So, its been a few days since my last post and I am no longer in a waiting period, unfortunately the decision this time didn't go the way I'd have liked it to but it is a good opportunity for me to trust God in the situation. Anyway on to the topic, last night after church I got into a lengthy discussion with a guy I hadn't met before, we predominantly discussed two things, the first which I may write an article on later was to do with whether certain activities should be taken part in by Christians and the second was faith and exactly what that is, it is that I want to look at here.
Firstly what I want briefly look at is what I think is often a common misinterpretation of faith by many Christians, particularly in my generation, then I want to again briefly look at some reasons as to why these misinterpretations might be occuring and whether it matters. Finally I will look at what faith is and the sort of faith that I think we should be striving for.
The Misinterpreted Faith
There are of course lots of misinterpretations of faith, in this case I'm focusing only on one, that being one that mixes faith and feelings. A common thing I hear these days is about 'feeling God's presence'. Before I go on I should state that I am in no way stating here that people do not feel God's presence or that doing so is a bad thing. My point here is that feeling God's presence is not a sign of strong faith. Put another way, not feeling God's presence is in no way a sign of a lack of faith.
Why The Confusion?
So where has this idea that feelings and faith are somehow intertwined come from? Why do we have this notion that if we're not feeling God our faith is somehow deficient? I think the simplest explanation here is the most likely, that being, we're taught it. It is common in many of our churches these days for people to be taught based on feelings, that God will 'make them happy', that they should be 'feeling God's presence' churches are often intentionally or unintentionally, giving people the impression that unless they are feeling God's presence something is wrong. The implication to those not feeling God's presence is then that there is a problem with them, a problem with their faith. If all these people around me can feel God, why can't I?!
Does this really matter?
I began to touch on this in the previous paragraph, the problem with this is that it leads people to a misunderstanding of one of the most important parts of Christianity, it leads people to despair about the lack of feelings they are experiencing and in the end they either believe they have no faith and blame themselves, or they blame God. The consequences of this can indeed be very serious.
Real Faith and the Faith I Want
Now as I've said that faith is not a feeling, what then is it?
Well, the Bible gives us a definition, Hebrews 11:1 says:
'Now Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen'
Faith is simply put trusting in God and when is it most difficult to trust? Is it when you have an overwhelming presence of God? No it isn't. The hardest time to trust God is when things are going wrong, when you look around you and all you can see is darkness but still you trust God, still you give thanks to God.
Real faith is like this, where no matter what the situation we still have faith, that even if we are in the most desperate of situations, where all of our strength had gone, we still turn to God. That even in the times where we can't feel God at all, the times where it feels like God has abandoned us, the times when we doubt whether God even exists, it is at those times that when we still turn to God that we'll be demonstrating true faith and that is the faith i'm aiming for.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Waiting on God and Self Focus.
This is a rare post for me, as ordinarily I post at the end of an experience. When I've been through a situation to its conclusion and can look back and assess is when most often I can describe what I've learnt. This time, I'm posting somewhere in the middle.
A few days ago I was told something that was hard to hear, what it was does not matter for the purposes of this but trust me it was important, perhaps harder, I knew and was told that I just had to wait. I don't like waiting. In fact I positively despise waiting. Maybe its my OCD, maybe its just me, its probably a bit of both, either way I knew this was going to be tough.
Its funny how despite knowing what you need to do sometimes its really difficult to put it into practice. As usual and rather unsuprisingly... I couldn't wait it out, I set off and tried to look for a solution despite knowing I couldn't really find one. I spoke to anyone who would listen (I have some incredibly patient friends), I ran it around in my head, I considered all the options, I asked advice of everyone and one of them said (and I forget the exact wording):
'It seems that everything here points to you just having to let it go'
Letting go is something I am NOT good at, letting go means waiting, letting go means it being taken out of my control, letting go stops me being in charge. Oh no, I do not like that idea! I'm far too self-involved for that! However, when my friend said this to me, I knew she was right.
You'd think that since I now knew for sure what I had to do... I'd get on and try to do it right? You'd think I'd leave it in the hands of God, especially since I believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and always right.... did I do that?... No. You see really it went something like this 'God, you are all-powerful, all-knowing, much better at dealing with this than I am and will get it right... but I better deal with it!' That, is nothing short of complete arrogance, its turning to God and saying 'I know better'. Its also completely dumb.
