Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Walking on the Waters, Looking at Jesus, in the Shadow of the Big C (who Must not be Named)

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I had a cancer scare two and a half years ago. Fear gripped my heart when I realised the doctor suspected endometrial cancer. Fears of chemotherapy–and, perhaps worse, death. My youngest daughter was just 12. I was by no means ready to die.

And I lay down, and “saw” a vision. Christ walking towards me on the dark waters. And he said, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

I took that to mean that I did not have cancer, and fear left my heart.

The biopsy results took six weeks to arrive. A friend who worked in that department told me that I would get my results earlier if I called. Roy urged me to call, but I had lost interest. I had seen Jesus and he told me not to be afraid.

When the letter arrived, all was well.

* * *

 Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, why did I not revise my life? Change my diet, cut fat and sugars, become active and lose weight. Oh Jesus!

So I reach a state of exhaustion this August, and I keep telling Roy, “I think I have cancer. Nothing else can explain the progressive exhaustion despite a good, good diet.”  My short daily walk was exhausting me.

I go to the doctor. I am severely anaemic. I have a colonoscopy. They find a very large polyp. It has been growing for years by the size of it. The doctor looks at it, and says it has a Type V pit pattern, the worst incidentally, correlated with malignancies.

The biopsy results take 23 days to arrive—just long enough for hope to spring up in my heart, hope for a second chance to be healthy and revise my life.

The nurse hears the tremor in my voice, and says the results are “highly suspicious” of cancer. Was she being kind? Oh I prefer the truth, no matter how brutal.

So I am to see a surgeon on November 13th for another colonoscopy and to plan on how to remove the 6 cm polyp. The nurse thinks it will probably involve major surgery, scheduled for November 25th or December 9th.

This dismays me. I have so little energy, and exercise is hard for me, anyway. How on earth will I exercise while recovering from surgery?

* * *

 Anyway, when I first got the call saying the anaemia was severe, and I should have a colonoscopy, I was filled with fear, and lay face down on my bed.

And, like the previous time, I “saw” Jesus walk towards me on the waters. And he said, “Take courage. It is I; do not be afraid.” (Matt. 14:27)

And like Peter, I saw myself walk towards him on the waters, and grow afraid, and begin to sink.

And Jesus held my hand, and said, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

So that was the image and the comfort. Not a clear sense of “No cancer,” as  last time, alas, but this comfort: Jesus will hold my hand through this. I will walk on the waters of what is to come, holding Jesus’s hand.

* * *

 So that’s where I am. You see posters, “I don’t just hope for miracles. I rely on them.” Well, increasingly, that’s the way I live, relying on miracles.

So I am praying for a miracle–that when the surgeon looks at the polyp on November 13th, it will have shrunk. That God will change the molecules of the polyp so that when they are biopsied again, they will prove not to be malignant. (He IS a molecular biologist. He changed the molecules of water to wine; of bread, so it fed five thousand.)

There are three types of surgery: snaring the polyp via endoscopy, but the team thinks it’s too large for that. There is keyhole surgery, which would remove it with minimal intervention. Or, horrors, removal of that section of the colon, which is what the nurse thinks might happen. NO, Jesus!!

And, of course, cancer is Mordor, the Land of Shadows and Darkness. There are other possibilities which I am refusing to contemplate until I have to.

So, if you are a person of ridiculous faith, please could you pray that the polyp will shrink, that God will change its molecules so that it is not malignant, and that it will be removed with minimal surgery.

* * *

The risk factors for colon cancer are red meat, a high fat diet, being overweight, and being sedentary. Readers, you can be jolly sure that I will not be eating red meat, will not be eating high fat, and will not be sedentary. Oh no, I will not! As for being overweight, if I can figure out what to do to shift my weight, I will. Oh yes, I will.

Fortunately, the things which minimise one’s risk of colon cancer—fruit, vegetables, bran, cruciferous vegetables, onions, are also things that are great for one’s health.

So if I get out of this shadow alive, I am jolly sure I will be a healthier girl. And if you could pray with me that the horror will be minimal, I will be so grateful!!

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.

