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Our Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

By Anita Mathias 4 Comments

 

 

We read in the Gospel of Matthew, that as Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”  At once they left their nets and followed him.

On the same walk, Jesus called two other brothers, James and John, who leave their boat, and their father, and follow him.

 

God is always speaking

His transforming words into our lives

As we still our hearts and listen.

He is, by his very nature, a God

Who speaks. At the start of his great Gospel,

The Apostle John calls Jesus the Word

Who was God, and became flesh

And lived among us.

 

And this speaking, communicating, yearning God

Calls each of us to the work he wants us to do in the world.

We are sometimes called at a particular point of time,

Through specific words or images,

Or else, gradually, through an inner conviction

That this is the task we are to embark on

With all our strength, for the rest of our lives.

The call we hear, or sense, is utterly serious.

And if we say “Yes!,” the moment of response

Is among the greatest and most important moments of our lives.

 

For it is a transforming call.

It changes the whole direction of our lives.

From the day we hear God’s call,

We must begin to restructure our lives

In accordance with this necessity.

What we read, the friendships we invest in,

Our social activities, hobbies, leisure,

Our whole lives…are hitherto

To be shaped in accordance with our calling.

 

The greatest, kindest person in the whole world,

Jesus Christ, has called you to something you

Are uniquely equipped to do, you

With your strengths and your weaknesses,

You have been called, commissioned

To a task in which you will flourish and find joy.

But not just you.

 

Jesus said he would give his flesh, sacrifice

His life for the life of the world.

And while what we are called to will make us fully,

Blazingly alive–mentally, emotionally, and spiritually,

What God calls us to do will also contribute

To the life and the flourishing of the world.

* * *

God wastes nothing.

Your call will use the gifts, experiences, and strengths

Formed in you by the circumstances of your life.

Peter, Andrew, James and John were fisherman

Who sometimes worked hard all night and caught nothing,

Who could row three and a half miles out of shore,

Who were caught in perilous storms, in which waves crashed into the boat

And they almost sank.

 

This hardiness gave them the tough, resilient character of men

Who could not only catch fish to keep themselves alive

But could also persuade humans into a richer,

Deeper, more peaceful and eternal life.

No longer fishermen but fishers of men, punning Jesus said.

The call of God, if obeyed, always leads to a bigger,

Better and more challenging place.

Your call will stretch you, mould you and transform you.

To reject, or to ignore the call is to reject growth.

 

The call gives us a new identity.

The fisherman became leaders,

Writers of the New Testament, poetic and prophetic.

And sometimes, at the point of the call,

God supernaturally puts into us spiritual gifts, strengths,

And abilities called an anointing (Oh, precious thing!)

Which makes difficult things easier.

If you yearn for that, then pray for it.

* * *

 

The call will involve sacrifice.

We cannot simply squeeze a new mission into our crowded lives.

If you hear God call you to write, let’s say,

You must immediately ask yourself: “What

Will I stop doing to help this new thing happen?”

Less time reading the news, or on social media?

Releasing outgrown friendships which drag you down?

Eating more simply, more raw foods perhaps?

Buying as few inessential things as possible?

 

God’s call is benevolent, beneficent, aimed at our flourishing.

And as we begin to obey it, with increasing faithfulness,

Our whole life changes.

It becomes more serious, more purpose-driven.

And purpose is one of the greatest things we humans can have,

(Along with faith, hope and love).

When we have purpose, our eyes are bright with it.

* * *

Having heard a call, you set out in obedience

On a very long journey,

Which will last the rest of your life.

There’s almost always a long gap between hearing a call,

And seeing the fruits of your work.

For God’s call to you is not just for the life and flourishing of the world,

But, also, for your own growth and flourishing.

While you are refining your skills to fulfil your call

God is shaping and refining you–

Your persistence, your ability to follow through,

To get from A to Z, meet deadlines, get organised,

To ask him for guidance, and learn the sound of his voice.

You grow up, you mature, you toughen,

You develop character as you develop your gifts.

 

The precise call may be revealed progressively.

You can only steer a moving car.

If you hear God’s call to write, say,

Begin today, with the words and ideas which come.

Polish and burnish your craft while awaiting

More precise marching orders,

Which may keep coming over decades.

* * *

Now, here’s the hard part.