So where did my dumbness get me? Well, it got me into a complete state, it left me with a focus only on my problems, no solutions, it left me in a mess and worse still, it probably made it more difficult for the situation to actually be resolved as it meant I discussed it with someone involved, rather than just giving them the space they needed.
The reality of this situation was I wasn't trying to sort this problem out as that was what was best... I was trying to get this sorted out as that was what was best for me. Back we are to that self-focused, selfish attitude of mine again.
One of the things I love about God is that whenever I have a situation that is difficult I seem to learn something from it. Its a double for me this time, first I've learnt just how self-focused and selfish I still am and how much I still need to work on drowning that part of the old man in me each day and secondly on waiting.
I said towards the start of this post that I positively despise waiting, whilst I still don't like waiting one thing I now realise is that sometimes all we can do is wait and sometimes all God wants us to do is wait. It is at the point where I began to truly give this situation to God and just wait that I began to get some peace. It is at the point where I began to wait that I began to live by faith and it is at that point where the situation was put in the safest hands it could be. May God help me to continue to wait in this situation and to learn where I should wait in others.
A few days ago I was told something that was hard to hear, what it was does not matter for the purposes of this but trust me it was important, perhaps harder, I knew and was told that I just had to wait. I don't like waiting. In fact I positively despise waiting. Maybe its my OCD, maybe its just me, its probably a bit of both, either way I knew this was going to be tough.
Its funny how despite knowing what you need to do sometimes its really difficult to put it into practice. As usual and rather unsuprisingly... I couldn't wait it out, I set off and tried to look for a solution despite knowing I couldn't really find one. I spoke to anyone who would listen (I have some incredibly patient friends), I ran it around in my head, I considered all the options, I asked advice of everyone and one of them said (and I forget the exact wording):
'It seems that everything here points to you just having to let it go'
Letting go is something I am NOT good at, letting go means waiting, letting go means it being taken out of my control, letting go stops me being in charge. Oh no, I do not like that idea! I'm far too self-involved for that! However, when my friend said this to me, I knew she was right.
You'd think that since I now knew for sure what I had to do... I'd get on and try to do it right? You'd think I'd leave it in the hands of God, especially since I believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and always right.... did I do that?... No. You see really it went something like this 'God, you are all-powerful, all-knowing, much better at dealing with this than I am and will get it right... but I better deal with it!' That, is nothing short of complete arrogance, its turning to God and saying 'I know better'. Its also completely dumb.
So where did my dumbness get me? Well, it got me into a complete state, it left me with a focus only on my problems, no solutions, it left me in a mess and worse still, it probably made it more difficult for the situation to actually be resolved as it meant I discussed it with someone involved, rather than just giving them the space they needed.
The reality of this situation was I wasn't trying to sort this problem out as that was what was best... I was trying to get this sorted out as that was what was best for me. Back we are to that self-focused, selfish attitude of mine again.
One of the things I love about God is that whenever I have a situation that is difficult I seem to learn something from it. Its a double for me this time, first I've learnt just how self-focused and selfish I still am and how much I still need to work on drowning that part of the old man in me each day and secondly on waiting.
I said towards the start of this post that I positively despise waiting, whilst I still don't like waiting one thing I now realise is that sometimes all we can do is wait and sometimes all God wants us to do is wait. It is at the point where I began to truly give this situation to God and just wait that I began to get some peace. It is at the point where I began to wait that I began to live by faith and it is at that point where the situation was put in the safest hands it could be. May God help me to continue to wait in this situation and to learn where I should wait in others.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Focus and John the Baptist
One of the advantages of going to two different churches is that each week there are two sermons, which is twice as many as usual to remember something from. A few days ago I wrote about a sermon at my evening church, this time the one I remember is my morning church. My morning church is a very traditional church with a set plan for each week and a common order of service that is followed. It is the advent season and this week in the year is the week when the church remembers John the Baptist.
