I often detect a strange coldness in my heart which prefers to deal with the clothing of Christ's truth rather than His actual person. Of course, what we know about someone affects how we relate to them and what we think of them. But when we admire the clothes of shining knowledge more than the person who embodies truth, we are mere idolators of needlework, failing to see the stunning genius of the tailor who made and adorned them.
It's the domestic hazard of 'growing up Christian'. I can tick all the boxes and score high marks on a Bible comprehension exercise, but unless I am in love with the One who is Wisdom then it becomes a knowedge for the conceited.
I guess that's the problem with the Relay programme. It just cuts too much at the heart. If you haven't got the constant chiming of your supervisor ('so how does the gospel speak into that?') then you've got LG imploring you with his recurring 'don't you see?'. And they just won't leave me alone...
But I am glad. I am glad because my sick heart stutters and starts, chokes with rotten knowledge like uneaten food left out on the counter. Knowledge grows a plushy bacterial beard within days, and once it's taken root the fungi is there to stay. Still, knowledge was never meant to be stale, it was always embodied with spirit and truth and then with flesh and blood. A blood to gush away death and replenish us with life. Blood to whip up this old-man knowledge to a reinvigorated youth with strength to follow the drops to that gorey intersection between heaven and earth.
Because what I really need, but don't always want, is the Person not the clothing. Give me the tailor, the maker, the suitor. May I not stop at gold-threaded hems but instead meet His eyes in mine.
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Friday, 21 September 2012
The Hidden Life
And this is where I found myself yesterday, sitting in front of my computer attempting to figure out exactly how many hours of precious time I had redeemed, and how many, of course, I had frittered away. As part of my Relay year with UCCF I am accountable for my hours as well as my finances. Simple as it may seem though, the task turned out to be one that would illuminate the most subdued corners of my conscience. A little tweaking here, a little alteration there. Be sure to mellow the words 'wasted time' with 'time spent in contemplation', 'much needed coffee date', or even, 'fatigue left over from the many conferences you have sent me on lately meant that I forced my tired frame to rest in bed just a few more hours.' It's easy to manipulate facts.
Quite simply put, the temptation was to lie.
In its barest form lying is blatantly ugly. I think there are few people who actually revel in open lies, either in their telling or in their receiving. Many of us, however, just can't stop telling 'little' ones. We tell white lies, assuming they're not as bad as the ones in technicolour. When we make excuses we're more often telling twists on the truth, or, even worse, shifting the blame onto someone else. It's amazing, during all my years of being late for things I have become the master of excuses. At the end of the day, all I'm covering up are my failures and guilt by tricking myself into believing I am actually in the right.
Lies trip quite easily from our tongues almost like steam from the spout of an ever-boiling kettle. The problem is not the hot water vapour as much as the turbulence inside the pot. The boiling liquid is what we need to cool and contain.
So, how? Let's just say I carried on as normal trying to fill out my monthly time sheet, being as honest as I could but all the while seething at the prospect of divulging my life to a person I, as of yet, hardly know. In ten months time when I will have come to the end of Relay, I'll be the same as when I started. The same old Vicky who makes excuses and slants reality in her favour because she can't admit she was wrong.
So, say I go about it a different way. Every month from now when submitting my time sheets I pray beforehand, I remember that my time has only be given to me because Jesus paid for these precious hours by going to His appointed hour. I thank Him that even though I have frittered away some time, that I am not condemned for doing so, nor is the next day dependant upon the successes and failures of the previous. I trust Him that the errors I have made are a trait of the character He is gradually eroding in His work of transformation and that His grace means I will have the power to resist temptation daily. I believe the promises of His Word, that He will return one day though I know neither the day nor the time; I wait expectantly. I commend Him for His justice and for His mercy while pleading with Him to bring that soothing calm of the Spirit whenever my soul threatens to burst its banks.
Only a change of master results in a change of heart.
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
My Quinta Extravaganza
2012/13 Relay Workers- can you spot the doctoring?
After nearly 2 weeks of conferences, amazing fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters, profoundly convicting teaching on Colossians, 2 Timothy and Luke, I returned on Sunday 9th to what is now my home for the next 10 months, loaded with a rucksack of smelly washing and an expectant heart.
So now that I'm finally settled in it's time to start properly digesting the savouries of sermons and seminars with the sweet of song, experience and fellowship. What have I learned?
It may take me months to feel the full effects, but perhaps I can share just the tip of the iceberg. Relay 1 conference was a time for drinking in the power of God's grace. If there were a motto for the week, it would probably have been 'be rooted in and strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus', or even, 'continue how you started'. Remembering grace is the heartbeat of 2 Timothy and Colossians. Since we're prone to forget the basics and definitely prone to believe that there is something more to be had in the Christian life than possessing Christ in all His fulness, it is essential that we bathe in the glory of God's grace revealed to us in Jesus every single day. It's the only cure for legalism, discontent and Satan's deception.
Robert Murray McCheyne summed it up quite well: 'For every one look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.'
Maybe we girls ought to stick that one to our mirrors.
Leading straight into UCCF's annual student conference, Forum, I swapped my warm abode for the more rustic canvas option. With over 1000 people (996 students to be exact!) attending, the campsite was so packed that it was difficult to hear anything remotely belonging to nature above the raucous chunnerings of closely pitched campers. Hearing one CU group rouse their spirits every morning with a war cry of 'ahhhh...WOLFPACK!' and to be assailed by torpedoed water balloons one afternoon meant the week was far from dull.
Above all it just seemed to me to be the most perfect time of fellowship with Warwick CU. Close quarters and campstove-cooked food drew us together every dew-filled morning. And as the warmth crept back into our frames through bacon butties and copious cups of steaming-hot tea, we laughed at the foolishness of what we were all doing in the middle of the countryside, humming songs and discussing yesterday's teaching. Shared experience soon led to shared adoration of our Lord.
And really, what I keep on finding is that the more I try to go it alone, the more God puts me with people I can't escape from! As we kept on hearing from Mike Reeves, community is in the very nature of God because He is triune. This perfect conversation, fellowship, submission and faithfulness between the three Persons of the trinity revolutionises how we see community. If even God is not an island, then what makes us think it is good for us to be alone? So, both Relay 1 and Forum chipped off pounds of pride from my weary individualism and I hope the Relay year will hack a little more both out of me and out of Warwick CU.
So as I round off this trip through the first two weeks of Relay, as I reflect on the lessons learned, I am once again beginning to realise just how much work God is going to have to do in me this year. Whether it's my eagerness to be legalistic, my insatiable desire to be utterly autonomous, or my reluctance to simply love those around me, I'm going to need to do more than look at Jesus. I must gaze. Ten times for every one look at self.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Warning: graduate in transition.
Time lurches on and I'm just beginning to feel the effects of transition. No longer a student, I enter the graduate realm of unemployment and sarcastically-framed comments on the use of my degree. Well, almost.
No, it's 4 days until the first Relay conference and really I'm just kicking back and waiting for this new chapter in my life to get started. There's the usual practicalities of packing and how I'm going to get my stuff on the train on Tuesday without the aide of a packhorse (or two). And don't forget the 'study' I haven't quite finished but am weaving -though somewhat feebly- between my hours of looking for a new bicycle, enjoying my parents company and just doing things I've had no creative space to do since academia took over my life.
But really, all's well in the Parsons' land of ee-by-gum and guinea pigs (my Mum's). Warning--the accent has already taken multiple downward turns for the worse...
For those who know nothing about the Relay discipleship and training scheme, I suggest you look here because UCCF explains it with more brash, gusto and wholeness than I can at this hour. In short, I'm returning to the Warwick area (after a couple of conferences at the Quinta Christian Centre near Oswestry) to help out the Christian Union at my -sob- old university and to be equipped, through study, personal work and learning new skills, to better share my faith as a Christian with students around campus.
So, with no academic timetable in hand I'll be skipping the railroad tracks down to the Welsh border for fun and serious stuff with people I've never met before, at a place I've been to more times than I can count on fingers, with only a vague idea of what's actually going on. Nothing new there then.
Amazingly though, my anxiety levels are low. This time last year I was coming to the end of my stint in France and contemplating my return to university with utter dread. I remember that for at least the first six weeks of that first term I was constantly on edge.
While walking to lectures I couldn't help but feel deeply nervous, I think maybe because I felt incapable of tapping into those academic brain cells after my year abroad, which, in comparison to uni-life, felt like mental vegetation.
Getting stuck into CU again brushed me back hard against my self-elevated thoughts of being needed. I clearly wasn't.
Some of my closest friends had already left, some to other countries, and this made me cling to the friends I did have left. I am grateful to those who helped me settle back in to Warwick in ways they didn't even themselves perceive.
I came back to a country which spoke my language but where I felt I had no place, or at least one I had yet to discover.
It sounds like doom and gloom but I'm just being honest. I found it hard and for weeks I was constantly anxious.
But there was one passage of Scripture I had running through my mind daily.
'Do not be anxious about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.' Philippians 4:6-7
And it's to that passage that I turn now daily for strength, even though I am relatively calm compared to this time last year. Reading Jerry Bridges', The Discipline of Grace, has refired those apathetic spiritual nerve-endings to revive the great truth that no day is so good or so bad that I do not need God's grace in my life. So, anxious or not, coping with stress or going grey with the pressure, I have to turn to Jesus. Why? Because whether I perceive it or not, He is sustaining me.
Jesus is Lord.
No, it's 4 days until the first Relay conference and really I'm just kicking back and waiting for this new chapter in my life to get started. There's the usual practicalities of packing and how I'm going to get my stuff on the train on Tuesday without the aide of a packhorse (or two). And don't forget the 'study' I haven't quite finished but am weaving -though somewhat feebly- between my hours of looking for a new bicycle, enjoying my parents company and just doing things I've had no creative space to do since academia took over my life.
But really, all's well in the Parsons' land of ee-by-gum and guinea pigs (my Mum's). Warning--the accent has already taken multiple downward turns for the worse...
For those who know nothing about the Relay discipleship and training scheme, I suggest you look here because UCCF explains it with more brash, gusto and wholeness than I can at this hour. In short, I'm returning to the Warwick area (after a couple of conferences at the Quinta Christian Centre near Oswestry) to help out the Christian Union at my -sob- old university and to be equipped, through study, personal work and learning new skills, to better share my faith as a Christian with students around campus.
So, with no academic timetable in hand I'll be skipping the railroad tracks down to the Welsh border for fun and serious stuff with people I've never met before, at a place I've been to more times than I can count on fingers, with only a vague idea of what's actually going on. Nothing new there then.
Amazingly though, my anxiety levels are low. This time last year I was coming to the end of my stint in France and contemplating my return to university with utter dread. I remember that for at least the first six weeks of that first term I was constantly on edge.
While walking to lectures I couldn't help but feel deeply nervous, I think maybe because I felt incapable of tapping into those academic brain cells after my year abroad, which, in comparison to uni-life, felt like mental vegetation.
Getting stuck into CU again brushed me back hard against my self-elevated thoughts of being needed. I clearly wasn't.
Some of my closest friends had already left, some to other countries, and this made me cling to the friends I did have left. I am grateful to those who helped me settle back in to Warwick in ways they didn't even themselves perceive.
I came back to a country which spoke my language but where I felt I had no place, or at least one I had yet to discover.
It sounds like doom and gloom but I'm just being honest. I found it hard and for weeks I was constantly anxious.
But there was one passage of Scripture I had running through my mind daily.
'Do not be anxious about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.' Philippians 4:6-7
And it's to that passage that I turn now daily for strength, even though I am relatively calm compared to this time last year. Reading Jerry Bridges', The Discipline of Grace, has refired those apathetic spiritual nerve-endings to revive the great truth that no day is so good or so bad that I do not need God's grace in my life. So, anxious or not, coping with stress or going grey with the pressure, I have to turn to Jesus. Why? Because whether I perceive it or not, He is sustaining me.
Jesus is Lord.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Endings are just new beginnings
Well, that's it. No more modal verbs, hazardous passive constructions, brain-bending sessions on the subjunctive or lush literature. My degree is over and with it four years of university life.
What can I say? Feelings are mixed. While it's great to have exam stress finally over and to look forward to less insomnia-filled nights, it's also quite tragic to think that yet another stage in life is at an end. There's been times over the last few months where I've really struggled to keep going, physically as much as spiritually. Sundays have been a real refuge, a time for blowing of steam in some cases. Experiencing God's grace and especially that peace which surpasses all understanding has taught me what it means to be continually thankful even when I feel that what I'm about to go through is not something I have the strength or will to be thankful for!
Despite the growing pains, I've had the most side-wrenching laughs, the craziest spur-of-the-moment escapades, the most foolhardy party frolics and a good dose of docile members of the Leporidae and lusty ducks than I think is actually healthy.
I've met a wealth of people with more intelligence, wisdom and beauty than I was certainly blessed with at conception and yet who have had the grace and humility to help me attain even just a little of what they have.
I've had my mind blown on so many occasions by the things I've read and learned over my course of study, by seeing and tasting just how beautifully intricate and formidably designed this whole world is, yet sadly, how devastatingly torn by sin.
Experiencing the oddness of the English on post year abroad re-entry and how sane the rest of the world can often appear was, well, bizarre.
I can't help but stand in awe at a God who saw fit to give it all to little me.
So here's 10 (of so many) things I've learned (often quite painfully) and been blessed to experience while at university:
1. The friendships you make here are the most influential and the most abiding. Be wary of making short-lived acquaintances and missing out on real friends.
2. Good grades are not the goal. God isn't as much interested in the output as He is in the input. Straw houses aren't fit for fire, only refined gold is so make sure that the life you're building is one founded on the right foundation.
3. The darkest of days are the ones where Christ's love pulses through my veins most strongly. He is the God who is there even when I don't want Him to be.
4. I'm more complex than I give myself credit (no arrogance meant). Souls are weird places, difficult to comprehend, landscapes full of adventure but also of fear: God has been strolling through my desert heart, calming storms and bringing life to a weary me.
5. Seeing precious individuals, images of God, coming to accept Jesus as Saviour, their lives being utterly transformed.
6. The thrill I experienced and the privilege it was to spend time living and working in two foreign countries. National, ethnic, social, political borders can only be overcome by the power of a boundary-defying Lord.
7. Independance is fun. Isolation is destructive. Go home, once in a while.
8. The love of christian work does not equate with loving God. It is an idol like any other. Love the Heart that loves you unconditionally.
9. Keep keeping a diary! It provides a barrel of chuckles for rainy days and more than just a wee bit of forgotten wisdom.
10. Learning to laugh at yourselves more than others. Use humour in loving others and then you'll see God's sense of humour. Believe me, you're not as serious as you take yourself.
I always thought it was clichéd to say that it was the best time in your life, but I guess it does come close...
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Mission Week
Warwick CU's mission week starts bright and early tomorrow at 8am with prayer. It'll be an entire week of extra events aiming to bring the gospel to every student on campus, whether through apologetics over lunch, evening talks on Luke's gospel, text-a-toastie to halls of residence, or Globe café for internationals.
At church today, the question I was most frequently asked was, 'so, are you ready for mission week?' To which I confidently replied, 'er... well, yes... I think so.'
Ready? Probably not. If 'ready' means confident in my ability to share the gospel with other students, then I'm the most unprepared of the lot. If 'ready' means I have no fear, then I may as well just hide myself in the library and try to forget that mission week is going on.
I'm not ready, neither confident in my ability, nor fearless. But that actually doesn't matter. Most of the messengers and prophets sent by God in the OT were quaking in their boots as they spoke and the disciples were intent on hiding from the world like trembling doormice before Pentecost.
But I, like they did, have a mighty God. He supplies the strength and the courage.
Most of the CU members have had their pictures taken with a board saying, 'Ask me what I'm living for', the aim being to upload them onto Facebook as profile pictures. Funny then that just the other day I should read in 1 Peter 3 this gem of a passage:
'But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.' (vv.15-16)
My prayer for the CU this week is that we would fulfill this verse, speaking humbly and lovingly with students of their need of Jesus. Interestingly, this verse quite naturally couples telling others about Jesus with persecution. That's something I haven't heard much of in CU, and which may shock some when it happens. So please pray with us that this hope would be uncontainable, but also that when some do 'suffer for doing good', (for what's better than sharing the truth in love?) that they wouldn't be discouraged, but instead again look at Christ as their example in all things.
Embarrassing...! Here's how the FB pictures look, so check it out!
'For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit' (1 Peter 3:18)
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Like speaking with Jesus
A picture paints a thousand words. When you're devoid of linguistic ability, you have to rely heavily on gestures, facial and body
expression to get the meaning across. You look foolish as you painfuly
attempt to act out the word you don't know or can't remember, something
which not even your Grandma could guess in a game of Christmas
charades.
Moses complained that his speech was not eloquent enough to address a Pharoah, yet God still sent him to Egypt to be His agent in freeing the Hebrew slaves. The Corinthian church was exorted not to be fooled into thinking that cleverly-crafted sentences were what made the gospel into spiritual dynamite. Paul came trembling and stuttering his words and still hearts were melted.
Is not our faith shown in our works? Why then do we mistake it all too often for our words? We proclaim Christ as Lord and Saviour and by professing our belief we are saved as this is an outward statement of an inward change (Romans 10:9). But if words were the only means by which a heart were turned to God and a Christian transformed more into the likeness of Christ, then most of us would be left redundant. Most of us can't string two correct sentences in English together, never mind gather the courage to preach like Peter on the day of Pentecost.
Our words need to be carefully thought out in certain situations. All too often we let our tongues wag. Yet Jesus also said that 'by this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:35) James also exhorts believers to let their works be in agreement with their words. Even if you do mess up your grammar, make outright blunders and get yourself tied up and twisted in a knot when sharing the gospel with someone, if the love of Christ is really rooted in you, then it will be visible.
We must speak. By speaking the Spirit moves and saves. But don't forget that salvation isn't for making you into a wordy theologian. It's to transform the whole of you so that people will say they have talked with Jesus when they speak with you.
Moses complained that his speech was not eloquent enough to address a Pharoah, yet God still sent him to Egypt to be His agent in freeing the Hebrew slaves. The Corinthian church was exorted not to be fooled into thinking that cleverly-crafted sentences were what made the gospel into spiritual dynamite. Paul came trembling and stuttering his words and still hearts were melted.
Is not our faith shown in our works? Why then do we mistake it all too often for our words? We proclaim Christ as Lord and Saviour and by professing our belief we are saved as this is an outward statement of an inward change (Romans 10:9). But if words were the only means by which a heart were turned to God and a Christian transformed more into the likeness of Christ, then most of us would be left redundant. Most of us can't string two correct sentences in English together, never mind gather the courage to preach like Peter on the day of Pentecost.
Our words need to be carefully thought out in certain situations. All too often we let our tongues wag. Yet Jesus also said that 'by this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another' (John 13:35) James also exhorts believers to let their works be in agreement with their words. Even if you do mess up your grammar, make outright blunders and get yourself tied up and twisted in a knot when sharing the gospel with someone, if the love of Christ is really rooted in you, then it will be visible.
We must speak. By speaking the Spirit moves and saves. But don't forget that salvation isn't for making you into a wordy theologian. It's to transform the whole of you so that people will say they have talked with Jesus when they speak with you.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Obsession with Identity
In my studies I have been reading a lot about identity, whether in a 19th Century French anarchist context or for a German literature module on the study of the 'self' and the 'other'. Identity never fails to enthrall us, intrigue, confuse and drive us, more than often, to depair. 'Who am I?' appears to be the fundamental question in everyone's mind. The way in which you introduce yourself hints at what you think about yourself and what you would like others to know about you. We commonly start with a brief greeting, an exchange of names, job titles, where we originally come from and whether we are married and have children.
