Moved to wordpress!

Hi everyone (anyone)
Just to say that due to Blogger making it virtually impossible for anyone to leave a comment without huge effort, I have moved my blog to Wordpress.

To see it you need to click here: Growing Enthusiasm

All the old posts and comments have been imported so you don't need to come back here ever again...

Go and check out my new post now : ) and change the bookmark in your favourites!

Rich

3 options, not 2

The one issue that I spend more time thinking about and addressing with people than any other is this: “Why did God let this happen to me?”

Sometimes this rises up in conversation with members of the church, sometimes it appears in prayers, and other times it emerges in frustrations of people outside the church, unsure of whether they really trust this God of ours. It’s an age old problem and it arises because of a basic assumption that most of us unswervingly hold to be true. Seemingly, regardless of whether we are a believer or an unbeliever, when thinking about God’s relationship with the world there is a simple either/or to choose from:
1: God can prevent bad stuff happening and sometimes he does so;
2: God can prevent bad stuff from happening but sometimes he chooses not to prevent it from happening for some good reason.

The assumption behind both statements is the widely held idea because God is God he can do anything he wants to do. If God wills something, it happens. Nothing can prevent God doing what he ultimately wants. He is God and he is sovereign.

For much of life these two options work ok and often we find ourselves interpreting the stories of our lives and seeing them fit exactly. Many of us, for example, will can account for a time when our prayers were answered and, as far as we can tell, God intervened in our lives either preventing things from getting worse or bringing about a radical transformation to the situation or even giving us complete healing. That is Option 1. Many of us have also had the experience where we have asked God to prevent something happing, and with hindsight we can see that although our prayers weren’t answered, actually the situation worked out for the best and we are glad that God did not answer our prayer as we initially wanted. That is Option 2. So far so good.

The trouble comes when these are the only two options we have to chose from, the only two categories through which to interpret how things came about.

Take, for example, the level of suffering experienced by a friend of mine who was abused as a young child, left alone, and terribly neglected. Which of the two options does this story fit in? Is it Option 1 – God could have done something about it and chose to sort it out? No, for it happened. God didn’t sort it out. Or is it Option 2 – where God could have prevented it, could have stepped in, but chose not to? "Why did God let this happen?"

For me, Option 2 is no good either, for I can not conceive that there would be any occasion where a loving God would willing chose to allow a child to be abused if he could have prevented it, even if a whole load of good might come from it in the end. What kind of God would make God to be? The ends never justify the means. Rape or abuse is surely always abhorrent to God, and if he could, he would step in to stop it.

So what is happening in these situations?

What we need is a third option…
Yes, sometimes God can prevent things from happening and does so.
Yes, God sometimes can prevent things from happening but chooses not to for good reasons.
But also sometimes God can not do what he wants to do and so bad things happen against his will.

And here is the rub for us, for we often carry around a version of God’s sovereignty that is so strong that we will not let ourselves conceive a situation where ‘Almighty God’ is powerless to change the way things are. And so we are left with one or other of the first two options.

But if this is so, then why did Jesus ask us to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven? Surely this implies that God’s will is currently not being done on earth even though God wills it?

I have had enough of trying to believe that bad things are good for people. I have had enough of trying to get God out of the dock. Not everything happens for a purpose. Abuse or rape of a child certainly don’t. They are destructive and evil – and God would never sanction them for any higher gain. God is always against them. He never condones them. He is always love.

To understand the world properly we need all three options.
Option 1: Sometimes God can prevent something happening and does.
Option 2: Sometimes God can prevent something happening, but chooses not to, for our own good.
Option 3: Sometimes God can’t prevent a bad thing happen, even though he wants to.

This is the reality of the world we currently abide in.
This was the world that Jesus lived in.
This is the world we are encouraged to pray for
This is the world that Jesus loved so much and risked everything for
This is the world he died for
This is the world he now rule over until he has put all enemies under his feet, the last of which will be death itself.

Until this time, I pledge myself to the God of love who wants all people to be saved, who loved the world so much that he sent his only son, who was broken so that we might become whole, and who died so that we might have life.

Rich

Labels: God's will, Prayer, Suffering

Stop

Life is often full
full to bursting
for good reasons
family
friends
church
loving people
work
being as good as you can be
doing what you need to do

This is my life
Full

A few years back I read Eugene Peterson (of The Message) and as part of my training and I came across a remarkable thing that has stayed with me ever since.

The adjective busy set as a modifier to pastor should sound to our ears like adulterous to characterize a wife or embezzling to describe a banker. It is an outrageous scandal, a blasphemous affront…. [It is] a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him.

I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands on my time are proof to myself — and to all who will notice — that I am important

How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?

Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

This week I went to visit Ruby, 84, and wondering what her life now means. I was tired. And I took my new dog Milo along for company. Milo sat at her feet and drank her water, softening her heart and gently opening her up. Pets are great. And I sat at Ruby's feet too, next to Milo, and listened and chatted.

