DAILY BYTE
[Today and tomorrow’s devotions were adapted from Dallas Willard’s ‘The Divine Conspiracy.’]
Jesus warned us of the danger of seeking for security outside of the Kingdom by teaching us about our treasures. Treasures are things we try to keep because of the value we place upon them. They may be of no value whatsoever in themselves; nevertheless, we take great pains to protect such things. Thus we are said to treasure them.
Of course we may also treasure things other than material goods: for example, our reputation, or our relationship to another person, or the security or reputation of our school or our business or our country. The most important commandment of the Judeo-Christian tradition is to treasure God and his realm more than anything else. That is what it means to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It means to treasure him, to hold him and his dear, and to protect and aid him in his purposes. Our only wisdom, safety and fulfilment lies in so treasuring God. Then we will also treasure our neighbours rightly, as he treasures them.
Everyone has treasures. This is an essential part of what it is to be human. To have nothing that one treasures is to be in a non-human condition, and nothing degrades people more than to scorn or destroy or deprive them of their treasures. Indeed, merely to pry into what one’s treasures are is a severe intrusion.
People in concentration camps and those homeless folk who come to live on the streets go to great lengths and even risk their lives to hold onto to things that may be simply ridiculous to others. None of them is without some treasure. It will be perhaps a photo or old letter or some ornament or trinket.
We reveal what our treasures are by what we try to protect, secure, keep. Often our treasures are totally worthless to other people. Sometimes, of course, they are not. And that is the case with money, wealth, material goods.
So, to discuss our treasures is really to discuss our treasurings. We are not to pass it off as dealing merely with ‘external goods’, which are ‘non-spiritual’ or just physical stuff. It has to deal with the fundamental structure of our soul. It has to do precisely with whether the life we live now in the physical realm is to be an eternal one or not, and the extent to which it will be so.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, help us to understand exactly what we do treasure and give our hearts over to. Help us to recognise how powerfully our inner impulses to treasure things are, but keep us treasuring the right kind of things. The kind of things that you O God also treasure and value.. In Jesus name. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Matthew 6 :19-21 (MSG)
Don't hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it's safe from moth and rust and burglars. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Monday 30 March 2009
Tuesday 31st March - An Unpopular Topic
DAILY BYTE
Yesterday we spoke generically around the topic of possessions – or ‘stuff’. Today we will focus more specifically on money and how it impacts our spirituality.
Money is not a popular topic of discussion among many church goers. It is a sensitive area that many feel should not be spoken of in church. Some believe that money is a material thing and that church should be restricted to only ‘spiritual discussions’.
In stark contrast to this Jesus spoke constantly about money. In fact, after the Kingdom of God, money is the most mentioned topic in Jesus’ teaching!
Jesus seemed to understand that money could become direct competition for God. Listen to his words in Matthew 6.24, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”
Jesus is warning us that money can have power over us if we allow it to. Money perhaps more than any other possession, has the ability to become our ‘master’. This means it has some very powerful spiritual dimensions.
So what can we do about this – how do we balance spirituality and money? Well, the Bible has a very simple answer to that – learn to generously share with others. Sharing what we have is a way of making a bold spiritual statement that we will not allow money to have any hold over us. Expressing generosity liberates us from the choking effects of greed and fear.
Remember this – we don’t give so that we might get something in return, but we give because WE NEED to do so in order to remain free.
The question that many Christians then ask is: ‘if I am to faithfully steward money, how much should I be giving?’ 2 Cor. 9.7 says: “Each person should give what they have decided in their own heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Believers are free to give the amount they choose to give. It could be 10% like Abraham (a tithe) or even 50% like Zacchaeus.
Remember though that to be a steward is to wisely care for something. We need to use our own heads when it comes to money and how much we would like to share.
As John Wesley once said: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” We do need to ensure that we have enough money to live on, and take care of our families with, but we also need to ensure we do give something - even if it is a small as the widow’s offering (see focus reading).
Stewarding our money is about cultivating a lifestyle of wise generosity. It is vitally important to do so because giving is a means of releasing us from money’s hold over us and will set us gloriously free to live in the fullness of God’s Kingdom.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, help us to come to terms with the effect money may have over us. We repent of any greed that may live in our hearts. We want to be free and so we ask that you would show us how to be generous in nature. We pray that you would give to us the wisdom, courage and compassion we need to share with others, and to do so with cheerful hearts. In Jesus name. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 21:1-4 (The Message)
Just then Jesus looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate. Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, "The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford ... she gave her all!"
Yesterday we spoke generically around the topic of possessions – or ‘stuff’. Today we will focus more specifically on money and how it impacts our spirituality.
Money is not a popular topic of discussion among many church goers. It is a sensitive area that many feel should not be spoken of in church. Some believe that money is a material thing and that church should be restricted to only ‘spiritual discussions’.
In stark contrast to this Jesus spoke constantly about money. In fact, after the Kingdom of God, money is the most mentioned topic in Jesus’ teaching!
Jesus seemed to understand that money could become direct competition for God. Listen to his words in Matthew 6.24, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”
Jesus is warning us that money can have power over us if we allow it to. Money perhaps more than any other possession, has the ability to become our ‘master’. This means it has some very powerful spiritual dimensions.
So what can we do about this – how do we balance spirituality and money? Well, the Bible has a very simple answer to that – learn to generously share with others. Sharing what we have is a way of making a bold spiritual statement that we will not allow money to have any hold over us. Expressing generosity liberates us from the choking effects of greed and fear.
Remember this – we don’t give so that we might get something in return, but we give because WE NEED to do so in order to remain free.
The question that many Christians then ask is: ‘if I am to faithfully steward money, how much should I be giving?’ 2 Cor. 9.7 says: “Each person should give what they have decided in their own heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Believers are free to give the amount they choose to give. It could be 10% like Abraham (a tithe) or even 50% like Zacchaeus.
Remember though that to be a steward is to wisely care for something. We need to use our own heads when it comes to money and how much we would like to share.
As John Wesley once said: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” We do need to ensure that we have enough money to live on, and take care of our families with, but we also need to ensure we do give something - even if it is a small as the widow’s offering (see focus reading).
Stewarding our money is about cultivating a lifestyle of wise generosity. It is vitally important to do so because giving is a means of releasing us from money’s hold over us and will set us gloriously free to live in the fullness of God’s Kingdom.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, help us to come to terms with the effect money may have over us. We repent of any greed that may live in our hearts. We want to be free and so we ask that you would show us how to be generous in nature. We pray that you would give to us the wisdom, courage and compassion we need to share with others, and to do so with cheerful hearts. In Jesus name. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 21:1-4 (The Message)
Just then Jesus looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate. Then he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, "The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford ... she gave her all!"
Sunday 29 March 2009
Monday 30th March - Stuff
DAILY BYTE
[Today’s devotions have been adapted from John Ortberg’s book – ‘When the game is over it all goes back in the box.’]
It’s only stuff.
We all have stuff. We see it, want it, buy it, display it, insure it, and compare it with other people’s stuff. We talk about whether or not they have too much stuff; we envy or pass judgement on other people’s collections of stuff. We collect our own little pile. We imagine that if that pile got big enough, we would feel successful or secure.
That’s how you keep score in Monopoly, and that’s how our culture generally keeps score as well.
You get a house, then you have to get stuff to put in it. You keep getting more stuff, and you need a bigger house. A house, said comedian George Carlin, is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. Some people have actually survived without owning one. Jesus, for instance.
Some people have a gift for acquiring stuff. Not long ago I took my daughter to a place called Hearst Castle. William Randolph Hearst was a “stuffaholic.” He had 3, 500-year-old Egyptian statues, medieval Flemish tapestries, and centuries-old hand-carved ceilings, and some of the greatest works of art of all time, most of which came from Sweden.
He built a house of 72,000 square feet to put his stuff in. He acquired property for his house: 265,000 acres: he originally owned fifty miles of California coastline. He collected stuff for eighty-eight years. Then you know what he did?
He died. That was shortsighted.
Now people go through Hearst’s house by the thousands. They all say the same thing: “Wow, he sure had a lot of stuff.”
People go through life, get stuff, and then they die, leaving all their stuff behind. What happens to it? The kids argue over it. The kids – who haven’t died yet, who are really just pre-dead people – to over to their parent’s house. They pick through their parents’ old stuff like vultures, deciding which stuff they want to take to their houses. They say to themselves, “Now this is my stuff.” Then they die – and some new vultures come for it. People come and go. Nations go to war over stuff, families are split apart because of stuff. Husbands and wives argue more about stuff than any other single issue. Prisons are full of street thugs and CEOs who committed crimes to acquire it.
Why? It’s only stuff. Houses and hotels may be the crowning jewels in Monopoly. But the moment the game ends they go back in the box. So it is with all our stuff.
This week’s devotions are focussed on the relationship we have with our stuff because it so profoundly impacts our spirituality. This was one of Jesus most consistent and emphatic messages – that our relationship with our stuff deeply affects our relationship with God!
PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious and Giving God, help us to understand how drastically the way we view our ‘stuff’ – the way we relate to possessions and money and more profoundly impacts our spirituality. Pray bring us into a balanced relationship with material possessions – a balance that is brought about by our primary relationship with you. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 12:15
Then Jesus said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions."
[Today’s devotions have been adapted from John Ortberg’s book – ‘When the game is over it all goes back in the box.’]
It’s only stuff.
We all have stuff. We see it, want it, buy it, display it, insure it, and compare it with other people’s stuff. We talk about whether or not they have too much stuff; we envy or pass judgement on other people’s collections of stuff. We collect our own little pile. We imagine that if that pile got big enough, we would feel successful or secure.
That’s how you keep score in Monopoly, and that’s how our culture generally keeps score as well.
You get a house, then you have to get stuff to put in it. You keep getting more stuff, and you need a bigger house. A house, said comedian George Carlin, is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. Some people have actually survived without owning one. Jesus, for instance.
Some people have a gift for acquiring stuff. Not long ago I took my daughter to a place called Hearst Castle. William Randolph Hearst was a “stuffaholic.” He had 3, 500-year-old Egyptian statues, medieval Flemish tapestries, and centuries-old hand-carved ceilings, and some of the greatest works of art of all time, most of which came from Sweden.
He built a house of 72,000 square feet to put his stuff in. He acquired property for his house: 265,000 acres: he originally owned fifty miles of California coastline. He collected stuff for eighty-eight years. Then you know what he did?
He died. That was shortsighted.
Now people go through Hearst’s house by the thousands. They all say the same thing: “Wow, he sure had a lot of stuff.”
People go through life, get stuff, and then they die, leaving all their stuff behind. What happens to it? The kids argue over it. The kids – who haven’t died yet, who are really just pre-dead people – to over to their parent’s house. They pick through their parents’ old stuff like vultures, deciding which stuff they want to take to their houses. They say to themselves, “Now this is my stuff.” Then they die – and some new vultures come for it. People come and go. Nations go to war over stuff, families are split apart because of stuff. Husbands and wives argue more about stuff than any other single issue. Prisons are full of street thugs and CEOs who committed crimes to acquire it.
Why? It’s only stuff. Houses and hotels may be the crowning jewels in Monopoly. But the moment the game ends they go back in the box. So it is with all our stuff.
This week’s devotions are focussed on the relationship we have with our stuff because it so profoundly impacts our spirituality. This was one of Jesus most consistent and emphatic messages – that our relationship with our stuff deeply affects our relationship with God!
PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious and Giving God, help us to understand how drastically the way we view our ‘stuff’ – the way we relate to possessions and money and more profoundly impacts our spirituality. Pray bring us into a balanced relationship with material possessions – a balance that is brought about by our primary relationship with you. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 12:15
Then Jesus said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions."
Saturday 28 March 2009
Sunday March 29th - Makabongwe
Weekend Blurb
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School had small beginnings with children sitting on cardboard in Grey Street, Durban. It was the initiative of a group of Christian women who felt that no child should be illiterate.
Today that initiative has grown into a bright, sunny pre-school with premises in Alice Street. Seventy children drawn primarily from the street vendors in the area now have a safe environment to learn play and grow as God intended. These disadvantaged children are given a good grade R education following the National Education Syllabus.
Makabongwe means “Let Him be praised” and we do praise Him for He has indeed blessed this little school.
You can help make a difference by sponsoring a child monthly or a once off donation, thus ensuring a brighter future for the children.
Contact:
Colleen 084209409.
Manning Road Methodist Church 031 202 8262.
Bank details:
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School
FNB
Account - 50710017936
Branch - 223526
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School had small beginnings with children sitting on cardboard in Grey Street, Durban. It was the initiative of a group of Christian women who felt that no child should be illiterate.
Today that initiative has grown into a bright, sunny pre-school with premises in Alice Street. Seventy children drawn primarily from the street vendors in the area now have a safe environment to learn play and grow as God intended. These disadvantaged children are given a good grade R education following the National Education Syllabus.
Makabongwe means “Let Him be praised” and we do praise Him for He has indeed blessed this little school.
You can help make a difference by sponsoring a child monthly or a once off donation, thus ensuring a brighter future for the children.
Contact:
Colleen 084209409.
Manning Road Methodist Church 031 202 8262.
Bank details:
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School
FNB
Account - 50710017936
Branch - 223526
Friday 27 March 2009
Saturday March 28th - Makabongwe
Weekend Blurb
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School had small beginnings with children sitting on cardboard in Grey Street, Durban. It was the initiative of a group of Christian women who felt that no child should be illiterate.
Today that initiative has grown into a bright, sunny pre-school with premises in Alice Street. Seventy children drawn primarily from the street vendors in the area now have a safe environment to learn play and grow as God intended. These disadvantaged children are given a good grade R education following the National Education Syllabus.
Makabongwe means “Let Him be praised” and we do praise Him for He has indeed blessed this little school.
You can help make a difference by sponsoring a child monthly or a once off donation, thus ensuring a brighter future for the children.
Contact:
Colleen 084209409.
Manning Road Methodist Church 031 202 8262.
Bank details:
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School
FNB
Account - 50710017936
Branch - 223526
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School had small beginnings with children sitting on cardboard in Grey Street, Durban. It was the initiative of a group of Christian women who felt that no child should be illiterate.
Today that initiative has grown into a bright, sunny pre-school with premises in Alice Street. Seventy children drawn primarily from the street vendors in the area now have a safe environment to learn play and grow as God intended. These disadvantaged children are given a good grade R education following the National Education Syllabus.
Makabongwe means “Let Him be praised” and we do praise Him for He has indeed blessed this little school.
You can help make a difference by sponsoring a child monthly or a once off donation, thus ensuring a brighter future for the children.
Contact:
Colleen 084209409.
Manning Road Methodist Church 031 202 8262.
Bank details:
Makabongwe Methodist Pre-School
FNB
Account - 50710017936
Branch - 223526
Thursday 26 March 2009
Friday March 27th - Dependence
DAILY BYTE
One year at Christmas, a good friend of mine brought her two month old infant over to my house for a bit of show and tell. And that’s really all it was – showing and telling – because all the baby could do was lay there, stare at you, and cry. At one particularly exciting time, we spent ten minutes watching him lay on the floor, coaxing him to roll over and finally, out of impatience, rolling him over ourselves.
Now, I am aware that this is how all babies are as infants, but every time I come into contact with one, I am again shocked by the humble way in which we all begin life on earth. Every time, I am surprised by how vulnerable we are, lacking virtually all responsibility and having virtually complete dependence.
In 18:14 of the Book of Luke, we find, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” One cannot be much more humble than an infant, which is exactly who we find entering the story in verse fifteen.
People brought the humblest of the humble, the most vulnerable amongst us – infants – to Jesus so that he could touch them. Infants are unable to ask to be touched by Christ, and they can’t boast about their nearness to him. They could take away no obvious gifts from him - not even a blessing. Luke makes the point that they approached Christ with nothing to offer, and it was enough for them simply to be touched by Christ without deserving it or earning it.
When we look in the faces of infants, we see not a whole life of burdens ahead of them but a whole new life of possibilities. When we see their wrinkled, pudgy features, we see not the wrinkles of the weight of the world but the awe-inspiring creativity and good humour of God.
And when we care for them, feeding and clothing and coaxing them to roll over, perhaps we can see ourselves through the loving eyes of God. Do you think you could see yourself this way? As someone who need not bring anything to God but ourselves, sometimes carried by others to be touched with Christ’s grace and mercy?
PRAY AS YOU GO
God of all, you formed us in your image as little children with nothing to offer you but our very selves. Show us that this is enough and that your grace requires us simply to be humble, as we were in the beginning. Teach us to let you carry us, again, so that we may allow you to carry our burdens and so that we may look up into your face and keep our eyes focused on the love you offer us and the faithful, life-giving covenant you keep with us, our whole lives through and into eternity. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 18:15-17
People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
One year at Christmas, a good friend of mine brought her two month old infant over to my house for a bit of show and tell. And that’s really all it was – showing and telling – because all the baby could do was lay there, stare at you, and cry. At one particularly exciting time, we spent ten minutes watching him lay on the floor, coaxing him to roll over and finally, out of impatience, rolling him over ourselves.
Now, I am aware that this is how all babies are as infants, but every time I come into contact with one, I am again shocked by the humble way in which we all begin life on earth. Every time, I am surprised by how vulnerable we are, lacking virtually all responsibility and having virtually complete dependence.
In 18:14 of the Book of Luke, we find, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” One cannot be much more humble than an infant, which is exactly who we find entering the story in verse fifteen.
People brought the humblest of the humble, the most vulnerable amongst us – infants – to Jesus so that he could touch them. Infants are unable to ask to be touched by Christ, and they can’t boast about their nearness to him. They could take away no obvious gifts from him - not even a blessing. Luke makes the point that they approached Christ with nothing to offer, and it was enough for them simply to be touched by Christ without deserving it or earning it.
When we look in the faces of infants, we see not a whole life of burdens ahead of them but a whole new life of possibilities. When we see their wrinkled, pudgy features, we see not the wrinkles of the weight of the world but the awe-inspiring creativity and good humour of God.
And when we care for them, feeding and clothing and coaxing them to roll over, perhaps we can see ourselves through the loving eyes of God. Do you think you could see yourself this way? As someone who need not bring anything to God but ourselves, sometimes carried by others to be touched with Christ’s grace and mercy?
PRAY AS YOU GO
God of all, you formed us in your image as little children with nothing to offer you but our very selves. Show us that this is enough and that your grace requires us simply to be humble, as we were in the beginning. Teach us to let you carry us, again, so that we may allow you to carry our burdens and so that we may look up into your face and keep our eyes focused on the love you offer us and the faithful, life-giving covenant you keep with us, our whole lives through and into eternity. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 18:15-17
People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Thursday March 26th - I want it
DAILY BYTE
A few days ago, I stood at the till at Spar, waiting for the cashier to hand me my receipt. I looked around in boredom and happened to notice a grandfatherly person with a little girl of about three years old standing behind me. The little girl was digging around in the candy boxes that are so cleverly and conveniently placed on the level of small children – much, I’m sure, to the chagrin of their parents. All of a sudden, her head popped up, and her arm held out a Kinder Joy egg to the older man. She declared triumphantly with a big smile on her face, “I want it!”
I turned back around to hide my giggle, which could have been perceived by the child as condoning her behaviour… But I could not deny that beyond my amusement, I was struck by a concept she so readily announced but I had not considered for a long time: if I want something, I can have it.
Before we dismiss her childish selfishness too quickly in our adult urgency to teach her good stewardship of finances and the difference between “need” and “want,” consider for a moment that there are some things in life that we can have, simply if we desire them!
Forgiveness, salvation, and grace are absolutely, positively free of charge to us, if we want them! In this way, it seems that God is not nearly as stingy as we are. God is not nearly so legalistic and reserved. Instead, God triumphantly – even recklessly – scatters grace wherever it may fall so that when we desire it, and perhaps, even when we do not, grace is given to us and faith grows in us.
As Romans declares, there is no distinction between who deserves this gift and who does not. As adults with supposed wisdom, we often take it as our responsibility to decide who should benefit from such gifts as salvation and forgiveness and who is un-deserving. Romans is adamant: ALL have sinned, and all continue to fall short of the glory of God, whether we are three years old, twenty-six years old, or eighty-five.
And so, if grace is given to us all as a gift, are we declaring vehemently, even in the midst of a public grocery store – I WANT IT!?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious God, you have given the gift of grace to us freely. Help us to accept it freely, proclaiming to the world that it is available to all and proclaiming to you that we desire it for ourselves and for all people. Keep us from being inhibited by the stingy limitations of this world, and show us the full measure of your abundant grace. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Romans 3:21-24
But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
A few days ago, I stood at the till at Spar, waiting for the cashier to hand me my receipt. I looked around in boredom and happened to notice a grandfatherly person with a little girl of about three years old standing behind me. The little girl was digging around in the candy boxes that are so cleverly and conveniently placed on the level of small children – much, I’m sure, to the chagrin of their parents. All of a sudden, her head popped up, and her arm held out a Kinder Joy egg to the older man. She declared triumphantly with a big smile on her face, “I want it!”
I turned back around to hide my giggle, which could have been perceived by the child as condoning her behaviour… But I could not deny that beyond my amusement, I was struck by a concept she so readily announced but I had not considered for a long time: if I want something, I can have it.
Before we dismiss her childish selfishness too quickly in our adult urgency to teach her good stewardship of finances and the difference between “need” and “want,” consider for a moment that there are some things in life that we can have, simply if we desire them!
Forgiveness, salvation, and grace are absolutely, positively free of charge to us, if we want them! In this way, it seems that God is not nearly as stingy as we are. God is not nearly so legalistic and reserved. Instead, God triumphantly – even recklessly – scatters grace wherever it may fall so that when we desire it, and perhaps, even when we do not, grace is given to us and faith grows in us.
As Romans declares, there is no distinction between who deserves this gift and who does not. As adults with supposed wisdom, we often take it as our responsibility to decide who should benefit from such gifts as salvation and forgiveness and who is un-deserving. Romans is adamant: ALL have sinned, and all continue to fall short of the glory of God, whether we are three years old, twenty-six years old, or eighty-five.
And so, if grace is given to us all as a gift, are we declaring vehemently, even in the midst of a public grocery store – I WANT IT!?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Gracious God, you have given the gift of grace to us freely. Help us to accept it freely, proclaiming to the world that it is available to all and proclaiming to you that we desire it for ourselves and for all people. Keep us from being inhibited by the stingy limitations of this world, and show us the full measure of your abundant grace. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Romans 3:21-24
But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Wednesday 25th March - Seeing the world newly
DAILY BYTE
A few years ago, I bought a card that I intended to give to someone, but I can’t seem to let go of the simple, playful wisdom on it, and so I keep it in my Bible instead... The black and white picture shows a toddler’s snotty, drooly face, hair sticking out in all directions, as he presses his chin up against an old wooden window frame. The object of the child’s big-eyed delight is a small bird, staring back at him, as it spreads its wings, hovering in flight.
The caption reads, “Show me a day when the world wasn’t new,” a quotation from Sister Barbara Hance. The past two days, we have been exploring Aaron’s, the Israelites’ and our own responsibilities. Our roles and the world’s demands on our time and energy can deaden our sense of life’s newness and possibilities. We tend to drag one day’s failures and insufficiencies into the next. We bring one day’s depression and anger into the next day’s sun. And when the day is over, and we are exhausted, we feel as though we have seen it all.
But childlike faith can teach us something about how to see the world newly each day. Instead of assuming they have all the answers, children naturally ask questions. Their memories don’t hold as many grudges or as many debts. Instead of seeing the world as one big problem or a conglomeration of problems that need to be solved immediately and by them, children know inherently that everything exists for their delight.
One of my favourite occupations is babysitting children around the age of two because at this stage of life, they are in the midst of a language explosion. There is nothing in the world comparable to the delight on a child’s face when he or she discovers a new part of the great and marvellous world. Because children can discover without raising their eyes too high. They see what is in the small world around them, and if the bigger world comes crashing down on them, or if they fall, the do not immediately try to control the situation. Instead, they grieve, and they cry out to someone bigger who can help them when they are struggle. Someone who can teach them to take responsibility for the fact that they climbed up the tree with branches that were too high, but someone who can also hold them when they’re hurting and cry alongside them in seeing and experiencing their pain.
Is your soul dragging on day by day, consuming itself with “things too great and too marvellous”? Or, is it awed by the ever-new beauty of the creation in front of your nose?
Is it like a two-year-old, a “weaned child,” who delights in exploring the world but knows where to turn when falling, requiring forgiveness, needing sustenance, or craving comfort?
Commenting on someone’s “old soul” is usually a compliment, but can a soul be old and young at the same time? Can we have the faith of a wise old sage and a child simultaneously? How old is your soul?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Father God, guide us through our responsibilities by sharing Your wisdom with us. Teach us to be discerning, accepting, and grieving people. But in the midst of such serious matters, teach us to see the world as new every day. Allow it to be our heart’s delight. And, when we climb the tree to see the high places, and we fall, teach us to cry out to you and find forgiveness and comfort in your care. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 131
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me. But I have quieted and calmed my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.
A few years ago, I bought a card that I intended to give to someone, but I can’t seem to let go of the simple, playful wisdom on it, and so I keep it in my Bible instead... The black and white picture shows a toddler’s snotty, drooly face, hair sticking out in all directions, as he presses his chin up against an old wooden window frame. The object of the child’s big-eyed delight is a small bird, staring back at him, as it spreads its wings, hovering in flight.
The caption reads, “Show me a day when the world wasn’t new,” a quotation from Sister Barbara Hance. The past two days, we have been exploring Aaron’s, the Israelites’ and our own responsibilities. Our roles and the world’s demands on our time and energy can deaden our sense of life’s newness and possibilities. We tend to drag one day’s failures and insufficiencies into the next. We bring one day’s depression and anger into the next day’s sun. And when the day is over, and we are exhausted, we feel as though we have seen it all.
But childlike faith can teach us something about how to see the world newly each day. Instead of assuming they have all the answers, children naturally ask questions. Their memories don’t hold as many grudges or as many debts. Instead of seeing the world as one big problem or a conglomeration of problems that need to be solved immediately and by them, children know inherently that everything exists for their delight.
One of my favourite occupations is babysitting children around the age of two because at this stage of life, they are in the midst of a language explosion. There is nothing in the world comparable to the delight on a child’s face when he or she discovers a new part of the great and marvellous world. Because children can discover without raising their eyes too high. They see what is in the small world around them, and if the bigger world comes crashing down on them, or if they fall, the do not immediately try to control the situation. Instead, they grieve, and they cry out to someone bigger who can help them when they are struggle. Someone who can teach them to take responsibility for the fact that they climbed up the tree with branches that were too high, but someone who can also hold them when they’re hurting and cry alongside them in seeing and experiencing their pain.
Is your soul dragging on day by day, consuming itself with “things too great and too marvellous”? Or, is it awed by the ever-new beauty of the creation in front of your nose?
Is it like a two-year-old, a “weaned child,” who delights in exploring the world but knows where to turn when falling, requiring forgiveness, needing sustenance, or craving comfort?
Commenting on someone’s “old soul” is usually a compliment, but can a soul be old and young at the same time? Can we have the faith of a wise old sage and a child simultaneously? How old is your soul?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Father God, guide us through our responsibilities by sharing Your wisdom with us. Teach us to be discerning, accepting, and grieving people. But in the midst of such serious matters, teach us to see the world as new every day. Allow it to be our heart’s delight. And, when we climb the tree to see the high places, and we fall, teach us to cry out to you and find forgiveness and comfort in your care. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 131
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me. But I have quieted and calmed my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.
Monday 23 March 2009
Tuesday 24th March - Which mould will God fit into?
DAILY BYTE
Recently, I was filling out an online form full of places to check the box and fill in your answer with only a certain amount of space available. I spent most of the time, trying to make the answers abbreviated enough that they would fit, nevermind the fact that it might have taken a rocket scientist to decipher the code into which my descriptive answers were funnelled. I could not wait to be finished with this task because although it was necessary, it was constricting. Making life fit into certain spaces, boxes, and moulds is what we do. Because it makes life manageable. It means that we can analyze things with our human intellect, control them, and then make judgments about them.
Consider that this is a bit of what Aaron and the Israelites tried to do when they formed a mould and cast an image of a calf, calling it God.
If we step away from the story just a few steps, it begins to seem a bit ridiculous that people would so quickly toss off a God who had been faithful to them in freeing them from slavery and guiding them in their wanderings, even if that God was difficult to understand. And in place of that faithful God, they worship a golden cow?
From the holiest of holies the people sink to one of the most ordinary creatures. And if we look at it that way, it makes sense. The holiest of holies is difficult to describe and difficult to understand. It is impossible to mould so that it can be fully grasped by our human intellect. We cannot domesticate or “manage” it. It is entirely free from constriction.
But oh, how we try. Images in life do not get much more domestic and much more manageable than that of a cow. Cows are owned. They are herded. They work for us.
But, Walter Brueggemann calls the freedom of God “terrible.” It is so free that it can be frightening. We do not own God. We belong to God. We do not herd God. God shepherds us. God does not work for us. God provides for us freely out of the goodness of his grace and out of a deep desire to be in relationship with us.
God’s freedom may be terrible, but may also free us, as well.
In what ways do you need to allow God to break out of the mould?
Take a moment today to write down all of the words you would use to describe God. If you can, even draw a picture of your image of God, and ask God: How can you expand my knowledge and understanding of you? How are you trying to set me free?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Uncontainable God, you are so free that it sometimes frightens us, but help us to embrace your freedom. Encourage us to break out of moulds and resist the desire to manage our lives and manage you. Free us from the paralysis of fear and teach us to trust you, even when we find ourselves in wilderness. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Exodus 32:4-6
[Aaron] took the gold from them, formed it in a mould, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
Recently, I was filling out an online form full of places to check the box and fill in your answer with only a certain amount of space available. I spent most of the time, trying to make the answers abbreviated enough that they would fit, nevermind the fact that it might have taken a rocket scientist to decipher the code into which my descriptive answers were funnelled. I could not wait to be finished with this task because although it was necessary, it was constricting. Making life fit into certain spaces, boxes, and moulds is what we do. Because it makes life manageable. It means that we can analyze things with our human intellect, control them, and then make judgments about them.
Consider that this is a bit of what Aaron and the Israelites tried to do when they formed a mould and cast an image of a calf, calling it God.
If we step away from the story just a few steps, it begins to seem a bit ridiculous that people would so quickly toss off a God who had been faithful to them in freeing them from slavery and guiding them in their wanderings, even if that God was difficult to understand. And in place of that faithful God, they worship a golden cow?
From the holiest of holies the people sink to one of the most ordinary creatures. And if we look at it that way, it makes sense. The holiest of holies is difficult to describe and difficult to understand. It is impossible to mould so that it can be fully grasped by our human intellect. We cannot domesticate or “manage” it. It is entirely free from constriction.
But oh, how we try. Images in life do not get much more domestic and much more manageable than that of a cow. Cows are owned. They are herded. They work for us.
But, Walter Brueggemann calls the freedom of God “terrible.” It is so free that it can be frightening. We do not own God. We belong to God. We do not herd God. God shepherds us. God does not work for us. God provides for us freely out of the goodness of his grace and out of a deep desire to be in relationship with us.
God’s freedom may be terrible, but may also free us, as well.
In what ways do you need to allow God to break out of the mould?
Take a moment today to write down all of the words you would use to describe God. If you can, even draw a picture of your image of God, and ask God: How can you expand my knowledge and understanding of you? How are you trying to set me free?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Uncontainable God, you are so free that it sometimes frightens us, but help us to embrace your freedom. Encourage us to break out of moulds and resist the desire to manage our lives and manage you. Free us from the paralysis of fear and teach us to trust you, even when we find ourselves in wilderness. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Exodus 32:4-6
[Aaron] took the gold from them, formed it in a mould, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
Sunday 22 March 2009
Monday 23rd March - Responsibilities of Adulthood
DAILY BYTE
The prolific advice columnist with the pen name, Abigail Van Buren, advised once that “if you want a child to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.”
And this seems, at first glance, like sound parenting advice – the kind of advice that I feel would have come from the mouths of my own parents. Because we all do need to accept responsibility for the ways we act and the decisions we make in our lives, so it is, indeed, important to teach children to live with that reality in healthy ways.
I have been living for the past number of years in the midst of the transition time between childhood and adulthood, the time where the weight of responsibilities that were formerly parents’ or guardians’ begins to fall more heavily onto your shoulders. It is the process that everyone says is “just part of becoming an adult.” There is a job to find, housing to attain and keep, laundry to wash, leaky taps to fix, appointments to be faithful to, relationships to maintain, and the list goes on and on. And in today’s economic climate, the responsibility of paying bills can weigh especially heavily.
The more responsibilities that pile on, the more we seem to desire either to ignore them or to micromanage them. When we feel overwhelmed by everything being thrown at us, we often run away or take too much control over our lives and the lives of others. We begin to take ourselves and our role as human beings way too seriously.
When Moses was on Mount Sinai, receiving the two tablets of the covenant with the ten commandments written on them, he got a bit delayed and took longer than the Israelites thought he was going to in returning to them with his responsible leadership and the Word of God. Waiting for him to return, the people got antsy. They surrounded Aaron and demanded that he make new gods for them, since they didn’t know where Moses had gone. Aaron, feeling the heat of the crowd and the responsibility of their leadership, then took matters into his own hands. He ordered everyone to bring gold from their ears – ears with which they were supposed to be listening for God’s voice and leadership – and gathered the gold together to manage the situation and come up with a plan.
Immediately after the scriptures tell us Moses is handed the “tablets of stone, written with the finger of God,” the people of God take matters into their own hands. They take on the responsibility of God.
Make a list today of all the responsibilities that you have in your life. How do you tend to respond to these responsibilities? Do you run away? Do you allow their weight to force you to take matters into your own hands without waiting for a Word from God?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord, we recognize that the responsibilities we are given as human beings are great. We want to be faithful to you and good stewards of the gifts we have been given. Help us, when we are overwhelmed by responsibilities, to rely not on our own leadership but on your strength and wisdom. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Exodus 32:1-3
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
The prolific advice columnist with the pen name, Abigail Van Buren, advised once that “if you want a child to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.”
And this seems, at first glance, like sound parenting advice – the kind of advice that I feel would have come from the mouths of my own parents. Because we all do need to accept responsibility for the ways we act and the decisions we make in our lives, so it is, indeed, important to teach children to live with that reality in healthy ways.
I have been living for the past number of years in the midst of the transition time between childhood and adulthood, the time where the weight of responsibilities that were formerly parents’ or guardians’ begins to fall more heavily onto your shoulders. It is the process that everyone says is “just part of becoming an adult.” There is a job to find, housing to attain and keep, laundry to wash, leaky taps to fix, appointments to be faithful to, relationships to maintain, and the list goes on and on. And in today’s economic climate, the responsibility of paying bills can weigh especially heavily.
The more responsibilities that pile on, the more we seem to desire either to ignore them or to micromanage them. When we feel overwhelmed by everything being thrown at us, we often run away or take too much control over our lives and the lives of others. We begin to take ourselves and our role as human beings way too seriously.
When Moses was on Mount Sinai, receiving the two tablets of the covenant with the ten commandments written on them, he got a bit delayed and took longer than the Israelites thought he was going to in returning to them with his responsible leadership and the Word of God. Waiting for him to return, the people got antsy. They surrounded Aaron and demanded that he make new gods for them, since they didn’t know where Moses had gone. Aaron, feeling the heat of the crowd and the responsibility of their leadership, then took matters into his own hands. He ordered everyone to bring gold from their ears – ears with which they were supposed to be listening for God’s voice and leadership – and gathered the gold together to manage the situation and come up with a plan.
Immediately after the scriptures tell us Moses is handed the “tablets of stone, written with the finger of God,” the people of God take matters into their own hands. They take on the responsibility of God.
Make a list today of all the responsibilities that you have in your life. How do you tend to respond to these responsibilities? Do you run away? Do you allow their weight to force you to take matters into your own hands without waiting for a Word from God?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord, we recognize that the responsibilities we are given as human beings are great. We want to be faithful to you and good stewards of the gifts we have been given. Help us, when we are overwhelmed by responsibilities, to rely not on our own leadership but on your strength and wisdom. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Exodus 32:1-3
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
Saturday 21 March 2009
Sunday 22nd March - Sizanani
Weekend Blurb
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Sizanani is the Zulu word for ‘help one another’. This project offers 22 weeks of basic sewing and pattern drafting training to people who are unskilled and unemployed, to enable them to become self employed. The growth of personal dignity, self esteem and spiritual well-being is also encouraged.
The basic course syllabus concentrates on skills like seams, gathering, putting in collars, sewing in zips, buttonholes and facings. The pattern drafting syllabus teaches students how to draft a basic skirt and shirt pattern; how to do variations like flares, pleats, puffed sleeves, etc. The students then design an outfit for themselves, which is modeled at their graduation.
Course costs R1 100.00 and students are provided with everything they need to complete the course. Training is in Zulu.
Sponsorship of a student or a group of students is welcomed.
Enquiries – sizanani@ptnmeth.org.za; Tel 031 7027357
Bank details:
Account Name: PMCMA – Sizanani
Account Number: 133 947 6681
Bank Name: Nedbank
Bank code: 133 926
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Sizanani is the Zulu word for ‘help one another’. This project offers 22 weeks of basic sewing and pattern drafting training to people who are unskilled and unemployed, to enable them to become self employed. The growth of personal dignity, self esteem and spiritual well-being is also encouraged.
The basic course syllabus concentrates on skills like seams, gathering, putting in collars, sewing in zips, buttonholes and facings. The pattern drafting syllabus teaches students how to draft a basic skirt and shirt pattern; how to do variations like flares, pleats, puffed sleeves, etc. The students then design an outfit for themselves, which is modeled at their graduation.
Course costs R1 100.00 and students are provided with everything they need to complete the course. Training is in Zulu.
Sponsorship of a student or a group of students is welcomed.
Enquiries – sizanani@ptnmeth.org.za; Tel 031 7027357
Bank details:
Account Name: PMCMA – Sizanani
Account Number: 133 947 6681
Bank Name: Nedbank
Bank code: 133 926
Friday 20 March 2009
Saturday 21st March - Sizanani
Weekend Blurb
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Sizanani is the Zulu word for ‘help one another’. This project offers 22 weeks of basic sewing and pattern drafting training to people who are unskilled and unemployed, to enable them to become self employed. The growth of personal dignity, self esteem and spiritual well-being is also encouraged.
The basic course syllabus concentrates on skills like seams, gathering, putting in collars, sewing in zips, buttonholes and facings. The pattern drafting syllabus teaches students how to draft a basic skirt and shirt pattern; how to do variations like flares, pleats, puffed sleeves, etc. The students then design an outfit for themselves, which is modeled at their graduation.
Course costs R1 100.00 and students are provided with everything they need to complete the course. Training is in Zulu.
Sponsorship of a student or a group of students is welcomed.
Enquiries – sizanani@ptnmeth.org.za; Tel 031 7027357
Bank details:
Account Name: PMCMA – Sizanani
Account Number: 133 947 6681
Bank Name: Nedbank
Bank code: 133 926
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Sizanani is the Zulu word for ‘help one another’. This project offers 22 weeks of basic sewing and pattern drafting training to people who are unskilled and unemployed, to enable them to become self employed. The growth of personal dignity, self esteem and spiritual well-being is also encouraged.
The basic course syllabus concentrates on skills like seams, gathering, putting in collars, sewing in zips, buttonholes and facings. The pattern drafting syllabus teaches students how to draft a basic skirt and shirt pattern; how to do variations like flares, pleats, puffed sleeves, etc. The students then design an outfit for themselves, which is modeled at their graduation.
Course costs R1 100.00 and students are provided with everything they need to complete the course. Training is in Zulu.
Sponsorship of a student or a group of students is welcomed.
Enquiries – sizanani@ptnmeth.org.za; Tel 031 7027357
Bank details:
Account Name: PMCMA – Sizanani
Account Number: 133 947 6681
Bank Name: Nedbank
Bank code: 133 926
Thursday 19 March 2009
Friday 20th March - Today
DAILY BYTE
Yesterday, we affirmed the truth that God’s love and presence can overflow into and redeem even the most difficult of times.
Another excellent example of this would be Viktor Frankl himself. Remember the story told on Wednesday of Frankl’s experiences in a concentration camp? Well, Frankl survived that camp because he placed his hope not in the Allied Forces but in a far higher and truer power. Frankl trusted in divine love to empower him to face those dreadful circumstances. He trusted that even if he woke up tomorrow and his worst fears were confirmed – that he was still facing another day in that concentration camp – that God could somehow make even that day worth living.
Now that’s the kind of hope that is worth living and dying for! Frankl trusted that heaven could overflow even into the hell of a concentration camp. As one writer later noted, Frankl was freer in that camp then even the prison guards.
When we hope in God, our circumstances may not necessarily be changed. Events may not work out exactly as we would like. Sometime we respond angrily or bitterly. Other times we dream so hard and so long of better times to come that we forget to live in the here and now. We daydream so hard of a better future that we trip up on our present realities! Too late we find that we human beings, limited as we are, have capacity to only LIVE in the present, and if we wish it away we lose it forever.
God is able to press meaning and purpose (to redeem) even the most difficult times (as we learn from Frankl). Jesus consistently emphasised that the Kingdom was always alive and present – it was not something that belonged to the past or the future but in the here and now. The Kingdom is among us!
This day is the most important we have, because it is the only reality we are able to fully be alive in. Don’t waste it – most especially by allowing future fears to grip, torment and stifle you, no matter how threatening they may be.
That is a hard truth that both Scripture and life teach us. Tough things do happen to good people. Babylonian armies bash down the gates of almost all of us at one point or the other. However much we try to pretend it isn’t so the mortality rate is still 100%. After all, a cross entered the life of the best of all of us – one who was without sin or blemish. But beyond that – there was resurrection and new life!
And that’s what it comes down to really. For as ‘cheerful’ as this may sound, one day all of us will face our final day. The day on which we breathe our last breath and for us there is no tomorrow. That is of course if we trust in ourselves, or in constantly shifting circumstances.
But if we hope in God, there will always be a tomorrow. Always!
That’s how we become free. That’s how we stay out of self-imposed hells of fear, worry and hopelessness.
Because it really, really matters how we think about tomorrow. If affects how we will act, what we will prioritise, how we feel, who we are and who we are becoming. It dramatically affects our today.
So then, may the God of hope and life and love and rich potential overflow into your life. May you place all your hope in that God, and no one or nothing else, so that like Jeremiah, Frankl and of course Jesus – you may live free!
Hope then … HOPE … because the promise is that every tomorrow, no matter how challenging or painful, will be as full of God as yesterday and today is. For ultimately, hope in God sets us free to live today as fully alive.
PRAY AS YOU GO
God of hope, we pray that you would change how we think about tomorrow. We pray that you would teach us how to healthily deal with our fear and anxieties regarding what may or may not happen. No matter what circumstances we are facing, give us the strength and courage we need to place all of our hope in you. May heaven overflow into our lives in quite staggeringly generous measures and in so doing may our hearts be filled with hope and with peace and with love. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Romans 15 : 13 NIV
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Yesterday, we affirmed the truth that God’s love and presence can overflow into and redeem even the most difficult of times.
Another excellent example of this would be Viktor Frankl himself. Remember the story told on Wednesday of Frankl’s experiences in a concentration camp? Well, Frankl survived that camp because he placed his hope not in the Allied Forces but in a far higher and truer power. Frankl trusted in divine love to empower him to face those dreadful circumstances. He trusted that even if he woke up tomorrow and his worst fears were confirmed – that he was still facing another day in that concentration camp – that God could somehow make even that day worth living.
Now that’s the kind of hope that is worth living and dying for! Frankl trusted that heaven could overflow even into the hell of a concentration camp. As one writer later noted, Frankl was freer in that camp then even the prison guards.
When we hope in God, our circumstances may not necessarily be changed. Events may not work out exactly as we would like. Sometime we respond angrily or bitterly. Other times we dream so hard and so long of better times to come that we forget to live in the here and now. We daydream so hard of a better future that we trip up on our present realities! Too late we find that we human beings, limited as we are, have capacity to only LIVE in the present, and if we wish it away we lose it forever.
God is able to press meaning and purpose (to redeem) even the most difficult times (as we learn from Frankl). Jesus consistently emphasised that the Kingdom was always alive and present – it was not something that belonged to the past or the future but in the here and now. The Kingdom is among us!
This day is the most important we have, because it is the only reality we are able to fully be alive in. Don’t waste it – most especially by allowing future fears to grip, torment and stifle you, no matter how threatening they may be.
That is a hard truth that both Scripture and life teach us. Tough things do happen to good people. Babylonian armies bash down the gates of almost all of us at one point or the other. However much we try to pretend it isn’t so the mortality rate is still 100%. After all, a cross entered the life of the best of all of us – one who was without sin or blemish. But beyond that – there was resurrection and new life!
And that’s what it comes down to really. For as ‘cheerful’ as this may sound, one day all of us will face our final day. The day on which we breathe our last breath and for us there is no tomorrow. That is of course if we trust in ourselves, or in constantly shifting circumstances.
But if we hope in God, there will always be a tomorrow. Always!
That’s how we become free. That’s how we stay out of self-imposed hells of fear, worry and hopelessness.
Because it really, really matters how we think about tomorrow. If affects how we will act, what we will prioritise, how we feel, who we are and who we are becoming. It dramatically affects our today.
So then, may the God of hope and life and love and rich potential overflow into your life. May you place all your hope in that God, and no one or nothing else, so that like Jeremiah, Frankl and of course Jesus – you may live free!
Hope then … HOPE … because the promise is that every tomorrow, no matter how challenging or painful, will be as full of God as yesterday and today is. For ultimately, hope in God sets us free to live today as fully alive.
PRAY AS YOU GO
God of hope, we pray that you would change how we think about tomorrow. We pray that you would teach us how to healthily deal with our fear and anxieties regarding what may or may not happen. No matter what circumstances we are facing, give us the strength and courage we need to place all of our hope in you. May heaven overflow into our lives in quite staggeringly generous measures and in so doing may our hearts be filled with hope and with peace and with love. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Romans 15 : 13 NIV
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Wednesday 18 March 2009
Thursday 19th March - In God We Trust
DAILY BYTE
It must be said however that it really, really, really matters what or who we place our hope in. It’s not enough just to have hope because the actual area in which we direct our hope is absolutely vital.
Those prisoners in Frankl’s concentration camp had hope but directed it towards the wrong source (the Allies); just as King Zedekiah misplaced his hope by trusting in the Egyptians and not God. Sometimes we seem to place our hope more in our circumstances changing than in God himself. Hear what Eugene Peterson says about this matter:
‘Hope is a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God.’
God’s promises to us are not always about our circumstances changing (although I affirm that God can and does radically change circumstances). Remember that even Jesus contended with circumstances he did not want (read the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane). No, God promises are more about an overflow. That God’s love, life and endless potential will never, ever stop overflowing into our lives and that nothing in heaven, earth or hell can stop that.
Nothing!
Not even the very worst of circumstances, the most frightening of tomorrows. In fact, the only factor that can stop that overflow is us. For God won’t abandon us, but we most certainly can abandon him. When we give up on hope, we give up on life. When we give up on tomorrows, we give up on today and we walk ourselves through the gates of a self-imposed hell.
God’s promise is to overflow his love and presence even into difficult circumstances. God is more into redeeming our circumstances than changing them, and transforming us through them by filling them with divine meaning.
Like what happened with Jeremiah and the Jerusalemites. The day after tomorrow, their worst fears did come to pass. Their city was sacked, the walls were broken down, and the majority of them were dragged away from their promised land, away from Jeremiah’s field of faith, away from the city of God, away from the Temple, and away from God himself … or so they thought.
But it wasn’t forever. For Jeremiah’s faith was eventually rewarded for 50 years later they returned to farm their fields with shouts of joy and tears of laughter.
But that’s not the main point of our story. You see while they were in those foreign lands, the places they believed were God-forsaken, they discovered that in fact God WAS there! That God was not rooted to one city, to one land. God was everywhere! A whole nation’s faith took a quantum leap forward in growth and understanding.
God’s love for them overflowed from Jerusalem all the way to Babylonia!
Jesus realised that his circumstances (the cross) would not be changing, but he managed through his fear and stress, to allow God’s love and spirit to find him and overflow into him – even in the Garden of Gethsemane. Easter reminds us that this same love overflows for us all in an incredibly personal and redeeming way. It overflows from the cross to the very centre of our hearts and lives.
Take care to open your heart to that truth – no matter how difficult things may be, or how horribly your tomorrows may be lurking, God’s love will find you and overflow into you.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, we pray that your love and life would constantly overflow into our hearts, even when we are going through difficult times. We confess that we have sometimes misplaced our hope by trusting in all the wrong things. Help us to hope in you alone. In Christ name we pray. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 22 : 41-44
He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
It must be said however that it really, really, really matters what or who we place our hope in. It’s not enough just to have hope because the actual area in which we direct our hope is absolutely vital.
Those prisoners in Frankl’s concentration camp had hope but directed it towards the wrong source (the Allies); just as King Zedekiah misplaced his hope by trusting in the Egyptians and not God. Sometimes we seem to place our hope more in our circumstances changing than in God himself. Hear what Eugene Peterson says about this matter:
‘Hope is a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God.’
God’s promises to us are not always about our circumstances changing (although I affirm that God can and does radically change circumstances). Remember that even Jesus contended with circumstances he did not want (read the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane). No, God promises are more about an overflow. That God’s love, life and endless potential will never, ever stop overflowing into our lives and that nothing in heaven, earth or hell can stop that.
Nothing!
Not even the very worst of circumstances, the most frightening of tomorrows. In fact, the only factor that can stop that overflow is us. For God won’t abandon us, but we most certainly can abandon him. When we give up on hope, we give up on life. When we give up on tomorrows, we give up on today and we walk ourselves through the gates of a self-imposed hell.
God’s promise is to overflow his love and presence even into difficult circumstances. God is more into redeeming our circumstances than changing them, and transforming us through them by filling them with divine meaning.
Like what happened with Jeremiah and the Jerusalemites. The day after tomorrow, their worst fears did come to pass. Their city was sacked, the walls were broken down, and the majority of them were dragged away from their promised land, away from Jeremiah’s field of faith, away from the city of God, away from the Temple, and away from God himself … or so they thought.
But it wasn’t forever. For Jeremiah’s faith was eventually rewarded for 50 years later they returned to farm their fields with shouts of joy and tears of laughter.
But that’s not the main point of our story. You see while they were in those foreign lands, the places they believed were God-forsaken, they discovered that in fact God WAS there! That God was not rooted to one city, to one land. God was everywhere! A whole nation’s faith took a quantum leap forward in growth and understanding.
God’s love for them overflowed from Jerusalem all the way to Babylonia!
Jesus realised that his circumstances (the cross) would not be changing, but he managed through his fear and stress, to allow God’s love and spirit to find him and overflow into him – even in the Garden of Gethsemane. Easter reminds us that this same love overflows for us all in an incredibly personal and redeeming way. It overflows from the cross to the very centre of our hearts and lives.
Take care to open your heart to that truth – no matter how difficult things may be, or how horribly your tomorrows may be lurking, God’s love will find you and overflow into you.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, we pray that your love and life would constantly overflow into our hearts, even when we are going through difficult times. We confess that we have sometimes misplaced our hope by trusting in all the wrong things. Help us to hope in you alone. In Christ name we pray. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 22 : 41-44
He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Tuesday 17 March 2009
Wednesday 18th March - Hope Brings Heaven Home
DAILY BYTE
The amazing thing is that Jeremiah’s act of hope, although tucked away in a corner of the Old Testament, is by no means unique. The whole of Scripture is one long testimony of people holding onto hope – holding onto hope even when it makes no sense to do so and against quite ridiculous odds.
G.K Chesterton asserts that hope is nothing but mere sentimentality when times are easy because anyone can hope then. Hope only truly becomes real and life-giving when it is exercised against the odds, when we are hanging on by our finger-nails.
Like buying a field that an enemy army was camping on.
Did you know that around the time of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, predominant Roman-Greco thought rejected hope because it was believed to be nothing but a set-up for potential disappointment? It was better off keeping your expectations low their philosophers counselled, don’t make the mistake of getting your hopes up too much.
The Bible, in chronicling thousands and thousands of year’s worth of hope against the odds disagrees profoundly. It doesn’t, interestingly enough, disagree with the fact that life involves disappointments and potential let-downs, and that events won’t always work out as we would like them to. It just disagrees that we should ever lose hope because God has a remarkable way of transforming disappointing circumstances.
For without hope we die. We enter through hell’s gates.
Viktor Frankl tells the story of his rather harsh life in a concentration camp during World War 2. Life was awful for the prisoners of that camp. They had to contend with rats, fleas, beatings from guards, freezing weather, freezing fingers, freezing toes, freezing barracks and freezing outhouses.
The only hope for these prisoners was that the Allied Forces would arrive to set them free. For some unknown reason, in Frankl’s particular camp, this hope became connected with Christmas. The prisoners started to believe the freedom would come for them at Christmas and so they clung onto life. They endured all those hardships because they had hope.
Finally, Christmas came … and then went again. No Allies arrived, no release, no freedom and no hope fulfilled. Almost immediately, in the days that followed Christmas, the first of the suicides began. Six months later, when the Allies finally arrived, half of the prisoners had died. They died because they lost hope.
For when we lose all hope for tomorrow, something dies within us today!
Dante was right … to lose hope is to truly be in hell.
Jeremiah lived among a people who were in hell, clutching their stomachs with fear and anxiety because tomorrow held no promise for them. Jeremiah lived among these people, he walked the same streets and sampled the same food, but he seemingly breathed a different air and gazed upon different scenery. For Jeremiah trusted in a God who had always faithfully provided, and saw no reason to allow a Babylonian army camping on his field to cause him to doubt that.
Jeremiah walked in heaven whilst those around him languished in hell because he dared to hope in a God-filled tomorrow.
Jeremiah knew more of heaven than hell because that’s exactly what hope does within us.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, thank-you for the message the Bible brings to us – a message of thousands of years worth of hope exercised against the odds. We know that if we live without hope then we bring ourselves into self-imposed hells yet if we hold onto hope in you then we fill our lives with heavenly possibilities. Help us therefore to hope, both now and always. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Jeremiah 32 : 42-43 (MSG)
Yes, this is God's Message: 'I will certainly bring this huge catastrophe on this people, but I will also usher in a wonderful life of prosperity. I promise. Fields are going to be bought here again, yes, in this very country that you assume is going to end up desolate—gone to the dogs, unliveable, wrecked by the Babylonians.
The amazing thing is that Jeremiah’s act of hope, although tucked away in a corner of the Old Testament, is by no means unique. The whole of Scripture is one long testimony of people holding onto hope – holding onto hope even when it makes no sense to do so and against quite ridiculous odds.
G.K Chesterton asserts that hope is nothing but mere sentimentality when times are easy because anyone can hope then. Hope only truly becomes real and life-giving when it is exercised against the odds, when we are hanging on by our finger-nails.
Like buying a field that an enemy army was camping on.
Did you know that around the time of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, predominant Roman-Greco thought rejected hope because it was believed to be nothing but a set-up for potential disappointment? It was better off keeping your expectations low their philosophers counselled, don’t make the mistake of getting your hopes up too much.
The Bible, in chronicling thousands and thousands of year’s worth of hope against the odds disagrees profoundly. It doesn’t, interestingly enough, disagree with the fact that life involves disappointments and potential let-downs, and that events won’t always work out as we would like them to. It just disagrees that we should ever lose hope because God has a remarkable way of transforming disappointing circumstances.
For without hope we die. We enter through hell’s gates.
Viktor Frankl tells the story of his rather harsh life in a concentration camp during World War 2. Life was awful for the prisoners of that camp. They had to contend with rats, fleas, beatings from guards, freezing weather, freezing fingers, freezing toes, freezing barracks and freezing outhouses.
The only hope for these prisoners was that the Allied Forces would arrive to set them free. For some unknown reason, in Frankl’s particular camp, this hope became connected with Christmas. The prisoners started to believe the freedom would come for them at Christmas and so they clung onto life. They endured all those hardships because they had hope.
Finally, Christmas came … and then went again. No Allies arrived, no release, no freedom and no hope fulfilled. Almost immediately, in the days that followed Christmas, the first of the suicides began. Six months later, when the Allies finally arrived, half of the prisoners had died. They died because they lost hope.
For when we lose all hope for tomorrow, something dies within us today!
Dante was right … to lose hope is to truly be in hell.
Jeremiah lived among a people who were in hell, clutching their stomachs with fear and anxiety because tomorrow held no promise for them. Jeremiah lived among these people, he walked the same streets and sampled the same food, but he seemingly breathed a different air and gazed upon different scenery. For Jeremiah trusted in a God who had always faithfully provided, and saw no reason to allow a Babylonian army camping on his field to cause him to doubt that.
Jeremiah walked in heaven whilst those around him languished in hell because he dared to hope in a God-filled tomorrow.
Jeremiah knew more of heaven than hell because that’s exactly what hope does within us.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, thank-you for the message the Bible brings to us – a message of thousands of years worth of hope exercised against the odds. We know that if we live without hope then we bring ourselves into self-imposed hells yet if we hold onto hope in you then we fill our lives with heavenly possibilities. Help us therefore to hope, both now and always. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Jeremiah 32 : 42-43 (MSG)
Yes, this is God's Message: 'I will certainly bring this huge catastrophe on this people, but I will also usher in a wonderful life of prosperity. I promise. Fields are going to be bought here again, yes, in this very country that you assume is going to end up desolate—gone to the dogs, unliveable, wrecked by the Babylonians.
Monday 16 March 2009
Tuesday 17th March - Tomorrow
DAILY BYTE
It really, really matters how we think about tomorrow because it affects so much of who we are today.
The prophet Jeremiah found himself amidst a people who were groaning in terror over what may or may not happen the next day. How did he react to this situation?
Well, Jeremiah bought a field. What on earth does buying a field have to do with anything you may well ask! You see, the field he bought was at that very moment groaning under the weight of the camping Babylonians.
Buying that field was a remarkable act of faith, of trust, of hope!
Alone in a city full of people who believed they now had no tomorrows worth looking forward to, Jeremiah was boldly stating – of course we do!
Remember, this was a people who had been blessed, cared for and guided by God constantly throughout history, and yet Jeremiah alone of all of them, could look past the raw fear of tomorrow’s uncertainty and trust in God’s provision. Jeremiah was prepared to place his hope in the God who had always been there for them in the past, and so would always continue to be.
The point Jeremiah was making in buying that field was that even if our tomorrows look bleak, if we give up hope then we are losing out on today as well. Because the way we think about tomorrow, really, really affects the way we live today.
If we struggle to believe in the abundance of God’s love, and if we live with fear and worry about what may or may not happen, it will radically affect the quality of our life today.
In the Christian novel ‘The Shack,’ the author depicts an imaginary conversation between his central character – Mack – and Jesus. They are discussing Mack’s fears regarding the future, and Jesus says to him:
“Mack, do you realise that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”
Is that you? Do you spend a lot of time fretting and worrying about the future, and imagining some pretty gloomy and depressing scenarios? But is it also true to say that in your imaginations of the future, God is almost always absent?
Building up to the cross, Jesus constantly promised his disciples, that although the cross would happen, that he would never leave or forsake them. Never! Jesus encouraged his disciples to build their visions of the future around a promise that God would constantly be with them.
In the light of this, perhaps it is time you began to change how you imagine the future. Just as God has always been with you, and is with you right now, so God has promised to be with you always, even to the ‘very end of the age.’ Perhaps, it is time you built your future around that!
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, you have loved and cared for us from the moment we were first conceived. Help us, even in the midst of great difficulties, to trust in your loving care. Help us to actively and courageously hope in you always. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Matthew 28. 16-20
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
It really, really matters how we think about tomorrow because it affects so much of who we are today.
The prophet Jeremiah found himself amidst a people who were groaning in terror over what may or may not happen the next day. How did he react to this situation?
Well, Jeremiah bought a field. What on earth does buying a field have to do with anything you may well ask! You see, the field he bought was at that very moment groaning under the weight of the camping Babylonians.
Buying that field was a remarkable act of faith, of trust, of hope!
Alone in a city full of people who believed they now had no tomorrows worth looking forward to, Jeremiah was boldly stating – of course we do!
Remember, this was a people who had been blessed, cared for and guided by God constantly throughout history, and yet Jeremiah alone of all of them, could look past the raw fear of tomorrow’s uncertainty and trust in God’s provision. Jeremiah was prepared to place his hope in the God who had always been there for them in the past, and so would always continue to be.
The point Jeremiah was making in buying that field was that even if our tomorrows look bleak, if we give up hope then we are losing out on today as well. Because the way we think about tomorrow, really, really affects the way we live today.
If we struggle to believe in the abundance of God’s love, and if we live with fear and worry about what may or may not happen, it will radically affect the quality of our life today.
In the Christian novel ‘The Shack,’ the author depicts an imaginary conversation between his central character – Mack – and Jesus. They are discussing Mack’s fears regarding the future, and Jesus says to him:
“Mack, do you realise that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”
Is that you? Do you spend a lot of time fretting and worrying about the future, and imagining some pretty gloomy and depressing scenarios? But is it also true to say that in your imaginations of the future, God is almost always absent?
Building up to the cross, Jesus constantly promised his disciples, that although the cross would happen, that he would never leave or forsake them. Never! Jesus encouraged his disciples to build their visions of the future around a promise that God would constantly be with them.
In the light of this, perhaps it is time you began to change how you imagine the future. Just as God has always been with you, and is with you right now, so God has promised to be with you always, even to the ‘very end of the age.’ Perhaps, it is time you built your future around that!
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, you have loved and cared for us from the moment we were first conceived. Help us, even in the midst of great difficulties, to trust in your loving care. Help us to actively and courageously hope in you always. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Matthew 28. 16-20
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Monday 16th March - Future Fears
DAILY BYTE
There was a thick smog hanging over the city, a tangible stink. But it wasn’t the smog of pollution, nor was it the stink of a city lacking in basic sewerage and rubbish facilities. No, it was the smog of uncertainty; it was the raw smell of fear that hung over this city.
For you see, about 9 or 10 years previously, the Babylonians had conquered this grand, old city of Jerusalem. They had conquered them pretty peacefully as far as conquering cities generally tends to go, and in the process they had carried off the best of the best from the population. The cream of the crop in terms of leaders, soldiers and scholars, which included the royal family.
The Babylonians had installed a puppet king to rule Jerusalem on their behalf. This king was a man named Zedekiah, who had just made a huge mistake. He had plotted to overthrow the Babylonian yoke by collaborating with the Egyptians.
The only problem was that at the first sniff of resistance, at the first sign of credible opposition, the Egyptians ran from the deal – ran home with their tail between their legs. The Egyptians left this little nation facing a very angry Babylonia – the finest fighting machine of that age. And this is why Jerusalem was so afraid.
Because in 587BC the Babylonian machine arrived to teach them a lesson! They had parked their behemoth army just outside Jerusalem and were starving them out. Planning an assault that Jerusalem had no chance of resisting.
Within the walls of the city, the people did not know what tomorrow would bring. Doomsday seemed just around the corner – would they be slaughtered, raped, mutilated? Or would they be dragged off into exile, away from the Promised Land, the Temple, the city – the place they believed God’s presence was located.
Today’s focus reading powerfully describes the feelings of the city at this time: ‘Cries of fear are heard – terror not peace. Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then, why do I see every strong man with his hand on his stomach like a woman in labour, every face turned deathly pale?’
I am reminded of the sign over the entrance to hell in Dante’s work – ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ That same sign could have been put up on Jerusalem’s gate, such was their fear of what tomorrow could bring.
This Lent we are tracking Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the inevitability of the cross that awaited him there. Have you ever wondered how Jesus felt about that – about a journey that would take him only to suffering and hurt?
We all have moments where the fear of the future grips our souls and threatens to strangle the life out of us. Major fears regarding tomorrow; anxieties and stresses causes us to clutch our burning stomachs in worry.
Know that this is not God’s plan for you. God does not want us to live in fear and worry, but in peace and trust. Over the next week we will be discussing exactly how God can help us deal with our fears of tomorrow. Although we will remember Jesus’ own experiences in his journey to Jerusalem and the cross, we will be taking a slight diversion by looking more carefully at the story of Jeremiah because it contains a wealth of wisdom concerning how we might deal with our fears for the future.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Loving God, we bring before you every fear and concern that we are struggling with. Whether they are major fears or mild anxieties we know that you do not desire us to be robbed of life because of them. We place our trust in you and you alone. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Jeremiah 30 : 4-6
‘Cries of fear are heard – terror not peace. Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then, why do I see every strong man with his hand on his stomach like a woman in labour, very face turned deathly pale?’ – Jeremiah 30. 4-6
There was a thick smog hanging over the city, a tangible stink. But it wasn’t the smog of pollution, nor was it the stink of a city lacking in basic sewerage and rubbish facilities. No, it was the smog of uncertainty; it was the raw smell of fear that hung over this city.
For you see, about 9 or 10 years previously, the Babylonians had conquered this grand, old city of Jerusalem. They had conquered them pretty peacefully as far as conquering cities generally tends to go, and in the process they had carried off the best of the best from the population. The cream of the crop in terms of leaders, soldiers and scholars, which included the royal family.
The Babylonians had installed a puppet king to rule Jerusalem on their behalf. This king was a man named Zedekiah, who had just made a huge mistake. He had plotted to overthrow the Babylonian yoke by collaborating with the Egyptians.
The only problem was that at the first sniff of resistance, at the first sign of credible opposition, the Egyptians ran from the deal – ran home with their tail between their legs. The Egyptians left this little nation facing a very angry Babylonia – the finest fighting machine of that age. And this is why Jerusalem was so afraid.
Because in 587BC the Babylonian machine arrived to teach them a lesson! They had parked their behemoth army just outside Jerusalem and were starving them out. Planning an assault that Jerusalem had no chance of resisting.
Within the walls of the city, the people did not know what tomorrow would bring. Doomsday seemed just around the corner – would they be slaughtered, raped, mutilated? Or would they be dragged off into exile, away from the Promised Land, the Temple, the city – the place they believed God’s presence was located.
Today’s focus reading powerfully describes the feelings of the city at this time: ‘Cries of fear are heard – terror not peace. Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then, why do I see every strong man with his hand on his stomach like a woman in labour, every face turned deathly pale?’
I am reminded of the sign over the entrance to hell in Dante’s work – ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ That same sign could have been put up on Jerusalem’s gate, such was their fear of what tomorrow could bring.
This Lent we are tracking Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the inevitability of the cross that awaited him there. Have you ever wondered how Jesus felt about that – about a journey that would take him only to suffering and hurt?
We all have moments where the fear of the future grips our souls and threatens to strangle the life out of us. Major fears regarding tomorrow; anxieties and stresses causes us to clutch our burning stomachs in worry.
Know that this is not God’s plan for you. God does not want us to live in fear and worry, but in peace and trust. Over the next week we will be discussing exactly how God can help us deal with our fears of tomorrow. Although we will remember Jesus’ own experiences in his journey to Jerusalem and the cross, we will be taking a slight diversion by looking more carefully at the story of Jeremiah because it contains a wealth of wisdom concerning how we might deal with our fears for the future.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Loving God, we bring before you every fear and concern that we are struggling with. Whether they are major fears or mild anxieties we know that you do not desire us to be robbed of life because of them. We place our trust in you and you alone. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Jeremiah 30 : 4-6
‘Cries of fear are heard – terror not peace. Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then, why do I see every strong man with his hand on his stomach like a woman in labour, very face turned deathly pale?’ – Jeremiah 30. 4-6
Thursday 12 March 2009
Friday 13th March - Ought we not be set free?
DAILY BYTE
We have acknowledged this week that we struggle with the baggage of our past. We struggle to identify things that cripple us, slowly untangle things that bind us, remember our past rightly, and make ourselves vulnerable, asking for forgiveness and healing help for our bodies, minds, and spirits. We struggle to be free.
So as the Sabbath day approaches, we must ask the question, as Jesus asks, ought we not be set free from bondage on the Sabbath day? As we set our faces toward Jerusalem, do we see waiting there freedom or more bondage?
In Exodus 31:16 it is written: “Therefore the Israelites shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant.” The Sabbath is a crucial part of peoples’ covenant with God. It is a time when we are commanded to rest in the assurance of who God faithfully is, and through this rest, we learn to believe more deeply, trust more implicitly, and find the grace to live more like Christ. Through this rest, we are bound more and more tightly into our covenant relationship with that faithful, forgiving God.
So, as we head toward both the cross and resurrection of Jerusalem, we must keep in mind that we can never truly be free unless, as Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove says in his book, Free to be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line, “we are free to be bound together in Jesus Christ.”
And so indeed, as Christ implied, we ought to be set free on the Sabbath. But we can only be forgiven and released of our pasts if we realize that forgiveness means we are tied to the cross with the one who forgave us, and we also rise, equally tied to him in the resurrection. Being free means we are forgiven and released from guilt, shame, and pain, as individuals, but it also means we are indelibly bound to others in our community who are also forgiven, who need forgiveness, and who we, ourselves, are trying to forgive.
We often see the Sabbath as a day to kick up our feet, read the newspaper, maybe go to the beach, and consume whatever we are fed in worship on a Sunday morning or evening. But how might your view of the Sabbath change, if you think of it as a time set aside purposefully to become more free by becoming more bound to God through Christ and through relationships with one another?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Pray this edited version of Martin Luther’s reflections in his work, The Freedom of the Christian, as your own prayer:
Although I am an unworthy and condemned person, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part, out of pure, free mercy, so that from now on I need nothing except faith which believes that this is true. Why should I not therefore freely, joyfully, with all my heart, and with eager will do all things which I know are pleasing and acceptable to such a Father who has overwhelmed me with his inestimable riches? I will therefore give myself as a Christ to my neighbour, just as Christ offered himself to me. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 13:16
“And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”
We have acknowledged this week that we struggle with the baggage of our past. We struggle to identify things that cripple us, slowly untangle things that bind us, remember our past rightly, and make ourselves vulnerable, asking for forgiveness and healing help for our bodies, minds, and spirits. We struggle to be free.
So as the Sabbath day approaches, we must ask the question, as Jesus asks, ought we not be set free from bondage on the Sabbath day? As we set our faces toward Jerusalem, do we see waiting there freedom or more bondage?
In Exodus 31:16 it is written: “Therefore the Israelites shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant.” The Sabbath is a crucial part of peoples’ covenant with God. It is a time when we are commanded to rest in the assurance of who God faithfully is, and through this rest, we learn to believe more deeply, trust more implicitly, and find the grace to live more like Christ. Through this rest, we are bound more and more tightly into our covenant relationship with that faithful, forgiving God.
So, as we head toward both the cross and resurrection of Jerusalem, we must keep in mind that we can never truly be free unless, as Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove says in his book, Free to be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line, “we are free to be bound together in Jesus Christ.”
And so indeed, as Christ implied, we ought to be set free on the Sabbath. But we can only be forgiven and released of our pasts if we realize that forgiveness means we are tied to the cross with the one who forgave us, and we also rise, equally tied to him in the resurrection. Being free means we are forgiven and released from guilt, shame, and pain, as individuals, but it also means we are indelibly bound to others in our community who are also forgiven, who need forgiveness, and who we, ourselves, are trying to forgive.
We often see the Sabbath as a day to kick up our feet, read the newspaper, maybe go to the beach, and consume whatever we are fed in worship on a Sunday morning or evening. But how might your view of the Sabbath change, if you think of it as a time set aside purposefully to become more free by becoming more bound to God through Christ and through relationships with one another?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Pray this edited version of Martin Luther’s reflections in his work, The Freedom of the Christian, as your own prayer:
Although I am an unworthy and condemned person, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part, out of pure, free mercy, so that from now on I need nothing except faith which believes that this is true. Why should I not therefore freely, joyfully, with all my heart, and with eager will do all things which I know are pleasing and acceptable to such a Father who has overwhelmed me with his inestimable riches? I will therefore give myself as a Christ to my neighbour, just as Christ offered himself to me. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 13:16
“And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”
Wednesday 11 March 2009
Thursday 12th March - Our Hands
DAILY BYTE
When I was confirmed as a member of the church at the age of thirteen, after the other confirmands and I declared our vows, one by one we were asked to kneel. And when it was my turn to be confirmed, my mother, my father, my mentor, and all the other ministers of the church gathered around my tiny frame, and piled their hands on top of me. On my shoulders, my head, my hands, and my back. Almost all at once the gravity of the moment and the embrace of the community fell down on me, and something about me changed.
We might ask the logical question, what could putting your hands on someone while you’re praying actually, physically do? What difference does it really make?
Well, the story in Luke where Jesus heals the woman from her crippling past provides insight into these questions. When Jesus heals the woman, he tells her that she is “set free” from her ailment, but she does not stand up straight and begin praising God until he does one other thing. He lays his hands on her! Healing does not come in the life of this woman, until she feels the physical touch of God, the weight of God’s caring and compassion, on her body.
Healing is what the hands of God can do. But our hands are also the tools we often use to sin. Our hands slap and hit and throw and molest. Our hands write cruel words and create instruments that destroy.
So, perhaps we can see it as redeeming and a part of God’s wisdom and grace that as people who strive to be Christlike, our hands can also hold, comfort, guide, and heal. Our hands write words of love and create instruments of mercy.
As vulnerable human beings, we regularly commit ourselves into the hands of others and into the hands of God. We consult doctors, we are held by loved ones, and are comforted by friends. The popularity of AT&T’s slogan, “Reach out and touch someone” is no accident. As human beings, we have an innate desire to touch others and be touched in life-giving, healing ways.
But sometimes, laying hands on people to heal or pray for them can feel awkward. Asking others to lay hands on you can seem like a strange request. But Jesus shows us through his example, that great healing can come when we commit our bodies and spirits to the caring hands of others and to the hands of God.
Who are you willing to be vulnerable with? Who can you go to for prayer and in trust that someone else can offer part of Christ’s healing touch in your life? What things in your life need to be healed or forgiven?
PRAY AS YOU GO
In the name of God and trusting in his might alone, receive Christ's healing touch to make you whole. May Christ bring you wholeness of body, mind and spirit, deliver you from every evil, and give you his peace. Amen.
– from the Common Worship of the Church of England
FOCUS READING
Luke 13:13
When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
When I was confirmed as a member of the church at the age of thirteen, after the other confirmands and I declared our vows, one by one we were asked to kneel. And when it was my turn to be confirmed, my mother, my father, my mentor, and all the other ministers of the church gathered around my tiny frame, and piled their hands on top of me. On my shoulders, my head, my hands, and my back. Almost all at once the gravity of the moment and the embrace of the community fell down on me, and something about me changed.
We might ask the logical question, what could putting your hands on someone while you’re praying actually, physically do? What difference does it really make?
Well, the story in Luke where Jesus heals the woman from her crippling past provides insight into these questions. When Jesus heals the woman, he tells her that she is “set free” from her ailment, but she does not stand up straight and begin praising God until he does one other thing. He lays his hands on her! Healing does not come in the life of this woman, until she feels the physical touch of God, the weight of God’s caring and compassion, on her body.
Healing is what the hands of God can do. But our hands are also the tools we often use to sin. Our hands slap and hit and throw and molest. Our hands write cruel words and create instruments that destroy.
So, perhaps we can see it as redeeming and a part of God’s wisdom and grace that as people who strive to be Christlike, our hands can also hold, comfort, guide, and heal. Our hands write words of love and create instruments of mercy.
As vulnerable human beings, we regularly commit ourselves into the hands of others and into the hands of God. We consult doctors, we are held by loved ones, and are comforted by friends. The popularity of AT&T’s slogan, “Reach out and touch someone” is no accident. As human beings, we have an innate desire to touch others and be touched in life-giving, healing ways.
But sometimes, laying hands on people to heal or pray for them can feel awkward. Asking others to lay hands on you can seem like a strange request. But Jesus shows us through his example, that great healing can come when we commit our bodies and spirits to the caring hands of others and to the hands of God.
Who are you willing to be vulnerable with? Who can you go to for prayer and in trust that someone else can offer part of Christ’s healing touch in your life? What things in your life need to be healed or forgiven?
PRAY AS YOU GO
In the name of God and trusting in his might alone, receive Christ's healing touch to make you whole. May Christ bring you wholeness of body, mind and spirit, deliver you from every evil, and give you his peace. Amen.
– from the Common Worship of the Church of England
FOCUS READING
Luke 13:13
When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Wednesday 11th March - Preferring Chains
DAILY BYTE
Over and over again, we teach our children stories about the liberation of God’s people in the Exodus out of Egypt. We teach about deliverance and about release from the chains of slavery. We show pictures of Moses parting the Red Sea, watch Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, and talk about the Promised Land and God’s promises of new life and hope and freedom.
But why do we tend to ignore the fact that once the Israelites were freed and sent on their journey to the Promised Land, their memories seemed to become a bit fuzzy? And oh, how they grumbled! Where had God taken them, they asked? What was the point of this miserable wandering?
It WAS BETTER IN EGYPT.
Not only was it better in chains of slavery, but it would have been better to have died in Egypt, as long as they could have died with satisfied stomachs. Death would have been better than travelling on a journey where their only satisfaction was that the Lord could supposedly be trusted to lead them.
Even in the greatest story of freedom ever told, a story that has been woven into the stories and struggles for peoples’ freedom from all sorts of bondage ever since, the people given freedom express their desire to return to slavery.
In this story, the free Israelites become enslaved in a different kind of way. They are enslaved by a past that they cannot remember rightly.
American writer and Civil Rights activist, James Baldwin writes in his essay, “Letter to my Nephew”:
“You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason… Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”
What part of your history do you need to re-evaluate and re-understand? Do you look at your past and see it as a time of freedom, when really it was a time of bondage? What must you do to glimpse and take hold of the freedom available to you now, through trusting God’s promises for the future?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Liberating God, you deliver your people out of the chains of slavery time and time again. And time and time again, we look back on our chains with longing instead of grasping onto the freedom you offer us. Show us true freedom, since it is, indeed, for freedom that Christ has set us free. Help us to stand firm and not submit ourselves again to the yoke of slavery. Amen. – Galatians 5:1
FOCUS VERSE
Exodus 16: 2-3
The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Over and over again, we teach our children stories about the liberation of God’s people in the Exodus out of Egypt. We teach about deliverance and about release from the chains of slavery. We show pictures of Moses parting the Red Sea, watch Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, and talk about the Promised Land and God’s promises of new life and hope and freedom.
But why do we tend to ignore the fact that once the Israelites were freed and sent on their journey to the Promised Land, their memories seemed to become a bit fuzzy? And oh, how they grumbled! Where had God taken them, they asked? What was the point of this miserable wandering?
It WAS BETTER IN EGYPT.
Not only was it better in chains of slavery, but it would have been better to have died in Egypt, as long as they could have died with satisfied stomachs. Death would have been better than travelling on a journey where their only satisfaction was that the Lord could supposedly be trusted to lead them.
Even in the greatest story of freedom ever told, a story that has been woven into the stories and struggles for peoples’ freedom from all sorts of bondage ever since, the people given freedom express their desire to return to slavery.
In this story, the free Israelites become enslaved in a different kind of way. They are enslaved by a past that they cannot remember rightly.
American writer and Civil Rights activist, James Baldwin writes in his essay, “Letter to my Nephew”:
“You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason… Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”
What part of your history do you need to re-evaluate and re-understand? Do you look at your past and see it as a time of freedom, when really it was a time of bondage? What must you do to glimpse and take hold of the freedom available to you now, through trusting God’s promises for the future?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Liberating God, you deliver your people out of the chains of slavery time and time again. And time and time again, we look back on our chains with longing instead of grasping onto the freedom you offer us. Show us true freedom, since it is, indeed, for freedom that Christ has set us free. Help us to stand firm and not submit ourselves again to the yoke of slavery. Amen. – Galatians 5:1
FOCUS VERSE
Exodus 16: 2-3
The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Monday 9 March 2009
Tuesday 10th March - Jesus stops his teaching
DAILY BYTE
The story of Jesus healing the crippled woman is fascinating and awe-inspiring because of what Jesus did – but also because of what Jesus did not do.
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, and what could be more crucial than the Son of God, himself, teaching people about God and the scriptures? But, someone appears who stands out in the crowd - not for her intellectual prowess or biblical wisdom, but for the fact that she was clearly in pain. And when Jesus sees this person, he does a shocking thing. He stops his teaching. He cancels his regularly scheduled programme and focuses all his attention upon one small person in front of him who needs help. He changes direction.
How often do we become so absorbed in sorting out our own issues, so attached to one life direction, so engaged in one calling, so enslaved to one particular understanding of how our life has been therefore how it must continue to be in the future – that we forget to see the hopeful new possibilities of the future that are right in front of us?
The woman in the story didn’t ask Jesus to stop and pay attention to her. He simply had the eyes to see her, and the heart to know that at that given moment, it was time to change direction and turn his attention toward someone else.
I know that often when I am doing work or am absorbed in a great scene of a movie, or am going for a certain goal, I act as though wild horses could stampede through, and I wouldn’t notice them. Similarly, when we confront issues of illness, grief, and other baggage and problems of our lives, we can allow ourselves to be consumed by them. We become slaves to them and often forget that freedom and healing are even possibilties.
This is not to say that we should ignore our problems and brush through them as though they don’t exist, thereby never truly addressing them on a journey to healing. And this is not to say that we should live lives that are totally free of healthy boundaries so that we take on a martyr or a messiah complex and allow all the problems of the world to come crashing down on our own shoulders.
But, this is to say that even Jesus allowed himself to be interrupted by people and key moments in life that were kingdom moments. When he allowed himself to stop for a moment and change direction, he ushered into the world a greater understanding of healing and wholeness.
As you pursue your daily callings and address daily problems, do you allow yourself to be interrupted by moments of surprising healing? Or do you plow through life, failing to allow yourself to regain your true life’s direction and notice opportunities to bring freedom to yourself and others?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God – in this precious hour, we pause and gather to hear your word – to do so, we break from our responsibilities and from our play fantasies; we move from our fears that overwhelm and from our ambitions that are too strong. Free us in these moments from every distraction, that we may focus to listen, that we may hear, that we may change. Amen.
- That we may change from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
FOCUS VERSE
Psalm 143:8
Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
The story of Jesus healing the crippled woman is fascinating and awe-inspiring because of what Jesus did – but also because of what Jesus did not do.
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, and what could be more crucial than the Son of God, himself, teaching people about God and the scriptures? But, someone appears who stands out in the crowd - not for her intellectual prowess or biblical wisdom, but for the fact that she was clearly in pain. And when Jesus sees this person, he does a shocking thing. He stops his teaching. He cancels his regularly scheduled programme and focuses all his attention upon one small person in front of him who needs help. He changes direction.
How often do we become so absorbed in sorting out our own issues, so attached to one life direction, so engaged in one calling, so enslaved to one particular understanding of how our life has been therefore how it must continue to be in the future – that we forget to see the hopeful new possibilities of the future that are right in front of us?
The woman in the story didn’t ask Jesus to stop and pay attention to her. He simply had the eyes to see her, and the heart to know that at that given moment, it was time to change direction and turn his attention toward someone else.
I know that often when I am doing work or am absorbed in a great scene of a movie, or am going for a certain goal, I act as though wild horses could stampede through, and I wouldn’t notice them. Similarly, when we confront issues of illness, grief, and other baggage and problems of our lives, we can allow ourselves to be consumed by them. We become slaves to them and often forget that freedom and healing are even possibilties.
This is not to say that we should ignore our problems and brush through them as though they don’t exist, thereby never truly addressing them on a journey to healing. And this is not to say that we should live lives that are totally free of healthy boundaries so that we take on a martyr or a messiah complex and allow all the problems of the world to come crashing down on our own shoulders.
But, this is to say that even Jesus allowed himself to be interrupted by people and key moments in life that were kingdom moments. When he allowed himself to stop for a moment and change direction, he ushered into the world a greater understanding of healing and wholeness.
As you pursue your daily callings and address daily problems, do you allow yourself to be interrupted by moments of surprising healing? Or do you plow through life, failing to allow yourself to regain your true life’s direction and notice opportunities to bring freedom to yourself and others?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God – in this precious hour, we pause and gather to hear your word – to do so, we break from our responsibilities and from our play fantasies; we move from our fears that overwhelm and from our ambitions that are too strong. Free us in these moments from every distraction, that we may focus to listen, that we may hear, that we may change. Amen.
- That we may change from Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
FOCUS VERSE
Psalm 143:8
Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
Sunday 8 March 2009
Monday 9th March - Baggage
DAILY BYTE
As the theme for this Lenten series is, “Jerusalem! Setting our faces to the cross,” it is crucial for us to recognize that we are setting off in a new direction. As a church and as individuals, this season is a time for contemplating how we can do that in life-giving ways, and part of that process – the sometimes gruesome, mucky part – is identifying past baggage that we are bringing with us on this new journey.
We tend to talk about peoples’ baggage in negative ways – in the ways that it weighs them down and prevents them from moving forward. I picture in my head someone like myself, wading my way through the airport, rolling a suitcase with another one stacked and attached on top of it, a backpack on my back, a camera bag slung over one shoulder, and a handbag slung over the other shoulder with other extraneous bits and pieces lassoing my neck. Now, some of that baggage, I’m sure, is necessary – like toothpaste. But perhaps the fifth pair of shoes… Not so necessary...
Some things in life, we do carry everywhere with us, recognizing that they satisfy a need, reveal a certain part of our unique identity, or teach us something about the ways that we have lived in the past and the ways we desire to live in the future. Some baggage reminds us of the road we have travelled and enables us to make needed changes in our lives so that we can move forward.
But, some baggage does gradually cripple us more and more until we are so weighed down by it that we feel physically and spiritually unable to straighten ourselves out so that we can look up and see what’s before us.
The Book of Luke speaks of a spirit that had crippled a woman for eighteen years so that “she was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight” (Luke 13:11).
Do you feel that anything is crippling you in your life right now? Do you feel weighed down, hunched over, unable to stand up straight?
The American author and poet, Maya Angelou, has said:
"Each of us has the right and responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have travelled, and if the future road looms ominously or unpromising, and the road back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off the road into another. "
Are you carrying baggage that is necessary or unnecessary? What steps do you need to take to admit and confront the things in life that cripple you physically, emotionally, or spiritually? What might it take for you to set your face in another direction?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Christ who healed the cripple, reveal to us the places where we are crippled in our lives. Help us to identify unnecessary baggage and work through the process of letting it go so that we can set our faces in new directions that bring life to us and to others. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 13:10-12
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
As the theme for this Lenten series is, “Jerusalem! Setting our faces to the cross,” it is crucial for us to recognize that we are setting off in a new direction. As a church and as individuals, this season is a time for contemplating how we can do that in life-giving ways, and part of that process – the sometimes gruesome, mucky part – is identifying past baggage that we are bringing with us on this new journey.
We tend to talk about peoples’ baggage in negative ways – in the ways that it weighs them down and prevents them from moving forward. I picture in my head someone like myself, wading my way through the airport, rolling a suitcase with another one stacked and attached on top of it, a backpack on my back, a camera bag slung over one shoulder, and a handbag slung over the other shoulder with other extraneous bits and pieces lassoing my neck. Now, some of that baggage, I’m sure, is necessary – like toothpaste. But perhaps the fifth pair of shoes… Not so necessary...
Some things in life, we do carry everywhere with us, recognizing that they satisfy a need, reveal a certain part of our unique identity, or teach us something about the ways that we have lived in the past and the ways we desire to live in the future. Some baggage reminds us of the road we have travelled and enables us to make needed changes in our lives so that we can move forward.
But, some baggage does gradually cripple us more and more until we are so weighed down by it that we feel physically and spiritually unable to straighten ourselves out so that we can look up and see what’s before us.
The Book of Luke speaks of a spirit that had crippled a woman for eighteen years so that “she was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight” (Luke 13:11).
Do you feel that anything is crippling you in your life right now? Do you feel weighed down, hunched over, unable to stand up straight?
The American author and poet, Maya Angelou, has said:
"Each of us has the right and responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have travelled, and if the future road looms ominously or unpromising, and the road back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off the road into another. "
Are you carrying baggage that is necessary or unnecessary? What steps do you need to take to admit and confront the things in life that cripple you physically, emotionally, or spiritually? What might it take for you to set your face in another direction?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Christ who healed the cripple, reveal to us the places where we are crippled in our lives. Help us to identify unnecessary baggage and work through the process of letting it go so that we can set our faces in new directions that bring life to us and to others. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 13:10-12
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Saturday 7 March 2009
Sunday 8th March - Ethelbert Children's Home
Weekend Blurb
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Ethelbert Children's Home cares for 60 abused, abandoned and neglected children from various backgrounds and cultures. They come to us frightened and hurting, not knowing who to trust or what security is. We gather them in and start the process of healing, helping them to trust again and to feel secure and cared for. Our aim is to nurture them so that one day they may leave here able to cope with society and become worthwhile citizens, capable of contributing to the world around them.
A donation can be sent to:
Ethelbert Children's Home, PO Box 28119, Malvern, Kwa-Zulu Natal, 4055.
www.ethelbert.co.za
Thank you for caring.
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Ethelbert Children's Home cares for 60 abused, abandoned and neglected children from various backgrounds and cultures. They come to us frightened and hurting, not knowing who to trust or what security is. We gather them in and start the process of healing, helping them to trust again and to feel secure and cared for. Our aim is to nurture them so that one day they may leave here able to cope with society and become worthwhile citizens, capable of contributing to the world around them.
A donation can be sent to:
Ethelbert Children's Home, PO Box 28119, Malvern, Kwa-Zulu Natal, 4055.
www.ethelbert.co.za
Thank you for caring.
Friday 6 March 2009
Saturday 7 March - Ethelbert Children's Home
Weekend Blurb
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Ethelbert Children's Home cares for 60 abused, abandoned and neglected children from various backgrounds and cultures. They come to us frightened and hurting, not knowing who to trust or what security is. We gather them in and start the process of healing, helping them to trust again and to feel secure and cared for. Our aim is to nurture them so that one day they may leave here able to cope with society and become worthwhile citizens, capable of contributing to the world around them.
A donation can be sent to:
Ethelbert Children's Home, PO Box 28119, Malvern, Kwa-Zulu Natal, 4055.
www.ethelbert.co.za
Thank you for caring.
The BDC is a weekday devotional aimed at anyone and everyone who struggles to keep up with the stressful demands of daily life.
This is why there are no weekend devotions prepared; however look out for your next update which will be this Monday.
Every weekend we will use this space to focus on a different mission project. This is an excellent opportunity to see how many people are striving to make a real difference in this country, and also how you might become involved.
Ethelbert Children's Home cares for 60 abused, abandoned and neglected children from various backgrounds and cultures. They come to us frightened and hurting, not knowing who to trust or what security is. We gather them in and start the process of healing, helping them to trust again and to feel secure and cared for. Our aim is to nurture them so that one day they may leave here able to cope with society and become worthwhile citizens, capable of contributing to the world around them.
A donation can be sent to:
Ethelbert Children's Home, PO Box 28119, Malvern, Kwa-Zulu Natal, 4055.
www.ethelbert.co.za
Thank you for caring.
Thursday 5 March 2009
Friday 6th March - Finding Your Purpose
DAILY BYTE
During World War 2, prisoners of war in a certain Japanese concentration camp were forced to spend their days digging a massive hole at one end of the camp. They then had to bag the dirt into sacks and carry them all the way to the opposite end of the camp where they were instructed to fill another giant hole. Once they had completed this task, they were forced to begin the whole process all over again, this time digging up the hole they had just filled and carrying the dirt back to fill the original hole. The aim of this was to de-motivate the POW’s through taking away any sense of true purpose in their labour.
It broke their spirit’s to put a whole lot of effort into something for no real reason or purpose.
I reflected on this story in our church recently when we were celebrating a baptism event. This is because baptism stands in stark contrast to the scene of the POW’s hopelessness and loss of purpose. Baptism is a powerful reminder that God has special plans and purposes in place for each and every single one of us – no matter how small and insignificant we may feel.
God has created us to mean something, to be a part of the ongoing creation of goodness in this world. This meaning is not tied up in fame, wealth, power and the acknowledgement of our peers. If we aim in those directions to find purposes, the problem is not that we are aiming too high, but too low! If we shape our lives around anything other than God’s design we will find by our life’s end that all we have really been doing is transporting sand from one area to another – in terms of greater cosmic significance it has meant very little.
The author John Ortberg warns us that just as every life has a specific divine purpose, so also every life struggles with the temptation of a lesser, shadow purpose. Sometimes the world, or quite frankly our own sin – the darkness within - tries to impose these shadow purposes onto us. For we are all created for a Godly purpose, but if we don’t embrace that purpose as a way of life then we can slip into shadow purposes and begin to centre our lives on things that are dark or selfish or just plain shallow.
This is why it is so vital that we hear and obey God’s call. God’s call for us to courageously and sacrificially centre our lives not around our own selfish concerns, but around the concerns of God. For we all have a specific created purpose!
This purpose changes as the years go by and we grow and develop or our circumstances change. But always our specific life purpose will be found within the more general command of Jesus – the great command(ment) of Jesus. Today’s focus reading reminds us that we are to found and shape our lives around loving God, and loving others as we love ourselves. If we do that in a way that is humble and open, if we take the time to carefully listen to God and not rush by all our life’s burning bushes – well then, we will hear the voice of God speaking to us rather specifically – calling us to move beyond ourselves and into the great, wide open spaces of God’s mercy and love: To become part of God’s ongoing creation of goodness in this world.
What is your shadow purpose?
Write down what you feel God may be specifically calling you to do with your life (as this stage of your life)?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, as much as we are all created for a purpose, so we all struggle with various shadow purposes. We pray that you would reveal ours to us, and give us the strength not to allow any dream, activity, object, relationship or person, to suck the life out of the purpose you created us for. At the same time loving God, it is our prayer that you would open our eyes to our life’s specific purpose. Bring to us clarity, understanding, commitment and courage. Help us faithfully fulfil what you have created us to be at all times and in all times. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Mark 12 : 29-31
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
During World War 2, prisoners of war in a certain Japanese concentration camp were forced to spend their days digging a massive hole at one end of the camp. They then had to bag the dirt into sacks and carry them all the way to the opposite end of the camp where they were instructed to fill another giant hole. Once they had completed this task, they were forced to begin the whole process all over again, this time digging up the hole they had just filled and carrying the dirt back to fill the original hole. The aim of this was to de-motivate the POW’s through taking away any sense of true purpose in their labour.
It broke their spirit’s to put a whole lot of effort into something for no real reason or purpose.
I reflected on this story in our church recently when we were celebrating a baptism event. This is because baptism stands in stark contrast to the scene of the POW’s hopelessness and loss of purpose. Baptism is a powerful reminder that God has special plans and purposes in place for each and every single one of us – no matter how small and insignificant we may feel.
God has created us to mean something, to be a part of the ongoing creation of goodness in this world. This meaning is not tied up in fame, wealth, power and the acknowledgement of our peers. If we aim in those directions to find purposes, the problem is not that we are aiming too high, but too low! If we shape our lives around anything other than God’s design we will find by our life’s end that all we have really been doing is transporting sand from one area to another – in terms of greater cosmic significance it has meant very little.
The author John Ortberg warns us that just as every life has a specific divine purpose, so also every life struggles with the temptation of a lesser, shadow purpose. Sometimes the world, or quite frankly our own sin – the darkness within - tries to impose these shadow purposes onto us. For we are all created for a Godly purpose, but if we don’t embrace that purpose as a way of life then we can slip into shadow purposes and begin to centre our lives on things that are dark or selfish or just plain shallow.
This is why it is so vital that we hear and obey God’s call. God’s call for us to courageously and sacrificially centre our lives not around our own selfish concerns, but around the concerns of God. For we all have a specific created purpose!
This purpose changes as the years go by and we grow and develop or our circumstances change. But always our specific life purpose will be found within the more general command of Jesus – the great command(ment) of Jesus. Today’s focus reading reminds us that we are to found and shape our lives around loving God, and loving others as we love ourselves. If we do that in a way that is humble and open, if we take the time to carefully listen to God and not rush by all our life’s burning bushes – well then, we will hear the voice of God speaking to us rather specifically – calling us to move beyond ourselves and into the great, wide open spaces of God’s mercy and love: To become part of God’s ongoing creation of goodness in this world.
What is your shadow purpose?
Write down what you feel God may be specifically calling you to do with your life (as this stage of your life)?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, as much as we are all created for a purpose, so we all struggle with various shadow purposes. We pray that you would reveal ours to us, and give us the strength not to allow any dream, activity, object, relationship or person, to suck the life out of the purpose you created us for. At the same time loving God, it is our prayer that you would open our eyes to our life’s specific purpose. Bring to us clarity, understanding, commitment and courage. Help us faithfully fulfil what you have created us to be at all times and in all times. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Mark 12 : 29-31
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Wednesday 4 March 2009
Thursday 5th March - Too Little, Too Wrinkly and Too Shy!
DAILY BYTE
If the first thing we learn about calling from Moses’ story is that all are called, then the second is that God’s call moves us irrevocably beyond ourselves. Moses was brought out of a desert and his previous way of life by God’s call on his life – he was told to risk the cut throat dynamics of a Pharaoh’s court and to brave the ruthless might of the Egyptian state.
One of the most redeeming parts of Moses’ story is just how real he is in the face of such a call. Moses does his best to weasel his way out of it – bringing up all sorts of long and involved excuses. This is just how we so often react to God’s call on our lives, especially when it is challenging us to move out of our comfort zones, to put aside our natural inclinations to selfishness and form our lives in some specific way around the graceful generosity of God.
Look through Moses’ excuses, then carefully consider the one’s you commonly use. ‘I am too young.’ ‘I am too old.’ ‘I am not gifted enough for that.’ ‘There is too much else I want to do first.’
Moses’ excuses were stammered out one by one and could be paraphrased as Moses feeling he was ‘too little, too wrinkly and too shy!’ In the face of God’s call on his life, Moses began to bring up a lifetime of fears and personal insecurities. Moses felt tiny in the face of the mighty Egyptian machine whose oppression of the Israelites had long been entrenched. Moses felt the creak and rattle of age in his bones, and also felt the long years of painfully stuttering his words meant he was complete unsuitable for the task of being God’s emissary.
The story is told of a man who became lost while travelling through the desert. He eventually became so thirsty that he grew drastically weakened. He stumbled along until he saw a well in the distance. At first he thought it was a hullicination but as he drew nearer he realise it was real. He scrambled as quickly as he could until he reached it but to his horror found it was dry.
Dropping to his knees in despair, the man’s eye by chance fell on a small pile of stones with the corner of a note sticking out from under them. The note read: ‘Dear friend. Dig further under these rocks and you will find a jaor of water. DON’T drink it! The well seems dry, but the pump leather just needs to be watered. If you pour the water from the jug onto the pump leather, it will then provide as much water as you need. Just fill up the jug and rebury it when you are finished.’
This story is about fearing the unknown. It must have been quite a moment of trepidation for this man – do I go with what I know and drink from this jug of stale water and sustain my life for at least another day, or do I trust the note’s message and pour out the jug in the hope that I will then have more than enough water to sustain my life for as long as I need to get out of this desert?
Perhaps Moses’ felt he was in a very similar predicament, wondering whether he should go with what he knew and could see with his own eyes – factors such as his age, his stutter, his puniness compared to Egyptian might – or whether he could trust God’s promise enough to see him through to the end of his mission.
These questions are ones we all grapple with in regard to God’s call on our own lives. Can I really trust God and what I believe he is calling me to do with my life? Do I spend my days hiding behind all sorts of excuses, or do I step out in faith and trust?
These are questions that only you can answer.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, so often I hide behind all sorts of smokescreens and excuses. Please forgive me. Give me the strength and courage I need to trust and obey the call you have placed upon my life. In Christ name I pray. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Exodus 3 : 7-11
The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
If the first thing we learn about calling from Moses’ story is that all are called, then the second is that God’s call moves us irrevocably beyond ourselves. Moses was brought out of a desert and his previous way of life by God’s call on his life – he was told to risk the cut throat dynamics of a Pharaoh’s court and to brave the ruthless might of the Egyptian state.
One of the most redeeming parts of Moses’ story is just how real he is in the face of such a call. Moses does his best to weasel his way out of it – bringing up all sorts of long and involved excuses. This is just how we so often react to God’s call on our lives, especially when it is challenging us to move out of our comfort zones, to put aside our natural inclinations to selfishness and form our lives in some specific way around the graceful generosity of God.
Look through Moses’ excuses, then carefully consider the one’s you commonly use. ‘I am too young.’ ‘I am too old.’ ‘I am not gifted enough for that.’ ‘There is too much else I want to do first.’
Moses’ excuses were stammered out one by one and could be paraphrased as Moses feeling he was ‘too little, too wrinkly and too shy!’ In the face of God’s call on his life, Moses began to bring up a lifetime of fears and personal insecurities. Moses felt tiny in the face of the mighty Egyptian machine whose oppression of the Israelites had long been entrenched. Moses felt the creak and rattle of age in his bones, and also felt the long years of painfully stuttering his words meant he was complete unsuitable for the task of being God’s emissary.
The story is told of a man who became lost while travelling through the desert. He eventually became so thirsty that he grew drastically weakened. He stumbled along until he saw a well in the distance. At first he thought it was a hullicination but as he drew nearer he realise it was real. He scrambled as quickly as he could until he reached it but to his horror found it was dry.
Dropping to his knees in despair, the man’s eye by chance fell on a small pile of stones with the corner of a note sticking out from under them. The note read: ‘Dear friend. Dig further under these rocks and you will find a jaor of water. DON’T drink it! The well seems dry, but the pump leather just needs to be watered. If you pour the water from the jug onto the pump leather, it will then provide as much water as you need. Just fill up the jug and rebury it when you are finished.’
This story is about fearing the unknown. It must have been quite a moment of trepidation for this man – do I go with what I know and drink from this jug of stale water and sustain my life for at least another day, or do I trust the note’s message and pour out the jug in the hope that I will then have more than enough water to sustain my life for as long as I need to get out of this desert?
Perhaps Moses’ felt he was in a very similar predicament, wondering whether he should go with what he knew and could see with his own eyes – factors such as his age, his stutter, his puniness compared to Egyptian might – or whether he could trust God’s promise enough to see him through to the end of his mission.
These questions are ones we all grapple with in regard to God’s call on our own lives. Can I really trust God and what I believe he is calling me to do with my life? Do I spend my days hiding behind all sorts of excuses, or do I step out in faith and trust?
These are questions that only you can answer.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, so often I hide behind all sorts of smokescreens and excuses. Please forgive me. Give me the strength and courage I need to trust and obey the call you have placed upon my life. In Christ name I pray. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Exodus 3 : 7-11
The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
Tuesday 3 March 2009
Wednesday 4th March - Moving Beyond Ourselves
DAILY BYTE
Most of us, upon sensing a divine call to loving action in some specific way, almost immediately begin struggling with our natural tendencies to selfishness. This is powerfully addressed in the story of Moses’ call. Did you notice how as Moses approached the burning bush, he was commanded to remove his sandals because he was standing on holy ground?
Wherever and whenever God enters our lives, that space becomes holy and sacred! Moses was told to recognise the sanctity of the moment by removing his shoes – a common practice in many Eastern religions. Now, I am no desert expert, but I would guess that dependable footwear is just about one of the most important accessories for your average intrepid nomad. Hot sand, snakes, scorpions and other dangerous, wriggly things are just a couple of reasons I would be pretty determined to keep my shoes on!
Yet, the removing of his sandals forms an important part of the overall story – it is a detail that should not be skipped over. Did you notice how Moses had seen the burning bush, he had sensed the divine, but that he did not hear God’s voice until he removed his shoes.
The reason so many religions insist upon removing your footwear when you enter a sacred is not only because it is a mark of respect, but also because it symbolises our vulnerability and the removal of that everything we humanly depend upon to protect us.
We learn from this story how important it is to actively removing everything we normally rely upon to protect and defend our selfishness – the ways we justify our ways of living as if we are the centre of the universe. Take off that which you are relying upon to protect and define you, take off all that is comfortable and self-reliant.
There is an immense and rather raw vulnerability attached to calling – to move beyond ourselves. This is essentially because calling is about us becoming less so that God becomes more. As John the Baptist once said (and I paraphrase): ‘Less of me and more of him.’
Our part in God’s great plan to reach the world is to serve as humble servants of one another and the great High God. Putting aside our natural inclinations to selfishness is one way of ‘taking off our sandals,’ of recognising that hearing God’s call brings us into a sacred space because we learn that there is far more to life than just us.
Taking off our shoes is about stepping out of ourselves and any self-reliance, for all too often it is we ourselves who get in the way of God’s voice. It is our refusal to remove our sandals – to deal with our vanities, ambitions, lusts and pride – that cause us to rush on by life’s burning bushes without even noticing.
What exactly would it mean for you to ‘remove your sandals’?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, it is both scary and intensely vulnerable to be told to remove our ‘sandals’. Help us to recognise exactly what it is we need to lay aside our pride and self absorption in order to open ourselves more fully to your voice. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Exodus 3 : 5-6
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Most of us, upon sensing a divine call to loving action in some specific way, almost immediately begin struggling with our natural tendencies to selfishness. This is powerfully addressed in the story of Moses’ call. Did you notice how as Moses approached the burning bush, he was commanded to remove his sandals because he was standing on holy ground?
Wherever and whenever God enters our lives, that space becomes holy and sacred! Moses was told to recognise the sanctity of the moment by removing his shoes – a common practice in many Eastern religions. Now, I am no desert expert, but I would guess that dependable footwear is just about one of the most important accessories for your average intrepid nomad. Hot sand, snakes, scorpions and other dangerous, wriggly things are just a couple of reasons I would be pretty determined to keep my shoes on!
Yet, the removing of his sandals forms an important part of the overall story – it is a detail that should not be skipped over. Did you notice how Moses had seen the burning bush, he had sensed the divine, but that he did not hear God’s voice until he removed his shoes.
The reason so many religions insist upon removing your footwear when you enter a sacred is not only because it is a mark of respect, but also because it symbolises our vulnerability and the removal of that everything we humanly depend upon to protect us.
We learn from this story how important it is to actively removing everything we normally rely upon to protect and defend our selfishness – the ways we justify our ways of living as if we are the centre of the universe. Take off that which you are relying upon to protect and define you, take off all that is comfortable and self-reliant.
There is an immense and rather raw vulnerability attached to calling – to move beyond ourselves. This is essentially because calling is about us becoming less so that God becomes more. As John the Baptist once said (and I paraphrase): ‘Less of me and more of him.’
Our part in God’s great plan to reach the world is to serve as humble servants of one another and the great High God. Putting aside our natural inclinations to selfishness is one way of ‘taking off our sandals,’ of recognising that hearing God’s call brings us into a sacred space because we learn that there is far more to life than just us.
Taking off our shoes is about stepping out of ourselves and any self-reliance, for all too often it is we ourselves who get in the way of God’s voice. It is our refusal to remove our sandals – to deal with our vanities, ambitions, lusts and pride – that cause us to rush on by life’s burning bushes without even noticing.
What exactly would it mean for you to ‘remove your sandals’?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Holy God, it is both scary and intensely vulnerable to be told to remove our ‘sandals’. Help us to recognise exactly what it is we need to lay aside our pride and self absorption in order to open ourselves more fully to your voice. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Exodus 3 : 5-6
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Monday 2 March 2009
Tuesday 3rd March - A Rather Ordinary Type of Shrubbery
DAILY BYTE
Almost immediately, the story of Moses’ call challenges one of the greatest weaknesses of modern Christian though, which too often only connects the concept of God call to certain professions such as ministers or missionaries.
The Bible is emphatic, however, that every Christian has some part to play in God’s great plan to reach the world. For you are part of a greater cosmic destiny, part of God’s age-old plan to save the world, part of a Godly dream to work goodness, hope, love and grace into everything.
What is important to remember is that we are not called because of what we can or cannot do – our calling is not dependant on gifting; rather it is connected with who we are. Calling is wrapped up in our identity as children of God. It has nothing to do with talent or intelligence and everything to do with our availability and God’s kindness.
Certainly, there was nothing special about Moses, who was a commoner raised with royalty but threw away his royal privileges in a moment of unguarded rage. He then spent most of the rest of his life living as a shepherd with a speech impediment in some backwater desert working for his father-in-law. Moses must have been close to finally taking his pension when one day he stumbled on a burning bush.
Another common misconception we tend to have around calling is that we believe God only speaks to us through these amazing burning bush experiences. The mistake in that thinking is that it is not the bush that sustains the burning but God in the bush. The bush is just ordinary, everyday shrubbery, part of the background scenery. The whole point is that God regularly speaks through ordinary every day things – it doesn’t have to be a bush.
Astronomers who search for life on other planets tells ust ath we may well be constantly bombarded by messages from outer space but simply don’t know how to recognise them. This is an apt picture for us. Are we constantly showered with divine messages that we simply don’t hear?
Before wondering why your life has not seen many burning bushes, first ask yourself the following questions: How much time and effort do I put in actually listening for the voice of God? How hard do I strive to recognise the patterns of grace God weaves into the ordinary everyday matters and events of my life? Do I make concerted efforts to get onto God’s wavelength?
For perhaps the problem is not that you’ve never had a burning bush experience, but that you have never learnt to see how the divine burns so brightly in ordinary everyday things.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, you are constantly speaking into ordinary, everyday events and experiences. Open my eyes, ears and heart to the burning bushes that I rush by everyday without noticing. Teach me to ‘notice’ O God how brightly your presence burns within my life. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Exodus 3 : 1-4
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
Almost immediately, the story of Moses’ call challenges one of the greatest weaknesses of modern Christian though, which too often only connects the concept of God call to certain professions such as ministers or missionaries.
The Bible is emphatic, however, that every Christian has some part to play in God’s great plan to reach the world. For you are part of a greater cosmic destiny, part of God’s age-old plan to save the world, part of a Godly dream to work goodness, hope, love and grace into everything.
What is important to remember is that we are not called because of what we can or cannot do – our calling is not dependant on gifting; rather it is connected with who we are. Calling is wrapped up in our identity as children of God. It has nothing to do with talent or intelligence and everything to do with our availability and God’s kindness.
Certainly, there was nothing special about Moses, who was a commoner raised with royalty but threw away his royal privileges in a moment of unguarded rage. He then spent most of the rest of his life living as a shepherd with a speech impediment in some backwater desert working for his father-in-law. Moses must have been close to finally taking his pension when one day he stumbled on a burning bush.
Another common misconception we tend to have around calling is that we believe God only speaks to us through these amazing burning bush experiences. The mistake in that thinking is that it is not the bush that sustains the burning but God in the bush. The bush is just ordinary, everyday shrubbery, part of the background scenery. The whole point is that God regularly speaks through ordinary every day things – it doesn’t have to be a bush.
Astronomers who search for life on other planets tells ust ath we may well be constantly bombarded by messages from outer space but simply don’t know how to recognise them. This is an apt picture for us. Are we constantly showered with divine messages that we simply don’t hear?
Before wondering why your life has not seen many burning bushes, first ask yourself the following questions: How much time and effort do I put in actually listening for the voice of God? How hard do I strive to recognise the patterns of grace God weaves into the ordinary everyday matters and events of my life? Do I make concerted efforts to get onto God’s wavelength?
For perhaps the problem is not that you’ve never had a burning bush experience, but that you have never learnt to see how the divine burns so brightly in ordinary everyday things.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord God, you are constantly speaking into ordinary, everyday events and experiences. Open my eyes, ears and heart to the burning bushes that I rush by everyday without noticing. Teach me to ‘notice’ O God how brightly your presence burns within my life. Amen.
FOCUS VERSE
Exodus 3 : 1-4
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
Sunday 1 March 2009
Monday 2nd March - A Voice Calling
DAILY BYTE
The story is told of when Apple Computers first went public, the young founder Steve Jobs felt the need to appoint someone who could play a role of both CEO of the company and mentor to him. The first recruit on his list was John Sculley, who was then president of Pepsi.
Sculley, although he had no reason to doubt the potential impact of Apple, was understandably uneasy about giving up a good, cushy job with a product that already possessed a brand name, successful connections and an established future. When at first Sculley turned Jobs down, Jobs who was unwilling to taking no for an answer, asked Sculley a question that changed his mind, the direction of Apple and the course of computer history.
Sculley queried: “Do you want to sell sugared water the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?”
Job’s question was ultimately successful because it zeroed in on one of humanity’s most powerful needs – the need to truly make a difference with our lives, to leave behind us an impact that is both lasting and effective.
It is the kind of question God has been asking his people since the moment he first breathed life into us.
“Abram go from your country for I will make a great nation of you. I will bless you so that you might be a blessing.”
“Moses go to your people to free them from the Egyptians because I have heard their cries.”
“Simon and Andrew, follow me. I will make a new fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and woman not perch and bass.”
In fact, as we see from today’s readings, Jesus was constantly preparing people and then sending them out on missions to change the world. It’s as if constantly repeated throughout Scripture is this theme of calling God’s people to make a difference with their lives, to stop selling sugared water as it were, and live an existence with more meaning - to become a part of God’s ongoing creation of goodness in this world.
God CALLS all of us to learn to live our lives according to a divine rhythm instead of the beat of our own sometimes decidedly selfish desires. The story of Moses’ call to free God’s people from Egyptian oppression is only one Biblical story of such call, but it provides keen insight into what it means for all of us to be called. This is why we will spend the rest of this week in the company of this story, allowing its truth to open our ears and hearts to the particular call of God on our lives.
PRAY AS YOU GO
O God of compassion and blessing, we acknowledge that you are a God who calls all your children to become part of your great work of goodness in this world. Help us to hear how we might become part of that. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 9 : 1-6
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: "Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.
The story is told of when Apple Computers first went public, the young founder Steve Jobs felt the need to appoint someone who could play a role of both CEO of the company and mentor to him. The first recruit on his list was John Sculley, who was then president of Pepsi.
Sculley, although he had no reason to doubt the potential impact of Apple, was understandably uneasy about giving up a good, cushy job with a product that already possessed a brand name, successful connections and an established future. When at first Sculley turned Jobs down, Jobs who was unwilling to taking no for an answer, asked Sculley a question that changed his mind, the direction of Apple and the course of computer history.
Sculley queried: “Do you want to sell sugared water the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?”
Job’s question was ultimately successful because it zeroed in on one of humanity’s most powerful needs – the need to truly make a difference with our lives, to leave behind us an impact that is both lasting and effective.
It is the kind of question God has been asking his people since the moment he first breathed life into us.
“Abram go from your country for I will make a great nation of you. I will bless you so that you might be a blessing.”
“Moses go to your people to free them from the Egyptians because I have heard their cries.”
“Simon and Andrew, follow me. I will make a new fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and woman not perch and bass.”
In fact, as we see from today’s readings, Jesus was constantly preparing people and then sending them out on missions to change the world. It’s as if constantly repeated throughout Scripture is this theme of calling God’s people to make a difference with their lives, to stop selling sugared water as it were, and live an existence with more meaning - to become a part of God’s ongoing creation of goodness in this world.
God CALLS all of us to learn to live our lives according to a divine rhythm instead of the beat of our own sometimes decidedly selfish desires. The story of Moses’ call to free God’s people from Egyptian oppression is only one Biblical story of such call, but it provides keen insight into what it means for all of us to be called. This is why we will spend the rest of this week in the company of this story, allowing its truth to open our ears and hearts to the particular call of God on our lives.
PRAY AS YOU GO
O God of compassion and blessing, we acknowledge that you are a God who calls all your children to become part of your great work of goodness in this world. Help us to hear how we might become part of that. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Luke 9 : 1-6
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: "Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.
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