However, I think Elisabeth Elliot puts it well in her book, Let me be a woman. The question in the search for identity, which often leads people into all kinds of sorrow and heart-ache, should not be 'who am I' but 'whose am I?' Attempting to discover your identity in complete isolation never works. It only leads to destructive naval-gazing and a deeper confusion and discontent over the question of identity. Why is it that when we introduce ourselves we always start by talking about our outward actions and those we have chosen to spend time with? Because they are a reflection of our feelings, beliefs, tendencies, joys, hurts, decisions and choices we have made. In essence, they are not our identity, but they do help explain who we are or who we aspire to be.
The problem, however, is that no relationship with another human can ever fully satisfy us. No job, amount of money, wealth of education or future prospects can conclusively tell us who we are. We may find parts of ourselves sated for a while. Our thirst and longing after a defining principle to be quenched momentarily, but it will never eternally satisfy us. Our identity is far deeper and greater than can be comprehended through a collection of deeds, writings, facts and emotions, otherwise why would even the greatest of writers, thinkers and leaders have carried on in this quest for identity?
Neither can we find our complete identity in simply tracing back our family history. My Mum works in a cemetary and often has people coming in to trace their ancestry back to local celebrities or, more often, ordinary working-class people! After all, if we can't discover our identity in our present surroudings we resort to the past. Family traits (in our family it's the Jewsbury nose...) are passed down, and I daresay even some characteristics, but not one of them ever fully explains our rhyme or reason for being the way we are.
We see ourselves partly then in the reflection of others. Yet, I would argue that this is completely the wrong way around. If we start with ourselves, creatures who are limited in our understanding and knowledge of the universe we live in, then we will never, within the short span of our lifetime, discover who we really are or what is our purpose in life. Instead, we need to look into the face of the One who from the very beginning not only reflected but gave us His likeness. Our identity as individuals is dependant upon God's identity. So in looking to the present and the past for clues to our identity we are not wrong, in fact, it simply reveals a more profound trait of the God we have sought to drive out of our own self-fashioned identities. We were never meant to be isolated, unrelational, stagnant, self-fashioned and destructive. Rather, we were created with identities that are unique and highly complex, yet which all have their root and fulfilment in God.
So, our mistake as humans is not our obsession with identity, it is more that we are looking for identity in the wrong place and in the wrong people. In asking 'whose am I?', we recognise that, in the basic sense, we are all God's in that each human being has been created by Him and for Him. But just as we find out who we are by tracing back our roots, by asking questions, by seeking knowledge of and intimacy with the ones who have physically brought us into this world, that is, our parents, so we will never find the answer to this identity question until we seek intimacy with God through Jesus Christ, who is the revealed identity of our heavenly Father.
However, I think Elisabeth Elliot puts it well in her book, Let me be a woman. The question in the search for identity, which often leads people into all kinds of sorrow and heart-ache, should not be 'who am I' but 'whose am I?' Attempting to discover your identity in complete isolation never works. It only leads to destructive naval-gazing and a deeper confusion and discontent over the question of identity. Why is it that when we introduce ourselves we always start by talking about our outward actions and those we have chosen to spend time with? Because they are a reflection of our feelings, beliefs, tendencies, joys, hurts, decisions and choices we have made. In essence, they are not our identity, but they do help explain who we are or who we aspire to be.
The problem, however, is that no relationship with another human can ever fully satisfy us. No job, amount of money, wealth of education or future prospects can conclusively tell us who we are. We may find parts of ourselves sated for a while. Our thirst and longing after a defining principle to be quenched momentarily, but it will never eternally satisfy us. Our identity is far deeper and greater than can be comprehended through a collection of deeds, writings, facts and emotions, otherwise why would even the greatest of writers, thinkers and leaders have carried on in this quest for identity?
Neither can we find our complete identity in simply tracing back our family history. My Mum works in a cemetary and often has people coming in to trace their ancestry back to local celebrities or, more often, ordinary working-class people! After all, if we can't discover our identity in our present surroudings we resort to the past. Family traits (in our family it's the Jewsbury nose...) are passed down, and I daresay even some characteristics, but not one of them ever fully explains our rhyme or reason for being the way we are.
We see ourselves partly then in the reflection of others. Yet, I would argue that this is completely the wrong way around. If we start with ourselves, creatures who are limited in our understanding and knowledge of the universe we live in, then we will never, within the short span of our lifetime, discover who we really are or what is our purpose in life. Instead, we need to look into the face of the One who from the very beginning not only reflected but gave us His likeness. Our identity as individuals is dependant upon God's identity. So in looking to the present and the past for clues to our identity we are not wrong, in fact, it simply reveals a more profound trait of the God we have sought to drive out of our own self-fashioned identities. We were never meant to be isolated, unrelational, stagnant, self-fashioned and destructive. Rather, we were created with identities that are unique and highly complex, yet which all have their root and fulfilment in God.
So, our mistake as humans is not our obsession with identity, it is more that we are looking for identity in the wrong place and in the wrong people. In asking 'whose am I?', we recognise that, in the basic sense, we are all God's in that each human being has been created by Him and for Him. But just as we find out who we are by tracing back our roots, by asking questions, by seeking knowledge of and intimacy with the ones who have physically brought us into this world, that is, our parents, so we will never find the answer to this identity question until we seek intimacy with God through Jesus Christ, who is the revealed identity of our heavenly Father.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
The Wedding pratically everyone is still talking about
A post I wrote and edited ages ago and never posted! It's actually quite nostalgic thinking back to my year abroad. Apologies for any possible mistakes in translation...
