Wednesday 21 March 2012

Blessing comes with a purpose

I was looking back through my journal this morning, reflecting that sometimes my scrawling is at least as impacting to me now as it was when I wrote it - sometimes more so. This was one that stood out particularly. It was from Isaiah 5


My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines...Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit...What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 

Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”

The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land... 
Two things stood out for me in this. The first is a picture of God's love for His people - that He removes the 'stones', prepares the ground, plants good things. Also, He protects us with walls and hedges and provides us with nurture (rain).

The second is the problem is that it is up to us to bear good fruit. The indictment on these people was that they enjoyed all these blessings as though it was all about them. Verse 8 says that they added house to house, field to field until there was no space left and they lived alone in the land. They failed to give justice or live righteously (verse 7) and therefore there would be no justice for them. (The chapter continues with a long list of woes and warnings about the bad fruit that God is unimpressed with, much of which is surprisingly relevant to today!) It comes as a warning that God will tolerate His people's lack of care about justice for only so long before He will call them to account or remove their blessing.

As God's people today, we who are given so much are called not only to 'live righteously' (not do bad/wrong stuff), but also to be advocates/ambassadors against injustice, to live loudly against the injustice of the world both in word and deed.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Gaining or losing?


So this morning I lost. It started with losing the morning battle with the dog. We have been trying to train her to not jump all over us as we leave, to allow us to go out the gate peaceably. However, this morning she saw an opportunity to escape and took it. Usually I take a deep breath and try to cajole her back in, rather than to aggravate the situation by getting angry with her. This morning I lost my temper. To the point where I was totally unreasonable. Then I lost in my relationship with my daughter who was upset for a whole plethora of other reasons, which I managed to further exacerbate. 


After dropping her to school, as I drove home I calmed down enough to ask myself, "What was that all about?" Straight away the word "control" dropped into my mind. As I thought about that, I realised that at the moment there are a number of areas where I am feeling powerless, feeling as though change needs to happen but that I am powerless to bring it about. As soon as I acknowledged this, I got somewhat annoyed with myself. I have been through this enough times before. Will I never learn?


The reality is, I cannot control anything in life other than my own response (and even there, obviously, there are times when I fail miserably!). 


The reality is that every aspect of my life is in the hand of God, even my next breath. 


The reality is, the only way to deal with my powerlessness is to lay it down, to apologise to God for trying to take control, to admit that I cannot control anything, that only He has that privilege and to 'hand it back' to Him. 


The paradox is that when I accept His control over my life and circumstances, what has seemed out of control suddenly gets re-framed. I realise again that when I allow Him to direct my steps (some might say 'control' my steps) everything is in order, under control. My faith in His sovereignty says that nothing happens that He does not allow for His purposes. At that point, I am free. I don't have to make anything happen because He will bring about His purposes through all things as He has promised. (Romans 8:23 - And we know that in all things God workfor the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.)


So this morning I lost. My daughter lost. The dog...well, I don't think the dog really cares. However, I don't believe we have to live in a place where the loss remains a loss. The loss of my temper highlighted to me that I had lost my freedom in some way and needed to deal with it. The situation with my daughter opens up a much needed opportunity for frank discussion about how we are both travelling. And, praise God, I am not stuck here in the place of my failure. God does not keep reminding me of my weaknesses and mistakes, keep me trapped in that place, but sets me back on my feet to try walking again in the freedom He has given me. That all sounds like gain to me.


Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. Luke 17:33

Thursday 15 March 2012

Gardening with God

God often shows me things when I am out gardening. The other day I was cleaning out a garden bed that was overrun with violets and sea daisies. I had let them grow there to fill the gaps (rather than 'weeds'), but they had taken over to the point that everything else was getting crowded out. I had even lost some plants.


As I was pulling out clumps of violets, I found areas where they had been so embedded and the roots were so dense that the soil underneath was completely dry, even though we had had over 50mm of rain in the few days before. As I dug and pulled I felt God showing me that when my life is over-whelmed with "stuff", all jam-packed in filling my time and space, even if I sit in a deluge of the Holy Spirit, it only affects me on the surface - I may get enough of His Living Water to 'get by', to keep me alive, but it never really changes me or reaches deep down into the roots of my being. I cannot thrive.


A concept about God that I have loved learning and thinking about in my studies is that He loves to create space for life and for relationship. Seeing the adverse way 'clutter' affected my garden confronts me again with my need to create space in all aspects of my life not only to grow but to thrive. I cannot afford to get overwhelmed with stuff that "looks good" or simply fills the spaces (or time!). Sometimes space can be awkward or seem bare (or even be a place where 'weeds' grow), but it is this space that enables me to receive all I need from God. I need to step out and take the risk of a lack of 'productivity' to create space for God to fill with the stuff He wants to grow in me!

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Do you love Me?

In John 21:15, Jesus asks Peter the question, "Do you truly love me more than these?" While it is not exactly clear what the "these" were that Jesus was referring to at that time, I recently heard Him ask this question of me. "Do you love me more than these - your achievements, your learning, the tasks you 'need' to get done, the things you want to do, even My plans or outcomes that you are chasing after?"


If I answer 'yes', (which is what I want to answer), then it needs to be outworked in my behaviour. Simply, I need to prize spending time with Him, in His presence, in His REST. I have had a couple of timely reminders of this message lately - to live in His rest, and when I find myself out of it, to quickly return. His rest is peace and safety and trust that He has everything in hand. I don't need to worry or fuss. In fact, the less I worry and fuss, the more clearly and accurately I can assess situations and what I am called to do or say, not responding to my emotional state, but out of peace and rest. When I am feeling frustrated, anxious, angry or other negative emotions, I need to first take that to Jesus, then ask Him to help me see it from His perspective, and then ask what (if anything) He wants me to do.



