Category: Rants

It has been a while since I have put out any new posts, and there are a few reasons for that. I have actually written around four other posts, but none of them sounded right or I did not feel like it was the right time to release them. The other reason is one I am sure many people will empathise with: I feel very weary.

I have had many conversations with people over the last few weeks and even months that echo this. Whether it be hearing about parents who are feeling they are not doing a good job parenting their children resulting in feelings of inadequacy, to church leaders who just want to lead, and even to people who are just downright sick of everything (and to be very honest with you, dear reader, that last one I feel quite often). Hello 2021, we’re all exhausted, can you let us take five? We are in this mode where life feels so monotonous and tiring because you feel as if you are merely existing rather than living.

It is in times like these turning to Jesus is incredibly difficult. When there is a lot of pain and hardship going on in my life, in some ways I find it easier to turn to God about it, because whatever is happening is usually more obviously out of my control, so I have to turn to God about it.

But this feels different. Imagine you are going for a run and you are constantly looking in front of you. You are running until, without realising it, you begin to start ‘running’ through a muddy bog. You are putting in just as much, if not more effort than you usually would but are going nowhere near as fast or as far as you were. That is what I see many people feeling like right now, and it is in these times that many of us, including myself, find it difficult to turn to Jesus. That is because at the end of the day you are still moving, even if it is very slowly, so it can feel as if you do not need to rely on God to help you through it, like you have still got everything under control.

However, global family, you are not going to get through that muddy bog on your own. At some point you are going to have to ask for someone to help pull you out. Personally, this is a hard pill for me to swallow as it means swallowing my pride and also addressing the fact that God does in fact have my best interest and knows better than I do. So, we must turn to Jesus with it.

However, my dear reader, I want to address the fact that this really is hard, and I do not want to make light of that. It may be in your weariness that you cannot find the words to pray, and that is okay, and I empathise. But something that I myself am still learning and attempting to practice is that even in these moments where we do not seem to know how to pray, Jesus gave us words to use in what we now call the Lord’s Prayer which can be found in Mathew 6:9-13/Luke 11:2-4. Or maybe even using liturgy, I would suggest looking the Northumbrian liturgies, or the Celtic Liturgies, or if you really would like to give it a go, I would suggest a book called Every Moment Holy.

It is in these times where we struggle to come to our knees where we must do precisely that. I will push you and myself even further by saying that this is a time to delight in God when for many of us I imagine it is the last thing you want to be doing. I was listening to a sermon of one of my favourite speakers and theological and church leader hero’s, Jon Tyson, recently and in the talk, he talked about how towards the beginning of the pandemic he and his wife got Covid, and his wife got ill so badly that they were facing a reality where she might not make it. But he said he was having some time with God during all of this and he kept getting this sense that he should be delighting in God and it was the very last thing he wanted to be doing.

If your delighting needs to involve lamenting, then lament! Around two thirds of the Psalms have themes of lament in them. However, all but one of those two thirds also has delighting in and thankfulness to God in them. I encourage you to use them if you need the words to help you express your grief so that you may delight in the Lord.

Church let us delight in God’s presence even in and particularly in this season where it is the last thing we feel like doing. Life is hard, and again, I do not want to make light of that fact, but it is now more than ever that we need to turn to the One who truly loves us, to the One where our joy comes from.

Psalm 136:1, “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever.”

Bit by bit, step by step, prayer by prayer, He will lead us out of this muddy bog. So, rebelliously delight in the Lord against the feeling of the day. For He is leading you out.

Shalom in your guts.

‘Between hope and fear.’

This is how I see the world right now. We are on a knife edge, prepared to topple either to fear or hope.

In this last week alone the US presidential election has been taking place, and it seems whatever the result, the ‘United’ States of America will not be particularly united. In Vienna, the terrorist shooting that has left at least 4 dead and 23 wounded. In the UK, a new month-long-but-potentially-longer national lockdown announced and begun. This without mentioning the hurricane of chaos that has been the prior months in 2020.

It is now, in the wake of all that has happened and is happening, that despairing is all but tempting. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Alternatively, going and panic buying toilet paper once again (because it is definitely going to help you) as the apocalypse is here.

The climate of the day is fear-ridden. If you are feeling afraid at the moment, I would not hold anything against you. If we are being honest, there is a great deal that appears terrifying at present.

However, global family, hope is the alternative option in this situation we are living in.

Full disclosure: it is also by far the more difficult option. Choosing hope means that you are more likely to be disappointed when you feel as if things are still not working out. It can and often will mean pain. But let me explain how it is still worth it.

Now, before I go any further, let me just clarify, when is say ‘hope,’ I do not mean happy-clappy optimism. If that is what I meant, I would fail in dramatic fashion, likely in a flaming ball of frustration and pessimism. I also do not mean denial of injustices and wrongs taking place in the world, as hope is not a denial of these things, but rather a perseverance against them.