(1/5/11)
Wedding fever is still raging. It even made it into the sermon this morning at church. I tell you, the Germans are just as crazy, if not more so, about the monarchy as some Brits are! Even the local newspaper has jumped on the bandwagon and has printed a few articles, one making it onto the front page! Here's a few amusing snippets...
From a german tourist in London on Friday:
'Die Engländer sind verrückt, aber all so höflich.' - 'The English are mad but all so polite.'
One article commented on the length of the smackers William planted on his new wife upon that oh-so-famous balcony, revealing that the first lasted just 0.7 seconds. The latter was slightly more daring and lasted a whole 1.1 seconds.
I think someone has way too much time on their hands...
One article titled 'Longing for the Eternal' (Sehnsucht nach Ewigem), was of particular interest and which I discussed with my class today. Although the number of couples pledging their troth in Germany has declined over the last few years and the number of divorcees risen, still about 90% of young people who participated in a recent survey would like to have their own family one day. It seems, however, that marriage is out of fashion, so to speak. There is a great reluctance to make a committment which some feel is perhaps too restrictive on their personal freedom, especially in such an economic climate where mobility and flexibility appear to be the favoured job criteria. Fear that marriage probably won't last until death do us part and the court costs tied in with getting a divorce are also factors that put some people off. After all, some argue, it's only a piece of paper.
Yet, as the journalist points out, as soon as Catherine glided out of her car in her stunning, laced wedding dress, the whole nation, indeed the whole world, gasped, sighed, cried, sang and screamed almost simultaneously. As the couple met at the altar and nervously gave their wedding vows and immediately after as they trotted out onto the balcony, the sight of a newly-wed couple sent people all wobbly and gooey inside.
Here's what the journalist said:
'Eine Hochzeit ist das öffentliche Versprechen, für immer zusammenszubleiben. Man mag ein solches Versprechen für maßlos halten, da ja niemand ganz sicher garantieren kann, dass er es einhalten wird. Doch die Seele braucht solche Anklänge von Ewigkeit. Wo solche Versprechen verschwinden, bleiben sie als Sehnsucht zurück. Auch deshalb rühren Märchenhochzeiten wie die in London so viele Menschen.'
'A wedding is the public promise to stay together forever. We like to think of such promises as exorbitant because no one can garantee that such a promise will be stuck to. Still, the soul requires such peals of eternity. Where such promises disappear, they still remain as desires. For this reason fairy-tale weddings, such as the one in London, continue to deeply move so many people.'
It seems that although we cry that we do not want to be bound by an eternal promise because we claim it to be too restrictive, we still long after such oaths because we admire the sacrifice, the dedication and above all the deeply grounded love that a couple (hopefully) has for one another as they promise to cherish one another in sickness and in health. I think our souls require someone to say, 'I will love you no matter what and I am willing to die for you'.
But why on earth do we long after such desires in such a contradictory way. We want someone to love us unconditionally, even to death, and yet we reject all notions of stability as an infringement upon our individual rights. We want intimacy but desire to retain our independance. But therein is exactly the point. By loving someone so much so that you publicly declare, indeed actually bind two families together by a covenant, you give up rights to your own body. Or, more clearly said, you promise to cherish the other above yourself; to put them first as your main priority. You give up your rights to doing what you want.
These longings are no freak consequence of evolution. God is the institutor of marriage. It is a desire that He breathed into our souls when He created the first man and woman. Human, earthly marriage is wonderful. In fact, quite a few good friends are getting married this year and I am over the moon for them! Yet, we cannot just stop here. For what happens when we realise that, despite what the world tells us, we do not feel 'complete' in that other person. What happens to this longing when our spouse dies? What about those men and women who desire to be married and yet can't for whatever reason? What good is this longing after unconditional love in such a person? Is it just to go to waste?
The Lord God is described as Husband and Maker. 'Well, that's a funny concept', you say. 'How is God my husband?!' It's that we have the starting point wrong. Man is not the founder of marriage, God is. Man doesn't define the marriage oath, although we often like to think we can and do. God displays how a husband should act towards his wife. With tenderness, love and unconditional faithfulness.
If our souls' deepest desire and longing is to love and be loved even unto death, then God satisfies this over and abundantly in Jesus Christ. God is the ultimate Husband because even after His wife has cheated on Him and rebelled against his love and light, He still desires her! Jesus goes to the cross, He dies to declare His love for the Bride He is about to redeem, to wash and make lovely again. We gasped in wonder at Kate's beauty, well how much more should we gasp in wonder at how loving this God should be to die for a people, the ultimate Bride, who do not even desire Him? He pursues His people, He wins their hearts in the ultimate way: by dying for them.
So why do we still gasp at the beauty of the bride? Because in a sense her beauty is the result of promises come true, of desires met, of unconditional love which her husband swears to her and before God. She is radiant because he loves her. Sacrifice becomes the price of beauty.
