The day between

Joseph of Arimathea. Remember him? He turns up in the gospels just after Jesus has died. We don’t know much about him, but his story of faith matters to God.

He was a member of the Council, that is, one of the Jewish leaders. The same Council that a few verses earlier had condemned Jesus to death. But not Joseph. He had not agreed with their decision. He was a follower of Jesus, but in secret, for fear of the Jewish leaders.  He was waiting for the kingdom of heaven. *

But after Jesus’ death he breaks his secrecy, and ‘boldly’ goes to Pilate to ask for Jesus’ body. Then he and Nicodemus prepare and bury Jesus’ body according to Jewish law. Nicodemus seems to have followed a similar path to Joseph; we first see him, a teacher of Israel, coming to Jesus in the dark of night, wanting to know more but wanting to remain secret. Now he too is willing to come out of his secrecy to bury Jesus’ body, presumably at risk to themselves. After all, Jesus’ disciples have run away for fear.

I wonder if Joseph was a Pharisee or a scribe? I wonder what he felt and how he acted when groups of his fellow leaders set out to trap Jesus with their questions? Did he stay behind wanting no part of it, or did he go, not to trap Jesus but to really hear what he had to say? Perhaps when those groups of hostile leaders met and argued with Jesus, perhaps there was one at the back listening, really listening. His heart leaping with hope as he realised that the kingdom of God- the Godly King was here. I wonder if his eyes caught Jesus’ for a moment, and Jesus found faith there among this group of leaders for whom he had such hard words.

How did he feel as his fellow teachers interrogated Jesus and found him guilty and set about convincing Pilate to sentence him to death? Did he want to speak up but didn’t have the courage? Or perhaps hearing the words Jesus spoke before the council was the last step of faith for him, when he realised exactly who was standing before him.

Something happened to give him courage, to move him to act so that Jesus’ body would be buried properly. And for that his story goes into the history books.

I love that God’s redemption story is made up of the stories of individuals and their moments of faith and of doubt, their great moments and their failures, and their relationship with their loving Father God. Joseph, a Jewish leader and secret believer (of which there are many around the world.) Rahab, a prostitute, and David, a King. Hannah, longing for a baby, and Mary, a teeenage mum. Ruth, a stranger who loved her mother-in-law, Gideon, hiding, scared, in a barn, and Daniel, an exile who rose to great heights. All woven into God’s big story.

And he still does this, still uses individual stories of faith to encourage and to build his kingdom. Corrie Ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis. Who are your modern day Christian heroes?

Then there are the less famous. The ones who write the blogs that I read, bravely sharing their stories and showing that God turns up in every circumstance of life. And the friends who share their stories over a latte in Costa.

It seems amazing to me that God can take those moments when we choose to say yes to him and weave them into his ongoing tapestry of redemption. He can take our small stories and blow them sky high.
And you. Are you facing a crisis of faith right now? What is your story? Who could it help?

‘Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.’ John 21:25

*(John 19:38-39, Luke 23:50-53, Mark 15:42-43, Matt 27:57)

Running on empty

It's been one of those days. Well one of those weeks. And I feel incredibly weary. My friends and family have all been encouraging me and urging me on, telling me I'm a good mum. I really appreciate it. But then none of you saw me yelling at my kids this morning, not having a clue how to persuade them to get out of the door to school. They yelled, I yelled back. It was not pretty.

My children's needs outstrip what I have to give them. It's probably the same if your kids don't have special needs, I don't know. And I run out of patience and energy.

I follow a lovely blogger who posts verses from the bible every day to meditate on. This week she was talking about how God sees our hidden moments that no one else sees. I think she meant it to be encouraging, that he sees those moments of everyday serving. The nappies or the shoes tied or whatever your everyday looks like. Trouble is, he sees the less pretty moments too. He saw our horrible morning.

And yet he still loves me. 

On days like today I am oh so glad that he takes my wrongdoing, my anger and hard words and casts them away, as far as the east is from the west. *

And what do I do about my weariness? How do I find the resources to do another day?

'My strength is made perfect in weakness.'*

I'm not particularly strong or resilient. I just know a strong God. The thought that I have to find some kind of inner strength to manage on, to rely on myself only, is pretty scary. But luckily I know a God who never wearies, never leaves, who promises strength and peace and joy. In finding my own limits I am forced to turn to him and say, 'enough! Now let's do this your way.'

I have been reading Joni Eareckson Tada while sitting in various corners of Alice's nursery. How has it taken me so many years of being a Christian to read her books? They are wonderful. Today I read the following words, which actually belong to George Matheson. I could gush about them but they are so beautiful that I am going to let them speak for themselves.

               O Love that will not let me go, 
               I rest my weary soul in Thee;
               I give Thee back the life I owe
               That in Thine ocean depths its flow
               May richer, fuller be. 

              O Light that foll'west all my way,
              I yield my flick'ring torch to Thee;
              My heart restores its borrowed ray,
              That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day
               May brighter, fairer be.  *



(Psalm 103:12; 2 Corinthians 12:19; George Matheson, (public domain, printed in 'Heaven: Your real home by Joni Eareckson Tada )

Light in the darkness

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.' Psalm 139

I’ve just come back from holiday, where I was looking at views like this, buying my children ice creams, and reading about the heartbreaking suffering of Christians in Iraq. The kind of suffering that chills me to the heart, makes me hold my children tighter and drives me to my knees to pray. How can the world be so beautiful and so terrible all at once?

I am glad I have just read Revelation. Because reading the news and reading Revelation are very similar right now. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that ‘this is the end of the world.’ Apparently they thought that in the time of Oliver Cromwell. Perhaps it’s just that Revelation gives its own kind of peculiar comfort in each generation.

On actually reading Revelation it doesn’t feel very comforting. It is full of terrible trouble that is going to come upon the world. It’s frightening to say the least. But there is some comfort in knowing that when the world seems to be a place of carnage and suffering, God hasn’t taken his eye off the ball. He knows.

What comfort is that, I hear you ask? He knows and he does nothing? He lets people go through that?

Here is the comfort that I think Revelation does offer. All through he has his children safe- perhaps not safe as we would like to be, but ensuring their place in heaven with him.
And as the forces of evil gather, they seem huge, all powerful, undefeatable- but when Jesus turns up on the scene, poof! They’re gone. No one is more powerful than our God.

And then of course there is what comes afterwards. God on his throne. Us with him. A new Jerusalem and a new earth. God himself wiping the tears from our eyes. And justice, like the world has never known.

I am rereading Corrie Ten Boom’s ‘The Hiding Place’. I read it last during my struggle with Alice’s illness and it helped me enormously in how to trust God. Now I am reading it not because of a personal crisis but to learn how to live as a Christian in a world full of evil.

Corrie and her family sheltered Jews during the second world war. They were eventually caught, and Corrie and her sister were sent to a concentration camp. Words actually fail me trying to describe this story. If you haven’t read it, read it. If you have, read it again.

There are so many things I could tell you about how Corrie’s testimony has helped me. But for now, I am just going to tell a couple.

As war broke out in The Netherlands, Corrie was given a vision of her family being taken away in a cart. She shared it with her sister, who said that if terrible things were coming, she was content that God knew them. She also said ‘the only safe place is at the centre of God’s will’. The vision came true; Corrie, her sister, her father and other members of her family were taken away and imprisoned.

As I read on, as Corrie and Betsie were taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp, and I read about how they were able to smuggle in a Bible, a jumper and vitamins, and how the vitamins did not run out, how they were enabled to share the Bible without interruption from the guards, a question arose in my mind. ‘God, if you could work all those miracles in the middle of Auschwitz, why didn’t you just stop the holocaust?’ But I was stopped in my tracks. Because Corrie and Betsie didn’t ask this. Daughters of a loving father, they had learned to trust God as a loving Father, to ask him to carry knowledge too heavy for them, to give them His love for people when their own failed. That God would give them the strength they needed at just the right time. And before she died Betsie said to her sister, ‘tell them there is no pit so deep that God isn’t deeper still. They will believe us because we’ve been here.’

There is one more book I want to talk about. I am reading a book called ‘Heaven’ by Randy Alcorn. I will be honest, I’ve been reading it for a year already and not got halfway through. But what I have read has been transformative for me. It’s convinced me that Heaven is far better, more real and solid, than I’ve ever dreamt of, and that God’s rescue plan is bigger and better than we realise too. Here is what he says:

‘God has his hands on the earth. He will not let go- even when it requires that his hands be pierced by nails. Both his incarnation and those nails secured him to Earth and its eternal future. In a redemptive work far larger than most imagine, Christ bought and paid for our future and the earth’s.


God has this beautiful, terrifying, confusing world in his hands- his scarred hands.

God on the streets

Surely your goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life

Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life.

Both are translations of Psalm 23:6

These words have captivated me.

It doesn't always feel true. In fact it usually doesn't feel true, if we are looking at the state of the world and our own circumstances. But the Bible constantly challenges us to change our perspective. To see things from a heavenly, eternal perspective.

And then to dare to believe it.

Many, many of God's children will tell you that when you dare to believe it, when you dare to trust through the storms, God proves himself true. His words and his promises prove true. His goodness, his faithful love and his mercy prove true.

He doesn't write our stories the way we would. We often pray for deliverance and get strength for the trial we would rather avoid instead. But he never wastes our suffering. He is always building us to be more like him and using us to build his kingdom.

Two friends spring to mind. Both have suffered tremendous loss and heartbreak, and both can testify to God's faithfulness and provision even in the heartbreak. It is truly humbling to hear their stories.

These words have changed the way I pray. I don't know about you but I have been praying for some heart-rending situations recently. For people suffering from mental illness who are running, scared. For their families who may not even know where they are. Sometimes a news story or an email stops me in my tracks. Such as the Nigerian schoolgirls taken from their dormitory. My mind and heart recoil from even imagining what they might be suffering. Could God follow them even there with his faithful love and mercy? His word says so and I am praying for it. He can reach where we cannot.

I recently watched this story from the charity Samaritan's Purse. There is something so wonderful about the way God can transform a person, can rewrite their story, and not waste a drop of their suffering but turn it into blessing for others. Listen to Hilario's story then watch his face as he plays with the children. I dare you not to cry.

The Lord's word is tried and true. Psalm 18.

Jesus knows the way home

I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

Psalm 23

Let me start with words from a wonderful writer, Max Lucado and his book 'Travelling Light.'

'The twists and turns of life have a way of reminding us- we aren't home here. This is not our homeland. We aren't fluent in the languages of disease and death. The culture confuses the heart, the noise disrupts our sleep, and we feel far from home.'*

                                        
I have wanted to write a post about death for a while. But it's not easy. I worry about being insensitive, about intruding on people's grief. I even wonder if I am qualified, not having yet had to grieve for those closest family ties.

But of course I am qualified. We are all going to die, me included. And as a Christian I have a wonderful hope, wonderful news about death. How unloving am I if I keep it to myself.

Jesus faced death. 
He conquered death.
He is alive.
And he knows the way home. 
He can take you there. 

I love the story in the book of John where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Not just because of the hope it offers of death conquered, not just because of the immense power Jesus has that even death cannot withstand, but because once again Jesus meet us where we are in all our humanness.

There are two bereaved sisters in the story. One goes out to meet Jesus and the other stays home. I will start with the second sister, Mary. She doesn't go out to meet Jesus. He asks for her. Then she goes, falls at his feet and weeps.

'When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.' Where have you laid him?' he asked. 
'Come and see Lord', they replied.
Jesus wept. 
(John 11:34-35)

Now there may be a significance to this that I am completely missing, but my reaction to this is one of amazement and gratitude- that Jesus, the Son of God, who is about to raise Lazarus from the dead- still, when faced with death, he weeps. He joins us in our grief and distress at death.

We are not, I think, as Max Lucado puts it, 'fluent in the languages of disease and death' because we are not meant to be, we are not made that way. Disease and death are part of the world which is in rebellion to God, as are all our hearts if we are really honest with ourselves. One day death and disease will be no more.

Back to the first sister, Martha. She shows enormous faith even in her grief, acknowledging that even now Jesus can do anything he wants. (Which reminds me, one amazing thing about knowing Jesus is we never have to despair.) And Jesus speaks wonderful words to her:


Jesus said, 'Your brother will be raised up.'
Martha replied, 'I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.
   'You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?'
    (John chapter 11: 23-26, The Message translation)

And Jesus goes on to call Lazarus out of the tomb.

As wonderful as that miracle is, it's not the best one.

I sometimes feel a bit sorry for Lazarus. He had to face death twice. The real miracle, the real treasure, is that in facing and enduring death himself, and in rising again, Jesus made it possible for us to live forever with him. He holds out the offer of eternal life.

The God of the bible not only joins us in our humanness and weeps with us in our grief. He actually walks through what we walk through. He faced death, he felt its terror, he died. Then he destroyed death.

I imagine that facing death is a very lonely thing. But we will not be alone. Jesus knows what it's like. He never leaves us. And he promises to take us home. So trust him.

'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.' John 3:16

Even though I walk through the darkest valley I will fear no evil, for you are with me... Psalm 23

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying  or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.   Revelation 21
 

*Max Lucado, Travelling Light, pg. 153

I don't want to talk about it...

I have not kept the good news of your justice hidden in my heart; 

I have talked about your faithfulness and saving power

Psalm 40

When I started to write this blog I wasn't at all sure, beyond the first few posts, what I would write about. It's not easy to talk about faith. I want to write in a way that invites many people to read, not just those who already believe what I believe. I thought I would stick with safe topics, so as not to upset anyone, keep it cosy and fluffy. But I am realising that life is not fluffy and neither is most of the Bible, and that I am not doing anyone any favours by doing that. So I am going to try and tackle some topics that I'd rather avoid. It won't be comprehensive but from a personal viewpoint. I am not a Bible scholar just an ordinary person living out my faith. I intend to be completely honest about my own struggles too. Messy faith.

I meet up once a week with some friends to study the Bible. Currently we are studying Revelation. It's a challenge although also an encouragement. It's like having a heavenly light shone on the world to see what's really going on (although it's a bit like reading code!) But it isn't a comfortable or easy read. One of the topics that has left me feeling uncomfortable is God's judgement.

We don't like to talk about it do we? I don't anyway. We want to hear about a God of love not a God of judgement. We find it hard to see through his eyes why judgement is even necessary at times. We aren't all that bad are we? And as for going up to family and friends and telling them that judgement is coming, well, I just don't feel right doing it.

A couple of things. Firstly, with judgement comes justice. And surely we all agree that justice is good.
And despite my tendencies to want to justify myself and claim to be 'not that bad', the more time I spend with God, reading his words, the more I realise how much I need his forgiveness.

 Time for some honesty. I didn't become a Christian overnight, I kind of grew into it. And this deal of God judging people, this heaven and hell thing, was nearly a deal breaker with me. I could understand why he would need to judge dictators and murderers but my family and friends- really? God solved my dilemma by asking me a simple question. Do you trust me?

For those of you who think I am weird for saying God spoke to me, it wasn't an audible voice but just an impression that landed on my heart. I remember that moment as clear as day.

And the answer was, and is, yes I do trust him. Look to Jesus and you see the kind of judge we have.
 
In chapter 8 of John's gospel the religious leaders bring before him a woman caught in adultery. They have judged her already and are all ready to stone her. But Jesus, the only one qualified to do so (as he points out to them), does not condemn her. Go and read it. It's beautiful.

Jesus, who from the cross, dying a painful death he did not deserve, prayed 'Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.' (Luke 23:24).

There's a famous story about kids in Sunday school who think the answer to every question is Jesus. Well once again I think the kids have got it right. For me, the answer always is- Jesus.

Is your God too small?

 Who is this that even the wind and waves obey him?

Last week we went on holiday to the Suffolk coast. Usually one half term of dealing with Alice's poor sleep and Harry's need for order is enough and by the time a school holiday comes around I am ready to retreat (usually to my parents' house) and recuperate. By the time we arrived at our holiday cottage I had tied my heart up in knots of weariness and anxiety. Harry relaxes almost immediately at the seaside, but Alice was coughing and not sleeping well and not eating, and those knots were getting pulled tighter.

I had taken with me a book called 'Grace People' by Michael Baughen, a really wonderful book which goes through God's promises and shows how the whole Bible ties together into one story. I reached chapter three, all about God's 'creation covenant', the promise he makes after the flood:

As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

  (Genesis 8:22)

At home in my kitchen I have a verse from Isaiah pinned to the wall. When I first read it, it struck me as so beautiful. Recently, I have to admit, my eyes have skimmed it but my heart hasn't responded. I have been too busy carrying worry around.

Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

Isaiah 46:3-5

As I read Michael Baughen's explanation of God's promise to sustain creation, of the magnitude and power and merciful, faithful love behind that promise, my heart began to lighten. He goes on to talk about other parts of the Bible that show God as the creator and sustainer of the world and all it contains. Then he comes to the New Testament and shows how this theme continues:

Through him [Jesus] were all things made... he is sustaining all things by his powerful word. 

John 1 and Hebrews 1

Hang on, he is sustaining- he's doing it right now. The waves are crashing on the beach, the sun is rising and setting, the blossom is out on the trees. Jesus is sustaining me and my family even as I am busy doubting it. He is sustaining the whole world, of course he knows my little girl needs to eat, and how easy for him to help.

And once again I experienced that peace that Jesus not only promises but actually delivers, that comes to me when I open his words in the Bible and open my heart.  It surprises me and delights me every time. Suddenly it was easy to trust. I just need to keep going back every time those knots begin to form.