Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

On the amazing Baptism in the Holy Spirit–and its limits!

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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 maintain 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 the occasional sip 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.

Ever now and then, Christians traditionally take stock of their 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, and be physically fit.

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, and then do things with the power of the Holy Spirit.

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

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 us, 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 hope 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 than to 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. When you want to judge others, ask me instead how you can follow me more closely.” 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, 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 learn to pray constantly out of necessity. 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  night watchmen who sat at edges of the encampment, protecting the people, 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. Perhaps 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 as recorded by Boswell, his wit and wisdom and life experience would have long vanished, he would be one of the 99.99% of humanity 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, suggest 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!

Failing Better: A New Year’s Resolution, of sorts

By

Christ Church, Oxford University

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.   Samuel Beckett

So it’s a New Year…2017. I love this hopeful period of looking back on the past year, and considering how to revise my life in the new year. I love its promise, a sheet of new fallen snow.

New Year’s Resolutions… Like most people, I have barely kept any perfectly, though over the years, I do eat less chocolate (to which I was once addicted), and far less sugar, cookies, and sweet treats (though still more than I should). I drink less coffee. I avoid red meat. I exercise more. I use the internet and social media less. I am tidier and more organized. Change happens.

Some people Jesus healed just like that, instantly. Some people he healed gradually, like the blind man whom Jesus choose to heal not with his mighty word which flung the heavens into existence, but though the messy, rather humiliating expedient of spitting on his eyes. At this, the man saw “men, like trees, walking.” Jesus tried again, placed his hands on the man’s eyes, and his sight was then restored.

Sometimes, we see “men, like trees, walking,” before we are healed. And of some things, sadly, we will never be healed. ALL of us on the day of our death will still be sinners; all of us will have little bad habits we still struggle with. We will sin less and less, but not be sinless. On the last New Year’s Day of our lives, we will probably be recording variants of “I will exercise more; I will eat healthily,” just as the most organised of us will probably die with things on their To Do lists. Jesus said that he who does not voluntarily heft his own cross was not worthy of following him. We do not do Jesus a favour by trying to follow him. We prove ourselves worthy of following Christ, the greatest enterprise of our lives, by voluntarily accepting suffering and self-denial. And for some of us, our cross is our own weakness, the resolutions we make and break, make and break.

My daughter Irene has just been accepted into the six year Medicine course at Christ Church, Oxford University. But until today, I’d say: Irene’s been offered a President’s Scholarship to Imperial College, London, given to the top 1% of the entering class–being cagey about her other application, because…. what if?

I feel like that when it comes to recording my New Year’s resolutions here. What if the spirit is willing and flesh is weak?

What if I fail?

If I fail, “what matters it?” as my toddler Zoe used to say. One of my mantras is “fail better.” I may not lose every excess pound, but, God willing, I will certainly lose some. I may not read as much as I want to, but God willing, I will read more than I did in 2016. I may not have a perfect diet, but, God willing, I will bless my body with nutritious food and exhilarating movement more than I did in 2016. I may not write as much as I want to, but God willing, I will write more than I did last year.

Jesus tells us that unless we turn and become like little children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I think he has the same tenderness towards us as we havde towards our children when they were toddlers. We took Zoe to Florence when she was three; seeing ceilings painted blue, and sprinkled with gold stars, she wanted to paint her ceiling. I said, “Yes, when you are as good as Michelangelo.” And so she asked each day, “Mummy, am I as good as Michelangelo now?” “Almost,” I’d say. I think God views our grand plans with the same indulgence (though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them).

Be as tender with yourself as you’d be with a toddler… and be of good cheer, God feels the same tenderness towards you.

* * *

And so to record the ways I hope to revise my life in this New Year. I have taken up two active hobbies in 2016… yoga in the gym, and running, and I love both, but, in both, am hindered by my extra weight. So I am planning to severely eliminate sugar and chocolate from my diet. I used to use dark chocolate as a mood boost through the day, using a bar or two a week. Instead of that, I will pause, interrogate why I need comfort and seek the comfort of the Holy Spirit. When I fail in this, I will get back on the wagon, failing better than I did in the past.

I want to read more. For years, I have used the year as a unit, recording the books I’ve read, aiming to read one additional book during the next year. But I am going to take the month as a unit, and read or listen to one additional book a month next year. That would mean reading 5 extra pages a day each month, and listening to 5 extra pages on my walks, or as I do household chores. I can do that. I need to read a lot since I am in the revision phases of my book, and the more I read, the more easily language pours out of my fingertips, and revisions become quicker, more intuitive, and more fun.

