Advent thoughts - HOPE

This first week of the Good Morning Girls Advent study is full of HOPE. Stories of people looking to the future, living in hope and expectation, living by faith.

Yet Mary SEES: Luke 1:26 – 38 is the story of how Mary conceives.
“And Mary said,
Yes, I see it all now: I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve.
Let it be with me just as you say.”

And Mary SAID. She SAID. She ACCEPTED, AGREED, WHISPERED, BELIEVED, UNDERSTOOD.
Would I?

The Word is LIGHT; LIGHT TO LIVE BY: John 1-1-4
“The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word.
The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”

Yet some were BLINDED: John 1:9 – 12 "but his own did not receive him" caught my eye - having conversations with people who just don't 'get' Jesus. They are HIS but do not RECEIVE him - The Message "He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him". Praying that this Advent will be different!

Amazing to think that Jesus can be our ETERNAL LIGHT. I woke up at 1am a couple of nights ago and was astonished to see the garden looking so clear in the moonlight - such a contrast to the pitchblack darkness we often see. Imagine being able to see clearly all the time, with no darkness at all: a faint image of what it is like with Jesus, both now in our lives and then when he returns. Praying we will see things that happen clearly in HIS light, not stumbling around in the darkness by ourselves.
Isaiah 60:18-20 says: “God will be your eternal light, your God will bathe you in splendour. Your sun will never go down, your moon will never fade. I will be your eternal light. Your days of grieving are over.”

Jeremiah HOPES (33:14 - 15 “The time is coming...” true for the here and now, the before and then, the soon and later... for the God Who Is, The God Who Was, and The God About to Arrive...

Romans 15: 12-13 in the Message ' And Isaiah's word*: there's the root of our ancestor Jesse, breaking through the earth and growing tree tall, tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope! Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with HOPE!' (*Isaiah 11:10)

The readings for the four weeks are here. The study guide that goes with it finishes the first week with:
Hope came into our world!
Hope...
that God can still use this broken life and make something beautiful.
Hope…
that we don't have to be perfect to be loved by Him.
Hope...
that the best is yet to come.

Colossians 3

The Message begins this chapter with a heading: He Is Your Life.

I'm reminded of Jairus, leader of the synagogue, as portrayed in The Miracle Maker. He is shown as wrestling with whether he should ask Jesus, this new, radical rabbi, to pray for his dying daughter, in the face of opposition from the Jewish leaders.

Jairus only desires to serve God and be obedient to him, saying in frustration: "GOD is my life."
Don't you want GOD to BE YOUR life? Nothing else?

Colossians 3 says, in a nutshell (my misshapen paraphrase, more nutty perhaps than is sensible...):

So be serious about living the Christ life, the Christ-ian life. Focus on Jesus, on heaven - not on earth. Because your old life is dead and gone, your NEW life, your REAL life, is with Jesus. Being famous or important isn't what it's all about.

What's important is not to give in to our unpleasant side: the selfishness, loose, self-indulgent living, problems of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language caused by our tongues. We did that before we knew better: now we do.

Nor should we lie to one another: we've finished with all that. instead, we should imagine that we are dressed in all kinds of good characteristics: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline, forgiveness and, best of all, love.

We should focus on the peace which Jesus gives, thankfully, to keep us all together and keep on encouraging one another in the right way to live. Wives should be understanding and supportive of their husbands, who in their turn will be completely loving towards their wives.  Children should respect and obey their parents who will be wise in their dealings with them. And anyone in any kind of inferior position should just do their best: just as if they were working for Jesus.

My summing up sentence: I'm living for God now, not for myself. God IS my life.

Amen to that.

Reflecting on Colossians after our study with Good Morning Girls.  

Colossians 2

We've come to an end of the Good Morning Girls study on Colossians, and now it is a week of review, a chapter a day.
So useful to get an overview.
Years ago, I was taught how to summarise at a Bible Study Fellowship seminar. (Aside: how I loved those studies! So deep, so informative, so life-changing - deeply regret leaving my notes, which weighed kilos, in Kenya when we left.) I don't remember exactly now, but I think it was a case of summarising a sentence, then another, then summarising a group of sentences, then summarising a group of a group...until the whole chapter had been squished together into a sentence or even a word.

Thought I might have a try with Colossians 2.

