Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Following Jesus Is Costly and the Very Best Thing We Can Do

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Stations of the Cross mosaic

 
(I have read this meditation on the podcast above. I hope you enjoy it. Feedback welcome!)

 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25

Jesus is blazingly honest about the cost of following him. It’s our

most brilliant, golden choice, though it does mean we can no

longer follow ourselves, and our self-indulgent or prideful desires. We

dance instead to his other-worldly, life-changing music, asking at each

transition point of our day or life, “Jesus, what is your assignment?

How do I do it your way?” And we accept the sacrifices necessary to

beautifully live the particular life God has given us, with its responsibilities.

and boredoms, to develop our unique gifts, and to fulfil our unique calling.

 

For me (descriptive, not prescriptive), shouldering my cross includes

eliminating sugar and starchy carbs (to lose excess weight!), not

watching TV (extreme!), endeavouring to keep my house and garden

organised and pretty enough, and using internet blockers to limit time

spent on social media or news sites. And, also, taming my anger and

outspokenness! And refusing to sing a song of worry, or linger in anger,

training myself to sing instead a song of trust, praise, and gratitude.

 

While following Jesus is meaningful, electric, and joyful, following

ourselves could entail ruining our health with addictive foods, caffeine,

overwork, or the siren-call of our phones. Following Jesus does not

mean relinquishing our goals and ambitions, but surrendering them

to Him. We do not own our work; God does. And so, we must repent

when we overwork, get too intense about success, or try to impress

others with it. For competitive cravings for success, fame, money,

or popularity wreck relationships, and mental, spiritual, and physical

health, and never satisfy, for the ladder of success has no end, and

climbing it means exhausting ourselves for nothing. We’re still restless.

You have made us for yourself, Oh Lord, and our hearts are restless

until they find their rest in you, St. Augustine wrote. If we do not try

to obey the Great Commandment: to love God, and Christ’s second

commandment:  to love our neighbour as ourselves, we could, one day,

open the treasure box of our lives and find only ashes. Nothing!

 

C.S. Lewis writes, “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 favorite wishes every day, submit with ever fiber of your being. 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. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”  

Following Jesus means discipline, and staggering rewards.

The restlessness-quenching streams of the living water

of the Spirit flowing from us. And Christ himself, living bread,

to help us feel alive inside, not dead.  Besides, He occasionally

guides us to the one fish with a silver coin in its mouth,

or shoals of 153 fish when we’ve laboured fruitlessly for decades.

And, sometimes, he converts our water to wine, and multiplies

our efforts a thousand-fold, giving us, in his phrase,

all the things non-believers run after. Jesus, following you

is so worth it. Spirit, help us to do so. Amen.

 

If you’d like to listen my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

They are also availabe at  Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts,  Amazon Music or Audible.  Please subscribe to read them the moment they appear, and I would be very  grateful for reviews and ratings!!

And, of course, I would love you to read my memoir, Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂 Or my book of essays, Wandering Between Two Worlds, UK or US,  or my children’s book Francesco, Artist of Florence in the UK, or the US.

How to Find Life-Changing Hidden Treasure

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“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, went and sold all he had and bought that field. Matthew 13:44

 

The Kingdom of God is within you, Jesus says, as

he suggests that making him the King of all our minutes

and activities is treasure worth trading everything for. It’s like

being in constant radio contact with Jesus, placing yourself

in the torrent of his love and wisdom and the power of his Spirit.

It’s promised deep peace, even amid direness, because we know

God’s power and goodness. It’s the Holy Spirit teaching us all

things, guiding our work and financial affairs, guidance that’s

brilliant, timesaving, and (a fringe benefit!) often economically beneficial.

 

Trading everything to follow Jesus, who said he’d live in us, as

a vine floods its branches, will, like literally selling everything

we own, take time. It happens inch by inch until the Spirit and Jesus

and his power and glory gradually invade every square inch of our lives.

 

And, progressively, everything will shift–the way we work, our

family relationships, friendships,  what we read and watch,

the time we spend on exercise, diets, and food preparation,

on maintaining our homes and gardens, on prayer and scripture reading,

on church activities and volunteering, on social media and the news.

Some of us will spend less time on these things; others will spend more,

for we are each created with a unique shape and purpose and calling.

 

And what am I trading to live more in Jesus’s Kingdom? Well, Rick Warren,

of The Purpose-Driven Life, suggests that those who want to change

anything should begin by changing their bodies. So I am walking and

running while praying and listening to Scripture, gradually increasing mileage

so I don’t regain the 82 pounds I had lost. And I’m prioritising

decluttering and bringing order and beauty to my home and garden

while getting my goal steps and burning my goal calories.

 

It’s costly to follow Jesus, for sure, but far, far costlier to decide not to,

and instead chase what Tim Keller calls “counterfeit Gods:” “money,

the seduction of success, the power and the glory,” to climb

a cruel ladder which has no end and never satisfies for long.

 

Bill Bright, founder of Cru, describes his surrender to Christ

as abandoning his puny little plans, and embracing God’s

magnificent plans. Once done, he said, the future seemed brighter

than ever. As we invite Jesus into each square inch of our lives,

he promises that the things the unbelieving world runs after

will also be added to us. May it be so. Amen.

 

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or  

Amazon Music or Audible. And I would be very  grateful for reviews and ratings!!

And, of course, I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

 

 

 

The Best Thing You Can Do with your Life: Sign it Over. (Inspired by Bill Bright.)

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Bill BrightI read an arresting blog about Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and one of the post-War generation of entrepreneurial American Christian giants—like Billy Graham, Bob Pierce of World Vision, Francis Schaeffer of L’Abri, or George Verwer of Operation Mobilization.

As newly-wed Christians, Bill and Vonette Bright were disappointed with each other. After a quarrel, Bill sensed God tell him, “I want you to make total, absolute surrender to my control.”

They made a list of their dreams—a home in a posh neighbourhood, cars, vacations, and were appalled at how materialistic these were.

So, they literally signed everything to the control of Christ. Home, car, business, all they owned, or would own.

And then they sensed that their future was brighter than ever.

* * *

Bill wrote, “Apart from my salvation, this was to be the most important decision of my life.  That day I became a slave of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the first time in my life I was actually free.”

“We chose that day to put aside our own little dreams, our own aspirations, and our own little puny plans, and embrace his magnificent plans.  That day was the beginning of a whole new era, a whole new lifestyle.”

“It’s the greatest decision that we have ever made. It was a total, absolute, irrevocable commitment to the Lordship of Christ.”

“It was the most liberating thing you can imagine.” They committed to “never again seek the praise or applause of men or material wealth.”

And then, Bright said “God in a supernatural way seemed to open up my mind, to give me a vision which embraced the whole world—to reach the world through reaching college students. It was so intoxicating that I almost burst with joy. I wanted to shout the praises of God at the top of my voice. I appreciate the experience of the apostle Paul who spoke of being lifted onto a spiritual plane which could not be described by mere human words…. God showed me the whole world and gave me the confidence that He would use me to reach the multitudes of the world for whom Christ died.” In those few seconds, their lives changed forever. 

Campus Crusade for Christ now has a ministry presence in 191 countries, and has 80 ministries under its umbrella, including the Jesus Film.

* * *

Of course, this surrender to God was not without cost. Bill sold his business to focus on reaching college students. He left his course at Fuller where he was training to be a pastor. The Brights were plunged into the financial and career uncertainty.

It is a fascinating, paradoxical story. Bright literally signed over everything to Christ—and the future felt brighter, and he felt liberated.

I think of the lovely old hymn Only a Shadow, “The dreams I have today, my Lord, are only a shadow of your dream for me.”

Amazing thought, that!! Because His mind is exponentially bigger, creative, startling–so his dreams for my blog, or the books I want to write are so much bigger than mine. So, as Bill Bright says, the challenge is seek and “embrace his magnificent plans.” (One of Bill’s sayings was “think huge,” and “then huger still.”) So I need to train myself until it becomes second nature not to act until I sense his guidance, his wind in my sails. To sense his words and direction surge through me before I act.

* * *

When you surrender area after area or your life to God, two things are possible. The surrendered area can be super-enhanced. Or it can be taken away, in the way God led Oswald Chambers to drop the art career which he had trained in for years. Total surrender of your life to God is very dangerous, and, paradoxically, the safest thing there is.

“Ooh” said Susan. “Is Aslan-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”..

“Safe?” said Mr Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

* * *

Bill Bright tells us candidly that he and his amazing friends in The Fellowship of the Burning Heart failed in their total surrender, but they went right back and surrendered their lives again. And again. This gives me hope as I re-surrender areas of my life which I had surrendered before (unsuccessfully).

My blog, precious to me, which I believe I have surrendered, because, heck, I couldn’t write words which speak to others weekly without his help.

My writing, which has been an area of frustration, failure and sadness, and in which my dreams have NOT been fulfilled…so it is the highest of high time that I surrender it.

My health and weight. Ah, I desperately need God’s help in them. Cannot manage without God. Come, Lord, and control them.

My children and their futures, over which I am so opinionated. I have a University in mind which I would LOVE Irene to go to. Will have to surrender that desire to God.

My house, my possessions.

My precious garden which so little resembles my dream for it

My finances, my business. Oh direct me, Lord, and bless both.

The languages I want to learn. The places I want to see. My husband. My old age! Everything.

There is joy in surrendering it all, again, and again and experiencing the transition, in Bill Bright’s words, from our puny plans to God’s magnificent plans.

If You Should Ever Want My Life, Come and Take It

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In Chekhov’s haunting play The Seagull, the beautiful country girl, Nina, who dreams of being an actress, writes to the narcissistic playwright, Trigorian, “If you should ever want my life, come and take it.”

He does; oh he does! He comes; he takes it; he casts it away, a poor discarded thing. Nina returns home, broken. She has failed as an actress, playing second-rate roles in second-rate companies in the provinces. Her true love, the play’s protagonist, Konstantin, unable to cope with Nina’s tragedy, kills himself.

* * *

“If you should ever want my life, come and take it.” That kind of surrender to a human being is never safe. All human beings are capable of betrayal–though not all will betray.

To whom is it safe to say–“If you should want my life, come and take it?” Only to the maker of life, the giver of life, the one who can turn our life around in a moment.

To him is it safe to say, “You do want my life. Take it, take it. Make of it something I have never imagined. Take it.”

* * *

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess,” Martin Luther wrote.

I too have worked on plans and dreams and schemes which have come to nothing. But increasingly, I am placing everything I do in God’s hands, and there it is safe.

More and more, I find myself saying, “Take it,” as I feel intensity rise. I think of areas of my life in which I struggle, or which are relatively successful. “Take it. This mess I’ve made. This failure. This ambition. This broken dream. This ancient dream. This delicate shimmering dream. This thing which is inexplicably working. This longing. Take it!”

“Take it and make of it something beautiful.”

“For when my dream is in your strong capable hands which begin working on it, shaping it, moulding it, reshaping it, ah, then it is safe.”

 

Grateful for being hosted on Heather Caliri’s blog—A Little Yes

10 Reflections after Listening to Heidi Baker

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Heidi_Baker

Heidi Baker (credit)

Heidi Baker is, I believe, the closest to the heart of Jesus of any living Christian. Christianity Today wrote a rapturous cover story on her.

I heard her in Birmingham, and here are my notes, reflections and resolutions.

1) “Always, always, always, say YES.”

Heidi: “I got so yielded that I didn’t have much more to say than “Yes, yes, yes.

“The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him.’ Dwight Moody famously said.

How do we get fully surrendered? We just start, one tiny step at a time. And because it is just one step at a time, one minute at a time, it is an easy yoke. The hardest part is setting your feet in the right direction!

2) After reading about “the multiplication anointing” in Mark Batterson’s “Circle Maker,” I have been praying for it on my writing, business, and other endeavours.

Well, Heidi is in the business of multiplication anointings, and has to be, since she’s committed to feed 12,000 orphans.

She explains it: You surrender your lunch, your everything to God, and he uses it feed a great crowd “as much as they wanted.”

In the surrender, in living in the river, comes the power to have your resources of time, talent, energy, and money multiplied.

Heidi  says she’s become cleverer. “God took my mind and enlarged it. I can do things now which I could never have imagined. I have the mind of Christ.”   SQ, our spiritual intelligence quotient, she said, unlike IQ, grows with time.

