mud part II May 31, 2009

 

A few days ago I read a mini chunk from a book called Jeremiah, a narrative of bad things happening to good people. Lamentations is like a retrospective of Jeremiah through the eyes of his soul. Today in chapter three I read about the same incident from his point of view. 

I have been musing over the last few days over the struggle of living in two diametrically opposed worlds. Sometimes my actions benefit the physical world that I am part of at the moment, and sometimes they seem to build up the soul with no importance or value in the corporeal. 

I read the book of Jeremiah, it is a sad book. One that transports me to the heart of it’s pain, caught like a bystander witnessing these events. I feel the injustice of it all. I want to scream at the world. It’s unfair, it’s distorted. There is no Hollywood ending. It is life. My reading of Lamentations have led me to a different place. Even though the subject matter of the book focuses on Jeremiah’s painful life, the book isn’t really pitched from an “earth” perspective. When I read lamentations, I feel blessed. I feel hope. I feel that even though the words I am reading are heavy, they have a soulful lightness to them that can’t help but lift me. 

Searching for that connection between life on earth and life in my soul, I find a comfort. I find a bridge. Lamentations, when read in conjunction with Jeremiah,  makes a link between the temporary and the permanent. Just like the story of David’s life across The Books of Samuel, primarily although there are references in others from, Ruth and Chronicles. These books all capture his life, whereas the Psalms present a timeless view, not of this world. Conjured up from an altogether different place. Often writing about identical stories but expressed in totally different ways, I believe the Psalms are the spiritual insight into David’s life, one which the earlier books provide a contextual insight for his life.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. Hope, often hidden, exists all the time in the midst of sorrow, pain and grief. The books of Psalms and Lamentations gift me with an insight to a life that remains a mystery but everyday seems less nebulous.

worst May 30, 2009

When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face. The “worst” is never the worst.

Lamentations 3

Nothing is ever fully lost. Hope can always reach. Life always find a way through.

Sick May 29, 2009

 

A night of being ill. Somehow after a restless sleep, I wake with a hope. Before feeding my body my soul snacked.

hug May 29, 2009

A little shaken by the stirring message  of Jeremiah 51: 1-5. Last week watching my son cope with the death of his special pet rabbit widened my understanding of pain, grief, love and anger. I never understood a grief where I am overcome not by the event but more so by the effect it has on one so close to me. When he cried I held him tightly. I wanted to shake the world like a snowglobe until we were presented with a better reality. I was protective. 

What makes God angry?  How does He deal with the grief of those He loves?  Does He rattle a snowglobe? Within the passage I read today, I see a God who has given His children what they want, a King, a nation, a lifeline to find humanity, what it means to be real again. He listened and gave them present after present, then slowly He watches it all get thrown away, abused, bartered, sold, cheaply abandoned. God was slipped into a yard sale. All the beauty swapped, traded. Is there anger? Are there words of damnation? 

After rescuing a nation from one mess and giving them all they need to be alive again, He sees them embroiled in a new mess. What does He do? Does He do anything? 

He does what any father would do, He protects His child. He holds onto them tightly and feels their pain. Like the father in the “prodigal son” His major concern is to hold His son again.

What hurts God? I think, like the prodigal son, like the disciples with Jesus, like Jonah; what hurts God is when we do not recognise Him. When we think we know Him and put Him in a box marked God/judgement/wrath/sin and other flammable objects. When we spend our lives serving Him but actually never knew Him. When we spend our lives ridiculing Him when we never knew Him. When the prodigal son returned He never expected his father to react in that way. He didn’t know Him. When Jesus wept, when he broke bread, when prayed in Gethsemane, He did so knowing that the closest people in His life still didn’t know Him, they still had to wake Him up in a storm. 

When God hears His nation cry, when He sees His nation hurt, He holds onto her and delivers her. Isn’t that my story, our story? In the darkest times, we all pray, hope for a deliverance from a situation and when it comes? When deliverance comes what then? The three words that support almost every bible story, the reason for every bible story. 

DO. NOT. FORGET.

mud May 28, 2009

This world is distorted, this global society has been stretched like a plastic carrier bag, taught. The colour long gone, the handles twisted and thin. Life is Pushed and Pulled, so misshapen that there remains little resemblance between how it is and how it was designed. 

The distortion makes it impossible to measure anything against the world. The reference points have been compromised. All the values have been disproportionately twisted. How can I measure a good life? By possessions? By status? By class? By health? By longevity? By happiness?

That is why eyebrows should not be raised when reading about Jeremiah being left for dead {Jeremiah 38}. Bad things happen to good people in a twisted world. There is however a standard that untwists. A place where the distortions are made undistorted. In this place life has meaning and measure but the spectacular news is that this place isn’t for lottery winners, it’s for everyone. This place isn’t for the lucky few it’s for all. This place offers everyone the opportunity to become spiritual millionaires. It is inclusive. It is grace. It is heaven. It is the Kingdom. It is the story of the Christ.

a lie, ally, allies May 27, 2009

Life is less than it is.

Death is more than it is.

165 May 27, 2009

 ”Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

Jeremiah 33:2-3

My breath scoops up more air, my lung capacity increases, my breathing is deeper and wider. The flow of Him doesn’t dissipate when He reaches my soul. I call, He answers, my proof. My world expands as I follow Him. My world. Expands. An excavation of deep treasures, a paragon of truth, a precious pearl, a cup of grace. Invisible and undetectable, only He can lead me there. 

He draws close to me, come He says, come follow me. I do. We walk, we climb. There is no path, but He makes one. My life unfolds. There is no path but He makes one.

trainspotting May 26, 2009

 

Hope

The world I live in is cobbled together with empty hope. Medicine, that does not cure, justice, that does not protect, power, that brings corruption, jobs, that brings no peace, governments, that should not exploit,(but they do) communities, that still harbor racism and hate. An empty hope, like  Hananiah’s {Jeremiah 28} feel good prophesies of peace and prosperity with no spiritual call. A popular message it garnered approval. Popularity and approval are words that are not often equated to God movements usually because the world we live in is such a distortion from that which was intended that counter culture becomes the norm. Swimming against the tide.  Noah, Isaiah, Jesus and Jeremiah were unpopular, which made any message they had even less appealing. 

Truth is not dependant on popularity polls. Truth does not require charisma, a stylist or a spin doctor. Truth is not in need of online sales or marketing campiagns. Truth remains true, even when the courier is unpopular and disliked. Truth remains true. This is my touchstone.

Anger

In the New Testament, John, in chapter eleven, verse twenty six, writes of Jesus declaring “I am the resurrection and the life” he says this and walks into the village, toward the tomb that holds the body of Lazarus. Jesus observes that Mary and those with her at the tomb were weeping. In verse thirty five it states “Jesus wept.” 

What if He wept because his followers had forgotten that minutes earlier, He had just declared “I am the resurrection and life?”. Maybe he wept because those with Him didn’t really know Him or truly believe in Him. Maybe He wept because in that moment He had a memory of a nation disowning God, a flood that almost wiped out humanity or a cross to bear. Maybe in that moment He felt that no one believed in Him. 

I wrote these words early on Saturday morning before going to dig Leo’s grave; I never truly understood God’s Old Testament wrath before today. I read Jeremiah 13 this morning and I believe God’s anger is the impact of pure love and pure grief colliding together. An anger for a beauty that has been stolen, an anger for a life that has been distorted, an anger for a breath that has been blackened, an anger of being forgotten; a creation that renounces its creator. 

Faith

The moment I was born, I ached. I entered this world. I was going to die. My life begins to countdown. Before I was formed, I was loved and valued. I was secure and safe. I had no image, just me. I was real, I was not abused or compromised. I did not have any hurts, rejection or loneliness. There were no cliques. Regardless of gender, colour, affluence, education, class, age or popularity, I was a member of humanity. I belonged. I was complete.

My faith is having the confidence to be loved by Him with no supplements necessary. I do not need stabilisers or armbands. His love is more than enough.

When I’m caught in the middle of a storm in my tumbledown fishing boat I know it’s time to wake Him from His sleep. Please I say, please can you wake up? He wakes, looks at the sky scraper waves, you woke me up for this? He says. He whispers, storm be calm and the storm snaps into silence. I watch Him breathe. Breathe on me now. The seeds I sow today, are sprinkled on a spiritual vegetable patch, the fruits of which can be enjoyed there not here. 

 

The world I choose to trust in is brimming with love and truth. The world I live in will move forward and I, in it, will travel to a natural decay. The world I choose to trust in is leading me to a natural restoration. Dead and Alive. Physical and Spiritual. I do not follow “empty hope” any longer. I feed the soul. I do not seek empty knowledge, popularity or acceptance. I seek His kingdom.  I do not worship an “empty tomb” although He did leave it that way. I choose to follow the cause not the effect. This the Christ, this is my faith. 

moment May 25, 2009

An extraordinary weekend. Full of moments that moved my spirit, my heart, my life.

Movement is a good thing, like a dance, like breathing.

I am part of a much bigger breath. I am part of a much bigger dance, I am part of a much bigger movement.

This poppy photographed on Saturday has probably been washed away today by the downpour.

Just for that day was its moment. 

truth May 25, 2009

There are too many messages. Too many voices. The original spur of  Serpentine charm advocating the god of knowledge is a fruit still being readily consumed. The choices of hope do not materialise in my life unescorted, they are flanked on every side by spies and enemies. Designed to give the appearance of hope but provide the contrary. 

I have found that messages promising a life change without a spiritual one offer fake hope. The meaningless hope of Ecclesiastes. I am body and soul, to offer hope that speaks only to my temporary life and not my eternal soul is to deny part of my existence.  To choose fake hope is to distort myself. When the biblical prophets spoke, they did so with a life action and a spiritual consequence. A message that changed lives and souls. A holistic rotation. This is my touchstone. 

When Hananiah {Jeremiah 28} prophesies of peace and prosperity with no spiritual call, warning lights should be activated. Hananiah’s message was popular, it garnered approval. Popularity and approval are words that are not often equated to God movements. Noah, Isaiah, Jesus and Jeremiah were unpopular, which made any message they had even less appealing. However, that is exactly the point of truth. Truth does not require charisma, a stylist or a spin doctor. Truth is not in need of online sales or marketing campiagns. Truth remains true, even when the courier is unpopular and disliked. Truth remains true. This is my touchstone.