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Isn’t it funny how we expect to find traces of ‘supernatural’ or something spiritual in ‘holy places’? That’s why people make pilgrimages, set up memorials or shrines- to capture the presence or feeling of a supernatural encounter.
And I don’t think Christians are immune to this- I was reading Nehemiah 9-11 and wondering what it would be like to to back to the spot where the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses or when Jacob wrestled with God… if I looked around would I find traces of those encounters? Would there be a sense of tingling in the air where Uncreated had broken in to the world…?

But isn’t that a bit silly of me?! Not because the mark of the Creator wouldn’t be left… but because it already has, in everything that God has created by his Word! We should look around at us and marvel that this world bears traces of its Maker at every turn… but we’re too blind to see it…
At heart I don’t easily believe that this really is the Lord’s world. I don’t look out on this beautiful, crisp, cold morning and think of how the warmth-giving sun melts away the frost that encased each blade of grass, transforming it from its brittle, fragile state to one where it can flourish and grow, and see the traces of the work of my Saviour displayed for all to see. How much do we miss out on, chasing after our own ideas of spirituality & the divine and ignoring the majestic display of Jesus that the universe would draw our attention to?

Deep down there's a hope inside, brighter than the fears in my mind (Switchfoot - Blinding Light)

These are all questions I’ve asked myself, or thoughts that have run through my head. I share them now because I’m working on being more honest – less of a front, more of what I’m really like. This isn’t an experiement self-expression (I don’t think these things all the time and they’re not the sum total of how I feel at any given point) nor is it a plea for help (though I’m not denying I often need it, and am always thankful when people offer it) but an exercise in openly stating that I am broken, damaged by my own reluctance to trust Jesus, affected by a world that doesn’t love it’s Creator… but still not hopeless! For all the stuff that is wrong, for all the struggles I face or see in the world around me, and every moment I do feel these things keenly – there is hope. Unlike the wisdom of the TV ad, it’s not in searching for self-worth, nor is it found in digging deep into my past – it’s completely outside of me… alien, you might say.

…But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith…
(Philippians 3:7-9 ESV)

I know there’s no hope to be found in me – I can’t deal with any of these problems or situations on my own. But like Paul says, there’s hope outside of me, outside of broken humanity, outside of the damaged world we live in – Jesus is my unshakeable, life-giving, joy-restoring hope. I don’t have to look within, I look to Him.

What is it about music that makes things sink in, in ways that just hearing or reading something doesn’t? I love how with his music John Mark McMillan reflects the victory and joy of the fact that ‘the man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave’ … let me know what you think!

Though the earth cried out for blood
Satisfied her hunger was
Her billows calmed on raging seas
For the souls of men she craved
Sun and moon from balcony
Turned their head in disbelief
Their precious love would taste the sting
Disfigured and disdained

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a king
Laid down in grief
But awoke with the keys
To hell on that day
Firstborn of the slain
The man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

So three days in darkness slept
The morning sun of righteousness
But rose to shame the throws of death
And over turn his rule
Now daughters and the sons of men
Would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent
When the day rolled anew

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a king
Laid down in grief
But awoke with the keys
To hell on that day
Firstborn of the slain
The man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all

Now I’m going to be a bit cheeky and invite you to look at mine – for no other reason than I take photos of things I love, and I want you to share these things too! There’s also a handy link in the menu bar above.

Oh, and I’ve not got many of people – not because I don’t love people… I do! But they have this tendency of moving around a lot and I’m not a good enough photographer to capture all that life and excitement and motion! So friends – just coz you’re not in my gallery, doesn’t mean I don’t love you!

But how tragic is that? Out of all the people in the world, followers of Jesus should be ready to face up to the reality that this song points to – we are broken, sinful, weak and helpless people. That should not be a surprise to us! Isn’t that what Jesus shows us? Isn’t it a basic part of being a Christian – to know, see and feel the weight of that hopelessness at some point in our lives, to know that without Jesus, we’re lost, hopeless? In some ways, ‘full of broken thoughts I cannot repair’ doesn’t go far enough…No wonder Reznor’s lyrics leave us with no hope or cosy resolution – without Jesus, what do we have? Empires of dirt that we build for ourselves in the vain hope that they might mean something, or make our existence significant. If that’s the best solution we have, then it would make sense to hide our pain and worry away – what would be the use of sharing it? What would be the use of trawling through it and facing it in all it’s horror and ugliness? Perhaps some temporary relief if we were to find that others share the same despair too, but that is a fleeting comfort – after all, everyone we know goes away in the end.

