My friend the Engineer lived with us for half of last year. Lots of things and occasions in our house remind me of her now – which is lovely. When we hide the pterodactyl for example, or when the All or Nothing says “I want to see” and it sounds just like her name! When I recycle not just the tin, but the lid too, when we eat brocolli and when NTV and I have our Sunday evening meeting (she was here to help us get organised!).

Another reminder is hanging the washing up in the utility room. We have one of those wooden racks on a pulley system (- which was there when we arrived and which I love!). However, because of the Fat Ladies’ cage and because of the recycling hanging on the peg which the rope is wound round we don’t actually lower the rack. Instead we use a step to reach up to it. Well I say we use the step, if you are tall enough you can stretch up and just about do the task without using the step. The Engineer is just that bit taller than me, making it more tempting for her to go it alone without the help of the step. One day we were doing this task together and she observed that using the step was much better even if you could just about reach and stretch without it. Once up there you could reach down to the wet washing and hang it up much more efficiently and quickly than doing it all at full stretch and on tip toes. The shorter person was at an advantage in one sense – they were forced to use the step and therefore got the job done more easily.

And the point is….???

I think that often in life we are slower to go to God for help with the everyday, the small things that we can sort of ‘reach’ without him. In that sense, the small things can end up weighing us down more than the ‘unreachable’ ones.  Linking back to the last post we are also slower to consciously serve him in these small things and in that sense we risk bearing the burden of serving an idol or at least carrying it alone, outside of the perspective and joy that serving our Lord brings.

As we know life is made up of the small moments, relationships are built up or broken down by the bits and pieces of daily life. Parenting is done minute by minute not in the once in a lifetime family holiday. No wonder we are exhorted to pray without ceasing, to have an attitude of prayer and dependence on our dependable God.

Please note: This is not to be confused with being crippled by a need for ‘direction’ for every choice we make.

In my last post I posed the question of the cake. In the end The One and Only Daughter made chocolate fork cookies for me while I was in the kitchen getting supper ready. It was a nice time together and the cookies were appreciated. More to the point BIG thinking about such a small decision was transforming to the burden of the task.

At first glance it seems a hassle to use the ‘step’ of godly thinking when I could ‘reach’ a decision without it, but the difference in the weight of the burdens for the day was considerable. Am I discovering something about the light yoke that Jesus promises?

The Christians in Thessalonica turned from idols to serve the living and true God. Jesus has told us and shown us what sort of master he is. I want to look at my burdensome lists and consciously choose to do them in the service of the living and true God. I want to delete the tasks that are there in the service of idols.

Dare I put those lists in their place? After all they are merely minor tools to help me in the service of our loving gentle master. It is he who equips me with far superior tools to do and be what is needed. Have my lists been hijacked by idols? Are the lists running the show as I chase false gods, getting nowhere on a ‘to do’ list treadmill?

So today I would like to make a cake for our homegroup. Whose service am I in?

Possible contenders:

• The idol of the list: I’ve thought it, mentally noted it down – to not do it is to fail, it just needs to be done so that it is done
• The idol of impressing people, living up to other people’s (perceived?) expectations
• The idol of should/must in God’s view of me. This is a tricky customer. It incorporates the following erroneous elements:
  • God needs me to do it, homegroup can’t be pleasing to him without it
  • It’s my job
  • I owe it to God/I need to do it for God to think well of me
• The idol of should/must in my view of myself – to boost my self worth, because my identity is tied up with doing that sort of thing.
• My gentle master as I submit the idea to him and see what I manage.

In TIME FOR EVERYTHING Matt Fuller helpfully creates a space of freedom as we serve God.  He encourages us (and helps us!) to identify the Floor of Obedience – below which is neglect, and the Ceiling of Obedience – above which there is idolatry.