 

God Breathes Stars–and Honour on His Beloved

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gustav-klimt-the-kiss

“God breathed, and all the stars were born.” “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” NIV Psalm 33:6.

“And he breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:22.

 

The Lord breathes on us.

At his breath, we are cloaked in gold dust,

stars and the jewels of this earth

which he creates from mud, coal, rock,

and the bones of dead creatures.

 

From these nothings,

he creates diamonds, sapphires,

rubies which he breathes over us.

 

He sees us as beautiful, resplendent,

Because we are his children.

* * *

But we forget

that “we do not have because we do not ask .”

that the Lord can breathe

inspiration on us,

the ideas, the words, the books we long to write.

 

That God blessed the schemer Jacob

because he ask him to.

 

That God enlarged the territory of the insignificant Jabez

because he asked him to.

 

And that is the great secret of getting things done:

Asking God for the power of the Holy Spirit,

And “doing what he tells us.”

 

We forget that the Lord can breathe

Our hearts’ desires on us.

We think that achieving stuff is all up to us.

 

But the more we crave the good things of this earth,

The more we need to burrow into the heart of Jesus,

To find them in him, through him and with him.

* * *

We instead toil and strive and scheme and intrigue

To get to the top

Of our particular ant-heap

 

Forgetting that

He can breathe on us everything we crave for,

Just like that.

 

And we worry and strategize

and look around in envy,

while he, forgotten, stands waiting

to scatter his goodness

on whomever will ask,

 

sadly watching us scheme and scramble

For he knows there’ll never be a shortage

Of wealth or honour,

For he creates these with this breath.

 

In Which I Resolve Not to Be Afraid

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 So the disciples row for “three or three and a half miles.” (I love these charming details, John striving to remember accurately–and how they make it easier for us to believe in the truth of these memoirs of Jesus.)

It’s dark; the wind is raging; the waters are rough.

And a figure looms out of the darkness, walking on the waters, approaching the boat.

And they cannot see his face; and they do not know his name

And understandably, they are terrified.

* * *

Who is he who comes walking on the waters, in the dark, when the winds rage, and the sea is rough?

The dark figure terrifies, until he speaks his name, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

And that too is the aspect He sometimes wears. He appears when it is dark, and the winds are strong, and the waters rough. He walks towards us, a dark figure, and we cannot see his face, and we do not know his name, and we are terrified.

But it is Him, nonetheless, and face to face with the stranger in the darkness, we are to remember God’s most consistent command: Do not be afraid.

And so I will not be afraid.

I shall taste the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

* * *

The Israelites response to the manna which sustained them was “What is it?” In Hebrew, Manna.

“Tell me your name,” Jacob uncertainly asks the dark figure who disabled him. “Who is it?” the disciples wondered, terrified, as a figure looms out the storm and darkness, approaching them.  Or, “Manna.”

The answer was always, is always, the same. For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, in success or in failure, in rich friendship or loneliness.

It is the Lord.

* * *

Everything we have comes from God. He comes to us in spring and summer–and in winter too. In abundance—and in scarcity too. When life is easy—and when it’s excruciatingly hard.

“Yes,” I say to the dark figure walking towards me amidst the roaring winds and stormy sea. “I know it is you. I have trusted you in the past and I trust you now. I know you.”

“And so, however the dice falls, I know nothing shall separate me from your love, and all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.”

A Little Bit of Theology for Victims of Burglaries (Which, Alas, I Have Just Been)

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jewellerySo my grandfather, Piedade Felician Mathias, a distinguished surgeon, had invested his life savings in gold jewellery, because gold in India then, as now, rose faster than anything else.

And my grandmother, trusting and sanguine as I am, left this on her dressing table. The maid vanished–as did the gold.

Everyone wanted my grandfather to report the maid to the Parish Priest, which in the interconnected Catholic town of Mangalore would mean that she would never get married in the church, and would eventually be caught.

He shrugged. My father, remembers him saying in the words of Job “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

* * *

Many years later, when I flew to India, with Roy, my very-new husband, he, carelessly, foolishly, put my 24-carat gold jewellery in an unlocked suitcase—which did not arrive in Bangalore.

