31/3/2017

You,

“To Give of Yourself”

Admit it. Accept that everything you have was given to you by me. Then give it all up for my sake.

It is all relatively easy on paper but to actually do it is something quite different. After all, somewhere inside you is the belief, however small, that you gained everything you have through your own hard work. You put in the hours at the office. You resist the delicacies and fanciful, vainglorious things so you can save up for a rainy day. You have sleepless nights stacked full with worries about food in your stomach, a roof over your head, and clothes on your back. How then can your success be due to anything other than your own resourcefulness and brilliance?

Take for instance the millions of others around the world who work just as hard, many even harder than you but have nothing of material consequence to show for it. People who can’t make rent. People who don’t even have homes. People living in slums and on street corners barely scraping by. How can your success be due to anything you are doing? Are they not putting in enough hours? Are they not just as resourceful?

Do not live for this temporary world and things contained in it. Do not be blinded by the glint and shine. None of it is real. 

30/3/2017

You,

“To Give of Yourself”

You are not called to walk a dry and lonesome road. Admittedly, you are who you are but that is not to say you exist in isolation. You are a branch in a tree, an organ in a body, a member of a family working together for me.

As such do not fear emptiness or hollowness. As you play your role you are replenished for further works in my name and according to my will. It is not a task that wants to see you crumble. It is a commitment to keep others filled up. It is meant to sit heavy on your heart and weigh strongly on your soul. It would not be true to its nature otherwise.

There is a need to filter through the noise and find the solitary cry. It is not a cry with more value than other cries. It is simply a need desperate to be met. It is important, in a world that is anxious to distract you, that you find the needs waiting to be met and meet them. Alas, it is not simply enough to find them. You cannot find them wanting and leave them the same. But you have been provided with ways to meet these needs as you come across them in your daily life. To say ‘oh brother, dear sister, eat from my plate, drink from my cup’.

29/03/2017

You,

“To Give of Yourself”

You have made a holy gamble with the only thing of value you have to offer me – your life. It is not so much a bet to be lost since this life was given to you by me to begin with. Neither is it a debt to be paid since I paid off the debt of sin that your life has accumulated. It is a promise, a vow, a covenant. And to make good on it is to live a life purely for me.

If I asked you to give away every material thing you have worked for and scrapped together would you be able to do it? Do you think you are exempt from this lesson of complete material sacrifice? Could you trust me to provide for you daily without any prior knowledge on your end? Could you trust that I would take care of every need? Could you place your faith squarely on this and be still?

It is only through me that these things can be done. It is only by passing through my refinery that you can be made solid gold. You will struggle on your own. Ten times over you will fall. But through me you can rise up again. 

28/03/2017

You,

“To Give of Yourself”

Our work never ceases. We are in the business of non-stop service and wherever we are, we must remember that. You must show it in all that you do, whoever you happen to be with, at all times.

It is exhausting I know. You are barely able to keep up with the constant learning and relearning of this way of life. You are wrung out dry by falling and getting back up over and over again. But to compound all this by being a lighthouse on battered shores seems almost too much.

Life seems like an endless list of things to do, things not yet done, and things forgotten. Where in all this will you find room to be a spectacle of grace?

I will give you all the room you need. I will walk you through it all, step by uncertain step. This is a choice we have both made: I have chosen to love you unconditionally; you have chosen to let me.

And so we carry on. In the noise of the surrounding world, radiate. 

27/03/2017

You,

“To Give of Yourself”

You must begin to think of yourself now as a whole and pleasing sacrifice. You must cease all selfish thoughts on how to live your life for you and the handful of people you have amassed on your short trip through this life and through this world. It is not about you. It has never been.

This is not to say that I have no care for you or your well-being. You must simply begin to care for the world in the same way that I love you, care for you, and look out for you. Yes, I do mean the world in its entirety. Not just some of the world. Not just the parts of the world that appeal to you or share certain biological or personality traits with you. Not the small segments of the world you have learned to live amicably with and to understand. All of the world.

You have been called primarily to a life of servitude and there are no half measures in this life. You are to give yourself wholly away as I gave myself wholly for you. There is no easy way to this. If it were easy it wouldn’t be sacrificial. It is through grunts and wails and gnashing of teeth. It is through fighting every part of you that is used to self-preservation and solitude. It is complete and utter surrender. 

24/03/2017

H,

“There will be a time.”

There is nothing really fair about this world unless you separate yourself from the common thread of living. It is easy to do this. If we focus on the one thing or ten things we are good at, and the winds of fate draw our ship that way, we will arrive at ports of promise and prosperity. And then in every country on the earth we can build our own version of the high fence and the great life. It will take a bit of selfishness and the great balancing act of talent, passion, smarts and education but we will be able to forge a vision of glory out of the mesh of ugliness below. In the world we live in, talent will become commodity and we will be rich. We will have that answer for all things in our own palm that  we will soon enough discover is merely a response to things but cannot conjure up even the tiniest bit of eternity or real joy. The world is not fair but we would have lived a little above the troubles. And wine is good for the emerging sorrow.

A person of faith does not have that luxury. We may think we do. We are wrong. We cannot be disconnected from the common thread. We are the common thread. Our hearts are too big for only self-fulfilment. We long and ache for an impending Kingdom. We seek a city whose builder and founder is God. This world could never be enough.

There are undertones all over the world that we find uncomfortable. There are things we would rather not look at. The days are too full and the work is too hard just to stay afloat. We have emergencies and personal tragedies and that feeling of dread as time passes through us without our own imprint on it. How can we try and solve the evil of the world when we still battle our own demons and dark spots and deliriums?

I don’t want  to be all doom and gloom. I am trying to work this out as much as you are. The only thing I can think of in coping with the now is this: there will be a time.

Doubt is part of the walk of faith. You will see and feel things that make the idea of a neat resolution to all the darkness of present earth seem like a fantasy. It will seem to you that the thing to do is just keep your head down, wish the tragedy passes your street and hope that you get the minimum amount of dust on you through your travels in the wilderness of modern life. Yet, we are part of the common thread. We do not speak of a solution for the body but a final fullness of the soul. We are like those bitter sweet tunes in the blues, the tragedy is real but so is the underlying joy in the resolution. The blues finds its consolation in expressing itself. We find ours in time where God will fully express Himself on the earth.  After all, are we not waiting for a trumpet to sound?

There will be a time.

Above the murk of the temporal we find our hope in the eternal. It will not always be this way. As Dele Giwa so eloquently put it: “the victory of evil over good can only be temporary”. Amen, brother.

There will be a time. 

23/03/2017

H,

“There is nothing else you need.”

In the most direct sense, balance is an impediment to spiritual progress. It is not that there is no wisdom in seeking balance or levity in living on this present earth, it is that we do not have the right tools to do it correctly.

We may see balance as not getting into a cult mentality or not giving our possessions to a charismatic preacher. All that is well and good but it is based on how we approach the expectations of men not how we seek the Kingdom of God. You should not be in the cult of man at all and you should not give anything you do not decide in your heart to give, knowing it is not an investment and God is not a money doubler. Yet, in both instances God expects a higher commitment than the thing we are trying to seek balance from: we are not to worship men or women but we are to love our other-us (other people) fiercely. We are to give generously to the widow, the orphan, the poor, the oppressed and those in need. It is not that the standard is easier when look to God for balance. He puts us directly in the light of our own actions and reveals to us the drastic need for real change in our own lives.

Yet, the problem remains that we do not go to Him when we are confused by modern life. We make deals. We make pacts. We tell justified lies and become part of the system as if we can change it from within. We are silent when we should speak and we speak up when we should be silent. We plan, we plot, we scheme, we cheat and we call it all for a good cause. We have embraced the balance that is really just sin.

On the other hand, our balance might have a seeming righteousness to it. We might pull it off after much study of the things that work and do not work. The rich man came to Christ all balanced out in his life. Christ gave the ultimate blow against the balanced life: give over everything and follow me. The rich man could not ascend to this height. The great height of God cannot be scaled by those we seek to balance everything out. They want flatland. He would have mountaintops.

There is something I am trying not to say. I do not want to leave you with the impression that what the world is lacking is unbalanced Christians. What the world is lacking is God. Not our acts. There is a real sense in which He does not need us. We need Him. This is about being a candle that cannot go out even in the windiest conditions. This is about being that house on a hill. Many might see it but the house cannot lead you to the house. Only the builder can.

The problem with seeking balance is that we are ultimately holding back. We have an unconscious list of things that God cannot touch in our lives or we will start feeling less. He is mindful of this. He is not trying to take all our safety valves at once. But be rest assured, He will eventually take them all. He is not being mean about it. He is being immensely kind. He is saying, you have me, there is nothing else you need.

22/03/2017

H,

“An open door for an open heart”

The ease of falling out of the habit of daily prayer is only surpassed by the difficulty of getting back into the habit. To be sure, good habits are the only cure to bad habits. There is no vacuum in nature or in us. Something must fill you up or everything else will.

This difficulty only lasts as long as the decision to start again. I find that the decision is the major part of getting back on track. We are held back by all these ideas about consistency, discipline and things unforgivable. These lofty ideals have nothing to do with grace. There is no place for your own ideas of perfection in the walk to glory. The only thing required is your open heart.

Making your heart open is the ultimate struggle. Everything around you is designed to keep your heart closed. All your faults are pushing you towards secrecy and, ultimately, shame. All your strengths are sending you the wrong message of invincibility. Everything you experience with other flawed human beings tells you to put your best foot forward.

