In the Beginning, God "storied"....

There is a not so commonly known Hebrew word "dabar" that essentially means "God spoke". The early Hebrews understood this word to be more than just the sound of Gods voice, this was God connecting words and phrases with purpose, God making and telling a story, and as Gods story unfolded, He created.

This fascinates me because I had always imagined that when God created the heavens and the Earth, I had imagined God simply uttering the word "light" and light just suddenly appeared. When he created living creatures, and when he created man, I just imagined that he spoke but a word and instantly these things appeared.
Now there is a sense in which this is still true. But what I had overlooked until now was the intentionality and design of Gods creative voice. When God spoke, he was creatively weaving a story together. He was creating not as if by magic, but with thought and design. He was putting a story together with purpose and meaning. Like an artisan creating a fine piece of furniture with a master design and a masterplan, God was meticulous about how he put his piece together, taking care with the timber, choosing only the best materials and with attention to detail, fashioning it carefully into shape. He was like a writer, searching for just the right words, just the right phrase, choosing with deliberation, in order to create the most beautiful story one could imagine. He “storied” the birds and the fish, the grasses and the trees. Everything he created was with design and intentionality. There was careful thought, diligent planning. He spoke, and as he spoke he created, he "storied" the world into existence. In the beginning, God "storied" the heavens and the earth.

This makes me realise that he has “storied” me into existence also. My life is a story within “The Story”. A life created by God deliberately stringing just the right words together, in order to create who I am today, and who I will be tomorrow.
In Psalm 139:14, the Psalmist says “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”
The term in the Hebrew means to be distinct and different. It carries the idea of being set apart from everything else because of its uniqueness.
When God “storied” my life and when God “storied” yours, he created an original. No two stories are the same. “Everyone has their own story”, because it was God who spoke the stories together.
This is “dabar”, and this is how God creates.

A Sojourner and a Romantic...

I am a sojourner and a romantic.
Deep within me there is a home-sickness for another world and a greater love. I wander about in the presence of a holy haunting, a soft whisper of grace that ever draws me towards a horizon of light.
On the horizons edge, I see the silhouette of an enchanted kingdom and somehow I know that its Ruler will cure my sickness and heal my hurt.
On a quiet day, as I look towards that horizon, sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a day, I hear music. The soft echo of a heavenly choir, the distant whisper of voices never yet heard, and just when it begins to fade, there is the sound of the gentle flutter of angels wings.
I am an addict. I have succumbed. I cannot draw back, for with every glimpse of this unearthly realm I am drenched by the Holy Other. His grace sooths my soul and stills my mind. I am touched by His delight.
I am prisoner to this sacred search. This constant vigil for the One who is everything, and everything is within Himself. I cannot let go, I do not know how, for the Holy Other draws me out, to a life beyond myself, to a life far away from the deceitful substance of the now, to the unseen reality of the world that is to come.

Of Lunch and Giftings...

Recently my wife and I went out for lunch with a very good friend of mine. While we were sitting at our table enjoying our meal, two ladies with prams came in and sat at a table behind us. A short while after this, one of the prams fell backwards tipping up the youngster in the pram and throwing bags of shopping onto the floor. In an instant my good friend moved out of his chair and assisted the lady in lifting the pram back up off the floor and setting things straight. At precisely the same moment, my wife who was furthest away from the action, instantly breathed out a compassionate groan and looked intently towards the woman with understanding and sympathy in the hope that they were all okay. I, on the other hand, who had also witnessed exactly the same situation unfold, sat glued to my seat thinking “the pram fell over because there was too much weight in the shopping bags that should have never been hung on the handles of the pram in the first place.!!!”
All three of us faced exactly the same circumstance.... all three of us reacted differently. My good friend, always the servant and ready to help and assist was instantly prepared to serve. My wife, always understanding and ready to empathise with anothers feelings immediately offered sympathetic concern. And me, ever the teacher, sat glued to my seat analysing why things went wrong and thinking of ways to improve the situation.

In 1 Corinthians 12:29, the Apostle Paul writes....”Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?”

It is a rhetorical question and of course the resounding answer is a very loud NO.!!
We are all different. We all have our strengths and we all have our weaknesses. We all have different giftings and we all have different ways of expressing those giftings. Our capacity to excel in what we do is often only limited by our feelings of inadequacy due to the fact that we so readily notice the abilities of others and do not recognise our own. We often wrongly compare our own ability to the ability of another who has an entirely different gifting, and then consider our own strengths to be of no value. The apostle Paul makes it very clear.... we are not all the same... and we should not make these unhelpful comparisons.

Go and be yourself... excel at what you do... do it well... and express joyfully the gifts and the abilities that God has given you.

A wretch like me...

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

Over the years I have heard this hymn sung in many different ways by a variety of artists, and it is often put to a different tune than the original. This rarely bothers me too much. But what does bother me is when I hear the words of the first line changed to read “who saved someone like me”. The deliberate removal of the word “wretch” I find rather disturbing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the author of these words, John Newton, came to a knowledge of Christ in his late twenties. Prior to this he had been a slave trader in West Africa and was an extremely godless and ruthless man. Not only was he responsible for destroying the lives of hundreds of men, woman and children, but he was also a murderer. At one point in his life he actually kept a black slave as his mistress. When he discovered this slave was having a relationship with a black man, he beat the man to death with his shovel, only to find out later that he was actually her husband. When John Newton finally came to accept Christ and was blown away by the confronting power of Gods grace, he penned the words of this song without the least amount of doubt that he had been a total wretch of a man. The overwhelming power of Gods grace, that had saved him from the person that he was, had no small effect on his life. To change the word “wretch” as was originally penned in this testimony to the power of Gods’ grace, to that of the innocuous term “someone”, does neither justice to the emphasis Newton must have originally intended for this hymn, and neither does it do justice to the meaning of the radical life changing power that is Gods amazing grace.

Grace is by definition one of the most powerful bequests a wretch can receive. When I receive Gods grace, I receive far more than a pardon and far more than mercy. I also receive Gods favour. It is one thing to be forgiven, it is one thing to find mercy, it is one thing to be freed from punishment. But if in exchange for my wretchedness I receive the unmerited favour of God and am elevated to a state of privilege, given the rights of one who is a son, then this is indeed “amazing” grace that only the one who fully comprehends the extent of his wretchedness can understand. This is the truth that Newton had come to realise and it was this thought that motivated him to write “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see”. When I stand next to Gods grace merely as a “someone” and not as the “wretch” that I truly am, then the magnitude of Gods grace ceases to be amazing, and looks more like a mediocre kind of benevolence. This is neither the kind of Grace that God gives and neither is it the kind of Grace that Newton experienced. It remains therefore in my opinion, that the only way to correctly sing this song is in the spirit of the one who wrote it, and in the spirit of the God who’s grace has been given.... using the words.....“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

Human Doings... and Human Beings...

Ps 103:7 NIV
“He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel”

This verse says a lot about the way in which we as people tend to relate and interact with God. The verse seems to suggest that for the majority of the nation of Israel, their relationship with God was about the way in which he acted on their behalf. "He showed his deeds to the people of Israel". For them, God was a god of deeds and action. When they were hungry, it was God who brought them food, when they were thirsty, it was God who brought them water. When they were being pursued by their enemies it was God who brought them deliverance.
But the relationship to God that Moses seemed to experience was more about knowing God personally. "He made known his ways to Moses". For Moses, his was a relationship based on a knowledge of Gods ways. A relationship based on intimacy and encounter. Moses wanted to understand who God was and know His mind and heartbeat. The original Hebrew word in the text is the same word used to describe a journey. The relationship Moses enjoyed with God was that of a journey, and a journey involves discovery. At every turn of the pathway there are new experiences to be had. Each new day is different in its’ own unique way. A journey opens us up to fresh encounters. Moses was interested in coming to intimately know the God of the journey.

This says something to me about the difference between a “Human Being” and a “Human Doing”.
“Human Doings” seem to be always looking for fulfillment in what they do. They get involved in as many pursuits as possible, this ministry, that charity, this project, that assignment. Not that there’s anything wrong with all of our doings, it’s just that all too often there is no end to the number of doings a person has to accomplish. No sooner have you completed this project or that undertaking than there is always another right before you screaming out for completion.
"Being", on the other hand, is more about knowing who we are and who we are not, which inevitably leads us to discovering the far more important truth about who God is. When I take time to remind myself that life is as much about “being” as it is about “doing”, I find that I live life in a greater state of rest. It is in “being” that I discover that life is indeed a "God Journey" for which there are new discoveries to be made each day. Life becomes more about encounter than it does about ministry. Life becomes more about relationship than it does about accomplishment.
And the amazing thing is, that almost always when I slow down long enough to “be” in Gods’ presence, it is there that I discover an empowerment that infuses my “doing” with fresh purpose and direction, and it too then becomes inextricably connected to the journey that in its essential form is ultimately all about knowing and experiencing the person of God himself.

The Wrong Shall Fail.... the Right Prevail...

On Christmas day of 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow received the news that his son Charles Appleton Longfellow had suffered wounds as a soldier in the Battle of New Hope Church Virginia during the Mine Run Campaign. On this day he penned the words of a poem titled “Christmas Bells”. Only two years prior he had also suffered the loss of his wife as a result of an accident by fire. The poem originally contained seven stanzas but was reduced to five when constructed into the carol we have come to know “I heard the Bells on Christmas Day”.

Below are but three of the stanzas of this beautiful poem......

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:

"There is no peace on earth," I said,

"For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men."

Equality..... by disempowerment...

There is a lot of talk today in Christian circles about social justice and the emancipation of the oppressed. We preach about the elimination of oppression and the empowerment of the down trodden. All of this seems to me to be a good thing and in keeping with the message of the Gospel, and yet I can’t help but wonder if we are sometimes so focused on the liberation of others, that we forget that often it is we who need liberating ourselves.
Jesus had an interesting take on the whole concept of emancipation. He seemed to speak more about becoming a servant than he did about trying to free oneself from being one. We put a huge emphasis on equality, on giving people back their rights and re-establishing their status in the attempt to make all men equal. But Jesus take was almost the reverse. He was effectively saying, “what if we all gave up our rights.? What if we all became slaves.? What if we all became willing to serve.? What if we all became dispossessed of our rights and power.? What if we all became indebted to one another.? Surely if we all became slaves, then would not all men be be equal.?
We focus on giving ourselves rights. Jesus focused on giving up his rights.We focus on having power. Jesus focused on letting go of power.We focus on stepping up. Jesus focused on stepping down.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that we all become poverty stricken and put ourselves into positions where we are mercilessly oppressed by others. But I just can’t help but wonder if that in all of our worthy endeavours to “set the captives free”, that we often fail to realise that sometimes it is we who need liberating ourselves, and that by shifting our focus to that of becoming the servant, and by shifting our emphasis to that of one who is willing to let go of our right to power, that we might then not only be more effective at liberating others, but that we would also know the freedom of being liberated ourselves. And that we would begin to see as Jesus did, that there is a liberty to be found in stooping down, that is not always found by stepping up. And that sometimes the way to bring about equality is not in pulling others up to sit alongside us in our position of pride and power. But by stooping down ourselves, and sharing our abundance with the spirit of a servant, amongst those who often already have a better understanding of Jesus concept of freedom than we do ourselves. And in doing so, we just might find that we have brought about a little more of the kind of equality that Jesus was looking for.

John 13
Jesus rose up from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. He poured water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.
So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was sat down again, he said to them, Do you know what I have done for you?
You call me Master and Lord: and you speak correctly; for this is exactly who I am.
So if I then, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; then you also should wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, and you should do the same as I have done to you.

Take these bones with you...

In the past 20 years or so, it seems to me that there has been a big emphasis particularly at church leadership conferences and the like, on setting goals and having short term and long term plans for the future. I’ve heard speakers say things like “if you want to be successful (their definitions of this word are often uncertain) then you need to have at least a 5 year plan and a 10 year plan”. Some have even suggested the need for a 20-25 year plan.
Now as much as there is an element of truth to all of this, I can’t help but wonder if it is much more important to have a 500 year plan.!!

I mean take Joseph for example, as he comes to the end of his life, he has already lived to the ripe old age of 110, and yet he is still looking several hundred years forward to the day when Israel leaves Egypt for good, and so he instructs his family that when that time comes, he wants them to carry his bones away with them. Now that’s what I call a long term plan.!!

Genesis 50:25 NIV
And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place."

Joseph was looking forward and had plans for the future that went hundreds of years beyond his own lifetime.
There are a couple of things that strike me as being particularly pertinent about this concept.
Firstly, Joseph wasn’t just thinking about himself and his needs in the here and now. Most of our plans whether for the next 5 years or even 10 years are all about us. We are thinking ahead and making plans so that we will be better off in the years ahead. But Joseph wasn’t even going to be around to physically see his plans come to fruition. And even though he had commanded his family to take his bones with them, I don’t think it was just for his own benefit. It was for theirs. He knew that in order for his children to have a long term vision, they would also need to remember the past. They needed to remember where they came from. They needed to remember their roots, and not just look forward to what the future could give them. Looking back brings a balance to looking forward. It reminds us that it has cost something to get to where we are now. Others have gone before us and paid a price. It’s not all about us.
Secondly, Joseph understood the power of the prophetic. When he commanded his children to take his bones with them, he was prophesying into the future. He was encouraging his children and their children after them to believe and to trust. In effect, Joseph saw the future, and he was trying to get his sons to see it as well. He was trying to get his sons to see the bigger plan that was behind all that had taken place. There was more to their lives and their existence than just shearing sheep every day. God had a plan, a master plan, and it was not just a 5 year or a 10 year plan. God had an eternal plan, and they were an integral part of it. There was going to come a day when they would leave Egypt, and when they did it would be significant, and it would be momentous, and when that momentous day came, he wanted them to be as much a part of it as he intended to be himself.

Pedro's onions....

In the shady corner of the great market in Mexico City sits an old Indian man named Pedro. He has twenty strings of onions hanging in front of him for sale. An American businessman from Chicago comes up to him and says: “How much for a string of onions.?”
“Ten cents” says Pedro.

“How much for two strings.?”
“Twenty cents” is the reply.
“Well, how much for three strings” asks the American.
“Thirty cents” Pedro answers.
“Not much reduction in that” says the American, “would you take twenty five cents.?”
“No” says Pedro.
“How much for the whole twenty strings” says the businessman.
“I will not sell you my twenty strings” says the old Indian.
“Why not” says the American, “aren’t you here to sell your onions.?”
“No, I am not here to sell my onions” says Pedro, “I am here to live my life. I love the market, I love the sounds, I love the smells. I love to have Chico and Luis come by and call out “Buenas dias” and I love to listen as they tell me about their lives, about how their crops are doing and how their families are managing. I love to speak with my friends, I love to listen as Maria comes by to tell me about her children while they laugh and play around me, for this is my life and this is why I sit here all day and sell my twenty strings of onions. But if I sell all of my onions to one customer, then is my day come to an end and I will have sold my means to living the life that I love. I would not be selling you my onions, I would be selling you my life, and that I just will not do.”
(Erwin McManus)

This story says a lot about living life in such a way as to value community over commerce, and to value the sacred over the secular.
Sometimes we are so busy getting to where we want to be, that we forget to enjoy where we are right in the here and now.
But it also says something about knowing and understanding that “mission” is more important than “vision”.
It is always very helpful for us to have direction in life, to know just where exactly we are headed and how we are going to get there. But what is far more important than knowing where we are going, is knowing the reason for our existence in the first place.
This is the difference between “mission” and “vision”.

Most of us find it relatively easy to know where we are going in the short term, but we struggle to know where we are going in the longer term.
And one of the main reasons for this, is that most of us understand what it is to have "vision", but all too often we mistake "vision" for "mission".!!
But "vision" and "mission" are two totally different things.
Mission is not so much about where we are going, as it is about why we exist. For Pedro….vision was about selling onions, but mission was about living life in community.
Vision comes and vision goes.
Mission never changes.
Vision gives us new directions to take, and enables us to achieve many great things, but mission gives us reason and purpose for being involved in the visions of our life and gives us the strength and passion to complete them and find a sense of fulfilment in them.
You can have vision and still be completely void of mission.
Vision is about knowing where we are going, but mission is about knowing why we are going where we are going, and why we are doing what we are doing. The mistake we usually make often without realising it, is to define our mission by our vision. We get all excited about some new venture or some new project that we are taking on, it may be a new house, a new car, a new job, a new baby or a new ministry, and then what tends to happen all too often is we begin to define our mission by whatever direction that new venture is taking us.
We change our priorities and redefine our lives around the new vision that we have, when what we should be doing is defining our Vision around our Mission in life.
What’s your reason and purpose for selling onions..?

Of funerals and baptisms....

I haven’t been to too many funerals, but I’ve been to enough to know that no matter how terrible a life the deceased person has lived, nonetheless, when it is time for the eulogy, only nice things are said about even the most nasty of people. What they always leave out during the eulogy at the funerals that I have attended, are the skeletons in the closet. (excuse the pun)
They never seem to tell us about the problem that the deceased had had in their lifetime with this thing called sin. I have never heard a friend or family member stand up at a funeral and declare that no matter how hard the deceased had tried, they just never seemed to be able to be the kind of person they really wanted to be because of the problem of sin. They always leave out the bit about, how, that during the deceased lifetime, they knew that they constantly struggled with evil thoughts and bad attitudes. They never seem to mention how that they were unable to control their temper or come to terms with the bitterness that everyone knew they had nurtured towards anyone that had ever let them down.
And they never mention that even when the deceased had done good deeds for other people, they never really did it out of a pure motive, but rather because they loved to be recognised for what they did and took great pride in their own ability and in their own achievements. At funerals it seems that regardless of the kind of life one has lived, the dead are praised, their lives are lauded as glorious and righteous. Sometimes they may make brief mention of the bodily sickness or disease that may have struck them down, but I have never heard mention made about that terrible cancer called sin, which is the real cause of every mans demise.
But last night as I was meditating on just what Water Baptism is all about, I began to wonder what the eulogy would sound like if just before a person entered the waters of Baptism, we held a funeral service for the body. Not the physical body, but that body of sin that is forever working against us and forever resisting the passionate call of God.
That old nature that ruled us before Jesus came into our lives.
Because this is really what water Baptism is all about.
Water Baptism is about a funeral, a disposing of the body.!!
It’s about burying once and for all that fallen nature, that “old man” with all of its wrong desires and lusts. It’s about doing away with that old carnal nature that constantly trips us up and causes us to do that which we do not want to do.
It’s about burying that body of corruption, that body of flesh that keeps us tied to the world and all of its attractions. That body of sin that keeps us from loving our enemies. That body of sin that refuses to let others go first and instead always demands its own way.
Water Baptism is about disposing of that body of sin that always takes confidence in self. That body of sin that is riddled with pride and self righteousness. That body of sin that keeps an account of every wrong done to itself but never seems to keep tally of the wrongs it does to others.
Water Baptism is about putting an end to that body of sin that is controlled by habits and by addictions. It’s about burying once and for all that body of sin that is utterly lost and broken and without hope, and yet in its arrogance and rebellion attempts to pull others down that same road that offers no hope and no future.

But Water Baptism is not only about death and funerals, it’s also about resurrection.
And in scripture Water Baptism is likened not just to any kind of resurrection, but to the very resurrection of Christ Himself. Baptism is not likened to the kind of resurrection that Lazarus experienced, a man who died and came back to life in the same state as he was before, only to have to die once more all over again. But Water Baptism in scripture is likened to the very resurrection of Christ Himself, a man who came back to life totally transformed into a glorified body and never had to face death again.
And that is the spiritual picture of what takes place through the act of Water Baptism. It’s about a resurrection, and resurrection is about a fresh start and a new beginning. It’s about a metamorphosis of the spirit and the soul.
Once the spirit was dead in trespasses and sins, but now it is quickened and made alive in Christ. Baptism is about rising again into a newness of life, a radical transformation that exchanges the old for something new. It’s about coming up out of the water with a new bias, a bias toward righteousness, a bias towards peace, and a bias that is helplessly bent towards the Holy Ghost.
Baptism is about the resurrection of our character and a bringing forth of the fruit of the Spirit. It’s about a resurrection of purpose, a change in direction, a change in lifestyle and a change in culture. It’s leaving the old behind to embrace the new. It’s about taking a hold of our inheritance in Christ and experiencing what it is to be truly free indeed. It’s about a restoration, a restoration of the soul and the renewing of the mind.
It’s about experiencing the life changing power of Gods DNA which has been impregnated into our very spirit by the supernatural power of God.
And finally.....Water Baptism is about a resurrection from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. It’s about the manifestation of the sons of God, it’s about a return to Eden, and it’s about Paradise found.
Water Baptism is about burying the person you once knew, but know no more, to become the person God always intended you to be forevermore.