I was exasperated. “Roy, who puts jewellery in a suitcase rather than hand luggage? And what kind of person does not lock the suitcase?” I scolded.

“Sshh,” my father said, for he wanted my marriage to work. He told me the story of his father who said with Job “Should we accept good from the hand of the Lord and should we not accept evil?” when he lost his entire life’s savings to date.

I had recommitted my life to following Jesus a little before we married, 24 years ago, so I decided to echo my grandfather in the face of annoying financial loss. However, I put that missing suitcase on my prayer list—“even now”–and continued asking God to find it.

After 90 days, we got our $500 compensation form TWA. And on the 91st day, a phone call. Roy had not bothered with an updated luggage tag, but there was an old one from Johns Hopkins University where he had got his Ph.D. TWA called Johns Hopkins, who gave them our current address in Stanford University, Palo Alto, where Roy was doing a post-doc. And we got the suitcase, 3 months later, and yes, all that pesky precious gold was still in that unlocked suitcase.

We live in a world of magic and miracles. Never forget that.

So we were richer by $500–and one lesson in trust and faith and miracles.

* * *

And my grandfather? Did good come from losing his life’s savings? Well, he no longer invested in gold, but in land, and died with three houses–two in the centre of Mangalore, and  one in Cubbon Road, the posh heart of Bangalore, near the erstwhile Residency, now Raj Bhavan, the Governor’s residence; and the granite Vidhana Soudha, the state legislature–houses that when sold provided part of the down-payment for my first house.

He worked harder as a result of the theft, and realised more deeply that all his wealth came from God–for, unlike my scholarly maternal grandfather, he was a self-made man, who made a fortune through uncanny brilliance.  When his private practice dropped, he’d scold my grandmother, “Josephine, are you giving? Give. You are not giving; that is why I am not getting.”

Home-grown prosperity theology perhaps, but it worked. People got sick; he cured them, they rewarded him lavishly.

* * *

So my theological question really is: Can everything work for good?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it can.

Though at times, this faith has been tested.

One amazing day on holiday in Sweden in August 2011 I felt God speak to me about my blog, and his plans for it.

And the next day, the camper van in which we were holidaying was broken into and we lost both our laptops, including the latest version of the memoir I am working on; another book I was working on which I have consequently abandoned (I hadn’t backed up my laptop for months); Roy’s laptop with precious holiday pictures; a new iPad, which sadly, didn’t even work in Sweden; and a couple of the girls’ iPods.

We did not report visible signs of breaking in, so the insurance did not cover it all.

2000-3000 pounds of loss! How could that work out for good?

* * *

Well, the burglary convinced me that when I felt Jesus next to me on the rocks at Gothenburg, Sweden, and turn and smile at me and tell me about the future of my blog, it was real. This was the consequent spiritual attack and undermining.

I had four more days on holiday, sans laptop, so I prayed for my blog, but could not work on it. And regrouping through strategizing in prayer is far better than working with brute force. For the want of a vision, the people perish.

The lost laptop recalibrated my habits. Though my husband, Roy, a Maths Ph.D with 3 post-docs had retired in 2010, I still did the business accounts, and our personal investing and finances, obsessively. I checked on our business sales daily. I could tell you our net worth to a penny, and moved money around investing everything optimally. I did not believe Roy would do this, so I did it myself, first thing in the morning.

My therapist thought this was a waste of the precious first thing in the morning hour, and so it was. What an uninspiring timewasting way to start one’s day, checking on credit cards and bank statements and sales—necessary when we were running our business with the slimmest of margins, but I continued it though we had been well into profit for nearly 3 years then.

So I turned the finances over to Roy, and it’s a weight off my chest, more brain space for writing and spiritual thought. He does not do money or business as I do—perhaps he does it better, perhaps worse—we argue about this when we are cross!–but we are eating and living. Well.

What good came out of the theft? I berated Roy to our therapist for his fail-safe, highly recommended method of protecting our laptops—throwing a towel over them—and for leaving the girls iPods in full view. And possibly leaving the van unlocked. The therapist said, “Well, he’ll never leave the car or laptops unlocked again.” And indeed he won’t. (Though he did not pay the 1 euro protection fee to the car-guarding people in Sicily this December and 2 of his favourite coats, and my least favourite coat were stolen from the trunk of our locked car!)

And I’ve saved scores of hours probably by no longer checking on our business sales or our personal finances. That hasn’t yet been converted to money—but, God willing, one day it will be.

* * *

Well, I returned from holiday in the Loire Valley at six a.m. yesterday, and walked into a nightmare.

My beloved Chrysler Town and Country mini-van that we had bought in American in 2001 was missing. Irene used to call it “the bupper van,” because I proudly said, “SuperMom in her SuperVan” whenever I drove it.

My front door was wide open. A door had been smashed in, and burglars had entered stealing our large screen TV, the first we’d bought; both my daughters’ laptops (we’d taken ours with us); both their iPods; Irene’s Nintendo Wii that she bought with her own money; my beloved black leather handbag; our silver cutlery set; Irene’s beloved costume jewellery–though all my valuable stuff I had, providentially put in a bank vault a few days before leaving.

The CID have been out, and the forensics unit finger-printing the crime scene,

Okay then, how does one process all this, from a God point of view?

1 God can bring good out of ANYTHING. Ask him to bring good out of your disasters and stand on the ramparts and wait and see what he will do.

The whole of Scripture which I believe is brilliant and inspired—from Adam and Eve’s choices; to Joseph rising from slave to premier; to Christ’s death releasing his very Spirit to live within us—is based on the premise that God can bring good out of evil.

2a We omitted to get contents insurance, foolishly. A false economy. We will now get it.

2B Irene who had a half term’s work on her stolen laptop will learn to back up. She had typed her notes in class; perhaps she will move to writing, then typing them at home, which is a form of revision and more theft-proof.

We will get the girls Macs which are more reliable.

3 Big benefit. Both Roy and I will work a little harder and hopefully smarter to earn money to replace all this stuff –a TV, 2 laptops, a handbag, etc.

I am a big believer in enough. We had enough to pay bills, so were spending more time in getting a bit fitter and a bit healthier, and spiritually stronger. But I guess we will work on making money till we’ve replenished our savings after replacing all this—and work settles the mind and heart.

4 We will practice trusting God. Just as physical fitness is theoretical until put to the test—running 3 miles, say, we do not know whether we really trust God until tested, by financial reverses, say.

Some things we only learn by practising them. Praise God in all circumstances. Rejoice always. In everything give thanks.

Learning and practising these things is no small gain.

5 We are reminded that our life is not really ours, anyway.

Our life is not ours; our body is not ours; our health is not ours, our money is not ours, our blogs are not ours, our time is not ours. God gives us these things, God can take them away.

Our health, our wealth, and our success is in God’s hands. The money to buy all the stuff that was stolen we acquired through God’s blessing on our endeavours. We will continue aligning with him, continue asking him to bless the work of our hands.

6 It’s a great opportunity to practice humour.

I greeted the police with, “Forgive us; our house is not normally this messy.”

And everyone laughed.

We are dealing with this annoyance with ironic humour, a great coping tool.

7 And we will practise being happy in the Lord anyway, because we still dwell in the fountain of God’s goodness and mercy and it still flows.

We will rejoice in the steady goodness of God, because God can bring good out of even this. We will learn rejoicing by practising it.

So what is the proper response of the victim of a burglary?

My children are a bit frustrated with how calmly I am taking it –but it’s this:

Be at peace. Possess your soul in patience. Let nothing disturb thee. Let nothing affright thee, in the words of Saint Teresa of Avila.

Worship the Lord who has given so many good things

Worship the Lord who can turn all things to good.

Be at rest, oh my soul.

P.S. Please pray we recover all our stuff.

Image Credit

Have you ever been the victim of theft or burglary? How did you cope?   

When People Mess up the Story of your Life, but God Edits it Beautifully

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The Flight into Egypt and the Triumph of the Innocents (William Holman Hunt)

As I read Matthew 2,  I realise how much misery and hassle and stress Joseph and Mary and Jesus had to endure for no sin or mistake of their own—but purely because of their destiny, purely because of other people’s jealousy.

Herod was “disturbed” when the Magi asked, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We have seen his star in the east.”

