The title above was a sign at the 30 metre round Wilpena Pound Panorama in Hawker, S.A.
View From Tanderra Saddle near St Mary’s Peak, Flinders Ranges
Devotional
Creation: God’s First Missionary
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Photo
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, Flinders Ranges, Photo
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The Enigma Code
I have just completed reading Enigma by Hugh Montefiore. It details the history of the attempt by the Allies to decrypt the messages of the German military, just before, and during WW2.
It is a tale of spies, subterfuge, boffins and hours of hard, and often fruitless, work in which the unlocking of a message that could save or cost thousands of lives. This tale of daring do was brought home to me when we lived in Bletchley, UK. One of the first visits I made was to Bletchley Park – the home of decryption in the war.
The unlocking of the Enigma Code played an enormous role in WW2, possibly changing the outcome but certainly shortening its length.
The passion and sacrifice of these men and women to defeat Hitler’s ambitions was staggering. Human lives, especially in the UK and on the high seas, depended on their work.
There is an even greater battle that we face on a daily basis. It is evil and life denying. It is the person and power of Satan. The battle may not seem so obvious but it is even more deadly than that fought in WW2.
Hearts and lives are at stake – the health of our children, families and society. Psalm 1 reminds us that our natural inclination and direction is evil. It challenges us to (in God’s strength) choose wisely and be anchored in the life giving soil and life that comes from God, (in Christ) alone.
The Enigma tale has reminded me that if we understand the dangers we can also find the passion and zeal to withstand and conquer them – through a faithful God.
Categories: christian, Devotional, Faith
Tags: Bletchley, Bletchley Park, Enigma code, ww2
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The Light of Christ
When we travel we like to listen to our favourite music. Having been on the road for the last week we listened to a lot of music. Michael Card is one singer/song writer whose songs we both like.
In the song, “For F.F.B.” he sings of his grandfather with the words, “In you I learned the kind of faith that looked up to the mountains. In you I saw just what I’d like to be. Oh, Grandad, I wish you could be here to tell me what to do, ‘cause I first saw the light of Christ through you.”
The phrase, “‘cause I first saw the light of Christ through you” made me think of those who first allowed me to see the light of Christ. When we were impressionable children who were those people through whom Christ shone? Parents? Grandparents? Family? Friends?
This is such a profoundly important concept, than for no other reason than the eternal faith of our children, our aim as adults should be to grow in Christlikeness.
Just after our fist child was conceived we received a visit from our pastor who reminded us that a child is conceived into an eternity of heaven or hell. Very blunt! But his point was simple, nothing is more important than the faith of our children and as parents we must do everything we can to prepare our children for an eternity with God. Or in Michael Card’s words to allow our children to see “the light of Christ through” us.
Categories: christian, Devotional, Faith, Family, Reflections
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, family
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We Find It Everywhere
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:26
A Cemetery in Alesund Norway
One of my more macabre pastimes is to visit cemeteries. They are a fount of history and stories. We can learn much about places and people from headstones.
But the point is, they are everywhere. There is no escaping them. Towns, villages, cities and rural areas all have them. They can be found on the outskirts of town, next to churches, in churches and even in prisons. I have found these sober reminders of our mortality in all sorts of places. Simply put, millions have gone before us.
Why is it that so many of us live as though death doesn’t exist, or that it doesn’t matter?
A Pilgrims’ Cemetery on the Camino to Santiago
1 Corinthians 15 is the Apostle Paul’s wonderful exploration and apologetic for the reality of the resurrection. He declares that for the believer “death has lost its sting”. Sadly, for many, the sting hasn’t been removed from death because they refuse to rely on Christ – the sting remover.
Cemeteries are a constant reminder for me of what Christ has done but also a challenge to seek and find the lost before it is too late.
Burial Mounds at Gamla Uppsala Sweden
Categories: Cemetery, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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The Already and Not Yet
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus … Ephesians 2:6
Image courtesy: Nadeau’s Auctions.
When I was five years old we lived in a small country town where phone numbers were between one and one hundred and everybody knew everybody. There was a General Store that supplied all our needs from cereal to rakes.
As we were recent immigrants, money was scarce and every penny (pre-decimal days) had to be turned over twice. On a high shelf of the General Store was the “toy department”. It had cars, dolls and games. But there was also one big red Tonka tow truck. It was every young boy’s dream. I left my mother in no doubt that I liked this truck. However the answer was always the same. We can’t afford it.
So each time we went shopping, as my mother stood at the counter I would wander off and stare wistfully at the red truck. Then horror! One day it was gone. I was shattered. All my dreams had disappeared in one cruel blow. That was it!
A few days later I was trawling through a cupboard looking for something when I noticed a brown paper parcel. On closer inspection the contents had torn one small corner open and I noticed the hook end of a red tow truck.
Mum had bought the truck! I knew it was mine. My brother had not been born and my dad was too old. It was mine! Oh the joy!. There was one problem. My birthday was not for another few months. So I had to wait to receive the present. But the truck was mine!
In some ways our place in heaven is like that. As Ephesians tells us, we are already seated with Christ in heavenly realms. Because Jesus is there, we are there. That is a reality. On the other hand we have not seen it or received it clearly yet. We are still waiting for God’s call. In the meantime we can rejoice at the reality and the anticipation.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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Humility
The following is a quote from Teresa of Avila in a piece that she writes for her fellow nuns:
I was once considering what the reason was why our Lord loved humility in us so much, when I suddenly remembered that He is essentially the Supreme Truth, and that humility is just our walking in the truth. For it is a very great truth that we have no good in us, but only misery and nothingness, and he who does not understand this walks in lies: but he who understands this the best is the most pleasing to the Supreme Truth. May God grant us this favour, sisters, never to be without the humbling knowledge of ourselves.
