Posts - Page 4 of 6 - Blog Posts - Invitations to Ascend

July 10, 2020September 18, 2020

The lenses that we look through

A year or two ago, I listened to a sermon in which the way we see God was discussed. To be fair, I am not even sure if that was the main point of the message, but it struck me and stuck with me. The lens through which we see God clearly has profound ramifications. For it determines how we relate to Him, and also to others.

But what occurred to me then, and has sat with me ever since, is that identifying this lens is undoubtedly both challenging and complicated. For we see God through our eyes, our experience, prejudices, preconceptions, through what others have told us, what we have read and heard. Beyond doubt, all these things colour our perceptions. While we will never see perfectly, this is something we must be aware of, and seek, wherever possible, to overcome. For if we fail to do so, we may end up following a God who is not.

July 6, 2020September 18, 2020

The God of the impossible

I wonder if God has ever spoken the impossible to you. If he has given you a word, a picture, a vision, or a verse that was unmistakably from him. Where you were so sure that it was from His mouth and no other you could have bet your very life on it.

But then you look at your life, you look at the circumstances that surround you, and you question your sanity. You question your certainty. You doubt whether God could ever say something like that, to you.

July 1, 2020October 6, 2020

To kneel in the dust

Today I am struck yet again by the gentleness, compassion and humility of Jesus. I am still in John, and not much further on than when I wrote this post, for I don’t read the Bible quickly. I have done so in the past, I have skimmed large portions of Scripture rapidly. But, I find that approach hard to maintain, and in doing so, I am bombarded by so much that needs careful thought, prayer and consideration that I struggle to find anything to come away with. In the presence of so much to think about, I end up with little to hold on to.

Therefore, I have found that I have to take time. To sit, to dwell and to contemplate. So I move slowly. Sometimes I sit with the same few verses for days, maybe even weeks. I have learnt that it is okay to do this and to not feel guilty for not covering vast quantities of Scripture. But, instead, to let the Spirit speak to me where I am.

June 27, 2020September 18, 2020

Belonging

I love that word. It has the deep sense of home, of warmth, of togetherness. Being in a place and fitting in, somewhere which is mine. But not just mine for in this place there are others to whom it belongs as much as myself. This, I think, is a much better word than community. For we each live within communities that for the most part are dislocated, fractured, and separate – the very antithesis of belonging.

I have often felt like somehow I don’t fit. There are times when I stand in a group of people and feel foreign, strange and disconnected. It as if somehow everyone else shares a secret that I don’t know. That they all stand on common ground, but there is no room for me.

June 23, 2020September 18, 2020

The choices set before us

When we are very young, it seems that the world is before us with endless opportunities and possibilities. We can be anything we want. In theory at least. Though it must be acknowledged that so often in practice this is not the case. We are not to be constrained by gender, race, age or belief. All we must do is dream, strive, and it will be attained. I wonder if this is a gift for the young, for it is what drives them out and forward. And this is both necessary and essential.

As we move beyond this and grow at least a little older (and I am claiming no great age here, as I am fully aware that many of my readers are older than I). It becomes evident that we cannot do everything. We cannot fulfil every dream and follow every whim, for our choices are not endless. We become constrained, responsible, restricted. But could this also, somehow, be a gift?

June 20, 2020September 18, 2020

Thoughts and reason, but what about the imagination?

Years ago I stumbled across a relatively unknown essay by A.W. Tozer, entitled, ‘The sanctified imagination’. It is well worth reading, though somewhat challenging to find, I managed to track it down again here. This idea caught my attention, it held me and welcomed me as a thought that was both foreign and yet somehow familiar.

In my neck of the woods, we seem to be cerebral people. We live in our intellect, we debate, argue, refine, argue some more, we like to think well and like others to think that we think well. And, other methods of thought and being are somehow relegated to places of less importance. Do we feel? Maybe, but we must never be driven by our emotions. Do we imagine? Perhaps, but let’s not get lost in flights of fancy.

June 17, 2020September 18, 2020

The invitation and the gift

Those of you who have been following closely may be aware that I have been sitting with the gospel of John lately. I love this gospel. I love the way John talks about Jesus. The way he portrays him, what he shows, the interactions that Jesus has with people. It seems to me that John lingers over these in a way that is different from the other gospels. And Jesus’ relationship with Mary and Martha, but with Mary, in particular, is developed in this gospel. The famous interaction between the sisters and Jesus is recorded in Luke 10:38-42, and John, I suppose, being fully aware of that fact does not recount that again. Instead, he picks up their story and develops it further.

June 13, 2020September 17, 2020

Where do I begin?

It is so easy to pretend that we are something that we are not. We like to portray an image of who we are to others: to our friends, acquaintances, strangers, to God and even to ourselves. It is often so much easier to live a life of pretence than to face the reality of who we are and the circumstances that surround us. Obviously, our society encourages this by bombarding us with opportunities to escape – whether it be through movies, binge-watching tv series, unending opportunities to lose ourselves in books, gaming, or any other form of entertainment. And our online image can be so divorced from the reality of who we are that we can fool the world into thinking that we are someone other than ourselves.

June 10, 2020September 17, 2020

How’s the serenity?

One of the lessons of 2020 that is already loud and clear is that the circumstances of life, from personal to global, can be relied on to be stormy. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, after all Jesus himself did say “In this world you will have trouble.” But this year it’s abundantly clear that we cannot rely on our external world to give us peace. There is much that could be said about trials and troubles, but one thing that is drawing my attention is the invitation to serenity.

Serenity is the quality of being peaceful and calm, and cheerful with it. To be serene is to by marked by utter and unruffled tranquillity whatever is going on.

June 8, 2020September 17, 2020

What do I say yes to?

Some years ago, I was feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities, opportunities and requests that were coming my way. These were things that I could do, things I could do for and in my church, for friends, for strangers, in my community and beyond. But how was I to know what to fill my time with? In a recent post, I wrote about fruitfulness and significance and how Jesus calls us not to focus on the fruit, but rather to focus on him (click here to view that post). But today’s focus is slightly different.

How do we know what we should be doing? How do we discern what is right and what is not? Should we just embrace each and every opportunity as an open door set before us that we should say yes to? If it seems good, then surely it must be from God? As someone who hates to let others down often, it is easier to simply say yes, or at least that is how it appears. The additional stress that it often places on me, and my family, as a result, may perhaps suggest otherwise.