I began with a poem on verses 2 - 5:
May
your heart be encouraged
knit together in love (with like-minded others)
to reach the richness
of full understanding
and knowledge that you really do 'get' God's secret:
Jesus' gift to us all.
Jesus has all the wisdom and knowledge we could ever want -
the ultimate treasure.
What else would we need?
Don't listen to plausible arguments -
it is JESUS who matters.
Nothing else.

Here goes, a rather loose interpretation for the whole chapter:

Paul says that his aim is to encourage the Colossians so that they may be a united, loving church which understands how to live the Christ life. 

Jesus has everything we need to live, truly live. Yet we have to be careful how we do that, by keeping focused on him, always with hearts full of gratitude for what he has done. We should be on our guard against anything which is not based on him: because he IS God. He has supreme power.

We are new people because we have accepted him: we have new lives now, as if we had been brought back to life from the dead.  We have been forgiven by an amazing God who brought his son back from physical death and, in doing so, defeated everything which works against him.  (We call that evil.)

So we shouldn't let anyone try to put us down because of what we do, trying to make themselves more important by doing so or showing off about their spiritual experiences. We need to recognise that they are no longer grounded with other believers and may themselves have drifted away.

We don't need to restrict ourselves to human 'dos and don'ts'.  They look right, but they just address the externals, things which men and women have put into place.  Restrictions that are put on us by others don't have value in helping us achieve self-discipline in Jesus.

And my sentence for Colossians 2: LIVING FOCUSED, FORGIVEN LIVES, DEPENDING ONLY ON JESUS AND NOT ON MEN'S IDEAS.

I'm not sure this is all quite accurate - still, it was fun trying!

Love - the feeling

Love - thefeeling - washes over me suddenly
taking my face by surprise
as eyes crinkle, mouth smiles,
cheeks crease
with present appreciation
and remembered laughter.
Love - thefeeling - grows warm gratitude deep within,
within my heart-and-stomach.
Love-and-gratitude for sonsanddaughters,
brothersandsisters
who live Christlives
in everyday-daily-service.
Rejoice, mysoul, rejoice, rejoice.

Lord of ALL the earth...Colossians 1:15-16

Colossians 1:15-16
The Message: We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. Reminds me of Phil Wickham's song: 
At Your name, the mountains shake and crumble
At Your name, the oceans roar and tumble
At Your name, angels will bow, the earth will rejoice

Your people cry out

Lord of all the earth
We shout Your name, shout Your name
Filling up the skies
With endless praise, endless praise
Yahweh, Yahweh
We love to shout Your name, oh Lord

At Your name, the morning breaks in glory
At Your name, creation sings Your story
At Your name, angels will bow, the earth will rejoice
Your people cry out

Lord of all the earth
We shout Your name, shout Your name
Filling up the skies
With endless praise, endless praise
Yahweh, Yahweh
We love to shout Your name, oh Lord

There is no one like our God
We will praise You, praise You
There is no one like our God
We will sing, we will sing..

To the holy and faithful...Colossians 1:1 - 14

To the holy and faithful
be grace and peace.
For the holy and faithful
we thank God.
In the holy and faithful
faith and love spring from hope.

Hope in Heaven, waiting.
Hope on earth, already heard in the word of truth.

To the holy and faithful
good news has come.
From the holy and faithful
the good news is growing.
In the holy and faithful
the good news produces good,

God's good gift
of grace understood.

And so...

we do not stop praying for you.
we keep asking God to fill you
with knowledge of His will
through spiritual wisdom
through godly understanding.

So that...

you and I may live worthy lives
you and I may live Jesus-pleasing lives.
you and I may give Him pleasure.
you and I may produce good results in everything we do.
you and I may grow in knowledge.
you and I may be strengthened with power, GOD's mighty power.
you and I may have endurance
you and I may have patience
you and I may give THANKS WITH JOY.

FOR YOU AND I ARE SAFE IN GOD'S KINGDOM.
RESCUED, REDEEMED, FORGIVEN!