So back to my cake: In general it is not wrong to make a cake. I am free to make my cake and it could be a blessing to others as we gather together this evening as well as a task that I will enjoy (though less now that I have given up sugar and can’t lick out the bowl!!!) and given the correct circumstances be resourced by. What about making a cake today? Would making it push me below the floor of obedience to neglect? What else needs to happen  today? I want to spend some time with each of my children, the Christmas tree is due to come down, I am planning Sunday school and want to pray and study before the meeting, it would be loving to drop a line to my parents and to prayerfully prepare a little for participating in homegroup.  I also plan to have a rest so that I am refreshed for the children when they come home and for homegroup this evening. These are the priorities it needs to come after and/or serve. I could for example make the cake with a child!

The ceiling of obedience we have looked at. Any hints of idolatry need to be fled from. If avoiding neglect doesn’t preclude it as an option I will need to prayerfully approach it asking for help to flee from idols and serve the living and true God.

In one sense this is a silly case study – but our battles are not against flesh and blood, or against eggs and flour. In these little choices and mental gymnastics much more is happening than meets the eye. The natural courses of our hearts and minds are being formed, good paths forged, or more firmly established, or reclaimed, or unhealthy paths travelled over once again making us just that bit more likely that we will take them next time.

Anyway – if I am going to get any of those priorities done, let alone the cake – I had better get home!

 

Ask God daily for more love for him, and for those he gives us to love. Ask God to unravel your ‘love’ of control and your own personal agenda of happiness. Burdens will lighten as the right sort of love increases.

Our burdens will feel lighter when we see them in context. Zoom out and they will appear smaller in and of themselves, and yet more beautiful in that they are part of something that can’t fail. When ‘me and my to do list’ are centre stage – as is generally the case in my ego-centric life – tasks loom large and crush my spirits. See things in context with the Lord Jesus centre stage, and his relationship with me as my defining element – then pressing on becomes a delight.

Do you know the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” by the Hollies?

There seem to be various stories behind this song! I am sure that I once heard an interview about a real life incident that directly prompted the song – however, Wikipedia seems to disagree with me so I will give you both versions! What I remember from the interview was that the songwriter (or someone who then recounted it to the songwriter) came across two men – one carrying the other, who was disabled. As they conversed about where they were going etc. the observer asked the man how he did it -how he could carry someone so far? The man replied “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” According to Wikipedia the story goes back to 1884 and was of a little Scottish girl who was carrying her ‘baby’ brother – who was in fact almost as big as her.

Either way – what you are carrying and why you are carrying it makes all the difference to its weight.

How we label and think of our burdens will change the impact they have on us as we carry them.

A spoonful of perspective really can help the burden lighten.

I asked at the end of my last post: How can we view our responsibilities rightly, while also recognising that the weight of them is not ours to bear. I can feel the weight lifting – nothing depends on me – God is in control and yet.. and yet as I plan my week or day it really seems to. If it is my job to make my children’s packed lunch today – in what sense does that not depend on me?

In the sense that it is coming from God’s will. If God wants it to be done, even if he has chosen me to do it then it still depends on him. He will provide, he will do it. It won’t be a magic sandwich, but it will all come from him. So do the job, but drop the burden. Exist in a low gravity atmosphere.

Which takes us back to spotting the burdens. For me I think I am starting to see that my wrong burdens (as opposed to my beautiful God-given chances to serve) are springing from my wrong desires and a wrong agenda.

What causes the weight in the burden is the conflict between reality and what I want my life to be like. Which bring us to the golden nugget that takes a gift from God and makes it unbearably burdensome: Control.

I like to be in control. I like to be in an enclosed environment with a limited scope of possibilities. Me in my favourite coffee shop, with my usual coffee and my computer – this is a great environment for me. Add choosing lunch in and I am less comfortable. Take me home, add in Christmas luggage, the need to remove our car paraphernalia from the hire car and a lost Christmas present and I can’t breathe normally. The actual ‘to do’ of that situation was not burdensome. NTV did all the emptying with the help of the children, the house had been left highly tidy and organised on Christmas day, and the lost present had the value of £2.99 and can be easily replaced if necessary. Once the car was empty there was no deadline for things to be done and so no time pressure. So why the panic?

Because the lost present represented a mistake, a break down in the system – and if I had got that wrong then who knows what else has gone wrong.

