waking early. He wanted to wake at 6 a.m., he would have been content to wake at 8 a.m; he often woke up at 2 p.m.

1738: He wrote, “Oh Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.”

1757: (19 years later) “Oh mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining.”

1759: (2 years later) “Enable me to shake off idleness and sloth.”

1761: “I have resolved until I have resolved that I am afraid to resolve again.”

1764: “My indolence since my last reception of the sacrament has sunk into grossest sluggishness. My purpose is from this time to avoid idleness and to rise early.”

1764: (5 months later) He resolves to rise early, “not later than 6 if I can.”

1765: “I purpose to rise at 8 because, though, I shall not rise early it will be much earlier than I now rise for I often lie until 2.”

1769: “I am not yet in a state to form any resolutions. I purpose and hope to rise early in the morning, by 8, and by degrees, at 6.”

1775: “When I look back upon resolution of improvement and amendments which have, year after year, been made and broken, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” He resolves again to rise at 8.

1781: (3 years before his death) “I will not despair, help me, help me, oh my God.” He resolves to rise at 8 or sooner to avoid idleness.”

Johnson spent much of the night in taverns where he enthralled an audience with his encyclopaedic knowledge, and his quick and ready wit. He was the best thing that ever happened to the young Scot James Boswell, who wrote one of classics of English Literature: The Life of Johnson. Boswell, an early fan-boy, surreptitiously recorded everything that Johnson said, and there was his book.

Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all, Johnson quipped to Boswell. (Yeah, yeah, perhaps he should have gone to bed a bit earlier after all).

But genetically, Johnson was a night-owl. In trying to rise early, he was fighting against his chronotype, his biology. (I’ve read that night owls may be evolutionary descendants of the Paleolithic and Neolithic night watchmen who sat at edges of the encampment, protecting the people, and telling stories and singing songs to keep themselves awake. Creative, intelligent, resourceful types). Many creative people are night owls, are messy, are sedentary, or fight addictions…. These things are often the shadow side of creativity.

Perhaps Samuel Johnson was just the way God meant him to be, a brilliant night owl who sparkled after the sun set. Maybe his struggles with early rising taught him humility; taught him a gentleness with others who struggle; taught him his need for God. If not for his late hours, his wit and wisdom and life experience would have long vanished, he would be one of the 99.99% who are long forgotten, and lie in unvisited graves.

Dr. Jack Miller (who catalogued Johnson’s failures I just quoted in his own great Sonship talks) mocks him, saying he struggled because he did not know the power of the Spirit. But I think every human being goes to his grave with weaknesses, blind spots, and even sins…so that they continually feel the need for God,

God determines our chronotype, lark or owl. God determines our body type, ectomorph, mesomorph or endomorph, and there are limits to how much we can change it. God determines our IQ, our physical attractiveness, our talents. He knows exactly the role he has planned for us to play in this our life—Hamlet, or Ophelia, Lear or Cordelia– though we can decide whether we will play it well, badly, or not at all.

Our weaknesses are as much a part of God’s plan for our lives as our strengths. Both guide us into our vocation, signal what we should undertake, and what we should not. And sometimes, of course, what we see as our weaknesses are just the shadow side of our strengths. I am a distracted housekeeper because I spend so much time reading. I am not an early riser because I read into the early hours! I carry extra weight because I spend more hours reading than exercising…

So while we try to change, we should also treat ourselves with the affection and amused tenderness that God feels towards us; we should treat ourselves as tenderly and indulgently as we would treat a beloved toddler who announces she’s going to run the London Marathon…tomorrow!

Image Credit: Tolle et Lege, Alighieri Press

PS: Slowly blogging through the Book of Mark, interrupted by a spell of busyness, and imperfect health!

In Praise of Desert and Wilderness Experiences

By Anita Mathias

John the Baptist, his heart and mind and spirit filled with the word of God, pregnant with his calling, does not do what we would today if we sense a calling. He does not go to the cities, to Jerusalem; he does not seek a platform; in fact, he initially does not speak at all.

He goes into silence, into solitude and lets the silence and solitude mould him into the Prophet God wants him to be. He does not seek the audience, the ministry, or the influence; he seeks his God, and God brings it all to him–the ministry, the recognition, the influence, the crowds, the “cross”.

He put first things first: He put God first, and the rest came to him.

* * *

John the Baptist’s season in the desert of preparation for his prophetic calling was a period of extreme simplicity–in his clothing…a garment of camel hair with a leather belt, and in the simple eating, locusts and wild honey (protein and simple carbs) which helped him focus on the most important things…

In solitude, he got to know God, to know his voice, to let the Spirit which had filled him from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15) strengthen him, so that he wasn’t thrown when crowds seeking baptism flocked to him “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan” including tax collectors and soldiers whom he fearlessly challenged. The time in the desert was necessary for him to gain the strength to stand up to the priests and Levites and Pharisees and Sadducees, whom he scathingly labelled “a brood of vipers” (Matt 3:7) and not hesitate to confront Herod, precipitating his own death (Mark 6 14-29).