I want to build up the steps I take each day to definitely 10,000, and perhaps 16,000, a level at which one can maintain a healthy weight without dieting, according to studies of the Amish. That would be nice. What’s helping? A Fitbit HR, which beeps every hour during which I have not done at least 250 steps, and then I get up and either tidy up for 5 minutes, or just jog in place, or on my rebounder.

And I want to finish my book, and, luckily, I am gaining momentum, each chapter taking less time than the previous one… Fortunately, I am enjoying it.

We learn through our successes. We learn through our failures. And even if it all goes wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!

How about you? What are your New Year’s resolutions?

 

 

Changing the Soil of My Heart, Little by Little  

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Good Seed, Good Soil, Abundant Harvest

I read the Gospels, I hear them preached, and tap, tap, tap, go my jubilant feet.

The Gospels tell me lovely things I wanted to believe but feared were not true; that fellow Christians often suggested were not true, by their deeds, if not their words; and that our world definitely believes are not true. I read the Gospels and sense everything sad coming untrue, as Sam Gamgee exclaims in his delight.

What only fools gather and heap into barns? And see here: He says, it’s safe to forgive and bless even our pesky enemies, for he has our affairs in hand. And–look, he says prayer can move mountains, lame feet, dead bodies, anything… And look, I am commanded not to worry, but to live free as a bird–commanded, I tell you.

Tap, tap, tap, my toes beat at the Gospel’s jazz rhythm of hope.

“Oh yes!” I resolve as Rilke did when faced with the sheer beauty of the Archaic Torso of Apollo, “I will revise my life.”

I have decided to follow Jesus, my heart sings. I will forever live in the waterfall, the force field of God’s power.

* * *

And then, I go out into the world, where not everyone in the stands is a cheerleader and I am sometimes cheated; where my prayers are not instantly answered and my words are plagiarized.

And something leaks out of me.

The resolve to seek comfort and joy in the filling of the Holy Spirit? Well, it becomes chocolate and the Holy Spirit. And 10,000 pedometer steps, for my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, well…

And keeping the house orderly for God is not a God of disorder but of peace…Well. And waking very early in the morning, while it is still dark to spend time with my heavenly Father. Well…

Oh, I had wanted to speak words which  give energy and  life, but I hear myself speaking critical words which sap resolve, words which stem from tiredness and frustration, and I am filled with shame.

Oh, wretched woman that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death?

* * *

Jesus Christ will, oh yes, he will, through multiple means of grace.

And here is one, suggested by the prophet Habbakuk, 2600 years ago. I will write down the vision and make it plain that I may run when I read it…

What I resolved when I was on fire on the mountain-top, I will re-read in the damp-squibby valley.

I have a sheet of “epiphanies and resolutions” in my prayer journal. I resolutely pray through each desire of my heart, a page or so a day,  and when I come to that page, I resolve again.

And I resume revising my life.

* * *

In the long run, failure does not matter. Getting side-tracked doesn’t matter. All that matters is beginning again. And again. The simple glory of persisting.

Yes, I will eat more veggies and walk more because my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and I want to keep it fit and strong. Yes, I will run an orderly house for the sake of my own mental health and happiness and for the peace of its inhabitants. Yes, “there is nothing but love,”–so help me God, I will remember that “all is small save love, for love is all in all.” Yes, I will wake early. And writing, oh yes, writing! I will write faithfully as a bird sings, for that is what I’ve been created to do.

“The essential thing in heaven and in earth is that there should be long obedience in the same direction. There thereby results, and has always resulted something which has made life worth living:   virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality– anything whatever that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine,” Nietzche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil.

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours,” Thoreau observed.

And I read my resolves, and I re-resolve, and by persisting  with the help of invisible friends—the Lord Jesus himself; God my Father; the Holy Spirit my Comforter; and the protective angelic hosts sent at my prayers — I will more than conquer those invisible enemies of my soul, the birds of distraction, the sun of discouragement, the thorns of hassles and the temptation to earn more than necessary.

And, God willing, my heart through constant amendments with the sun of grace, the water of the word and the compost of Christian community will become good soil, in which those beautiful seeds of the gospel, seeds of mercy, kindness, gentleness and love will be fruitful–ever so fruitful.

The first version of this appeared on Addie Zierman’s beautiful blog. Thank you, Addie.

Image Credit

The Secret of Accessing God’s Power in our Daily Lives

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2-phoenix

The phoenix, which rose out of the ashes of his old body, is a symbol of Christ in traditional iconography.

