Asda - Too much to do...

Every year at some point over the Christmas period you turn on the radio or the TV and will hear someone telling you about how for many people Christmas is the most stressful time of year. You'll hear the chat about how all the busyness of Christmas just gets to be a bit too much for some people (even with Asda or Morrison's help) and they end up feeling like Christmas is a chore to be got through. They end up worrying about how they will cope with Christmas, how they will afford Christmas, how they will get everything ready and how they will make everyone get along. Christmas becomes the cloud on the horizon which effectively ruins the month before and the month after (at least). Many might say that the day is worth it but I reckon a fair few would not.

                Now I have to admit I've never got this. I love Christmas. I love time off work. I love everyone else being off work. I love that feeling of being warm inside whilst it's cold outside. For me Christmas is absolutely fantastic and not at all stressful in any way. I mean really what is there to get stressed about? Then it dawned on me the reason that Christmas is not like this for me is that I don't actually do anything for Christmas. I tend to go to someone else's house, I eat food they have cooked and I give presents my wife has bought (and hopefully wrapped - otherwise they get them in a plastic bag). You see the reason Christmas is so brilliant for me is not cause I've found a way to make it really easy but because someone else does all this stuff so that I don't have to.

                The great truth about Christmas is that Christmas is the time we remember when God came down to earth to do the stuff which we needed to do but couldn't. You see if Christmas is often too much then life is all the more so. The pressure of trying to be the success we want to be, of trying to be the husband/father that we ought to be, of being as good, as fun, as popular as we want to be can often feel not only stressful but overwhelming.

                The Bible teaches that the reason we can't be the people we so desperately long to be is because we have rejected God and tried to do life ourselves. The problem is that try as hard as we like we lack the resources to do life as it should be. We lack the understanding, the wisdom and the will power to be the people we long to be so we keep striving and we keep getting more and more stressed about our failings. People so often think Christianity is just about giving us a spur to try harder but it's not. Christianity is about remembering that God came down to earth in the person of Jesus so that we could stop rejecting God and through accepting the work he did for us find a new way of doing life. A way which doesn't make us stress out about all that we have to do but which rejoices in what Jesus has done for us and allows him to transform not our external actions but the whole focus of our lives.

                So you can keep trying and keep stressing out about life or you can remember what Christmas is all about - the fact that because Jesus came you don't have to do it all yourself.

East of Eden

"certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of 'exile'. If you come to think of it, your (very just) horror at the stupid murder of the hawk, and your obstinate memory of this 'home' of yours in an idyllic hour (when often there is an illusion of the stay of time
and decay and a sense of gentle peace) 'stands the clock at ten to three, and is there honey still for tea' – are derived from Eden. As far as we can go back the nobler pan of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb, peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss."

In the 1950s and early 60 cinema was full of landmark films which dealt with the issue of belonging, of feeling out of place a dissatisfied. Whether it was Rebel Without a Cause, On the Waterfront, East of Eden or even the less well known but excellent Hud it was a time when people were beginning to express something which people have been able to relate to ever since. Feeling out of place.  Feeling unsure about who they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to believe in. These films were so successful and have aged so well not just because of the quality of the acting but because we all know what it feels like to not belong. To feel out of place.

Yet this is a strange feeling to have. Why do we have this deep routed desire to belong? How can we so universally long for something which we have never really experienced. Even people who have always lived in the same place feel a need to belong and yet where would they belong more than where they currently are? What does belonging even mean? What does it feel like? What are we longing for?

The quote from the start of this is from a letter from JRR Tolien to his son and it seems to sum this up well. Our heart is crying out for something it has never experienced and the reason for that is because we were originally created for Eden and it is to there our hearts long to return. Our longing for home, or security, or comfort, or peace is all a longing for the Eden humanity was built for. So when Jesus offers water which truly satisfies and a real joy and peace he offers this because he offers us a return to the Eden we were created for. The Eden we are all longing for and the absence of which repeatedly plagues us.

Does humility have to involve humiliation

I think when it comes to us we'd like to answer this question with a resounding no. However, most of us in reality recognise that humility often comes through incredibly difficult and confidence shattering events. I have recently spoken to a couple of people who have talked about learning humility. Both of these people have gone through difficult times and have found that although they may have developed greater humility they have also lost a good deal else. They have lost some of the energy, enthusiasm and confidence which they had prior.

This made me wonder what's the alternative. Does humility always have to come as a result of difficult times? Does humility always have to come at the cost of confidence, energy, joy and passion? If not then what is the alternative?

Here are my initial thoughts. I wonder if humility can come through not some earth shattering crisis but through simply looking at, understanding and relating to someone who is so much better than you that it is impossible not to be humble. This is not a profound thought in any way but I wonder if so many of us need to be taught humility in such drastic ways because we have loat sight of Jesus and as such have not allowed his infinite worth to give us a more realistic and humble view of our own. If you need humility then don't wait for your world to fall to pieces but instead spend more time gazing at, appreciating and knowing Jesus.

Christianity - I could do it in my sleep!!!

Being a Christian is so easy now.
I remember those times at school when it felt such a battle just to keep going. When it felt like everyone just thought I was weird and I could never be cool and a Christian. That was difficult.

I remember those times at University. Those times when church felt like a hassle and it felt hard just to keep focussed and keep living it. That was difficult too.

But now, now is not difficult. Now is easy. No-one really minds all that much if I'm a Christian or not. In fact it gives them something to talk about. Now I'm part of a church who love Jesus and want to live for him. Now I have a wife and children and too much to fill my time with and being a Christian only helps all of that. Being a Christian is so easy I could do it in my sleep.

The problem is that actually for the Christian sleep is one of the great enemies. In fact I reckon it's much more deadly than opposition or difficulties.

In Mark 13 Jesus gives this warning...
'Therefore stay awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning - lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.'

You see the problem is Christianity can become routine. It can become part of what we do and life can bit by bit take it over. After all God can at times feel distant and other things much more pressing. Christianity can feel a unimportant after all as long as I still basically believe it then what can go wrong?

Jesus' answer to this is a lot. The great enemy for so many Christians is not that they suddenly stop believing. It's not that they fall into some massive temptation. It's not that they get defeated by some argument it's just that it becomes routine. It becomes less exciting and slowly but surely they fall asleep. They stop pursuing God, stop seeking growth, stop loving to serve, stop loving God's people the church and over a period of time they end up nowhere.  Jesus says beware of this. Beware of falling asleep because God is very real and who knows when he is coming back or calling you home.

Christianity - I could do it in my sleep.
Jesus says no you can't.

The desires of your heart

"May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfil all your plans!" - Psalm 20v4


The desires of your heart? These are things of tales and dreams not of the real world we live in. You can read in books of people being promised the desires of their heart but rarely does this go like they hope it will. For most of us in the real world the desires of our hearts seem a long way away and the means of getting them seems remote.


Psalm 20 is a great Psalm looking at dependence on God. In it we see all these 'May he' statements about God in which David is praying that God will do many things. So may he protect you, remember you, support you etc. These are things I thing we find it less hard to believe he will. When things are difficult we often pray out to God for relief but the desires of our heart? These don't seem like the kind of things God can do or is interested in.


No, I get the desires of my heart by...
Winning the lottery
Getting that promotion
Getting married
Having Kids
Paying off the mortgage


That's so often where I think I get the desires of my heart. God might be good at saving me in a crisis. He might be ok at relieving suffering but granting the desires of my heart that's not what he does. Except in Psalm 20 David prays that he will and then in Psalm 21 we get the answer.
"You have given him his heart's desire and have not withheld the request of his lips." - Psalm 21 v2


If only we believed this? If only we believed that God would give us the desires of our heart maybe then we'd stop dreaming of the lottery win. Maybe then we'd stop pursuing any and every relationship. Maybe then we'd stop planning our 20 stage route to the desires of our heart and instead we would pursue knowing, loving and depending on God.

Degrees of Grace

A few weeks I was asked a question it went something like this...
'Isn't the idea of any one person going to hell infinitely worse than the idea that Jesus could have gone to the cross and died for us?'
Now my answer to this question revolves around one central difference.
Hell is the place where people get what they deserve.
The cross is the place where Jesus takes something which is diametrically opposed to what he deserves.

This led to some development of some rambling thoughts I have been struggling to keep in check and articulate for a while. You see the Bible repeatedly talks about judgment in ways which show that one of the central characteristics of God's judgment is that people get what they deserve. Often the picture is of things being reversed (for example the plunderer is plundered, the one who abuses creation finds that creation turns on it etc - see Habakkuk 2). Now if this is the case I want to suggest that perhaps we need to re-evaluate our view of hell. People have talked about hell as the absence of God, as natural consequences of the lives we lead, of penalty from God for our rebellion and so the debate rages. This got me asking the question of what, if like the gospel itself, it is all about grace.

What if in essence life comes down to what grace you receive?
1 - Partial Grace - The life we all lead now. We experience some of God's grace but not all of it. We do not suffer the consequences (be they natural or supernatural) for all the moments of our lives but nor are we spared from them all. We enjoy God dealing with us graciously to a degree.
2 - Complete Grace - This is what historically people have called heaven. This is where we enjoy God's grace in it's fullness. We enjoy his blessing, his forgiveness, his pardon and his acceptance absolutely. Here we live as recipients of grace and practitioners of grace in an existence where grace is the norm.
3 - No Grace - This is what historically people have called hell. This is where God ceases to pour his grace on us in any way and we stop relating to each other with any grace at all. As a result what do we end up with? Well we end up in an existence where all we get is precisely what we deserve. Having rejected God and seen grace as unnecessary, impossible or offensive then we no longer enjoy even the partial grace God blesses us with during this life.

This may be heresy for all I know but I think this seems to reflect the way the Bible talks about this world, heaven, judgment and the gospel. Perhaps this can help us re-evaluate our view of God's judgment and start to realise just why understanding and accepting grace is so crucial, not just for now but for forever.

Striving after mediocrity

The gospel, by which I mean the good news of a God who makes a way for us to come into his family, is incredible. Not only is it incredible but it achieves incredible things. The gospel is the news of a God who came to earth and died to rescue us. The question is what did he die to rescue us from? Now if you are a Christian I guess a few answers will have sprung to your mind.
Death?
Sin?
Hell?
Well they are all true, however, I wonder if sometimes we focus so much on these things that we forget what we has rescued us from now in this life. Every now and then I get a glimpse of my heart and when this happens I cannot help but be grateful at how often in my life God has saved me not from some future fate but from my self.

The natural inclination of my heart is to want to be good. Now I think everyone has this to a degree but I have it in spades.
In work I want to be a success. I find myself comparing myself to other people. I find myself looking for promotions and for how to make it bigger and better.
In sport I want to win. I want to be good at it. I want people to look at me play and say 'Wow he's pretty good at that isn't he'.
In conversation I want to be seen as witty and intelligent.
In home life I want to be seen as a role model as the kind of guy people want to be.

You see whatever it is I want to be good. But the fact is I'm not great. I work in an average sort of job, I play sports to an average sort of level, I'm not mute but I'm also not Stephen Fry. When I get a glimpse of my heart I see what Jesus has rescued me from. he's rescued me from a constant striving for mediocrity. He's rescued me from a life where I devote myself to promotion after promotion after promotion only to realise that in the end I still end up just somewhere in the middle. He's rescued me from a life where I pursue physical fitness and sporting prowess only to at the end of it realise that I'm no better than passable at it all. He's rescued me from a life of reading and socialising and moralising and faking only at then end of it all to realise that I'm nothing better than a decent guy to chat to for 10 minutes and a decent enough kind of bloke.

Without Jesus my life would be a constant straining to achieve mediocrity - I am so thankful that he rescued me from this and pulled me into a life which says stop striving for mediocrity and instead strive for insane brilliance. You see rather than striving for my own mediocrity the gospel shows me how to strive after God and his brilliance. When I get the gospel I am freed from this constant striving after mediocrity to pursue the God who made everything around me and in whom is life itself. When I forget the gospel I get a glimpse of life without that and find myself scrabbling around trying to make myself a little more average. I thank God for this little, tangible glimpse of salvation.