The time in the desert made John unique (among those born of women there is no one greater than John, Jesus says, Luke 7:28), for in the desert, he had unusual, totally inspiring company. God was in the desert; the Spirit of God hovered over the desert, there were ministering angels in the desert (Matt 4:11), and eventually the Son of God, Jesus himself came there. John the Baptist, “a voice crying in the wilderness,” sounded unique, he sounded like himself. He sounded like God

Thomas Merton writes, “Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint…They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavour to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems, or possess someone else’s spirituality. There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular-and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. (Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation).

* * *

“God leads everyone he loves into the desert,” Paul Miller, a friend who mentored and “discipled” me for five years writes in his excellent book, A Praying Life, Moses, David, and Elijah among them.

We all have seasons of quietness, when, if we are to do the work involved in fulfilling our call, we must be alone and silent and quiet. God shapes us in that silence with his word, his spirit, and his love, until we are ready for the next season.

But desert seasons can be unendurably quiet. We can feel like failures while we wait.

However, if we try to short-circuit the desert season necessary for us to be shaped in silence into the kind of people who are able to bear the weight of the call of God, then the desert season gets prolonged, for we are not yet ready for our call.

* * *

For me the call to the desert in my life has been to retreat into silence and obscurity and “do the work: write the book.” I admit I have tried to get out of it by social life, volunteering in church, school and the community; teaching Bible studies, travel, adult education courses, films, theatre, money-making, money-saving, hosting and attending parties, “friendships” or small groups in which I did not add something of value to my friends’ life, or they to mine… But trying to get out of your calling, and out of doing what you have to do because of the sacrifices involved is not really satisfying. Ask Jonah. But God uses and shapes even our mistakes into a beautiful and useful story. Read the Book of Jonah.

By refusing to accept the deserts God calls us into, by filling them with noise, distraction, and busyness, we can prolong the season of preparation for our call. And, more chillingly, we may never do the work God has uniquely called us to do. I suspect many people never really step into their calling and vocation, for they are not willing to accept the sacrifice that preparation for it entails.

* * *

If God calls you into the desert, accept it. Do not numb the occasional loneliness and solitude with “crazy-busy, sugar, alcohol, the internet” (from Brene Brown’s list of the way we numb the pain of living, and then grow too numb to experience its joy). Pray, work, grow. Desert seasons end when you are ready for the next stretch of your call.

And the desert is not really a quiet, empty place. It is full of very important, very powerful, influential, and creative people you simply have to get to know to be happy and creative and fulfil your calling. God is in the desert. The Risen Jesus is in the desert. The wind of the Spirit blows and gusts through the desert. The desert is full of angels, to help you withstand the temptations of the desert–to too much food, to wanting power, to showing off. (Matthew 4 1-10).

It’s a quiet and desert season for me at the moment, empty-nesting, and guess what–I rather like it. With God’s grace, I hope not to short-circuit it, but to meet the one who came to the desert to meet John the Baptist, the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

P. S. I am reading through the Book of Mark, and hope to share a reflection inspired by that great and short book every Sunday. Join me?

On being as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove

By Anita Mathias

“I am sending you out as sheep among wolves,” Jesus says.

You would imagine that a sheep among wolves would stand no chance at all. Not for a second!

And that’s how Jesus sees us Christ-followers. As sheep among wolves.

Yes, I have sometimes been a sheep among wolves…in toxic situations where I sense pretty much everyone was lying to me, about me, lying about events, danger I sometimes sensed, and sometimes did not. Where I was innocently in over my head in fraught, loaded situations in a toxic church I was once in; situations to do with business, or money, or in-laws. Experiences in my travels, or dealings with officialdom, where I had no power, and they apparently had it all, and all seems dark and hopeless.

You are in a fog, a fog of minor evil, where you are powerless, you don’t know what the truth is, and few seem to be speaking it.

What do you do in this fog, where everyone has their own agenda, and no one speaks truth to their neighbour? You shut up, as much as you can! You go still. You pray. I love Rumer Godden’s analogy in In This House of Brede—The more a bird caught in a net struggles, the further it gets entangled.

Yes, everything seems dark and hopeless, and then, suddenly, the fog clears, and there is light, and as if by magic, the situation resolves. In ways better than you could have hoped for.

What worked this magic? How does the fog sometimes lift?

Ah, the great Shepherd had his eye on his sheep all along, it turns out

We are sent out as sheep among wolves since the Great Shepherd knows it is safe to send us out.

What hope has the sheep among wolves? Only that the eye of the good and powerful shepherd is upon it. And that is enough.

* * *

When Jesus sends his disciples out as sheep in the midst of wolves, he offers them just one bit of armour, one bit of protection: Be as wise and shrewd as a serpent, and as innocent as a dove.

Because the life of Jesus is in us, because we are trying to march to a different drummer and do the right thing and obey the voice of Jesus, we are to be careful. We are telling the truth among people who might say whatever is necessary to achieve their objectives. We are trying to remain pure of heart among those playing to win. We are playing by different rules

So we need to be as wise as we possibly can, without sinning.