It could also be a symbol of the power of prayer. Numerous times in my life, when I have been stuck, prayer–-intense, deep, desperate prayer–-has changed my circumstances. Has reversed the plot.

It is, in fact, a pattern seen throughout the Old Testament. God’s people sin; they descend into despair. And then we read the magical words, Nehemiah–or whoever–prayed to the Lord God of Heaven and Earth. 

And things turn around!!
                                                                                                                                  * * *

Hitting rock bottom–when we find ourselves utterly unable to continue in our own power– can precipitate change. We’ve done the self-reliance bit. We’ve failed. Over to you, Lord!

Turning to God in our desperation because we have no other resources somehow  accelerates his intervention in our lives, and,   paradoxically, releases a flood of grace and power.

John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard, describes a night in his Detroit hotel room when he was exhausted and depressed from continual travel. And he hears God tell him, “John, I’ve seen YOUR ministry (and frankly I’m not that impressed) but now I would like to show you MINE!”

From his failure and brokenness sprung a new reliance on Christ, and “signs and wonders” and the founding of the Vineyard, which revived the English church too, via David Pytches of St. Andrew’s, Chorleywood.

                  * * *

Dick Woodward, the pastor emeritus of Williamsburg Community Chapel, my old church in America, attributes a sea-change in his ministry to a moment when he hit rock bottom. His wife was bed-bound, and he was looking after 4 children, simultaneously changing two in nappies, when the phone rang. A long-winded parishioner.

When he finally got off, he cried out, “Lord, I can’t.” And he felt God say, “I have been waiting a long time to hear you say that. Let me tell you a remarkable secret. I can.”

From that sprang a worldwide teaching ministry, as Woodward learnt to live in the vine, in the waterfall of God’s power. He calls this the four spiritual secrets.

I’m not, but He is.
And I am in Him, and He is in me.

I can’t, but He can.
And I am in Him, and He is in me.

I don’t want to, but He wants to.
And I am in Him, and He is in me.

I didn’t, but He did.
Because I was in Him and He was in me.

* * *

I think of Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, which was essentially the same: do not strive for faithfulness, lean on the faithful one.

 I am reading an interesting book called They Found the Secret. The reason spiritual secrets remain secret is that they cannot be grasped by the mind or intelligence, but only by the heart.

And, like the fairy godmother of fairy tales who appeared when the need was desperate, we only crack the secret of accessing God’s power when we are desperate to do so.  When our ability to do life on our own has failed us.

* * *

 I struggled to surrender my writing to God in my thirties when my children were little.

Ironically, I now realise that that was the best time to surrender my writing to God because working with stress and feeling things are against you is the worst way to write, and my writing would have gone better if I was relaxed and had surrendered it to God, and worked as God provided time…

I would surrender it, and then, sort of take it back, fretting about the distractions of my life, my low energy, and the lack of domestic help from my husband. Not the best frame of mind for creative work.

And then when I started a business, writing became impossible, and for four years, I did not write at all!!

* * *

Now surrendering my writing to God or not is not an issue.

I don’t know any way to write other than peacefully in the waterfall of God, trusting him for strength and energy, trusting God for words.

The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” Exodus 4.

And, through my blog, my writing is reaching vastly more people than ever before.

* * *

How to work enabled by God’s power?

Here’s what works for me:

1 Repent. If anything you are doing is a major roadblock to experiencing the flow of God’s love and power in your life—and such a thing may quickly come to mind—repent.

2 Ask him for his power and grace to flow through you.

Visualizing myself in the river, a molecule in the vine of God, helps.

3 Total surrender. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine (John 17:10) Jesus said. Giving God our day, accepting what comes as from his hands, somehow helps us to access all that He has, his riches.

 

The Power to Change Comes from Christ in Us, Our Hope of Glory

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A mosaic in Ravenna, made of millions of broken tessarae of glass and enamel

 

The principle runs through all life from top to bottom.

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.

 Lose your life and you will save it. 

Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life.

Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. 

Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

* * *

 “Christianity can only be caught, not taught,” they say. I caught a lot while I was discipled from 1997 to 2002 by a spiritually deep Christian writer and leader.

He said that as he found himself becoming intense–a sign that self was on the throne, not Christ–he’d say, “Take that too. I surrender that to you, Jesus,” and so on, until it became a habit to surrender everything precious to him, everything he worried about, to Jesus.

We swapped my editing of his first book for spiritual guidance. He was a naturally gifted writer, and I think I helped him find his natural speaking voice and rhythms in writing. He thanked me in the acknowledgements for teaching him how to write!

