This is a reminder to me to be aware of what I post as I may be called to live it out!
Faith
A Reminder to Myself from a Previous Post
Categories: Bible, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, Photo
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, family
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Ending One Year and Starting the Next
Due to recent events piled on others that have occurred this year and the consequent numbness of heart and mind, I was looking through my photos of 2012 searching for one that encapsulated the year. I came across a photo that I had used in a blog on an earlier occasion in the post: “The Providence of God.”
In this blog I reflected on how my wife’s parents met. Out of two struggling lives God created a loving family in a distant land. The place in this photo is the rest home with its message written in the lives of my wife and her sisters.
At this moment that photo summarises my thoughts: through our pains and struggles God can accomplish much. The darkness of the moment will be removed with the glory that is to come.
“De Hezenberg” near Hattem and Zwolle in the Netherlands.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, Reflections
Tags: "de Hezenberg", Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, family
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Psalm 11
In Psalm 11 David asks the question, which many of us have asked when we peruse the condition of the world, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
David recognises that evil, so often, seems overwhelmingly strong. I am sure there are many times when we too have felt overwhelmed. Just looking over the past year, whether it is our own life or the news, evil has been rampant. Social values are in decline, greed, murder and injustice are seen as “normal”.
David was undergoing his own trial, probably with either Absolom or Saul, but gives us the answer. God in His time will deal with the rebellious because he loves the righteous. The righteous, of course, are those who in their brokenness come to God in faith. It is a Christ bought righteousness. David was acutely aware of his own lack of holiness. God was his only hope.
So as another year ends and a new one begins, David’s Psalm points us to our hope and security – God’s divine promises. And David adds, we will see his face. There is a place for us in His presence where evil is eliminated. In the meantime we have His Word, His Spirit and each other to remind us of this hope in the midst of heartbreaking evil. God is indeed, good!
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Psalms, Reflections, Uncategorized
Tags: Psalms devotions
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Early one morning
It is going to be a hot day today so I got up early and watered the garden. The air was still and the neighbourhood very quiet. The only thing spoiling the serenity was my own water pump whirring away.
When I got back inside the family, including those who have flown or driven in for Christmas, were still asleep – or pretending to be.
I started counting my blessings – big and small. We can often be so obsessed with money and material things, but there are so many small things, or should I say “non material” things to be thankful for: a family that enjoys coming home, their love for each other, the banter and retelling of their lives, family jokes and gentle teasing … God is good!
Dear God, thank you for slowing me down and reminding me what us truly precious.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, Reflections
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Old Testament Advent Poem No. 11
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. Micah 5:2, 4 “
Promises, promises.
Human vows –
some come true
and others fade to empty words.
Promises, promises.
God’s divine pledges
are fulfilled
beyond measure:
From the small and weak
the Saviour will come.
The Satan crusher
and death slayer
will arrive as an infant.
And the healer and miracle worker
as a man from David’s family.
Promises, Promises.
The king came to a country inn.
The victory was won
on a crude wooden cross.
Promises, promises –
fulfilled.
… but the king’s return
is still to come.
There are still promises to see.
Categories: Advent, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Poem, poetry
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Christmas Greetings
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, Reflections
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, family
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Time Passes
This year has given me a real sense of time passing. It has reminded me of the frailty of humanity and the relentless tide of generations. At the beginning of the year my mum died, three days later an uncle, my father’s youngest brother, and then mid year another of dad’s brothers and, just recently, my mother’s youngest brother. Death has been a companion all throughout 2012.
In my father’s line of the family I am now he oldest with the family name. I am not certain what that means. At least it means that a generation has nearly gone, my generation is getting older and there is another following.
For me, the loudest message must be, pass on the baton of faith in words and deeds. I fear, in places, I see the baton being dropped – or it has dropped altogether. That is exceptionally sad, especially when preceding generations have been so faithful to keep the covenant chain alive. There is no greater and lasting treasure that we can pass on to our children than a living knowledge of Jesus Christ. I know we can’t force faith on our children but we can reveal its vitality and life through our own lives and words.
Another lesson for me is to live each day. Our time this side of heaven is finite. There is no time to waste as we promote the Kingdom. There is so much to do to prepare for the king’s return!
And for ourselves, personally, we don’t know the day or the hour we will be called home so we need to be prepared for that call.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, Reflections, Uncategorized
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Theology and the Violin
My dad, a violin player, of whom one frustrated professor of theology once said, “One stupid man can ask more questions than 100 theologians can answer,” had lots of questions about the Bible and what it said. He loved God but that didn’t stop him asking questions.
Dad playing the violin – strings tensioned.
“How can God be sovereign, be in control and still give man freedom to choose? How can God be three yet one? How can Jesus be God and man? Will God condemn people who have never had the chance to hear the gospel?” … and many, many more. Hence the frustrated professor. The Bible has many imponderables – conundrums that we simply have to accept by faith. Our tendency is to choose a side and try to justify it. Wesley and Whitefield were friends but took opposing views on the sovereignty of God and the free agency of man. We have those, like Wesley, who follow Arminius’ line and make man the master of his own spiritual destiny and you have the hyper-Calvinists who won’t act because God is sovereign and in charge after all so all they need to do is sit on their sanctified behinds. It makes mission a non – priority too.