Before you start to despair, however, let me remind you, and myself, that Jesus does offer us a better way. Knowing the very worst of what we’re like, having faced all our sin and brokenness himself, in his very body, hanging on a tree, Jesus offers us himself. There is no hope in us – we can’t get better on our own. But wonderfully, Jesus stands us in his place – he deals gently with our self-inflicted wounds, binds us up and presents us before the Father wearing his own Son-ly clothes. So when we’re feeling broken, we don’t have to be afraid of facing up to that, and we don’t have to be ashamed of admitting it. A sick person needs a doctor – to pretend otherwise is dangerous and unwise.

I wonder what my conversations would look like if I was more aware of this? How would my friendships grow and develop differently? How would I face challenges and failures differently, and what difference should this make to how I love my church family?

The word of God is always most precious to the man who most lives upon it. As I sat last year under a wide-spreading beech, I was pleased to mark with prying curiosity the singular habits of that most wonderful of trees, which seems to have an intelligence about it which other trees have not. I wondered and admired the beech, but I thought to myself, I do not think half as much of this beech tree as yonder squirrel does. I see him leap from bough to bough, and I feel sure that he dearly values the old beech tree, because he has his home somewhere inside it in a hollow place, these branches are his shelter, and those beech-nuts are his food. He lives upon the tree. It is his world, his playground, his granary, his home; indeed, it is everything to him, and it is not so to me, for I find my rest and food elsewhere. With God’s word it is well for us to be like squirrels, living in it and living on it. Let us exercise our minds by leaping from bough to bough of it, find our rest and food in it, and make it our all in all. We shall be the people that get the profit out of it if we make it to be our food, our medicine, our treasury, our armoury, our rest, our delight. May the Holy Ghost lead us to do this and make the Word thus precious to our souls.

Having just spoken about the dangers of coming to the Bible like the Pharisees, who avidly read the letters, counted the verses, learned the commands by rote, but missed the point, Spurgeon exhorted people to come to the Scriptures to know God, to behold the beauty of Christ and dwell and meditate upon Him.

The more I think about this, the more I’m convinced it’s not just a challenge that Spurgeon’s original audience needed to hear: there’s a danger that we, too, ‘may reverence the letter and yet really have no devotion towards the Lord who speaks to us in these words.’ Why do you read your Bible? Is it out of duty, ritual, or habit? How do you feel when you miss a day, or two, or six? Guilty? Unworthy to come to God? Like you’ve let Him down somehow? How do you feel when you’ve gone a whole week straight, not missing a single day? Chuffed? Like a good Christian? Like you’ve pleased God by doing so well? I ask myself these questions as much as anyone else – I am so quick to miss the point! I cannot make God any more pleased with me than he already is, because my righteousness has absolutely nothing to do with me! Jesus is the one my hope is in! The Bible is so precious because it shows me him – reminding me how gracious, loving, kind and good Jesus is, correcting all the wrong ideas that so quickly clog up my thinking and send me spiralling back into despair and guilt because I’m so useless. How can I not delight to come to God’s Word when that is the case?! I can find there my all in all, because that is where I see Jesus.

Quotation from A Sermon (No. 1503), C.H.Spurgeon. Image from Rob Ryan

Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the LORD search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Like the partridge that gathers a brood that she did not hatch,
so is he who gets riches but not by justice;
in the midst of his days they will leave him,
and at his end he will be a fool.
A glorious throne set on high from the beginning
is the place of our sanctuary.
O LORD, the hope of Israel,
all who forsake you shall be put to shame;
those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth,
for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.
(Jeremiah 17:5-13 ESV)

And I wonder if we even realise it? It’s struck me that I hear lots of women use the label ‘feminist’ perhaps a bit too thougthlessly – on the one hand we have this image of a pioneering, revolutionary woman who is making a stand for women everywhere (how she does that, and what exactly it is that she’s standing for can vary!) and then on the other hand there are those, particularly I think amongst Christians, who see the term ‘feminist’ as a dirty word, and immediately imagine bra-burning, men-hating, anarchists who want to destroy all that’s nice and sweet and fluffy in the world. I don’t think either stereotype is particularly helpful, and I’ve been challenged to think much more carefully about this.

With the Nobel Peace Prize this year focusing on women’s rights on a global scale, it would be naive to imagine this is just going to remain an issue for our society. What would be a right way to uphold women’s freedom? To ensure that women are given equal opportunities? As a Christian I want to insist that women are equally loved, valued and honoured by God, even though society and the church over the years has failed to reflect that… what will it look like, in a society that is leaning much more towards a gender feminism approach to policy, to insist that the real and wonderful differences between men and women compliment one another and make us able to work together? Do we need to be bolder in speaking these truths to those who are governing and campaigning for women’s rights?

Following that, this Saturday I was at the morning session of the London Women’s Convention. I travelled down with my friend Sarah and we had a great time listening to God’s Word and singing together, chatting and enjoying London in the sunshine – I’d forgotten how beautiful London can be! I’ll be following up this post with some thoughts on what we heard there soon! (At least that’s the plan… it may be another vain attempt to blog more regularly, we’ll see!)