One of my favourite stories in the Bible is the story of Elijah, who was the last prophet of God left after all the rest had been killed, after he had just seen an amazing act of God and slaughtered all of the prophets of Baal, he is forced to flee for his life from Jezebel and Ahab. And what does he do? 1 Kings 19:4, “He came upon a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough Lord,’ he said, ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ For me personally, this is one of the most beautifully relatable moments in the entirety of the Bible. Elijah is despairing. He has given up. First half of verse 5, ‘Then he lay down and fell asleep.’ The way I have pictured this is Elijah curled in the foetal position and weeping as he eventually falls asleep, exhausted.

But God does not let the story end there. Second half of verse 5 and verse 6, ‘All at once an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked around, and by his head was some baked bread and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.’ God’s immediate solution to Elijah being suicidal, depressed and exhausted; A nap and a snack. Do not underestimate what God can do with a nap and snack. At this point, I imagine Elijah is still unable to do very much of anything, as he has just been woken and served food and drink by an actual angel, and his impulse is to just go back to sleep.

After this, a few things happen. Elijah is woken again by the angel, goes on a journey to the mountain he is told to go to, and stays in a cave there. Then God gets him to go stand on the mountain and a storm-like wind, an earthquake and fire roar pass him, but the Bible says, ‘but the Lord was not in these.’

It is what came after these displays. ‘A voice like a gentle whisper.’ A whisper. That is all.

God then shows Elijah something incredible: he is not the last prophet. He gives Elijah his hope.

Elijah despaired. Elijah gave up. But God met him where he was. God saw that he had fallen on the knife edge he walked upon and gave him hope. He gave him hope in something eternal.

This is what I am going to encourage, global family. Lift your eyes to something eternal. I know how much pain there is in the world right now. I know how much conflict there is. I know how much fear there is. But there is still hope because there is still God. God did not go on holiday for 2020.

So, hope in God, is that it? Well yes and no. Saying, ‘hope in God’, is much easier said than done. But, global family, we are not just trusting God for the time of now, we hope in what is to come. That is the something eternal. Revelation 21. That is the day that we as Christians hope for. We pray for the second coming of Christ and the new heaven and the new earth and Eden restored. We hope and pray for the day where, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.’ But most importantly, we hope for when we can praise God for all of eternity.

That is what this is all about.

So, we walk this knife edge between hope and fear, but even if you fall to fear, just like Elijah, God finds you.

Christ has power over fear.

Hope is in Christ.

Christ is our hope eternal.

Shalom in your guts, global family.

As you, dear reader, are probably more than aware, it is 2020, and for many 2020 has meant great hardship. Bushfires on a level never before seen, protests against systemic racism that has been built into our culture, not to mention a global pandemic that no nation on Earth has not felt the effects of, and so so so much more.

I could do the whole, “God is going to use this time for something greater” speech, which is absolutely true, God is going to use this time for something greater, but that’s not what I want to focus on right now.

Something that was prayed over me the night before I moved to Harrogate just a few weeks ago, (it’s really only been a few weeks?!), was shalom in my guts. Now I know that sounds a bit odd. But let me quickly explain. Shalom is a hebrew word that is usually used as a greeting or a goodbye that means peace, (it can also mean harmony, wholeness or completeness). The prayer that was prayed over me, it wasn’t shalom in my head, so that I would know it mentally and psychologically. It wasn’t even shalom in my heart, which is an area that the Bible draws great attention to, (Jesus talks about the heart often, for example when he is challenged on what is the greatest commandment and he responds with, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”). It was shalom in my guts. Shalom in my very most inner core of my being, in my very soul. Shalom in my guts.

A resounding peace in everything I am.

Now, in my past, I have gone through seasons of dealing with and trying to manage anxiety and depression, so let’s just say that peace is not exactly my default setting. I’m sure many of you are similar to this, maybe even for similar reasons. Peace is very few people’s default it seems. In this year of chaos and uprooting of so many things all over the planet, it is even harder to find peace, to find shalom.

So I want to pray a prayer for you dear reader. I want to pray for shalom in your guts. I pray for a peace so strong that it surpasses all understanding. I pray for the peace of Daniel in the lions’ den to ring true in your gut. I pray for the innate belief and peace in their fate of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that even if you feel that you’re being thrown into a firey furnace that you believe that God will deliever you, and even if He does not, He is still good. I pray for the peace of Silas and Paul, in a prison, after being beaten and flogged, continued to pray and worship. The peace of John, who was a “Son of Thunder”, but became the disciple whom Jesus loved, who leant again the messiah’s chest.

But most of all, I pray for the peace Jesus, the peace of God the father, and the peace of the Spirit to work in and through you, to make a home in you, that you let our amazing and beautiful father in. Build our God an altar in your mind, in your heart, and in your gut. Let his shalom ooze out of you, may it fill and overflow out of you.

Let us, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as a family of God, be a culture of shalom. Let our broken world see the peace of God, and may they come running after it. Let us not reflect our world, despairing in chaos of this year. Let us be the people of peace that our God has called us to be.

May you have shalom in your guts, Global Family.