God will make a way

Remember the song by Don Moen: God will make a way... ? The lyrics go like this:
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way

Do I believe it? It doesn't feel like it when I'm at the end of my rope, the end of the road, staring down a dark blind alley...I know I am still on the road - I haven't wandered off into the bushes. I can look behind and see how far I have come. That is encouraging and affirming.
Yet when I try to gaze forward into the murk, my heart cries and wails like a baby that it can't SEE. My brain starts to shout like a toddler: I WANT I WANT I WANT! I WANT to know what's going to happen. I WANT to know that things will turn out well.
My DEMANDS blind me to God's purposes.
Then they blind me to God himself.
I am in grave danger. Danger of losing belief in a good God and good, great purposes.
I stand on the edge of Unbelief. Then my eyes open and I see the danger, and I am terrified.
I can't see the good that is coming but I have a horrendously clear view of the bad.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I turn to the Bible. I listen to the Spirit. I cry out to Jesus.

Deidra, blogging over at The Middle, has great insights about delays. About how setbacks are set ups for something better when it seems that life has stopped. As she says: 'That thing that’s become stale, that place with no forward movement, that dream you’ve let die because it didn’t look like anything was happening—those are the places He’s working on. He’s stopped traffic now to create safer, easier, better travel later. Don’t get all worked up and overheated. Don’t assume that because you’re still now you won’t be moving later. He is always working on our behalf—in ways we can’t see, in places we don’t understand. He hasn’t forgotten you; He knows right where you are. He has gone before you to prepare the way.

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. – Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)'
  So I HAVE to believe because I cannot see. I have to have that 'teetering on the edge, heart in mouth' feeling to really believe.

I need to feel like that. I need belief, not sight. I need faith. In God's ways, not mine.

At the moment I'm in one of those places where it seems as if I'm not moving at all because the way in front is dark. It's not physically life-threatening, like cancer. It's not emotionally devastating, like a relationship break-up.
It is spiritually debilitating. I am in a dry place where there are no flowing streams or gushing springs, not even a trickle of run-off between rocks. Just a couple of muddy puddles and marshy places where the air  is stagnant. A place where I am trying to dig a well, building into lives which have not tasted living water.
It seems as if there is no one to give me a drink as I labour, growing increasingly thirsty.

Don Moen's song continues:
By a roadway in the wilderness, He'll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and Earth will fade but His Word will still remain
And He will do something new today

So as I believe in Him, in His goodness, in His promises, as I trustingly put my hand in His to lead me forward, HE will lead me along the road and HE will open my eyes to the water flowing in others' lives. It is not my labour that will refresh them, it is not for me to feel the burden of well-digging or to exhaust myself in doing.

I need to remember that I am not Mrs Fix-It-All but Miss Obedient-to-God.

What does the end of your road look like? Can you take that step into the darkness? Can I?

 This is the link to Bonnie's inspirational post on this topic.

Hazardous discipleship. Risky obedience.

I don't consider myself as living dangerously. A comfortable Western life style, where the only danger in my life is whether my bicycle might come into contact with a car during the few miles of my daily (slow) commute.

So I didn't consider that even my faith might be hazardous until I read Lisa's link up post in response to Ed's new book.

Leaving her church was hazardous. Wow! Me too!

I didn't, perhaps foolishly, consider the hazards and dangers when my husband and I responded to a call to leave our (very comfortable) church home to go to help out at a tiny, traditional, Anglican church.

I am shocked to discover that it has already been three years since we did so. Even though two years ago I blogged about our struggles there, and last year had even more encouragement, this 'new' church life still seems hazardous...

I know that 'going' to church is to meet together with others to praise and worship God, and to encourage each other, as it says in Hebrews 10:25 Yet I find that, even setting my mind and heart to worship God, the music does not encourage me to do so. I can't sing very well, so struggling to sing ancient hymns with a handful of people who hear every wrong note is an ordeal. After the service ends, the majority of the congregation escape quickly from the (thousand year old) building. A few stay for coffee, and they are the 'church' we are trying to build into.

It doesn't feel particularly risky - not in an adrenaline-fuelled fear type of way. The danger is more insidious.

I risk losing my joy in worship, so much so that now, though initially I listened to modern worship songs at home, I struggle to regain my joy.

I risk losing my joy in fellowship. Interactions with others at church - many of whom seem to be more interested in the church fabric and infrastructure than in living lives as disciples of Christ - can be draining.

I'm teetering on the brink.

So this idea of 'hazardous faith' has had the effect of alarming me, opening my eyes to the dangers. I hover on the edge, gazing into a pit of Apathy and Discouragement.