Interestingly, he said that he did not own his writing. He had given it to God. And whereas I wasted a lot of time on false starts, he wrote to just three publishers, one of whom took his first book. Several reviewers have said his next book was one of the best books on prayer of all time, and that’s because it sprung from the heart, spirit and experience, not from study, reading or thinking.

What impressed me was that someone who did not seem naturally gifted as a writer could so rapidly write two good books. Was not “owning” his writing a factor? He said he wrote as God provided time, whereas I was then always trying to grab, steal, wrangle and fight for time, which caused me a lot of stress.

Interestingly, he said once that he owned the Christian organisation he founded far more than his writing. And that, 16 years on, has never really taken off, perhaps for this reason.

* * *

I was thinking this morning of the similarity to things in my own life. Things which I do not own, which I have turned over to God, and do reliant on his strength are blessed—things like our family business, my blog or even little things like my Twitter presence where after two years I chosen as a runner-up for the Tweeter of the Year by the Christian New Media awards in 2014, (and was a Finalist for Blogger of the Year in 2015).

The things which I do by worry and self-effort are not so blessed. My attempt to finish my memoir, say.

I am reading a book by Duncan Smith called Consumed by Love. It is about our oneness with Christ, how we are safe in Christ–as an astronaut in his spacesuit is safe from being bumped in a zero gravity spaceship–and how Christ is in us.

And in that lies the power to overcome long-standing battles: Christ in us, the hope of glory. Relying on the guidance and power of Christ, step by step.

Kim Walker Smith of Jesus Culture puts it well:

Where you go I go
What you say I say
What you pray I pray.

Jesus only did, what he saw you do.
He would only say what he heard you speak.
He would only move when he felt you lead.
Following your heart following your spirit.

How could I expect to walk without you

When every move that Jesus made was in surrender?

http://youtu.be/oyBw_DrEv34

Two verses are speaking to me: “You will not have to fight this battle. Stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.” 2 Chron. 20:17.  And, “The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still” Exodus 14:14.

So that’s where I am spiritually at present. A disciple, a learner. Turning over these areas of my weakness to him, relying on him for strength and guidance. Letting Christ in me, my hope of glory, act in me, guide me, change my tastes, my habits, my mind and spirit.

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

A Praying Life on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Where Good Stories are to be Found

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My tender-hearted children hated sad stories. Neither would let me read Oscar Wilde’s exquisite short stories to them, or even Hans Christian Andersen’s because they were too sad.

When I recommended a book or movie, they wanted to know if it was sad, and especially if it had a sad ending.

But there is no story without sadness, I keep telling them. It’s an old creative writing maxim: No story without conflict.

* * *

Who needs the stress and emotional trauma of conflict with others? And who needs internal conflict—when the self is at war with itself, knowing what is good to do, but doing the very things it hates, punishing itself by over-eating, or over-working, or under-sleeping? By psycho-somatic illness?

But without this internal conflict–this struggle against our very selves: to corral ourselves to rise early, work hard, stay focused, self-educate, eat healthily, exercise, read, write–our lives would be flaccid and formless, with the structure of obstacles, both within and without, to overcome.

And, as Donald Miller writes in A Thousand Miles in a Million Years, dealing with these obstacles head-on (losing 150 pounds in his case, and tracking down the father who abandoned him) gives our lives a shapely story.

Because stories and blogs come out of sadness, and struggle, and failure, and eventual triumph over Resistance.

* * *

And ironically, each failure, and sadness and step backwards gives us more of a story than our successes.

Where are stories found? Not in quiet times, not in scripture study, not in money you gave away, not in fasts, not in the meals you took around, or your turn in the coffee rota, these good, shiny things, which, anyway, by the strictest Scriptural injunction we are commanded to keep secret.

Where are our stories found?

In the places where you learn about yourself, and you learn about God, and you learn about shame and grace and self-forgiveness and God’s forgiveness in the crucible of failure.

When your daughter says, “I don’t want to play scrabble today, Mum, because you get snooty about my words,” and you say “Oh no, of course I won’t get snooty about your words!” and then you do indeed get so snooty!

When the house could so do with some loving up, and indeed, so could those who dwell in it, and you’ve resolved to do both, but words are flowing, and you dance in the flow.

When you had solemnly resolved on that run today and yoga, and weights—you know, flexibility, strength, cardio-vascular, the three elements of fitness!–but an idea presents itself, and you want to explore it, express it,

And the word count may be good at the end of the day, but your Pilgrim’s Progress….well, it hasn’t progressed.

And you wonder why today joy doesn’t throb,

Or peace flow like a river.

And you remember: He who loves his blog more than me is not worthy of me.