Saturday 10 March 2012

What does your loo say about you?


You have probably seen the ad. A bunch of women come to your house, ostensibly to visit your newborn baby, but with the secret mission to find out how you are coping via the cleanliness of your toilet. And they are scoring you, so you better use our product because it will ensure that you are acceptable! Really???

Over a period of time, but especially the last few days, I have been impacted by a number of truths about the lies we believe. One is a recurring thought, which clarified today as I cleaned the tiles in my bathroom. It is about the idea that a certain product will bring your tiles and grout back to perfection with just one spray and a wipe over. I have tried this product. It doesn’t work. Friends have agreed. I have wondered a number of times, how these products keep making sales, keep advertising, keep people coming back. This morning I realised that a large part of the problem comes from our beliefs. Because the advertisement on tv says something, we give it authority in and over our lives. We believe that it must be true because it is so public. So, rather than acknowledging that the advertisers lie, or at minimum stretch the truth, we take the blame ourselves. We must be defective in our cleaning prowess, we must not be using it right, or often enough and so on.

Another insight came from a clip that my husband was watching on the internet the other night. It was a presentation by Jean Kilbourne, who has been highlighting the issue of the way in which women are both portrayed and used in advertising over a number of decades. Amongst many other points (check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ujySz-_NFQ&feature=related), she showed just how much of a lie the pictures are that advertisers present us with, making the point that even the models don’t look like their pictures in reality (the images are so doctored). My daughter made the statement that she doesn’t believe the stuff she is told by advertising. However, the absolute insidiousness of the lie is that it is not the message we are given explicitly, but the images that are stored away in our brains. Although we don’t do it overtly or even consciously, every time we look in the mirror (or at our photo) our brain is comparing our looks, shape, and so on with those images stored away in our brains. This is what is takes to look good, if you don’t look like this, then you don’t look good. The problem is that looking like that is an impossibility because it is not real. The advertisers want us to stay in that place, though, because we will never be satisfied with ourselves so will keep buying products to try to feel good about ourselves, even though there is a part of us that knows we will never succeed. (An interesting side note here is about a mascara ad we noticed a while back, which actually carried the disclaimer that the model was wearing false lashes – it was not the product that gave her those gloriously long and voluptuous lashes!)

Added into this mix was an article I came across in the Herald Sun asking what type of “schoolgate mum” you were. Just to make sure you really couldn’t compete, they used celebrities as the ‘models’ for each ‘yummy mummy’ category, with tags such as “high end glamour”, “sporty”, “earth mother”, “casual chic” and even “homely classic”. Where was the “depressed, haven’t had a shower, but got my kid here on time, fed and clean anyway” (that was me for a period of time), or “slept in, so still in my pyjamas and late for the third time this week”? Again, we are given an impossible image to live up to. In reality, how many of us have nannies and other paid employees to help with child-raising and housework so we have time, let alone money to spend working out and so on to look like that? And even more importantly, who gave the mandate that we are not good enough if we don’t look like that? The reality of the lives of most of us are ignored, and another burden is added as we are given the message that there is only one way to be. I ask the question again, who made the decision that the only look that is acceptable is “sexy” or “hot”? And why do we accept it?

So where does that leave me? It has been a long journey. Going through the pain of divorce meant I had to dig deep to find the resources to deal with my issues of rejection and low self-esteem. But it didn’t take divorce for me to struggle with these issues, they were there long before. And I don’t think I am alone. I have a feeling many of us put on the face of pretending we feel good about ourselves, all the while dying a little more inside each day.

A huge question comes back to what we put our trust in. I don’t think the world’s opinion in general has been a conscious issue for me, but I know I have struggled for many years with a desire for acceptance by individuals. However, I came to a place of realising that other people were not the answer. While I am looking for their approval or acceptance, trying to find my worth from what others say about me (or I think they think!), I will always struggle. The reality is that no matter what they promise, other people will always let you down. They can’t not, as no one is perfect, no one has it all together, no matter how well they present. When we put them in that position, we are also setting them up for failure, not to mention the fact that we have no right to expect them to perform to our tune!

I had a friend at uni who suggested that she could find her strength inside herself. The problem with this is that we start to make ourselves ‘God’ – we become the beginning and end in ourselves. Asides from the self-centredness this breeds in us (it is all about me), it doesn’t work. We always come to a place where I am not enough on my own. Sometimes (lots of times!) I need more than just ‘faith in myself’.

In the end, the answer came in genuinely putting my reliance in God. As much as I had believed in His love for me theoretically, I have to experience it and accept it and receive it for myself, not just once, but by living in that place of knowing that my worth, my value must come from what my Creator thinks of me, the value and worth He places on me. The verses in the Bible that tell me about this are innumerable, but one that I was reminded of again more recently is 1 Peter 1:18,19, “You were rescued from the useless way of life that you learned from your ancestors [Getting your worth from what others think about you, or from what you think they think!]. But you know that you were not rescued by such things as silver or gold [or looking “hot” or having a clean toilet or 2000+ facebook friends] that don't last forever. You were rescued by [bought with] the precious blood of Christ…” (CEV+my additions) As was pointed out to me sometime back, “How much are you worth to God? The blood of His only Son.”

Every time I feel the weight of condemnation over my life, whether it be in reality or in my mind, I remind myself that condemnation does not come from God (conviction, yes, but that is a whole different matter). My acceptability and value to Him does not come from what I do, how I look or who I am friends with or even how many facebook ‘friends’ I have! It comes from the fact that He created me and loves me. I am His beloved. When I find myself comparing myself to others in any of these areas and using this to judge how I am going, I realise it is time to go back to the bathroom. Not to clean the toilet, but to look myself in the eyes and remind myself that I am His beloved, which says far more than any loo ever could!