Oh dear, how can we be as shrewd and wise as a serpent, if we don’t feel very wise as I generally do not? If we despise being tricky?

We ask Jesus, the source of all wisdom for wisdom and guidance, step by step.

* * *

I love the heart-expanding call to love, to be merciful, to be open, giving to everyone who asks of us, to keep our hearts pure and kind.

I love too the call to wisdom, which is for our protection, we fluffy woolly sheep among wolves.

Be wise as a serpent who keeps its own counsel, who knows how to wait, who listens to signals and instincts deep within its blood and bones, resting in winter, moving fast when it needs to.

Elsewhere Jesus counsels, “Do not cast your pearls before swine, or they will trample them underfoot and then tear you to pieces.”

Be wise as a serpent when we know we are dealing with those who would abuse our generosity and kindness and rend us to pieces, who might twist our words and gossip about us.

It may not be possible to edit them out of our lives; we may belong to the same church or social circle. We may be related to them through blood or marriage, for a man’s enemies are often from his own household, as again Jesus warned us.

So then, heeding our instincts, we limit dealings with the unsafe, dangerous ones to limit the risk of being trampled underfoot and torn to pieces. We are careful about what we say in their presence and we say as little as possible. We avoid them as far as possible as a sheep instinctively avoids a wolf, as wild animals instinctively avoid larger animals and humans.

How grateful I am for these checks and balances. “Give to everyone who asks of you,” “love,” but also “Be wise as a serpent.”

* * *

Following Jesus is a bit like playing chess. There are rules and commandments, but infinite freedom and variations within it. It is not mechanical; what fun would there be in that? We need wisdom; we need guidance; we need to listen to Jesus before we move in fraught situations. We need the Spirit who will teach us what to say in tricky situations.

Ah, learning to follow Jesus…the task of a lifetime…and a rewarding one!

Image Credit

Tweetables

What protection has the sheep among wolves? Only that the eye of the good shepherd is on it. NEW from @anitamathias1

How do we become as wise as a serpent. We ask Jesus for wisdom. NEW from @anitamathias1

In which Rest is an Essential Part of the Creative Process

By Anita Mathias

The first chapter of Genesis explodes with creativity!

God creates sun, moon and stars; banyans, baobabs and butterflies; macaws, mice and mastodons from a smile in his brain.

He creates the world in exuberance because that is his nature. He is a Maker, a creator.

And all of us are inherently creative, because we all have shades of the Maker in us. Our houses, gardens, outfits, meals, work, and budgets, all betray hints of the original artist’s creativity.

* * *

Any creative person’s work will be enhanced if they align themselves with the master artist.

Not all of us will be Michelangelo or Fra Angelico, Milton or Hopkins, Handel or Bach (who were all Christians incidentally). However, spending time in the presence of the original creator, divinely enhances and super-charges us.

We become thoroughly ourselves, yet our work will shimmer with the presence of the Master. Which creative has not had the experience of the blog or the story basically writing themselves, of an electricity beyond ourselves racing through our fingers?

I used to think of writing as an art and a craft, a matter of reading, study, and conscious and subliminal absorption. And, of course, it is all that.

But what I rely on most now is alignment with the Master Artist. Before I write, I try to align myself with God, and get in touch with him, ask for his streams of living water to flow through me. I write best and fastest then, with surety, without excessive self-criticism.

* * *

God’s account of creation ends with a vital and overlooked part of the creative process.

Rest.

Isn’t that lovely? Though God was effortlessly creative, his creativity flowing from thought to word to product, yet, on one day out of seven, he came to a complete halt, the inspired author of Genesis tells us. He rested from “all the work of creating” (Gen. 2:3).

God made things to last. Though dodos, passenger pigeons, woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers have gone extinct, creation “in all its vast array” still glows. It’s a still a wild, wonderful world.

And God is still creating through us. Down the waterfall of the mind of God tumbles nascent ideas for Macbooks and iPhones with access to all the knowledge of the world in our pockets; blogs and stories, symphonies and comedies.

And if we like God want to produce fruit that will last as Jesus commanded us to, if we want to continue creating all our lives, then we too need to pace ourselves, to come to a complete halt, once a week, and rest from all creating. We need to let the Spirit reset us.

* * *

How? Since God did not spell out how to keep the Sabbath holy, we can interpret it personally and honestly. I like to worship in community, but when I am exhausted, physically or emotionally, I send my children (since I consider that my Christian duty) and I spend that time praying alone. Reading my Bible. Or in lectio divina.

On Sunday, I do not create. I sleep in. I garden. Or walk. Or nap. A lot of napping. If ideas come, I jot them down, but do not refine them. I resist any work that will make me better-off, or better-known, or more successful. Or thinner! I just rest.

Sunday is a day God blessed, we are told in Genesis. A day to step into another economy in which resting is an activity, not a cessation from activity. In which magically a day in which one does nothing but rest is holy.