Being called, as many are,

Does not guarantee blazing success in the world’s eyes,

Or by human metrics. God decides our platform,

Whether our work will reach dozens, hundreds, thousands, or millions.

 

In the Parable of the Talents,

God gives some one talent, some two and some five.

The ones with two and five talents each work as hard as they can

And each double their capital.

But still, one ends up with four talents, and the other with ten.

That’s life. If it seems unfair, it’s because we are characters

In a play God has written. He gives us our roles,

And it’s our job to play them as beautifully as we can.

 

Some writers, for instance, will always have a small audience.

Fact of life.

If that is you, write as truly and beautifully as you can,

With gratitude for your platform, large or small.

But hey, if having many readers or listeners matters to you,

(And it does matter to me!)

Ask God to grant you success,

And trust in his grace to work well, whether

In Milton’s phrase, your success will eventually be

“Less or more, or soon or slow, or mean or high.”

* * *

And what if you have heard a call

But have not been steadily faithful in following it?

And, here, I sadly put up my hand.

Me too.

I have not been single-minded.

I have been distracted.

 

If you’ve half-heartedly focused on your call,

And wasted time in trivial pursuits,

Sprint after Jesus as he continues walking by the Sea of Galilee.

Repent and promise renewed faithfulness to your call,

Renewed seriousness,

For our life is a short, serious and holy experience.

Recommit, and follow your call as intensely

As you wish you had done at first.

* * *

And what if you haven’t heard a specific call yet?

After all, Peter, Andrew, James and John,

Young working men, earning their living

Had not heard a call until that brilliant, costly, priceless day

When Jesus called them.

 

If you haven’t heard a specific call,

Then do the next right thing while you await direction.

Never jump into a ministry or your life work for God

Before you have heard God’s crystal-clear directions.

And while he prepares us, God also speaks through our lives.

What happens in the doctor’s office?

Do you leave resolving to exercise more,

To cut back on sugar, caffeine, white carbs? To meditate?

Start small in forming the good habits you’ll need, but start.

Is your house ready to invite friends over

Without a cleaning-up operation that’s like

Hiding the evidence of a crime?

Create time by decluttering everything inessential from your home,

Anything which slows you down as you run your race.

Do you tell yourself you’d love to wake with the sun?

Then recalibrate with night-time go-to-bed alarms and earlier nights.

All this is preparation.

 

*  * *

So, dear Lord,

Help us to be single-minded and laser-focused,

On being faithful to what you have called us to do.

We love you; increase our love.

We want to always see you before us, Jesus.

Increase our faith.

Amen.

This meditation is inspired by Matthew 4: 18-22

If you haven’t yet discerned your purpose in life, I’d recommend Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life (UK), or on Amazon.com

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Please subscribe at Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks!!

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 🙂

Filed Under: Blog Through the Bible Project., In which I explore writing and blogging and creativity, Matthew, Meditation, Vocation, Writing, Writing and Blogging Tagged With: Andrew, call, James, Jesus, John, Peter, vocation, writing

In Praise of Desert and Wilderness Experiences

By Anita Mathias

John the Baptist, his heart and mind and spirit filled with the word of God, pregnant with his calling, does not do what we would today if we sense a calling. He does not go to the cities, to Jerusalem; he does not seek a platform; in fact, he initially does not speak at all.

He goes into silence, into solitude and lets the silence and solitude mould him into the Prophet God wants him to be. He does not seek the audience, the ministry, or the influence; he seeks his God, and God brings it all to him–the ministry, the recognition, the influence, the crowds, the “cross”.

He put first things first: He put God first, and the rest came to him.

* * *

John the Baptist’s season in the desert of preparation for his prophetic calling was a period of extreme simplicity–in his clothing…a garment of camel hair with a leather belt, and in the simple eating, locusts and wild honey (protein and simple carbs) which helped him focus on the most important things…

In solitude, he got to know God, to know his voice, to let the Spirit which had filled him from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15) strengthen him, so that he wasn’t thrown when crowds seeking baptism flocked to him “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan” including tax collectors and soldiers whom he fearlessly challenged. The time in the desert was necessary for him to gain the strength to stand up to the priests and Levites and Pharisees and Sadducees, whom he scathingly labelled “a brood of vipers” (Matt 3:7) and not hesitate to confront Herod, precipitating his own death (Mark 6 14-29).

