Eagles

It’s been a long time since I last blogged and the first time since my daughter died.  I don’t know if this blog site still has it’s place in my life, part of me feels it was intended to in some way prepare me for the death of Sapphire, it may have served it’s time.  But I will see.

I have lots of blog notes to write in, this entry revolves around the following few lines of scripture;

Do you not know? 
Have you not heard? 
The Lord is the everlasting God, 
the Creator of the ends of the earth. 
He will not grow tired or weary, 
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary 
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary, 
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; 
they will run and not grow weary, 
they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40: 28- 31

Often I feel weary, I feel stuck, unable to walk.  Sometimes my grief consumes me, it feels like I’m standing still while everyone else (and life) rushes forwards and onwards.

Ever since this earth came into being, life has been moving forwards.  Nature grows and expands, dies and grows again.  The Earth continues to rotate and orbit, the sun rises and sets.  People progress; learn more – all goes forwards.  To be stuck goes against the laws of nature – it’s not a place I’m meant to be.

Sometimes I feel like I am walking forwards.  When I decide to turn inwards I find I can  take God’s hand or feel God’s embrace I feel like I make some progress with “getting on with life”.  It seems like at the moment, this is the only way I am going to get through this mess in my head – my loneliness, my yearning for Sapphire , my insecurity, my anxiousness.  Will life be ever the same?  No.  But the words of Isaiah remind me of a God who loves me, will not abandon me, who has all the strength that I will need.  I need to remember this, at the moment I’m spending a lot of time away from God- out in the wilderness – generally wandering around aimlessly.

Whilst I don’t feel capable of flying or even running, in those times of strength I continue to walk forwards, even though it hurts (like walking on broken glass) no matter how hard it is to go to where I am taken.  No matter how many times I ask myself “Why did Sapphire die?”

Gold

Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.  Rev 3:18

These are the words spoken from God.  I just love the appeal in these words; I get a sense of God’s desperation for us to give his way a go, his longing for our love and companionship.  Just come to me…..

Gold – refined from fire – making it the most precious gold as all the impurities are melted away / burnt off / cast aside.  Just as gold reaches this pure state with fire – so does God’s fire purify us. 

And the nakedness God speaks of in this verse reminds me of Adam and Eve  - the first human creation – realizing their nakedness and shame and hide from God.  That defining time when they broke God’s heart by leaving him - abandonment. This separation is now over, God pleads with us to take the white robe from him – let me take that shame, that nakedness – He took it to the grave for each and every one of us.  As the story comes to a close in Revelation, things are restored to the way it was always meant to be – our brokenness fixed and we have the chance to understand we don’t have to feel naked in God’s sight.

The "seeing" God refers to at the end of the verse  - to me this means spiritual sight.  As we trust in God - have a little faith that he is present in our lives, we start to see things differently, we begin to see glimpses of Gods ways, God's purpose and we start to fall in love.

With open mouth I pant because I long for your commandments.  Psalm 119:131

I’ve just finished reading “The Divine Romance” by Gene Edwards.

It’s the ultimate love story, written from God’s perspective, his longing for a mate – just as Adam has a mate in Eve.

If there is only one book you ever read about God – it should be this one…

 

silence

Be Still and Know I am God. Psalm 46:10

I’ve been learning a bit more about prayer over the last few weeks. Prayer has been the focus of a book I have been reading by Jeanne Guyon entitled “Experiences the depths of Jesus Christ”. It’s a short book but I’ve found to be of great help and I highly recommend it. Written in the latter half of the seventeenth century, this book was publicly burned in France at some stage and it has also been received by seeking Christians as one of the most helpful and powerful Christian books ever written.

I’ve been teaching myself to be still in the presence of God, practicing this while being in a very quiet place and emptying my mind of all things – I’ve found emptying my mind to be quite hard, it’s amazing how many things – random things – keep popping into my brain. It’s becoming a little easier the more I practice but still a challenging thing to do. Thinking momentarily of a verse or silently calling on God - helps me to be still.

The result has been amazing, as I’ve had a little faith to know that God is dwelling inside of me, as I turn inwards to myself I have been able to experience a joyful lavishing of Gods’ love. I’ve learnt that no words are better than any words and in fact I’m struggling to find the right words to describe the experience. It makes sense though, we all know, listening is way more important (and harder to do) than talking when it comes to communicating with people. How can we really experience what God has to say if we don’t be still, observe or expect communication in both directions?