Because every box of chocolates opened represented something I couldn’t enjoy (I have given up sugar) and so represented guilt at ‘wasting’ someone’s kind gift to me (this is ridiculous because what with the other four members of the household and almost constant hospitality situations in our house nothing will go to waste). Because every present represented a relationship that I might be getting wrong. Because every present needs a place so that it can be used properly and not broken or lost or forgotten about.

In short I went from a highly controlled* environment – the car – to a highly out of control environment. If only I had prayed. If only I had paused to spot the real issues and unhooked the add ons and prayed.

Dear Father God,

Thank you for people’s generosity to us, thank you that people love us. Help me to rest in their choice to give to us – to leave that with them. Help us to be generous and hospitable with all the yummy food we have – may it be a blessing to people as they visit our house over the next few weeks. Help me to wisely review my no sugar diet when my mind and life is calmer. Help us to take time to love people as we thank them. Thank you for the presents we were able to give our children, I made a mistake not ordering that sticker book for the One and Only Daughter – help me to forgive myself. Give me wisdom in knowing how to proceed. Help me to be patient in resolving that imperfection, to be able to accept mistakes and imperfections in my life. I’m sorry that I fear disorder – and then sin in that fear as I snap at others, as I doubt you, as I put order above everything else. Please forgive me. Provide me with the time and skills I need to organise things and help me to be patient and give myself time and more importantly help me not to idolise order. I’m sorry that I didn’t rejoice in you in that situation, that I was anxious and slow to pray. Help me to live a life under your yoke not my own.   In Jesus’ name, Amen.

*Control of course is an illusion. When I say control I mean the perception of control. Only God can be truly in control. I feel in control when I need to change little about my circumstances, or when I can easily change my circumstances. What a joy it would be to just admit that I am not in control, that I am not in charge, that I am simply free to serve the one who is.

So a new year is upon us, will these thoughts on burdens make 2016 a light year? We will see.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come, your will be done.

Give me this day what I need to do what I can. Help me to do the practicalities that need to be done cheerfully. Help me to spot the important things and not neglect them.

Forgive me my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil, for yours is the kingdom, power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

A few weeks ago I asked the following questions:

How burdened should our lives be as those who have answered Jesus’ call:

“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30

What truths can we draw on, and what tools can we use to help us day by day to be lightly and rightly burdened?

Let’s start with help from Serving without sinking by John Hindley.

Points to remember:

Jesus serves us. We are not to measure ourselves by our service of him and our service of him should not get in the way of our love for him.

Great – good stuff. But… well… although it definitely feels as though it should help – I can’t quite put my finger on how!

I can tell you how it DOESN’T help. Our lists don’t just miraculously shrink. It isn’t like the ‘Elves and the Shoemaker’ – we wake up and “Hooray!”our work has been done for us.

But I really do believe that it is a truth relevant to my problem. I just need to unwrap my burdens to apply the truth to the real burden within the presenting burden.

Imagine that every job, task, responsibility, relationship etc is an individual burden.

I’m imagining hessian sacks slung over my shoulder, but perhaps Cath Kidson bags would be cheerier, and given what I about to say more fitting!

We carry these burdens – some are quickly dealt with, others are lifelong, but there’s always something to pick up and carry. Now imagine that the problem is NOT these burdens. These burdens are in fact the works prepared in advance for us to do, and the people given to us to love and serve. These burdens are actually God’s gift to us, along with the help and strength we need to carry them to his glory. These burdens make us more like Jesus and involve us in Christ’s glorious cause! These burdens are beautiful.

The problem is that we can’t seem to stop ourselves from adding a few extra bricks to each sack!

Can you spot any of these extra weights hiding amongst your godly burdens?

• The brick of measuring yourself by your service of God.
• The rock of trying to be good enough for God
• The boulder of impressing other people
• Countless handfuls of gravel as we try to belong
• The weight of thinking that our service is needed by God.
• Multiple additions to our actual responsibilities as we unwisely or willfully complicate and embellish the core job with ‘must haves’ and ‘must dos’ of our own or society’s dictating

Of course these added weights are well camouflaged. They often look so godly, all part of the original God-given burden, when in fact they are imposters. Dead weights distorting our view of God and our view of life following him. Expose them and chuck them out!