The time in the desert made John unique (among those born of women there is no one greater than John, Jesus says, Luke 7:28), for in the desert, he had unusual, totally inspiring company. God was in the desert; the Spirit of God hovered over the desert, there were ministering angels in the desert (Matt 4:11), and eventually the Son of God, Jesus himself came there. John the Baptist, “a voice crying in the wilderness,” sounded unique, he sounded like himself. He sounded like God

Thomas Merton writes, “Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint…They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavour to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems, or possess someone else’s spirituality. There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular-and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. (Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation).

* * *

“God leads everyone he loves into the desert,” Paul Miller, a friend who mentored and “discipled” me for five years writes in his excellent book, A Praying Life, Moses, David, and Elijah among them.

We all have seasons of quietness, when, if we are to do the work involved in fulfilling our call, we must be alone and silent and quiet. God shapes us in that silence with his word, his spirit, and his love, until we are ready for the next season.

But desert seasons can be unendurably quiet. We can feel like failures while we wait.

However, if we try to short-circuit the desert season necessary for us to be shaped in silence into the kind of people who are able to bear the weight of the call of God, then the desert season gets prolonged, for we are not yet ready for our call.

* * *

For me the call to the desert in my life has been to retreat into silence and obscurity and “do the work: write the book.” I admit I have tried to get out of it by social life, volunteering in church, school and the community; teaching Bible studies, travel, adult education courses, films, theatre, money-making, money-saving, hosting and attending parties, “friendships” or small groups in which I did not add something of value to my friends’ life, or they to mine… But trying to get out of your calling, and out of doing what you have to do because of the sacrifices involved is not really satisfying. Ask Jonah. But God uses and shapes even our mistakes into a beautiful and useful story. Read the Book of Jonah.

By refusing to accept the deserts God calls us into, by filling them with noise, distraction, and busyness, we can prolong the season of preparation for our call. And, more chillingly, we may never do the work God has uniquely called us to do. I suspect many people never really step into their calling and vocation, for they are not willing to accept the sacrifice that preparation for it entails.

* * *

If God calls you into the desert, accept it. Do not numb the occasional loneliness and solitude with “crazy-busy, sugar, alcohol, the internet” (from Brene Brown’s list of the way we numb the pain of living, and then grow too numb to experience its joy). Pray, work, grow. Desert seasons end when you are ready for the next stretch of your call.

And the desert is not really a quiet, empty place. It is full of very important, very powerful, influential, and creative people you simply have to get to know to be happy and creative and fulfil your calling. God is in the desert. The Risen Jesus is in the desert. The wind of the Spirit blows and gusts through the desert. The desert is full of angels, to help you withstand the temptations of the desert–to too much food, to wanting power, to showing off. (Matthew 4 1-10).

 

It’s a quiet and desert season for me at the moment, empty-nesting, and guess what–I rather like it. With God’s grace, I hope not to short-circuit it, but to meet the one who came to the desert to meet John the Baptist, the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

 

P. S.  I am reading through the Book of Mark, and hope to share a reflection inspired by that great and short book every Sunday. Join me?

Filed Under: Applying my heart unto wisdom, Blog Through The Bible Project, In which I chase the wild goose of the Holy Spirit, In which I dabble in prophecy and the prophetic, Mark Tagged With: brene brown, calling, desert seasons, John the Baptist, Jonah, obscurity, Paul Miller, Prophetic preparation, Prophets, silence, solitude, the Book of Mark, Thomas Merton, vocation

As Birds Sing Because They Must, Even So I Write

By Anita Mathias

SONY DSC

As long as I have a garden to muck about in, and the health to do it, I shall not mind growing old. My garden is a deep joy at the centre of my life, even though I am making peace with not being able to keep up with it: it’s an acre and a half.

My nerves felt raw today, but then, I went out to the garden, which is bird-loud, and felt peace return.

Listening to birds sing, it’s suggested helps us relax, helps us complete tasks, and even think creatively. For instance, I didn’t have a single fresh idea for a blog post when I went out, and then, the garden gave me this!

* * *

Why do birds sing? Birds sing thousands of times through the day, the red-eyed vireo singing 20,000 songs daily. They sing to mark out their territories, to attract mates, or simply to communicate with other birds. They sing because it is their nature.  They sing because they must.

