Defense

While waiting for a banking appointment yesterday, I was leafing through a table top picture book  of Los Angeles and recognised the place I walk to every day while here. For a few decades, ending in the 1970s, the asphalt platform held a defensive missile system called Nike. That has now moved inland since longer range missiles were developed. The asphalt has been left to crack and break, its purpose largely forgotten.

I stepped onto it yesterday, finding it curious that in a site of such breathtaking beauty there had lurked a system of death and destruction, albeit defensive. 

We may be God’s image bearers, and therefore imbued with his breathtaking beauty, but Jesus warned us to be alert, to be wise as serpents though innocent as doves, to abide in him: these are our defensive weapons. Paul explored that in his letter to the Ephesians. 

Perhaps we are living in a time when this advice resonates more than ever. Or perhaps it has always been like this, but just not quite so obvious.

Either way, don’t go out without the armour, especially the helmet of salvation. In an age of deception, only God knows truth. 

Getting Wet

It rained overnight, hard enough to waken me. This morning, though, dawned dry under leaden skies. 

By 4 the sun had vanquished the clouds, and after a busy day I started my frequent walk up the incline skirting the shore at Malaga Cove, a surfer’s paradise. I watched in wonder as a very skilful surfer rode the waves, twisting and turning and finally trying a flip which landed him in the water.

I plodded on, sun in my face, slow and steady, up the hill, thinking about someone else who rode the waves, so to speak. Jesus, walking on the water.

The storm was still raging as he made his historic walk. For the first time, I wondered if his feet stayed dry, or did his toes dip in? Was his robe soaked or just splattered with spray? Was it raining as well? 

I think it is probably not possible to walk on water without getting a little wet, especially in a storm.

I’m not in a storm, but the things that need doing for Mom always become more complicated than I anticipate, and I can begin to feel overwhelmed. I can feel like I am in a storm, lashed by rains and buffeted by wild winds. But before I falter I look to Jesus. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and when I remember that, and focus on him, even if my toes dip in and the wild waves splash, I don’t sink.

I don’t know if Jesus got wet, but he didn’t sink. Peter would not have sunk, either, had he not taken his eyes off Jesus and freaked out at the size of the waves and the impossibility of doing what he was doing.

These days there are storms in all lives. My storms are minor compared to the dreadful storms unleashed on so many, so it is with real humility that I suggest Jesus can handle the most terrible of tempests. Keep your eyes on him, and put one foot in front of the other.

The sun will shine again and the gales will blow themselves out. 

Be still and know that I am God.

Truth

 

‘It’s so cold!’

I’m packing to go from a bleak midwinter in northeastern Scotland to what is also winter, but in southern California. What should I take?

I do this regularly and every time I struggle. There is no right answer to the question of whether or not it’s cold, because perception of cold or heat, except in the extremes, is so variable.

I’ve learned over the years that when Don says it’s ‘baking hot’, it’s probably just a comfortable temperature. Equally, he knows that when I say it’s really pleasant, it’s probably too hot for him.

The temperatures will certainly be lots warmer than here, but I know that on the California coast, it can be foggy, damp, and feel cold. So, I’ve put in more than I will need, for sure.

On every level, our world - the natural, the social and the political - is open to interpretation and dependent on perception. We may well ask, as Pilate asked Jesus, ‘What is truth?’

I am so grateful that Jesus has told us that he is ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’. So when I look at circumstances and the chaos of our world, I can look beyond them at Jesus and know that if what I’m seeing is not an expression of love, of kindness, of grace, of mercy, of forgiveness, or of peace, then it is not the Truth and it is not the way in which I want to walk.

Grace and peace, enrobed in love. Have a great day.

 

Kintsugi Alabaster Jar

 

I am still sitting with the alabaster jar. Meditation can sometimes last for days or weeks, in quiet times or as I drive in to Aberdeen for a hair appointment. That was the situation this morning.

As I prayed, again, that the Lord will help me leave that broken alabaster jar at his feet, and completely let go of all expectations of myself or anyone else, I thought suddenly of the Japanese art of kintsugi. I have used a kintsugi kit to repair some broken bits and pieces round my house, and really do love the golden lines which mark the break and repair. The bits and pieces are no longer generic bits and pieces: they are my bits and pieces, which stand out because of the breaks and repairs. They are something special.

I will need to continue this prayer until I am convinced I’ve really surrendered all expectations of myself and other people, but this morning I began to pray that the Lord will help me with putting that alabaster jar back together with kintsugi. I’m not sure exactly how this is going to happen, but I want an alabaster jar which is sound enough to hold all my expectations of Jesus: that he will never leave nor forsake me, that one day there will be no more tears, death, separations (or airports – I think John left that one out in Revelation!), and basically that all his promises are true.

I pray that at the end I will have – or maybe be – an alabaster jar completely mended and whole, with golden threads of glue joining me back together. Underneath the royal robes, I don’t deserve, I will be a ‘kintsugi vessel’, living to serve His Majesty forever.

We are all cracked vessels, but with the Lord’s golden touch we will one day stand before him, uniquely whole.

Hallelujah!

Kamikaze Flight Paths

 

Another bird bangs into the window. Sort of gently; not hard enough to break a neck and so it flies into a bush to recover.

We put stickers on the windows, silhouettes of raptors. Scary predators for the blue tits and robins. Yet still they fly into, and bounce off the windows. Occasionally, they hit too hard, and we find them dead on the flower bed, on the path.

We think we see the way forward in life. Sometimes, the Lord gives us warning signs that actually, that is not a safe way to go. Occasionally he may even allow things which frighten us into changing our direction.

But we, with our free choice and often rebellious spirits, sometimes continue on the dangerous way, undeterred by the warning signs. We may just take a knock, surrender our pride and embrace humility and acquire a more teachable spirit. Sometimes it doesn’t end as well as that.

Open my eyes today, Lord, to perceive any warning signs you are giving me. Open my ears to hear your words, ‘This is the way; walk in it’, and to obey with humility, confident in you. (And keep the birds from their kamikaze flight paths into our windows!)

That Sinking Feeling

 

I was probably about 8 years old, with my family on vacation at Big Bear Lake. My sister and I were playing in an outdoor pool while our parents watched from the bleachers. Uneasy in the water, a poor swimmer, I suddenly felt myself out of my depth. But I didn’t want to attract attention to myself. I hated being in the limelight, so I sort of whispered, maybe a little more than a whisper, ‘Help!’

I continued to struggle towards the pool’s edge, sinking and then emerging and stage-whispering, ‘Help!’. My dad was on his feet after the first whisper. I remember seeing him taking the steps down to the pool two at a time, and then I managed to grab the side of the pool.

My dad heard the quiet cry for help from his daughter, and didn’t hesitate.

Neither does our heavenly Father. Peter lost sight of Jesus and was sinking when Jesus reached out a hand and guided him back into the boat. I don’t think Peter was whispering his cry for help: I don’t think Peter was as shy as I was!

The message of that story is, of course, that we sink when we take our eyes off Jesus. A great message, which spoke to me this morning in the recollection of that moment in a swimming pool many years ago, which says more about the response of the Father to the cries of his children.

Our cries for help are always heard and acted on, no matter how quietly they are uttered. They may be only in our heads, but still our Father hears them. And is on his way.

I am so grateful for a dad who modelled the love of God to me. Thank you, Jesus.

The Alabaster Jar

 

The alabaster jar. You know the story. The unnamed woman in the gospels brings a costly alabaster jar, containing valuable nard, and breaks it at Jesus’ feet, giving him a gift of incalculable worth. To some it is offensive, a waste of a precious resource; to Jesus it is beautiful.

Perhaps we each carry such an alabaster jar in our hearts, our minds, our spirits. Mine is fashioned from expectations I have on myself to never fail in the care of my dear Mom, and the expectations I can have on others I love, family and friends. These expectations are not from God and they suck the joy from me. While the precious ointment inside the jar is my love for Jesus and these others, the joy of that love is contained and bottled up by expectations, which can be flawed in me, and which can disappoint if they are not met.

Jesus showed me this in a time of art journalling this week, and it has been a profound revelation to me and one I am praying through. (Thank you, Elaine, for facilitating this amazing way of connecting with God!) So again, tonight, Lord Jesus, I ask your help to make this revelation a reality as I break this beautiful, but heavy, alabaster jar at your feet, releasing the beautiful fragrance of freedom in Jesus, releasing the aroma of the joy of knowing that in Jesus I am enough, he is with me, he is with all those I love, and all is well.

Maybe it’s only me that lugs around such an alabaster jar. I am so grateful to the Lord for this revelation, and am beginning to smell the aroma of love.