He felt no excitement about the one chosen to be King by a higher power, the one whose birth had such cosmic significance that a new star appeared in the heavens.

Instead, he views Jesus as a threat to be eliminated, caring only for the security of his own position. He did not hesitate to murder to safeguard it (as people may not hesitate to slander or backstab anyone they perceive as a threat).

* * *

And so Joseph, Mary and Jesus go to Egypt, though they have done nothing wrong–leaving behind their friends and family, their familiar language, religion, food and customers–purely to escape Herod’s murderous, neurotic wrath.

Have you ever had a change forced on you because someone was jealous of your gifts? Threatened by you? Sadly, I have!

* * *

And the death of Herod does not mean instant safety either. They return to Israel when they hear the blessed words in a dream, “Those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

But Judea is still not safe. Herod’s son was in charge.

And so, to protect their toddler, they relocate to an obscure town in Galilee, Nazareth, and bring him up there.

Exactly as foretold by the Prophet Isaiah.

All these detours, this apparent wasted effort, this obscurity, this ruination of a rooted career for Joseph, the upheaval for Mary and the toddler Jesus–all this was exactly in God’s plan.

Why?

We do not know.

We many never know.

* * *

 Once we have reached “a certain age,” we look back at our lives, and say, “Oh, this worked out okay, because it led to this.” “Thank goodness that happened; it closed that door, and opened this.” “That worked out for good, because…”

But other things? Why did Milton– who was desperate to do just one thing: read and write–go blind? Why is my former pastor Dick Woodward a quadriplegic? Why did my mother lose her first-born son?

Why does God permit us to be blocked and thwarted through other people’s envy, fears and insecurities? Perhaps these blocks channel the force of the stream of our energy and talent into just the direction we were meant to go. Perhaps the stream goes underground and comes out stronger.

Or perhaps, and this is the truest answer, we just don’t know.

* * *

We are just characters in the drama of our lives. We don’t get to control where we were born, our parents, their wealth, social class, or our early education. We don’t get to control our IQ, our looks, our physique, our talents, or our disabilities.

We are but characters in a play someone one is writing and directing, and it is our job to play our part as beautifully as possible, and when it is left to us, to improvise. And since much of the story of our lives, many chapters, are left blank for us to fill in as we please–to improvise as beautifully as possible.

But someone else has written the play, someone else is directing it, and when the plot seems utterly senseless—we relax in the fact that we have had a sneak peek at the last act. According to the Book of Revelation, it will all end in celebration, in exultation, in a feast and rejoicing.

And so, when we do not understand the plot twists, we trust the brilliance of the author, the auteur, directing the story of our lives.

And despite all Herod’s machination, he just gets a chapter or so in Jesus’s story.

Jesus: He dominates history!

 

A Table in Presence of my Foes

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I am reading the story of Jacob in Genesis.

 

Jacob was in a most unpromising position to make a fortune.

 

“Name your wages,” Laban said, and Jacob did, modest ones: the streaked and speckled sheep and goats, and dark sheep (Gen 31-32). (Sheep were normally pure white, and goats pitch black).

 

Laban agreed, but then removed all the streaked or spotted or specked goats, and all the dark lambs, and put them in the care of his sons, a three days’ journey from Jacob.

 

Who must have realized, of course, but uses his own selective breeding to create his own strong speckled flocks which he too keeps separate, so growing exceedingly prosperous.

 

Laban changes his wages ten times (Gen 31:7) but still God ensures that the strong lambs and kids born had the colouring of those  promised to Jacob. He leaves with hundreds of goats, rams, camels, cows, bulls, donkey and servants

* * *

Protection from one’s enemies is one of the surprising aspects of God’s covenant and blessing of Abraham (Gen 14:20).

 

I guess Israel, as an embattled nation in hostile enemy territory, needed this psychological and actual protection.

 

Enemies are a fact of life.  We make some by our own bad behaviour, alas. But some just appear like mould or fungi, through no fault of our own.

 

Some people are jealous of your face, some are jealous of your place, some are jealous of your lace, and some are jealous of your grace, R. T. Kendall writes.