(1/5/11)
Wedding fever is still raging. It even made it into the sermon this morning at church. I tell you, the Germans are just as crazy, if not more so, about the monarchy as some Brits are! Even the local newspaper has jumped on the bandwagon and has printed a few articles, one making it onto the front page! Here's a few amusing snippets...
From a german tourist in London on Friday:
'Die Engländer sind verrückt, aber all so höflich.' - 'The English are mad but all so polite.'
One article commented on the length of the smackers William planted on his new wife upon that oh-so-famous balcony, revealing that the first lasted just 0.7 seconds. The latter was slightly more daring and lasted a whole 1.1 seconds.
I think someone has way too much time on their hands...
One article titled 'Longing for the Eternal' (Sehnsucht nach Ewigem), was of particular interest and which I discussed with my class today. Although the number of couples pledging their troth in Germany has declined over the last few years and the number of divorcees risen, still about 90% of young people who participated in a recent survey would like to have their own family one day. It seems, however, that marriage is out of fashion, so to speak. There is a great reluctance to make a committment which some feel is perhaps too restrictive on their personal freedom, especially in such an economic climate where mobility and flexibility appear to be the favoured job criteria. Fear that marriage probably won't last until death do us part and the court costs tied in with getting a divorce are also factors that put some people off. After all, some argue, it's only a piece of paper.
Yet, as the journalist points out, as soon as Catherine glided out of her car in her stunning, laced wedding dress, the whole nation, indeed the whole world, gasped, sighed, cried, sang and screamed almost simultaneously. As the couple met at the altar and nervously gave their wedding vows and immediately after as they trotted out onto the balcony, the sight of a newly-wed couple sent people all wobbly and gooey inside.
Here's what the journalist said:
'Eine Hochzeit ist das öffentliche Versprechen, für immer zusammenszubleiben. Man mag ein solches Versprechen für maßlos halten, da ja niemand ganz sicher garantieren kann, dass er es einhalten wird. Doch die Seele braucht solche Anklänge von Ewigkeit. Wo solche Versprechen verschwinden, bleiben sie als Sehnsucht zurück. Auch deshalb rühren Märchenhochzeiten wie die in London so viele Menschen.'
'A wedding is the public promise to stay together forever. We like to think of such promises as exorbitant because no one can garantee that such a promise will be stuck to. Still, the soul requires such peals of eternity. Where such promises disappear, they still remain as desires. For this reason fairy-tale weddings, such as the one in London, continue to deeply move so many people.'
It seems that although we cry that we do not want to be bound by an eternal promise because we claim it to be too restrictive, we still long after such oaths because we admire the sacrifice, the dedication and above all the deeply grounded love that a couple (hopefully) has for one another as they promise to cherish one another in sickness and in health. I think our souls require someone to say, 'I will love you no matter what and I am willing to die for you'.
But why on earth do we long after such desires in such a contradictory way. We want someone to love us unconditionally, even to death, and yet we reject all notions of stability as an infringement upon our individual rights. We want intimacy but desire to retain our independance. But therein is exactly the point. By loving someone so much so that you publicly declare, indeed actually bind two families together by a covenant, you give up rights to your own body. Or, more clearly said, you promise to cherish the other above yourself; to put them first as your main priority. You give up your rights to doing what you want.
These longings are no freak consequence of evolution. God is the institutor of marriage. It is a desire that He breathed into our souls when He created the first man and woman. Human, earthly marriage is wonderful. In fact, quite a few good friends are getting married this year and I am over the moon for them! Yet, we cannot just stop here. For what happens when we realise that, despite what the world tells us, we do not feel 'complete' in that other person. What happens to this longing when our spouse dies? What about those men and women who desire to be married and yet can't for whatever reason? What good is this longing after unconditional love in such a person? Is it just to go to waste?
The Lord God is described as Husband and Maker. 'Well, that's a funny concept', you say. 'How is God my husband?!' It's that we have the starting point wrong. Man is not the founder of marriage, God is. Man doesn't define the marriage oath, although we often like to think we can and do. God displays how a husband should act towards his wife. With tenderness, love and unconditional faithfulness.
If our souls' deepest desire and longing is to love and be loved even unto death, then God satisfies this over and abundantly in Jesus Christ. God is the ultimate Husband because even after His wife has cheated on Him and rebelled against his love and light, He still desires her! Jesus goes to the cross, He dies to declare His love for the Bride He is about to redeem, to wash and make lovely again. We gasped in wonder at Kate's beauty, well how much more should we gasp in wonder at how loving this God should be to die for a people, the ultimate Bride, who do not even desire Him? He pursues His people, He wins their hearts in the ultimate way: by dying for them.
So why do we still gasp at the beauty of the bride? Because in a sense her beauty is the result of promises come true, of desires met, of unconditional love which her husband swears to her and before God. She is radiant because he loves her. Sacrifice becomes the price of beauty.
Monday, 19 December 2011
The Dawn of Spring
Long, dark, winter months always remind me of C. S. Lewis' winter which covered Narnia, the snows, frost, ice and most of all, the absence of Christmas, being the curse of the wicked white witch.
