Having recently asked friends to pray for me as I gave some talks I have encountered lots of:

How did it go?

And before they had a chance to ask, of course I was trying to work it out for myself.

But what measurements can you use? People’s reactions – they were kind and enthusiastic. Did I lose my voice, or my notes? No. I did drop the microphone – but only briefly! Did I keep to time? Pretty much. Did I aim to be faithful, and encouraging? Yes. Was I well prepared? Yes.

But could I have been more prepared? Yes. Could it have been more biblical – less based on me and my thoughts? Yes. Could it have been better, clearer, more honed? Of course.

So let’s just change the question!

How did God do?

Perfectly.

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Psalm 115:3

Amazingly I can say with 100% confidence that God is pleased. Pleased with what HE has done in my life through giving the talks and being encouraged by a church building full of ladies of all ages who love him so much. Pleased with how HE is going to use ‘A Day of Extravagance’ Saturday 12th November 2016 in every life touched by it – including the lovely men and the children they cared for.

In fact the verses around that are telling as well:

Oh faff I said as I backed into my Father-in-law’s car.

“You have a lot of faff mummy” the One and Only commented.

But what is it?

An online dictionary offers:

• To spend time ineffectual activity (verb)
• A great deal of ineffectual activity (noun)

The origin is possibly to do with a descriptive word for the wind meaning to blow in puffs.

In my life it is synonymous with ‘bother’ and comes out at times when things go wrong. It incorporates “I haven’t got time for this right now” and “How can I be that stupid?”

Recently I have been trying to add a ‘thank you’ on to the end of my faffs.

“Oh faff, but thank you!”

It may not be what I intended, but if we believe in God’s sovereignty, if we believe that God’s best for us is to make us more like Jesus, if we believe that nothing interrupts God’s purposes…if we believe Romans 8:28 then it is what he intended and it is good.

I don’t mean to belittle disaster, but to challenge my felt need for things to go smoothly. To challenge my expectation that things won’t spill, or break, or get lost, or go wrong.

What a ridiculous expectation – you would think 40 years on this planet would be enough to shatter that one!

And in doing so to challenge my fear of the same.

Lord, help me to rejoice in you always! Help me to see the mess that fills my days as setting off your perfection – like a diamond displayed on a black cloth. Thank you for your gracious reminders that we dwell in the shadowlands and the best is coming soon! I love you, Amen.

John Piper’s ‘Pierced by the Word’ is another excellent daily thought prompter that the NTV and I have used together and it is on my kindle so often comes with me on trips away.

When I opened it on Saturday morning the intriguing title that appeared on the screen was:

‘How to drink orange juice to the glory of God’

Now I don’t actually drink orange juice, but the principle stands! Paul writes:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

And in Colossians chapter 3 he writes:

¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

Of course there is loads to be said from these verses, but I just want to share the bit that stuck to me that morning.

Basically, at every point in our day we face a choice. We can either proceed as if God is a fairy tale or a lie, OR as if he is the maker of all things, the judge and the rescuer on who we depend and in whom we delight.

When we approach things with thanksgiving, when we respond with gratitude, we acknowledge who God is and we glorify him.

The flip side is that we so often act in practical unbelief.

It is clear from Romans 1 that a lack of thanksgiving is at the heart of sin, it is a way of denying the truth about him.

¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Saying thank you – it is so simple, but so alien to our sinful hearts.

Lord please increase my thankfulness to your glory, In Jesus name, Amen.

A quick word-search revealed that the words in Christ appear 32 times in Ephesians, and Philippians and Colossians are not far behind, Romans contains even more and the Corinthian letters are up there too.

Granted it was a very crude search and includes sentences where the words in and Christ happen to appear in the same phrase – but, none-the-less it is certainly a major theme that runs through Paul’s letters.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus…

…who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

The Jews were the first to put their hope in Christ, the Gentiles were included in Christ, we are marked in him with the Holy Spirit, we have gone from being dead in our sins to raised up and seated with him in the heavenly realms in Christ.

In Colossians Paul describes our new lives as hidden with Christ in God.

WOW! What a place to be, the source of all our hope, all our life, all our blessing, all our happiness and we are there, IN HIM.

Which begs the question – why do I constantly outsource my hope and happiness to the world?

I continually order in things to keep me going, to look forward to, to make things bearable, to delight others with.

Good stuff, God-given stuff, but not up to the task I burden them with.

Thank you gracious, generous, wonderful Father, from whom all good thing come, for the many good things you give me to enjoy and share to your glory. Please help me to sit loosely with theses things, clinging rather to the hope I have in your Son, in his name I pray, Amen.

This is a brilliant word I found out about when reading Alec Motyer’s Psalms of the Day.

In Psalm 18 it is translated variously wholehearted and perfection and Alec Motyer gives the following translation notes:

Psalm 18:23: tamiym is the perfect integration of all the parts and aspects of a person, undivided commitment.

18:25 That which is as it should be in all its parts. Hence ‘perfect’, ‘complete’. Possibly ‘wholehearted’ in loyalty to Yahweh and receiving ‘wholehearted’ divine devotion in return.

18:30 – see notes above – The Lord’s way is the perfect and perfectly integrated lifestyle, the exactly right way for every aspect of life.

Also verse 32…

Dear Father, thank you that you are tamiym (I’m sure the grammer of that is wrong!!) and please help me to be more wholehearted towards you. Amen.

The NTV and I are currently reading a daily gospel devotional by Paul Tripp called New Morning Mercies. We like it because it is relatively meaty, but only one page so it works well as something to look at and pray through together.

For example, on Aug 14th we were confronted by this truth to encourage and uplift us:

“His mercies are new every morning” (Aug 14th)

A mere six words that could be easily memorised but that contain a truth that could transform our daily lives. As Tripp says it is a “gorgeous redemptive reality” that we would be foolish to step into the day without.

Behind all our struggles, all that blinds us, all our dealings with other people, all our mess – what we really need is mercy. And we have a daily supply of it! “Mercy not only meets you in your struggle, but guarantees that someday your struggle will end.”

Read Lamentations 3:22-23 and be refreshed as it washes over you and through you.

God’s mercy is not “tired, stale, irrelevant, worn out, ill-fitting yesterday mercy.  No, God’s mercy is new morning mercy. It is formfitted for the needs of your day.”

So let’s not look at our lives without the reality of God’s new morning mercies alive in our hearts and minds. “Any scan of your life that doesn’t include those mercies is tragically lacking in truth.”

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16

So it’s been a while since my last post largely due to: an illness – not at all serious, but was rather lingering; half term (including my dear friend’s wedding) and last, but not least – a new member of our household. The latter is a certain 5 month old black and white kitten who shall be known as The Minister’s Cat (TMC) and who has proved a rather large distraction!

Hopefully ‘normal’ life is returning – but then what is that? I long for my ‘normal’ to rest in meditating on God’s word, praying with trust and with passion, and serving the Kingdom with diligence. I long for my normal to be a disciplined attitude to reading God’s word and praying – a discipline that increasingly develops from duty into delight. I long for my normal to see me rejoicing in the Lord and being contagious in that.

Instead I find that the above is the exception to the rule that I manage for a bit until – like a river that always finds the easiest course – I re-route myself into self indulgence and ease. The seed of discipline and determination seems to be either instantly plucked away or to just wither as the weeds of ill-discipline and idol worship choke it out.

Thank you my dear heavenly Father that grace is your normal. Thank you that you have begun a good work in me and you will carry it on until completion. Help me to neither give up and settle for false rest, nor fail to rest in your mercy and grace. Thank you that Jesus knew the joy set before him so clearly, and loved his Father’s will so deeply that he endured the cross and rose again and can not fail to bring me into your presence as a trophy of your grace. Help me to go on hungering to grow in you, to see more clearly that your best is indeed best and beautiful and to grow to despise the taste of earthly indulgence. Please change my normal Lord, Amen.

Will you worry, whine or worship today? When troubles come it is right to lament, to weep – but which w will you choose to draw alongside it?

Thought prompted from today’s Heavenward by Scotty Smith – Our coming forever of resurrected bodies and perfect health – via Prayermate.

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewedday by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Boots would advise us to change one thing at a time. I can see where they are coming from. As we know all too well – time and energy is limited.

Although I do need to remember that God does give us the time and resources we need to do his will – we can tend to act as though God accidentally lost a day of the week!

There’s just only so much we can watch carefully and place close attention to.

If I’m watching my weight it will require more than my default behaviour. I am going to need to pay careful attention to what I eat. Or maybe I’m trying to watch what I say more carefully, or watching out for the moments, the tastes, the feelings of a breeze.

Watching takes investment, planning, training, habit making. Which means that we can’t watch everything, that the things we choose to watch will cause the neglect of other things. So what does the bible would urge me to watch?

If we searched the bible for the following words/phrases: be careful, pay close attention to, watch out, be alert, make every effort to, fix your eyes on… how would our fixations be challenged?

There are lots of ‘be carefuls’ in Exodus-Deuteronomy (in fact throughout the whole of Israel’s history!) along the lines of be careful to obey, to listen to and do what I say, to steer clear of idols, and to remember..
For example:
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
Deuteronomy 4:9

In the New Testament that carefulness becomes focussed on the person and words of the Lord Jesus, listening to his words and remaining in him.

We are commanded to be alert and to pray – in light of the spiritual battle we are in and in light of the Lord’s return.

And what should we fixate on?

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Deuteronomy 11:18

So what should we be full of in rest and feverish activity? As our mind wanders or as it struggles with a particular? The Lord Jesus and the spiritual blessings we have in him (Eph 1!); the life he calls us to, obedience to his word, the enemy we face and the future that awaits us.

The problem is that I find myself once again seeing this kind of fixating and careful watching as a struggle and an effort that separates it from my times of space and locking myself away. I want being mindful of the Lord and just wallowing in him to be my safest, most off-duty place – but the challenges above are all rather doing things. The danger is that we work at fixating on godliness and the Lord’s will, and the urgency of our mission without finding our rest and delight in him (because we go somewhere ‘easier’ to rest). We stop running to him for refuge – because it feels like a 10K run – and end up struggling in our own strength and not letting the grace of the gospel be our gentle trainer:

¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. ¹² It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,¹³ while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Titus 2:11-14

Time and time again my life reveals my lack of appropriation of God’s grace to us in Jesus. A practical unbelief in his goodness and perfect sovereignty. I struggle on in my own strength to please the Lord, aware that so much is so wrong, and so I crash. But I don’t crash with the Lord because the Lord in my mind is connected with things which are not going well, things which are not in my control, things that are beyond me and yet involve me and interact with me. As a consequence my resourcing and losing myself fixations get invested elsewhere and I starve myself of the most precious relationship and the best truths ever. And then I struggle on….

So how do we keep the two together? Can we live as both hardworking, obsessive athletes (1 Timothy 1) AND people on the best holiday ever?

Dear Father God,
You are good! In the gospel we are yoked with you – you bear the weight of our sin, you lead us by your Spirit into godliness and you cover us in grace. Please may I both work restfully and rest carefully and do both in constant communication and partnership with you, delighting in your presence with me.  In Jesus’, the rest giver’s precious name, Amen.