Now, I've heard quite a few talks on John the Baptist, I've heard he was the forerunner for Jesus, that he lived in the desert, baptised people, baptised Jesus, lived on locusts and honey and was beheaded. All of this is important stuff but wasn't the focus of this sermon, the passage used for the sermon comes from John 1:19-28, its not too long so here it is:
19And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." 22So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."
Now, the statement above doesn't mean as much nowadays as then, sure it is obvious that John is saying the one to come after him (Jesus) is more important than him but he is in fact saying this in much stronger terms, the priests and Levites would have known that not even servants were expected to untie the strap of a sandal, John was using a statement that they would understand clearly, John was saying, 'I'm not even worthy of doing what you wouldn't even expect a servant to do', John wasn't just saying Jesus was more important than him, he was saying that compared to Jesus, he was nothing.
There is the second thing about John that is an eye opener, I will profess that Jesus is all important and I'm nothing, I know this is true, but do I live it? do I practice that? There is still that old man in me that looks on myself as very important, in fact that side of me probably looks on me as the most important. How often will we sulk and moan when things don't go exactly as we want them? How often will we have our plan and our dreams and if we're really honest, a lot of the time we think we know best and what we want, we deserve. John's response above isn't like that, John is really saying I am nothing - even when he has the opportunity to say he's important.
Getting to that position I actually think is a scary prospect, it is really tough to consider a situation where you're in the position where you're saying, it truly is all about Jesus and he is all that matters not me. The old man in us does not like the idea of God being in control, the old man wants us in control, only through God and his Holy Spirit will we ever be able to get anywhere in having a focus that is on God and not ourselves and I pray that regardless of whether its scary or not God would guide me to be who he wants me to be.
Now, I've heard quite a few talks on John the Baptist, I've heard he was the forerunner for Jesus, that he lived in the desert, baptised people, baptised Jesus, lived on locusts and honey and was beheaded. All of this is important stuff but wasn't the focus of this sermon, the passage used for the sermon comes from John 1:19-28, its not too long so here it is:
19And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." 22So they said to him, "Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."
24(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25They asked him, "Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" 26John answered them, "I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." 28These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The part the preacher focused on predominantly was how John responded to the questions, first of all John is asked '"Who are you?"', his response is completely out of the ordinary, one would expect him to respond with, his name (and given the time perhaps 'Son of Zechariah'), something that describes himself, what he does or is doing there but he doesn't, he responds with:
'"I am not the Christ"' - immediately John is turning the focus away from himself, he is immediately saying, I'm not important.
They then ask John if he is Elijah, he says he isn't and if he is a prophet, he says no. John is clearly not looking to make himself a big deal. John is not looking on and saying 'Ok, I'm doing this for God but a little credit here and there is nice isn't it? I deserve some praise!'
The priests and Levites still press John for an answer on who he is, they have done what is so easy for us to do, they've missed who John is trying to point them to and got completely and utterly caught up in the man in front of them. Stop and think about this for a minute, do you do this? For one I know I get caught up in situations like this all to often, think about a great speaker you hear, someone you respect a lot, is it not the case that a lot of the time we know (and want to know) more about the people telling us about God than the God they're telling us about? Is it not also the case that we often spend more time talking about the people who talk about God than talking about God himself? - Certainly much of this is for various different reasons but I suspect it isn't only me and the priests and Levites above who sometimes become focused on the man rather than the God.
John's response is to quote the book of Isaiah, again his focus points towards the Lord, he says I am just the preparing the way for the Lord. Still the priests and Levites do not focus on God, still they focus on John with another question about him, they question his authority to baptise, John's response again points away from himself and to the Lord this time in an even stronger way.
"I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."Now, the statement above doesn't mean as much nowadays as then, sure it is obvious that John is saying the one to come after him (Jesus) is more important than him but he is in fact saying this in much stronger terms, the priests and Levites would have known that not even servants were expected to untie the strap of a sandal, John was using a statement that they would understand clearly, John was saying, 'I'm not even worthy of doing what you wouldn't even expect a servant to do', John wasn't just saying Jesus was more important than him, he was saying that compared to Jesus, he was nothing.
