Circle (or Seasons) of Life

It seems at last like spring is beginning to show its face… just a little. It’s still cold, but getting sunnier! If anyone asks me to choose a favourite season, I can’t do it. I just can’t. They’re all beautiful, and all have their qualities and beauties and I decide that whichever I’m in at the moment is my favourite! 

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about nature this week. As I may have mentioned before, this quarter my church’s Bible study topic is all about creation, and what implication that belief has on the rest of your life. It’s funny – I’ve always believed in creation, but I really hadn’t connected it to much beyond that before. I am finding it interesting! 

Perhaps it isn’t the most obvious thought, but if you do believe that the world was created by God rather than our existence being a fortunate accident, it does have a huge impact. I know I’ve mentioned before that personally, it gives me a far greater sense of worth and purpose – but I’ve come to understand this week that it can go far beyond that.

(Interestingly, I’ve also seen more than ever before how creation, and the idea of it, truly is a theme throughout the Bible. It’s talked about in Psalms, in the gospels, in Paul’s new testament letters, in Revelation – it’s spoken of and assumed as fact, all the way through. I hadn’t really connected that thought before.)

Anyway! 

Passages such as Psalms 24:1-2 – “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness,The world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the waters.” – suggest this sense of ownership. If God created the world, it is his. That idea has several implications, to me. Firstly, coming back to the idea of value and worth – how much do we treasure things that are our own because we’ve made them ourselves? I still have a little wooden bee on my dresser that I made in school – it’s nothing special in itself, but I made it and I’m proud of it! It’s special to me, because I made it myself. How much more does God value us, having created us himself, than if we’d just happened and been taken under his wing? 

More than that, imagine you’ve – I don’t know, I was going to say bought a mug, but that’s besides the concept of creating – ok, imagine you’ve been to one of these pottery places and made yourself a cool vase or something! Don’t you take care of it, and look after it, and make sure that it doesn’t get broken? You’ve made it, or even if you’ve paid money for it, you don’t want it to be damaged! I don’t know, for me at least, the idea that God has created us gives me faith that he will also look after us and protect us, because you do look after the things that belong to you.

There are often those big questions in life such as “Why does God let bad things happen?”, which of course are very difficult to answer. I believe that the world was changed when sin entered it – we all know the story of Eve and the serpent and the apple… and this week I’ve been trying to look for the blessings in the bad stuff. It’s always struck me how autumn is a time of things dying – all the plants and trees and leaves. And yet they are so beautiful. Death is bad, and yet I like to believe that God (in the case of autumn) made it beautiful.

Someone at church today made the curious, and interesting point, that death can certainly be a blessing. It’s a fact of life that this world is full of sin and suffering – and there are people who wish to die, to be ‘out of their misery’. I thought it was a really interesting point that, if there were no death, it would be a curse – to live forever in this broken world with pain. (Random; but thinking about animals for a moment – death in the animal kingdom is a source of balance in the world. And those that die give nutrients for the soil… There’s blessings in all of it. I did almost start singing “The Circle of Life”…)

That’s not to say that it’s good to die. But life can become a source of pain, and for those who live a difficult life of suffering, I think it can ultimately be a blessing. I’ve been able to take comfort from this idea, when things such as young people dying happen. I had a friend who died when she was 19, in a car accident. She was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever known, and had so much to look forward to in life. But then, I tried to take comfort from the fact that we had no idea what her life may have held, had she lived. She died in an instant (my father-in-law was involved in the investigation, as a traffic officer), so she didn’t suffer for long. And I thought – who knows. Maybe the next week, she might have been raped. She might have lost her job. She might have fallen ill and suffered. I don’t know. But we have to take what comfort we can in things, and I do try to believe that everything is ultimately for the best. There’s always a blessing to be found, if you look hard enough – or I certainly try, anyway!!

Gosh, I’m running away with myself. Let’s get back to the idea that God created us, and what it means for us. If we belong to God (he made us, he owns us) then we conversely do not belong to ourselves… if that makes sense. Have a look at 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

That’s not to take away any sense of self-worth – we still have autonomy and rule over our own actions. But for me at least, it makes me think more about my own actions. I’m thinking of it like renting a house – what you do in that house is up to you, but you have a responsibility to look after it as set out in your contract. And so if God has given me this body and life, don’t I have a responsibility to him to look after it? If I choose to get not enough sleep, eat a poor diet, not drink enough water, it isn’t just bad for me, but it’s showing a lack of respect for the fact that I in myself am a gift from God. And because all of the above are true (I have a terrible diet, don’t drink nearly enough water and certainly don’t get enough sleep), it’s really made me think about changing my attitudes to those things. 

Finally, if I believe in creation, God didn’t just create me, but everyone. And that gives a much greater significance to admonitions like Matthew 22:39, where Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment: “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

If I believe that I have a greater value, or worth, because I am created by God… then I must believe the same of everyone else. If I have been created, everyone has, and so every single person is due the same respect as I would expect myself. We shouldn’t, then, treat other’s as we’d like to be treated ourselves just because it’s a good thing to do – but because they deserve to be treated with the same rights that we expect, every person, because they are just as important and valuable in the world as we each are. If God has created each of us and holds us all in the same value and regard, then there’s no way that I can consider myself more important or deserving of respect or kindness than any other person. I expect (or certainly appreciate!!) respect and kindness being shown to me – who doesn’t?! But if I appreciate it for myself, then I must demonstrate those same actions to every person I come into contact with. Or at least, I believe so. 

I don’t know, perhaps none of that is very enlightening at all! And none of what I’ve wondered about here has been particularly new to me, in the sense that… I’ve always believed them, to an extent. I’d just never realised before how tied those beliefs are to the idea of creation, and how far-reaching the impact of a belief in creation goes in my life. 

It’s been thought-provoking for me, anyway. Thank you as ever for reading, and thank you for sharing your comments and thoughts – they’re so encouraging to hear.

Here’s to a good week ahead!

Perfect Promises

Just as I thought we were well past the snow, I asked my husband what the weather was like this morning when he got up… “My goodness, there’s snow!” he said. And there was! It seems to like snowing over Friday night. Thankfully not a lot of it at all, this week, it’s just very cold!

Being home and having had a cup of tea and being wrapped up in a blanket, now, I’d like to share and talk about a passage that I’ve been meaning to for a long time and never quite got around to. 

It’s this, from Psalm 19:7-11:

7 The instructions of the Lord are perfect,
    reviving the soul.
The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
⁸ The commandments of the Lord are right,
    bringing joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are clear,
    giving insight for living.
⁹ Reverence for the Lord is pure,
    lasting forever.
The laws of the Lord are true;
    each one is fair.
¹⁰ They are more desirable than gold,
    even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
    even honey dripping from the comb.
¹¹ They are a warning to your servant,
    a great reward for those who obey them.

Coincidentally, my other favourite Psalm is 91. 19, 91… It helps me remember them both!

Anyway, I came across this passage for the first time while I was doing a read-through of the entire Bible (it took me about three years!), and I remember being incredibly struck by it. By just how… wonderful the writer (believed to be David, of David and Goliath fame) thinks the word of God is. Better than the finest gold, the sweetest honey… Better than anything. Perfect. 

It makes me think of what I’ve said previously about the Sabbath – how rules, commandments, regulations, instructions, whatever you want to call them, so often feel so burdensome. They seem such an effort, they seem so unfair, they seem so restrictive – particularly (obviously) when they stop us from doing the things we want to do! But here, it’s presented to us that all these laws of God are… the best things we could possibly be have. And it made me reconsider the aspect of instruction in the Bible in a whole new way. 

Now, there are an awful lot of laws in the Bible. Not all of them still apply today – as to which ones, well, that’s a whole other discussion (and a very big one at that!). Of course, there’s the Ten Commandments. In the Gospels, Jesus sums them all up to two:

1) Love the Lord God above all and anything else, and

2) Love your neighbour (any/every other person) as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-40)

Obeying God’s law is a serious business. It came up in a discussion at church today, just how serious – to have ‘broken’ or disobeyed just one, even the smallest one, puts you in trouble. According to James 2:10, “the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of God’s laws.” That may seem a little harsh – surely taking a penny sweet from a newsagent’s shop is hardly the same as murder? But the point is, God set these laws in place, so to reject just one (even the smallest) is demonstrating a lack of respect for and trust in God – or like thinking that we know better than his law, or that it, that one, somehow doesn’t apply to us. But if we believe that God is perfect, so we must believe that his law is perfect – as I so often say to the children I teach, the rules are there to help them! 

Of course, that’s not to say that we do one tiny thing wrong, we’re condemned to hell and eternal damnation… That’s where forgiveness, and God’s mercy, comes in. “‘Come now, let us argue this out,’ says the Lord. ‘No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool.’” (Isaiah 1:18).

Of course we all make mistakes, and that’s just part of life. If we could be perfect anyway, and not sin, where would be the need for Jesus? What place would God’s love have? But that’s beside the point – going back to the passage from Psalms that I began with, we should love the law of God – it should be an absolute pleasure to fulfil it! 

This brings to mind something else that Jesus asked us to do. I wouldn’t call this a commandment, or an instruction, per se… but it’s commonly known as “The Great Commission’, found at the end of Matthew (Chapter 28). “¹⁸ And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore^[c] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.”

Essentially, that’s (to me at least) a fancy way of saying that we should share what we know of God. When I was younger, I took this passage very literally – I thought I had to go out and convert people, I had to turn them into Christians… and that’s stupid. Well, perhaps it isn’t stupid, but it’s setting yourself a pretty impossible task. Some people don’t want to be ‘converted’ (isn’t that a horrible term?), and even if they might, hounding them down shouting “BELIEVE IN JESUS OR DIE!!” is hardly going to do the job, is it? I grew up being afraid of trying to convince people to my faith.

But I think I was missing the point. Convincing anyone that what I believe is right is… not a sensible, or fair, thing to do. Of course I believe what I believe, but other people don’t, because they don’t believe it (duh)… and that’s fine! It isn’t my place to try and change that. But what I can do, is simply share what I believe, and then anyone can make up their own mind about it. It’s an entirely different thing. 

Even so, I was scared to do it. Even among my friends at school, I’d be afraid that they’d think I was delusional, or would poke fun at me, or… whatever. And I let those worries put me off. But… I needed to realise that my own faith should be more important than any of that. 

I might well be laughed at for what I believe. But if I let that keep me silent, I’d be placing that above the joy of what I believe. Because, as David said in Psalm 19, the law of the Lord is more desirable than anything else – and following it, if you believe the Bible, because we love and trust in the Lord, will save us to an eternity in Paradise – a paradise that’s better than anything we can even imagine (just read Revelation 21 and 22 for an idea). Shouldn’t we want to share that? 

I will never forget a sermon I heard years ago that put this into such a sharp light for me, as Psalm 19 did when I read it the first time. There is an instance, in 2 Kings, where Israel had been attacked by the Arameans, who were camped around Jerusalem. And then, this happened:

^“3 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. ⁴ “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”

⁵ So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there!⁶ For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!” they cried to one another. ⁷ So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.

⁸ When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine; and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid it. ⁹ Finally, they said to each other, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”

Of course it’s a different situation, but I think the point still stands. When you have the best news, the most exciting news – don’t you want to share it with people? When you’ve been blessed with so much, don’t you share that joy and promise with others? Imagine you’d been given not one, but I don’t know, twenty six winning Lottery tickets. How selfish would it be to keep them all to yourself! 

So when we have such a promise in the Bible, when we have such faith in God and an assurance of salvation, that we love because it’s perfect and of God – how can we want to keep it to ourselves?

Of course, people can be unkind, and it’s a sad truth today that many people do get laughed at and ridiculed, or worse, for simply being a Christian and expressing that faith. It’s been a very hard journey for me to try and overcome that fear, and to try and accept that the good news I believe is worth sharing. Even if it’s scary to do so! 

So, I try, in what ways I can. I don’t always do very well at it, but I’m finding ways – and the internet is an incredible way of sharing thoughts and opinions with people who I’d never come across otherwise! But I just wanted to share the encouragement I’ve personally found in those verses, as a new way of looking at and appreciating the wonderful gift we have in the Bible. 

As ever, thank you so much for reading my musings. I’m amazed, and very touched, that you do! And I hope you have a lovely, lovely week or two till the next time

Perchance to Dream

Snowy greetings one and all!

A couple of random asides to begin this evening’s musings. During school every Friday afternoon, we have “circle time” – a half hour session about attitudes and feelings etc for children’s personal, social, health and economic development. It’s a very pleasant session, the kind I love as a teacher, where we just… talk, about important things. We play some ice-breaker games and discuss things that really matter, rather than pushing the constant learning, learning, learning… It’s a lovely way to end the week on a Friday. Anyway, our theme this half term is “going for goals”, and today the focus was problem solving.

The children’s suggestions of what they do when faced with a problem were far more interesting than I’d been anticipating! Among the responses were, “Ask a friend,” “Ask a teacher,” “Think by myself for one minute before asking someone,” “Go upstairs and think about it for a while, “Go upstairs and watch tv so I don’t have to think about it”… I’m sorry to admit that last one is so painfully typical of me!! Anyway, then it came to a little girl, and absolutely without ceremony, she said “Ask God.” And just that simple little moment completely melted me.

It also reminded me of the absolute blessings of simple, childlike faith. Upon a scan in the topic guide of one of my Bibles, these two passages came to light on God’s love for children:

Matthew 18:2-6 “Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.“

Some pretty strong sentiments expressed there! And then there’s this:

Mark 10:13-16 “One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.“

I think there’s a great deal to be said, in some areas of life, for the nature of that childlike faith. Children trust you, because they have little reason to trust otherwise – they are so innocent, so precious, and they have such faith and wonder in the world around them. The whole point of faith is that trust in things that can’t be proven – faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1) – it’s that belief, that trust, in something that can’t be proven.

To me, that’s kind of the point of a Christian faith. We live in such a cynical world that relies of suspicion, proof, and irrefutable evidence before anything can be accepted. And in many areas of life, that’s absolutely right. But as regards a Christian belief in God… If God were to prove his existence irrefutably, there would be no room for faith. We’d believe in God because we had absolute, irrefutable cause to – not because we trusted him, had faith in him, and believed in him. If there was absolute proof, there would be no more mystery to God’s greatness, and… it would lessen the impact of faith.

As well, this brings me back to think about a discussion/argument I often hear among people, which is the old one of  ”Why does God let bad things happen?”. The way I see it, and of course it’s only one view, is that if God took away the right for people to be ‘bad’… and we were left with no choice BUT to believe in him, and be ‘good’… then God becomes a dictator. We have to follow him by choice, out of love, or… what’s the point in it?

So that was rather a long aside! Anyway, it was just something that touched me today.

And actually, it leads me rather neatly on to (almost) what I had wanted to talk about! As another (though relevant) aside, the topic for my church’s Bible study this week is Creation. Now, I believe in a literal 6-day Creation, of the Earth and everything in it. I don’t believe that the world and everything in it today is as it was when God created it – I certainly think there’s been transformation and development within in since then. Change and decay, forced by the harsh realities of a world changed by death and sin. Either way, it’s not particularly what I want to get into now, but the two main reasons I believe it are these: 1) If I believe in an all-powerful God, I believe that he has the power to have created a world in 6 literal days. Why would he not? And 2) I believe the time-frame of each Creation “day” being a literal day as we understand it, because Genesis 1:5 says “God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night.’ Together these made up one day.” This, as well as the repetition of “…and the evening and the morning were the [3rd/whatever] day.” Because however we may choose to split up the day into hours or minutes or whatever, doesn’t change the fact that one day is STILL the cycle of daytime and night-time with the moon and the sun. Also, if God rested on the seventh day to bless it as a Sabbath, but in reality this “day” was however many umpteen years… well, that kind of wrecks the whole system of a weekly Sabbath, as remembered by the Jews (and certain others of us) since, doesn’t it?

Anyway, that’s what I believe – but more to the point, the point of what I actually wanted to talk about this evening, I have always found it such an enormous comfort to believe that God created us. That we weren’t an accident, a fortunate circumstance of uncontrollable nature. If God created us, as the Bible says, then we have purpose and value, and a point. If not… then can we really believe we have one? I don’t doubt that people who believe in evolution do, but I just mean that for me, myself, it would be difficult.

Believing that we were created as a race to be special, created with care and love, gives me such a greater sense of purpose in my life. Because I do believe that God has a plan for me, and my life, and though I don’t know what it is, I trust that he will guide me in it and I’ll somehow stumble along!

It brings to mind this wonderfully inspiring passage in Psalm 139:

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
    and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
    Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
    as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
    before a single day had passed.”

Though this brings up the whole other issue of predestination, which I don’t want to go into here (I think I’ve touched on it before; the idea that just because God knows the choice we will make, doesn’t mean he’s decided it, or that it’s a course we don’t have a choice in – we still make our choices, God simply knows what they’ll be), it gives me greater belief for my thinking today that God does have a plan, and a purpose, for my life.

That said, I’ve finally reached the subject of what I wanted to talk about today! And that is, the ongoing plan of my life. Because I’d sort of accepted the fact that I’ve fallen into teaching as a career, and believed that it’s what God has wanted me to do, and that it’s my ‘calling’… but in the last couple of months, I’ve begun to wonder if it really is, or if it’s simply proving a course into something else.

As many of you reading this blog will know, over the last eighteen months I’ve become something of an enthusiastic writer. I started writing fanfiction for Downton, and that simple, harmless hobby has taken me personally in directions that I would never in a million years have anticipated. My fanfiction led me to twitter, and to good friends, and to Tumblr where I’ve talked to and been encouraged and touched by SO many people. Without those people and their support, and the sheer joy I’ve found in writing, I never would have started writing this blog.

Writing this blog is one of the most positive, fulfilling and worthwhile things I feel I’ve taken on in my life. That may sound fairly ridiculous to you as you read this, but for me it’s literally been life-changing. It’s given my faith a purpose, and the media format has given me the courage to share it, and talk about it. Your comments have given me the courage to talk about it. And by talking about it, I’m thinking about it more myself, and I’m growing spiritually so much because of it.

This, together with my ongoing fanfiction, has shown me that I love writing… to the point where I’ve seriously begun to consider what my life has been called to do. I feel this desire within me to write, and share, far more than I think I ever have to teach. And though I love teaching, and feel that it’s the right thing for me now, and has been the right thing for me… I’m wondering now if it will be the right thing for me forever.

It seemed like a pipe dream, until Monday evening this week, when my husband announced a birthday present idea he’d had for me, offering to pay me through an online freelance journalism course. Now, I know it’s not much, and the diploma I’ll get is hardly high up the ladder of professional writing qualifications, but at least it’s a start. 

And the beauty of it is, that, while it’s still really a pipe dream – it’s one that I can begin taking steps to make happen. Even if it remains a sideline, a hobby, something I do alongside teaching during the holidays or when I have children – at least it’s something. And it’s something I’m really starting to feel like I have a purpose to do.

I don’t know… I guess we’ll see. Life is never predictable!

(Here endeth the musings for today!)

Happy New Year!

(Only 6 days late…!)

As I sat with a group of friends welcoming in the new year, we asked ourselves quite why it seems to be such a big deal. After all, it’s just another day, just another year… Nothing actually changes, except the date. Is the first day of 2013 any different to the last day of 2012? Not really… and yet we mark the change with parties and celebrations and fireworks and new year’s resolutions with all the wonderful promise of this year…

What makes this year, next year, any different? I don’t know, and yet somehow, it is. Different, I mean. With the new year it feels like there’s a fresh start, a chance to reconsider and reinvent and do all the things you always promised you would only never quite got around to.

However much value there actually is in this idea, I think, is probably a moot point… because regardless of that, it’s a good thing to do, to take stock and reflect – and the start of a brand new year is as good a time for it as any! 

Personal priorities, and perspectives, were something I had to consider a lot as 2012 drew to a close. Because… *sniffle sob*… despite my dearest wishes, Matthew Crawley (a fictional character, if by the SLIGHTEST chance you’re reading this and not familiar with Downton Abbey) died. For nearly two years, I’ve invested my life, the greatest proportions of my time, and thought, and energy, to ‘shipping’ Matthew and his love interest, Lady Mary.  Every waking moment, that was spare from other considerations (work, church, family, cooking dinner), I spent daydreaming about Matthew and Mary, and writing fanfiction about them, and reblogging pretty images of them, and talking about them. And with his death, I had to suddenly stop and ask myself… what was the point?

Now, that’s not to say that I regret any of my fandom activity; in fact I seem to be managing to be just as active as I had been before. There’s nothing wrong with being so enthusiastic about a tv show, because it’s done absolute wonders for me in more areas of my life than you’d care to know. That probably sounds silly, but it’s true. Loving Downton, and writing about it, has led me to meet some wonderful people and make some very dear friends, it’s helped my self-confidence to grow, it’s made me realise an absolute passion for writing that I never knew I had, and it’s led me to start this blog, which I feel like is one of the best things for my own personal faith and practise that perhaps I’ve ever done. 

At the end of the day, though, it is a tv show. It’s fictional, and though its effects in my life have been very real indeed, it isn’t. 

The quote behind my blog title is this: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart” (Matthew 15:18). I guess it’s a little bit like the idea of… you are what you eat, or an apple tree will only bear apples, and that kind of things. You talk about what is in your heart, what is naturally the most important to you.

When I think of what I spend most of my time talking about – or what I talk with the most passion and enthusiasm about – it’s undoubtedly Downton Abbey, and Matthew Crawley. And then I ask myself… is that the way it should be? Or should other things in my life be more important than that?

Then I think about this portion of Matthew 6, which as a whole is a chapter that I’ve read over and over again to comfort me through bouts of anxiety. Verses 19-21: ““Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.²¹ Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” and then verse 33: “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”.

For myself, what it means to be a Christian and being faithful, ultimately boils down to loving God. If you believe it, there’s plenty of reasons to love God – as I’ve talked about before, just the very idea of there being an almighty, all-powerful, everlasting God who “created the heavens and earth,” who “gave his only begotten Son that whoever should believe in him might have everlasting life”, who gives us the promise in John 14 and Revelation of taking us to an unimaginably wonderful heaven to live in a perfect state for eternity (thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus), who provides for us on a day-to-day basis (I’ve heard countless examples of people who’ve testified to this, and count myself among them) – that that God should care about me, enough for all that, is staggering. 

I know people believe different things about God, but those are some of the things that I believe. And what does He ask in return? In Mark 12, we have God’s entire will for us summed up in two simple commandments, two verses. 

“³⁰ And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.””

As far as my belief and understanding goes, to be ‘saved’ and to ‘get to heaven’, whatever your goal might be as a Christian, those things right there are what I need to be doing. But can I truly say that I do “love the Lord [my] God with all [my] heart, all [my] soul, all [my] mind, all [my] strength”? When I know objectively that for a long time, my mind, soul and heart have been taken up caring very much about a certain Mr Matthew Crawley?

I know I’m rambling, but for me it’s become a question of perspective. What should be more important to me – a transient life on an imperfect Earth, or the promise of eternal life with my God in heaven? I know that to most people in the world today, that’s something too un-real, too much a plain fantasy, to consider – but for me, it’s what I believe. And even forgetting that, I’ve been putting my fandom above real-life considerations like my work and my friends and my family. And despite all the wonderful things that have come from my involvement in fandom, isn’t putting it on that much of a pedestal – sacrificing important things in my life for it – kind of misguided?

So, this new year, I am asking myself, seriously. What is my priority, and what am I devoting my time, my thought, my energy, my passion, to? A tv show that’s past its glory, let’s be honest, and a character who’s died? Don’t get me wrong, it will always be important to me, and I will carry on writing the fanfiction and discussing it with great enjoyment with the wonderful friends I’ve made.

But… it shouldn’t be my life. It shouldn’t be the most important thing to me, the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing I think of before I go to bed.

My life, both in this present time and place and thinking ahead by my faith to a future, eternal existence… those are the things I should be putting stock in. My life, my work, my faith, my family. Not a tv show, not a character – however wonderful they are. 

So here’s to 2013, and getting some perspective and balance in my life. I wish you the very best for it, and may you be happy and healthy throughout it. 

With lots of love and hugs

Spinning Around

Or, Vicious Circles and my own thought spirals making me dizzy… (Seemed a more appropriate title after writing…!)

Apologies for missing last week… I will claim my excuse as being that I wasn’t well (to the point of being sent home from work for the afternoon!), but really it was just my bad, so… here I am back again!

Thinking back to what I originally started this blog about, and my own faith life – I’ve definitely had highs and lows in the months since I started but I finally feel like I’m a little bit more ‘on track’ than I have been in months. I’m being more productive, with regard to church activities as well as work and personal, and though this is a small thing, I’m actually reading my Bible study book every day! (It’s a weekly one my worldwide church follows, for MONTHS now I’ve been so slack with it… so it’s just a little thing, but it’s encouraging! I’m still not thinking to pray as often as I’d like, or falling asleep in the middle, heh… but, small steps!)

Interestingly, I think a trap that we often can fall into – or I do, certainly, with church and my faith – is that if I feel like I haven’t been very faithful or very prayerful, or whatever, then I can feel somehow unworthy of it – like – ok, say something’s troubling me. And I’d think, “Oh, I should pray about it.” And then I get the guilt feels, that I haven’t been praying regularly, so it’s kind of cheeky for me to pray now just because I want something, you know? Then that becomes a vicious cycle – you feel like because you haven’t been praying, or whatever else, that you don’t deserve to now… And I really have to remind myself, that I’m sure God is just happy that I’d want to talk to him at all, and I think even MORE so if I haven’t been very regularly! In one way, you could liken it to having a friend – and you feel guilty for not having called them for ages, so you put it off and put it off because you know you haven’t really got an excuse for having not (LOL well this is me, anyway!) – but they’d just be happy you’d called at all!

Actually – that’s exactly the case in point in the parable of the Prodigal Son (find it in Luke 15:11-32). Even after the son had disrespected his father and his family so severely, and ruined his life to the point of eating pigswill because there was nothing else – he felt unworthy to go back to his father, but at the end of the day the father was just glad to have his son back. The point the parable is making is that no matter how far we feel we’ve fallen, no matter how unworthy to make a move back to God, he will always welcome us back because that’s the love of God (I think I’ve quoted this before but John 3:16 says God sent Jesus to die that everyone might be saved to eternal life) – the important thing is never what you’ve done before, but the fact that you’re making a move to reconnect now! Isaiah 1:18 comes to mind - ”Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.”

I think what sums this idea up is expressed in Romans 8:38, actually. It’s such an encouraging, reassuring, inspiring verse:

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.”

Especially, for me, “our worries about tomorrow” – because I am a chronic worrier! And it’s so comforting to have this reassurance, and to know that “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Romans 8:28). When I’m stressing out that I’m no good at my job, or at anything much, when I worry about how to squeeze in all the commitments I have to the time I have, when I worry about anything – I can rely on that comfort that God is at the helm and has a plan, and I can rely on him, even if it isn’t clear to me at the moment.

Alright, so that was a HUGE ramble, and more than anything was a pep talk to myself, I think… to remind myself that no matter how unfaithful I feel I’ve been, how slack, how far I’ve let myself drift from God… that God still loves me, and that whatever unworthiness I might feel is no reason at all not to take the step back to reconnect – in fact, it’s the very opposite! Our weaknesses are exactly when God’s love shines the most (see 2 Corinthians 12:8-10). 

Um… yes, again, I apologise for that very rambling stream of thought – and I do hope it made some kind of sense, as I literally spewed it as it occurred to me! But I think – you know, this isn’t what I was going to write about this week, and yet here I have done. So I’m going to trust that Big G (as my husband refers to God) knows what he’s doing and has guided these thoughts in me, and I do hope they’ll be of some relevance or inspiration to someone – even if just one person, but who knows. 

(Also it’s late, and I’ve chattered enough already, so I’ll just go with the flow for this evening and save what I’d been thinking about before for another week!)

Seasons greetings and God bless to you all.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28

HAPPY FRIDAY! Don’t you just love Fridays? TGIF isn’t a phrase for nothing…

It’s the end of the working week (for most people), the beginning of the weekend… and, for me, Friday evening marks the beginning of Sabbath. A well-earned REST. And don’t we all need one!

I wasn’t really sure what to write about, this week, and then as school ended today and I packed up my things with relief, being thoroughly glad it was Sabbath so I could get off straight away, I thought that I’d simply share a little about why I keep Sabbath in the way that I do, and why I love it so much.

To avoid any confusion; as a little disclaimer, 1) I know that this belief/practise is a relatively minority one among Christians, even, and the way I interpret and act upon it may not be a way you agree with, but I hope you’ll find something interesting in it anyway!, and 2) I know that ‘Sabbath’ is something usually associated with Judiasm – but I am a Christian, simply one who keeps and worships during the traditional Friday sunset-Saturday sunset Sabbath.

The base meaning of the word ‘Sabbath’ is simply rest. And the observance of Sabbath was initiated in the very beginning, when “on the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from creation.” (Genesis 2:2-3). Straight away, it wasn’t ‘just’ a rest – not like sitting down with a cup of tea when you’ve finished tidying the house – but God declared it holy. It’s a special kind of rest.

It was this instance of sabbath, seventh-day rest that the Jews came to observe and practise – and again, it’s importance it shown in the fact that it made its way into the Ten Commandments. Again, both themes of resting alongside worship and holiness come up there – “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days a week are set apart for your daily duties and regular work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no-one in your household may do any kind of work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord your God made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; then he rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and set it apart as holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11).

For my part, I choose to keep this Sabbath still from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, as the Jews did; because it was changed to Sunday by the Roman emperor Constantine (there’s an awful lot more to it than that, I know!) – but, suffice to say that if God instituted the Sabbath from Friday sunset-Saturday sunset, that’s good enough for me. Also, I like the fact that it means Sabbath kicks in after work on a Friday. It’s a real cut-off and end to the working week, and… yeah, I like that. It’s also made Friday evenings really special for me – I know a lot of Adventists refer to the Friday evening part of Sabbath as the “preparation day”, which is applicable because it sets you in the mood, chills you down from the stresses of the week, ready to hit church on Saturday morning refreshed and bright and early. I like it that way round, for myself.

I think that anyone can appreciate the value of having a day to take time out, to rest, to recuperate oneself. Because real life is hard work. There’s always something to be doing – things you need to do, to catch up on, to arrange – and personally I love having an ‘excuse’ to not even think about doing it for a whole 24 hours. As a student, burdened with homework and coursework and revision, Sabbath was bliss. Oh, it would’ve been so easy to just keep going, if I had a lot on my plate to just keep at it until it was done – but frankly, ‘it’ is never done. There’s always something more. And more people today than ever before are suffering from burnout. I dread to think what a withered, stressed-out wreck of a person I’d be if I didn’t take time out every weekend – more stressed than I am anyway!! Like I said, I believe a lot of people, Christian or not, Jewish or not, religious or not, give themselves a kind of ‘sabbath’ at some point during the week. I think it’s an incredibly valuable thing to have.

But… there’s more to it than that, for me, anyway. The commandment isn’t just to ‘have a nice rest once a week’. It’s to keep it holy. But what exactly does that mean? When I was growing up, this manifested itself in my life as a whole stack of boring, unfair, “don’t do this” rules. I couldn’t watch tv, I couldn’t read my favourite books, or listen to music, or go out with my friends… All the things that I wanted to do. This led to a lot of confusion with my friends, who thought I basically had to sit in boring silence and think about God all day and wasn’t allowed out – haha and to be honest, as a child, that’s kind of how I saw it. But as I’ve grown older I’ve realised that it’s about directing the focus of your mind, to keep that time ‘holy’. It’s not like I ‘wasn’t allowed’ to have any tv or games or music or books – they just had to be religiously themed.

Now then; as a child, a teenager, and now as an adult, ‘religiously themed’ books and tv programmes and games aren’t necessarily the things I’d choose to do with my spare time.  But – who on earth is to say what you can or can’t do during Sabbath? There’s no list of ‘rules’ to say what activities define keeping the day holy. Then one day, I came across this verse in Isaiah that made it strikingly clear to me:

“Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honour the Lord in everything you do, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. If you do this, the Lord will be your delight..” - Isaiah 58:13.

Now, if I have time, I’d rather watch Downton Abbey, or write about Downton Abbey, or read Downton Abbey fanfiction, or look at pretty Downton Abbey graphics… you’re probably getting the picture of what my own interests, my own desires, are…. ;P And some may argue; as long as you’re resting, surely that’s the point? And – while it is, I’ve come to realise that doing the things I might choose to, as I’m ‘resting’, isn’t exactly conducive to ‘holiness’. If we are supposed to be keeping the day holy – I for one know that if I’m doing my Downton things, my mind certainly isn’t on God.

And if it isn’t on God during Sabbath, the time that he instituted as his special, commemorated day – when is it? I’m so busy during the rest of the week that, though my faith crosses my mind at various points during the day as I’m praying or driving or in little spare moments, 90% of the time it probably isn’t something I’m thinking about.

Having the Sabbath as an ‘enforced’ time to do ‘God things’, and think about God, and reflect on my faith, might seem restrictive and… unconducive, I don’t know. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to value it more and more – because like I said, if I didn’t try and focus a little more on God during Sabbath, when would I? It gets pushed out, because life gets in the way. The whole point of Sabbath, for me, is to remove those obstacles of the general stresses of life, to reconnect with God – because Christianity, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is all about the relationship with him. That’s the point (for me, at least!). And – imagine you’ve a best friend that you don’t see as often as you like – you arrange to set aside time with them, you go for a drink or a meal – if you then spend that time you’ve set aside with your friend doing other things, not talking to them or listening to them or really showing much awareness of them – well, I’ll let you make your mind up about how acceptable that is! But that’s how I personally view the Sabbath – it’s time in the week set aside by God, for God and for me, to reconnect a little bit. To remember my faith and why it’s important to me. And so now, I try to make the most of that time.

That said, it is quite difficult sometimes to find ‘holy’ ways to fill the time. I spend a lot of Saturday at church, which is lovely, but then the long afternoon/evening of Friday/Saturday (depending on the time of year) can be a drag. Partly, that’s why I wanted to write this blog – as a way of doing something I enjoy (writing) whilst still focussing on my faith. In summer I go for walks, or I meet friends to catch up (and I just try to keep the place relatively conducive to a restful atmosphere). I have to say that a lot of the time, I do take the Sabbath ‘rest’ literally, and… sleep.

But again, I’ve come to really value that – on Friday evenings, now, I’ve started going to bed wonderfully early. Through the week I get 4/5 hours sleep a night, if that. And if I chose to ‘pursue my own interests’ and desires during Sabbath as well, I wouldn’t get any more than that on a Friday night, because I’d be doing all my Downton things. But because I choose not to, in lieu of anything else to do, I take that one opportunity a week to have an actual decent night’s sleep!

I am very aware that my understanding of the Sabbath is a lot more ‘extreme’ than most people who acknowledge it would go with. But I do hope, that in this post, even if you wouldn’t agree with it yourself, that you’ve been able to appreciate some of the reasons why I absolutely love it now. When I was younger I did see it as restrictive and boring and, really, a chore, to keep. But now, I value it so much – for my own health, happiness, and faith.

I’ll close with Jesus’ words, agreeing that Sabbath observance should be a blessing for us, not a chore – because “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” - Mark 2:27.

Thank God It’s Friday.

Thank You For The Music

(For the record, I can’t stand that song…)

Anyway, weekly greetings! Having had a busy weekend, and the usual stacks of work to do, I thought that this week I’d do something a little different. At church last Sabbath we had a music afternoon, with lots of hymns from older hymnbooks that we don’t sing any more. Now for my part, I love hymns in church. I’m very musical myself, I love singing them and playing them, I love the traditional ones – my greatest irk is when pastors cut the verses of a hymn and say we’ll just sing the first, second and last (for example) for time constraints. In my eyes, hymns are no less important than prayers – they are prayers, of a sort, simply set to music – and we’d never dream of cutting short a prayer!

Also, I think hymns and music in general in church have an incredible power to touch people in a way that words and sermons just can’t. People forget sermons, within the hour, but songs can stay with people for years and years. Just this morning I found myself singing the chorus over and over from one of the hymns we’d sung at the weekend, without even having consciously thought about it – I don’t ever remember and repeat to myself sermons like that!

Music and song is also of enormous importance in the Bible. The Psalms are all songs, and check out Psalm 150 – where the instruments just get louder and louder and more and more joyful until it just crescendos with “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord.” – it’s just infectious! Mary wrote a song when she found out she was to give birth to Jesus, Miriam wrote a song when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, Paul and… Silas? sang and sang in prison and touched the hearts of everyone in there with them, including the jailor!

So, yes, I like hymns… and I just thought today I’d share some of my favourites with you, and kind of let them speak for themselves.

(Also, I hope you appreciate what a hard task it is for me to choose ‘some favourites’. Nigh on impossible.)

Here goes… (Click the titles for video/songs – because they should be heard! Verses sung may not exactly match those I’ve typed – different versions include different ones.)

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

Refrain

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Refrain

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Refrain

AGH, THIS HYMN. It brings tears to my eyes. If you’re unable to watch the video just now, it explains that the author wrote it after losing his entire life’s savings in a fire, followed by the death of his daughters in a shipwreck. He’d suffered such tragedy, and yet… took comfort, in the glory of salvation, and – it’s so comforting, and the final verse so triumphant – it never fails to make my spirits absolutely soar. I sing this whenever I’m feeling down. It’s so beautiful.

And Can It Be (Amazing Love) 

1 And can it be that I should gain 
an interest in the Savior’s blood? 
Died he for me, who caused his pain 
for me, who caused his bitter death? 
Amazing love! How can it be 
that thou, my Lord, should die for me? 

Refrain: 
Amazing love! How can it be 
that thou, my Lord, should die for me? 

2 ‘Tis myst’ry all! Th’Immortal dies:
who can explore his strange design?
In vain the first-born seraph tries to sound
the depths of love divine.
‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
let angel minds inquire no more. [Refrain]

3 He left his Father’s throne above 
(so free, so infinite his grace!), 
humbled himself (so great his love!) 
and bled for all his chosen race! 
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free, 
for, O my God, it found out me! [Refrain]

4 Long my imprisoned spirit lay 
fast bound in sin and nature’s night; 
thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light! 
My chains fell off, my heart was free; 
I rose, went forth, and followed thee. [Refrain] 

5 No condemnation now I dread, 
for Christ, and all in him, is mine! 
Alive in him, my living Head, 
and clothed in righteousness divine, 
bold I approach th’eternal throne 
and claim the cross, through Christ, my own. [Refrain]

OH I LOVE THIS SONG. It’s so joyous, has such life and energy – I absolutely LOVE singing it and playing it. It fills me with such inexpressible happiness – just to think about it, that God loves us so much to have saved us from sin – it’s full of such hope and celebration and triumph. And the music is just such fun! It builds and soars and you can’t help but belt it out with all your heart. 

Crown Him With Many Crowns

1 Crown him with many crowns,
the Lamb upon his throne.
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
of him who died for thee,
and hail him as thy matchless king
through all eternity.

2 Crown him the Lord of life,
who triumphed o’er the grave,
and rose victorious in the strife
for those he came to save;
his glories now we sing
who died and rose on high,
who died eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.

3 Crown him the Lord of love;
behold his hands and side,
rich wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified;
no angels in the sky
can fully bear that sight,
but downward bends their burning eye
at mysteries so bright.

4 Crown him the Lord of peace,
Whose pow’r a sceptre sways
from pole to pole that wars may cease
and all be prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end,
and round his pierced feet
fair flowers of paradise extend
their fragrance ever sweet.

5 Crown him the Lord of years,
the potentate of time,
creator of the rolling spheres,
ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
for thou hast died for me;
thy praise shall never, never fail
throughout eternity.

Ok, that one, you just need to listen to. It’s… I can’t even describe. It’s praise, praise, praise, and I LOVE that. It just makes my heart swell with that inexpressible fullness of joy that you get and everything just feels right. It’s funny – you hear it said that people turn to religion, or faith, to fill an indefinable hole in their lives, a sense of lacking. And I can’t describe it, but when I sing these songs and when I pray and when I read the Bible and really dwell on it, I do feel a sense of… fulfilment, and worth, and completeness, quite unlike any other.

Anyway, it’s late now and I could literally go on and on about my favourite hymns all evening… These are just three of my very favourites. And I hope that you’ll like them, and that they’ll stay in your heart and come to mind when you need them to. If you have the time, it’s uplifting to read down the comment threads on the Youtube videos just to see how these songs have touched people – music is inspiring in a way just unlike anything else.

I think that to close, I will leave you with the full Psalm I mentioned earlier, 150. Because it just speaks for itself, and the value and place of music within worship.

Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!

² Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!

³ Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and harp!
⁴ Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
⁵ Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with clashing cymbals!

⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

‘Nuff said.

Resistance is Futile…. Or Not.

Well, hello hello!

To anyone perchance reading this, I know it’s been a dreadfully long time since I last blogged here! I really have no excuse. And… that’s kind of what this ‘hello again’ post is about.

Since I last posted just before my holiday back in August (and now we’re in November?! Yeesh…), I’ve thought so many times, “I must write my blog this week!”. But something’s always ‘gotten in the way’. I’ve been too tired, or at my parents, or practising music, or…. well, the list goes on. And to be honest, more often than not, the reason is simply… that I chose not to. I chose to do other things instead.

I don’t know why, but I wonder if I lost confidence. I know not very many people probably read it, and I kind of lost my nerve, I don’t know. Or worried that I was coming across too ‘strongly religious’, because I don’t want to offend anyone, but… that defeats my whole point in writing this blog. I wanted to write it for ME, to record my faith experiences and impressions, and if anyone else happened to read and enjoy it then that was all a bonus. And more than that, I really felt a calling to it, that it was what God wanted me to do – because I enjoy my forums and blogs online, I enjoy writing, it’s a wonderful opportunity! And for months, I’ve just… not. Found excuse after excuse and felt bad about it afterwards, and… yeah.

I’ve not done very well, have I!!

For the past few weeks at school, I’ve been incredibly stressed. I have tremendous amounts of work to do – it comes with the teaching territory, being in school 10 hours a day if not more, with marking and planning taking at least a couple of hours and half my weekend. But in all honesty I knew that the reason I was so unhappy and stressed is because I knew I was letting myself down – procrastinating far more than working, and leaving it till late in the evening when I was tired and crabby and feeling as a result like I was constantly scraping the barrel.

Then last weekend at church… I don’t know what it was, but I had some kind of revelation. This quarter’s Bible study is about ‘the Great Controversy’ – the kind of ultimate battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, between God and Satan, and the victory over sin of Jesus on the cross, and our salvation through it – and our role in all of that.

Our role in that is an interesting one, and it’s something I practically struggled with… Because Jesus died for everyone – John 3:16 says that “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” For EVERYONE. And all we have to do to be ‘saved’ – so I believe – is accept it.

And… that makes it seem almost passive. We accept it, sit back, say “Thanks, God!” and… then what? Live our lives the same way? What does ‘accepting’ it actually involve? Anyone can say in their head, “I’ve accepted Jesus’ sacrifice, thanks God, therefore I am saved” – but if their life doesn’t reflect that acceptance, their attitudes and actions don’t reflect the good nature we’re taught in the Bible to have (the ‘fruits of the Spirit according to Galations 5:22-23 – “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”), have they truly accepted and been saved?

We also looked at this verse (bear with me, I swear this is going somewhere that isn’t as heavy as it might seem at the moment!) – in Romans 8: 26-30, “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers* in harmony with God’s own will. 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together* for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn* among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.”

(I’m going to come back to the first bit in a while). But we had a really interesting discussion about predestination and foreknowledge. That God “knew his people in advance and chose them” doesn’t mean he selected some to be saved and some to not – as the verse in John said Jesus came to save EVERYONE. Here, it’s simply that… God knows that not everyone will accept him, and he knows who will and who won’t. Just because God ‘foreknows’ it, doesn’t mean we don’t have a choice – we DO have a choice, always, in our actions – it’s simply that God already knows which choice we’re going to make.

The issue of ‘being saved’ or not is getting into a whole other side of things that aren’t what I want to talk about right now, but suffice to say that following from that, being a Christian and believing in God, accepting our salvation through Jesus, isn’t a passive thing. We have to make a choice – our life is all about choices. We make the decision to let God into our lives and change us, but what struck me this week is… we don’t then just sit back and let that happen. We need to do something.

And this verse kind of slammed me between the eyes: James 4:7, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Pair it with this one in 1 Peter 5:8-9 – “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.”

Those are not passive things. Resist the devil. Stand firm. It likens the devil (however you perceive that, as a force of evil or whatever) to a roaring lion on the prowl… Let’s face it, if you know there’s a lion on the loose looking for someone to devour, what are you going to do? Stand there and let someone else deal with it? Hell no! You run, you protect yourself, you seek shelter and help. You DO SOMETHING. Resisting means DOING SOMETHING. Standing firm means DOING SOMETHING.

And it all comes back to choices. I realised that my problem, for weeks – months – YEARS – has been that I struggle with procrastination. For the purposes of today, let’s call procrastination my ‘devil’. I will do anything rather than what I should be doing, because what I should be doing feels SUCH. AN. EFFORT. I’m chronically lazy.

And for weeks, months, years, I’ve prayed… for God to change me. To stop me from procrastinating. To get on with my work. To do what I needed to do. To help me. And yet… I didn’t change. I still procrastinated, still left things to the last minute, still made excuses, still disappointed myself.

What was I expecting? To have prayed, and just… magically be different? That’s what I realised this week. I couldn’t just sit back and expect it to happen, even because I’d prayed. I had to do something about it. I couldn’t do that myself – it comes back to that verse in Romans – “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness.” I was weak, and I knew it. I kept failing, and it was making me miserable.

I realised that it was a matter of choice. Our life is made up of choices. And I was making the wrong ones. When I get home, I’m faced with a choice – get on with work, or go on the internet and check Tumblr, check Twitter, chat with my friends, write fanfic… etc. Was I under any duress to choose any of those over the other? No. I was continually deciding that I’d RATHER faff online – I could do my work in a little while – and then hours later, I’d still be there with no work done and I’d be miserable again. Because I was choosing to waste my time.

So this week, I thought really hard about that verse. I prayed an awful lot, and I reminded myself, morning and night and evening when I came in and switched on my laptop… Resist the devil. Stand firm. I had to do something, and make the right choice – and trust that in my weakness, God would help me. But I had to make that move.

It was hard, but… I started to. Tuesday evening, I left school at 6pm after being there since 7.30 that morning. I was desperately tired when I got in, but had some dinner – had a mug of tea – and then at 8:30 resolutely switched my laptop off and brought out the school one, and got on with my work. And my more natural inclination was screaming at me to take a break (every 5 minutes…), check my emails, refresh Tumblr, check twitter… Why? What earth-shattering thing might have happened in FIVE MINUTES that I couldn’t just catch up on later? Nothing, I told myself firmly.

I stopped working at midnight.I hadn’t done everything I’d needed to, but… I’d done a lot. I’d worked hard and done the best that I could, and that made me feel far better than I had in weeks, to be able to go to sleep knowing I’d done a decent evening’s work. (And had I missed anything of vital importance online in the meantime…..?? *baited breath….* No. )

The next morning, I got to school even earlier than normal, and… it looked like the day would be a disaster, as I posted about on Tumblr. I had printer issues, bits of paper and resources and worksheets coming out of my ears, parents evening looming, the kids were about to come in and I was in a complete fluster, meetings filling up my lunchtime and parents evening after school and hours worth of work in the evening… and I thought, it’s so unfair. It doesn’t seem right that I work so hard, and when I DO try my best, I still seem to fail. And I remembered those verses again - Resist the devil. Stand firm. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. And all I could do was pray (the quickest prayer ever – literally, “HELP.” – all I had time for!).

And… I had the most wonderful day. My class were little angels. They did beautiful work. SOMEHOW, my resources were all in order and ready. The lunchtime meetings were only 5 minutes. There were enough breaks in parent’s evening for me to get all my marking done. And when I got home I somehow found time for a nap, and to do my work, and to practise our Christmas play songs.

I don’t even know how. I should not have had the time for all that, but… God works. And I felt so much happier than I had for weeks – because my attitude had made a difference. Yes, I relied on God to help me (I had to) but I couldn’t just let that happen… I had to make those choices, and actively DO them, myself.

And so, back to my blog… I’ve been awfully neglectful. And I really have had no excuse. I simply need to make the choice to do it – and then DO it!

From now on, I really will try

EDIT TO ADD!

I don’t want it to imply here that ‘going on Tumblr etc etc is bad’. Not at all. If you follow me on there, you know I love it, and that hasn’t changed a jot. I just mean that… for me, it’s about getting my priorities straight – choosing to do my work and what else I need to do FIRST, then when it’s done with a clear conscience – LET ME AT THE M/M PRETTY. ;P

Working His Purpose Out

Apologies for missing last week, as I was on holiday! (3rd wedding anniversary, woohoo!)

Then… I really had no clue what to write this week. Nothing. No idea. I sat at church yesterday wondering about the fact that I had nothing to say and thinking that perhaps missing one week wouldn’t be so bad, only one, I’d have an idea next week… and recognised that as a treacherous little voice trying to put me off and the beginning of a slippery slope of giving up if I listened to it! Which would entirely defeat the point of why I’m trying to write this blog… it’s been rather a ‘plank’ week! :S

And then as I was making my way home from my parents’ rather late in the evening, something happened and I thought, YES. Not a miracle, not something so very big, but – God isn’t always about big, flashy, showy things – it’s little things, that just remind you that He’s there and looking out, if you’re inclined to see it that way. So I’ve just a little something to share.

Now – every couple of weeks or so, I go to my parents’ house for lunch after church on Sabbath. Mum and I drive to their house separately, and then when I leave I just need to go from there. Yesterday, though – for the first time in two years of living here – she suggested that I go with her, leave my car at church, and then she’d bring me back to pick it up when I left. Despite this giving her an hour’s round trip – but the thing was, yesterday, she’d had to give another lady a lift (which she doesn’t generally, ever), who lived quite a way out of her way – so I think Mum wanted my company on the drive back, despite then having to bring me back to church for my car later. (Hahaha you see how complicated this makes it – hence why every time previous we’ve just driven separately!).

Later in the evening, then, as we drove back to church to deposit me back at my car, Mum remembered she needed to give some money to a lady who lives in York anyway. “What a good job we left your car here after all!” she joked, as now it meant she could drop the money off rather than coming back specially during the week.

So, we got to church. Instead of just hoicking me out of the car, Mum got out as well to inspect a bit of damage inflicted on my car last weekend (BLAME THE HUSBAND, IT WASN’T ME!). And as she got out of the car (I’m too oblivious to notice), she said, “Can’t you hear water running?”

We went inside (thankfully I had a key on me) and found that a hot tap had been left running, on full, in one of the toilets (I suspect the likely culprit was a 4 year old boy I noticed going over lunch!). Which meant that, already, the hot tap had been pumping out water for… five hours or so, straight. Thankfully as well, the plug was sitting half in the plughole and not blocking it completely (the sink had nearly filled even so), or I can’t imagine the damage.

See, it’s only a little thing. But if we hadn’t gone back to church to get my car (which had only been left on a once in a blue moon chance – as I said, in two years we’ve NEVER done that before) – that tap would have pumped hot water possibly all WEEK until someone next went to church. The damage, and cost, if we hadn’t – I can’t even think. And the church is already running on a very tight budget!

Of course, of COURSE, this could all be explained by ‘What a stroke of luck,’ nothing extraordinary about it at all. I’m very aware of that.

But I like to think God had a little hand in there, to look after our church building. Not that I think God can make us do things, maybe – influence us with an idea, I don’t know (a bit like Inception? ). I believe in free will entirely even though God already knows what choices we’ll make (see Psalm 139) – but if we believe in an all-powerful God, I think, there’s room for him to nudge a bit perhaps.

And – personally, I find it so comforting to look at little instances like this and think yes, God had a hand in that. He worked it out. When my brother didn’t get a job after University for three years, we were beginning to despair a bit – and then, he found his perfect job. PERFECT. It could not suit him better, he could not enjoy it more – PERFECT. And if he’d have gotten a job in those three, difficult years, he’d never have found that opportunity.

Of course it seems very easy to label these things as God’s influence, and of course it can be explained by chance. But – where’s the comfort in that? For me, when chances are so slim and work out like this, it’s just a little sign that God’s still there and still cares, even about the little things.

And as soon as we’d turned the tap off and come out of church, I knew God had given me something to share in my blog for this week, when I was so close to the point of not bothering at all. He does work in mysterious ways!

Oh! And – just before I close, my mother found this article in a church magazine that kind of relates fanfiction to faith… Read it here!

Thanks as ever for reading. I hope you have a blessed week and many smiles along it!

Hello; Can You Hear Me?

So I realise that title may seem slightly obnoxious like I’m going “Umm… hello?” to anyone who might be reading, but that isn’t how I mean it… you’ll see!

I’d also like to just say a general little disclaimer. Which maybe is obvious anyway, but, just if it isn’t… that this is unashamedly a religiously-themed blog. I know that faith is something people feel very strongly about, and I’m aware that I’m most certainly likely to say things sometimes that you maybe don’t agree with. So I’d like to take a moment to stress that everything herein is simply a comment on what I believe. I may say it as if it’s true, but that’s because I believe it – and I absolutely don’t expect that you should believe it, or agree with me, because what you believe is personal. This is just what I think. So – please don’t ever be offended, or have any qualms in disagreeing with me.

OK, now then. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

(Sorry. That just came into my head.)

Hello! Hopefully you’ve had a lovely week. If you haven’t, I’m sorry and I hope things look up soon! Today I want to have a bit of a ramble about prayer. I did say in my first post that it’s something I don’t do as often as I should (which opens up a whole new bag of cookies as to when/how often should we pray?). I think… people can sometimes fall into one of two camps. People who remember about God and pray when things are going badly for them, and they need help – then kind of forget when everything’s going swimmingly, because there’s nothing they need (I’m more in this camp). Then there are people who are all for praising God’s goodness, and, the minute they hit life problems… well it’s God’s fault, or he’s clearly not there/doesn’t care, so bye-bye.

I prayed really really really really really hard last weekend, because I needed something. I was having issues with my car insurance, to the point of getting a nasty letter saying they were going to cancel my policy in just under two weeks as they didn’t have a certain piece of documentation which I was trying to get hold of. I called the company to let them know it was in process, only to discover that it may not be valid anyway (they wanted me to prove one year’s no claims bonus), as my previous policy was only ten months and stupid me hadn’t realised that simply one year without having claimed didn’t count, it needed to be one year with one company.

So I was in a foul mood, and prayed harder than I’d prayed in a long time, because if I lost my car insurance it would be very, very bad, and to get more would be very, very expensive. When the documentation finally got to me, it said in big bold letters, one year(s) no claims discount, despite being a ten-month policy. PHEW. Thinking about it now, I’m trying to remember if I even sent up a quick “thank-you” prayer.

Anyway! People may view that however they like, and it certainly isn’t proof of anything, but in my eyes, that was an answered prayer.

So I say I think I should pray more often – why? Is it really that important? I think it is. Prayer is, essentially – talking to God. It’s simple communication. In the past, I’ve thought of it this way… The main ‘purpose’ of being a Christian, in my humble opinion, is having a relationship with and loving God. God being a living, existing (in a manner beyond my comprehension), all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent being. Say you’ve got a favourite celebrity (DAN STEVENS DAN STEVENS DAN STEVENS SORRY WHAT?), and you might have read ALL about them. You know where they live, when their birthday is, where they studied, what their phone network is (O2. For the record.), their family status, you might even have seen their house in a magazine (I haven’t. *sob*). But you don’t know the person, you don’t have a relationship with them – that’s only developed by communication, and talking. So you could know everything there is to know about God from reading the Bible and knowing it back to front. But it’s hard to have a relationship, a connection with him, unless you talk to him!

So maybe he can’t talk back. Can’t he? I don’t know. I’ve never “heard God’s voice”. But I believe that my prayers have been answered many times in the past (and when they haven’t, I believe that’s because ‘Big G’ (as my husband refers to God) knows best – which I’ve also felt proved in my life). Even beyond that, I find the belief that God hears my prayers, and listens to them (little, insignificant me!! And he’s God!) incredibly, incredibly comforting. That he cares. We all know the advice that if you’re feeling down, or stressed, or weighed under, it helps to simply get it off your chest. To have expressed your fears, worries and concerns to someone. For me, that’s a large part of prayer, and one I find helps me deal with life a great deal.

Does it matter how you pray, or what about?

I’m not sure on that one. Jesus presents several models, or examples, in the Bible. The obvious one is the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13). It’s not a “this is what you should say every time”, but includes all the elements that I think are important to remember,

“Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come” – is an element of worship, or praise (to quote Monty Python, “Ooooooooooh God, OOOOHHHH you are so BIG…” etc). Because if you’re going to believe in an almighty all-powerful God, then he’s worthy of some recognition.

“Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven” – is a very important part, in my opinion. It’s recognising that though you may ask for things, there may be things you need, you’re recognising that ultimately it’s up to God. If he grants you that, WOOHOO. If not; it’s because he has a reason for it. Jesus exemplifies this principle again when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest – “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Mark 14:36).

“Give us this day our daily bread” – there’s the asking for stuff! (Random aside – does it matter what for; how big or how small? I really don’t think so. I like to think God is pleased enough that you care about his opinion – and that he cares about what matters to you. If it’s enough to bother you, something that you feel you need, it’s never too small. It wouldn’t be to anyone who truly loves you, and God certainly does that!)

“and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” – Nobody’s perfect. We all mess up. Accepting responsibility for our mistakes (sins, if you will) and asking forgiveness for them is the only way they will be forgiven.

“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” – Related to the above point, because we will face temptations and trials, so praying for strength to face them is important.

“For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, forever.” – More praise. And I think – recognising God’s greatness, is where thanksgiving comes in – because it’s just polite to say thank you, in general life as a rule, but if you believe how much God has done for you – how much more so!

“Amen.” – (Because we all end conversations with “goodbye” or something similar, it’s only polite after all!).

But that’s not to say all these elements HAVE AND MUST be included EVERY SINGLE TIME you pray. Certainly not. That would be… time consuming!! If (when??) I pray before going to bed, or in the morning, then I do try and remember. But sometimes you just really need something really quickly – for instance, I got into a habit at school and University of a quick prayer at the beginning of exams. If something amazing has happened to you, you might spring to a simple “YAY thank you God!” (when I got results of said exams, haha… or frequently when I opened the paper to see a question of exactly what I’d revised about!).

They’re not… rules, so much as guidelines, really… (If you don’t get that reference which I’ve horribly misquoted anyway, then you really need to watch Pirates of the Caribbean because it’s amazing).

Another beautiful example of a prayer in the Bible is John chapter 17. The whole chapter. It reads just like a conversation, if you were to hear one side of it on the phone. It’s natural. Prayer doesn’t require fancy words or speech – some people like to pray in a more formalised speech pattern because they feel it’s respectful (and I suppose if I pray at church then I do this), but it shouldn’t have to be. I don’t think. A lot of the Psalms are prayers, in that they are address as if the writer is speaking to God – and so many of them are very… raw. Because I believe that’s how prayer should be – from the heart, from you. It isn’t a public display, to be heard – Matthew 6:6 says, “But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you”. It’s between you and God – nobody else.

I think prayer is very private, and very intimate. You’re sharing sometimes the deepest, darkest parts of yourself, your deepest fears, your most ecstatic joys and pleasures – and believing that someone up there is listening. It isn’t a spectacle (there is a passage in the Bible comparing a Phrarisee who’s shouting his prayers to the world, with the intention of being heard and respected for how ‘good’ his prayer was, and a sinner who cowered with his face against the wall asking for forgiveness, but I can;t remember where it is!).

That’s not to say that prayer must always be silent. While I’m at church, there’s quite a lot of prayers that go on. We have a ‘main’ prayer where whoever is taking that takes prayer requests and says a prayer, I suppose, on behalf of all the members. Someone says a prayer to open the service, to close it, to begin the Bible study. Sometimes, somebody suggests that we get in groups of twos or threes and pray together, for each other. Personally, when someone suggests that I want to go running for the hills, because… IDK, it makes me feel “exposed”. But actually when we then do it, it’s very encouraging to hear someone praying for you, and to pray with them, like – you’re supporting each other.I must try and be less reticent!!

In church, we’re often advised to kneel when we pray. Now, when I was little, I worried for such a long time whether you had to kneel down. You’d see those Victorian paintings of good little children kneeling by their bedside to say their prayers, hands together, eyes closed. I suppose – the idea behind that is that it’s respectful. But I don’t think it’s a requirement (nor is it that you should pray at a certain time each day – I don’t think God has opening hours!). I pray in the car, as I’m walking, while I’m at work – any time that it occurs to me to do so. If I try and pray just before I go to sleep, lying in bed with my eyes closed, nine times out of ten I will fall asleep before having hardly begun. Oops. I actually went through a phase of praying with my eyes open – which, while it seemed very odd to start with, did actually help me concentrate a little more! 

Ultimately, I think it’s very personal and a matter of what suits you. But I love praying. I love it. I think it’s one of the best things. It’s… so comforting. Just the very idea that there is a God who listens, and cares, and might even act upon what I ask. The thought that if I pray thanking God or praising him for something makes Him smile gives me the warm fuzzies. Maybe he doesn’t – I don’t know! But it comforts me to think so.

And it’s such a comfort. To believe that when things are going badly, when I’m struggling, even when I’m just plain miserable… I can vent about it to a God who might even be able to do something about it. And if he doesn’t, I try and have faith that it’s for a reason: in the words of Paul in Romans 8:28 – “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love [Him]“.

Actually, something I need to pray about every week is what to write this blog about each week… and hope that something will come to me!! I think it’s like my fanfiction – I can’t force ideas. Something will strike me, I hope, and I pray continually that I’ll say the right words to mean something to someone, and that I’ll learn myself from the process too.

Thank you for reading and sticking with me!