The great irony is none of that will make you well. If you have crossed the great Rubicon into belief then you know that only God can cure you. You have been told He has open doors. That open door is for your open heart. 

21/03/2017

H,

“Is it obedience over knowledge?”

In the difficult realm of what we choose to believe or disbelieve about God, we often encounter these signposts of another era that make present faith seem obsolete. It is much harder to believe now than it has ever has been. The world is a cesspool of random tragedy and magnificent material progress. There is one side of this planet conformed to the existential nature of being much more than the other side that grapples daily with the nature of existence in terms of being alive. This one side has answered some of the questions of material progress with pockets of poverty that fall under the line of indifference. The idea of hard work and opportunity is not a fable but more a reality than on the other side where there is a need for some divine intervention to wrestle out of the gloom and into the light of the basics plus more. The absolute dream of the other side is to go over to the one side. Progress is themed this way. It is like if in the time of the historical person of Jesus all he told us was: try and be a Roman Citizen. This is the height of civilization, try and be a roman citizen.

 Many of our sermons sound like this. Don’t they? The head and not the tail has become the height but not the depth.

This fairly long introduction has really been about my effort at reconciling the material existence on earth with the spiritual pilgrimage of being, as Cornell West puts it, “a redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities”. There is something simple about the embrace of faith that may lead us to think it is not enough to cover all the sins of the world. This is the hasty conclusion we come to when we reduce all of history to one single idea about God: if there was one, then things would be better. Or, it does not make sense to make sin important. Or, intelligent design cannot explain the chaos in the universe. Or, someone died and I cannot see why. None of these things should be dismissed as petty. They are not. None of them should be god either.

When Essie was born I got this feeling in my own heart that was not of any light at all. A child growing up in a dangerous world would scare any father. A girl growing up in a world that does not recognise the absolute equality of gender, even many in the faith do this, can only give a father night terrors. I was full of a certain rage and pledged myself to acts of violence. This is not godly or God. This is just me trying to make my way in the world with what I know. Of course God has another line. I cannot save my precious daughter from the dangers of the world. I cannot save myself. I was resigned to vengeance. Yet, God is resigned to love.

Do you see my point? What we know by living in the world is always contrary to what God is trying to tell us about ourselves and the way we should live for Him in this present world. The former is the shortcut to feel better, to justify our actions and to feed our megalomania about how we control our fate and the fate of others. The latter is a true appraisal of a transient world where nothing can pass into the impending Kingdom and so we must always act in the opposite direction from a priori knowledge. Finite reason cannot fathom infinite deity. We cannot act merely on a posteriori knowledge either.  We have not had the experience of everything yet.

We must have faith and learn to obey.  Faith first because you have to believe there is something more than your mind can fathom and that other is the definition of good. Obedience because then you are in a new reality and you do not know your way. You must follow. All you have known before is not all that useful. You must follow. 

20/03/2017

H,

“In delusion, we separate from God”

There is always some sort of mild megalomania going on in the human heart. You can scarcely tell a human being that they have inherent value, extravagant purpose and a heavenly destination without all those three things blinding our minds from the purpose of it all: love.

We who have been vilified for too long by the petty opinions of other pilgrims and put down by the ultimately feckless and failing but present class system will not be denied by reason or grace once we are told, perhaps, “you are the one.”

This is our common delusion: we want our life to matter, and it does, then we want it to matter more than other lives. We have to be first among the unequal or the gift is neither curse nor gift. We cannot deny the trick that our fallen hearts play on us to cast ourselves as the hero of every story through our myopic reading of events. We cannot deny it but we must reach for something more.

This delusion will ultimately separate us from God. We cannot listen with a swollen head. We will not follow with a bloated ego and we cannot serve with outsized delusions of grandeur in ourselves.

It is not that we do not matter. It is that everyone does. It is not that we are not special. It is that the word itself is obsolete in the community of holies. We are one body. We are connected to something as vast as the universe that makes our planet a speck of dust in a desert.

 When we connect, when we love, when we serve, when we submit and when we are aware of the real meaning of inherent value in ourselves and others, there is nothing that can stop us. When we do less, everything will.

17/03/2017

You,

“Knock, Knock…”

I have planted in you a helper and a guide. Listen to it. Let it show you a clear path and lead you in the right direction. There are no errors in my ways or in my words. With the presence of this tour guide through life, you never have to feel isolated from me. It will comfort you when I seem quiet, answer when you ask of me, teach when you are lost or confused. Through this helper, I live out heavenly purpose in you.

This body of yours is fractured. Your mind is clouded. Your heart is weak. You have filled every gap in your soul with immeasurable, incomprehensible fear. Now you have been given a choice to be filled instead by me. Let the fear give room for love, for hope, for faith.

I could fill grand old libraries with stories about my love for you. Instead, let me fill your heart to bursting. Be strengthened by my love. Believe in my love. Do not be overcome with worry; let me in. 

16/03/2017

You,

“Knock, Knock…”

Doubt is a funny, strange thing. It’s a funny thing most especially for you to have, you who has little knowledge and no understanding of the knowledge you do have. It is strange for you to call to question things that vastly surpass you.

But I will not put a stop to your inquisitiveness. Every grand, universe-shifting, soul-searching, earth-shattering search you embark on without and within yourself is a search to find me. So search.

But as The One who knows, because there is no separation between what and who I am and all there is to know, I can tell you for certain: all the answers you seek can be found in me. You only need ask. 

15/03/2017

You,

“Knock, Knock…”

As it stands, you are feeling abandoned. Stillness has turned to silence for you and you are wandering where I am. It is impossible for anybody to remain so still as storms rage into each other. But I am not anybody. I am. He who slumbers as winds pick and waves crash. You must have realised by now that no harm can come to you even as I remain still for I have not forsaken you.

You are hardened by what you perceive to be me turning away from you in your time of need. But even now I am seeking silently. I am consistently seeking after your heart, searching your soul. I am doing great works in you. Even now I am at the door knocking. Even now I am asking to be welcomed back in.

Even now.

03/03/2017 pt. 2

H,

“The Problem with Self”

There is nothing more uncomfortable than real change. It is a form of death. The familiar is such a place of comfort and home such a certain place that the unfamiliar pilgrimage of the soul is an unwelcome and painful process.

The only thing that makes this even remotely bearable is the promise of what comes after. It is not that you are being sold a sugary future as a panacea for present pain. It is that you are being told of what lies on the outside lane of everything that is presently known. It is to open you up to concepts you have not yet considered or have disregarded as folklore: eternity, wholeness, holiness, forgiveness in all things, inherent human value, peace on earth and love as the supreme force that drives the universe. The idea that there is a material reality in the world around us and the stars above us but also a spiritual reality in our hearts that connects to everything else.

We are not giving up on self to be less but to be much more. It is our destiny to be more than present sight, present taste, present smell, present touch and present hearing. We are made for much more than our present selves. We are made to ultimately be like Him that is the full manifestation of all our best selves. 

03/03/2017

H,

“The Problem with Self”

There is a new self being introduced into the human experience. It has been going on for a little over two thousand years and it is still in dispute. There are many angles and slants to it but it is really based on one central coda: a higher life in grace above the lower embrace of a normal life.

There is no greater enemy to this idea of the higher life than the small idea that nothing matters and all is ordinary. To reduce life to a material reality with no cosmic consequences is the greatest trick of the dark. To say that things are all relative and our actions do no matter in the “grand scheme of things” is the greatest lie ever told.

It is not that nothing matters it is that everything does. The way you think of yourself, the way you think of others, the way you act, the way you live, the way you relate with the world and who you truly are. There is no escape from the victory of the light over the dark. There is much stock in kindness and much damage in hurtful living. Words matter and actions mean something and we are not at all insignificant in the bigger picture of what will happen.

We have had too much religion but our faith remains irrefutable to those who receive it as a gift. It is still the thing to learn life from. It is still the creeping light over the fading dark. The head of our faith is still Christ. His sacrifice is still sacred. We are still made for better things than we are currently involved in. There is no hate that is excusable, no cruelty for the faith that is valid and no space for anything but love.

We still stand at the cross roads of this new experience every day. It is not an altar call or any sort of response that establishes this road. That is just the start. Our faith is a series of decisions to embrace the light, to fall, to get up, to fall again, and to learn to stay down till you can ask for the grace to stand up. On and on it goes and it may seem repetitive and it may crush your soul and self-esteem to know that you are this fallen and this wrong. Do not worry too much though. It is the old soul and the old self.

01/03/2017

H,

“The Problem with Self”

It is the bit about letting go that is scary. If we remove all our preconceptions and the consolations what do we have left? There is this emptiness at the very centre of life that keeps us on the orbit of constant self-improvement. The human stain is not only that we are pre-destined by our biology but we are also left unhinged by our reach for more. We always think that more is vertical or horizontal but what if it is insular, the world inside, and the human heart as the most unexplored point in the known universe?

 This is what our faith speaks to. The idea that we have not found the riches of who we truly are. This might sound slightly like an oxymoron: we are to get over the self by discovering more about who we truly are. That runs through the whole thing.

It is why we need a saviour much more than we think we do. We are not going to reach balance or levity by following our own instincts on the matters before us. Much like the human drive for exploring outer space comes from the longing inside and the glance upwards at the stars of wonder, so does the human need for connecting and resolving the inner space come from that glance upwards that always points to that other thing we cannot explain that seems to lead us to the idea of meaning as part of life if not life itself.

It is only, at this point, a call to go deeper than what the self may know.