There is the second thing about John that is an eye opener, I will profess that Jesus is all important and I'm nothing, I know this is true, but do I live it? do I practice that? There is still that old man in me that looks on myself as very important, in fact that side of me probably looks on me as the most important. How often will we sulk and moan when things don't go exactly as we want them? How often will we have our plan and our dreams and if we're really honest, a lot of the time we think we know best and what we want, we deserve. John's response above isn't like that, John is really saying I am nothing - even when he has the opportunity to say he's important.
Getting to that position I actually think is a scary prospect, it is really tough to consider a situation where you're in the position where you're saying, it truly is all about Jesus and he is all that matters not me. The old man in us does not like the idea of God being in control, the old man wants us in control, only through God and his Holy Spirit will we ever be able to get anywhere in having a focus that is on God and not ourselves and I pray that regardless of whether its scary or not God would guide me to be who he wants me to be.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Just a bit more...
So its been a long time since I last blogged. A little over 7 months in fact, as you can probably tell I'm not very good at regular articles. Every now and then however I feel the urge to write something. Today is one of those days.
I've considered writing a couple of times recently but haven't quite had the topic. Finally I have one, it is my thoughts on a part of a sermon I heard on Sunday evening, a very good one in fact. Those who read this who were at that service may know what I'm talking about from the title but for those who weren't there, weren't listening properly (sometimes a problem for me) or just don't remember (another common problem for me!) the vicar said something along the lines of this (I take creative license here as my wording is likely very wrong):
'We're always searching for a bit more to be happy, if only I got a promotion I'd be happy, if we get a promotion if only I was a manager I'd be happy or if only I was in a relationship I'd be happy, if we are in a relationship, if only I was engaged, or married. If we are married, if only I had kids....'
Every so often there are things that make you sit up and take notice, it was this statement for me, as I sat there and thought 'wait a minute... that's me', I've had an interesting time of things recently, a few things have happened. I won't go into details here but things just haven't quite been right in what has been going on with my relationship with God. I found I was having some issues. I wondered why and at that moment in church I realised why, I realised that during these issues I was saying to myself 'I'd be O.K if I just had....', I was giving myself this get out clause so to speak. In other words I was saying to God in a different way, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours...
Oddly I knew I was doing it all along but it wasn't until the vicar said the above that I fully comprehended it. Suddenly I knew where I was and that I needed to get properly back on track and stop making excuses for myself.
It is at a moment like this where I realise how amazing God is, what I have been doing is wrong, in fact further what I have been doing is turning my back on God, some would put what I was doing in stronger terms... I am one of them but I won't write how I'd describe it here. If I was God, I would be fuming if this self-loving person was basically saying, 'this is my terms', 'I know better', 'You'll get over it, you'll forgive me' . In fact I reckon I'd turn around when it came back to bite him and say 'There you go, now thats what you deserve, deal with it'... in fact I'd probably sit there smuggly thinking, there you go, told you so.
Not my God. No my God turns around and says 'I love you, I do forgive you, now lets help you out'.
Since then, I have been trying with God's help to count my blessings for what I have. I try now not to focus on those things 'that I'd only be happy if I had' and instead focus on all the great things God has given me. For these and his help with a new outlook I am thankful to God.
I've considered writing a couple of times recently but haven't quite had the topic. Finally I have one, it is my thoughts on a part of a sermon I heard on Sunday evening, a very good one in fact. Those who read this who were at that service may know what I'm talking about from the title but for those who weren't there, weren't listening properly (sometimes a problem for me) or just don't remember (another common problem for me!) the vicar said something along the lines of this (I take creative license here as my wording is likely very wrong):
'We're always searching for a bit more to be happy, if only I got a promotion I'd be happy, if we get a promotion if only I was a manager I'd be happy or if only I was in a relationship I'd be happy, if we are in a relationship, if only I was engaged, or married. If we are married, if only I had kids....'
Every so often there are things that make you sit up and take notice, it was this statement for me, as I sat there and thought 'wait a minute... that's me', I've had an interesting time of things recently, a few things have happened. I won't go into details here but things just haven't quite been right in what has been going on with my relationship with God. I found I was having some issues. I wondered why and at that moment in church I realised why, I realised that during these issues I was saying to myself 'I'd be O.K if I just had....', I was giving myself this get out clause so to speak. In other words I was saying to God in a different way, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours...
