Quick Word: Tell Me How, God

You can catch my quick word every Tuesday morning, just after six, on New Zealand's Rhema

As I tried to sit down to pray today my daughter began howling in the background, letting me know she wasn’t interested in having a sleep.  The bread machine also started up – loud beeps reminding me I have things to do, do, do.  In that moment I was overwhelming with the sudden knowledge that I have to share God so much of the time now – there are no empty hours.  Even at church I have one eye on Elliot as she empties out my bag and another on the worship lyrics, their emotional call to give myself singularly to God go ignored.

After this realisation I had a choice – I could resent the demands on my time and attention, but how could I feel resentment?  I love my daughter, I’m very aware that she is not mine by right but a gift from God.  And though more full, I love the life I now led, being her mother, her carer 24 hours a day. 

But I didn’t have to feel resentment. I realised I could feel peace and joy - I’m in a busy season of life, but I’m grateful for it, even if aware of some of the costs.  The changes remind me of what I have gained.

Of course I can choose to love the season I’m in, but I still have the problem of trying to find a quiet moment, something I’m sure many parents can relate too!  So I’m praying that God will help me find new ways and times that I can set my heart on him alone in this season of motherhood.  David in the Bible had seasons of war and seasons of peace; times when he was a confidant of kings and times when they wanted to kill him.  Yet in the beautiful Psalm 27 we find him saying;

“My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”

And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

(Psalm 27 v 8).

It might have to be in a different way than before but each day God invites me to come and talk with him.  And I’m going to reply, Lord, I am coming.  You show me how.  Each day he says to you, ‘come and talk with me.’  How are you going to respond today?

Quick Word: Reaching Out

You can catch my quick word every Tuesday morning, just after six, on New Zealand's Rhema

I once had a silly argument with a friend and I decided it was her turn to sort it out.  I wasn’t going to call or text or make contact until she did.  I like talking to my friends though so I wasn’t very good at it.  After a day or so I gave in and rang up and do you know the first thing she said?  ‘Aha, I win!’

The Barenaked Ladies sing a song called ‘One Week’, it starts like this -

“It's been one week since you looked at me

Cocked your head to the side and said "I'm angry"

Five days since you laughed at me saying

"Get that together come back and see me"

Three days since the living room

I realized it's all my fault, but couldn't tell you

Yesterday you'd forgiven me

but it'll still be two days till I say I'm sorry.”

I don’t know about you but this is often my default position when I have a problem with someone – I wait for them to sort it out.  But when I was reading Romans 5 I was reminded that God’s example is the opposite – he reached out to me, he didn’t sit back and wait for me to ‘come to my senses’ or ‘grow up’ or ‘stop being so stupid’.  Romans tells us that –

“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good.  But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5 v 6 – 8).

I often wonder what it is to be like Christ.  Here’s a place for me to start.  I can be like him and reach out to people in my life, even when they don’t like me, even when they are wrong or mad or unwilling to change.   I can do it, because God did it first for me.

Quick Word: A Year of Baby

You can catch my quick word every Tuesday morning, just after six, on New Zealand's Rhema

The story goes that in 1976, musician Cat Stevens nearly drowned off the coast of California.  In that moment he turned to God and shouted: “Oh God! If you save me I will work for you.”

Steven’s says that right after this cry a wave appeared and carried him back to shore. So he looked for God - he looked for him in Buddhism, Zen, I Ching, Numerology, tarot cards and Astrology and finally landed on the Islamic faith.  Of course, as a Christian I doubt whether that is what God intended when he saved him.  But the story reminds me of how people turn to God in the big moments of life, near death or other tragic circumstances.  How often in the movies do we see someone pray ‘God, if you save her I’ll be better, I promise’?

How different this has been from my own experience this year!  This month my daughter turned one, my precious baby who has, in this year, changed my life and who God has used each day, in the mundane enduring moments to shape me into a more Christ-like Christian.  It hasn’t been the major event of her birth which has changed me so much as the daily act of loving, caring and responding to her.  God has shown me that there is a reason patience, gentleness and self-control are Fruit of the Spirit.  I have discovered I need God every hour to be a decent mother and this has then turned outward as I see what has been true all along – to be in any real, lasting, loving relationship with anyone I need God.

God has shown me this year that I can be better than I imagine.  I have a choice.  Every interaction with my daughter I have a choice.  To ask God to help me; to choose to be the parent he wants.  Or to go on instinct, tradition, feeling. And I have discovered what has been true all along – that I have a choice in all interactions, actions, speech and thought.  I can choose God or my selfish will. 

This year I have cared for another person, another child of God, in a more intimate, exhausting and time-consuming way then I ever have before.  And God has used each day of it, often mundane, often grinding, to lead me to a greater knowledge of him; a greater love for him.

You don’t need a near death experience to be changed by God.  You don’t need some tragedy to turn to him.  Look for God today in whatever circumstance you find yourself in and he will be there.  He will always be there, right by your side, guiding you back to him.

Quick Word: Learning Love

You can catch my quick word every Tuesday morning, just after six, on New Zealand's Rhema

I’m usually quite happy to do a little baking, for this and that, so it wasn’t really surprising when my mum asked me to bring a chocolate cake to a family lunch a few weeks ago.  I said yes readily enough, but by that particular weekend I couldn’t see myself making anything but takeaways for dinner, let alone baking a cake.  I started making some mutterings to my husband about buying a cake instead when he surprised me by saying he would make one.

Now, it’s not surprising for A to offer to help me, but in nine years of marriage I had never seen him bake and I’d just assumed he couldn’t.  In fact I probably assumed he would rather do anything but baking because, though he cooks, I’ve never seen him particularly enjoy it.  But no.  He’d done plenty of baking as a kid he informed me and he threw himself into it with enthusiasm making a really silky, beautiful cake.

It was all I could talk about for the next few days.  Of course I talked about how good the cake was but also how – even after a while of being together – he can still surprise me.  There can still be things that I don’t know about him, mostly because they have never come up or because I’ve never bothered to ask.

How true is this in our relationship with God?  I personally don’t think, even after a lifetime of relationship with God, that we could get even close to fully knowing him – which means we should always be learning, always discovering and even from time to time being really surprised.  Afterall, the disciples lived with God here on earth in the person of Jesus, and still constantly were astonished by him and what he did.

“Who is this man?” they ask in Mark 4 v 41 when Jesus controls the elements in a storm.  Later, just after watching him feed five thousand people in Mark 7 they are still totally amazed to see him walking on water.

My challenge however is to want to be surprised by God – to want to know him more then I do now.  Sometimes it seems easier to live with God in the box we have made him then to live with the dynamic creator and giver of all that he truly is.   It is awesome to have strong theology and to know what you believe, but we need to make sure that even then we are searching to know God the creator and not being content to live with a God we have created.

Quick Word: Love and Its Failure

You can catch my quick word every Tuesday morning, just after six, on New Zealand's Rhema

(Note: Some of my regular readers may recognise some of this quick word for a post earlier this year 'Child of Mine: Bye Bye Baby').

I was reading an essay recently called ‘Bye Bye Baby, on Mother Guilt and Poverty’ by Abigail Stone.  In it she opened up a world to me of complex love and failure.  She loves her daughter; but failed her too.  She failed her child because as a mother she was young and poor and stupid and selfish.  But not because she didn’t love her.  Not because she didn’t have dreams for her.  In the essay she reflects on her daughter, an adult now but with so many problems – a daughter who can’t stand being with her mother, can’t stand her own body.  And she looks back, feeling so guilty for her mistakes, so overwhelmed by her love. 

It is a powerful essay. It reminds me that failure in relationships doesn’t mean there is no love.  Because you could reverse this story – make it about the love of a daughter, me, for a parent, God, and I would be the one who is too stupid and selfish, the one whose love is mixed with failure. 

The Bible records a story much like this one – the story of Peter.  He loved Jesus - passionately, wildly - but he fails him, abandons and denies him.  And what does Jesus do?  In John we see Jesus meeting Peter and asking him ‘Do you love me?” 

“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”

And Peter, we are told in Matthew, this man who loved but failed, is the rock upon which the church is built.

What a story, what a hope!  I bring a complex mix of love and failure to my relationship with God but he cares only for the love, and has provided a solution for the failure.  Thanks be to God!