I love snow. Even the 3 months of snow I experienced in Göttingen last year were not quite enough to deter me. Wintry landscapes, particularly those on fresh winter mornings, never cease to take my breath away. However, there is something quite sad, even tragic about the swift pace at which the sun sets, the curtains are drawn and families retreat into their central-heating warmed homes. Darkness brings a certain reality to the idyllic.
We become almost hemmed in and shut up by the perpetual lack of light. We long, at least to some degree or another, for the coming of sunshine, for Spring, for life and the freedom to leave our homes. Personally, it is during the winter months that I think more about the realities of life. For me, summer is always filled with activity. It is a breath of fresh air, one of freedom to enjoy the air, sun, sea, grass and just life in general, where I freely avoid thinking about harsh realities. Light and warmth bring a certain kind of freedom which I tend to enjoy and long for during the darkest of months. In Winter, it sometimes feels like everything is simply decaying and dead. Even the faintest of birdsong from the either hardy or 'home' birds is sort of bitter-sweet, a relief from the silent landscape yet also a memory of life which has, quite literally, flown away.
It is no wonder then that, for some, depression sets in most easily during Winter when all about us at times seems to be the picture of what we believe our lives to be: fruitless, even pointless. The trigger for such thinking should not and cannot be trivialised, but I believe that everyone can at least partly sympathise.
No human can function properly in darkness. It is plain that we need light and warmth, as does every living creature and plant, to live. But how we also need those darker, wetter, cooler, bleaker months not only to make the comparison clearer, but to actually provide room for hidden growth and a path to a fruitful life. There is hope just lying under the surface of the frost-hardened ground. The coming Spring's flowers are benefiting from the cold; Winter is essential for them.
Winter, as well as Spring and Summer months are essential in the Christian life, the former arriving more frequently than the latter. Yet there is hope during the bleak, long nights. We have a Saviour who was born to conquer, to drive back the darkness with His right hand and just as He commanded the light to shine forth at the beginning of Creation, so He will pierce the darkness that covers our sinful world with His glory. Winter can seem hopeless, it can drive us to despair and to morbid thoughts. Winter remains a God-given reminder of not only His control over creation in providing seasons for the growth of crops, but also of the result of life without Him. We are reminded of the curse of sin and death because all around us the earth appears to crumble and groan under the weight of darkness and the cold. Yet, there is hope. Hope which although formerly invisible, has become visible for anyone who digs a little deeper than the snow-laden surface.
Christmas reminds us that the coming of Jesus is the dawn of Spring.
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hark the Herald from: www.carols.org.uk
I love snow. Even the 3 months of snow I experienced in Göttingen last year were not quite enough to deter me. Wintry landscapes, particularly those on fresh winter mornings, never cease to take my breath away. However, there is something quite sad, even tragic about the swift pace at which the sun sets, the curtains are drawn and families retreat into their central-heating warmed homes. Darkness brings a certain reality to the idyllic.
We become almost hemmed in and shut up by the perpetual lack of light. We long, at least to some degree or another, for the coming of sunshine, for Spring, for life and the freedom to leave our homes. Personally, it is during the winter months that I think more about the realities of life. For me, summer is always filled with activity. It is a breath of fresh air, one of freedom to enjoy the air, sun, sea, grass and just life in general, where I freely avoid thinking about harsh realities. Light and warmth bring a certain kind of freedom which I tend to enjoy and long for during the darkest of months. In Winter, it sometimes feels like everything is simply decaying and dead. Even the faintest of birdsong from the either hardy or 'home' birds is sort of bitter-sweet, a relief from the silent landscape yet also a memory of life which has, quite literally, flown away.
It is no wonder then that, for some, depression sets in most easily during Winter when all about us at times seems to be the picture of what we believe our lives to be: fruitless, even pointless. The trigger for such thinking should not and cannot be trivialised, but I believe that everyone can at least partly sympathise.
No human can function properly in darkness. It is plain that we need light and warmth, as does every living creature and plant, to live. But how we also need those darker, wetter, cooler, bleaker months not only to make the comparison clearer, but to actually provide room for hidden growth and a path to a fruitful life. There is hope just lying under the surface of the frost-hardened ground. The coming Spring's flowers are benefiting from the cold; Winter is essential for them.
Winter, as well as Spring and Summer months are essential in the Christian life, the former arriving more frequently than the latter. Yet there is hope during the bleak, long nights. We have a Saviour who was born to conquer, to drive back the darkness with His right hand and just as He commanded the light to shine forth at the beginning of Creation, so He will pierce the darkness that covers our sinful world with His glory. Winter can seem hopeless, it can drive us to despair and to morbid thoughts. Winter remains a God-given reminder of not only His control over creation in providing seasons for the growth of crops, but also of the result of life without Him. We are reminded of the curse of sin and death because all around us the earth appears to crumble and groan under the weight of darkness and the cold. Yet, there is hope. Hope which although formerly invisible, has become visible for anyone who digs a little deeper than the snow-laden surface.
Christmas reminds us that the coming of Jesus is the dawn of Spring.
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Hark the Herald from: www.carols.org.uk
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