Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art
What do you want? John 1:37
And no-nonsense, getting down to business,
the first thing you ask us,
in this most beautiful of books.
is a question.
What do you want?
I am today ashamed of the smallness
of my desire.
But I must be honest about it.
Here it is.
I place it in your hands.
Please grant it.
But if you transform it,
or deny it,
still, be thou blessed.
Just give me your joy.
Give me yourself.
Every branch that does bear fruit, the gardener prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:2. Seems unfair, doesn’t it?
In a contemporary interpretation of the Joseph story in Sun, Stand Still, Stephen Furtick refers to the pit of into which Joseph was tossed on his journey from being a shepherd boy in Israel to being Viceroy of Egypt as being a necessary removal of the unnecessary from the hard disk of Joseph’s life to make room for an upgrade.
Yes. That is what pruning is. If the good—branches, twigs, leaves– interferes with the best, out it goes.
For the good is always the enemy of the best.
* * *
I have struggled with this all my life, being the sort of woman who is interested in everything, and wants to do everything, remaining in denial that the many was the enemy of focus.
However, more and more I am realizing my life and my time are not my own. That my call to write is synonymous with my call to follow Christ. For He calls me to write. So I must cut what stands in the way of writing.
At New Wine 2008, the wonderful Heidi Baker launched into a hypnotic, half-sung, half-chanted riff at the end of her talk, where she prayed gifts on her audience. “Has God called you to write? she asked. “Then say, I will do whatever it takes for me to become a writer.”
Can I say it even now? It makes me feel afraid, and stressed.
* * *
I had entered Mother Teresa’s convent and wanted to become a nun when I was 17. I realized it was a mistake after a year, but thought I would look foolish if I left, so dragged on, growing increasingly ill, physically.
While there, I read a book called “Our Father.” A man boards a train going in the wrong direction. He realizes it, but having told everyone that he was disembarking at the last stop, he felt embarrassed to admit that he had boarded the wrong train, and jump off. So he continues travelling in the wrong direction–getting more and more annoyed with the friends who invited him to dinner, exposing him to this hassle.
I left.
If you realise that you are going in the wrong direction, have agreed to something you shouldn’t have, are doing something that is not your call, jump off as fast as you can.
In this phase of pruning, I am jumping off more and more trains I should never have boarded, my French language lessons, gym memberships, prayer ministry, many relationships and friendships, some social events, so that I can more fully focus on the one thing God has called me to do: to write!
“The disciples got into a boat, and set out across the lake for Capernaum. By now, it was dark, and a strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” They they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore.”
Often that is the case. There is a very simple solution to a seemingly insoluble problem, and when we ask Jesus, over many days or weeks sometimes, it presents itself.
Taking Jesus into our boat, as the Psalmist describes, was the turning point for people in their troubles. Terrible things happened, then they cried out to the Lord in their distress, and things changed.
The missing secret ingredient in problem-solving is prayer.
I am running a small business, and as Bill Johnson mentions in his book “Dreaming with God” it’s amazing how precise and brilliant the instructions God gives you can be when you cry aloud to him in your distress.
And in other areas of life. Friendships, let’s say. It’s often most effective to keep one’s eyes open for open doors and God’s plans rather than to rush ahead, squandering one’s limited energy. See the patterns, see who wants to be friends with you; see who you want to be friends with; see what dots God is connecting. That will be far more effective than simply rushing ahead.
Sometimes, we go through a difficult time because God is working on our character. At other times, however, we are forfeiting grace and wisdom because we have not prayed. When we ask Christ, he shows us the solution.
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.
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| Breughel, Corn Harvest |
A Blessing on Our Labour
“As long as the earth endures
Seedtime and harves,
Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Day and night
Will never cease.”
After the devastation of the flood, a blessing on our labour.
Harvest will follow seedtime.
Our life will have rhythms which we are to ride through as Noah rode through the flood. There will be night and winter and cold, and we will see them through, rest and gather strength, and then there will, for sure, be summer too, and day and warmth, and all these will contribute to mould our characters as we live in this world which God has blessed!
| The Gallarus Oratory in the Dingle Peninsula Places of withdrawal and Prayer |
This is the story we are reading aloud at present around the family dinner table.
God’s directions for the ark–450 ft by 75 by 45 feet. I used to find this part incredible. As I have lived longer, I don’t!
In my experience of running a small publishing company, I have experienced this sort of uncanny direction on several occasions: a clear insight into printers; books to publish; how and where to distribute; products to unroll.
God is a God of details, is interested in details, and we miss out on so much wisdom when we don’t seek him for insight on how to do the details….
Noah in the ark while the world is being flooded and destroyed outside. THEN THE LORD SHUT HIM IN.
What is this an image of? Of depression? Of abandonment? Aloneness? Sensory deprivation? Boredom?
Of God’s way of protection and safety.
It is a principle enshrined in God’s dealings with us. A period in the cocoon, in the ark, between great activity in the past, and great activity in the future. A winter like period to send one’s roots deep into certainties of who God is, and of his mighty power, a period to gather strength for the future.
What looks like abandonment is a period of rest and protection.
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men
In him was LIFE.
Another of the great words, the great themes of this Gospel.
LIFE for our lifelessness, our hopelessness, our inner deadness
. LIFE, the great antidote for the depression that is inevitable when we lose sight of the source of life.
And that life was the LIGHT of men.
Light, like God himself, is one of the simple, humble, unregarded, taken for granted things.
Light like God is many things
SAFETYAnd yet from earliest childhood we know that in it lies our safety. In cities, when there is street lighting, crime falls. When there is a city wide power failure, crime soars. At night, in the darkness, the world over, crime increases exponentially–murder, rape, muggings, burglaries. We knows these things from earliest childhood if we are female. There are few places in the world in which a woman can walk completely safely alone after dark. Certainly not Oxford, England.
And the power of light is stronger than the power of darkness. Not all the darkness in the world can extinguish a tiny candle, but a tiny candle can illuminate, however slightly, the most majestic hall.
Posted by Anita Mathias at 13:36
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
I grew up in India where religious chants spilled into the streets, early into the morning with the muezzins holler–Allah oh Akbar…There is no God, but God, and Muhammed is his prophet. And from merry dhabas and corner shops selling cloth came the rhythm of bhajans. Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare.The rhythms thud in your pulses, and repeated, lull and calm the mind.
How much more this majestic, absolute declaration.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
It calms and stabilizes my mind, even before I ponder its meaning.
THE WORD. Thought. Aliveness.
As God touches, and invades our lives, one thing that happens is that words flow.
The mind comes fully alive. It begins to sing.