Oddly I knew I was doing it all along but it wasn't until the vicar said the above that I fully comprehended it. Suddenly I knew where I was and that I needed to get properly back on track and stop making excuses for myself.
It is at a moment like this where I realise how amazing God is, what I have been doing is wrong, in fact further what I have been doing is turning my back on God, some would put what I was doing in stronger terms... I am one of them but I won't write how I'd describe it here. If I was God, I would be fuming if this self-loving person was basically saying, 'this is my terms', 'I know better', 'You'll get over it, you'll forgive me' . In fact I reckon I'd turn around when it came back to bite him and say 'There you go, now thats what you deserve, deal with it'... in fact I'd probably sit there smuggly thinking, there you go, told you so.
Not my God. No my God turns around and says 'I love you, I do forgive you, now lets help you out'.
Since then, I have been trying with God's help to count my blessings for what I have. I try now not to focus on those things 'that I'd only be happy if I had' and instead focus on all the great things God has given me. For these and his help with a new outlook I am thankful to God.
Monday, May 05, 2008
How sinful?
I was recently walking to campus, listening to music, when some lyrics stuck out to me. Oddly enough I cannot remember what those lyrics, or the song was, but only that it got me thinking about the depths of sin within our lives.
Ordinarily I do not particularly like focusing on law but instead spend the majority of my time focusing on grace and the gospel. In the sunday school I teach I always try ensure that no matter what passage we are focusing on, we always look to Christ and that our focus is Christ. This, I believe, is how it should be (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) after all Christ is the centre of the Christian message. Perhaps even further, Christ is the Christian message. Having said this however, it is through the law that we know what sin is and hence know our need for Christ (Romans 7:7). To neglect the law is, in fact, to remove much of what Jesus has done. In fact neglecting the law will inevitably lead to us have less to be thankful to God for and will cause us to love both God and others less (Luke 7:47).
For this now, let us take a look at the story of Jesus crucifixion, focusing on particular people:
Ordinarily I do not particularly like focusing on law but instead spend the majority of my time focusing on grace and the gospel. In the sunday school I teach I always try ensure that no matter what passage we are focusing on, we always look to Christ and that our focus is Christ. This, I believe, is how it should be (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) after all Christ is the centre of the Christian message. Perhaps even further, Christ is the Christian message. Having said this however, it is through the law that we know what sin is and hence know our need for Christ (Romans 7:7). To neglect the law is, in fact, to remove much of what Jesus has done. In fact neglecting the law will inevitably lead to us have less to be thankful to God for and will cause us to love both God and others less (Luke 7:47).
For this now, let us take a look at the story of Jesus crucifixion, focusing on particular people:
- Pilate
- Those calling for his crucifixion
- Those mocking him whilst he was on the cross
- The person or people who whipped him
- Those who twisted and placed the crown of thorns on to His head
- Those who nailed him to the cross
So the question to ask then is what would we have done in these situations. Can we look at Pilate and say 'I would never have done that'? What about the crowd of people shouting 'free Barabbas!' could we say that we would have stood up and called for Jesus' release? When He was on that cross, battered and broken, seemingly helpless would we not have hurled the insults at him like the others did. Are we really in a position to say that if it were our job to twist that crown of thorns, whip him or place and pierce his hands and feet with those nails we wouldn't have done it?
It is easy for us to look at those people in this story with an attitude that we are different, that they were especially bad, especially evil. No, if we are to take a good hard look at ourselves, we could be any of them. To say otherwise is to just deny how sinful we really are. It is to look on ourselves with the 'Yes, I'm not perfect, but him over there, he is a lot worse than me' attitude. It is an attitude in itself that is sinful, it is one quite simply puffed up with pride. It leaves us with being forgiven little and hence loving little.
The beauty of the cross is not seen in what is good about us but what is bad. The Christian message is not at its most powerful in our good actions but in the forgiveness we receive thanks to Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. I pray that we will be able, like the Apostle Paul, to acknowledge ourselves as 'the chief of sinners' (1 Timothy 1:15) for then, and only then can we see in all its glory what Christ did for us on that cross at Calvary.
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