Finding Comfort in the Desert

There was a point in my healing journey where I likened it to being dropped in the middle of a field full of thorns. There was no avoiding it, whichever way I turned would be painful. Facing and dealing with those things in my past that were keeping me there (in my past) was not a comfortable place to be. But I wasn't comfortable where I was, either, hence the move.

Over a period of time I had developed strategies to manage and deal with my negative perceptions of myself, including a great big wall of self-protection, and while this was, at some level, effective at keeping the bad at bay, it was not living. More significantly, it kept everything and everyone out. It was a place of isolation and desolation. Like the proverbial child with my fingers in my ears, singing “lalalalala I can’t hear you”, with my eyes tightly shut, I could pretend that all was well. Except that it wasn't.

More recently, I saw another aspect of this game of pretence that again, is about self-protection, but this time against disappointment and disillusionment with what God is doing (or not).

We are in the midst of a series looking at wilderness experiences at church. The other week, our pastor finished with the idea that we can try to make our wilderness experience more comfortable. Being the bad girl that I am, I immediately got a picture of myself sitting in the desert in my comfy armchair with my feet up, a nice cool drink and the air conditioner going full bore. 

The problem was, though, that I could see some truth in it. Having been in the waiting room for quite some time, there is a little (ok, maybe a lot) of tendency to give up and stop expecting to ever get to the Promised Land. After all, every time it looks like we are about to move, I pack up and get ready to go, only to take one or two steps and stop again, unpack and settle in for some more waiting. And so, I may as well be comfortable while I wait.

At this point, I can hear all the answers starting to rev up. My husband’s favourite is the “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” I am also well aware of my proclivity to focus on the situation instead of God. I loved a comment in a discussion group the other day about Ezekiel’s dry bones. The point was that too often we focus on the dead, dry bones instead of what God is doing with them – breathing LIFE into them!

However, I leave these, and other thoughts about what we learn in the wilderness behind to focus back on the idea of our contentment here. As I reflected on my picture of myself and my creature comforts in the desert, I wondered if there might not be some truth in the idea that many of our “churches” may be living in this place too. What gets us into this position?

Imagine what it was like for the Israelites after 40 years. There was a whole generation that had never known anything but the wilderness. Relocating to the Promised Land was scary, confronting, moving into the great unknown. Coming back to my earlier point, we know how to operate in the wilderness, how to survive, how it works. As much as we dream of and talk about all the possibilities and excitement of the Promised Land, we are not sure that we want to let go of our security of the known, as ordinary and barren as it is.

To make the point blatant, I have heard people say (and read it elsewhere), that the church cannot expect to operate in the ways that it did back in the book of Acts, and even that God does not move in those ways any more. Some will go as far as to say that gifts such as prophecy, healing, tongues and their interpretation, miracles and so on were only for that time, and that now we have the Bible, we don’t need those things anymore. 

On the other hand, most people I know would disagree vehemently with these thoughts. But perhaps we dress up our wilderness a little differently. It might be rituals and traditions, or maybe it is up to the minute music and polished performances and the latest technology. Let's do what we can to hide from the idea that we not quite in the Promised Land yet. 

However, even when we do operate from a position where we like the idea of seeing God’s Kingdom and life breaking out in wonderful, obvious, abundant ways, I wonder whether, when it boils down to it, it can all be a bit confronting, a bit disconcerting. And because we cannot control it, much less understand it, we would rather step back into the wilderness, where, although it is pretty boring and nothing much spectacular happens, it is predictable and comfortable. Well, almost.

I thirst

Our region has been going through a particularly dry spell more recently. Adding some very high temperatures to this, even in my generally shady and moist part of the world plants have been shrivelling and dying, leaves are burnt brown on the bushes, and my soul feels the same, like it is so dry it is about to crack.

The other day as I read a friend's blog* about rain and listened to the beautiful song she has written, I had one of those flashes of insight, this time about the idea of desert experiences. In the past, I have usually linked desert experiences to being personally spiritually dry, to feeling disconnected from God. However, I saw then that it can just as easily be about experiencing the spiritual dryness of the world.

As I watch and listen to all that is going on in our world, I can easily fall into despair. "When, O Lord, when will You bring Your justice?" 

