Unlocked

OK, just got my old mobile phone ‘unlocked’ so that when I’m in the US I can buy another SIM card and use it as a Pay as You Go local phone. It will enable communication to happen when I am away without it costing an arm and a leg (I hope...) Well, at least no nasty surprise bills when I get back.

And it occurs to me, wouldn’t it be great if we could all go into a wee shop and pay a tenner to get our rock hard perspectives unlocked, enabling communication with those who live in another place and see things in a different way? 

And that takes me neatly to Jesus, who came to set us free (and it doesn't cost a tenner). To set us free from lots of things, including bigotry and narrow-mindedness and refusal to see things from someone else’s perspective. 

To set us free from seeing things through a telephoto lens focused on our own culture and way of life, to see things through a wide-angle lens from a divine vantage point.

Jesus died to set us free of our addiction to judging others by our own experiences and standards. Jesus died to set us free to have our minds transformed to the mind of Christ, so that we can see things from God’s perspective. Which is anything but narrow-minded, judgmental and bigoted, despite the centuries-old way he has often been portrayed and understood.

God is love. His arms are flung wide to welcome in any and all. Especially during these turbulent times, when the gut-reaction to insane violence is to single out other possible perpetrators based on our own profiling, single them out and then exclude them or exact revenge, we need to breathe deep, step back, take courage, and ask God for his perspective, for his grace and mercy, for his love. 

The lines of traumatised men, women and children snaking across Europe are filled with broken-hearted folk who have had to run away from everything familiar to them and hit the long and winding road, not knowing where it will end. They need a welcome, a safe place, a comforting hug. Yes, there may be infiltrators among them but God also gives us gifts of discernment and wisdom.

As the darkness sweeps in, may the light within us obliterate it, by the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

May our hard hearts be forever unlocked by the love of Jesus, so that we can communicate freely with all, seeking to listen and understand as well as make our own voices heard.

Scotland Decides: Frozen Shoulder

Just back from another visit to the physio. We first got to know each other through the slipped disk in the back. We’ve moved on now to the frozen shoulder.

Well. So, a frozen shoulder occurs in stages. First there may or may not be an injury, but whatever triggers it, the shoulder becomes intensely painful to move. That may last any length of time, depending on ... nobody knows what it depends on. Just is.

Then it becomes restricted in its ability to move. The pain diminishes except when the arm tries to move into positions which the shoulder refuses to allow. Frozen. This may last from 4 to 24 months depending on ... nobody knows what. Just does.

That’s where I am right now. Stuck. Unable to move in certain positions. It could be much worse. I can still do most things and maneuver pretty well if I avoid putting my hand over my head or behind my back. 

The physio explained that the problem lies in a bit of soft tissue which embraces the socket, and which has thickened and thereby restricts movement. The body needs to reabsorb the thickness so it is thin enough to allow free movement. 

Sometimes pain locks us into certain mindsets. Emotional pain. Mental anguish. Psychological hurts. Childhood traumas. 

We want to avoid triggering the pain, so we learn to avoid thinking about certain things. We just don’t go there. We wall ourselves off, and as we do so, we become frozen, diminished in our ability to move, to think ‘outside the box’, to be compassionate perhaps, or forgiving. 

Frozen emotions lead to all sorts of problems. God addresses one in Scripture when he talks of our hardness of heart. He understands how hard it is to change our hearts ourselves, and as a tender and loving Father he promises to do it for us. ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit in you...’ Ezekiel 36:26

My prayer for this day when Scotland decides its future, independent or united in Great Britain, all who feel passionately on both sides will be blessed with hearts of flesh, compassionate and understanding of one another’s points of views and ready to work together under whichever government wins, for the good of the people of this land.

We all struggle with areas of our hearts, of our minds, of our memories, which we’ve hardened off and which have frozen. May God renew and soften all of our hearts so that we may live lives of mercy, grace and love, inspired and enabled by his Spirit living in us.

Peace to you.

Calcification

We visited Pamukkale in Turkey several years ago. 

It is a natural wonder, where calciferous water bubbles up from the ground, depositing hard, white rock-like florets that tumble in a series of pools down a hillside. They are visible across the valley in the ruin of a Biblical city called Laodicea, which we also visited. Pamukkale adjoins a Roman city called Hierapolis, also mentioned in the Bible. A place where the early church took root and grew, encouraged by one of Jesus’ disciples, Philip, and his four daughters.

In Roman times people enjoyed the spa-qualities of the warm, calciferous water. When we went, we plunged into the modern-day spa-waters and found ourselves treading on the ruins of Roman statues, columns, and cobblestones, for this was once a city street. It was amazing, incongruous, weird.

Jesus gave words to John, in Revelation, to be written in a letter to the church in Laodicea. In the letter Jesus complained that the church in that place had lost its first love for him and was now lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, unpalatable and only worth spitting out. In actual fact, that was how the ground water tasted in Laodicea; it was known to be bitter and lukewarm, horrible to the taste.

So what brought all that to mind this morning? 

I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to harden our hearts. That made me think of the water bubbling up in Pamukkale, leaving beautiful snow-white deposits on the hillside but giving no refreshing pleasure in that hot country. 

When our hearts are hard, our words might sound beautiful but without compassion and understanding, they carry no life or refreshment.

Wise words satisfy like a good meal, Solomon wrote in his proverbs. I pray that today my heart might be soft and my words might be wise, that they would satisfy like a good meal and bring refreshment to any readers.

God bless you.