Gerard Manley Hopkins imagines kingfishers catching fire, dragonflies drawing flame, while singing, “What I do is me. For that I came.”

 As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

* * *

I have at various points considered giving up writing—when I had a miscarriage when Zoe was two; when I was pregnant with Irene; when domestic chaos overwhelmed me.

But each time when I decided to do nothing but housework until our house was orderly—-the last attempt was 7 years ago– I slipped into depression. It was hard to get out of bed, hard to focus on the sorting, organizing, dishes, laundry, the endless domestic routines.

If, however, I gave myself just an hour or two of creating, I had energy for the rest.  Because that is what I was made for: to write. And when I am not doing it, I am listless, slightly unhappy, and don’t have energy for anything else.

And so, each time I was tempted to give up writing to be a perfect homemaker, or a perfect mummy, I would return to writing, because it was my calling, my vocation.

* * *

As a bird sings its high, clear note, and as fish splash through the seas of this world, I am made to play with words and ideas, to attempt to recreate beauty out of beauty.

Writing time is slowly opening as I grow more disciplined. What will I write? How much? I don’t know.

But this I do know–as Milton puts it,

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye. 

 

Image Credit

Filed Under: In which I explore writing and blogging and creativity, Writing and Blogging Tagged With: birds, calling, Gardening, Hopkins, Milton, vocation, writing

The Will of God Always Leads Us to a Larger Place

By Anita Mathias

Picture

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4 18-20) 

So the fishers of fish become halieis anthropon, ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων, fishers of men. The will of God always leads us to a larger place, to an enlarged territory.

Because God’s desire is always for the fullest human flourishing. “The glory of God is man fully alive,” a lovely line credited to St. Irenaeus

And once we have surrendered our lives to him, he keeps moving us, onward and upward to the place where we can both use all our gifts and be a blessing to others. And in general, he takes the moving car of who we are; our gifts, abilities and experience, and steers it higher, stronger, faster.

So Jesus takes physically strong, entrepreneurial fisherman inured to hard work, team work, hardship, disappointment, nights at sea, and gives them the task of fishing men into an eternal kingdom. He applies their natural gifts to eternal, supernatural purposes.

Of course, just as we don’t give our children just one birthday present, once in their lives, so God continually gives us new gifts, abilities, capabilities, insight and new wisdom. But the vocation to which he calls us will be true to who we are, and to our interests and gifts.

* * *

Retreat to advance

In the short run, however, Peter and Andrew, James and John became downwardly mobile. No longer independent businessmen, but vagabonds, with no place to rest their head, dependent on charity.

Their old selves had to be broken, to be reformed like a beautiful mosaic.

John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard Movement, flourished in the music industry. However, on becoming a Christian, he found it incompatible with discipleship. So he left, and found work in a factory. An old colleague came to see him, asking for John Wimber’s office. He found Wimber covered with oil, inside a oil-barrel he was scrubbing out. The musician thought Wimber had gone mad!! (Recounted by Carol Wimber in The Way it Was.)

It required this brokenness for Wimber to be willing to hear when God said, “John, I have seen your work. Now let me show you mine.” And to be open to going with the flow of God’s  eccentric purposes.

And later to be a willing instrument when the Holy Spirit songs kept coming, no longer pop songs popular for a year, but spirit-given songs sung for decades, or longer.

* * *

However, it takes a period of brokenness and withdrawal for a gift to be repurposed, for fishermen to become fishers of men.

He needs our surrender before He can use us to bless others.

And when it happens, it feels like hell.

* * *

I was blocked in 2006 when a literary agent wanted me to make changes in my manuscript. Words dripped like crystallising treacle; I was blocked.

So I took a break, decided to put the kids in private school, founded a small publishing company to pay for that. When Roy could come aboard full time in 2010, and I could “retire,” I felt I no longer knew how to write. I had barely read for 4 years. I had lost writerly confidence.

When I started again, after hearing God suggest blogging, my writing was different. I was singing a new song.

I was more interested in speaking to my readers and blessing them than in a career (though, of course, I still want one) I was more interested in what I said, than in how I said it, which was huge for the girl who had been enamoured with style. I desperate to cut perfectionism off at the neck, and just get my work out there. Ship it! I was writing for the health of my soul, and as an offered gift to my readers, rather than for the glory of a career.

