Pilgrim's Progress

When Afraid – Eat a Sandwich!

I’ve been quietly impressed with Jacob as I’ve reread Genesis lately. Yes, his flaws are obvious, but I hadn’t noticed how much his 20 years under Laban’s regime had moulded him into a man of faith.

Chapter 32 finds Jacob preparing to face Esau after all this time:

9 Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’

10 I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups.

11 Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.

12 But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’
(Gen 32:9–12).

It’s just like a sandwich. The filling is a mixture of humble acknowledgement, and a petition born from fear. How can he be a father of nations if a vengeful Esau wipes his family out?

But the bread in the sandwich is WHAT GOD HAS SAID. The prayer is bookended with a reminder of God’s promise and Jacob’s vow at Bethel (Genesis 28).

I’ve had to do this a lot lately. With only two more weeks of work and no guarantee of more, I’ve gone back many times to God’s promise and his faithfulness about providing for me and having so much more to give. The circumstances will not have the last word.

The last word belongs to God. With God’s help, we are constantly invited to stare our circumstances in the eye, and refuse to give in to fear.

I wait with anticipation to discover the next chapter!

The Word Is Out! (Version 4)

Literally. Today, version 4 of Logos Bible Software is finally released. I’ve been part of a group of beta testers helping to get the new release ready, and there’s been a real buzz about this new release. Here are a couple of screen grabs of it running on my own machine.

It’s brimming with new and exciting tools, books and media resources. Ever since the first beta some weeks back, I’ve loved using it and am delighted to recommend it!

Visit Logos website for more information …

Meditation: Pleasure and Delight

>> Canada Files: Day 028

It's time to start reading through the Bible again, so I'm spending time in the Creation narratives of Genesis at the moment. It paints such a wonderful picture of God's creativity and his sheer pleasure in the creative act and in the creation.

And God saw that it was good ("very good" after Day 6 of Creation)

And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. (Gen 1:9)

It's no accident that some of this pleasure is felt as we meet to worship in GOHOP - most of it is created "in the moment" as we pray and worship, and create together. Yesterday, in the flow of worship, new songs were coming to us, and they seemed to blend so well with what was happening in the room.

This is so important to remember in intercession and spiritual warfare, that no matter how bad things have become, that God still loves his creation, and longs to delight in it again. Intercession and spiritual warfare often focus on darkness, but really it's about sharing in God's re-creation of how it was meant to be.

As part of this, I'm starting to create some ambient music to express the rich food that is being served up from these meditations in Genesis. Watch this space!

One Way Ticket

This is it. This is my last full week in my current post. After 6 years in parish ministry in the UK, I'm taking a sabbatical in Canada with a community of Christians who meet to pray in all kinds of creative ways. This will involve such things as laptop DJing, digital art, improvised worship, prayer and intercession and so on.

I'm looking forward to a change of scene, of pace, and of focus for a while. As well as being a positive step in itself, it's also a chance to think about the future. It's time to step back and have a fresh look at things.

After that I have no idea what will happen. As things stand I'm heading to Canada on a one way ticket, without a job or a home to come back to. It feels a bit like this ...

This trip captures everything that Pilgrim's Progress blog has been about in its 3 years. Living every day with a desire to be in God's house, but until that day finally comes, to journey with that glorious destination in mind, to live intentionally, and to seek to live by what is REAL. I've fallen far short of this too often, but it remains my goal.

Psalm 84 captures it ...

Blessed are those whose stronghold[1] is in you
In whose hearts are pilgrim highways.
They grow in warrior courage
Till each of them appears before God in Zion.

Notes:
[1] Stronghold. Translates a word that means refuge, place of strength.
[2] Warrior Courage. The Hebrew word commonly translates as "army", "valour" or "might".

P.S. Pilgrim's Progress will keep running - that's the beauty of the web - I can update it from anywhere, and I hope to post some of the art & music that emerges from my involvement with the folks over there.

Two Things I Ask

"Two things I ask of you, O Lord ...

• Keep falsehood and lying words far from me
• Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me only with what I need, lest I be fully satisfied, and refuse to acknowledge you, saying "Who is the Lord?", or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God."

(Prov 30:8-9; a mixture of translations)

I love this ... what great things to ask God for. What might we call them? Perhaps INTEGRITY and CONTENTMENT? or TRUTHFULNESS and GRATITUDE? But I think my favourite is:

Two things I ask of you, Lord:
STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS & SIMPLICITY

I'm conscious once again of the glaring inequalities in our world, that far too many people don't get a chance to live the life they were created for, while it is far to easy to slip into the dullness of a satisfied lifestyle and out of intimacy with God. I am as guilty as anyone in this!