* * *

Ah, Sunday. One day in seven in the divine economy. One day to acknowledge that we do not ultimately own our lives or our careers. We can not control them, not really. We cannot make ourselves rich or successful or famous or beautiful, or else the world would be full of super-rich, super-famous, beautiful people. Why even true art is beyond our control, or the world would be awash in it. And in this world of polluted food supplies, even our health is partially out of our control. Cancer strikes gourmets and gluttons; foodies and fast-foodies; billionaires and bankrupts. It’s as impartial as death!

In a world in which we control so little—not the date of our death, not the cells in our bodies, not the outcome of words, our stocks, or the fruit of our womb, what a sublime idea to take a day a week to rest, to let go of interminable striving, and enter another economy. On the day of rest, we enter the economy of the powerless who seek power from God, the economy of the tired who seek strength as they wait upon the Lord; the economy of the unconnected who seek God to connect them; the economy of the creatives who one day a week silence their words to make room for The Word.

And perhaps on that blessed, holy day, the spirit of God shall hover over the still waters of the quieted mind, shall wake in them words and visions which shall last.

* * *

Ah, we lose our way; we become functional atheists in Parker Palmer’s phrase, when we believe that nothing will happen unless we make it happen.

But there is another way consistently recommended in Scripture, the way not of might, nor of power, but of God’s spirit.

What might that look like for me? It would mean that if I want to get a book commercially published, I must seek the Spirit about how to do this. Perhaps he will connect me to the right literary agent and publisher without my doing anything about it. May it be so!! Perhaps he will clarify whom I am to contact. It may well be a process as streamlined and efficient as the process of creation, (unless for my character as for Joseph’s and Job’s, he chooses to prolong a sojourn in the desert).

For my blog, the way of might and power is no longer sustainable. I am too weary for it. I must now do it by the way of the Spirit. Seek the Spirit for what to write. Seek the Spirit for how much to write (currently 5 posts a month, so I have time to work on a book). Seek the Spirit for how to share what I write.

He is The Spirit. He is not human. His ways, his strategies will be greater, more surprising, more out of the box than anything I could think of. And because he loves me, his strategies will be practical, sustainable, and not exhausting.

Roy and I need to seek the Spirit in our family business, for cleverness, for strategy, for thinking out of the box, because, again, time and energy are in short supply. We need his ideas, not our own.

I need to seek the Spirit for how to shed the extra weight that puts me at risk for colon cancer. Cancer seemed a far away thing that happens to other people. However, I now await the results of a biopsy. Being overweight increases the risk of colon cancer, as does being sedentary, or eating red meat, or too much fat. Yes, yes: Guilty as charged. Losing weight has never been easy, or else I would have done so. I have lost 21 pounds over the last 2 years, but my weight loss stopped around Easter. So how do I lose this pesky weight? I must seek the ways of the Spirit.

There are gurus who will tell you all this—how to grow your blog, publish your book well, grow your online business, and lose weight. It makes sense to skim their books; I mean why waste time reinventing the wheel?

But Michael Hyatt writes on Platform, but I daresay none of his readers have a platform like his. Jeff tells us how to get 10,000 subscribers; do any of his readers have that many? Dr. Fuhrman has a brilliant, but unsustainable way of weight loss.

These things worked for them. Each of us must seek the Spirit who loves us for what will work for us. My daughters love giving me advice, and I sing out in reply, “But I am not you. I am me.” So it is with other people’s strategies; they may not work for me for I am not them. I am me.

I must seek the streamlined way of the spirit, the way of minimal wasted effort. I think again of the intricate interlocked efficient universe in which nothing is wasted, created in the mind of God, spoken forth into existence over six… aeons.

I hear the voice of the Spirit when I am still and listen for it. I hear it when I wait and just hang out with him. I hear it in rest.

And on the Sabbath, the day I set apart for haunting his paths, I greatly increase my chances of hearing the wise, astonishing, loving voice of the Spirit.

* * *

Tweetables

Rest is an intrinsic part of the creative process NEW POST from @anitamathias1

On seeking the way not of might or power, but of the Spirit. NEW POST from @anitamathias1

Alignment with the master artist supercharges our creativity NEW POST from @anitamathias1

Over to you

Have you experienced walking in the ways not of might, nor of power but of the Spirit?

How do you experience Sabbath Rest?

God Saw the Light was Good, but He Left Darkness Too

By Anita Mathias

In the beginning…

God’s first recorded words in the Bible are “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. (Genesis 1:4)

But he left darkness too.

And so it shall ever be. On June 21, we have 16 hours 41 minutes of light in Oxford, England. But we also have 7 hours 19 minutes of darkness. On December 22, however, we have 16 hours 18 minutes of darkness, but we still have 7 hours 42 minutes of daylight.

Some darkness on the sunniest day; some sunshine on the darkest day.

And so it always is, throughout our lives.

John drapes himself on us, heart flooded with love. On the other side, there’s Judas, serpent-heart despite his kiss. But eleven apostles out of twelve proved true. That is life too, and life is good.

* * *

Me, I am still living in summer, tasting the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I am healthy enough; my family is healthy. My children are doing well, academically, socially and spiritually, and are happy. We are paying our bills to date. I am enjoying my work. I am happy. I am happy.

But I am also allowing myself to slow down, and feel the sadness that God left in the beginning.