It takes a period of brokenness for the Great Artist to put your gifts together into a glorious mosaic, all hammered gold and gold enamelling, all tesserae and shimmering glass.

* * *

When I first wanted to offer my life to God, I went off to work with Mother Teresa, aged 17. (Having skipped years at school, winning “double promotions,” I was done with Grade 12 by the time I was 16.) I assumed because Jesus said, “Whatever you have done to the least of these…” that surely God’s will for me, and for every Christian was to work with the poor!

However, I am a dreamy and impractical person, and if I were a medieval woman when this was a plausible career choice, I would have become a mystic!

I was no good at Mother Teresa’s, with its packed-like-sardines community life; loud constant, vocal prayer, and lots of practical work. I languished and wilted; I got all sorts of things wrong; life felt like a series of hammer blows to my heart.

But writing–I have always written easily and reasonably well. It has generally been my joy.

Can writing be the way I am to serve God? Can writing be my worship? For years, I didn’t really believe something so lovely could be true

But now I do.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Frederick, Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

Because God is good, pouring perfume can be an act of worship, and so can writing (no longer for fame or money, though few are averse to these things!) but as an act of worship, of pure devotion.

“Child, you have written for ambition,” he says. “Come write for me, as your worship of me.

And I will make you… Ah, wait and see.”

Filed Under: Blog Through The Bible Project, In which I decide to follow Jesus, Matthew Tagged With: Following Christ, John Wimber, Peter and Andrew, vocation

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  • Jesus Knows the Best Way to Do What You Are Best At
  • On Using Anger as a Trigger to Transform Ourselves
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https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/28/believing-is-s https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/28/believing-is-seeing-miracles-according-to-your-faith-let-it-be-done-to-you/
Jesus was the only person in the Bible who restored the sight of blind men. The two blind men called out a simple prayer, known as the Jesus prayer, “Jesus, have mercy on us. And their faith activated a miracle when Christ replied, “According to your faith, be it done to you.” And healed them!
The same simple prayer changes things in our lives, too; the transcript of our prayers often becomes the transcript of our lives. However, we live in the “already-not yet” Kingdom. We often see answered prayer but not always, because God often has a happier biography in mind for us than our scripts, which might involve endless scrambling up ladders of striving, success and ever-more. Faith also involves leaving these worries in his hands.
A recent walk around Oxford—Christ Church and Ma A recent walk around Oxford—Christ Church and Magdalen College in particular, with my cousin, Dr. Prem Pais, recently retired Dean of St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, and his wife, Dr. Nalini Pais. It was lovely seeing them, and showing them beautiful Oxford.
And I’m excited that my little meditation podcast is listened to in 167 cities in 14 countries. A bit astonished, really, and humbled!
Here’s the latest one, on how Christ always knows the best way to do what you are best at. https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/20/jesus-knows-the-best-way-to-do-what-you-are-best-at/
When we are out of our depths and bewildered, Jesus can take the wheel, and add a 1 to our zeroes. But if we manage to surrender our strengths to him, then he can astonish us with exponential growth, adding zeroes after our 1. And, of course, surrendering everything to his wise, kind Lordship is the very best way to live.
https://anitamathias.com/.../jesus-knows-the-best- https://anitamathias.com/.../jesus-knows-the-best-way-to.../
LINK IN BIO!
Jesus knows the best way to do what you are best at!!
Simon Peter was a professional fisherman. And Jesus keeps teaching him, again and again, that he, Jesus, has greater mastery over fishing. And over everything else. After fruitless nights of fishing, Jesus tells Peter where to cast his nets, for an astounding catch. Jesus walks on water, calms sea storms.
It’s easy to pray in desperation when we feel hard-pressed and incompetent, and, often,
Christ rescues us in our distress, adds a 1 before our zeroes.
However, it’s equally important to turn over our strengths to him, so he can add zeroes after our 1. And the more we can surrender our strengths to his management, the more he works in those areas, and blesses them.
A walk around beautiful Magdalen College, Oxford, A walk around beautiful Magdalen College, Oxford, with a camera.
And, if you missed it, my latest podcast meditation, on Jesus’s advice on refocusing energy away from judging and critiquing others into self-transformation. https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/11/on-using-anger-as-a-trigger-to-transform-ourselves/
https://anitamathias.com/.../on-using-anger-as-a-t https://anitamathias.com/.../on-using-anger-as-a-trigger.../ link in bio
Hi friends, Here's my latest podcast meditation. I'm meditating through the Gospel of Matthew.
Do not judge, Jesus says, and you too will escape harsh judgement. So once again, he reiterates a law of human life and of the natural world—sowing and reaping. 
Being an immensely practical human, Jesus realises that we are often most “triggered” when we observe our own faults in other people. And the more we dwell on the horrid traits of people we know in real life, politicians, or the media or internet-famous, the more we risk mirroring their unattractive traits. 
So, Jesus suggests that, whenever we are intensely annoyed by other people to immediately check if we have the very same fault. And to resolve to change that irritating trait in ourselves. 
Then, instead of wasting time in fruitless judging, we will experience personal change.
And as for us who have been judgey, we still live “under the mercy” in Charles Williams’ phrase. We must place the seeds we have sown into the garden of our lives so far into God’s hands and ask him to let the thistles and thorns wither and the figs and grapes bloom. May it be so!
Spring in England= Joy=Bluebells=Singing birds. I Spring in England= Joy=Bluebells=Singing birds. I love it.
Here are some images of Shotover Park, close to C. S. Lewis's house, and which inspired bits of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. Today, however, it's covered in bluebells, and loud with singing birds.
And, friends, I've been recording weekly podcast meditations on the Gospel of Matthew. It's been fun, and challenging to settle down and think deeply, and I hope you'll enjoy them.
I'm now in the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus details all the things we are not to worry about at all, one of which is food--too little, or too much, too low in calories, or too high. We are, instead, to do everything we do in his way (seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness, and all this will fall into place!).
Have a listen: https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/ and link in bio
“See how the flowers of the field grow. They do “See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. Or a king on his coronation day.
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” 
Of course, today, we are more likely to worry that sugary ultra-processed foods everywhere will lead to weight gain and compromise our health. But Jesus says, “Don’t worry,” and in the same sermon (on the mount), suggests other strategies…like fasting, which brings a blessing from God, for instance, while burning stored fat. And seeking God’s kingdom, as Jesus recommends, could involve getting fit on long solitary prayer walks, or while walking with friends, as well as while keeping up with a spare essentialist house, and a gloriously over-crowded garden. Wild birds eat intuitively and never gain weight; perhaps, the Spirit, on request, will guide us to the right foods for our metabolisms. 
I’ve recorded a meditation on these themes (with a transcript!). https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/
https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-a https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/
Jesus advised his listeners--struggling fishermen, people living on the edge, without enough food for guests, not to worry about what they were going to eat. Which, of course, is still shiningly relevant today for many. 
However, today, with immense societal pressure to be slender, along with an obesogenic food environment, sugary and carby food everywhere, at every social occasion, Jesus’s counsel about not worrying about what we will eat takes on an additional relevance. Eat what is set about you, he advised his disciples, as they went out to preach the Gospel. In this age of diet culture and weight obsession, Jesus still shows us how to live lightly, offering strategies like fasting (which he promises brings us a reward from God). 
What would Jesus’s way of getting fitter and healthier be? Fasting? Intuitive spirit-guided eating? Obeying the great commandment to love God by praying as we walk? Listening to Scripture or excellent Christian literature as we walk, thanks to nifty headphones. And what about the second commandment, like the first—to love our neighbour as ourselves? Could we get fitter running an essentialist household? Keeping up with the garden? Walking with friends? Exercising to be fit enough to do what God has called us to do?
This meditation explores these concerns. #dietculture #jesus #sermononthemount #meditation #excercise #thegreatcommandment #dontworry 
https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/
Kefalonia—it was a magical island. Goats and she Kefalonia—it was a magical island. Goats and sheep with their musical bells; a general ambience of relaxation; perfect, pristine, beaches; deserted mountains to hike; miles of aimless wandering in landscapes of spring flowers. I loved it!
And, while I work on a new meditation, perhaps have a listen to this one… which I am meditating on because I need to learn it better… Jesus’s tips on how to be blessed by God, and become happy!! https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/25/happy-are-the-merciful-for-they-shall-be-shown-mercy/ #kefalonia #family #meditation #goats
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