Author: scribblingtheology

It’s almost 3:30 am I’m tired but I cannot sleep (so forgive me for bad grammar or spelling in this blog). Lately, I’ve had new battles, new struggles that sin and Satan have used to ensnare me. Anxiety, like sin, crouches at the door of my heart. Depression, like a mist, edges the borders of my mind ready to envelop me into despair. I once thought I was untouchable, that these things would never even be on my radar. As they say, never say never. The battle is complex but what lays at the heart of my anxieties and fears is this, the desire to be accepted and approved by others. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a while since I head God speak to me. It’s very rare for Him to actually say to me, “I love you and accept you despite your flaws.” So the sinful heart settles for the next best thing, humanity. But, it is true there is something right about wanting to be loved by others. God, of course, encourages us to love others as our selves, to build flourishing communities of Jesus loving people where we all can feel like we belong and mean something to someone. But, our hearts are fickle things. It’s not long before we perform before we act before we go above and beyond just because we’re afraid people won’t love us. We start to believe in things we never thought we would, compromising our ethics and relationships that don’t matter to us (even though those ones matter perhaps more to God). You dress differently, speak and do life in ways you know aren’t right for you, and you know deep down inside that you’re a complete and utter broken mess of a thing so you cover up yourself with more masks, more costumes just to fit the bill. And so, one of the greatest battles is the war raged over your own self. The more you cover up and reject your true self, the more you become trapped in an identity that leads to a well of brokenness and darkness.

God… doesn’t offer a way out, He offers a way through. There’s something magical about the early hours of the morning, there’s something very Gethsemane. I’m definitely not sweating blood, but despair breeds depth and introspection and these things seem to be expressed best at 3:30 am. So, like Jesus’ prayer in the garden, my whisper of a prayer to the Almighty is this:

Father forgive me for I know not what I do…

Father heal me for I am broken in despair…

Father know me for I know not myself…

Father love me even when there’s no love to be found…

Father quicken me for I am slow to catch on to life…

Jesus… come back soon we miss you…

(and so be it for all of you)

Amen.

Thought I’d write a little something something before the end of 2018.

This year has been, as all years tend to be, a battle. It’s been a battle of perspectives, knowledge, family, friends, enemies, spirituality, sin and self. This year, more then ever before in my Christian walk I’ve battled with the unknown and the darkness that looms in my own heart as well as the very real struggles of the world around me. More then any year previously I’ve come to understand more of how broken and sinful I really am and I’ve come to realize how much about the world I have yet to explore and how little of God I truly know. The spiritual road ahead has seemed so uncertain there are days I genuinely question if it’s even worth continuing to walk with Jesus. After all, I worship a person I cannot see, or hear, or feel. It’s very easy to lose sight of who and where Jesus is.

However, today I had a sort of an epiphany. You can be told something 100 times over and it won’t be until the 101st that the light bulb comes on. Jesus and His Kingdom is bigger than me. Theologically I’ve known that to be true for some time. It wasn’t until today though that I realised that I’ve been living like as though I’m the most important person in God’s Kingdom. I’ve been tremendously selfish, completely focused on myself believing God is for all people but acting like as though my relationship with God was all that mattered. All of a sudden, bam, the fog cleared, I felt a bit lighter in my steps and some of the things I’ve been struggling with have become less of an issue.

Let me be clear. God loves me more tremendously then I could perhaps ever understand. I know that if I were the only person who was to ever respond to His Gospel He’d still have sent His Son to atone for my sins. However, here’s the Good News. Jesus has chosen and called me to be a faithful blessing to others, not just myself. God’s mission is about redeeming the entire world through Jesus, not just me. His Kingdom is bigger, more loving, more powerful than whether or not I’ve had my coffee this morning. And so as it’s literally the last day of 2018 I wanted to leave you with this (for whoever is reading):

1. Start 2019 on the right foot. You aren’t the most important person in God’s Kingdom (Revelation 7:9).

2. But you are important. God loves you and wants to save you from your brokenness and sin (Psalm 86:5).

3. You are called to serve and bless others, not just to reap the benefits of your own redemption (Exodus 19:6, 1 Peter 2:9 and 2 Corinthians 9:8-11, Romans 12).

4. Let God work wonders within you. You don’t know what He has in store for you this 2019.

5. Pray (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), preach (2 Timothy 4:2), love (Philippians 1:9-10) and serve (Galatians 5:13) to the glory of God and the joy of all people (1 Corinthians 10:31).

2019. It’s going to be much the same as 2018 and every year before it. The wicked will prosper and the righteous perish. The wrong people will be in power, the marginalised will continue to be marginalised, the poor, the needy, and the persecuted still oppressed. Anxiety, depression and mental opposition will remain itching at the walls of your mind while sin crouches out your heart seeking to rule over you (Genesis 4:7). Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Something is not right with the world, and no amount of New Year’s resolutions or self-help plans will change that despite, perhaps, their placebic therapeutic value. 2019 is not going to be a new year, nothing special will occur that hasn’t already taken place. “A fresh year!” we might say, “a new year to start again and fix what was broken in the last.” However, no amount of glue can cover the cracks of our broken vessels. We remain weak and vulnerable, and yet somehow we are left believing that if we just have one more new year we can fix everything that’s been broken in the past ever since Adam. A human can no more fix the world around them or within them then a cracked pot can put itself together. The pot, like humanity, must have something greater than itself to bring the pieces back together. A Potter.

This new year let me urge you to, in a sense, see nothing new within the year itself, don’t look to self-help guides or resolutions rather, look to One who can make you and all things completely new (Revelation 21:5). Now all of a sudden as you trust in the Saviour, though sin may still crouch it can be easily ignored and ruled over (Romans 6). Though depression and anxiety may still scratch away, your mind can now dwell on that which is pleasing instead (Romans 12, Philippians 4:8). Though many of us have felt like death this year, Jesus wants to bring us abundant life (John 10:10). Though we have felt loveless and even unworthy of love Christ wants to pour out His endless love into our hearts (Romans 5:5) making it new along with our spirits and minds (Ezekiel 36:26).

Fear not.

There will come a day when Jesus will rule with an iron rod as king of His kingdom (Psalm 2, Revelation 2:27). Where He will bring justice and peace to all nations (Isaiah 41, Matthew 12), but like all the best things in life this will take time and because it will be the best thing of all it will take the most. In the meantime, let Jesus do a work in you now. You don’t need to lay shattered and broken if only you come to Him and drink.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again Christianity can be boring. It’s not every day you see pillars of fire and smoke, the Spirit hovering around as a dove, and people being raised from the dead. Christianity can be a grind and ritualistic. It can feel flat, very mundane. I get this. You may need to take a break from the grind and ritualism, get some perspective, take a deep breath and reset. Maybe the church your in isn’t right, maybe you’re not spending enough time with other people, maybe your not spending enough time by yourself, maybe your not resting enough or working or being creative enough (this blog, for example, is a great outlet for me). Recalibrate, get some wisdom and insight and go back refreshed.

I wonder though if the mundane is just as important.

I wonder if sometimes my perspective on what the Christian life should be is skewed a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the awe and wonder in the Christian life. However, perhaps the mundane is just as important as the big bang moments we all long to see… maybe even more important. What I mean is this. We read Acts or something and what we see from the author (Luke) is intentional highlight reels in order to report on the progression and expansion of the early Church. Of course, we’re gonna see miracles and revivals, reading about the Church braking bread just doesn’t make for a good story (Acts 2:42). There’s an intent from the author that we sometimes mistake for an exclusive prescriptive text rather than allowing the story to just unfold and live our lives informed by it.

Here’s what I mean. When we read books like Acts we should be saying “there’s the Christian life in all its glory.” But we should also consider the space in between the highlights, the years of downtime between events that God was most likely using to prepare hearts and minds for His Kingdom and mission. Take the Apostle Paul as an example. We read that he was converted in a blinding flash of light, a voice from the Heavens saying “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” and Paul being lead into Damascus where he recovers his sight and is baptised by Ananias (Acts 9:1-19). Very dramatic. I certainly didn’t hear God’s voice when I became a Christian, no dove fell on me, I wasn’t blinded by a light. However, what we don’t often realise about Paul’s experience is that he went to Arabia (Galatians 1:11-2:21) among other places and does only God knows what. What I’m saying is even Paul had to be prepared, he wasn’t converted and then immediately used by God to preach the Gospel and rapidly expand the early Church.

The mundane is important, more important than the high moments. Without them, the bang moments aren’t going to happen. It can be boring, it can be dull but change your perspective. God is sanctifying you (Acts 26:18, 2 Timothy 2:21), conforming you to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29), cultivating your spirit and heart to walk in His will (Ephesians 2:10). He wants to prune off the darkness and the sin, the brokenness and fill you with Himself. This could take time, even years (think how long it took the Israelites the get into the promised land). This all happens through the normality of life, through the daily grind, through relationships, prayer, reading, and doing the mundane Christian life. Let God do His thing because His thing is very powerful even if you don’t always notice it.