It has been an intense month. Jake, our eleven year old border collie, had a vast growth in his abdomen, and inoperable tumours in his liver which makes it uncomfortable to eat. So he stopped. How dreadful to watch a dog waste away. Finally, he could no longer walk, and we put him to sleep yesterday. The vet said it was definitely the right thing to do.

I have been feeling tired, and my blood work showed severe anaemia. So I had a colonoscopy, which showed a polyp. I am hoping for minimal surgery…but I must walk on the waters,, holding Jesus’ hand through that.

We have lost our wonderful cleaner, which has thrown us. He helped with everything—housesitting, chauffeuring kids, picking up purchases, garden work, painting, car cleaning, whatever needed to be done. An almost irreplaceable Man Friday.

Financially, we are still recovering from the burglary in February, of our car and electronics etc. We were underinsured, and so we have to put our nose to the grindstone to replace what we had to “borrow” from savings (earmarked for other bills) so as to replace the stolen things.

Love’s like a hurricane, and I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy, as John Mark Macmillan writes.

Couldn’t God have prevented all these griefs and hassles? I think, crossly.

* * *

In the Old Testament Book of Job, Job lost everything– children, wealth, health and the respect of his friends.

“Does it please you to oppress me?” he asks God (Job 10:3).

His friends insist that Job must have secretly sinned to deserve so much suffering, that he was under the Almighty’s curse—our intuitive (though unspoken) response to other people’s suffering

But Job insists he is guilty of no spectacular secret sin, “Let the Almighty answer me,” he demands (Job 31:35).

And God does. In the infuriating way only the Almighty can get away with, he answers Job in a series of questions.

“Who laid the earth’s cornerstone

While the morning stars sang together

And all the angels shouted for joy?

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?”

“Can you bind the beautiful Pleaides?

Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons?

Do you give his horse his strength

Who at the blast of the trumpets snorts, “Aha.”

God has put together this vast cosmos of sea and stars and snow, of lightning and lions and leviathans, ostriches, ospreys and eagles. Job, a very minor character in the complex epic of the universe, does not have the perspective to contend with him, God suggests.

God exists on another plane altogether, able to see the end from the beginning, to contain all things in his mind, to see the whole complex canvas of human existence at a single glance, and the glorious end of each contorted plot twist in our lives. While Job sees but one page, God sees the entire plot.

“Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker,
Does the clay say to the potter,
‘What are you making?’ the prophet Isaiah writes.

God is God. He chooses the plot of our lives, chooses the role we are to play in the cosmic drama. It is our task to play it well.

Job repents of his turbulent questions.

“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me to know.

My ears had heard of you,

But now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I repent.”

And Job’s acceptance turns things around. “The Lord made him prosperous again, and gave him twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10)

* * *

Darkness, trouble, hassle is a fact of life, seven hours of darkness in our brightest day. “In this world, you will have trouble,” were among Jesus’s last words, though he goes on to say, “But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

When God created a pristine world that he could have shaped any way, he deliberately left a bit of darkness too.

Why?

For the same reason a story-teller leaves a bit of darkness in his stories perhaps. It forces the story to a better, more beautiful, more interesting conclusion. Cinderella had to sleep among the cinders; Sleeping Beauty had to prick her thumb on the spindle; the shard of ice had to enter Kay’s heart for us to have a story.

Artists instinctively know that they must frame brightness with darkness. Possibly God like Van Gogh found as much beauty in a starry night as a sunrise.

Winter strengthens the root systems of trees, sending them delving deep for nourishment. Without it, bulbs would not burst into blossom. Eternal summer can take a toll on mental health; in Greenland suicides are more common in summer. Seasonal Affective Disorder strikes in the summer as well as in winter.

If we had eternal daylight, eternal summer, unblemished happiness, we would not value them quite as much. A period of just-enough makes us appreciate how money can cushion and enrich life; a period of loneliness makes friendship precious; a period of failure sweetens success.

***

God left darkness and winter as facts of life. So what do we do when life does not go the way we want it to?

We fling up our hands and accept it, light as well as darkness, good as well as evil, trusting the one who sends both, light that shines in winter, the selah of darkness in summer.

* * *

We accept it, with thankfulness that our world with all its darkness is still under God’s protection.

The world tilts towards good as it tilts towards the sun.

Because, as we are told in the second line of Genesis, while all the world was darkness, the spirit of God still hovered over the water.

And so we have hope.

I am in a situation of chaos, stress and high emotion, and over me the Spirit hovers.

My dog is dying, and I am overwhelmed with sadness watching him, and over me the spirit hovers.

I want my anaemia to go and that polyp to be benign, and over me the spirit hovers.

Life will bring me light and goodness and joy, but if it presents challenges, I know this for sure: Over me the spirit hovers, always hovers.

* * *

And so I can face the future. And so I can smile.

Because as Gerard Manley Hopkins says,

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out
It gathers to a greatness,

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell:

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Ah the Spirit’s warm breast, his bright wings. So much love surrounding us, whether we feel it or not.

And so as John Mark Macmillan continues,

Then all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

And I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me.

And I really do believe, what Paul wrote to the Romans: In all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28) Because he is super-duper powerful and creative, and so he can. Because he is good, and so he will.

And so I say with Julian of Norwich, “All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well,” because the Holy Spirit broods over us, strengthening us, filling us with joy. He swoops down in light and joy, but something has his “dark descending” as Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it, continuing, surprisingly, ‘And most is merciful then.”

~~~~

Tweetables—

God saw that light was good, but he left the darkness too. Why? From @anitamathias1

Couldn’t God have prevented all these griefs and hassles? I think, crossly. From @anitamathias1

Suffering can force a story to a better, more beautiful, more interesting conclusion. From @anitamathias1

Possibly God, like Van Gogh, found as much beauty in a starry night as a sunrise. From @anitamathias1

Over to you

Have you seen the light shine in the darkness?

Have you experienced the brooding comfort of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the darkness?

This post is kindly sponsored by How to up your health game.

When, For a Season, God Himself Blocks You

By Anita Mathias

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to save many lives,” Joseph quietly tells his brothers. (Genesis 50:20)

Oh they did; they sure did, first throwing him into a disused well, then uncaringly selling him on for thirty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, not caring what became of him.

And what came out of his experience of betrayal, slavery, false accusation, and imprisonment was elevation—promotion—influence–the ability to save many lives.

* * *

I used to feel stressed and a bit hopeless if I had enemies, if I thought there were people with inveterate animosity, jealousy, competitiveness, or malice towards me, who would block me, who might slander me. The thought of such people still does not make my heart sing!

But they are a fact of life. “Some are jealous of your face. Some are jealous of your lace. And some will be jealous of your grace,” as RT Kendall writes in The Anointing.

However, Shakespeare’s young Henry V puts it well, “We are in God’s hands, brothers, not in theirs.”

I sigh if I realize someone is reflexively blocking me or my ideas, putting in a bad word for me, but I am not afraid.

I do not fear them.

Because there are always two stories going on in our lives: the plot we see, and the story God is still writing. There is the story people think they are forcing onto your life–in which you may miss the chance to lead, speak, get the prize, the invitation, because someone feels threatened by you, is jealous of you, or just plain dislikes you.

Often you are unaware of these machinations, and that’s best. When you do know, you wring your hands with a sense of loss.

But all is not lost.

You were not meant to lead at that time. You were meant to quietly follow the One. You were not meant to speak at that time. You were meant to listen.

Sure, it will take you longer to achieve your heart’s desire. The Spirit is taking you on the scenic route. You are in the desert, where all voices are silent, but the voice of God; where is no trophy but his companionship; no wine but his spirit; where your progress is not measurable, and, anyway, there’s no one to praise it.

Why, even your prayers aren’t working. Every avenue of showing off is blocked.

Welcome to the desert, fellow pilgrim, where God himself blocks you.

* * *

You say: “See here, God, I have wasted my life. Look at me, mid-life and achievement-poor. Remember, God, those years I was promising; remember that award for a writer of unusual promise? Why I was in my twenties then. The snazzy university, the snazzy prizes, the early publications, the blushing peach down of promise, remember?

Well, I’ve failed, and you’ve failed me; we’ve failed together, you and I.

Yeah, you really haven’t managed my life too well, Lord, and neither have I. Let’s just go eat some worms.

My twenties are over, my thirties, my… Let’s just say “my hasting days fly on with full career, but my summer little bud or blossom showeth.”

How can you make up to me, God for the years when I wanted to build much, but instead built little?

You have behaved rather badly towards me, my God, my friend. You have let me down. You are my friend, and so I forgive you, but I am sad about this. I am.

But if I love anyone, I love you. So yes, I will follow you because, you’ve sure ruined my appetite for following other paths of glory.

I believe you can restore the years the locusts have eaten. The prophet Joel said so, and Christians have attested to it. But I don’t see how. Jesus, let’s be honest here, I sometimes feel as if nothing can compensate me for those wasted years, the years in Joseph’s dungeon.

I really do.

Though they were what you gave me, and I accept them because I love and trust you. I accept them from your hands in trust as I accept the full years of your goodness.

* * *

And you, Lord, reply:

“Child, child, friend, beloved, Anita, what you wanted was a lesser good, and so I withheld it.

You saw the success of your writer friends—their whirl of book readings, teaching gigs, speaking gigs, lectures, prizes, prolific writing, book contracts, money, fame, fascinating friends, travel. All the trappings of a career. And you wanted it too.

And I knew you wanted it.

But I also knew you better than you knew yourself. Don’t make that face. I truly do.

You were not ready for the busyness of travel, deadlines, speaking, teaching, crises, midnight oil.

Fame and glory–what made you think it would make you happy? I knew it would not. It would not. Rushing to planes, trains and automobiles has never made you happy. Rush has never makes you happy, or busyness, or deadlines. You love quiet unscheduled days at home, or in your garden.

But I promise you this: You will write the books you want to write. You will not die before your pen has gleaned your teeming brain.

All the things you deeply love and want to explore and preserve in words, I will ensure you explore and preserve them,