Plums and Clay Jars, Part 2

It's all happening. I'm off tomorrow to investigate a possible job. In addition, earlier on today, someone phoned to ask me to consider taking on a certain local parish. And at the same time, I've had some conversations with another local parish which might be able to offer an exciting post. They're all beyond me. But maybe, with God's enabling, any of them might just be within reach of where I am now.

I don't know how you react when faced with something that's beyond you. Mine is to mentally list all the flaws and weaknesses that disqualify me. But a few weeks ago, I'm sure in faith the following words came to me as I was mulling this over: "I am the Lord, who makes you competent".

It was only during last Sunday's sermon preparation that I found them. These words, about God making us competent, come just before the better known verses in 2 Corinthians about treasure in clay jars. Here's my attempt to translate them (Click here for a flow diagram of the text):

But we have such a confidence as this through Christ before God,
not that we are adequate in and of ourselves to think that anything comes from us,
but our competence is from God, who also made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, one not of the law, but of the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:4-6a, my translation)

I spoke with one potential new boss about this, and his reply was "At each step, God has always called me to something that is beyond me."

Who knows what will transpire? It begins tomorrow with a 250 mile drive to somewhere I've never been before. Whatever happens in coming months, I won't be all sorted out before it begins. Not all the rubble will be cleared, but soehow it seems possible to trust that I will be made competent to go and make a start.

Notes:
1. "Adequate"\"competence"\"made us competent" share a common Greek root - to be adequate\sufficient\competent\enough.
2. "Comes from us" ... a similar phrase to one in the "clay jars" passage (2 Cor 4:6-8) - the all-surpassing God is of God and "does not come from us". This is all about the source of the power that fuelled Paul's ministry. The point is that the clay jar, the earthen vessel merely contains a power that has its origins elsewhere, and that a ministry operating as God intended would leave people in no doubt about where the power was coming from, which means the brittleness of the clay jar would have to be made obvious. There's a scary thought!

Plums and Clay Jars

Today concludes two weeks of outreach activity in our parish. I for one have had many conversations where I've had a chance to share something of what it means to be a Christian day by day, and in return I've heard many others share their stories. My main task was running a prayer labyrinth (Click here for an online example). I was amazed at how many people were moved by it - some came and told me what had happened.

This is one example of the many ways God has taken us all as we are, and put us in places to bless others in Jesus' name. Human frailty and weakness, incompleteness and immaturity, brokenness and I-really-ought-to-be-more-holy-by-now-ness don't seem to be a barrier to being anointed for this work!

But we have this treasure in earthenware jars, so that [it might be plain] that this all-surpassing power is from God and does not come from us. (2 Cor 4:7, my translation)

A local church leader told me he often keeps a plum near his desk. It reminds him of a prayer he often prays as he sets off into the day ... P.L.U.M. - Please, Lord, Use Me.

I sometimes despair at how much rubble is lying round in my own heart: failed prayer and bible reading campaigns, unconquered habits, childish and wounded thought and behaviour patterns and so on. But the more rubble I see, the more God seems to want me to get on my feet and go to where he calls, to let others see what he's up to in me, and let him deal with the rubble in his own time.

Notes
1. "This treasure" is Paul's ministry (and ours too!)
2. Earthenware jars were cheap and very ordinary, and would not normally be used to contain treasure, but would be put to everyday use.

How Do You Want to Live Today?

I have lost two good friends over the last few weeks. One to cancer, the other in a road accident. Life feels so fragile sometimes.

In 2006 I want to do my best to make every moment count. And yet so much time and opportunity seems to slip through my fingers day by day. And I can't get them back. But that's my aim nonetheless. This a new year. This is a new day. This is a new moment.

Therefore watch carefully how you live, not as those who are unwise, but as those who are wise, seizing the opportune moment, because these days are evil. (Eph 5:16; my translation)

Written in another context maybe, but the thought is the same. Seize the day.

Translational Notes
1. "Seizing the opportune moment" = literally "buying back time". Time is "kairos" rather than "chronos" which more usually refers to the opportune moment rather than simply measured time.

[Technorati tags: digital art, spirituality, biblical studies]

Advent Hope

"The thoughts of the son ran thus: ‘My hopes painted beautiful pictures, but they are fading one by one.’ His Father said: ‘Destroy all those pictures. To watch them slowly fading is weakening to the soul. Dare then to destroy them. You can if you will. I will give you other pictures instead of those your hopes painted."
(Amy Carmichael)

Hope drawn out makes the heart ill
But longing fulfilled brings life to the soul. (Prov 13:12)

Translational Notes:
1. "Drawn out" translates Hebrew "mashak", which suggests something drawn out until it is a fine thread. Most translations have "deferred". When the thing hoped for is continually denied, or fails to materialise, hope is "stretched thin".
2. "Brings life to the soul" is literally "a tree of life". This image occurs regularly throughout the Bible to represent a source of life and vitality e.g. Ezek 47, Jer 19 etc.

The Cross in the Depths

I love this picture. It's Sieger Koder's depiction of the woman at the well from John 4 (though St Paul's Multimedia links it with Ps 139, interestingly).

It's the second face in the water that gives this post its title, and gives me hope, both for my own rocky road towards maturity, and for a broken world. As God deals with my own heart, my past, my present, including what John Goldingay calls "adult oddities", I keep meeting Christ in my depths, as I meet him working patiently away in many others too.

An expanded translation of Prov 20:5 (reflecting the imagery implied in the original text) might be:

The plans and purposes of the human heart are hard to fathom, like deep waters, but those with understanding bring them up to the surface, as one draws water from a well.

I am convinced, as a forgiven sinner (not in a beating myself up sense!) learning to live as one forgiven and loved, that the cleasing and restoring power of the Cross goes so much deeper than all of our depths, so we can even rejoice even as God's often painful work progresses in us.

The Offered Life #3

"Every morning

I lay out the pieces of my life

on your altar

and watch for fire to descend

...

But you’ll welcome us with open arms

when we run for cover to you.

You are famous, God, for welcoming God-seekers."

(from Psalm 5; The Message)

Simply wonderful. I'm still feeling carried along on the "bathos" (depth) of the "riches and wisdom and knowledge of God" that's followed me round since I began studying Romans 11:33-12:2 a week ago. It just goes down and down, deeper and deeper ...

If this is a little glimpse of the riches of an offered life, why would we want to live any other way?

The Offered Life

"Therefore, brothers & sisters, as God's mercy enables you, I urge you to offer every moment of your day-to-day, physical, concrete existence as a living and holy sacrifice which gives great pleasure to God. Living this way is the most natural kind of worship." (Rom 12:1; my Tx)

I love that! Every tiny detail of the day can turn out to be an altar. The Benedictines and monastics (Brother Lawrence with his potato peeler!) are way ahead of the Charismatic church on this! Of course, the flipside is that other gods can be placed on those same altars.

I love this verse because it puts all of my related posts (The Unexamined Life, the Discipline of God etc) in context of God's great love and mercy poured out on us ... and reminds that moment-by-moment walking in loving submission and worshipful obedience is the backbone of faithful discipleship.

I enjoy the New Wine experience, and was greatly blessed this year, but now it's back to working it out, and keeping an eye out for the "roadside altars".

The Creative Discipline of God

Funny how life's lessons intertwine. Reading in "A Step Further" by Joni, I came across the following quote:

As humans we are most exacting and demanding on the people and things we care for and love the most. As an artist, sketches I care little about I just leave alone. But when I get excited about a drawing, it gets "bruised and battered" with erasures and revisions. It seems that God deals with us that way. (p64)

Ditto. I spend ages on the images, animations and poems that mean most to me. Tweaking, fine-tuning, it goes on and on. And even "finished" is a step on a journey rather than perfection. I'm always dreaming of ways to improve them, seeking to "draw them out" more and more. As for God's creative work in us, this offers something of a balance to previous posts about the Painful and Silent discipline of God ...

"For you are God's poetry (or "craftmanship"), created in Christ Jesus to do good works ..." (Eph 2:10)

Who would have thought that God's discipline was an act of divine creativity? God is so painstaking with us ...

Fully Present

Chris Erdman talks about his sermon preparation. I love this ...

"What matters is that I was there, present to the text and to the Trinity, present to myself and to the daily experience of the people I love and among whom I will open this text come Sunday."

For me, it was Joel yesterday. A little Hebrew word study. The day before it was 2 Corinthians 12:9 - God's grace in our weakness. Today I think it will be Amos. Psalm 38:9. A walk on the beach somewhere. Who knows! I felt the weight of God around the place yesterday ... usually means I'm to listen carefully because God wants to say something or impart something to me. I don't want to miss it!

Present to the text, the Trinity, myself, those I love ... can that be our resolve today? That attentiveness to the text, to the Trinity, to our own depths, to the currents of God flowing through the lives of those around us?

One For the Road #2: Psalm 131 - The Eye of the Hurricane

Another Psalm paraphrase, this time on Psalm 131. It also draws on Isaiah 30:15. There were two images strongly in my mind - one of the eye of the hurricane as a place of mysterious calm at the centre of the storm, and the second of being kept safe inside the strong hands of God.

The Eye of the Hurricane

Held in the hurricane’s eye
By strong and gentle hands
I am reluctantly at rest.

I am not done with wrestling:
This storm of whys and hows and whens
Has not spent its fury yet:
It rages still.
Not on some distant hill
But all around, within.

Here, in the hurricane’s eye
I huddle, a handsbreadth from the fearsome gust
That races round.
I dare not venture out a hand
To feel its power.
I would be tugged away
And flung up, tossed like a discarded wrapper,
And cast down God knows where.
I must be still, be still.

‘God, don’t hold me here’, I cry
Don’t make me wait in silence here.
The storm is calling me – I must tame it
To silence this soul’s seeking.
The questions, questions
Whose stark unansweredness is the cyclone’s rage
I must go – it is my storm.

"If you want to go now, you can, but you go alone."
Comes back his answer.
He has offered me a refuge, not a prison.
If I choose to step away
These strong fingers will release their hold
And let me go.
I ponder.

The storm blusters on, unchecked.
Will it abate? I do not know.
He will not tell me, yet.
I know I do not have the strength
To face it down and stand my ground.
There will be time enough for that.
For now, I must rest down on him
And recoup my strength.

And so, in the hurricane’s eye
Held in these strong and gentle hands
I am reluctantly at rest.

RKL 5.07.05

The Silent Discipline of God

"Indeed, at the time, all discipline seems to us like pain, not joy, but later it is repaid as the peaceful fruit of righteousness for those who have completed its training."
(Heb 12:11 my own translation - see continuation for translational notes)

It's finally dawned on me ... God's been trying to get my undivided attention. Withdrawing the joy of his manifest presence and letting us feel the full effect of our choices is one of God's most effective means of securing our undivided attention, our pure devotion, and our complete submission.

When God turns silent, we usually have to navigate through stormy waters before we exhaust our own willfulness and come to stillness.

How happy we are when the face of God appears again after feeling the silence of his discipline. But here's the key - when God shines his face at last, do we scurry off into our foolishness again, or remain under his hand? If we scurry off to shallower things, we will surely need to go through the whole thing again ...

I'm a painfully slow learner who is quick to forget ... will I ever graduate from this school, Lord? God is gracious, and even his hammer blows will not destroy.  I even believe the hammer hurts God too ...

One For the Road #2: Psalm 42 - All Your Waves and Breakers

Click here for another interpretation of Psalm 42 ...
(Flash 6 or later; 337K) ...

When deep calls to deep ... when we are emptied by God, how shall we then be filled? Some days he will lead us by gentle streams of water, some days he will deluge us ...

Bible Study Resources

Discovered Biblical Training - a gold mine of quality Bible study resources, mostly audio lectures, many from well-known teachers in their field. e.g.

Bill Mounce on New Testament Greek.(audio lectures with Powerpoint-type slides)
Douglas Stuart on Old Testament Survey.

I can't vouch for the quality of it all, but I have sampled some excellent lectures so far. Explore!

I regularly need the feeding and teaching of others, more so as a full-time church leader who is giving out regularly to others ... and I've found this helpful.

One For the Road #2: Psalm 42 - I Remember

This might the the first in a series, but let's see how we get on with this one. It's a loose paraphrase of Psalm 42.

I Remember

I remember.
The clamorous praise, the ecstasy.
I remember well those giddy days
I remember.

I remember the stillness of your presence,
Serene, untroubled, like a perfect millpond.
In peering down deep I saw there your reflection, Yahweh.

But now in turmoil do I cry to you.
These towering waves,
These raging giants of the deep
Kicked into fury by your finger's flick
Upon the waters that rise up and surround me now;
They tower up and up
And I have no answer, no defence.
I am barely afloat.

Have you done this to me, Yahweh?
Did you make them taunt and jeer?
Did you make of me a laughing stock?
This one-time worship leader, now forlorn?
I have no strength or will to come against their mockery.
But you, Yahweh, my God, have you turned against me too?

I am barely afloat.
I cannot sink any deeper or I am gone ...
I gasp a cry.

Can this plaintive voice be heard above the ocean's roar?
Can this heart's outpouring, this soul's red rescue flare
Float up beyond the grasp of this rampaging sea
And drift its way to you?
Will its bright sputtering catch your eye?
Or will it fly too low,
Or unseen, fade and tumble earthward once again?
I dare to venture hope.

Let the seas do their worst, let them pound
I will not go down to the deep
There is something stronger here.
I exhaust my petition and fall silent.

I reach inside and find a prayer, and gasp it upwards.
I will praise you again Yahweh, as I once did.
I will remember.

I remember,
But I find that in remembering you I am remembered.
My prayer to you, Yahweh, was first your gift to me:
Your love by day, your song by night.

And so, amidst these raging seas
I dare to venture hope.
I remember.

The NET Bible

Have just come across The NET Bible ... the first translation to be made freely available electronically before it appeared in print. It has very extensive footnotes covering translational and textual choices and so on, and it appears to have attracted wide acclaim.

It's a "second beta" - readers of all types from the schoolboy to the scholar are invited to give feedback as the translation develops and improves.

1. Read it online here, or ...
2. Download the entire book free (in Windows Help format) here (12MB) ...