My (non) answer to these dilemmas is what I have called the “theology of the violin”. If a violin string is not under tension you cannot get a note out of it. I know because my dad played the violin and when he wasn’t watching I would “fiddle” with it. (Pun intended!)
These conundrums are like that. Say, for example, we choose man’s freedom over God’s sovereignty, then our problem is that we have an impotent God waiting for Johnny or Mary to make a “decision” for Him. He won’t act unless we choose first. This doesn’t fit with many examples in Scripture from the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (another of my dad’s stumbling blocks) to Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. On the other hand, if we have a God who is sovereignly in control and gives us no real choice, we become automatons – robots. We have no real life of our own. Yet the Bible calls us, often, to repent and believe.
In Scripture however, these two sides are held in constant tension – like a violin string. We are called to repent and believe and, yes, the Holy Spirit is instrumental in this, and God is sovereign over every hair on our head. We see the same in some of the other examples I mentioned earlier and in many other places in the Bible. Our act of faith, knowing how immense our God is, is to accept that both sides of the string are true. Loosen one end of the violin string or the other and we find our belief or doctrine will not play a tune that glorifies God.
Categories: Bible, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Reflections, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Church, Devotion, Faith, questions about the bible, theology
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Blindness of the Heart
I have written previously about my father’s experience as an “conscripted” worker forced to work in Germany during World War 2. In the photo below, my dad (on the left) stands with two friends at a tram stop in Berlin in 1943.
At a tramstop: Berlin c1943
From the photo it is difficult to believe there is a horrendous war going on at the time it was taken. Almost four years of war have already been gone through, yet daily life, it seems, is going on as normal. Within the next two years allied troops would storm Berlin and it would become a divided city until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. The people of Germany may have had an inkling, but certainly no knowledge of, what was going to happen in the future. As best they could, they were living life as normally as possible.
We may have a variety of responses to this. They must have been blind, or foolish or wilfully ignorant. Or, maybe, they were caught in a trap of their leader’s making and they felt powerless to do anything about it.
So often we live like that too. Men are good at denying symptoms of a disease until it is too late. Parents see behaviour in their children that should alert them to dangers but continue pretending that everything is ok. Or most seriously, we know there is a spiritual dimension to our lives but we fail to respond to it.
The other day I reviewed a book by Francis Spufford “Unapologetic”. What I liked about it was the struggle that he revealed as he dealt with those spiritual questions. He didn’t push that “spiritual nagging” aside but opened his life to its challenging journey.
My dad was a man like that. He was the black sheep of his family and the church. He asked questions that no one could, or wanted to, answer. However, as a child growing up it was plain to me that my dad had an on going conversation/argument/relationship with God. There was never a doubt about God’s existence. My dad just struggled to understand God’s intentions, or at other times submit to His call on my dad’s life.
One of the spiritual legacies my father left to me was the image of a real God who comes into our lives. He also showed me that this was a dynamic, on going and relationship. So, unlike the people in the photo above, there was never any doubt about how “life’s story” would end and who was in control.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Family, History, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, family, history
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Unapologetic – an emotional defense of the faith
A Review:
Unapologetic:
Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense
By Francis Spufford
If you like Theme Parks and fast rides you may very well like this manic excursion of Spufford’s heart and mind.
The author takes on the thinking of the New Atheists and others but not by engaging in the “God is dead debate” from a calm, rational, fact and logic perspective (which, incidentally will never work, as both Christianity and Atheism must come from faith perspectives). He tackles it from the heart wrenching depths of the human experience. He looks at God’s encounter with his life from the point of view of someone who has to go through the mire of life.
Warning: if you are offended by language, particularly a word starting with the sixth letter of the alphabet you may wish to read a book by Max Lucado instead. This word is repeated or implied often. As much as I don’t like it, it is effective because it does describe our propensity to completely foul our lives.
Spufford brings us to the foot of the cross – the God/man who not only lives our lives but takes on himself, our foulness. The image Spufford paints with his words is uncomfortable, yet profound.
The author confronts the image of the church and acknowledges that it has done itself a disservice in history. Yet also reflects on some of it wins. However, the strength of the book lies in the personal journey of the author coming to grips with the personal reality of grace in in his own mucked up life and in a mucked up world.
I have a few quibbles. Spufford glibly glosses over some important issues with a dismissive wave of his hand, such as the creation/evolution debate, same sex marriage and homosexuality. I would rather he hadn’t mentioned these as they detracted from the main thrust – and quite frankly his approach annoyed me. At another point Spufford speaks flippantly of the Kingdom as a Republic. This muddies the beautiful picture of Christ the King and the Kingdom, and also takes away from the main thrust of his un-apologia.
His writing style is manic. I described it to a friend as “Stream of Consciousness on Steroids”. I found myself rereading paragraphs and pages just to remind myself where he was going with his thought. But that may just be me.
Overall: not a book for everybody, but for those who see life as it is – warts and all, it is a great reminder of a God who steps into this walk with us and for us. It is also a challenge for those who see God as non-existent, absent or remote –Spufford’s God is none of these.
Categories: Book Review, christian, Christianity, Faith, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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Travels from Ur 