 

If, however, we were unable to do the work God gave us to do, because of enemies or opposition or hostility, faith would be toothless. We would be living in a world in which men were sovereign, not God.

 

Even when we do suffer at the hands of our enemies, they are God’s tool to move us upwards and onwards. They provide “the kick from behind and pull from in front” which is, often, how God indicates his will. And by blocking us, they, ironically, often increase our focus on the work God has called us to do.

* * *

Are you facing hostility or opposition or difficult circumstances?

 

Some God will allow to strengthen your character. Some of these will ensure that you turn your eyes upwards and see what He can do despite your circumstances.

 

How would you ever know that God is greater than all the circumstances ringed against you, unless you experienced difficulties and his deliverance?

So there is always a way of escape I believe; a way of following God and stepping into the destiny he has called you to,  even when pursuing it seems to be difficult or impossible.

 

Because the forces ranged against us, of circumstances, enemies or difficulties are only part of the picture.

* * *

The King of Aram sent horses and chariots and a strong force.

An army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.

“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked. (2 Kings 6).

Though you have laboured all night and caught nothing, the seas are, in fact, alive with fish. Ask the Lord where to cast your net.

Though things appear bleak and impossible, you serve the God of clever ideas, of miracles whose heart is “to set your hands free from the basket, remove the burden from your shoulders” (Psalm 81:6.)

Cast your eyes upwards. Help—good ideas, wisdom, providential circumstance, even, perhaps, a small miracle– is very likely at hand.

 

You of Little Faith, Why are you so Afraid?

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In a familiar, beloved passage, Jesus gets into a boat, and “a furious storm came up, so that the waves swept over the boat.” But Jesus continued sleeping.

The disciples in panic wake him up, “We are going to drown.”

And he replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves and it was completely calm.” (Matt 8:23-27).

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In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard comments that Jesus probably invented the term  oligopistoi, “little-faiths,” which would have had a little comic tinge to the ears of his hearers. “Oligopistoi, “little-faiths,” seems to have been a nickname that he invented as a way of gently chiding his apprentices for their lack of confidence in God and in himself.”

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I want to live in such a way that Jesus will never have to say to me

“You of little faith, why are you afraid?” Whatever I am, I do not want to be an oligopistos, a little faith! And it lies in my hands.

 I want to be aware of the flow of my thoughts, any anxiety and fear which bubbles up. I want to capture my fears, surrendering them to Jesus.

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I had a serious shock recently in which something big I wanted, and prayed for, and totally believed would happen did not happen.

Ah, I realised again, “Do not put faith in your prayers. Put your faith in God. Put your faith in the goodness of God.”

Your heart’s desire is a million times more likely to materialise if you pray steadfastly for it, (Mark Batterson says it’s partly because prayer activates the reticular activating system) but focusing on the objects of your prayer can, ironically, be a distraction from focusing on God, the tremendous lover.

And because of his goodness, we will not be afraid, whether all our prayers are affirmatively answered, or not.

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What does living with much faith and little fear involve?

Well, here’s a practical  recent example: At the moment, we are earning enough to live on, and I can plough ahead with my writing which is what I have always wanted to do.

However, I sometimes toy with the idea of a specific (and I think) brilliant business venture which would bless many people (but would take time and energy aware from my writing, could be a distraction and source of annoyance and hassle, and potentially “pierce me with many griefs” in Paul’s phrase).

So though I could rationalise this distraction (Stephen Pressfield of The War of Art calls it the resistance) saying, “Well, interest rates may not always be so low; we should bulk up our savings,” I will instead say: “I will not be of little faith.  The God who helps me now will help me if interest rates go up.”

Do you see how faith is a blessing, an immense time-saver, and frees you to live your life aligned with God’s calling on it?

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When I realise I am afraid, or doubt that God will come through for me, I will not look at my fear; I will look at Christ. I will not doubt his goodness.

And as fear rises, I will ignore it, focusing instead on the face of him who can rebuke the wind and the waves so that all is completely calm.

He will calm every storm he chooses, and will sleep in my boat, peaceful and content, though the others.

And I will train myself to remain tranquil through my storms, for my Saviour is in the same boat as I am.