Adrenaline kicks in. I open my eyes, ears and heart to worship. I look at nature, I listen to worship music, I read the Bible more, I follow Christian blogs. I gain joy from good, God-centred conversations over coffee - at church and at other times too.

So I echo the Psalmist:

But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who long for your saving help always say,
“The Lord is great!”
But as for me, I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
Lord, do not delay.

Living the Life. Hazardously.

I shared My Hazardous Faith Story as part of a synchroblog connected with the release of Ed Cyzewski and Derek Cooper’s new bookHazardous: Committing to the Cost of Following Jesus.
Read others' insight into costly discipleship at In a Mirror Dimly here.

A letter...

Dear God,
I'm trying this - writing a letter to you - because Bonnie has asked me to.  Her blog always inspires and challenges me, so I try to respond when I can.
This letter feels as if it should be a book.
It's simply this:
How do I live the life you want?
I've just re-read Ian Morgan Cron's Chasing Francis, about St Francis of Assisi.  I've been reminded of the necessity and benefits of living a simple life. Frugality, simplicity, generosity, humility, grace, freedom...
And I look at my life.
I look.
I see attempts to live simply.
I see an endeavour to be generous.
I see a gaining, sometimes, in humility.
I see a small devotion to things of you: to encouragement from others, mainly through writings; to worship music; to calls to prayer.
Most of these things exist outside of my 'church' life.
My church to which I am called meets in an ancient building once a week. It sits mostly in silence apart from prescribed responses. Words of hymns, sometimes choruses, substitute for worship.  A small part of my church meets with me after the ritualistic liturgy is completed, even, at times, over a cup of coffee.
I love the people of my church. I crave to live with them in a way which would honour you.
Yet our church life is confined to an hour on a Sunday, if that.
I long to live in and with my church, so that my world life is not separate. I long to 'be' church to others.
But how?
Answers on a postcard, please.
Love from Angie

PS Two answers come to mind:

1.  Hebrews 12:2 'Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.'
2. The prayer of St Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Probably enough.

Clearing out the junk...

Loved this post from cantcookalick - about clearing out junk: "I’m a stuffer. I don’t deal with things at the moment. I find a way to laugh when I want to cry and stuff the problem way down deep. I will deal with it later. Why waste an opportunity to laugh? So, down to the basement it goes. Until someone finds the way through the door and stands in the middle of my junk and says, “Why do you keep all this stuff?”

That happened recently.

Scared me to death. Honestly, I didn’t even know half of that junk was down there.  I braved the walk down the stairs and took a look around. What I found was not pretty. Old emotions that were yellowed and worn. Hurt that was quietly growing in the corner. A past that no longer fit the woman I am trying to be. Space that was created for more. Cluttered by the less than life.

Everything in me wanted to run away, back to the safety and laughter of today and slam the door, lock it tight. But, that’s the problem. Stuff in the basement is not out of sight out of mind. It is always looming like a tenant that shows up just when you want to be alone. The noise that interrupts your quiet. The darkness that threatens your light.

Sometimes, it takes somebody surprising you and showing up in your basement, to realize you need to tidy up a bit. The trust issues that block the door lose the fight and your junk makes it’s way to the top floor.

Some people will judge your junk. Others will pilfer through it and try to find something they can use. Most will run away and be frightened by your junk. A few may even try to bring over some of their junk.

But, God loves me and all my junk. Especially that which I’ve tried to hide in a blue Rubbermaid tote in the corner. He’s not afraid to lift the lid. Honestly, he already knows what’s in there. And, He’s willing to help me and you sort through and decide what goes and what stays.

But, you gotta open the door…"

So we're talking about REAL junk. Hurt growing in hidden corners. Boxes labelled Unforgiveness. Piles of  perfectionism. Anger gathering dust in the corners. The mouldy smell of bitterness...

A talk in church this morning centred on how many of the Pharisees and even the disciples didn't 'get' Jesus. They just didn't understand where He was coming from, what he was talking about, let alone his mission to bring the kingdom of God to his people...

I'm no different. I often don't 'get' Jesus. I don't 'get' how to walk the walk, how to live the way he showed and taught me.  But I do know that my junk clutters up any little glimmer of heart-understanding I might have. And I do know that not only do I need to clear the junk out, I need to beef up my housekeeping with regular cleaning...