Teresa of Avila. Santa Teresa an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint’s Writings. Kindle Edition.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Teresa of Avila
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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The Providence of God
De Hezenberg near Zwolle in the Netherlands
The Building in the photo above looks like a pleasant country manor house. It is or was. For our family it is a picture of the providence of God.
In the early 1950s a man in his forties who had recently become a Christian was sent by his pastor to the pastoral care home – “De Hezenberg” because he suffered from depression. Due to a series of dramatic incidents in his life he needed “time out” in a caring environment. This need had been recognised by his pastor. A short while later a young lady in her mid twenties, also sent by her pastor, came because of health issues. She too needed time to recoup in a loving environment away from the “rat race”.
These two people fell in love, but the man had already made plans to emigrate to Australia. He left and the young lady promised to follow him. Which she did a year later. They were married in Melbourne and over the next 8 years grew a family of three young daughters.
These two people were my wife’s mum and dad. Her dad passed on in 1963 and her mum just a few years ago.
Why do I call this providence? Well, at the lowest point in their lives God enabled them to find each other, happiness and start a family. Even though my wife’s dad died early on (after 11 years of marriage) he left behind three girls who have all continued in the faith that he had found later in life.
There is much more to this story. But which ever way you look at at it, God’s hand is firmly in it!
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Faith
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Orthodoxy … In Conclusion
The following is the conclusion to G.K. Chesterton’s head spinning ramble “Orthodoxy”. It is a passionate and articulate demonstration of the veracity of the Christian faith. He finishes with the following:
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something.
Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) . Orthodoxy (pp. 163-164). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, G K Chesterton, Reflections
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The Way Ahead
Anyone who has been reading this blog on a regular basis is aware that I am struggling with and through the nature of the church in the C21st. What is “church” supposed to look like? How does it work? What does it do? Most of all, how does it represent Jesus in the world today?
My readings have taken me through Scripture, medieval saints and more modern writers. The overwhelming conclusion that I have come to is that what we have today represents Christ poorly, is heavily organisational, is poor in the areas of relationship (with God and others) and struggles with authentic mission.
Recently I have been reading Larry Crabb’s book: Becoming a True Spiritual Community: A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be. There are already a couple of posts reflecting on his ideas. Today there is another extended quote:
In any serious attempt to build true community, we will wrestle with confusion, disappointment and, occasionally, excruciating agony of soul. Those struggles will compel us to fix our eyes on unseen reality—the Spirit is at work, and to believe in a better day ahead—Christ is coming back.
Our journey together to God will bring us to a point where a choice among three options must be made. 1. Go mad: Keep trying to make present community completely satisfying. 2. Back up: The search for intimacy is too risky, too dangerous, with uncertain and meager rewards. Find a comfortably safe distance from people, wrap yourselves in a Christian blanket, and live there, safe and smug. 3. Journey on: Stay involved, not everywhere, with everyone, but somewhere, with a few. Don’t give up on at least a couple of relationships. Die every day to your demand for total fulfillment now, in anything. Accept the ache in your soul as evidence of maturity, not neurosis. Discover the spiritual passions beneath the ache that are strong enough to sustain you in forward movement and to keep heaven in sight. If you put all your eggs in the basket of present community, even at its best, you will be of all men most miserable. Freely lust after the day that is coming. Let that hope keep you on course. Expect to discover the point of this life and to experience the spiritual joys available now, to get an unforgettable taste of Christ, to feel the Father’s arms around you, to feel the Spirit within you.
Crabb, Larry Becoming a True Spiritual Community: A Profound Vision of What the Church Can Be. Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
A number of things appeal to me about his ideas:
- Much of our current practice is madness.
- If we have the courage to explore the depths of faith then the journey will be tough but rewarding.
- It is a journey – “church” is not the destination.
- Our aim, in community, is to glorify Christ,
- And that very journey will shape us to be more like Christ, and although Crabb doesn’t say that in so many words, it will make our witness to Him in this world clear and distinct.
The picture that Crabb (and others) paint is something to to be passionate about – lust after! It is an image that shows our C21st lives up for what they really are – self centred and materialistic. We are selling ourselves short, but worse, we are selling God short. The body of Christ is something to be celebrated! So let us celebrate!
Categories: christian, Christianity, Church, Devotional, Faith
Tags: Christianity, Church, Devotion, Faith, Larry Crabb
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Father’s Day
It was Father’s Day yesterday so I did some quick reckoning. I have been a father for about 190 years. In the next year or so I will turn 200 years of father.
There have been tough moments: serious illnesses, parenting decisions, allowing the child out with the car for the first time by themselves, the odd quarrel and so forth. There was the immense grief on the death of a child tempered by the joy that God loved him more than we did. It has been tough financially: schooling, clothing and feeding. We made the decision early that my wife would be a stay at home mum. Our thinking was that the family was more important than money. I realise that not everybody is in a position to make that decision in this era. But most of all those 190 years have been a delight.
Watching children grow into their gifts, talents and character is an amazing revelation of God’s creation. Here are six human beings that all add a different and unique perspective on life.
So I thought, how does Father God look at us? The sorrow of our sin and the joy of our faith and love must move His heart with emotions that are beyond our imagination. As His family grows in a vision of the Kingdom His fatherly pride must also grow.
As dads, we have the privilege of reflecting, in a tiny way, an aspect of the character of God. So my challenge to myself and other dads is to grow in being Godly. When our kids look at us they should get a glimpse of the fatherhood of God. Now that is a challenge!
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, family
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Travels from Ur 