"One thing you can do for me" I said, "You could pray for me... I feel tired. I need God's help"

So she prayed for me... holding my hands... for at least 5 minutes without stopping...

She prayed for me, for my family, for me as a pastor, as a teacher, as a father... she blessed me...

And one word kept coming up... "stop"
"Help Richard to find time to stop" she prayed... again and again... in different ways but with the same meaning...

------

Last night I watched a "Nooma" called 'Shells'.
Once again Rob Bell and his film team have created a beautiful, powerful and meaningful short film to draw out of us the truths that need addressing...

I am grateful to them and to God for them. May God keep blessing them.

And the content was simple - often we hold onto stuff (shells), good stuff, beautiful stuff, but in the process sometimes miss the opportunity to reach out and take hold of the more important, the more beautiful, the more significant...

And Just as Jesus knew when to leave behind a village, or a crowd, and move on to reach his goal, so we were invited to wonder what in our lives might need to be dropped or left behind for the bigger things - the more important...

For me it was a reminder to Stop

------

Eugene again...

Pastoral listening requires unhurried leisure, even if it's only for five minutes. Leisure is a quality of spirit, not a quantity of time. Only in that ambiance of leisure do persons know they are listened to with absolute seriousness, treated with dignity and importance. Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them.

The question I put to myself is not "How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?" but "How many people have you listened to in Christ this week?" The number of persons listened to must necessarily be less than the number spoken to. Listening to a story always takes more time than delivering a message, so I must discard my compulsion to count, to compile the statistics that will justify my existence. I can't listen if I'm busy. When my schedule is crowded, I'm not free to listen: I have to keep my next appointment; I have to get to the next meeting.

Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor

-----

And so my Father is giving me permission to Stop. He is telling me it's time for a day off... or may be even more... A time to let things lie...

A am loved therefore I am

It has nothing to do with achieving stuff

Stop...

Stop.

.

Labels: Busyness, Rest, Rhythm, Sabbath

one with Christ

Had a great chat today with Gavin following a talk he gave about a snippet from the end of Colossians 1, in which Paul says this:

²⁴Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

It's a strange verse and I commend listening to Gavz' talk yourself here.

But for me (I was a away when he delivered it and have only had the benefit of chatting briefly about it this afternoon) the significant point that Gav made was that the verse makes sense when we fully understand the complete connection between Christ and a 'Christian'. The idea of 'being in Christ' (a phrase that crops up so often in Paul's writing) has been a rich theme for me ever since I did a deeper than usual study on it as part of my college training and Gavin has added to this.

Part of this theme is the idea that we live 'in Christ' and are incorporated into his life - so t much so that what has happened for him we can rightfully say has happened for us. So, as Christ has died, so we too have died, as Christ has been raised, so we too have been raised, as Christ has been declared righteous, so we too are declared righteous, as Christ is justified, so we too are justified through faith in him... For Paul, this connection between Christ and ourselves is complete - we are 100% in Christ - we are 'one in Christ'. In one passage Paul even goes so far as to describe the church (those in Christ) as his 'body' as if Christ is the head and we are the limbs and torso etc...

Now, this idea has many repercussions for Paul and it leads him to speak enthusiastically of all that we have already obtained 'in Christ' even though we still remain wounded, and weak, and sinful and broken. Thus we are redeemed, forgiven, healed, new creations, justified, holy, spiritually rich, and sons of God.

At the same time, however, Paul recognises that there is much still to redeem in our lives, much to heal, much to make holy, and it is to this end that we commit ourselves so that we might be found faithful at the end of our lives.

One area of life that remains 'in between the times' is suffering and I what Gavin said about this is really inspired. In this verse from Colossians Paul describes his own suffering as 'filling up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church'. This is a strange thing to say, for as he says elsewhere Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient and therefore there is no need for anyone else's suffering or sacrifice to be made as atonement for our sins.

But perhaps Paul is not talking about sacrifice and atonement here - but simply about his suffering and about his union with Christ - his being one with him. Perhaps in Paul's mind he is suffering for Christ because he has such a strong sense of his unity with Christ - so much so that he could say that if he suffers, Christ suffers, or that if he acted in an unholy way then this would mean that he was dragging Christ off into such behaviour too...!

This is is a strong thing to say and makes me think of many things... but perhaps if we stay with suffering for a moment. What if when we suffer Christ suffers. Not just the suffering of a parent who watches a child suffering and wishes they could take the pain away, but in the same way that if our heart suffers (as in an actual heart inside our bodies), the head (our brain) suffers too, as in our bodies. What if when we weep, Christ weeps. What if when we bleed, Christ in some sense bleeds too.

Now this makes me think of the suffering in my life and the suffering in the others in the church across the world.

And it makes me think of Matthew 25 when Jesus says, "When you gave the least of these my brothers a drink you gave one to me"...

What if we ought to see our lives in Christ so strongly that we see the whole of our lives 'in Christ' - the good stuff and the bad stuff... all incorporated into him...?

And I wonder what difference that would make to me to how I pray? For as a member of the body of Christ, how much would God the Father, listen to what I had to say?