I feel I’ve only just scratched the surface of understanding all of this and there are further depths God can unveil if it’s his favour for me to experience more. Has anyone else had such close experiences in the silences of their prayers?

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. Psalm 62:1,5

My child, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways. Proverbs 23:26

To everything, there is a season. Ecclesiastes 3:1

The kingdom of God is within us. Luke 17:21

Check out the description of this book here.

One

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have not told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. John 14: 2-4

I have been busy as usual exploring relationships with school kids over the last couple of weeks. Part of our journey has been values, one of the exploration points being sex before marriage – ok or not ok…. It is fair to say that most thought it was OK to have sex before marriage, and the idea of marriage wasn’t looked too favorable. Perhaps that’s a reflection of the age of the students (marriage is far in the future) or maybe a reflection of their experiences of marriage breakups, failed relationships of significant adults in their lives. After all, the stats on relationship breakdowns is sadly very high.

It has made me think about how God views marriage and also explore how God designed marriage to be. There seems to be a sense that when two people come together they become one “in flesh”. It’s a bit like how our lives become “one in Christ with God” – there is a lot of this “oneness” language in the bible – God being one, us being one with God, us becoming one in intimate human encounters.

I was amazed to learn something new about scripture passage at the top of this entry – it connects with this oneness, it is wedding language. Yes it seems that within the oneness we share in God’s circle of divine relationship, God wants to be “married” to us!!

Around the time of Jesus these words were used as an exchange between engaged couples - the man speaking to the woman – said after the marriage proposal. It was the mans way of saying he had a home for her – in his family home, but he had to go off and build a new room for them - a bedroom, within the house – that’s the “prepare a place for you” part. Under the watchful eye of his father, the husband-to-be would build on this room, and only when it was deemed good enough in the eyes of his father would be able to go back to his fiancées home and take her to be his bride – the celebration would begin.

When Jesus spoke these words to his disciples, Jesus had just predicted Peter’s denial of Him, things were heating up in Jerusalem about Jesus and they were scared. Jesus comforted his disciples with these words and the disciples would have immediately recognized it as wedding language – they would have heard these words before. If they truly knew who Jesus was, if they knew in their hearts that Jesus is the divine in human flesh – I reckon they would have been cut down with awe and wonder and felt overwhelmed by God’s love for them.

We too are invited to share in marriage with God – perhaps we are in courtship at the moment – engaged…

Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. Revelation 19: 6-8

Vineyard

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! Song of Songs 1:2-3

Strengthen me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. 2:5

I was with a group of students the other week and we were exploring relationships. One of the girls found a Dolly magazine that had a result of a survey I guess the magazine had designed. This survey produced a stat, which read something like “80% of girls feel they need to have sex with their boyfriend to keep them”. Sure, it’s Dolly and probably really can’t be considered as accurate – far from it perhaps. It’s also making an assumption about how boys view relationships – have some of these girls made assumptions about what boys want.. It does, however, highlight some the pressures boys and girls are under to think about sex being necessary in a relationship. Strong pressure from media and friends. We are seeing a trend on serial monogamy with young people having several sexual relationships over short periods of time, unfortunately with this comes a higher risk of STI’s – particularly Chlamydia.

Song of songs is a beautiful love story charged with sexual energy, attraction and desire. It follows the love poetry between two young people, madly in love with each other and not afraid to speak their feelings to each other – a key to a good relationship – communication!

Some other comments are made by the couple, the girl says “but my own vineyard is mine to give” (8:12). Vineyard apparently is a metaphor for sexuality. You could read this as – I’m not going to give myself to just anyone. It’s her decision to make without coercion or manipulation – something we see way too often between relationships.

The guy says something interesting too, “You are a garden locked up….you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain” (4:12) You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water… (4:15). Water is a metaphor for life, energy and purity, freshness. A garden is a place of sensual delights – locked up perhaps resembling virginity or keeping herself exclusively for her husband. I see a guy who is praising his beloved for her control of her sexuality. He isn’t pressuring her, making her feel guilty.

What is it about these two – they have so much passion for each other, so much desire they express to each other yet seem to embrace a higher level of understanding - something guiding them that seems to be stronger than their sexual desires.

Rob Bell in his book Sex God says this about how perhaps how people can regards sex;

“Sex becomes a search. A search for something they’re missing. A quest for the unconditional embrace.”

“But sex is not the search for something that’s missing. It’s the expression of something that’s been found. It’s designed to be the overflow, the culmination of something that a man and a woman have found in each other. It’s a celebration of this living, breathing thing that’s happening between the two of them.”

Not all young people are having sex and many are choosing to make their own decisions - perhaps not wanting to give themselves to just anyone. I hope all of us can find the kind of love and sexual energy expressed by this young couple in Song of Songs.

Unity

He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:17

I have finished reading through “The Interior Castle” by St Teresa. It will be a book I will have to re-visit; I feel there is more to learn and experience here.

I wanted to write down some of the symbols used to describe the term she has as “spiritual marriage” of individuals with God. Isn’t this expression such wonderful one – it beautifully describes the intimacy of relationship God chases us for.

Here they are;

Union may be symbolised by two wax candles, the tips of which touch each other so closely that there is but one light.

Spiritual marriage is like rain falling from heaven into a river or stream, becoming one and the same liquid, so that the river and rainwater cannot be divided; or it resembles a streamlet flowing into the ocean, which cannot afterwards be disunited from it.

This marriage may also be likened to a room into which a bright light enters through two windows – though divided when it enters, the light becomes one and the same.

I love the use of nature in these symbols. God can teach us so much through our natural surroundings – I find it so powerful. I personally find it easiest to draw close to God while observing and experiencing nature.

This “spiritual marriage” described also reminds me of the unity shared between the Father and the Son in the fellowship of the spirit – so intimately close they are like one. And to think that we share in that circle of fellowship – in Jesus – with God. Stunning.

Light

And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and the people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. John 3:19.

Jesus words above are part of a conversation he is having with Nicodemus (who interestingly enough came to Jesus during the night). Nicodemus was a Pharisee – a leader of the Jews. The Pharisees were very “law laden” in their approach to observing God, they were looking for a Messiah who would bring all the JEWS into full observance of the law but Jesus was going to redefine the law. It is safe to say that the Pharisees didn’t understand Jesus’ teaching.

Getting back to the point, while I was reading “Jesus and the undoing of Adam” I came across this concept of humans not liking “being in the light” of God. Baxter (the author) explains that God’s relationship with humans is intended to be in such a close union that “knowing the truth baptized Adam and Eve in assurance transforming their existence into abounding life.”
But then a doubt about this assurance came into being which caused them to;

“hide because God’s presence with joy, love, fullness was exposing their own bankruptcy perversion, nothingness and misery. So they hid themselves from God – and we have been hiding ever since”.

CS Lewis in his book “The Great Divorce” writes;

“Here was an enthroned and shining God, whose ageless spirit weighed upon mine like a burden of solid gold”.

Baxter goes on to say;

“this pain (from the feelings described above) altered Adam’s understanding and the way he saw himself, his world and others, but most importantly, it changed the way he saw God. Adam projected his own brokenness, as it were, onto god’s face. He tarred God’s own face with the brush of his own angst…….
….he now projected his pain, his anxiety, onto God, thereby creating a mythological deity, a legendary god…..
….he believed himself to be standing before a god who is a hair’s breadth away from anger, judgement, and utter rejection”.

This concept of hiding from God and seeing God angry, judgemental etc is something I can relate to – it does seem that this is the picture of God we so easily hold in our hearts and minds as we go about our business – as we relate to others. It makes us (like the Pharisees did) come up with up rules of engagement on how we act as to try as hard as we can to appease God – in doing so we damage ourselves and others, we start to judge others and project the angry wrath of God onto them and ourselves in the process.

In John 3: 17 Jesus states that God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world (we do that OK ourselves), but in order that the world might be saved through him.

I think that the truth that Jesus speaks of in saying, “do what is true” is knowing that although man hides from God, God hasn’t ever changed. He has the same personality and plan for us - to be washed with assurance and transforming our existence into abounding life. What an amazing freedom – and what an impact this truth will have on how we then naturally relate to others.

Ever since man started hiding, God has been following. Unfolding His plan for us – completed through God becoming a man and converting this fallen existence of darkness to Himself – to light.

This is how Baxter describes God’s wrath;

“Wrath is not the opposite of love. Wrath is the love of God in action, in opposing action;
NO – this is not acceptable! I did not create you to perish in the darkness, not you.”

Nicodemus battled with the words Jesus spoke – God brought a slow, steady wind of understanding, of new life, of light.

So as I journey on with a With-God, I pray I will hold fast to and accept God’s plan for me and humbly stand in this truth and light.