Time with God - Part 1

Mark 1:29
“That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases…Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

Jesus Himself showed that no matter how busy He was or how late He had worked the previous night, time with the Father is the most important part of our day.

I have never been great at fasting but recently I decided to fast for three days; from sunrise to sunset and drinking only water. Interestingly enough, I didn’t receive any special wisdom, knowledge or spiritual revelation. But what I did realise was how utterly useless I am if I don’t eat. The first day was not too bad, because I had made sure I ate well the day before, but by the time I got to day 2 and 3 I was struggling. I battled to perform at anywhere close to my optimum while exercising and even small everyday tasks required a monumental effort. But the area where I suffered most was in my relationships – I just did not have the energy to make an effort to love people, to be kind and to make conversation. I quickly became irritable and just wanted to be left alone.
I thought to myself if not eating food had such a big impact on my life, especially my relationships, how much more do I suffer when I don’t receive my spiritual food? I would never think of missing breakfast, whether it’s a bland piece of toast or a delectable English breakfast, and if I did I would have a big brunch or lunch. To go a whole day voluntarily without eating is just too crippling.

Now we need to see that if we are not getting our spiritual food, we are even more incapable of functioning in the loving way God wants us to than if we just skip a day of meals.

The problem is that we get used to being spiritually hungry and therefore don’t know what it feels like to be full. So we just stay hungry. The only way to be filled is to be in constant communion with God. And constant communion starts with a daily quiet time. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that by going to church on a Sunday and cell group on Wednesday that that is enough of God for the week. You wouldn’t choose to eat a meal only on Sundays and Wednesdays, so why do it with your spiritual food?

Take time to spend time with God every single day – pray, chat to Him; listen to music, read your Bible or another Christian book. Do it for an extended period of time and really see how your view on your life begins to change, and how your relationship with Him grows.

Be blessed, make music, live with passion
NS

The Farm

A successful and very wealthy farmer had twin sons, Michael and Steven, and they all lived together on the most incredible farm. Their farmhouse stood up on a hill in the centre of the farm, with a big wraparound porch that allowed one to look out over the land for as far as the eye could see. To the west the farm was bordered by a ridge of mountains and one could climb the ridge and look out over the thousands of acres of farmland. Looking down from the ridge, the crop squares below alternated in colour – dark and light greens, soft orange and pale brown – like a giant homemade quilt, broken only by the solitary farmhouse standing like a sentinel in the middle of the lands. Far in the distance one could see the grasslands dotted with brown and white cows, majestic horses and chickens pecking in the sand. The farm was everything one could ever imagine.

The farmer absolutely loved the farm and farming. Every day he would wake up before sunrise and head out for the day. When his two sons were old enough he would take them out with him. Even though both boys hated getting up while it was still cold, Michael loved being out on the farm with his dad, but Stephen could not muster up the strength to wake up. Every day the farmer would try get Stephen out of bed, but he would just roll over and tell him to go away.

Without much more the farmer could do, him and Michael would set off before sunrise and climb to the top of the ridge and drink coffee from a flask as the sun rose. Then they would go down into the fields and get to work ploughing or harvesting or irrigating, depending on the season. They would fix fences and build new barns. They would inspect the health of the cows, collect the eggs from the chicken pens and groom the horses. They would drive in the farm vehicle listening to music, laughing and joking, talking and sharing. Sometimes they would head over to the neighbours where, over a hearty farm lunch, they would talk about all kinds of things from farming to sport to weather and news around town. In the evenings they would climb the ridge again and just sit quietly and watch the sun dip below the other side, saying nothing but hearing everything. Michael and the farmer loved their days together.

At night they would come home and sit around the table for dinner, the dinner they had worked hard for all day. While they had been out on the farm, Stephen would only get up late in the day and then lie on the couch watching TV. Despite Stephen’s laziness and lack of passion, the farmer would sit at the table and invite both boys to come and sit with him for dinner. There they would talk about their respective days. He would ask Stephen what he did and how he was and what he was planning to do tomorrow. “I don’t know, same as today, I guess.” When dinner was done they would all play a board game or play some music on the piano, and when it was time for bed, he would tuck them both in, say goodnight and tell them both he loved them more than anything else in the whole world.

I believe this story illustrates God’s love for us. It has been given and there is nothing more that we can do to gain any more love, or lose it, because we have it all already. Whether we spend our lives lying on the couch or being out there living it, He does not love one of His children more or less for that – His love is not dependent on our actions. He still allows us to live in His house and share in His Kingdom. Rather it is that we are missing out on the joy of living an exciting beautiful life on earth with our Dad.
So the moral of the story is that we need not be killing ourselves trying to work for our Father’s love – we have it already through the sacrifice Jesus made for us. But if you do choose to spend your life lying on the couch – by not enjoying the world He has blessed us with, knowing Him and our brothers and sisters and being involved in ministry – know that you are missing out on the life on earth that He wants us to have.

Let’s go out there and live life with our Dad, not because we have to, but because we want to.

Falling

White knuckles and the beads of sweat
Are not because of the heat
But rather of the need to hold on
To that which I can only get from the Son

The sun that the back of my neck burns
Is not the friendly one for which on summer days I yearned
Rather it spikes me with searing needles
Wearing me down and calling my fate sealed

The sun welcomes the cumulonimbus
That brings rain which further reveals my weakness
The drops at first are cool
But soon my body shivers to the cold of the broken scattered pool

No longer have I energy to hold my fingers in their curl
On the rock crevices that I grasp like an expensive pearl
Slowly I allow gravity to pry open my grip
With it my heels drop below my toes and I slip

Now that I’m in the air falling
I wonder if it’s too late to be calling
I open my mouth and try as I can
But fear delivers a silent scream

Again I try but still there’s no sound
If only I’d called for help but I was too proud
Now death is only a second away
And all I can do is silently pray

Whether it will make a difference I cannot say
But with no audible voice it is my very last grace
I pray for the Son to save me
Before I hit the ground and die silently

The Son He comes but doesn’t catch me
Rather brings before me and makes me see
My refusals to ropes that were offered
All along though pride and arrogance is what I preferred

He tells me that the help was Himself
Trying to save me from myself
But I was too good and too great
To accept help from any other state

Before I hit the floor
He tells me the decision to end it all
Was mine by not choosing His hand
And now as I fall He can’t reverse my choice to make this the end

Darkness falls and the colour black is in my sight
Then I’m standing looking into a bright light
It’s the Son and He’s calling
Now that I’m no longer falling

He says that although I chose to die
He heard the call to be saved that I cried
And He answered by saving me
With Him, to eternal life, blissfully.

Be blessed, make music, live with passion
NS

Am I good?

All my life I was gripped by the fear that I was not good. Having been an over achiever from very young, I never knew what it was like to lose. I excelled at everything that I attempted. Even though this was a good thing in many respects, I believed my achievements earned me the love of others (even though they loved me unconditionally).

I then carried this belief into my relationship with God, feeling that even though I had been saved by Jesus’ sacrifice, I still had to ‘be good’ to receive that gift. But also it brought me pride, because generally I felt I was good enough in comparison to other Christians to earn my love from God, so I was safe. But as I moved from school and university and the complexities and challenges in life compounded, I realised that I couldn’t be the best at everything anymore – work, relationships, friendships, family, exercise, God, sport, hobbies – it just became too much. My whole world began to crumble, for the thing in which I had placed my self confidence – my goodness – was in fact proving to be impossible to sustain. So I worked harder and harder to be better, but I couldn’t keep up.

I had to do the only thing that was left to do – realise that I was not in fact loved for my achievements, that the only reason I am loved is because Jesus is love and therefore He loves. It is all about Him and His love. No matter how good I am, He cannot love me more, because He loves me completely already, and no matter how bad I am, He doesn’t love me less.

To do this I had to acknowledge that it was not me that was good. I was always terrified of doing this because if I could not say that I was good, then where would all my confidence go? But therein lies the point – my self confidence was placed in something that was not everlasting, and fast approaching its sell by date. And so I had to say I am not good. But Jesus is. He is perfect in place of me, so I need not be perfect. And the contrary happened to what I worried about – that I would lose all my confidence – I gained all my confidence. Now I was living out of love, living to enjoy him and the people around me and the world he has given us instead of constantly working to keep my love. And suddenly I wanted to do good, not because I needed to be good, but because I was just so stoked to be alive and to be looked at as a perfect human being, because God looks through Jesus when he looks at me.

This poem portrays that change:

Goodness
NS

Do good, they say
And good I do
You are good they say
And good I am by what I do

I walk in pride
With goodness on my shoulder
With my head held high
I see not to people I am colder

The wall shows cracks
I choose not to see
I ignore these signs
Of the faltering goodness in me

My weakness it shows
More each day
No longer can I believe
That being good is my forte

With my wall gone now
Truth looks me in the eye
And I agree for the first time
My own goodness is but a lie

To failure’s onslaught I wait
Ready to quit
But along comes goodness
The real one, or is it?

Jesus He tells me
That goodness is He
And the goodness in me
Is His gift for free

Goodness I receive
By the grace of the Giver
And I see for the first time
I am good in my Saviour

The freedom that comes
Is due to the reason
That goodness no longer
Is mine only for a season

And I look to the heavens
I give thanks and I sing
For with His free gift
No longer a failure,
but the child of the King

Do good He says
And good I do
I am good He says
And Him good, I believe is true

Be blessed, make music, live with passion
NS