What do you think?
Rich

Labels: In Christ, Prayer, Suffering

Evening prayer

Father,
As I come to the end of today
help me to rest.
Help me to listen and talk and calm myself
allowing the rhythm of the day to have it's way.
Help me to avoid the spontaneous demands that arise
when they are not really that urgent.
Help me to spend time enjoying my food,
thinking through the day,
being grateful,
praying,
chatting,
laughing.
Father, as I come to the evening of this day,
help me to enjoy my children and my wife,
and to pay attention to them.
And after all that,
after the glass of wine,
and the coffee,
give me a good nights sleep
so I might be alive and ready for tomorrow
and all that I know I will need to do.

Thanks.
I love you
Rich

A road or a river

I had the lovely opportunity of returning to my school CU (Christian Union) last night and was invited to speak on prayer. A foundational subject, much of us really struggle with prayer and I enjoyed preparing and delivering a range of ideas.

Inevitably, when talking about prayer, you hit the problems we all experience and the questions we all face about why God doesn't answer, why people don't get well, why things are not as they should be. And then inevitably you have to talk about (or think through) what you think about God's will and how it operates, what it means.

One of the interesting things about my old school is that it nestles alongside a rare valley where a road, a canal, a railway and a river all run alongside each other, called the Limpley Stoke Valley. Click on the picture for a better view of it from the air...

As I was preparing I had a moment of inspiration (to me anyway) and considered the different ways people view the will of God. Most of us have been brought up with quite a solid version of the will of God so much so that we would think nothing of saying that "If God wills something it would definitely happen". God's will is powerful, all powerful, total, complete, unchallengable, fixed... so we are told.

And so, in a way, we assume God's will is like a road, or a canal, or a railway.
It is imposed upon the landscape of history.
It is hard and has edges and is boundaried.
You are either on it or off it.
It is fixed.

But is this an accurate picture of how his will works in the world?
Is this the right way to think of the will of God?

As for me, I prefer to talk about the will of God as a river.

A river has a purpose, it has a direction, it has a power and a force.
It also has a destination.
Water WILL end up in the sea... eventually...

But a river is also not the only force that exists.
A river bends and twists and turns.
A river can be dammed, or blocked or redirected.
A river has to make its way around obstacles.

And so in a river two forces are seen at work - one certain and powerful - gravity - drawing the water ever closer to the sea, and the other also strong - and seemingly solid - Rocks and mountains...

We know that the water will always make it to the sea. This is known. This is fact.
But just HOW it will get there depends on all sorts of variables.

...

God's will is, I think, like a river, not a canal, or a railway or a road.
God's will is determined, strong and powerful,
but it is not the only force in the world.
My will, your will,
the forces of evil
the powers of darkness
the spirits of the age
also exist
and confront God's will.
They are like rocks in the way, that the river has to work around

And yet, God's will WILL be done on earth... eventually
Nothing will be able to stop it in the end
God will be victorious
The water will end up in the sea

Using this picture of a river is helpful I think, for it holds together two truths at the same time - that God's will is an awesome and powerful force in the world (indeed it is the most powerful force in the world cutting through even the most resistant rocks), but also that it is not the only force in the world. We live in a 'battle', the early church reminded us again and again. Some things don't go well with us... because of these other forces or wills...

And that's why Jesus taught us to ask God for his will to be done on earth
because prayer helps the river flow
prayer cracks open the rocks that resist God's will being done
prayer opens things up
and strengthens God's arm.

And that's why we pray - to join God in his Kingdom project...
praying with energy and commitment and love
praying with passion,
because we believe it helps
it makes a difference.

For God's will is not a road, a railway or a canal
it is a river that will one day end up in the sea

What do you think?
Rich

Labels: Eschatology, God's will, Healing, Kingdom, Prayer

Sundays 2

It's a learning curve this job... I never feel I have it sorted...
I get through stuff - sometimes well, other times just by the skin of my teeth, but I never feel that I have it sussed. It can be good, but then there is always the next time... and who knows what will happen then.

On some days I get the vibe and I listen well and meet needs
other times I miss the point, or say something careless, or just feel tired and make mistakes...

Not that I feel bad about myself at the moment
just that I feel the weight of things, the scale of things

I am grateful though too... for Joy saying something so encouraging
and for the moving vulnerability that a couple showed
and for the opening up of a tough man
and for the honesty of a friend
and for the involvement of colleagues

and for the love of my wife (where would I be without her?)

And this morning's time together was good, was moving at times, was funny (Anton finished off three cups of wine), was poignant, was hopeful, was challenging, was audible...

and the worship flowed well...
we are learning
and the guys from Poolemead were all smiles today

so we had a good time
and God was meeting us...

and we were in the right place at the right time
which is just as it should be on Sundays
and what these crazy things called 'services' are all about
just being there - in the right place - at the right time
open to the possibility that God will speak
and love
and forgive
and heal

and this morning he did for some
and it was great.

I wonder how next week will go?

Labels: Sunday, Worship