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In which God Multiplies Our Creativity, Our Time and Our Talents

By Anita Mathias

 

 Image Credit

I have no difficulty in believing the Gospel accounts of healings, but the feeding of the 5000 leaves me dazzled. Now how exactly did that happen?

However, it’s easier to believe it than to believe that Matthew, Mark, and John, eyewitnesses, were deliberately lying.

So, though my rational mind boggles, yes, I believe it happened– without understanding exactly how it happened.

* * *

There is a similar miracle in the Old Testament, where Elisha feeds 100 with 20 loaves, and there were leftovers–and there are contemporary accounts of similar multiplications.

Heidi Baker (subject of this sensitive and adulatory Christianity Today cover story )says this in an interview.

Q–You’ve seen a type of miracle that is not mentioned in Jesus’ earthly ministry, but He did do something similar – the multiplication of food to feed a crowd.  In your case, you witnessed the multiplication of Christmas presents.  What happened?

Heidi Baker—That only happened once. 

 However, we’ve had the food multiplied many times.  And it’s just super-exciting every time.  We always cry.  And we don’t test God.  We buy as much food as we can.  I knew God would multiply food.  I’d seen him do it.  But I thought it would be a little over the top for Him to multiply presents.  That was my theological background kicking in.

 I love to give gifts.  I was giving out Christmas presents one year in southern Mozambique on a 120-degree day.  I sat on a grass mat, looking each child in the eye, loving and blessing them.  My staff had worked for months on getting all the presents together.  I don’t even know how many we had, maybe a thousand or so gifts.  The homeless were there and the street kids were there and all of our own children were there.

 We were getting to the end of the line and our teenage girls were now in the queue.  A helper, who happened to be a psychiatrist, was next to me. Her name was Brenda.  I was thinking of John 15 and I just looked at one of my own girls and said, “What do you want?”    The psychiatrist really got ticked off and said, “I told you, there are stuffed dogs in the bag.”    I knew the girls didn’t want old second-hand stuffed dogs.  I said to the girl again, “What do you want?”  A couple of the girls yelled out, “Beads.  Beads.” 

 I just prayed, and I looked up to the Lord and said, “Brenda.  They want beads.”  She reached in and started screaming, “There are beads in the bag.”  She started sobbing.  Some people from Argentina, who saw it happen, started jumping and screaming. My Mozambican helpers did the same thing.  We were all sobbing and pulling out beads.  That was a powerful experience.  We had also counted something like 24 wrapped checkerboards and gave out twice that number. 

* * *

 It’s the old Lewisian trilemma again— A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. (Mere Christianity, Chapter 7).

So perhaps Heidi is a lunatic, but lunatics do not care for 5000 children; or a liar, but someone so radiant with the love of God as Heidi  is unlikely to lie about him. Or the power of God is vaster than I can imagine.

I’m going with that.

* * *

 Actually we see the multiplication of loaves and fishes every day.

We see it in nature, in the bounty from seeds; we see it from animals who are lovingly looked after, 2 chicks multiplying to 50.

We see it from the immense riches which come from a good idea, from Adobe’s InDesign which sells for $700 or Microsoft Word or Matlab which sell for $100. Books, often still in the author’s head, sell for six figures. We see multiplication of the loaves and fishes in eBay, which has no stock, but is basically an idea: that people are basically good, and so strangers can safely enter into transactions.   Facebook, where our relentless activity relentlessly contributes to its valuation, is also just website based on an idea–and is now valued at $250 billion!

The immense wealth, immense abundance in the universe, often comes to people in the form of good ideas.

* * *

 How can we experience creative abundance?

Most bloggers write just a fraction of the blog posts in their heads. Most writers write just a minuscule fraction of all the good books they are capable of writing. In Keats’ phrase, they die, “before their pen has gleaned their teeming brain.”

The air in the room in which I write is full of signals. Signals to my TV, my radio, my iPhone, my laptop. Thousands of ideas in the air of my room, available to me as I switch on a gadget.

And God’s thoughts too are in the air of this room.

How precious to me are your thoughts,God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand (Ps 139)

God’s thoughts pouring down, shimmering, more of them than every grain of sand on the seashore.

How do I access this infinity of ideas, and more importantly,  find time and energy to write them down?

The short answer, I suspect, is absolute surrender. Giving God the key to every room of the house of our lives.

* * *

As with the Feeding of the Five Thousand, accessing God’s power a mixture of our effort and God’s goodness. The disciples offered their five loaves of bread and two fish. And God did the rest.

It’s a mixture of left-brain strategy and resourcefulness, and a right-brain openness to what God is up to.

I usually have dozens of ideas for blog posts which I have dictated to my phone or noted on my laptop. Finding time and energy to write them down will partly be a matter of revising my life.

* * *

Our lives are a web of hundreds of habits, some helpful, many unhelpful. Becoming more creative and productive will be a matter of revising habits at the micro-level, plugging the micro-leaks of time, the micro-actions in which we have not given Jesus the key to our time and lives, and are therefore acting outside the will of God.

For instance, I am trying to get into the habit of not writing or praying while I have access to Facebook, twitter, email or newspapers on my laptop. I switch them off using the apps SelfControl and StayFocusd. This greatly helps my focus.

I am trying to wake early and sleep early, because odds are I will use early morning time a bit better than late night time.

I write more and sleep better if I exercise, so I am trying to ensure that I weave exercise into my day, and get 10,000 steps on my Fitbit.

The peace and focus that domestic order brings, working in tidy and decluttered surroundings, immensely helps creativity.

Emotional tension drains our focus and energy, so I am doing the work of forgiving the people I need to forgive.  And trying to seek Christ’s eyes and mind about the people I find annoying. And doing the mental and emotional work: forgiveness, perhaps, or realising that God has placed them in my life for a refining reason, for me to learn patience and kindness and empathy and tolerance. To see the good in them, and to practice firmness and saying No if necessary.  To realize that even if someone’s intent towards me is wholly malignant, God can protect me.

There are spiritual practices which help creativity—remembering I am one with Christ, and so have access to the Father’s ideas, and wisdom on how to do a shapely blog, for instance. Mentally positioning and visualizing myself in the force field and waterfall of God’s goodness and power when I start writing.

Living in love not only feeds the emotional needs which make it easier for us to be productive, but is a fast-track into abiding in God, and having Jesus abide in our souls. Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. John 14:23. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John 15:12.

In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col 2:3). Hidden.  And as we increasingly align ourselves and our lives with him, and keep seeking him, we begin to hear his answers to all the knotty questions of our lives. How do I lose weight? How do I become more productive?

* * *

 I have not found the answers to increasing my productivity and getting all the ideas in my head onto the page yet—but I am more productive than I was a year ago.

As with many things in life, the answer may come as a process rather than a miracle, but I am on my way, still learning, still seeking, still knocking.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Through The Bible Project, In which I explore writing and blogging and creativity, Matthew Tagged With: blessing, Creativity, Feeding the Five Thousand, Miracles, writing

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

By Anita Mathias

                                                                                                                          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.

Filed Under: Blog Through The Bible Project, In which I Pursue Personal Transformation or Sanctification, Matthew Tagged With: blog through the bible, healing, Matthew, Miracles, Personal Change, Sancitification

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Anita Mathias: About Me

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My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

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Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

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The Story of Dirk Willems

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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

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What I’m Reading

Apropos of Nothing
Woody Allen

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Amazing Faith: The Authorized Biography of Bill Bright
Michael Richardson

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Wanderlust
Rebecca Solnit

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Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer\'s Life
Kathleen Norris

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Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96
Seamus Heaney

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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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