I read words in the Bible like "You heavens above, rain down righteousness [which can be interpreted justice]; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it..." (Is 45:8) and "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (Matt 5:6), and my soul cries out "Yes, Lord, bring it on!"

From the issues of slavery and sexual slavery, to religious wars, hatred and violence, to the treatment of those seeking asylum in our own country, to youth suicide, cyber bullying, not to mention the inequality we see both at home, but more particularly across the nations, and the state of our environment, I find the sickness of our world soul destroying and depressing. And yes, I can make a difference where I am, but there are times it hardly seems enough, hardly seems worth it.

And so comes the dryness, the drought of justice, of God's righteousness reigning and ruling. The tug of war between the expansion of light and the overwhelming, suffocating darkness seems to inch then sway ever more strongly in the direction of darkness. And while, in the comfort of my western, civilised life, it is easy to say it is because we have rejected God in favour of our own strength and intelligence, that does not fix the problems of those who are increasingly closer to me as my circles of interaction continue to widen.

Today was the World Day of Prayer. Perhaps it is no accident that the theme this year is "Streams in the Desert". As we went through the liturgy, so much related back to the theme of a plentiful supply of water in places where there has been none, bringing an abundance of life, health, and prosperity. Verses were included such as Is 44:3 "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground",  Is 35:6b "Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert" and Is 41:18 "I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs."

These verses bring both longing and hope to my soul. Longing for the day when God's justice will be poured out on the nations, bringing some sort of equality and hope for all people. And hope, because as I have seen Him fulfill His promises to me personally, I have hope that He will do what He has promised for the world. 

But I live in that place of tension between the now and the not yet, between the promise and its fulfillment, and it causes me tension between faith and doubt. What if it never changes, if it only ever gets worse? And I have to cling to the hope that, just as He has not let me down in so many ways, there is also the witness of so many others through the ages, that He hasn't let them down either, and that in His sovereign timing, He will fulfill all His promises and His justice and righteousness will reign on earth. 

And maybe, just maybe, part of the waiting is for His body here to rise up again to do their part.

"But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!"  Amos 5:24

*http://notesandodes.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/rain/ 

"I didn't hear you" ...or "Selective Deafness"

The classic excuse for kids not doing as they're asked would probably have to be the "I didn't hear you" excuse. I am pretty sure I have used it reasonably often myself. At a personal level, Mr Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest) has been challenging me on this over the last few days in my relationship with God. If I didn't hear You ask me to do this, then its not disobedience, is it?

It has got me thinking about the variety of subtle means I use to enhance my deafness. It can be a simple as decreasing the amount of alone time with God, to carefully sculpting that time to be filled with activities that minimise my ability to hear. I can fill the time with worship and prayer and reading from devotionals or even other people. Or I may just be too busy to spend quiet time with Him at all. Sometimes, it is just that I straight out don't like what I hear, so reject it out of hand. I am reminded of a friend who was struggling with not hearing from God on a certain topic. As we talked, I realised that the issue was not God's silence, but that He had already said something, and He hadn't changed His mind, much to the disappointment of my friend, who was looking for a different answer.

Another way I can dismiss what God is saying is to dismiss the messenger. This might be because I simply don't like them, they are not "spiritual" enough, or they have not always behaved in ways I deem appropriate in the past (or in the case of Oswald, they have been dead for nearly one hundred years - surely he is no longer relevant?). I know that God has challenged me by who He uses to bless me or speak into my life on multiple occasions. It is not always easy to respond in a positive manner to God, when my emotions are being prickled, but maybe that is also part of His point. I need to deal with my attitude to others as well.

As I reflect on this, I am aware of the fact that I also have some 'no go' zones in my time with God. My response may be as obvious as "I will think about that later" to simply not allowing certain topics to rise to full consciousness. If I don't ask the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to me, it can be quite easy (at times) to ignore anything God might have to say on the topic.

For me, the antidote to all this is accountability to another human. At the moment, I am finding a spiritual director a good start. In other scenarios it can be a spouse or close friend, or even a life group. I have to put myself in a place, though, where I can't wriggle away from what God is saying. And then, of course, there is the question of whether I will chose to obey Him when I do allow what He is saying to penetrate. But perhaps that is a question for another blog.

Is God Real?

Like many others, I am happy to have a good, robust discussion on what the Bible has to say about certain topics. Unlike some, I can’t use Hebrew and Greek to back up or oppose many points. However, as I have delved into the world of various online forums, I have to say I struggle with the definitive way in which some seem to put their point of view about what the Bible says. Not that I want this blog to be about what truth is and what is not and how we might read and interpret the Bible. Far from it. What I would like to propose, though, is that we can know a stack about God without being any different, fundamentally, to the person who knows nothing about Him.

I don’t think I am by any means the first to suggest this. Just the other day, I was reading Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost For His Highest, when I came across this: 

“When a man fails in personal Christian experience, it is nearly always because he has never received anything. The only sign that a man is saved is that he has received something from Jesus Christ. Our part as workers for God is to open men’s eyes that they may turn themselves from darkness to light; but that is not salvation, that is conversion – the effort of a roused human being. I do not think it is too sweeping to say that the majority of nominal Christians are of this order; their eyes are opened, but they have received nothing. Conversion is not regeneration...When a man is born again, he knows that it is because he has received something as a gift from Almighty God and not because of his own decision. People register their vows, and sign their pledges, and determine to go through, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we are brought to a place where we are able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ...” 

Another book I read some time back was Your Kingdom Come, by Daniel Kolenda, where he states,  

"A person who hears the gospel should have an experience that needs an explanation, not just an explanation of something that is in need of an experience...And the demonstration of God’s power should be the norm”.

And I guess from this you can see where I am heading.

A number of years back I came to the conclusion that if all I have to offer to others from my faith is a “nice life”, then I really don’t have much to offer. Many people already have that and don’t need faith in God to get there. I came to the conclusion that evidence of the power of God in my life had to be the difference. 

This topic also takes me back to conversations with my father in my mid-twenties. It came to a point where I felt as though every time we got together, he would be telling me about all these people who had shown that the Christian faith was a fraud or based on wrong beliefs and lies. One time, I was tired of it, so I (gently) told him that I felt as though he was constantly trying to persuade me not to believe what I believed, but the problem was that he would not be able to. I said that my relationship and experience of God was not something that I could be talked out of because it was simply that. My experience. I cannot “un-have” that experience. For some reason this put an end to those sorts of discussions. I would like to that it was because he realised my faith was not about following form and tradition but about a real relationship with God.

And so, I come back to where I started. I know that the history of the Church over the past few hundred years has included the battle to prove itself equal to “science”, and hence the desire for “proof”. However, I will come back again and again to the idea that experience will always trump a good argument – you cannot take my experience from me. You may choose not to believe I have had that experience (like a friend whose two broken wrists were miraculously healed just days after they were shown as broken on x-rays, and were confirmed healed by the second lot of x-rays – the doctor simply couldn't cope and told my friend to go away), or you may like to try to provide more “rational” reasoning of what happened, but I know differently, because it is my experience.

I also realise that experience is subjective and can be misinterpreted. However, without personal experience, faith is very dry. And besides, I further believe that God is faithful to His promise to send His Holy Spirit to teach and guide us in all things (John 14:16, 26 for example) and also that His sheep know His voice and follow Him (John 10:4). One of the biggest arguments for theology and doctrine is the fear of people being led astray, or leading others astray if they don’t have “good” theology and doctrine. However, I would argue that this is not particularly good theology. If God has promised His Holy Spirit, do we not trust Him to convict, teach and guide His people? Or does He only use (imperfect) human agents now?

I have titled this blog “Is God Real?”, because sometimes I wonder if for some, their theology is way more important than God to them. If we only ever talk about God in an abstract, theoretical way, have we actually been impacted and changed by Him? Tell me about the reality of God in your life and you give me something I cannot argue with.

Is God really faithful?

The other day a chance piece of information about the status of a marriage came across my path. Because infidelity had been an issue, it got me thinking about faithfulness. Having been through a similar circumstance myself, I wondered how you could ever completely trust the other again. From my own perspective, I think I would want to see a significant level of repentance and personal transformation to ensure it didn't occur again.

As my mind meandered through all this, I reflected on the nature of faithfulness. What does it mean to be faithful to someone? In marriage, we usually make this about sexual intimacy, but there are a myriad of small ways we can be unfaithful to the vows we have made. But even this became a side issue to the picture I was getting. In thinking about faithfulness, pretty quickly I was onto the topic of our relationship with God. After all, the Bible is filled with statements about God’s faithfulness to us, and (often) our unfaithfulness to Him.

What do we mean by God’s faithfulness?

Often we use it as an encouragement when someone is going through some sort of difficulty: “Don’t worry, it will work out ok. God is faithful.” Usually we use this to mean that He is faithful to His promises (Romans 8:28 is a good example), and that He will help us or fix the circumstances. Sometimes, though, we go as far as meaning that God will be faithful to us,  that He will do what we want (e.g. give us the ‘desires of our hearts’).

However, as I thought further, I realised that this kind of thinking causes big issues, particularly with those who question faith in God. Many ask questions along the lines of “if God is good, loving, kind, merciful, etc, etc, then why does bad stuff happen?’ We have lots of intricate arguments or platitudes to answer this, but generally I find them at best weak if not circular. At this point I had a sudden flash of insight. 

God’s faithfulness is not about us. He is not faithful to us, as such, but He is faithful to Himself.

God’s faithfulness is about His integrity. It is about Him being true to Himself, true to His character, true to His nature. 

Two things follow on from this. The first is a reminder of a story I read about a Christian student and an atheist professor. The professor was trying to use logic to discredit the student, but was beat at his own game. The important part of the story to this topic, however, was the student’s astute understanding of physics that made a lot of sense of the issue of God as Creator. 

Many people ask the question, “If God created everything, why did He create the bad stuff, too?” As this student pointed out however, much of what we term ‘bad stuff’ is not actually something created. Rather than existing, they are in fact an absence of something. In physics terminology there are a number of things we cannot measure. For example, there is no such thing as cold, it is simply an absence of heat; and darkness doesn’t really exist, it is simply an absence of light. Biologically speaking death is an absence of life. If we continue on this theme spiritually, we come to the idea that evil, then, is the absence of good. If we then see God’s nature and character as being the manifestation and expression of all that is good (the positive form), then hell, and the kingdom of darkness is simply a place or positioning where there is an absence or lack of all these things. On the other hand, where these things are breaking out, there you will find the Kingdom of God.

The second point is about integrity. Integrity has to do with wholeness. Again with the physics! If an object loses its integrity, it loses strength and often cannot be repaired to be used at full capacity again, if at all. As I have discussed a number of times with students, if we lose our integrity with others, it too is really difficult to get back. If we do something that damages our integrity, shows that we cannot be trusted, it is probably one of the most difficult things to repair. It is hard to forget when someone breaks our trust. Even though we might forgive, it damages the strength of the relationship. God’s integrity, however, cannot, by definition, be broken. If it were, He would cease to be perfect, He would cease to be God. It is that perfect integrity that makes Him who He is. And so, He must be faithful to His integrity.

If we call ourselves part of His Body, it leaves us with the question of the impact His integrity and faithfulness have on us and our relationship with both Him and others. 

Forgetting to Remember

We are fickle beings. Stuff that we really shouldn't remember, like that bad picture we saw, or the mean thing someone did, we can't get out of our heads. But on the flip side, for me, if it is not in my calendar getting to an appointment is far from guaranteed. The other day, I was further reminded of how sad my memory is as I caught myself checking my makeup in the passenger visor mirror in the car for the third time in a few minutes.

Somehow this led me to thinking about how God instructed the Israelites to practice remembering stuff. In particular, He wanted them to remember the stories about what He had done for them in the past. This started to tie into something larger for me as I “Bah, humbugged” my way toward Christmas and asked myself and my family about why we do this to ourselves every year.

I realised that the reason God gave these instructions to the Israelites was probably just as necessary to us today, even with all our technology and education. Personally, I am painfully aware of how very quickly I forget the blessings God has bestowed on me, His deliverance, His mercy, His provision, His love. There are times I can resemble a small child, feeling as though I have been abandoned as soon as my Parent is out of my zone of awareness for a minute.

Perhaps this is why we need to practice remembering. And I think it has to be more than simply remembering Bible verses or promises in our heads or a generalised “yep, God has been good to us in the past”. I think it has to be personal and specific and that it has to be with others. We have all probably experienced the extra impact that occurs when you share a story with someone else. Like my daughter surviving for half an hour after cutting herself on the deli slicer at work and only falling to pieces when she rang me, or the increased joy we feel when we get to share good news with a loved one, it is in sharing our experiences that they somehow become more real. Saying it out loud impacts us.

Something I have also become aware of more recently is the loss of formal celebrations in our communities. Growing up in a “high Anglican” church, although I found the liturgy tedious or repetitive at times, celebrating the different feast days and important dates always had a level of excitement because of the formality, which not only included words, but also actions. The symbolism of having no flowers, pictures or candles in the church during Lent did not perhaps affect me that much, but going along on Easter Saturday with everyone else in the church to scrub it from head to foot and prepare it with masses of flowers, candles and other regalia was special. And the fact that special clothes were worn and special incense was used (even though we joked about it at the time), only added to the sense of occasion and its importance. These things not only gave the celebration greater depth, but it also built a depth in the community from the shared experience.

Part of my struggle with Christmas this year was the amount of time I find myself taking to prepare for a few meals. I kept finding myself wondering what the point of it all is. However, I think perhaps this is part of the key. Celebrating and remembering properly does take work and effort. I have read material from people who have decided to return to celebrating the Sabbath. They have said the same thing. It takes a fair bit of extra work to prepare for a day without work, but, they have also said it is worth it, and it makes a difference to their whole life.

So I still have some work to do. Speeches and formality can be awkward in family situations. But without it, we lose the impact of remembering. And after all, remembering can also be fun. Perhaps it shouldn’t be forgotten!

Wrapping Up Christmas, or where is Jesus?

“How long, O Lord...how long?” Just like the Psalmist of old and many others before me, this has been my complaint for some time. If I am honest with myself, it drives me away from writing and sharing more quickly than anything else. Although I may have used the mental busy-ness of studies and family needs as a convenient excuse, deep down I find myself finally admitting that the struggles of continued waiting on God has had far greater impact.

More recently, the compelling urge to write has surfaced again, and so, in the post-Christmas down time, I find myself with time and energy to put fingers back to keyboard. In the middle of all this, somewhat unsurprisingly, I also found an answer to my own struggles that simultaneously met with my desire to find some meaning in the over-commercialised "holiday" we call Christmas.

As I reflected on and reconnected with the birth of Christ during December, a few things came together (as they often do), resulting in God speaking directly into my heart. 

The book of Revelation ends with a promise from Jesus that He will return, that He is coming soon. This Christmas, I was reminded again of how much of a parallel this word has with the promises the Jews (and others) were waiting on some 2000+ years ago. The promise of a Saviour was embedded deeply in their faith, and God's people often cried out to Him to send this Saviour to alleviate their suffering, to bring in His Kingdom.

Today, the promise of a Saviour is still relevant. Whether we are looking to Jesus’ ultimate return or simply for Him to ‘turn up’ in our present circumstances, to fulfil promises either specific or general in our lives, we long for His presence to be manifest with us and to see the in-breaking of His Kingdom in our world. Maybe we would like Him to turn up and ‘fix’ our circumstances, bring healing or blessings, or to ‘fix’ the world. Maybe we simply want to feel or experience His presence with us. Or perhaps, like Simeon and Anna at the temple, we are waiting to see the fulfilment of a promise or vision.

This Christmas, I was reminded of two things. The first is that when Jesus first came, it was in the fullness of time (see Galatians 4:4). He came then at exactly the right time for His purposes, and when He brings His purposes into our lives, again, it is at exactly the right time - not a moment too soon or too late.

The second is that, as I read my Bible and look around at both my own experiences and those of others, I realise anew that Jesus has already come, He does come, and He will come again. He is trustworthy, faithful and true. I can wait in the full assurance that in His timing, He will come into all my circumstances and He will bring His fulfilment of His vision and promises.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!