She who loves her writing more than me is not worthy of me.

And all you can say is Kyrie Eleison.
Lord, have mercy.

 

And you kneel down and repent

Till peace flows again.

And you say, “Lord, I am not worthy of you.
But say but the Word
and I shall be healed.”

And he says the Word.

The word like manna,
The word like honey
Coursing through your brain.

And you, the unworthy, are healed

And, again, sing.

* * *
And, besides, you have a story!

How Circling Prayer can Convert a Vicious Circle to a Virtuous Circle

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Have you ever experienced a vicious circle?

You know: Feel sad. Eat chocolate or sugary treats. Feel hyper or aggressive. It wears off. Feel sad. And grumpy and defeated about the weight gain. Eat chocolate to help you feel better. And then…

Or: Get stressed and tired. Let things lie where they fall. House gets messy. You get too stressed and low-spirited to pick it up. Things get lost and replaced. You feel bad about the mess and the waste of money, and that it would take too much energy to invite your friends over. Tidying would barely make a dent in the mess, so you don’t, and mess grows. And …

Or: Wake late, keep looking at the time. The day is slipping away without much getting done, feel depressed and defeated. Drink coffee, get a second wind, stay up late, aimlessly surfing Facebook, blogs, twitter, newspapers. So can’t wake early the next day. And so…sense defeat through the day.

Very, very sadly, I have slipped into each of these circles for years, even decades of my life!! I do confess it. Thankfully, though, I am not in any of these vicious circles at the moment!

Drawing Prayer Circles: Ways to change a vicious circle to a virtuous one

 I am reading Mark Batterson’s The Circle-Maker. Mark talks about drawing figurative circles around your Jericho, the one dream you have longed for all your life, the dream your life has always tended towards, and pray bold, fervent, consistent prayers over it. Powerful prayers need to be specific, he says, just as powerful writing does.

I recently read a fascinating book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg which mentions keystone habits, which set up a cascade of positive changes in one’s life. One of these is exercise, which is scientifically proven to make you feel better through the release of endorphins, so that you sleep better, work better, feel happier, and have better relationships. Other keystone habits, unsurprisingly, are waking early, and domestic order.

* * *

So one way to change a vicious circle to a virtuous one is to circle it in prayer–pray circles around it. The habit you want to change will be uppermost in your mind, and grace will be given you to make the tiny necessary changes, which will start a virtuous circle in place of the vicious one.

I have started circling many areas of my life in prayer— my husband, children, memoir, blog, writing plans, weight, home, garden, career, finances, love of travel etc.

And in each of these I am praying for a virtuous circle—where each action creates momentum and leverage, making the next virtuous action easier.

My Personal Jericho

Can you put a due date on the walls of Jericho crumbling? In Joshua 6, it was on the seventh day.

I’ve set a date for my Jericho to collapse—September 29th, 2016. It would be the day I first arrived in England, full of dreams and hopes and ambition, which have not been fulfilled, but life is long, and sometimes, God prioritises changes in you before he lets your dreams come true.

So these are the walls of Jericho which I would like to collapse by September 29th, 2016.

1)   I would like to finish my memoir, which is now in a polished second draft (while not neglecting my blog).

2)    I would like to get healthy. I am currently 84 pounds overweight, and I would like to get to a healthy weight

3)   I would like to get the house decluttered, with everything in its place, and everything not beautiful or useful donated or chucked. (We’ve been tidying and decluttering weekly since summer 2008, so have made huge progress on this).

4)   I would like to wake at 5 a.m.

Am I biting off more than I can chew? Who knows, but with God’s help, I believe the walls of this Jericho will crumble.

* * *

Synergy

And I hope these goals are synergistic, and will set up a virtuous circle in my life

1 Exercise will help me sleep better, be clear-headed for writing, and feel happy. It will, also, God willing, build up muscles which will boost my metabolism.

I am planning to continue losing weight through Dr. Furhman’s Eat to Live diet as a template (with some deviations), and have already lost 18 pounds on it. It is a nutritarian diet, so, God willing, I will continue to rarely be ill, and to have high levels of energy.

2) Waking early will give me more time to exercise, to tidy the house, and to write, and will give me an increased sense of well-being and shalom.

3) Keeping the house orderly and tidy will increase my shalom and mental wealth. And increase focus for writing.

4) Writing–well that’s in a category in itself! The way it could help my other goals would be through the happiness it gives me. Though Julia Cameron suggests that writing down your words daily helps you lose weight.

So that’s it. That’s the Jericho I am praying around. If you think of me, pray for me, please?

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

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                                                                                                                          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.