All the things I kept from you, I kept not for your harm, but that you might find it in my arms.

You are sad that success came later than you wanted it, but trust me.

The bright lights of the big cities would have obscured me.

The noise would have silenced my whisper.

A hammer had to be taken to all those idols.

There had to be a gotterdamerung, a ragnarok. You wanted to be Ms. Famous Writer, to dazzle the world with your creativity. You wanted fame, glory, money, success, as you saw your friends get it.

I gave you quietness, I wooed you to the desert, and there I showed you my love.

You had but one shot at investing in your children. I slowed down your career so you could teach them all you had to teach them. And could your marriage have withstood the rush in peace, not pieces? Did you want to be Ms. Divorced Famous Writer? You did not.

You have reached mid life with a full heart and full spirit, into which I have poured and poured and poured myself and my words. And now it is time to write.

* * *

“Oh God, could you not have poured both? Both yourself and the other things I wanted?”

“But then there would not have been room for me. I had to pry your fingers from other things, so they would clasp me. Had to silence other sounds, so you could hear me.

I gave you not what you thought you wanted, but what you love, quiet and peace and silence. And in the quietness of your country garden, I shaped you, I formed you, I made you into a woman of integrity, a woman aligned with me, a woman I can trust.

You sometimes feel you’ve wasted your life.

But child, you’ve given your life to me. It’s now my story, not yours. I am the author, not you.

Accept the plot twist I chose. Forgive me, as I forgive you. It was not time before. It’s time now. It’s time.

* * *

Lord, I accept the plot you chose. I accept my years in the wilderness. I accept your judgement that they were necessary. I forgive you.

And I will go forward in joy, in alignment with you, your joy filling my heart.

* * *

Open your hands wide, and I will fill them. Your heart has been reformed in the silent years.

Now I know, and you know, that while your hands are full of my blessings, your eyes will be on me and your heart will be full of me.

* * *

Tweetables

Welcome to the desert, fellow pilgrim, where God himself blocks you. From @anitamathias1

You are in the desert, where all voices are silent, but the voice of God. From @anitamathias1

There are always two stories going on in our lives, the story we perceive, and the story God is still writing From @anitamathias1

When God stills all the noise, and you say “See here, God. I have wasted my life.” From @anitamathias1

Questions

Have you experienced a period of great silence? Have you experienced God more deeply as a result?

Image Credit

This post is kindly sponsored by mordocrosswords.com. Thank you for your support.

When Christians Behave Badly: Seedlings and Saplings in God’s Kingdom

By Anita Mathias

A friend of mine had once been deeply humiliated by a fellow Christian, a soulful worship leader. She told me the story, then burst into tears, saying, “I don’t even know if she’s a Christian. I cannot bear to watch her lead worship.” My friend left that church.

I often think that when I am shockingly treated by another Christian: “I don’t even know if they are Christians. Perhaps they were Christians. Perhaps they are living on fumes.” And sometimes that is the safest assumption—that the person was a Christian, and has now settled for church position, or power, or prominence, or, perhaps, in Jesus’ language “the cares and worries of the world and the delight in riches” have choked the fragile, beautiful seed of new life in them.

Or sometimes, when I encounter decidedly non-Christian behaviour in Christians, I think of circles of discipleship. Jesus had an innermost circle of people he chose for purity of heart, passion, strength of character: Peter, James and John. Then there were the twelve, the seventy-two, the five hundred, the five thousand plus women and children for whom he multiplied the loaves and fishes; the crowds who followed him on Palm Sunday. All following Jesus, but with varying levels of intensity and commitment. Perhaps the people whose behaviour is unlike Jesus’s have strayed to an outer circle of discipleship, as I myself sometimes do. That’s one way of looking at it!

* * *

In Matthew 13, Jesus talks about the mysterious Kingdom of Heaven, which is here, right now, in which it is possible to live, today, in full communion with the Father, walking step by step with the Son, and experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed provides another way of understanding Christians who behave badly. The Kingdom of God in the micro-world of our lives, and the macro-world of the world is “like a mustard tree, which though is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

And so it is with each individual Christian—we are seedlings and saplings in the Kingdom before we become mighty trees.

Perhaps the Christians whose behaviour puzzles me (as undoubtedly mine sometimes puzzles others) are still saplings, new or distracted in the ways of following Christ. Perhaps the Lord will send them water and sun and good soil, and they will one day grow so astoundingly that what they become bears no resemblance to what they were. And perhaps Jesus shall do the same for me!

* * *

Judging others is a soul-sapping, soul-stunting distraction. I know this because I so often have to rein in and retrieve my falcon -thoughts when they go critically swooping around someone else.

Jesus gives us a way to deal with our natural tendencies to judge. When we find ourselves judging others, we are to immediately check to see if we are guilty of the very same thing that we are judging our brother for, or a closely related thing. For if Freud was right, the traits we most hate in others are those we secretly see and suppress within ourselves.

