Tag: walking with God

My Year in Review: 2019

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“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

As 2019 wraps up, as the Earth begins to make its final trip around the Sun, as people all over the world scurry to a fro in a capitalistic drive to purchase an overabundance of gifts for people who’s hearts will never be truly satisfied… I sit back and reflect on the year gone by. What a year it has been. If I were to describe it in one word, that word would be “wearisome.” We’re only days away from Christmas, and as I write this, I can say that I am tired and broken. I’ve moved from the city to the coast, changed jobs by buying a cafe, struggled to settle into a church, I’ve changed positions on some big theological ideas, and on top of all that my wife and I separated. It’s been a tough year of change and heartache, and I have as many questions as I have things to be thankful for.

One of the biggest things I’ve been thankful for is my family and friends (cliche I know, but it’s true). Despite what I’ve been going through, everyone has been there for me from the entire spiritual spectrum. From non-believers to conservative Christians, they’ve all loved me, prayed for me and have been there for me as much as possible without any judgement. They’ve born my burdens, watched me cry and have listened. I couldn’t have had better people in my life. It’s times like these that genuinely prove who your friends are and they’ve gone above and beyond. They’ve genuinely fulfilled the golden rule.

However, I’m still left with a lot of questions and mixed feelings.

  • Where’s God in all of this?
  • Why has this happened to me?
  • Isn’t God supposed to do good things for me?

Theologically, I know the answers to all of these.

  • God never leaves or forsakes me
  • This has happened to conform me to the image of His Son
  • God works out all things for good for those who love Him

It doesn’t make it any easier, though. It leaves me doubting my God and my faith. It makes me wonder what is next for 2020 and where I’m supposed to go from here. I want to rebel and fly off the handle, wake up in a strangers bed with a hangover and indulge in the typical hedonistic life the world has on offer. As I write this though, I’m reminded to not escape the pain and trials through meaningless distractions (entertainment, booze and parties… trust me it’s very tempting), instead, to embrace the pain and to grow in wisdom. The wisest of us suffer and learn, they don’t escape. I want to walk through the flame, look back and be assured that God had more profound things in store for me. I want to experience the Spirit and be infused with His great love for others. I want to sing the Gospel and witness the might of His Kingdom.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. – Romans 8:18

Between Churches

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Let’s get real. There are many, many Christians out there that struggle going to church on a Sunday. You can’t just tell me it’s because they’re rebellious or whatever. In any given week, I speak to dozens of Christians from different gatherings where they express the same thoughts. At best going to church is something to do on a Sunday morning but it’s boring. The way we do church is very “one way.” We sit, stand, sit, listen to a speech from a person who we don’t really know about a book hardly any of us have learnt to actually read… We give money to an organisation because we think it’s what we’re supposed to do, we stand around the old dirty coffee urn and talk about the movies and how work was during the week… And at very best we go home with maybe a positive one-liner that we’ll forget by the next day like “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” We’re encouraged for all of Monday before reality comes crashing down on us and God’s wonderful plan looks more like broken despair then it does the upbeat abundant life that we’re told about. Church, as it is often done today, seems so out of touch with reality and out of touch with how it looks in the Bible. One can come and go from church for their entire lives without lifting a finger to love other people, without ever learning how to read the Bible for ourselves. We end up equating the Christian life being completed by going to a meeting for an hour or two per week. 

It’s no wonder then that even myself, one who has (at least in my eyes) a high ecclesiology, who stresses the importance of going to Sunday meetings and recognises the God-ordained life-changing event that is church finds it incredibly difficult to find himself at home in one. In the entire time that I’ve been a Christian, there have only been two churches that I’ve felt that I belonged and content in. The first one was a church on the Sunshine Coast and the second was in Brisbane. The two churches couldn’t be any more different from one another, yet I felt at home in them because I believe for three excellent reasons.

1. They valued other people more than themselves. One church had the motto “people matter.” That rings true throughout everything they do. From the gym to the cafe, to the swimming pool to the church on a Sunday, this church has built a community where people feel at home. Where they can kick their shoes off,  take a deep breath and try to pick up the pieces as they wander through this broken world. Sometimes they loved people so much that at times the line blurred between who were genuine Christians and who wasn’t. But I get it. When you love people so much, it can sometimes be challenging to draw distinctions because you want to always believe the best about them. My Church in Brisbane, on the other hand, was way more traditional. No community centre, no cafe, no swimming pool. Yet they carried your burdens and genuinely prayed for you. They were concerned about your holiness and love for God as well as your deep hurts and pains (1 Peter 4:8, John 15:12).

2. They loved the Bible. When I started going to the first church, they preached through the Bible in a year, twice. I got a great feed upon God’s Word and always walked away, knowing that God was speaking. The other church exposited the Scriptures with precision and clarity. Even on topics, I’d generally disagree with them on, I walked away, feeling God loved me and that He’d never forsake me. I can’t stress this enough, the importance and centrality of the Scriptures for a church. However, and this is true of almost every church I’ve been to, while in theory, they put the Bible into the hands of the people, and they encouraged the congregation to live by it there was no continuation or application on this through the rest of the week apart from a homegroup (Acts 17:11,  Colossians 3:16).

3. You felt God. At both churches, I regularly experienced the presence of God. Whether it was through the sermons, the sacraments, or through the people, God moved, and God made Himself known to His people. It was sanctifying, transformational and pushed me forward into the presence of God (John 17:3, 1 John 4:16).

So what’s my point in all this?

  1. Be merciful to those without a church. Likely, they’ve never experienced the above 3 things in a church.
  2. If you’re between churches take heart, these churches exist. Genuine love for God, the Word, and for others do abound.
  3. Finding the perfect church is like drinking the perfect cup of coffee. It doesn’t exist. No matter who you talk to, they’ve always had better. Instead, start brewing it yourself.

Human

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“The man here tells us a truth that is awful – we baptise ourselves with names that are far from the only truth about ourselves.”
― Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

One of life’s biggest question’s is who are we? What does it mean to be human? What is our purpose in life? What is the meaning to all of this? Essential questions, unfortunately, not quickly answered.

The Scriptures tell a story about us that starts on the first few pages of this ancient book. Humanity is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), from the dust of the ground, from the breath of God’s nostrils (Genesis 2:7), and from one another (Genesis 2:22). Humans were created to be like God and relate to Him by ruling over God’s creation. They were created with a connection to the earth as they were to cultivate and protect it (Genesis 2:15). Finally, they were created from one another as it is not good for anyone to be alone (Genesis 2:18). In Genesis 3, we became something less than human as we failed to be like God, and we allowed the serpent to rule over us. We became less than human as we failed to protect the Garden from evil. Then, we failed in our relationship with one another as we immediately turned to blame one another for our mistakes.

At the Fall, something happened to humanity where we lost our identity. We don’t know who we are anymore, we don’t really understand what we’re meant to be doing because of that loss of self. So in an attempt to recover our lost sense of self, we grab anything that seems to offer an answer to the big question “who are we?” A lot of us, at least in the West, have bought into the modern cultural meta-narratives of capitalism, scientism, gender equality, and probably dozens of ideas I can’t really think of right now. Why? Because even those these in and of themselves aren’t bad, these things help us make sense of who we are yet never really give us the complete picture. Each little story or philosophical idea makes us feel safe for just a fleeting moment. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much science discovers, whether we find peace in the Middle East or if climate change is solved tomorrow, we’d still end up feeling sense of restlessness and loss of who we’re truly meant to be.

The Bible tells us that because we’re incapable of being human ourselves, God has to send someone who can fix that problem for us. Jesus is the perfect human. He was truly human in that He was completely like God (Colossians 1:15) He ruled over the serpent and evil (Matthew 4:1-11). He loved God and others as Himself (Matthew 22:36-40), even His enemies (Matthew 5:44). So as we’re united to Christ by His Spirit, we start to recover a real sense of who we’re all meant to be (I’m thinking the beatitudes here as an example). It’s only in Jesus that we truly begin our journey on becoming truly human, which will culminate in glory.

 

Living As Exiles

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Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear freedom as a yoke hand a handcuff. – The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

Just a small reflection…

A strange reality lays deeply entrenched within the Christian spirit. Exile. What does it mean to be in exile? A person who has been estranged from their homeland, wandering the deserts of that is this world in search of rest. For the Christian, we walk to-and-fro not yet settled in the world as this present age is not our home. This age still ruled by the invisible forces that ensnare and capture the hearts of the unaware and the proud. They worship at the feet of bronze and gold, yet the Christian wanders evermore in worship as his God carries him along the path of righteousness. The Christian brushes his hand against stone and wood as he knows what this world will become – new. Creation is brimming with potential as it groans for its Painter to stroke His brush against the canvas of life once more as He brings everything to a glorious rest. There will be a new creation, a new day to come, yet it is still a ways off. In the meantime “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The deserts are dry, harsh and unforgiving. Yet, they offer sanctuary to the unwise as they seducee the imprudent traveller into a false rest, and the darkness yet again binds them to servitude. Death crouches among the dunes, but you must rule over it, dear reader.

Each one of us goes through our own personal exile. Disappointment, heartbreak, tragedy and our own trials and tribulations. Each one naturally drives us into solitude and brokenness, but God uses them and moulds us into who we are meant to be. He makes us truly human through our most human experiences. For now, we wander, growing, becoming and never settling. We live as exiles separated from our real home while strangely walking through it.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

The sun has risen at last, and Paul has instructed his hearers to live in light of that new day –  Yet The Sun Will Rise, N.T. Wright

Gaining Wisdom

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He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

 – Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1. 177

Yoda, Gandalf, Rafiki, Dumbeldore, Morpheus, Professor X are among some of the greatest and wisest of characters throughout fictional cinematic history. We immediately gravitate towards these characters because they guide the hero (us) along the path, without them, there would be no happy ending. We love them because each one of us craves to either have someone like that in our lives or because we wish we were like that ourselves. How great would it be to be as wise as these characters? Even within our own history, we envy those who have gone before who seemed glimpse into the world a little then ourselves. Buddha, Muhammed, The Dhali Lama, The Pope, Jesus Himself. Each one (whether you’re religious or not) a guru and a sage in their own right. Each one has changed the course of history and that of their people in profound ways we’re only still beginning to comprehend. If only we had just a slice of their wisdom and insight into the world, maybe we’d have inner peace, perhaps we’d have it all together like they did. Maybe.

Unfortunately, wisdom has a high price. Nothing in this world is free, and wisdom is no exception to this rule. Whether it was fighting a Balrog, fighting in the clone wars and being overthrown by the Sith or being on the constant lookout for the One, Yoda, Gandalf, Rafiki, Dumbeldore, Morpheus, Professor X all went through their own trials to gain the wisdom and knowledge they had. Gautama (the actual name for the Buddha) had to observe and experience suffering before realising it had to be overcome and thus becoming enlightened. Even the Dhali Lama, how many lives (it’s a Hindu thing) has he gone through to accumulate the wisdom he aims to share with the world? Then there’s Jesus Christ Himself the Son of God, the greatest of them all, yet even He suffered and died so that His saving Gospel could go forth into every nation, tribe and tongue. Wisdom comes at a high cost, and it is pain, trials and tribulation.

Not only does it take pain and trials to acquire wisdom, but it takes a vast amount of time to accumulate it. There’s a reason why age is associated with wisdom. It is because those who are older have gone through the pain, they’ve experienced the vanity of this world and grasp what it is that makes the world tick. This is tied to their experiences. No amount of sitting under a tree or inspirational mountain hikes or #worshipsessions will give you wisdom, it’s something God teaches you as you walk gradually through the highs and lows of life. But it does begin with God (Prov 2:6), and as the Spirit carries you along the rough seas of life, you must always keep in mind that each vouge is a lesson that the Master has to bestow to you. We must have ears to hear and eyes to see and open hearts to receive.

The Epistle of James is a timely piece to read and meditate on. The main theological theme of James is wisdom and faith during trials and tribulations. James encourages us to ask God for wisdom. For He will give it liberally without hesitation (James 1:5). That the sort of wisdom God gives is “pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17).  That these good fruits are produced through patience and a lifetime of learning through trials (James 5:7-12).

For me, I am learning to embrace and cherish each moment that is painful and hard (and there’s been a few of them lately) as I try to remember that God is working this out for my good (Romans 8:28), that He is sovereign over history which includes my life (Genesis 5:20; Psalm 115:3; Proverbs 16:9), and that out of He will conform me to the likeness of His Son Jesus (Romans 8:29) who is wise beyond measure (Colossians 2:3).

“Time, as it grows old, teaches all things.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound