Peace, peace

Peace, peace

This is the time of year when songs abound on the theme of peace. Ironic, that it is also the time of year when peace is far from many of us as we scurry around making preparations for the Christmas extravaganza.

People cry peace, peace, when there is no peace.

How do we recapture the peace, and what is meant by it? The Biblical word for peace is shalom and it means much more than absence of war. It means a deep pervasive wholeness and lack of agitation or anxiety. A wholeness deep in one’s heart which then radiates outwardly and spreads to the situations in which we find ourselves.

There is no real peace until we have peace in our hearts. There is no real peace in our hearts until Jesus is Lord of our hearts. Crazy that as we Christians celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, we so easily neglect that Prince in a frenzy of shopping, cooking, baking, buying. 

Be still in the presence of the Lord, the psalmist wrote (37), and wait patiently for him to act.

Be still. Wait patiently. Trust God, and he will help you. Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust in the Lord and do good. Trust in the Lord and do good. Profound words. 

I am about to embark on my day, a day in which I hope to trust in the Lord and do good, to be still in the midst of crowds, to wait patiently in queues, to commit every purchase to God. 

Happy Advent.

Just Wait

Advent is the season of preparation, but also the season of waiting. Waiting for God to show his hand, so to speak, by revealing his master plan for our salvation, a plan devised before the creation of the world and carried out by a helpless infant born to a virgin in a dirty barn two thousand years ago.

He showed his hand in Jesus, God made man, fully human, fully divine, impossible for us to fully understand but possible, through the Holy Spirit, for us to fully love. 

My readings today have reflected the idea of waiting. Psalm 33:22: Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in you alone. There is an expectancy there, as well as a quiet waiting. Patient. Trusting that God will not let us down.

The Lord watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love. 

It’s not always easy to rely on his unfailing love. Sometimes we are caught in the grip of anxiety, of grief, of depression, of disappointment, of pain, and he seems to tarry. But Isaiah 30:18 also celebrates the faithfulness of God to deliver: For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.

Blessed are those who wait for his help.

It’s not easy to wait. May he strengthen us all to wait for his help and prevent us from trying to devise our own, woefully inadequate, solution ourselves.

Whisky

I fed the Christmas cake its weekly dose of whisky last night. I only made the cake about a week ago so it won’t really be as moist and marinated in the spirit as it should be, but hopefully it will still be juicy and tasty (and not put anyone over the drink driving limit!!)

Usually I use brandy but didn’t have any, so this year it is whisky. I hope it tastes ok as it isn’t your single malt variety but the cheaper blended stuff. Not for the connoisseur I guess.

Whatever we soak ourselves in is what we taste like. The steady drip drip of culture, of secularism, of watered down Christianity, which we are fed daily can overwhelm any flavour of Jesus if we’re not careful and vigilant.

Jesus warned us to be alert. He advised us to read and know the Scriptures, to soak in them. He himself soaked in Scripture and when he was under pressure, that is what came out. Words of the Bible. 

The steady soaking from our culture is there whether we like it or not. On the radio, on television, in the mouths of our politicians and friends. If we don’t spend time soaking in the Word of God we, too, will begin to taste like the secularist culture in which we now live. 

Instead of the pure unadulterated Truth of Scripture, we speak a blend of truth and lies. Only suitable for spitting out of the mouth.

I do hope that using a blended whisky on the cake won’t make it taste bad.

Chronic

After a slipped disk ten months ago, I am left with a residual stiffness in the vertebra at my waistline. It doesn’t impair me or waken me at night; it reminds me to ‘ca canny’ (Scots for be careful) when faced with a heavy load to lift, push or pull. Engage the core, as the pilates teacher would instruct.

Also impaired by a frozen shoulder – but saying that, it isn’t so bad as many I’ve heard about, and apart from a few things I can still function normally. I’ve been told it could take at least another six months or more for it to right itself. 

So what do I say when kind-hearted folk ask me how these two things are? It’s a tricky one, because though these things aren’t perfect, neither am I popping pain pills or grimacing in pain, and my hope is that we are on the way back to full health. Just not there quite yet.

I’m wondering if the cautious approach in my answer – ‘still about the same’ – can actually trap me in the afflictions. Instead of looking ahead to the joy of full release from nagging aches, I am still testing myself hourly to see if those nagging aches remain. 

I wonder if that can happen in our emotional, psychological, and spiritual lives too. Because we are survivors of incidents or even total crashes in our past lives, we can get stuck in a rut of looking back at what has crippled us or given us a deep ache or pain. Instead we should be looking forward.

Paul recommends that we forget what is past and strain for what is coming – a perfect life in Jesus. Let go of the chronic reminders. Of course they are still there; they may always be there, but they should not be the focus nor the excuse of our lives but instead propel us to focus on the future. 

Jesus promises a hope and a future, without pain, without tears. Joy. Joy in Jesus. Joy to the world.

May you and I today begin to allow the grips from the past to lessen, so that we can press on into the future.

Deleted

E-mails are a great way to communicate. But there is also the danger, inherent in any written communication but maybe more-so in the immediacy of the internet, that written words can be ‘read into’ and misunderstood. 

I had such an exchange recently and after a couple of exchanges, we agreed that it had escalated into something never intended on either side and the best thing to do was delete the correspondence and move forward, hopefully a little bit wiser.

So I ticked the boxes and deleted them. Gone.

That is what God does with our sins. We confess them. We are heart-sorry for doing the stuff, saying the stuff, not doing the stuff, having the wrong attitudes, judging, criticising, gossiping, etc etc. We all do it and need to come back to Him time after time.

And time after time, he ticks the box and clicks delete.

‘For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ Psalm 103.

As far as the east is from the west. He has removed our sins from us. He has forgiven us completely, and deleted them from his memory. 

It isn’t God who haunts us with recriminations, pointing the finger and telling us how rubbish we are. God urges us to come to him and confess, urges us with inner prompts and through our consciences, but he never condemns, never writes us off.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us. 

Praise the Lord. Indeed, praise the Lord.

Stiff or Flexible: it's up to you

Ten months seems a long time, but maybe not for a body which needs to be healed. I slipped a disk last February and today, trying to do the shoulder bridge at pilates, I was so aware of the rigidity of that region of my spine and how, rather than rolling back down, I just suddenly clunk.

Clunk. We have an injury. It heals, but unless we work at it, not fully. There is a residual rigidity. A stiffness and an awkwardness and an apprehension. A tinge of fear that too much pressure on that spot will cause another collapse, another slippage of the inner gel that keeps me straight and is designed to keep me supple.

Interesting that what is designed to keep me supple and flexible can, when leaked out of its allotted space, be the thing that hurts and stiffens.

After a few attempts at the shoulder bridge the teacher thought I was beginning to look a bit more agile and able to peel off the mat one vertebra at a time. I am not so sure. I still felt a clunk when I tried to lay my spine back down. But I have hope. 

The stiffness (I hope) doesn’t need to be there. It is not a life sentence. It can ease off. But I sense it will only ease off as I strengthen my core and learn how (after 63 years) to better carry this skeletal frame on which the rest of my body hangs.

I am still apprehensive though. Fearful of re-injuring myself. Tending to want to pamper and protect rather than extend and project. 

I’ve said it before, but the Bible says it 366 times. God knows our proclivity to fear. Do not be afraid, he counsels. Counsels? Or commands? 

He counsels because he knows that it is only in allowing our bruised bits to be vulnerable that they will be healed and strengthened and better able to withstand new tests further down the line. 

He commands because he knows how many excuses we can make to exposing ourselves to further hurt. 

I know I can’t do it on my own. I can’t shed the fear without his help. I can’t shed the strait jacket of anxiety which can cripple both my body and my spirit. 

There was a woman bent double who Jesus encountered once. When he set her free she was able to fully stand once again. 

I want to fully stand, to fully lift, to fully flex, once again, and trust that with God’s help and my own willingness to work at it, that will happen.

When Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed.

A time for everything

Quality of the Light

Walking west yesterday afternoon, we were treated to a vibrant canopy of colour. Streaks of reds, pinks, purples, greys, and blues ribboned the sky as the sun set. Yes, it was only mid-afternoon – this time of year our days are remarkably short. The light is always dampened down, as if it were only the first click of a three-way light bulb. 

But do I always want the bulb on full-strength? Isn’t it sometimes quite atmospheric and mellow to have the lamp on at the first or second stage? 

I know that many people find the diminished hours of daylight and the weakened strength of the sun a physical problem which leads to seasonal mood-swings. There are lamps which mimic a strong sun and which can restore a correct level of serotonin into a brain thus affected by the lesser light strength. 

For me though, although I dearly love summer heat and never get enough of it here in Scotland, there is something right about having a rhythm to the seasons, a change to the length of days and the appearance of the landscape and even the sky. 

The challenge in life is to seek out the good in whatever situation one is in. One hears so many complaints, so many moans about everything – the weather of course here in Scotland, and the politics and the economy or taxes or whatever – and it is refreshing to make an effort to concentrate on the good rather than the bad. 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. God has made everything beautiful in its time. 

He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.