While we sift through our burdens, we also need to keep our eye on another tendency I have spotted. Not only do we add these weights, we then insist on struggling on on our own. We starve ourselves of God’s word, we ignore his precious promises.

After all – we have so much to do, and surely he needs us to press on inch by inch under these self-imposed burdens. What will he do if we stop?

What will he do? He will delight in our obedience to him as we sit and rest and feed on him. The weight of the world is not on our shoulders – it is on his. Which, considering that “the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales” (Isaiah 40:17) is a very comforting and humbling thought.

I fantasise about being burden-less. I crave those times that I carve out when the burdens are left at the door. I crash and then I carry and then I crash.

If only I could extract the weight from the burdens. If only I could rely on the weight bearing buoyancy of God’s grace and might and love.

Dear Lord, you don’t want me to be bowed down by spirit breaking burdens. Lord help me to see where I am rightly taking up my cross and following a suffering saviour, and where I am trying to be the saviour. Help me to discern where I am accepting the service you have blessed me with and where I am rejecting your service of me. Help me to bear the weight you have given me to bear and to let the rest sink to the bottom of the sea of your grace. Amen.

It is hard to extract the false weights though isn’t it?

How can we view our responsibilities rightly, while also recognising that the weight of them is not ours to bear. I can feel the weight lifting – nothing depends on me – God is in control and yet.. and yet it really seems to. If it is my job to make my children’s packed lunch today – in what sense does that not depend on me?

My time is up, but my thoughts are not – more to follow…….

I promise you I haven’t forgotten the burdens that I left dangling on a ‘to be continued…’ cliff hanger, but first a brief thought on overwhelm. I say ‘first’, but in reality it is all interrelated – it takes us back to some thoughts expressed in ‘A loving, lamenting life’ (6th October) while leading us nicely into the territory of burdens.

How do we avoid overwhelm? Should we avoid overwhelm? In my mind ‘overwhelm’ shuts me down and crushes me. It stops me functioning. My dual strategies are to:
a) Pack a lot in – to increase capacity by being very organised so that everything stays afloat and overwhelm is avoided, or at least postponed. The main tools of this strategy are to-do lists and schedules and plans.
b) Identify a few things to keep out – to have certain things that I just don’t let myself particularly register/attempt. The main tools in this case are discipline and using the aforementioned lists, plans and schedules to remind myself of the decisions I have made.

So far so good. To a large extent there is nothing wrong with these strategies – they often seem to work – at least for me.

I think, however, there is more than meets the eye tied up in all this. In A Loving Life Paul Miller contrasts overwhelm and lament. He suggests letting our hearts be broken over something rather than be overwhelmed by it.

Could all my careful management of tasks and emotions actually leave me more burdened? I push everything through the conveyor belt, I just about keep up with it all, round and round it goes – but it is still me carrying it all – I am the conveyor belt. So my great desire becomes to simply turn the belt off. Sleep or perhaps just driving nowhere along a massive straight stretch of road (American movie style) become my dream scenarios. Far from avoiding overwhelm – am I just circulating it through my life? Recycled overwhelm does not appeal – like the tap water in London that is supposed to have gone through seven people!

Of course the overwhelm that Paul Miller contrasts with lamenting in the life of Naomi is not so much of an over full to-do list, but of grief and sorrow and an uncertain frightening future. What is there to lament about having 10 birthday cards to send out? Perhaps all this overwhelm and burden is a bit of an “Oh dear, poor me, my diamond shoes are too tight and no one will cash my $100 bill!” sort of problem. If something is not worth lamenting over does that mean it is not worth getting overwhelmed by?

