broken...........

Ever feel like you are at the end of yourself and there might be nothing left?

I've had one of those times recently...... No big catastrophe, just a series of seemingly small things, that left me feeling weary and lost.

Today I came across this:

"Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships. How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness but accept it and put it under God's blessing. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life......"

Henri Nouwen

And it made sense......

I am broken, others around me are broken - and we're all a bit lost. To live in brokenness together is a hard road to travel. But maybe the only road towards an authentic life.

If we reject our own brokenness then maybe we also reject the brokenness of Jesus - exchanging the cry 'it is finished' for 'it is fine'. We want the brokenness over - he entered into brokenness completely......

To be broken is to be lost. Lost to self sufficiency, lost to individualism, lost to independence. In the greatest paradox, to be lost is the only way to truly be 'found'. Found by love, found by hope, found by freedom. Found by Jesus, by others, by ourselves.

"you are not alone - I'm always there with you

And we'll get lost together, until the light comes pouring through.

It's when you feel like you're done, and the darkness has won.

Babe you're not lost.

And you can't bear the cross. I said Babe you're not lost"

Michael Buble

thin................

I've always been really interested by 'thin places'. The kind of places and times that Sharlande Sledge describes like this "this space, both seen and unseen, where the door between the world and the next is cracked open for a moment, and the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy".

For many years I have struggled with the fact that I expect Church to be a thin place - but for me it rarely is. Too much crowds in, and too much of me too often gets in the way. But sometimes - and yesterday, was one of those times - the heavens cracked open - and Church became the thinnest of thin places for me. 2 hours of the thinnest line between earth and heaven that opened up an unexpected array of joy, peace, struggle,pain and hope.

The most refreshing of moments - that left me thirstier than ever...........

"in a thin place there is an immediacy of experience where words of faith become words of life..." Sylvia Maddox

looking................

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."
Helen Keller

starry starry night...........

"When I look up at the sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place - what are people that you should think about them - mere mortals that you should care about them?" Psalm 8:3-4

I love cold, crisp, starry nights. I'm fortunate to live in a place without too much light pollution, and very often the night sky takes my breath away. Only recently I was so captured by seeing Mars in the sky that my socks froze to the ground - but that's a whole other story..........

Beautiful night skies sing of their creator - the God who mapped out the galaxies, who is responsible for creating matter out of dust. As we gaze at the sky our hearts are moved in awe - but how much greater the awe that the God who created the heavens remembers me - every minute of every day, I am on his mind.

But what should this knowledge bring? More than a fuzzy feeling or a warm glow.... God is so mindful of me - too often God and I are actually mindful of the same thing - me!

How often am I too mindful of me and my cares, and too careless of him and his.............

six............

"Heal me Lord, for my bones are in agony" Psalm 6:2

Sometimes sadness can make us physically ache all over - and it's an ache that only God can deal with. Tears come uninvited and unexplained because life is painful.

But we are not without hope.

In the same way that the writer of this Psalm moves from being "worn out with sobbing" to being sure and certain that "God will answer my prayer", so we can be sure that although life is sometimes very, very sad - our beds are awash with tears and we are worn out - we are never without hope.

We are never without hope because God will answer our prayers.

The Voice of Psalms......

'The Voice of Psalms' is part of a project by Chris Seay and the Ecclesia Bible Society that attempts to 'engage with the Psalms as never before' by producing work that "involves translation and elaboration, but mostly entering into the story of scripture and recreating the event for our culture and time. It doesn't ignore the role of scholar but also values the roles of writers, poets, songwriters and artists".

There is no doubt that this is a beautiful book - both in the interpretative way the Psalms are treated, and in the crafting and style in which the contents are presented. The attractive & high quality internal appearance inside draws the eye, and the reflections are insightful and thoughtfully written - it would make a beautiful gift.

It is important to understand the highly interpretive nature of the book though - which the author makes no attempt to hide - but which may not be understood by a reader new to, or unfamiliar with the Bible. Whilst the lyrical treatment of the individual Psalms is fresh and inspiring, in some places the breadth of interpretation can be challenging: for example the opening verse of Psalm 11 "I trust in the Lord for protection" becomes "I am already in the soft embrace of the Eternal One" - which left me uncomfortable.....

Having said that - if understood as a lyrical reflection 'inspired by scripture' rather than as it claims, 'a bold new translation and format' this is a beautiful book that I suspect I shall find myself returning to more than once to discover more about 'the Eternal One' - although I will still be more comfortable with him as 'the Lord'!

NB: I received a free review copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their book review blog programme. I received this copy for the purpose of writing a blog review and I was not required to write a positive review - all opinions are my own!

rivers

"You oh Lord are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high." Psalm 3:3

Sometimes we simply cannot hold our heads high. Sadness, shame, confusion and the weariness of the world around us all conspire to weigh our heads down and leave us looking at our feet.

At times like this we need to be honest with God & tell him how it hurts, rather than hiding behind some kind of 'it'll be OK' smiling-with-gritted-teeth dishonesty.