So Jesus suggests that when we see the bossy Christian, the manipulative Christian, or the over-ambitious Christian, instead of gnashing our teeth at them, we should examine our own souls, remember the times we have used the short cuts of manipulation rather than the slow road of prayer. Have sought the drug of fame or success instead of the new wine of Jesus. And so instead of descending into the bottomless black hole of judgement, we grow, we change! Our judgement of our brother proves a spur for us to grow ourselves.

We pray for our enemies, or those who irritate us. We do dare not assume that they are not in the Kingdom at all. Rather we realise that they may be just saplings in the kingdom as we ourselves might well be in the eternal eyes of him who judges wisely, and we pray that, one day, because of the sunshine of grace, both they and we will become mighty trees, and the birds of the air will come and nest in all our branches.

Oh, Let it All End in Worship

By Anita Mathias

Jacob’s Dream by William Blake

And Jacob worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff (Gen. 47:31).

And so it ends, Jacob’s long busy life of intrigue and wrestling.

Ever has he schemed, manipulated and deceived to get the blessings which God intended to give him even before he was born (Gen 25:23).

And his intrigues backfire–disastrously. Quite possibly, they slow down the destiny God had always intended for him. Again and again–as a consequence of his deceitfulness, and his attempts to look after himself–he’s on the road, in flight from Esau, from Laban, from Esau again.

Exploiting Esau’s desperate hunger, he demands his inheritance in exchange for a bowl of lentils. Esau now hates him. Exploiting his blind father, he pretends to be Esau, stealing his blessing. Now Esau’s resolved to murder him and Jacob’s on the road (Gen. 27:41). Never again will he see the mother who adored him.

He flees to a father-in-law fully as deceitful as he was himself. Works seven years to be given a near-sighted bride he never wanted. Has his wages changed seven times. Still, he attempts to look after himself, and does get the better of Laban with his selective breeding. And consequently has to flee again by night. His beloved Rebecca steals her father’s household Gods without Jacob’s knowledge, and dies, falling victim to his rashly invoked curse (Gen 31:32).

As he had deceived his old father, his sons deceive him, breaking his heart with their fabricated account of Joseph’s death. He lives twenty years without his favourite, gifted son. He deceived and was deceived by his three generations of his family. Deceit warps one’s character; the deceivers of the world then practice their evil arts on you without compunction.

On the night before his dreaded meeting with Esau, Jacob wrestles in the darkness with a man by the Jabbok River, who unable to overpower him, casually disables him. Sensing the divine, Jacob declares, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

He is blessed.

After that crippling encounter, after he learned his limits, after he sees God, Jacob becomes passive. He gives up his trickiness and scheming, and comes to the end of his life with no more intrigues, no more wrestling. He is now a jellyfish in the stream of God’s will, and God, in painful contorted ways, positions his family smack-dab in the stream of salvation history. Joseph’s son will save his family from famine, will help them become a multitudinous people, and they will return to Canaan with the wealth of the Egyptians.

* * *

And that long life of wrestling with God and man, all ends well after all. It all ends in worship.

“And Jacob worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.”

It ended well because of the mercy of God.

Because what Jacob wanted more than anything was God’s blessing.

Because he had eyes to see the thin veil between the worlds, the ladder between heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending on it. The angels were there all along. It took quiet and spiritual eyes to see them.

Because he had eyes to see that man in the darkness was God. God was there in the darkness for anyone to see; Jacob had the holy night vision to see him.

Because realising that the most precious in life was God’s blessing, he refused to let God go unless he was blessed, even if the cost of that blessing was a limp, a somatic memory of that divine encounter.

God blessed him because Jacob asked him to, because Jacob demanded that he did so, because Jacob would settle for nothing less than God’s blessing, because he physically refused to let him go until he blessed him. As God would have blessed anyone who pursued him with the intensity that Jacob did.

And so it all ends in blessing. It all ends in worship.

* * *

The irony in Joseph’s story is that God had always intended to bless him. And if he had waited for God, not taking advantage of Esau, not deceiving Isaac, not seizing an advantage over Laban, God would have still blessed him. Almost certainly sooner.

Because God sovereignly chose Jacob seeing in him the toughness, the pertinacity, the God-hunger to be a father of our faith.

He had the character of a man of destiny, a man God could use. Eager, hard-working, imaginative, enterprising, thinking out of the box, with eyes to see the spiritual world, to see angels and God himself as only the seers do.

God honoured Jacob’s numinous sense of God’s sovereignty, his sense that what was really important in life was that one operate under God’s blessing.

* * *

Oh may it be so for me at the end, after all the excitement and all the grief; the things I succeeded at and the things I failed at; the things I am proud of and the things I cringe at; the relationships which have endured and the relationships which have crumbled; the times I refused to speak to God and the times I spoke to him all the time; when the evening comes and the sun goes down, may I like Jacob, lean on my staff and worship.

Yes, let it all end like this, in worship: I worship you. I worship you because you made me. I worship you because you are infinite, and I love to lose myself in you. I worship you because you are the sea into which I run and sink, tonight and every night, and there I shall find peace, a drop lost in your sea.

Oh at the day’s end, at my life’s end, let it all return to singing

Let it all return to worship.

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes