Progress and worship; David, Michal and me.

On becoming nicer...

 As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart. 2 Samuel 6, v16.


So I was finally getting around to some bible time when I got home from work today when this leapt out at me. It's a shame it's taken me so long; it must be four weeks or more since a great 'School of Theology' lecture at St Georges church Leeds inspired me to sit and read the history books in big chunks, to treat them like a novel. In just a couple of sittings I am all the way through Saul and Goliath and getting into the highs and lows of David's reign, and rediscovering some of the wonderful narrative in the bible. In the space of two pages David moves from this seemingly carefree joyous moment, abandoned to God and free to express himself, to staying home from the wars while someone else does his dirty work and getting himself into some serous hot water with Bathsheba, surely the lowest low of his career. God must have spent those years pretty exasperated; how can a guy with such incredible potential, so devoted to Him in love and capably leading His kingdom screw it up so badly, so often. It gives me hope for my relationship with God. If David can stay connected through all that sin, how much more will I, living my life with Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit. That said, David wasn't without guidance, he had prohets like Samuel and Nathan keeping him honest. I guess we could all use someone to speak hard and useful truths to us now and then. I wonder who my Nathans are? Who are yours?


Anyway, the piece of the passage that jumped out at me was this bit about Michal despising David when she saw him dancing for God. It reminded me of when I was first a Christian. I used to really struggle to connect with God on an emotional level during worship at church. It didn't help that I'm a terrible singer and I struggled to accept that the noise I made was a joyful sound to God. I suppose that it was early on in my walk with God and naturally any relationship takes time to deepen. Anyway, there I was, singing in church but not feeling much. I distinctly remember resenting people around me who seemed to be having a much better time than me. It just wasn't fair, they were getting so much more out of it! Why wasn't God lighting ME up like he was them! What were they doing with their hands in the air? Didn't they know that looked weird?


I haven't thought about that for a long time. I don't remember it passing, but it did, and years go. I don't always feel like I'm immediately bathed in a warm glow of Holy Spiritness every time sing; that's not what I'm saying, but my attitude to worship has totally shifted. I'm now more often than not to be found with my hands in the air; I still wonder if I look silly but I'm past caring. More often than not, I do feel connected to God when I worship Him, but I have learned to worship with sincerity, with effort and in truth, whatever I feel. I finally believe that it's about Him and not me. God has begun a renewing of my mind, and this reading reminded me of how far I've come as well as giving me hope for the rest of what lies ahead. I know there's plenty of work for God still to do on me, but this afternoon's reflection on the progress so far has been thoroughly uplifting. Cheers, Lord!

After the rain has fallen...

So What?...

That's the question, isn't it? Yesterday, literally so. My incisive and wonderful wife asked, having had a such a fabulous time with God over the Romania trip and at New Wine, what was going to come from it? What was I going to do or be different?

Some of what God was going to do with me happened very early on. Driving in to Hunedoara from Cluj on the coach we saw a lot of poverty, alongside staggering wealth. There were so many people clearly not getting what they needed; their clothes and houses were not fit for purpose; their country had failed them.
I felt so much pity for them, my heart really broke. That was all me. What I felt God do was pull me up short, step in and give me some perspective. I had to stop judging them by my comfortable standards. The biggest issue in life isn't material poverty, but spiritual poverty, and there's just no way to see that from a bus. How dare I assume that these people were any worse off than the people around me in Leeds. God took that opportunity to break my heart again for those around me in Leeds who don't have the wonderful freedom in Christ that I have found. It crystallised when I saw a friend's t-shirt which read 'Friends don't let friends go to Hell.' I felt quite convicted of a lack of action on my part. Going to Romania was, first and foremost, hopefully going to radically change my approach to life in Leeds.

Let me be clear, I'm not about to start bashing my chums with bibles or shouting at people in Briggate, that's just not useful. I'd surely and swiftly end up with no friends at all, and that's not helping them or me. I don't think I've been shy about sharing my faith, either. I just remember this from a sermon years ago; before you talk to your friends about God, talk to God about your friends. My prayers for my friends and family have been sporadic and have lacked real faith. We happily sing that 'Our God Saves' but I'm not sure that I really believed that any of my friends would ever find God. I have to find a way to have more faith. After all, the wonderful God I worship found a way to reach me, and a not long after found a way to reach my wife, and our very relationship had been founded on a deeply shared antipathy to God and the church. I am praying now for my friends, and for more faith that God will find a way to reach them and hopefully use me in reaching them. My sermon in Romania talked about the two greatest commandments being to love God and love our neighbour. If we are to truly love our neighbour, what more could we wish for them than a fulfilled life in relationship with their creator.

What else then? What other changes has Romania brought about in me? Well, my Mom summed up a lot of it when I got back. She asked what I'd been up to. I told here we'd been cleaning the city and picking up litter in the morning and running bible classes and summer school for kids in the afternoon. She quickly and accurately pointed out that, as admirable as that all was, you didn't have to go to Romania to do that. There are plenty of opportunities to get stuck in over here. One such really simple and easy way to make a difference is St Georges' community week. This runs a few times a year, always during school holidays and always has lots of opportunities to help out in the local area around the church; doing up peoples' gardens, cleaning flats, decorating etc. There's always a kids' club during the week. There is always a team who wander the neighbourhood and ask people if there's anything we can pray about for them. Not evangelistic door knocking, just asking and serving.  I realised that I'd always been too hesitant to get involved in community week. I am a busy guy, my holiday is precious to me. Work is hard, I need my rest. I do my bit for the church already, surely I do enough? Can someone explain to me what exactly 'doing enough for God is?' I have been just a bit too selfish in that area, and I resolved in Romania to put much more effort into Community week whenever it happens.

Oh, there are tons of other things too, too many to get into in real depth now. I really enjoyed preaching; lots of people told me how much what I said connected with them. I have generally managed to be too proud about that and give God the glory, but I did enjoy doing it and will look for further opportunities to preach where I can. It was great to step out in faith and feel God catch me when I landed. I really noticed how close I felt to God, and it can't be a coincidence that that happened when I was getting quality time in with him every day. Fellowship with a room-full of men had a wonderful dynamic and I should invest a bit more of myself in the men's stuff at church. Volleyball is an underrated and underplayed sport. The list of lessons goes on. Enough. Farewell, and I'll write again soon. Perhaps I could aim for monthly.

My first sermon: a simple faith.

Well, blogfans, I've been asked to give a sermon on the upcoming church mission to Huenadoara, Romania. It's a tremendous honour and I really want to do it well. I'm trying to avoid the temptation to cram every point I've ever wanted to make in a sermon and to just keep it really simple. I also need to allow for the fact that I'll be translated on the spot, so rather than talk in the convoluted, run-on sentences I am sadly rather prone to, I need to shorten my style and talk in more simple, concise chunks. For this reason, I thought it best to write it out in full before I go. I've been mulling ideas for a week, but it's now Wednesday the 20th July and I'm due to preach THIS SUNDAY AM!! So, it's time to get it properly done. I thought this might be a useful forum for it, not only so that I have access to it once I get there, but also that some of you might be able to help when I wander off track in my theological rambling or just generally don't make sense. Please post back with suggestions.


Here's the key bit from the passage  we'll hear at the beginning. The full text is Mathew 22: 15-40.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"  Jesus replied, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV).




Assume here I'll throw in some short cheery preamble. Hello, it's lovely to be here, my name's Rob, I lead a small group at St Georges' church Leeds etc


It's a real privilege to be here this morning, especially because I so very nearly wasn't. Let me tell you the story of how I came to know Jesus, lost him and finally rediscovered him at the centre of a very simple faith. I’d like to show you today what I believe is the heart of the Christian faith, and is certainly at the centre of how I live my life with and for Jesus Christ.


I was not bought up as a Christian; I 1st gave my life to God as a teenager. My faith grew from regular church attendance and great fellowship with other young people at church, but I always struggled with the big questions within Christianity: does everyone who doesn't believe really go to Hell, how does that display God's love? Why is there so much suffering in the world? I believe in science and all the claims it makes about evolution and the beginning of the universe; how do I make that fit alongside my deep trust in the bible and the very different version of creation I see there, which I also believe?


There were just so many questions. In the end, that was a large part of what drove me away from my faith, from the God who made and loves me. Aged 19, unable to maintain a belief in a God that confused me, I abandoned any attempt to follow him. I deliberately went the other way, and decided that if God didn't make sense, then I didn't want to know Him or know about Him. I was going to live my life for me and follow my own rules.


As you can imagine, that didn’t go very well. I spent about 10 years looking for happiness everywhere but with God, and there are scores of stories I could tell you about that. It’s enough to say that they didn’t work, and they left me looking again at the faith I had abandoned. Sadly, all the questions that had driven me from it were still there. I discussed them with friends who had a great in-depth knowledge of this very weighty book (hold up bible) and who had studied the writings of many theological scholars. They were wise men and women who gave me the best answers they had, but somehow they were not good enough for me.


Then I met Sarah, a good friend of my wife, who had the most simple faith of anyone I had ever met. She said she knew God loved her and that Jesus had died for her, and that her job now was to love God and everyone else in the world. That incredible view shook my world, I had no idea that following Jesus could be reduced to such basic terms, so easy to wrap your head around! What I didn’t know at that time is that this message is exactly echoed by Jesus. That simple statement opened my eyes, and it was at her funeral, just a few short days after I first heard this radically simple gospel, that I finally opened my heart and let my saviour in. I just asked Him, if He was really there, to come and and show himself to me, and He did. He blew me away! I felt the love and grace and mercy of Jesus and I knew I had to say yes to Him. I gave my life back to Him right there. What's funny is, I still had all the questions I had always had, I just suddenly looked at them from the other side. As important as they were, I wasn't going to let them get in the way of this. To this day, I trust God that there are answers to all of those big questions, I try to work some of them out as best I can and I don't worry too much about them. One day, all will be revealed.


Let us look again at the passage. What’s going on here? It’s one of those parts of the gospels where the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus, to trick him into saying something they can use against him. The gospels are full of people asking Jesus questions, and I can't think of many occasions where he gives a direct answer. He often tells parables, stories to help people think their own way around it. He must have thought this question was too important to leave people to get wrong. He even makes the statement, "all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." He could not have stated more clearly that these 2 principles were at the heart of what He believed. Think of all those people I spoke to who gave me answers to the many complex questions in this big book. They could have reduced it to just those two points, those four clear sentences. Love God. Love everyone.


I suppose the next question that occurs to me is ‘How?’ How does Jesus want me to love God, how does he want me to love my neighbour? Who is my neighbour? Let’s look at those three questions in turn.


How should I love God? That’s a really hard question. Does that just mean think nice thoughts about Him? ‘Oh, how lovely is God, I really like Him?’ I don’t think so. When I’m trying to answer this question, I like to compare loving God with loving my wife. After all, she’s there, she’s tangible, she lets me know on a regular basis if I am loving her well, or not so well. It’s no use to her me just thinking nice thoughts about her in my head. I do do this of course, all the time. She is often on my mind, but if that were all I did, well, I don’t think my wife would be very happy with me. She wouldn't feel very loved.  So, what DO I do? For a start, I TELL her I love her. Everyday, at least once a day. I tell her WHY I love her, what is it today that makes me especially fond of her. How proud I am of how well she does at work, how I appreciate how carefully and usefully she manages our finances, how beautiful she is, how kind and considerate she is to others, how grateful I am that she made my favorite sandwiches for my lunch. I have found that such really specific praise is highly valued, and when she's happy, I'm happy.


I must go further than that in loving my wife. Talk is all well and good, but we all know that you have to back up your words with actions. It’s no good to just ‘talk-the-talk’, you have to ‘walk-the-walk.’ Another way I can show my wife I love her is to do things which I know please her, things which she has told me she appreciates. When my alarm goes off in the morning I turn it off at the first ring and sneak out of the room, so that I don’t disturb her. I am responsible for taking care of our car, so I do that to the best of my ability so that she doesn't have to worry about it. I try to cook wonderful food for us, choosing recipes and ingredients that I know she is fond of. It changes over time as well. This month I am trying to remember to hang my coat up and not leave it on the back of a kitchen chair when I come home from work. There must be hundreds of things, small and large, that I know bring her joy, so I do as many as I can. By choosing to do things that she likes, not always what I want to do, I know she knows that when I say I love her, it’s not just words; she can trust that I really mean it. That store of memories of all the little acts of love really helps  on the very rare occasion that I get it wrong and upset her.


Finally, our relationship is at the strongest when we spend a lot of time together. You can imagine how hard it is for us to be apart while I’m over here. Every week we find several times to be together, some ‘marriage time.’ Time to eat together and talk over our days, to do something fun together, maybe go running or for a walk, to watch a movie. Doing that, every week, for nearly nine years, has helped us to really get to know each other. And, because we really know each other, it makes it easier to show each other that love; to know the right words to say, the right things to do.


I would suggest that there are key lessons here for us to work out how to love God. In fact, I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think one of the reasons God gave us the wonderful gift of marriage was to get a feel for how to love in a genuine intimate way. At it's best, marriage is a wonderful glimpse of the tender and close relationship we can find with the One who made us. These ways to love a husband or wife are ways we can love God. Let's a have a look at how we can apply these lessons to our spiritual life.

One; tell Him you love Him, just like I do with Victoria. Talk to him, sing to him. In prayer, praise and worship let him know all the wonderful things about him that you love. Sing of his might in creating and sustaining the universe. Rejoice out loud at the wonder in your heart that the Son of God came and died for you. Not because he needs it, but because He deserves it, because real love does not hide itself. I know I always feel so much more connected to God when I can open up in heartfelt praise.

Two; spend time with Him.  Chat to him. As St Paul says, pray without ceasing. Pray as you go about your daily life. Not only that, find some ‘marriage time’ for God. Time to tell Him what’s really on your heart, and listen to what He might have to say to you. Read his word, look for the meaning He brings to you from within it. Sit quietly in His presence and just be with Him. I have found that the times I have really devoted to sitting with God have been so productive, and I strive to have the discipline to do it more often.  If you're going to have a relationship worth having, you just have to invest time in it, to cultivate it. I would suggest that no relationship you are ever going to have is more important than the one you share with your creator.

Three; do the things you know He loves. Here at least, he’s made it very easy. There are so many commandments. Tithe your money, keep the Sabbath and so on. So many of His commandments can be summed up in one though. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Honour you parents? If you are loving everyone, surely your parents will be high on the list of people you love! Do not kill? How can you kill someone you love? Give to the poor? Do not judge others? So many of the ways we are asked to behave towards each other do not need further explanation than this; simply ‘love.’


Finally, let's be clear about who we are to love. Jesus referred to that famous commandment from Leviticus,  'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There's clearly another whole sermon in there, isn't there. I'm sure you've heard it before. In the book of Luke, just after we read Jesus giving these two as the most important commandment, someone with a bit of sense speaks up. 'Who is my neighbour?' they ask. Jesus tells the famous story of the Good Samaritan. Who is our neighbour? Not just people of the same faith as us, from the same place as us, but anyone in need. I'll leave you today with that thought; 'Who do I need to be a better neighbour to?' Let God prompt you.


One final thought. What Jesus didn’t say was “These are the only two commandments.” No, he said that the others 'hang' on these two. All those other instructions in the bible still apply, and we all need to work out what that means to us. All I'm suggesting to you today, is that you shouldn't let your questions get in the way of the best thing that ever happened to you, and you shouldn't let them stop you doing the best you can with those simple instructions. Love God, love everyone. I'm not saying they are easy instructions; I know i get both of them wrong in some way most days. Thankfully, we have a God of mercy, who readily forgives us when we ask. So get out there, love more, love God, love everyone, get it wrong and have another go. Just keep loving!



God bless you all.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think. It's definitely a first draft, so I'd gladly receive any comments. I'll try and post more blogs throughout the mission, let you know what it's like out there and what we're up to, and I promise they'll be way shorter than this!

Cheers,

Rob

... and again...

Sorry it's been so long, blogfans. Not sure why, a season for everything, I suppose.

Well, since last time I have successfully managed the great North Run in a very pleasing 1h52, an experience that really brought me closer to God. I was so enjoying my running that I signed up for the Edinburgh marathon at the end of May this year. Unsurprisingly, just as I was getting good my knees fell apart again and I haven't run for 3 months now. Still, having smelled the challenge once, I am determined to run a marathon sometime.

In other news, I am almost up to 90% of the bible read. This has moved from being a chore to a habit and often a source of delight.I've taken to doing my readings in a a nice comfy chair in the front room and using my study bible. It's not always about getting it done, I find I actually want to understand it. I guess it's like using your mirrors in the car. I remember when I first started to drive I looked in my mirrors because my instructor expected me to, to pass my test and from an unclear sense that it was what you should do. Some time after those early days I remember realizing not only that there was no instructor or examiner to please anymore, and that I actually wanted to know what was behind me. My motivation had become intrinsic. The same seems to have happened with my bible time. I couldn't imagine not doing it now.

I think more and more about ministry now, sometime in the future. I think it's reasonable for people to expect that anyone in any kind of church leadership has actually read the instruction manual. The next task, having read it, will be to get to understand it. Boy-oh-boy there's a lot of complicated stuff in there! It takes faith to accept that the apparent conflicts stem my imperfect understanding, not any fault of 'the author.' Still, I guess that's what it's all about.

Finally, some thoughts from yesterday. It was Good Friday.  ( I always wonder about that name. Surely, for those most concerned with the process it was FAR from a good day!)
I was catching the bus into town to get to church, right at the front on the top floor and reveling in creation around me. I started thinking about the service coming up and what a pleasant change it would make to actually be in my home church for Easter. Normally we take advantage of the school hols to get away somewhere but Leeds City Council decreed that I holiday for two weeks preceding Easter, so here I am. I was listing in my head all the troubles and issues I wanted to bring to God; my knees, the purpose of my life, stuff in my marriage, my friends etc. A pretty normal thing for me to do on the way to church, I realize. Halfway there I felt bad about this. I felt prompted that this was not the point of church, today of all days. Today was GOD's day, church was about HIM, what He had gone through for us and what He was worthy of because of it; worthy of reflection, awe, praise, worship and love. I determined to make church about Him, to give him the best service' I could. Unsurprisingly, I got sooooo much more out of it. In making it all about Jesus, Rob benefited even more. I felt closer to Him than I often do and it's carried over to today. I hope it's an attitude I can take to a few more Sundays.

Anyway, it's been good catching up.

See you next time!

Rob