3) “It all depends on how you look at things,” a phrase she repeated like a jazz motif. She had many tales of shipwrecks, and beatings and stonings, of when things went disastrously, dangerously, heart-breakingly wrong, but once she decided to praise God, and look at the bright side of things, they worked out. Not as she wanted them to, or prayed they would, but worked out.

She has had numerous opportunities to become a grouchy old missionary, but decided to choose joy, decided to choose to be happy.

4) “It doesn’t matter if people don’t like you, if God likes you!”

I find the thought so liberating. Not everyone will like me, and I am not to bother about that, as long as God likes me!

“Stick to your message. Four years down the line those people who opposed you will hug you!”

Another theme she riffed on, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition.” However, as you behave like children of God without fault,” you will “shine among them like stars in the sky” (Phil 2:8).

5) “When God shows up, people start showing up.”

Heidi: “When God shows up, everything shifts, expands and grows.”

As a blogger, it is my goal to grow my blog primarily by going deeper into Christ, and so it is good to know that “when God shows up, people start showing up.”

6) Growth Happens Outside the Comfort Zone

Heidi: “I don’t mind being stretched. I believe stretching is good.”

(I too am learning to force myself out of the comfort zone, into the growth zone.)

7) Love Looks like Something

Heidi spoke of Helena whose grandmother asked her brothers to stone her to death after her leg was amputated after a house fire; she was now useless. Helena escaped, and selling her body to keep alive, starting at the age of ten.

After Heidi took her in, and kept saying “love looks like something,” Helena decided to go back and tell them about the love of Jesus. Heidi said, “Never! That is the most dysfunctional family I know of.”

Helena said, “But you said, “Love looks like something.”

What a beautifully simple guide to relationships with our family and friends: “Love looks like something.” It is practical; you can see it.

8) Physical Fitness The work she does in Mozambique would be physically impossible if she were not supremely physically fit. She spoke of  running; swimming; snorkeling; lifting weights in her bedroom.

I decided to privilege my physical life (strength and fitness) below my spiritual life, but above my intellectual life. I will try to fit in some walking and stretching, even if I write less. But ironically, of course, I will not write less if I make time to exercise; I will write more. As Jonathan Fields says, “if we make the time to exercise, it makes us so much more productive and leads to such improved creativity, cognitive function, and mood that the time we need for doing it will open up and then some–making us so much happier and better at the art of creation, to boot.”

9) She is learning to appreciate the diversity of all the streams in the body of Christ, both the super-campy and the chosen-frozen dying on their feet.

The body of Christ will have the same diversity as creation, and we should learn to enjoy each of its streams.

10) “We can have as much of God as we want to have if we continually say, “Yes, yes, yes”

 

 

 

In Which We Give All to Get All

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So Jacob has an amazing vision of a stairway between heaven and earth, and angels ascending and descending on it. And at the top was the Lord, who promises him the land, fruitfulness, blessing, protection, his presence and his favour.

The context?

Jacob is fleeing the brother whom he had effectively disinherited and deprived of the blessings of the first-born through deceit.

Hardly the best place to meet God and be promised his blessings, wouldn’t you say?

But God is gracious and compassionate, full of mercy and abounding in love.

* * *

So after Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi disgrace and endanger him through slaughtering every male in Shechem and then looting it, Jacob is on the move again, back to the place of blessing.

God suggests that he returns to Bethel and settles there, building an altar.

In preparation, Jacob commands his household, “get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourself and change your clothes(Gen 35:2).”

When they do so, and bury all the foreign Gods, and the rings they wore as amulets or charms, God gives them safe conduct. “Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.”

And at Bethel, God blesses him, and promises him fruitfulness and the land, Eretz Israel.

Getting rid of foreign gods was a precursor of protection and blessing.

* * *

 Why was this so important?

Because we can only be in one place. We are either in the waterfall of God’s goodness and favour, or we are not.

We are either relying on God, or on our own strategies for success, for wealth, or getting our own way, for example. (Nothing wrong with strategies. Strategy is fun–and strategic action is obviously more effective than random action. However, we have to continually ensure that our strategies either originate with God, or have been run by him, and have his approval.)

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him (2 Chron. 16:9).  Somehow being wholly committed to God, wholly in the river of his love, is necessary to being able to wholly access his ideas, and his inspiration, and to experience his undeserved blessings. Selling everything to buy that pearl.

All I have is yours, and all you have is mine, Jesus says. They are correlated. Perhaps all we have needs to be His, for all He has to become ours.

Our lunch must be handed over to Jesus for 5000 men to feed on it.

* * *

How do we reach this level of surrender?

Reaching total surrender to God and totally experiencing his blessings, ideas and provision, like everything else in life, is a matter of one step at a time, one step of obedience at a time. Practice, blow it; get up, practice again.

I have not reached total surrender, alas, though I want to–because I think living in Jesus is a more exciting place to live than following my own whims and strategies.

Here are some areas I am working on: turning to Jesus rather than food when in a low mood; not worrying about my work, but entrusting it to him and asking for his ideas; doing my fair share of house-running stuff.

But the real battleground for me is within. Forgiving and praying blessing on those who injured me. Blessing those I feel envious of, and asking God to bless me indeed, instead of lingering in envy. Not dwelling in the negative, but turning my thoughts and words to the positive. Praising and thanking God when I do not feel like doing so.

Tweak, tweak, tweak, until I am aligned with Jesus, and living in Jesus, with Jesus himself living in me.

 

Thank you, Adriana, for your hospitality.

On Absolute Surrender. Killing “Isaac” for God’s Fullest Blessing.

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The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed   because you have obeyed me.” (Gen 22 15-18)

I loved Rabindranath Tagore’s Geetanjali as a teenager (and see no contradiction between his lovely poems, and Christian thought. He could just as easily have been a Judeo-Christian poet).  Here’s a beautiful Tagore poem on the blessings of surrendering everything to God.

I had gone a begging from door to door in the village path, when your  golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream, and I wondered who was this King of all kings!

My hopes rose high, and I thought my evil days were at an end. I stood waiting for alms to be given unasked and for wealth to be scattered on all sides in the dust.

The chariot stopped where I stood. Your glance fell on me, and you came down with a smile. I felt that the luck of my life had come at last. Then all of a sudden you held out your right hand, saying, “What have you to give me?”

Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open your palm to a beggar to beg! I was confused and stood undecided, and then from my wallet I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave it to you.

How great was my surprise when at the day’s end, I emptied my bag on the floor only to find a least little grain of gold among the poor heap!

I bitterly wept and wished that I had the heart to give you my all!

* * * 

Ah, in my own life, surrendering things to Jesus has indeed been magic. Peace has come; worry has diminished; the burden of having to achieve is lightening.

I have an amazingly productive friend, Paul, a writer, in full-time Christian ministry. For him, surrendering to Jesus was not without pain, but became addictive, a lightening of the load. He told me how, once he had done it, he would find himself at the bus-stop, thinking about areas of his life which he still “owned” and saying ‘Take that, too, Jesus. Take that.” I do something similar now, and find joy in it.

* * *

For me, surrendering is a freedom from worry. In big things and  little things. For instance, we bought a motor home from Sussex, 3.5 hours away. When we got it inspected, we paid someone to go and check it out, but gave in to laziness and did not join the mechanic. We were recently told that there is damp in the motor home, which has been there for a while.

I am sad, and could worry, could freak out, but God provided the money to buy the camper van through blessing our work, so it seems ungrateful and foolish for us to be worrying about it. So I am just releasing it to him, and praying that it lasts 10 years as I want it to, and if not, that he provides us another one.

Or another example: Zoe, our older daughter, is studying Theology at Oxford. And, now, ungrateful me, I am focusing on the best university for our bright younger daughter, Irene, 16, who has a year to go before University admissions. Nah, my heart cannot bear the weight of that intensity and worry. I need to release it to God, and know that his love for Irene will remain in full flood, wherever she goes to her first choice University, as is very likely. Or not.

* * *

I went on a retreat to the Harnhill Centre for a Christian Healing, and received excellent prayer ministry. While there, I read Desert Harvest, the autobiography of the founder of the Harnhill Centre, an Anglican clergyman, Arthur Dodds.

Arthur Dodds reached a turning point in his ministry after attending a John Wimber Signs and Wonders Conference. As did Peter Lawrence, the vicar-husband of a woman on staff. As did David Pytches of St. Andrew’s, Chorleywood, and John and Ele Mumford (leaders of the UK Vineyard, and parents of Mumford and Sons).