Yes - we trust and believe that one day it will be OK - but sometimes life just hurts and our heads and hearts are too heavy for us to bear alone.

But not too heavy for God - his loving care hold our heads up. Like Moses when he led the Israelites in battle against Amelek (see the story here) who couldn't hold his arms up any more, so was supported by his friends when he needed to sit down - so sometimes we are so weary that we need God to step in and hold us up. Sometimes we need to surrender our struggling to 'hold things together', admit that we can't - and trust in the God who can, and will.

This surrender needs to mark our lives beyond the hard times though. Especially in the times when we have plenty to hold our heads high about. When we are proud and full of ourselves, we need that same surrender lest we walk along with our heads held so high that we forget to look down, and so trip ourselves up......

God - the lover of our souls and holder of our hearts: hold our heads and hearts whether we're too weary or too proud - that we may honestly say 'you are my glory', and so sleep in peace........

taste of things to come.......

With thanks to Mariella Frustrup in last Sunday's Observer......... Apologies for the length - it's worth it.....

"In modern times life has increasingly been perceived to be all about volume, whether it's in terms of acquisitions, acclaim or adventures. The recent brief blip (pardon me, global financial meltdown) in first-world markets seems to have had one positive effect: that of encouraging us all to reconsider what our lives should really be focused on, obsessive avarice proving unreliable.

The most widespread human ambition for decades has been a pursuit of happiness based on more, more, more. The irony of our penchant for conspicuous consumption being that we then spend most of our time complaining about where to store or how to take advantage of this accumulation of our heart's desires. The most cynical among us might even question the point of archives of books read, places visited and memories attached since you'll most likely forget all the details when senility sets in anyway!

Forgive me for lending my voice to that chorus, but having spent the festive period trying to put some order into trunks full of old photos, I feel you may have struck a sensitive chord! Obsessive ambition and aspiration are the most likely routes to disappointment – and the old cliché of life lived a day at a time, accompanied by altruistic tendencies toward your fellow man, are the only routes guaranteed to induce contentment. A day well spent can never be obliterated, even though without the significant markers of triumph and despair such moments slide into the morass of oblivion to which most of our day-to-day memories are relegated – but often that's where life's real treasure lies.

I met a very old man the other day who had never left the Scottish village where I ran into him. He was as lively, informed and dare I say content as any individual I've met, and unscarred by his lack of tangible interaction with the wider world. Don't let me appear hypocritical: assertions that a lack of aspirational experiences may be close to real-life Nirvana are easy to make when you've indulged yourself and then judged in hindsight. I'm not sure I could have achieved contentment without exposure to the wider world, but this octogenarian's complacency may be no bad thing either.

What I've learned in 47 years is that only the days well spent leave any enduring satisfaction. Looking back through the photographic evidence of so many amazing journeys and colourful crowds of acquaintances made me wonder how much I'd missed while I was busy keeping busy. Now, with two young kids of my own and conscious of the advice of friends who warn that their now-adult offspring's childhoods positively sped by, I've started to greedily savour every moment. This Christmas, aided by arctic weather constraints, we spent an entire two weeks at our house in Scotland without attempting more than a quick wade through the snow in the surrounding hills. Instead of suffering near-terminal restlessness, I don't think I've been as happy in decades. Every day with nothing achieved but familial harmony and a few good meals felt like a triumph unequalled by any career high, exotic holiday excursion or intense romantic encounter. It's shocking to realise how indulging in endless opportunities to scramble to the top of your field or satiate a rollercoaster addiction to lifestyle extremes adds up to not very much. Meanwhile the days misspent in idling, enjoying the company of those you most care for and generally achieving very little are the ones you want to stash in your box of treasures.

Slow down your pace! With so much good stuff in your life, it's imperative you take the time to savour it. Books provide a salutary example in that one truly great read is more than equal to a thousand mediocre stories. Instead of concerning yourself with ticking off experiences and accumulated knowledge, try to focus on quality, whether it's who you spend your time with or how you spend it. Rushing around grabbing everything you can all too often sees you return to home and hearth empty-handed. Ironically, it takes a long time to understand that most everything we need in life is only hugging distance away."

Pop Idol?

When I think about 'idols' I tend to go immediately for the obvious - money, possessions, fame and the like, but God has been challenging me very hard recently about what my Isaiah 44 idols really are..... If we are prepared to wrestle honestly with this, it asks big questions of us:

What do we spend precious time investing in?
What do we spend the most money on ?
What can we always fit in even when we're tired, broke or busy?
What are we really living this unique life for - and why?

What would it mean to live a life totally invested in God - making him our 'all in all' - and seeking to see others do that too? Would it bring joy, excitement and fulfilment?

The answer is of course 'yes' - but conflict, pain and struggle may come along for the ride too.........

So maybe the most important question is not 'where are the idols?' - but am I prepared to trade them for a different kind of life - whatever the 'cost'?

Nearer..................

"Jesus came near and started walking along beside them."
Luke 24:15

Christ the stranger, who walked alongside friends in their sorrow and shared their bread, give us grace to walk with others on their journeys and so become true companions.

Reblogged from here