But how do we live like that? I am so immersed in my complicated world of:

• Multiple things being insured and therefore annual checks that things are being auto-renewed, that info is correct, and that we are getting the best deal.
• House ownership that requires correspondence with agents and maintenance etc.
• School – a constant flow of information and trips and clubs and money to be sent in for school dinners
• Ordering my medicine
• Exercising
• Planning meals, shopping, cooking
• Keeping the guinea pigs in hay and sawdust
• All the practicalities of running two cars
• Being good stewards of money and thinking wisely about the future – keeping up with all the changes in interest rates
• Ever changing technology – what should we make a part of our lives, what should we not???
• Birthdays and Christmas and anniversaries for 2 big lovely families and 7 great God children (no anniversaries amongst them yet!)
• Washing – do I really need to wash this at more than 30, is it just being lazy to stick it in the tumble dryer, or is that a better use of my time than half drying it elsewhere…..?
• Budgeting
• Sending the children in with the correct uniform, with the right PE kit, spelling learnt and junk modelling to take in. Not the mention the non-uniform days and the prizes for the raffle because they are in non-uniform, deciding whether to get a jumper for ‘wear a Christmas jumper to school day’ or to yet again do a homemade job.
• Keeping up with the dentist appointments, the opticians, speech therapy, doctors….have they sent an appointment through or do I need to chase them up?
• Whose passports need renewing?
• What clothes are there under the bed for the kids to grow into – or have they already grown out of them?
• Put up the mirror you bought months ago for the One and Only Daughter – she really is being very patient.
• Clean – something if not everything.
• Bedding – not sure why this seems such a big task!
• Pensions – um.. should think about that.. tomorrow?

As I say “Poor us – my husband has a job, we own a house, we have a washing machine and tumble dryer, and 2 cars. We have been able to have children, and they are well, and able to go to a lovely village school,  I have a loving family and friends to keep in touch with, and who keep in touch with me, I live in a country with dental and medical care and we can afford glasses when we need them….”  These things interface with my life as burdens, and overwhelm-factors, but they are actually generous blessings from the Lord!

And yet- that list is real and it exhausts me! And that’s just the practical stuff – the urgent, the necessary, but not the important, the eternal and relational. Those are just the pebbles and grit to fit around the rocks and boulders of relationships and gospel service.

What about time in prayer and God’s word? What about serving at church, preparing, loving and spending time with people? What about time with my children – discipline and play and bringing them up in the training of the Lord, and marriage time and evangelism and actually keeping in touch with friends and family beyond birthday cards….?

Again – there is nothing there to lament over, to break my heart over – is there?

So where I am not lamenting, am I complaining? Am I complaining about right responsibilities that are just part of living wisely and carefully in England in 2015 in the situation that I am in? In which case we go back to my original strategy of super dooper packing everything in – but with the added element of thankfulness and joy in the gifts God has given me.

So where I am not lamenting, am I letting too much in? Do I need to expand my NOT to do list? Do I need to keep a few more things from getting under my skin? Do I need to more tightly budget my emotional and thought life? In other words – strategy b needs to be employed a bit more vigorously.

So where I am not lamenting – should I be repenting? Repenting of the added complications I add in to our lives. Buying more things to maintain or replace. Hoarding things rather than just passing them on. Ill-discipline in time use and planning – often choosing what’s best for me right now rather than what’s best next.

And where I am not lamenting – should I be?

Lamenting that there are people that I see at the school gates every day who don’t know Jesus. I add them to my to do list rather than crying out to the Lord for them and for wisdom to do what I can. They overwhelm me when they should prompt me to delight in a Lord who will not let one of his sheep stay lost. I weep over my sagging shoulders rather than weep over them.

Lamenting that my children and my husband and their mum/wife are sinful and that our house is often full of strife. I think up a cunning strategy and add its implementation to my family projects list rather than crying out to the Lord for his Spirit to work in us and to start in me. I weep over my exhaustion rather than my sin, and my family’s sin.

Lord help me to cheerfully fulfill my responsibilities, thankful to you, and resting in you. Help me to repent of my idolatry of an empty list, of complaining rather than relying and lamenting and pressing on. Give me the wisdom to do what is my job with diligence and joy, and to leave your jobs to you. Help me to lament what is wrong and not take on the task of fixing it all. Please daily give me what I need to do what I can and to trust you with what I can’t. Help me to learn to carry out the tasks that are mine to do while leaving you to carry the weight of them. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

I read a reference the other day to a little girl who took her umbrella to a meeting to pray for rain. The writer was urging us to “truly and practically expect the Lord to bless us”. (Spurgeon, Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: November 4th)

I struggle with this.

The question is: How much is my struggle a right desire to add a wise “yes, but we need to submit our requests to God’s will..” and how much reflects what is lacking in my understanding of, my pleasure in, and my worshipping of who God is?

Do I despise so much the error that suggests that “if you had just had more faith than….” that I don’t examine the limited view I hold of the God I have faith in?

I love the imagery that favourably compares a shaky faith in a strong bridge, with a strong faith in a shaky bridge, but that little girl carrying her umbrella over that strong bridge has challenged me. Could my unexpectant prayer life be revealing a shakiness in my view of God?

God is good, God is gracious, God is gentle, God is great, God is glorious, God is generous. I believe all these truths, I have experienced them, I know them, and I see them declared in God’s word and revealed so clearly in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

But….

…while they sit so happily and alliteratively next to each other in a list… I find it hard to have these truths dwell as equals and allies in my deepest reactions to the moments when God doesn’t ‘send rain’.

I am ashamed to admit the following trains of thought: Yes – God is good, God loves me, God is powerful, but it is still not raining and given the lack of rain why go on asking – at least with any hope? If he wants to send it he will… and, knowing him, he probably won’t – he’ll want to teach me through hardship and make me rely on him, because that is the sort of thing he does…..

Oh forgive me my loving Father, forgive me. Forgive me the times when I have let good convictions about your sovereignty and your right to rule become twisted to obscure your kindness and goodness and generous love.

You see, I tend to be a ‘leave the umbrella at home’ sort of person. In fact – never mind taking an umbrella – sometimes I forget (or fear?) to even ask for the rain! After all – let’s not be simplistic – we know prayer isn’t a matter of simply asking and getting. Don’t forget – God knows best and he does what he wants and usually that means I don’t get what I ask for.

Ouch!

Although, technically, if you replaced the word ‘usually’ with ‘sometimes’ the above statement is theologically sound – it’s relationally disastrous. It opens the door to bitterness, invites it in and puts the kettle on.

Could it be that I have been under-simplifying prayer and falling short of (or rather ‘tall of’!) the child-like prayer we are called to in Scripture?  Have you noticed that children tend to go on asking for things from their parents? They realise that being asked is part of their parents’ job! “No you can’t have a pony” doesn’t stop them asking for something five minutes later, or even alter their expectations of getting that thing. They just throw requests out there as they occur.

So I think it is time to just start taking my umbrella with me when I pray for rain because God is a God who can and loves to bless his children to the glory of his name in answers to their prayers.
BUT…
– not a caveat sort of ‘but’, not a “Here we go, I thought that was too good to be true” sort of ‘but’, but a “there’s more, make sure you have the whole picture!” sort of ‘but’.

BUT…
God is a God who knows best how to bless his children to the glory of his name and he will do it no matter what. This is NOT a convenient loophole, it is a wonderful, though humbling, reality. Nothing will stop God giving us his best. We need to take our umbrellas AND be content to carry them home dry.

So, on Spurgeon’s prompting I’m going to ask God for help to “truly and practically expect [him] to bless [me]”  I’m going to ask for help to be a card carrying umbrella carrier – not to poke and manipulate him with, not to add weight to my prayers, not to suggest that I know better than him, but because he is my Father and he loves me and he wants me to ask confidently. Confident not in the answer, but in his mighty, all powerful, all wise love. I imagine I will often find myself carrying a dry umbrella home (God’s plan being even better than rain), and sometimes the weight of it will be almost unbearable – but I will not be carrying it alone because God is good, God is gracious, God is gentle, God is great, God is glorious, God is generous and underneath are his everlasting arms.

I’ve made a start at posting details of some of our advent traditions on the Resources Page.

(For the purists among you some of these are more ‘countdown to Christmas’ ideas than looking forward to Christ’s return – but not all! For the non purists among you – ignore this comment)