John Wimber breathed the Spirit into England and Canada, through the Toronto Airport Fellowship (now Catch the Fire) and he didn’t even live in these countries.

* * *

One of the striking aspects of Wimber’s life was his absolute surrender to God. I’m spare change in his pocket; he can spend me any way he wants, he’d say. His surrender was cemented by his period of manual labour, cleaning out oil drums, after surrendering his career as a highly successful and well-respected musician.

When I consider how fruitful Wimber’s life was, how marked by miracles, it increases my desire to give Jesus everything. To surrender it to him, and to see his magic unfold.

Heck, it’s his already, of course. As is everything I own. Like Job, our possessions, our family, our health, our mental health, our livelihood can all vanish.

What surrender does is a voluntary placing in God’s hands of what is already his–like small children buying you a present with your own money.

For me, it would mean putting my blog, my writing, my career, my health, my future, my finances, my home, my garden, my possessions,my friendships, my marriage, my husband, my children and their future into his hands, to take what He gives me, and give what he takes from me cheerfully.

That was Mother Teresa’s definition of holiness. “Holiness is giving what he takes from us, and taking what he gives us with a big smile.”

I have so often failed in this. Been angry at what was taken from me through my own errors, or other people’s uncaring or malicious actions. Sulky at what was given me, when I wanted an entirely different life.

Absolute surrender would deal with the sulkiness when what we want is taken, or when we are not given what we want, or are given what we do not want.

* * *

How do we get to absolute surrender? We can do it all at once as Wimber did, and Oswald Chambers did as detailed in David MacCasland’s Abandoned to God.

Or we can do in increments, as my friend Paul appeared to have done. Step by step, handing him the things we fret about about, our worries and ambitions. “Bless our plans, oh Lord. Make them succeed. And if they do not, it will in no way diminish our love for you.” I hope I can say that. Yes, I believe I can.

And in that surrender is blessing and fruitfulness. Isaac was Abraham’s son until he was surrendered to God. And then, in the act of surrender, Isaac became God’s son and the spiritual and actual ancestor of the Judeo-Christian peoples. The surrender enlarged Abraham’s destiny, and Isaac’s. What a good bargain surrendering to God was! For Abraham. As it will be for you and me.

 

 

Loose Change in God’s pocket; a puppet on a string, or? What’s your metaphor for your relationship with God?

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I was listening to a Vineyard CD of Songs of Surrender, and reflected on how I have been indirectly blessed by John Wimber, a man I’ve never met. Through Vineyard music; through his wife Carol’s moving biography of him The Way it Was; through the Toronto Blessing, which was launched in a Vineyard church, now called “Catch the Fire,” where my daughter Zoe is currently at the School for Ministry; and through ministries launched after a meeting with Wimber, like Harnhill Christian Centre.

John Wimber used to say, “I am just loose change in God’s pocket. He can spend me as he pleases.”

* * *

 This summer, I heard Heidi Baker say, “I am a puppet in God’s hands. He can move me which way he pleases.”

And it’s interesting that these two people who have expressed such absolute surrender have also had amazing fruitful ministries, affecting thousands.

When I read of music inspired by God like the Messiah, or poetry or prose almost dictated by God, I long to be “in the vine,” surrendered to him, living in him, so that nothing in me presents an obstacle to the free flow of his grace, power and ideas. So that the channels, the pipeline of communication between God and me remain clear.

* * *

 However, my heart does not quite echo these expressions of total surrender like the Methodist Covenant Prayer.

We do not have exactly the same relationship with any two human beings. There is a slightly different level of trust, familiarity, relaxation, and commonality of interests.

So too, I guess no two of us have exactly the same relationship with God. “A puppet on a string,” “spare change in God’s pockets to spend as he wills” does not quite express my relationship with God.

I believe I would accept God’s dealings with me, whatever…

But I use other metaphors to express my relationship with God—dancing with the Lord; standing in the waterfall or river of God,  an eagle waiting on the edge of its nest for the mounting winds of the spirit before it glides effortlessly into the winds of the storm.

How about you? Which metaphors best express your relationship with God?