Throughout my Journal, and on other pages of this website, I have written of my personal spiritual journey so that others who are interested may read of the road along which I have travelled in my faith in God. I have gathered up those vignettes, ordering chronologically the development of this most precious relationship of my life, and they can be found on this page: Judah’s Journey

This is the story of how God and I have encountered each other during my time in this world, the part especially where I have noticed Him although He has always known me, always been with me… as He knows and is with each one of us. All of us are called to acknowledge Him, and my hope is that you who are reading here will also respond to His call and come to the foot of His cross where you will meet Him, He who would be your Saviour and your forgiving, loving Lord.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

(Isaiah 53:5)

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Note: new posts follow below.

Ten years ago I suffered an acute auto-immune illness which “came out of nowhere” and had me very unwell for much of a year. With all the numerous tests required for diagnosis at the time, the doctors discovered I was suddenly producing a less than normal amount of insulin, the hormone and body protein essential for the metabolism of carbohydrates. It seemed that the two conditions, by their sudden appearance at the same time, were likely related. Without the usual predisposing factors, I had become diabetic. It was a bombshell, but with the provisional diagnosis of a lymphoma as well, it became the least of my worries. Diabetes is manageable, but a lymphoma may well prove to be deadly.

I was fortunate. There was no lymphoma and the enlarged lymph nodes around my heart eventually returned to normal as I slowly recovered from that illness. The diabetes remained, and I learned to cope with it, as we all do. Being a far from uncommon condition these days, many of us get to know the routine - diet, exercise, regular blood tests, several times daily finger pricking, medications, regular doctor appointments, eye tests, and the unpleasant nature of “hypers” and “hypos”. It becomes a lifestyle to be avoided only at considerable cost to one’s health. There really isn’t a cure. Some folk will always require medications and insulin.

But while there isn’t a cure, there is a good method of management for the very best of outcomes. It isn’t an easy road to take, but it does take one to far better places. I discovered it, and have travelled it… which is what this story is about.

Back in January this year I had come to where I was needing to inject insulin. I had “maxed out” (was taking the maximum dosages) on a combination of three different oral hypoglycaemics, a full hand of tablets to be swallowed twice a day. Time for injections as well. Wanting to push back from that inevitability meant a radical move; it was time for a shake-up.

We are fortunate these days with the wealth of nutritional knowledge made easily available on the internet, and I had become well-read on the research available concerning GI (glycaemic index) and GL (glycaemic load) of the different foods found on supermarket shelves and in our own kitchen pantries. GI values for each food item tells a person how much it is likely to cause a rise in their blood sugar, and if that rise will be a sudden and sharp one, or a slow, small and sustaining one. It evaluates the body’s reaction to carbohydrates, and the research material advises also on the interactions they have with proteins and fats. In the writings of many researchers, the relationship to exercise is also expounded. However, knowing something is one thing… and actually putting that knowledge into practice is quite something else.

This was going to need self-discipline and self-control, and more of it than I thought I could muster. It would involve an adherence to dietary principles that could be regarded as quite restrictive in nature, awkward, inconvenient, and a real spoiler for eating out. It would involve a change in lifestyle, the incorporation of a seriously regarded exercise routine as well, and sacrifices made to ensure that took a high priority.

Now it is July. Yesterday I achieved a rare event and became my doctor’s first patient ever to go from insulin to absolutely no hypoglycaemic medications at all, keeping my blood sugar right down within healthy normal levels, through nutrition and exercise alone. My pharmacist (who watched this come about) wants my story written up and published in the NZ Medical Journal and copies made available in all surgeries and clinics for the encouragement of others.

To get where I have got I sought spiritual support which, for me, was an essential element that helped make it happen. Some things are much harder attempted on one’s own, but with a measure of “grace” can become considerably easier. I made myself accountable with the help of one of the clergy at my local Anglican church. This extra form of encouragement, and the absolute honesty required, did help enormously. No cheating allowed without formal confession - and that included the exercise goals as well. It was very serious stuff, and we took it very seriously as well. Grace abounded, and the way became very much easier, even a delight to travel.

It was rocky as well, and it took just over 6 months to get there. The whole business has kept my doctor on the hop. His job was to monitor everything far more closely, the amount of medication required needing to be reduced and frequent (and often quite serious) hypoglycaemic episodes became my experience during this readjustment stage. Hypos are very unpleasant, and I was also annoyed by needing to dose up on glucose (extra calories) that I didn’t particularly want. A lot of extra vigilance, more frequent finger pricking, especially before going to bed at night, was necessary to guard against going hypo in my sleep. I did have hypos in my sleep, often being awakened from them by horrendous nightmares. Sometimes my husband would wake me, sensing something was wrong, and he became very astute at noticing when I wasn’t quite right. There were times of confusion and disorientation, and times when I certainly felt it was just too hard to be bothered.

The challenge for me now is to maintain this situation, and it wont be easy as it involves a strict discipline from which I dare not stray. My daily exercise routine involves an hour on the treadmill, a time that I combine with listening to my theology lectures on iPod. At least I no longer go to sleep during them! I have lost about 25 Kg in the process and have a new healthy lifestyle, but for me the biggest part has been the grace of God by which it was made possible. I like all kinds of food which is simply not for me. However, I am not missing it while I keep my hand in His, and don’t neglect a prayer life of constant praise, thanksgiving, confession and intercession. God is so good, and I have been very much blessed.

Praise be to God for He is indeed faithful. This is some more of my journey with Him, and I can attest to the fact that He really is there for us when we most need Him.

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The month of June has passed me by but July now finds me with a new computer, a faster one with much more memory. No longer must I suffer the 10 minute wait for each browser window to load, or keystroke to register. If nothing else, it was a lesson in exercising extreme patience …or finding something else to do instead. Meanwhile, the weather has turned cold …bitterly cold, blighted with southerly blasts straight off the Antarctic. It has been freezing Down Here.

On a recent visit back to my “home town” we visited the parish church we used to attend many years ago. Back then we went to Evensong every Sunday evening, and the church was always packed to over-flowing. It is true that we had an extremely popular Vicar, a wonderful orator whose sermons everyone appeared to enjoy, and he was certainly a strong draw-card.

I particularly loved the music, the full choir and swelling organ recitals, and the wonderful sung psalms in the old Gothic stone church with its oak beams and pews, and the beautiful stained glass windows. It was magic!

We decided to go again, for old time’s sake, since this Service had meant so much to us. They still have it every Sunday evening at 7.00 pm, but this time we were left feeling terribly sad. From a congregation in the past of well over 300, this time there were only 8 parishioners plus the 3 in our little group. The music and beauty of the church remained, but where did everyone go? Those 8 folk were all elderly, and were all who remained. This is such a beautiful Service, the 1662 revision of Archbishop Cranmer’s BCP (Book of Common Prayer) Evensong, that I feel very sad it now happens so infrequently and is so under-attended. Why, when it used to be so popular?

Running concurrently with Evensong was another Service, also beginning at 7.00 pm, and called “the Antioch Service”. I understand it was designed more for the younger folk who preferred contemporary music and a different type of worship altogether. It was lead by another member of the clergy and was held in the adjacent church hall. I did not get to see how many people attended that Service but did note that there were not that many cars parked around the church. It used to be hard to find a park within several blocks back in those “olden days” of 300+ in the congregation!

Not just the demise of Evensong saddens me, but that worship has moved away from singing the Psalms as was done so prominently in that form of Service. Psalms are such wonderful God-inspired prayers and are a real treasure that comes at great cost to ignore. If you wish to learn how to pray, commit to memory as many verses of the Psalms as you can and then draw on them in your prayer life to enrich it immeasurably. We are losing a lot that is of real value by abandoning the BCP and not raising younger folk to appreciate these liturgies, thus denying them the pleasure that can derive from that kind of worship.

Am I really becoming an old fogey? Oh horrors!

I have been offered a number of reasons for this demise and the abandoning of our choral tradition. One was the greater competition on a Sunday for church attendances, including more entertainment options and commitments to other activities. That meant church needed to be made “more relevant” and something new, far more creative and dynamic, had to be found. The choral tradition and the words of the BCP were considered to belong to a culturally elitist group (the elderly?) and no longer grounded and authentic as a form of worship for modern generations. The formal liturgies of the BCP were considered traditions that no longer sustained, evidenced obviously by the lack of attendees. Someone suggested that people didn’t like going out in cold winter evenings… er, but may do so if Bingo and Karaoke are on offer. To worship God corporately is a privilege (as well as a duty) and such a weak excuse is quite shameful. “Sorry God, I’d rather keep warm by my fire… even though Jesus suffered horrific torture and death on the cross for me.” So much for the measure of our faith these days. What wimps we’ve become if that is the case. I hope not!

But if the church offers Evensong and only a tiny handful of people turn up, is it sensible to continue offering that kind of Service? A very good question, and it is quite reasonable to say that something needs to change. But the next question… what is it that has to change? Is it the Worship Service… or is it the people, the church, the body of Christ? This is worth thinking about.

The BCP liturgies have been increasingly dropped by the church in the most recent generation as the church strives to appeal to youth (mainly) through their own secular culture. The youth are not being taught to love what already exists, but to develop their own separate way of doing things - and that is a modern trend that works against the continuation of previous forms of worship. The church is seeking after youth, rather than the youth believe they have any rightful business with the church that existed long before they were born. The church will pander to secular culture or argue that, not doing so, it will die. And people point to Evensong and the few elderly attenders to “prove” such a statement, calling it sentimental nostalgia rather than authentic worship. BCP Evensong lasted from the time of Archbishop Cranmer (the 16th century) until a generation ago, and now, within this one generation, it has gone down the gurgler. So now we flip-flop among a variety of experimental formats, searching for this something new, creative and dynamic. The church has to run after people to make them want to attend. Why, in this generation, have people stopped learning to love the worship of the church which many generations before have done?

I was not born liking the choral tradition, nor the BCP Evensong, but at the time I started going to church that was what was on offer. That was how we worshipped. Nobody thought that I, or any other young person, should object and insist on it being done some other way (in order to be enticed to attend). I simply learnt to like it, which after a while I did. But now that we apparently must change what had been established in order to entice people to come and worship, I am wondering where is the sense of privilege (let alone duty!) to do so. People have to be lured into coming. They have to “like” the worship, and have it done their own way - not learn an already accepted way of doing things. Scripture informs the BCP which is very rich in its presentation, and the music is not subversive of the Word - those sung psalms are embedded in my brain as the music soars in my soul. And now, in the space of one generation, this worship history is being abandoned and wiped out by a culturally modern replacement (if an evening service is being offered at all) devised by just anyone. It may well be their own best, which I don’t deny also has merit, but it comes at the cost of losing several centuries of glorious praise and exaltation far better than most of us can offer by ourselves.

I am also left wondering what else is going to be changed (in generations to come) because it is not liked, and I see it already happening where people don’t like to hear about sin, and the eternal consequences of sin, and about obedience and God’s holiness and their own lack of it, etc. Some will even veer towards Biblical revisionism to avoid it. And while I think of it, who remembers the 39 Articles (and the others that Cranmer first came up with) these days? Lose some of these things and we are losing part of the Anglican tradition that will indeed come at a cost.

I was also told that the language of the BCP was an obstacle for many, that it is Elizabethan English which people don’t use nor understand these days. After all, if I wanted to be truly authentic, I should be recommending that we worship in Hebrew or Greek (the languages of the Old and New Testaments) or even in Latin. No, I agree with Martin Luther… the written word of God needs to be heard in the vernacular, and our worship must be understood by the worshippers. Hebrew and Greek are entirely different languages, but Elizabethan English is no further removed from today’s English than is that which is used to txt like a teen. Didn’t we learn to read Shakespeare at school? The “Elizabethan English” of the BCP is very mildly such compared with Shakespeare. I can understand both ends of that language continuum well enough to appreciate the right doctrine that Cranmer was keen for his clergy to teach (and congregation to understand) and communicate effectively with my young son on the end of his cell phone. Is that so unusual? Perhaps it is.

For myself, the BCP is most certainly not “merely a set of nice sounding words which are sort of comforting in an unthinking kind of way” (as was also suggested to me) although I do understand that there is a danger of it becoming so for those who “rote learn” without being mindful of what they are saying, or don’t wish to understand the right doctrine which is embodied by the words spoken or sung. People are more impatient these days, wanting things instantly without applying effort to learn, and so we must bend to them rather than have them bend themselves. The church service itself is seen as the missional outreach, rather than the home of worship from which the church members then go outside the walls to spread the gospel and draw new believers into the pews. Discipleship is being done as part of worship, rather than as something else again and done by all the church outside those times of worship. However, I thought worship was directed towards God, the One whom we worship, ourselves offering ourselves to Him with praise, thanksgiving and prayers of supplication, and songs of joy, etc. But that, I know, is a narrow view of worship when it is expected that a church service itself must encompass other functions, such as mission.

Virtue Online (the Voice for Global Orthodox Anglicanism) very recently (25 May, 2010) posted an article by Robin Jordan concerning a booklet published by the Latimer Foundation on the subject of “Praying with Understanding: Explanations of Words and Passages in the Book of Common Prayer”… I quote a small excerpt here, but the whole article may be read here, or the booklet itself downloaded from here.

One of the greatest failures of the church in recent years has been the failure to teach. So much so, that lay people today are often crying out for teaching, but the clergy (whether through uncertainty, mistaken priorities or sheer overwork) are still not supplying the need.

The services which are used every Sunday are an obvious subject for teaching, yet it has often been taken for granted that people know why they use them and fully understand what they mean. Much, of course, can be learned about them simply by thoughtful use of them, but certain things cannot.

Then, when the church enters an era of revolution, as at present, it is possible for the revolutionaries to decry the traditional services as ‘unintelligible’, simply because they contain some things hard to understand, which nobody troubles to make clear.

. . . .

A hundred years after his work [Archbishop Cranmer's BCP] had been done, the 1662 revisers tell us in their ‘Preface’ that they had found certain words and phrases which had fallen out of use or changed their meaning in the meantime, and that they had therefore substituted others.

Today, three hundred years later again, it is not surprising if the same situation has arisen once more; and, in any revision carried out on the modest principles of the 1662 revisers, a sprinkling of words and phrases might well need to be changed for the same reasons. But that is all.

The number of such words and phrases is not great, and it would be no more necessary today, in the cause of intelligibility, to change the whole substance and style of the Prayer Book, than it was in the seventeenth century. The text, as the 1662 revisers left it, was essentially Cranmer’s text, and a modern revision carried out on the same principles would again leave us with a text that was quite recognisably Cranmer’s.

The ‘invisible mending’ would hardly show. It would not be in everyday speech, and would include some harmless antiquarianisms like ‘thou’, ‘thee’ and ‘thy’; but then the Prayer Book never was in everyday speech - rather, it was in a finer form of speech, which sometimes differed from everyday speech chiefly in being simpler and clearer.

An unusual way of speaking is quite a different thing from an unintelligible way of speaking, though today they are so regularly supposed the same. To change words and phrases which have fallen out of use or altered their meaning would remove all trace of unintelligibility, while leaving a nobly unique text which was still unmistakably Cranmer’s own.

In the meantime, such words and phrases can at least be explained. The clergy can, of course, explain them by word of mouth, and one of the aims of the present booklet is to show clergy how easily this teaching gap can be bridged. However, in parishes where this is not as yet being done, it may help to have the explanation available for laity also in brief written form.

No doubt the clergy are overworked (the ones I know certainly are!) but perhaps the rest of the church - we, the congregation - have a responsibility in terms of mission: sharing, teaching and discipling? But I guess it is human nature to reinvent the wheel, presuming that it is not quite round enough for a new generation, and anything more modern must always be better.

Oops, I’m sounding like an old fogey well before my time!

Psalm 23 is an old favourite and so many of us can recite the words, almost as many as can remember those to the Lord’s Prayer. But I wonder if you had noticed the use of the pronouns in this wellknown psalm?

This psalm of King David is a literary unity with two governing metaphors expressing God’s care and goodness: the shepherd, and the banquet table.

In the first metaphor, the shepherd stays with his flock throughout all occasion, that of safety and plenty, and that of danger and need, of trouble and adversity. His sheep are totally dependent on the shepherd for their food, water, and protection from wild animals - danger and threat of harm.

David begins by expressing this spiritual fact objectively, as though telling us about God. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousnes…” David uses the third person pronoun, He, in reference to God.

But then, when he comes to the fourth verse, beginning “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”, David changes from the third person pronoun to one of more immediate and closer presence. He continues “…you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Next he moves to the second metaphor, still using this pronoun of immediate presence. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

As I was reading this the other day, it suddenly struck me how interesting this change was, and especially concerning the point at which it occurred.

As David regarded the change in his situation to become one of greater danger, namely “the valley of the shadow of death”, it is as though he senses that the Lord has come closer. He is no longer away from him in order to be spoken of in the third person, but has moved close to be with David who speaks of Him in a first person relationship - I and You, my and Your. The Lord is right there, ready to protect, ready to nurture, ready to meet our every need. He is not far away; He is right with us.

Interesting, I thought. And a comforting spiritual reality.

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Crossing Cook Strait on the Aratere is not my most preferred way to spend an afternoon. However, the Marlborough Sounds do offer picturesque scenery for tourists, and the Strait itself can bring added excitement those days when strong cross currents and high winds combine to make it one of the roughest stretches of water in the world.

Just before we embarked I grabbed a book from the local secondhand shop, and at only $2 per hour, it made the journey much sweeter for me. Another traveller peered to see the title of what I was reading… Shame, by Jasvinder Sanghera. It was an interesting, if harrowing, autobiography and given that sailing conditions were no greater than “moderate”, the 290 pages were able to fill those three hours perfectly. Thank goodness for books.

In her book Jas recounted her heart-rending true story of oppression, escape from forced arranged marriage, resultant family rejection, and a harrowing struggle against a punitive code of honour. Born in Derby (England) of Asian immigrant parents, she witnessed the torment and abuse endured by her older sisters in such marriages, and ran away from home as a young teenager when it became her turn to follow suit.

But the story became one of triumph over adversity when Jas, after two broken marriages, two small children, pregnant with another, fulfilled her dream to earn a degree at university and co-founded a community-based project to support others like herself, women affected by domestic violence and honour-based crimes. (Jas has since written a subsequent book, Daughters of Shame, published January 2009, which continues her advocacy campaign against forced marriages and abuse of Indian and Pakistani women).

One of the characteristics of shame, as a human emotion, is that it is experienced when the cloak of secrecy is removed and exposure results. To avoid shame we seek to hide those things of which we are ashamed. But the interesting thing Jas experienced was the relief from unburdening herself to a non-judgmental empathic listener, one who was able to listen with true compassion. Removing the cloak of secrecy cut straight through the crushing humiliation of shame and brought her out of its darkness into an emancipation from its destruction. She learnt that, not only do women need a refuge, but to talk and share their horrifying experiences. Then the shame will be undone, revealed as crimes perpetuated by others rather than by themselves. There was a pressing need for the kind of acceptance that encouraged this outpouring, supporting the women culturally while yet undoing the damage of their enculturation. It seemed almost a contradiction, supplying a cultural milieu to counteract a cultural crime. But there are most definitely times when such a non-judgmental environment is absolutely essential.

On arrival home from my Cook Strait reading adventure, I discovered a copy of our most recent community newsletter stuffed in the mailbox. Flicking through the brief news items I found an advertisement for a new kind of service at the local Uniting Church. There was an invitation to come and “worship with a difference” by joining with others for a relaxed time of talking about all sorts of topics, listening to the veiwpoints of others, and finding a variety of things to think about. That is worship?

This is certainly an age of relativism. The Asian women who need to recover from culturally inflicted suffering require a culturally appropriate environment (empathic, accepting, supportive) in which they are enabled to do so, but I personally don’t see Christian church worship as an activity which lends itself quite to a communal sharing of viewpoints. If that is worship, I’m left wondering just who and what was to be worshipped.

Today is a special day for Kiwis.

New Zealanders consider 25th April to be an important national day of commemoration - not of war and the horrors of war, but of bravery and valour, “brotherhood”, and nationhood.

Indeed, for many of us it is considered now to be the day, back in 1915, when our small developing nation, regarded dispensable by British war lords, deserted in its most dreadful hour by Mother England, truly became of age.

It is a special day of reflection in my own family, my father-in-law having fought at Gallipoli back then. I never knew him as he was a much older man when my husband was born, and died long before I met his son. But the family memories remain, and it will not be forgotten how these men fought so bravely, as did the Turks opposing them. Both sides had enormous respect for each other, which made fighting that much more difficult. It is easier if you hate your enemy, but when that does not turn out to be the case, one has to remember the bigger picture… that the man in the uniform could well become your friend, but what he stood for was something else.

These days there is a special relationship between Kiwis, Aussies and Turks. This was evident when my husband, on business in Turkey, happened to mention his father’s participation in the Gallipoli campaign. It opened many doors and he was greeted like a brother. Note the words below of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 - 1938), the Founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President, on the Ari Burnu Memorial, Gallipoli. It was this same man, Lt-Col (later Colonel) Mustafa Kemal Bey (Ataturk), who commanded the Turkish forces pitted against the ANZAC troops on the Gallipoli Peninsular in 1915:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives — You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehemets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours — you, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

~ ATATURK, 1934

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When I sat down at my computer this morning, my eyes still blurry with sleep, something looked not quite as I remembered it ought. My keyboard seemed to be different, as though it was trying to tell me something. Perhaps it was just that I was half asleep, for I certainly seemed to be dreaming…

Has it really been that long?
I never would have believed it.

Judah’s Journal is 5 years old today!

Hubby and I had been pouring over computer specs all day and we needed an airing, a visit to a local café for our customary “two long blacks”. One each, that is.

They were duly delivered along with little slips of paper bearing conversation-provoking messages. Mine read “Never believe in absolutes”. No reason was given why not, but the interesting thing was the contradictory nature of the message, itself being an absolute. The unstated corollary would have to be “including this one!”

“That’s the trouble with the world today,” volunteered Hubby. “People don’t want to believe in absolutes. It’s all relative even when it is not.” A silver-coloured car went past just outside the window. “That car is painted a silver colour,” he said. “I don’t care who says it is some different colour. It isn’t. It is a silver colour.”

Well, I certainly have no argument with that. There are absolutes, whether we believe that or not. Try jumping off a building in the belief that gravity is only relative and it wont have any effect on one’s fall. One way to sort out believers from non-believers! The absolutes don’t jump; the relatives end up a mess on the ground.

I remember a psychology lecture on neuro-linguistic programming - NLP. We were taught that “the map is not the world” and that our perception was merely a map. The world was reality, our map not necessarily so. We all go around with maps, and they don’t necessarily read the same. One could have a mountain where another has a lake. The reader of each map will have a different response to that part of the world.

Now that makes sense to me when I find my perception differs from that of others. We all react, at least in part, to our various perceptions of reality. If someone told you, in a language you did not comprehend, that all your family back home had died in a house fire… well, you’d be none the wiser. You had not perceived the meaning of their message. Your existing map does not represent that part of the world. But should that be said in the language you do understand… what a different reaction that could provoke! Suddenly your map corresponds more closely to the reality of that part of the world.

I guess the whole essence of sanity is having one’s map correspond closely to the world. What is real, right, true… they need to match existing reality. Where that does not happen, we may be deceived, in denial, deluded, or dead. And so I will go for absolutes. I need to match my map closely to the world or I’ll confuse the features of the landscape and most likely lose my way… if I had any idea where I was heading in the first place. A lake is not a mountain, and it wont stop being a lake just because I perceive it as something else. A silver-coloured car is silver-coloured, no matter who says it is otherwise.

When I am told it is right to do something because everybody else does it, or because I can get away with it without being caught… no, that is not the definition of “right”. What is right has to match with something that remains consistent in all circumstances regardless of how others behave, or who might be around to catch me out. What is right, real, true… all of those things have to correspond with their immutable source. If not, then we say goodbye to absolutes and those things are relative to whatever changing standard we choose. Nope, not for me. Absolutely!

Hmm, not a bad cup of coffee. Now back to those computer specs…

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The Last Supper that spoke of the new covenant of God with His people, the anguish of Jesus in Gethsemane, the horrendous Crucifixion, and then the glorious Resurrection, are all profoundly meaningful and moving for followers of Christ. Jesus was faithfully obedient to His Father right to the victorious end.

One of the most important things I have learned on my Journey, brought home to me again by these Easter events, would have to be this:

That our obedience also matters, and is how we show our gratitude and love for Christ. We are warned not to allow ourselves to become hardened, because if we look at the whole concept of hardening in its Biblical perspective, we see that something happens to us through repeated sins. Our consciences become seared. The more we commit a particular sin, the less remorse we feel from it. Our hearts are recalcitrant through repeated disobedience.

To all those who argue that God will overlook what they are doing, that it does not matter that much, or even that their sin is not a sin…

When God hardens the heart, all He does is step away and stop striving with us. For example, the first time I commit a particular sin, my conscience bothers me. In His grace, God is convicting me of that evil. God is intruding into my life, trying to persuade me to stop this wickedness. If He wants to harden me, all He has to do is to stop rebuking me, stop nudging me, and just give me enough rope to hang myself.

We see in Scripture that when God hardens hearts, He does not force people to sin; rather, He gives them their freedom to exercise the evil of their own desires (James 1:13–15), to go their own way, to choose to believe what they want to believe.

James 1:13–15: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

Think of all that Jesus went through for us… and His glorious victory resulting from faithful obedience.

Pray this prayer with the psalmist David: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).

My own prayer: May God make your heart more tender, your conscience more sensitive, and your resolve to obey Him far stronger than your temptation to do otherwise. May God make this happen to me that my journey will continue on the narrow path, through the narrow gate, as it must as a true disciple of Christ. Amen.

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There is a connection, but these days it is often forgotten, not known, or deliberately ignored. The secularization of much of Christianity, from the promotion of a social gospel (without Gospel) to consumerism (with Santa) at Christmas, includes the concentration on chocolate to mark the celebration of Easter.

In the newspaper was a list of what kinds of shops may legally trade on Easter Sunday, and just what they may sell. The rest will be breaking the law. Whatever guides that decision is somewhat incomprehensible, and frankly, quite silly. I may bet on the horses at the TAB, but I can’t make a sandwich to sell to another. So I can play but not work, make money through recreation, but not through a service to others (except in tourist “hot spots”). Sandwiches made prior to the day will pass, but not ones made freshly on the day. I sympathise with those who criticise the senselessness of such a law, but if they don’t want any law about Easter, then perhaps they should not claim the holiday (Holy Day) - nor increased pay rates for working it - either. Oh, but it is a good excuse for some kind of celebration, even forgetting the Christian significance, or rendering it innocuous by converting to chocolate egg eating instead.

For a nation of just 4½ million people, we in New Zealand manage to consume $(NZ)31,000,000 of chocolate at Easter ($7 each, including babies of course) and chomped through a whole $(NZ)383,000,000 worth in total last year. Many of us will eat far more than others as someone like me who, as a diabetic, has learnt to enjoy Easter without needing to eat chocolate which would do me no good… so someone else is eating my share! One of the biggest eggs on sale this year weighs 1 Kg and provides 22,400 kilojoules (5,350 nutritional calories) of energy - about 2½ times the daily energy requirement for one person. It would take over a day of walking, or 13½ hours of cycling, or 10 hours of jogging, or 7½ hours of swimming, to work it all off. Not for me… I’m too lazy for that! …or would, more likely, end up in hospital.

Now, the neglected connection… and of course, it has to do with new life.

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?
(My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)

Some of those standing at the foot of the cross where Jesus was nailed thought he was calling out to the prophet, Elijah. One of them offered him a sponge soaked in sour wine. Others suggested they wait to see if Elijah would come to save him. But again Jesus called out… and then he died.

Then we are told that the earth shook, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the most significant event of all… the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, revealing the Holy of Holies.

The curtain between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place (where no one was allowed to enter except the high priest on only one day of the year) was an elaborately woven fabric of 72 twisted plaits of 24 threads each. It was 60 ft high and 30 ft wide. The significance of this tearing apart was that, on the death of Jesus, there was no longer a separation between God and His people. Jesus had borne the powerful wrath of God for our sins, and fully experienced the hellish abandonment of God. The price was paid, the debt discharged, the way made clear for our legal righteousness before God.

This was no ordinary man, the soldiers and people at the foot of the cross conceded. The centurion, we are told, was filled with awe and said “Truly this was the Son of God!”

These are eye witness accounts. Not just one eye witness, but many.

But what happened on the third day - Sunday - was also remarkable. Despite Roman guards, a special seal, and a 2-ton rock obstructing the entrance, the confirmed dead, thoroughly embalmed (100 pounds of ointment and spices!) and well wrapped body of Jesus emerged alive from the tomb. Again, many eye witness accounts of his solid appearance. No wraith or spirit. He offered himself to be touched, and he ate a piece of fish to prove he was real. Even those who had been hostile towards him, and disbelieving, were convinced in spite of themselves.

So what am I to make of this?

I have a choice - either I can believe these accounts, or disbelieve them. If I disbelieve them, I have some serious problems to resolve. How otherwise to explain these accounts? There have been many attempts, but none of them stand up to rigorous reasonable, logical and forensic scrutiny. Indeed, the whole account, starting with my knowledge of myself and an examination of the evidences provided, has a certain coherence and credibility in relation to each other. For instance, I know I am far from perfect. I don’t know what I can do to rid myself of objective guilt - the reality that I frequently betray my conscience and break laws of all kinds - other than accepting the solution offered by the Jesus of Holy Scripture.

Jesus requires a personal commitment to Him if I am to accept His offer of legal righteousness before God. He bore my sins, and in exchange, I am imputed with His righteousness in the eyes of God. He makes all things new, and gives me a new life. This must involve a relationship. It is not a mere assent to the truth of these things, but an involvement with Him in the most intimate and personal of ways. He commands obedience - an obedience to His commandments to love God with all my heart, mind, body and soul. And in turn, to love my neighbour as myself. I am to love with Godly love, the unselfish and humble giving of myself to Him and to others. This is a very tall order, but it is a response to the great love He showed in giving Himself for me (and you) in this way. And that is just the beginning of the story… there is far more yet to come.

Easter Sunday. The celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. Many sceptics have become Christians while attempting to refute the Resurrection. To present all the evidences here would take too many words. The significance and explanations surrounding them have been debated strenuously, and the proof evidence presented continues to point to the only reasonable conclusion, namely, that Christ rose bodily from death.

To follow these evidences and the arguments every way concerning them, click on the following links. Go on, I dare you! Sceptics and scoffers beware. If you are prepared to give honest consideration to what you read here, prepare for (at very least) a seed of doubt to enter your disbelief.

Evidence for the Resurrection by Josh McDowell
Evidence for the resurrection of Christ by Peter Kreeft
Evidences for the Resurrection by J. Hampton Keathley III, M.Th.
Evidence for the Resurrection from “Contend for the Faith“, an Apologetics and Theology Resource.

A comment from Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Boston College:

The historical evidence is massive enough to convince the open-minded inquirer. By analogy with any other historical event, the resurrection has eminently credible evidence behind it. To disbelieve it, you must deliberately make an exception to the rules you use everywhere else in history. Now why would someone want to do that?

Ask yourself that question if you dare, and take an honest look into your heart before you answer.

What best to do with the Easter Bunny… and who thought babies didn’t eat chocolate?

Email Judah

He asked his disciples to watch with him and pray. Instead, they fell asleep. This was the night of terrible anguish and agony, knowing as he did what was to come.

Just the physical pain on its own would have been enough. The flaying with a whip, its sharp pieces of lead cutting his flesh to the bone. His body already ripped and bleeding, the exhaustion of struggling to carry the heavy cross to his place of execution. The thick iron nails driven through the bones of his feet and his wrists. The lifting up so his body hung on the nails, each breath intensifying the pain. The most cruel torturous death. But there was more… He was innocent. Even so, he was mocked and humiliated, taunted and spat at. But still there was more… far more than just that. This innocent man was to bear the whole wrath of God which would be unleashed upon him.

So in the garden of Gethsemane he prayed, knowing all this. He asked that the cup be taken from him, but he knew that was not going to be. He had come for this purpose, and he would go through with it. “Not my will, Father, but yours be done.”

His friends could not stay awake to be with him one hour… not even one hour.

This past night we took it in turns, just one or two at a time. We came quietly and remained in silence, letting each other in or out of the chapel as the hours slipped gracefully by. There was no such cup for us to drink, our beloved master having already drunk it down to the very last drop. We watched with him in spirit, prayerfully remembering his terrible ordeal.

I stayed five hours, fully awake but mind and spirit there with him among the olive groves. I wondered… would I be like Peter and deny him too? But watching what it did to him, how could I, he who has since willingly borne what I would never now have to bear? He has done that in love, so where would be mine? No, it is not enough to say Thanks and just walk away. In the early morning Peter wept bitterly when the rooster crowed, and my heart went out to him too. The price was paid, the debt is discharged. I belong to him, he now owns my all. The words of the hymn put it well.

Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour,
Turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See Him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned;
O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.

(James Montgomery)

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It is a matter of relationship… the children of God are those whom He has adopted, those being the followers of His Son, Jesus.

The other evening our son came round for dinner, something he often does when his pay packet doesn’t quite stretch to cover the entire week. He knows his mother will always feed him, and even sometimes, make his favourite dessert - a fruit-laden, cream-filled pavlova. This is not to encourage him to mess up his budget and run short of funds, but to reward the efforts he truly does make as he struggles with his course in Reality 101.

After dinner the youngster put me through an entertaining quizz session. What would stop me from loving him? He suggested all sorts of horrors, and as I answered him, I knew that none of them could possibly stop me from loving him (even though I’d be visiting him in jail if he did any of them!) It has something to do with the love of a parent, a special kind of love. He enjoyed my responses, seeming content that he was truly loved. As we sat there together I thought too of how much our Father must also love us… that nothing can separate us from His love for His own beloved children. I was aware that the kind of love I have for my son includes total forgiveness, and that it must be so of our Father whose love for His children is even so much greater. It is just wonderful to reflect on that.

To be justified by faith in Christ gives a believer the legal status of righteousness before God. Repentance is required, a turning away from sin. It is also a response to such faith as obedience reflects a love of Him, a desire to be faithful to Him. It is a relationship of love, and a love that reassures of forgiveness. To make room in our hearts to fully appreciate that requires the forgiving of others… the more I forgive, the more I experience His forgiveness. The more I love, the more I experience His love. As His child, His love and forgiveness were there for me anyway.

Thank you Father for the child you gave me, and the gift of parenthood even when the way has been tough. It is a chance to know and enjoy You just that little bit more.

Email Judah

The other day somebody asked me my name. I answered with the one that most people call me. “Interesting,” my enquirer said, “did you realize that St Jude is the patron saint of hopeless and desperate cases and lost causes?” Well, I hadn’t prefixed myself with any such title, but I did wonder where the conversation might be going to lead.

Jude is another form of the Hebrew name Judah, and just happens to be my own name as well. There is a Jude who was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, someone considered to be the brother of James, and also the brother of Jesus. There is a little disagreement among scholars over the exact kinship relationships, but this Jude is believed to have written the epistle which is included in the New Testament. He describes himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, and writes to “those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ”. It is a short little letter, but it carries a very important message - a serious warning.

Jude warns of the false teachers who have infiltrated the early church and are trying to lure believers away from the truth, telling them that God’s forgiveness allows them to live immoral lives. These godless people were distorting the established truth, that repentance was required for forgiveness, and repentance meant turning one’s back on the sin and steering well clear of it in future. These false teachers were persuading folk that God’s grace of forgiveness meant they were free to continue sinning, that they had been granted a licence to disregard God’s moral laws and carry on just as before.

No way! says Jude. This is definitely not so, and to continue living in deliberate and unrepentant sin is a rejection and repudiation of God’s grace. He reminds folk of Sodom and Gomorrah, the twin cities obsessed with sexual immorality and perversion, which then were seared off the face of the planet in a spectacular fireball.

Reading this epistle I was struck by the similarity of the situation in this current age. Jude could just as well be writing to the church of today. In fact, he is - in the sense that holy scripture is the written word of God meant for all human beings, back then, here now, in between, and as far as the future extends. Back in those days it was both the gnostic heresy, and profoundly libertine (morally unrestrained) teaching, that was invading the church. Today it is the secular notions of a human-centred, psycho-social orientated and revised nominal so-called Christianity, often based on a theological liberalism that allows moral relativism and New Age ideologies to distort the truth. In other words, the morally unrestrained teaching is present today, causing division and schism, and propagating a false gospel.

That Jude, and this Jude writing to my Journal, concur on the need for the warning. This is not a lost cause as God remains Sovereign. But there will be many who become hopeless and desperate cases by their own defiance of Him. Persisting in sin - that is, deliberately and unrepentantly breaking God’s moral laws that He has established - is not at all a wise thing to do. Indeed, it is very risky if you know anything at all about God. Jude warns against allowing these false teachers to continue having influence in the church, and for the church to defend the truth agressively against this infiltration. He writes that the church must contend for the one true faith once-and-for-all-delivered to the saints, and people of faith must persevere to the end by resisting the false teachers and following the truth.

Sometimes I have to conclude that some of our church leaders do not bother to read this important little epistle near the back of their Bibles, or maybe if they do, they are just not the “people of faith” themselves. What an awful thing to come to conclude!

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As part of our family folklore, my brothers and I enjoyed the mischief involved in how it came about that our parents first met. We were told they had both been co-opted into teaching Sunday School at the local Anglican Church. It seemed that my Dad had his eye on my Mother right from the start, but she was not showing very much interest. To raise his profile a little my Dad chose to exercise a specific talent we children, some years later, came to enjoy greatly about him - his rather naughty sense of humour.

One cold winter’s evening, the little group of aspiring teachers huddled around the open fire in the front room of the vicarage, learning from the Vicar what the next Sunday’s lesson was all about. The Vicar stood facing them with his back to the fire, and my Dad was seated well to the side. When my Dad caught my Mother’s eye he silently mouthed the words “watch this!” As innocent as ever, he flicked something into the fire… a small torch battery. There was a loud bang and shower of sparks, a shocked gasp from the others, and the Vicar leapt forward with his hands protecting his bottom. After everything eventually settled down, my Dad did it again… another loud bang, shower of sparks, and a small battery consumed in the flames. My Mother was not impressed! She never really was by any of my Dad’s naughty pranks, but her attention had been got and somehow, by some miracle, they ended up becoming our parents.

Being a child of once-upon-a-time Sunday School teachers did result in my own attendance for a while, but with regard to our family, the seed had apparently been sown on fairly shallow ground or amongst weeds, or something like that. I’m not sure what happened to the roots but the kind of fruit tasted nice… just not especially spiritual. For instance, I remember asking my Dad once why we didn’t say Grace before a meal, and he explained that was because he worked hard for what he got and had earned it by all his very own efforts. Oh. God really was not in the picture at all. Looking back, despite the ingratitude, I see that He still blessed us abundantly anyway.

Recently our newspaper ran a story of a billionaire who honoured a pact that he had with God, a deal made many years beforehand. If God would make him wealthy, he would give half of his wealth to the church. The story told how the man had eventually fulfilled that promise, saying that God was owed that 50%. Oh.

But I have a question… who actually owned all that wealth? Was it the billionaire, or was it really God in the first place? My Christian understanding is that God created every created thing and therefore all of it belongs to Him. Having created it, He then appointed us stewards of His creation, to enjoy the gifts and blessings He pours out upon us, but only in Him do we have this access, do we have our very being. Ourselves, and including everything we lay claim to, first-and-foremost belongs to Him. It has always done so. What can we take with us when we die? Everything that exists does so only because it is His and sustained by Him.

Do you behave as though you own all you have, or as a steward of God’s wealth instead? Do you know where you rightfully stand in your relationship with God?

And he [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
(Mark 12:41-44 - ESV)

Christians are called to be generous and attend to others according to their need. It is admirable that someone gives to the church half of all the wealth over which they have stewardship, but it is the error of worldliness to believe that they owned it all in the first place. Sometimes it is easy to forget that what we have is not really ours but His, and that wise stewardship is required of us by the true Owner of all His creation.

Email Judah

“Are you OK?” my husband asked cautiously. The concern in his voice caught my attention. I fumbled about and managed to prick my finger. “No, not really,” was my slurred response. I managed to get a glucose lolly into my mouth. “But I will be soon,” I tried to say. He looked across at my glucometer which was reading just 1·8 mmol/L. That was the second time in as many days that it had dropped that low… too low, seriously low. Normal blood sugar is in the range of 4 to 8 mmol/L and anything under 2 mmol/L is moving into medical emergency territory. After the lolly, plus 24 grams of a more sustaining carbohydrate (2 plain slices of Bürgen® Soy-Lin bread, toasted) and soon I was back to near normal again. It’s all a matter of balance.

Just as an anorexic can usually tell you exactly how many calories in a sunflower seed, so many diabetics get to know how many carbs, and of what kind (their Glycaemic Index or Glycaemic Load), plus percentage fat and protein too, in this or that item of food. What can and can’t be eaten, how much and when, must be related to existing blood glucose, insulin or hypoglycaemic meds, and levels of activity… it is all a matter of balance.

Just at present I am mildly or moderately “hypo” (hypoglycaemic) every day. It isn’t a lot of fun, but things are carefully being fine-tuned and readjusted. I’m expecting to become better balanced soon. Hey ho, happy days. It is just the way it is for me.

When it comes to matters of faith, and I’m thinking of the Christian faith in particular, there also seems to be a need for some balance… a balance between proposition (belief) and relationship. It was said to me recently that doctrine builds fences. Yes, I suppose that it does - it divides one belief from a logically opposing one. In that sense it is necessary as I am being illogical to hold both at the same time for the same situation. One will be wrong while the other is right, or both may be wrong, but both cannot be right (not wholly so). However, not all fences matter that much, and some most definitely do. There is a far greater divide between someone who says that Jesus is the begotten Son of God (as it does in the Apostle’s Creed) and someone who says that Jesus is just a prophet, highly respected, but not the begotten Son of God (as is taught in Islam) than there is between two believers in the same proposition but simply worship Him (if they do) using a different form of liturgy to do so. So doctrine does build fences, but there are fences within fences, within fences, within fences… and some are far more climbable than others. I can straddle a few fences with reasonable comfort, but some definitely keep me in one place and not in another.

When it comes to relationship, then living according to the Way, or loving as we are commanded to, my faith cannot be all propositional and never put to the test, never put into practice, be just words without those deeds that confirm my commitment to them. There is a strong and direct connection between right belief and right everything else - attitude, behaviour, lifestyle - that shows forth in relationships, and in one relationship in particular, that between Jesus and me.

The balance I now find myself seeking is that between believing according to the Word (my knowledge and understanding) and living in obedience to the Word (to Jesus, the embodiment of God’s word) whereby He is not just my Saviour, but my Lord as well. This relationship to Jesus is critical, based on my increasing knowledge of that which I know to be true… as He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (John 14:6)

It is one thing to know about Jesus, to know what are the fundamentals of the faith, to know the doctrine of this or that church, but it is something quite else to really know Jesus through being in a real living relationship with Him. Right belief takes you only so far, but without the relationship there is no balance at all. Instead, there is the very real danger that one day those terrible words may be heard: “Depart from me…I never knew you.” (Matthew 7) Those would be the most terrible words I could ever hear said, and I certainly pray that I won’t… nor you either!

Email Judah

Last night I happened to mention that it was Fat Tuesday. “What’s that?” asked my son. I told him how, in the liturgical calendar, it was the day before Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent. He thought I was speaking a foreign language since all this was quite unknown to him. Yes, I know that I am educating him in these matters just a little late, but I went on to tell him that Fat Tuesday was so named as the day when you ate up all the rich food prior to the fasting period of Lent, the six weeks leading up to Good Friday and Easter.

Young son caught on fast. “Had I known that, I would have expected a chocolate cake for dinner!” he complained. Yes, I suppose he had a point. Or at least pancakes, the more traditional food on the day.

But when it came to the “giving up” part, the self-denial period of Lent, he was clearly going to take more convincing. Being a low income earner, he already considered he was doing a fair share of “giving up” and self-denial since he is now no longer living at home, taking instead that eye-opening course we call Reality 101.

Today is Ash Wednesday. It is so named for the ancient practice of pouring ashes on one’s body (and dressing in sackcloth) as an outer manifestation of inner repentance or mourning, and is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. What is probably the earliest occurrence is found at the very end of the book of Job. Job, having been rebuked by God, confesses, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). In the New Testament, Jesus alludes to the practice in Matthew 11:21: “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”

Ash Wednesday, like the season of Lent, is never mentioned in Scripture and is not commanded by God. Christians are free to either observe or not observe it. I don’t remember ever doing so before, but this time I chose to observe it. Christians are invited to the altar to receive the imposition of ashes, prior to receiving Holy Communion. The Priest (or Pastor) applies ashes in the shape of the cross on the forehead of each, while speaking the words, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Those were the words God spoke to Adam and Eve after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit and fallen into sin, indicating the most bitter fruit of their sin, namely death. In the context of the Ash Wednesday imposition of ashes, the words remind each penitent of their sinfulness and mortality, their need to repent, and to get right with God before it is too late. The cross reminds us of the good news that through Jesus Christ crucified there is forgiveness for all sins, and all guilt is removed from those truly penitent at heart.

One never knows when that moment that it is “too late” will come. Of course, some don’t care because they don’t believe it anyway. The warning is there, and Jesus spoke often of our eternal danger if not taking heed. All are called to take heed, but sadly, not as many listen. Which kind are you?

Three weeks ago we got some shocking news that left us stunned. The friend who had introduced my husband and me to each other, someone of our same age, was suddenly dead. She had been so full of life, and we thought too young to die. But of course, no one is too young because people die at all ages, some even before they are born. It is a fact of life, so why should we have been so shocked? Still, we had never expected it.

But penitence is not just about an eternal future, whether you believe we have one or not, but about loving He who created us, loving the One who sacrificed all for us, and knowing how sin in all its ugliness distorts and damages and hurts. We sin because we are sinners, but even as sinners, we can still loath what we do and want to turn away from it. Without the grace of God that is impossible, but once He has drawn you to Him, once you have tasted the goodness of knowing Him, known His compassion, been blessed by His riches, then sin becomes so totally abhorrent. Being free of it and clean again is worth all the self-denial in the world.

Lent is not so much about doing without chocolate cake, or giving up meat as some do, although that can certainly be an outward part of it. Lent is far more about self-denial through turning away from the sins we commit, all of them, not just those of greed and selfishness, and doing so in response to His great love for us. Without His grace I cannot do that, but He is generous in His graciousness and I owe Him my all. Lent, for me, is some more of my journey with Him.

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Those things that a man can not amend in himself or in others, he ought to suffer patiently, until God orders things otherwise.
Think that perhaps it is better so for thy trial and patience, without which all our good deeds are not much to be esteemed.
Thou oughtest to pray nevertheless, when thou hast such impediments, that God would grant thee help, and that thou mayest bear them kindly.

(Thomas à Kempis, 1380-1471)

I often dip into this little book for the gems of wisdom that it elucidates from an enlightened understanding of Biblical truth.

Knowing myself as I do, and of my friends around me, there is one thing that is outstandingly obvious… not one of us is perfect! Today’s liberal culture will have it said that most humans are basically good, but while we may think of ourselves and our friends mainly in that light, compared against a standard of absolute goodness (total perfection in righteousness, holiness, infallibility and all those other such superlatives) that idea begins to crumble fast. We may appear good in our own eyes, but how quickly we can find faults by barely scratching the surface. Would you not agree?

Even so, am I not “good enough” to be conisdered basically good? Well, I certainly try. At times I get called an angel, but many other times, I am a huge frustration to those who expect something else of me. And even when doing what others want of me, no way do I measure up very well against a standard of perfection, of absolute goodness. And what’s more… nor do others whom I know.

OK, that’s all old hat… humans have their faults. But how to cope with the frustration of that fact, the irritation others produce in us (or rather, our irritation in response to them - and yes, there is a difference there, a small and important matter of self responsibility!) and the resentment, anger and ultimately guilt that can result? Resentment and guilt are often opposite sides of the same coin, melded if genuine repentance does not intervene and render it spent. My guilt will have me become resentful just as surely as my resentment is a matter of which I am guilty. It doesn’t pay to entertain either for very long. These coins weigh heavily in my pocket.

And what does Thomas say about that? Read on…

2. If one that is once or twice warned will not listen, contend not with him: but commit all to God, that his will may be fulfilled, and his name honored in all his servants, who well knoweth how to turn evil to good.
Endeavor to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort soever they be; for that thyself also has many failings which must be borne by others.
If thou canst not make thyself such a one as thou wouldest, how canst thou expect to have another fashioned to thy liking?
We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults.

(ibid.)

OK Thomas, you’ve got me there. I cannot make myself be perfect so how can I possibly expect the same of others? I can’t! Not reasonably. Not realistically. Not by my doing, nor by their own. What point is it to be hassled by that fact? It must become an exercise in patience, and if I am a believer (which I am) then turning it over to God for His own intervention according to His will.

What next?

3. We will have others severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves.
The large liberty of others displeaseth us; and yet we will not have our own desires denied us.
We will have others kept under by strict laws; but in no way will ourselves be restrained.
And thus it appeareth, how seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.
If all men were perfect, what should we have to suffer of our neighbor for God?

(ibid.)

Am I really more harsh on others than I am on myself? To be honest, sometimes… yes. The more irritated I am, the more retribution I want exacted. Make them behave, God! Make them do as I want! And while you’re at it… fix it so I don’t feel so bad, that whatever inconvenience they have incurred is rectified, that I do not need to suffer them. Why should I suffer the faults of others? What a pain they are!

Back to Thomas for the final bit.

4. But now God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for no man is without fault; no man but hath his burden; no man sufficient of himself; no man wise enough of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.
Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath.
For occasions do not make a man fail, but they reveal what he is.

(Thomas à Kempis, 1380-1471)

Yes, we have things to do for others. And what’s more… such a revelation is surely worth some pondering on.

I asked the Lord that I might grow In faith and love and every grace; Might more of his salvation know, And seek more earnestly his face. ‘Twas he who taught me thus to pray, And he, I trust, has answered prayer; But it has been in such a way As almost drove me to despair. I hoped that in some favoured hour At once he’d answer my request; And by his love’s constraining power, Subdue my sins and give me rest. Instead of this he made me feel The hidden evils of my heart, And let the angry powers of hell Assault my soul in every part. Yea more, with his own hand he seemed Intent to aggravate my woe; Crossed all the fair designs I’d schemed, Blasted my gourds and laid me low. “Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried; “Wilt Thou pursue thy worm to death?” “‘Tis in this way,” the Lord replied, “I answer prayer for grace and faith. These inward trials I employ From self and pride to set thee free And break thy schemes of earthly joy, That thou mayest seek thy all in me.” ~ John Newton (1725 – 1827)

The journey continues… In a previous entry I shared my experience of a most daring prayer, that being a verse of Psalm 139. Unlike those who have told me that God seldom seems to be listening to them, or if He does then He doesn’t respond, I was far from disappointed. The result of sincerely praying those words was incredible, a convincing confirmation that there was certainly Somebody listening and indeed taking notice. It is not that I needed any convincing, but I do have friends who claim not to have any responses to their prayerful entreaties, even to the point of losing faith and giving up altogether on God. Given my own experiences, this weighs heavily on me. I know Him personally to be faithful, generous and loving… but those friends are not experiencing Him as I do. To some of them God just isn’t real. He doesn’t come through for them, and that is simply that. But wait a mo… hear me out, I tell them. There is far more to prayer than the furnishing of a shopping list, with due dates, and maybe some bargaining added to the mix (a measure of one’s desperation, perhaps). That is not what it is about. No way! It is actually about a relationship. Perhaps the most widely known prayer is the one that begins “Our Father…” The words are those of Jesus who enraged and scandalised the religious authorities of the day by teaching His disciples that they may call God their father if they are followers of Himself. Being a child of God does not happen automatically by virtue of being human. This point eludes a great many people. It is a nice cosy sentiment… the universal brotherhood of man, the universal fatherhood of God. But that is free masonry, and universalism, not Biblical Christianity. It was His disciples whom Jesus was teaching to pray this way, and this is the context that often gets ignored. As is written in Scripture, God adopts as His children only those who truly believe in, and so follow, His eternal Son Jesus. This relationship with God is not to be assumed otherwise, and it is this relationship that underlies the promises God has agreed to honour. Whereas God does not limit Himself to answering prayer only within this relationship, it is certainly the properties of this special relationship that impinge greatly on the way we come to pray, the content and motivation of our prayer, and the responses that follow from God. It is within this relationship, properly ordered where God is Sovereign and my chief end is, in the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever”, that I am to submit myself to the will of God and, by the working of His Holy Spirit, become increasingly like Christ. I know that sounds horribly religious, saying it like that, but the bottom line for all prayer is that this end is achieved. Anything that I ask for myself (and on behalf of others) must have that end in view, that our gracious God is honoured and glorified. Prayer of that kind, with that motive, is never unanswered. Included will be the provision of all my genuine needs, those of body, mind and soul. But here’s the crunch… should I hold on to anything that I know to be sin, or attempt to deny it as sin, and be unwilling to give that up, then that may become an obstacle to such an end. Then God will appear not to be listening. So with John Newton, author of the poem and hymn quoted here, I share the same request… and likewise find myself travelling a very similar path these days.

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Clicking back through my Journal posts on Christmas I came across one for which I can claim no credit as the author, but the message is as meaningful to me today as it was back then… even more so.

Some of the words caught my eye… “that which is good and precious in your life need never be lost, and what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed.”

This was being said about Christmas, and the message of Christmas. It had to do with the real reason for our celebrating, the hushed reason that offends secular ears and embarrasses those who believe their Christian friends fuss too much over the birth of some baby way back then. It had to do with change…

Now here’s a question for you. What would you, when being very honest with yourself, like to change in your life? For instance, do you have any bad habits?

Wherever people say about their bad habits, “That’s just the way I am, you’ll have to get used to it,” the message of Christmas has been rejected. I’ve also heard them say “God made me that way” as though God is then to blame, if any blame is warranted, and not oneself.

Read on (if you dare)…

Before anyone says, “Oh, I’ve tried religion and it didn’t help,” let me ask this: How many of you have ever fasted for three days? Two days? One day? Have you taken the word of God, asked for a vacation day, gone away by yourself Friday through Sunday and saturated your mind with holiness and poured out your soul in longing to the Lord for change? Have you gathered around yourself two or three spiritual brothers or sisters, shared with them the habit you want to break, sought their daily earnest prayer and stood yourself accountable to them? If not, then don’t say religion doesn’t work.

Moses fasted forty days, Elijah fasted forty days, Jesus fasted forty days and spent whole nights in prayer. When was the last time you wanted any change in your life bad enough to spend one whole day in prayer and fasting seeking it from the Lord, not to mention three days like Paul (Acts 9:9) or three weeks like Daniel (Daniel 10:2,3), or forty days like Moses?

The writer of those words is John Piper, and he goes on to say…

The problem with most of us is not that the Christmas message is powerless, but that we don’t really want to be changed. “You will seek me and find me (says the Lord, in Jeremiah 29:13) when you seek me with all your heart.” When you want with all your heart to rid yourself of what is evil and undesirable, God will give you the Christmas gift of change.

The message of Christmas is that what is evil and undesirable in your life can be changed. A critical spirit can be changed. Alcoholism can be changed. Irritability can be changed. Harshness and ingratitude can be changed. Laziness and overeating and masturbation and nagging can be changed. The habits of not tithing and excessive T.V. watching and gambling can be changed. The fear of talking to others and of having guests over to your house can be changed. The lack of appreciation for great music and great books can be changed. Indifference to beauty can be changed. And your disposition to remind somebody else to take this sermon to heart can be changed. Christ Jesus came into the world to save us from fatalism. He came to stop people from saying, “That’s just the way I am.”

Ouch! John Piper certainly goes for the jugular when he describes some of those bad habits most of us would rather not admit to, or ‘fess up. Sure, I can pick out those that aren’t mine, just as you can too, but I have no reason to feel righteous as the sheer mention of some has me bouncing off the springboard, remembering others that will stick to me. I don’t really like that, so what shall I do? Then he goes on…

By the power of Christ you can change.
“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into to the world to save you from bondage to sin.” We are not by nature beautiful people. But we have an incomparably beautiful Savior who came into the world to change us into his likeness (Romans 8:29).

OK Pastor John, just when I thought I was on vacation, I see I have far more of the journey to go. It never lets up, or if it does, not for too long. Off I go…

Look for The Message of Christmas under the heading “Pages” on the left-hand navigational side-bar to read more.

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I’m not really much of a gardener and weeds do rather get away on me. But the Roses are prolific, the Geraniums sure know how to climb, and the Bourganvilia might have managed better had they not been so smothered until just the other week. Luckily the Marigolds, Snapdragons, and other little pretties (can’t remember their names) seem to like it where they found themselves, and the Daisies and Daphne are faithful every year anyway. Just as well. As much as I love them all, I’m not a very good mother to them. I just don’t have green thumbs.

Would it help if I was to make a New Year’s Resolution? Take better care of my flowers! I doubt it. My experience of New Year Resolutions is that they usually work in reverse. They seem to trigger the Oppositional Switch in my personality, and that guarrantees certain failure.

What I do find works for me, once I learnt to become organized some time ago, is a list of goals… or tasks. Things to do. Verbs. Things to achieve. Nouns. Going to the extent of adding “due dates” made it too much like school assignments, so I stopped before getting that far. Too easy to give myself extensions for insufficient reasons. But keeping lists and checking off items gave a sense of accomplishment, and made even more sense when I broke down those goals, and the tasks that led to them, into sub-tasks or little steps on the way. They could get checked off as well, and my life would become a glowing record of tiny accomplishments. Just like school these days where nobody fails anymore… just simply “not achieved” er, yet. How postmodern and up with the Age!

So… it is early New Year’s Day, and I have some goals to write down. I have been thinking of them all December (while lying awake with the birdsong) and my keyboard is about to learn of them. No, I’m not making all of them public. Most of them are just for my eyes only… and He who knows every thought before I have even come up with it. But there is an all-encompassing and really massively huge one (well, several) that I can let you know. See if you can match this - be challenged! - for a Really Big Goal…

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
~ Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.
~ Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
~ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
~ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.
~ And be thankful.
~ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
~ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

(Colossians 3:12-17, NIV)

My favourite NZ native tree… the Pohutukawa, metsiderosis excelsa, is known as the New Zealand Christmas Tree. This is exactly the time of year that it comes into blossom, and together with its supposedly Christmas colours of red and green, it is not surprising that it is given that name. I have them growing around my home. This one here is still quite a baby, standing barely thrice my height but expected to reach a good 20 metres or more… provided the local city council doesn’t send their tree-hating so-called “gardeners” out to lop it about!

You could be forgiven for thinking that Judah slept right through this Christmas, there being no other posts to my Journal this month except for the one on the first, but that is not so. I was awake alright!

The days here have been long ones, and busy ones too. The dawn chorus is already going strong by first light, around 5.00 am, with several resident Tuis leading the choir. This lovely native bird, Prosthemadera Novæ Zealandiæ, has reinhabited suburbia now that the culling of opossums, the introduced Aussie pest, has given them back their territories. Much of their song is outside the range of human hearing, but we are given recitals of much chortling, chuckling, warblings, sneezes, and melodious motets that go on endlessly until late at night when the Moreporks, our native owl, takes over to repeat its name through until sunrise.

Living with native bush on my property, there is little chance of remaining asleep throughout summer! But Christmas did come at a rush and was over almost before I could say Hallelujah.

With a few Vicarly words of encouragement, I managed to get myself to the Midnight Communion Service on Christmas Eve, my first for a best forgotten number of years. I’m so glad that I did. It was a wonderful occasion, one that I wont miss again, I promised myself. My first for ages…

In these politically correct days where the words “reason for the season” are barely whispered so as not to give offence (no mind the offence given our Creator!) it takes some courage, or a Christian conviction, to look behind the secular holiday traditions (why red and green for Christmas, do you suppose?) and realize that Jesus was not God’s Plan B for mischievous humans. Our mischief was predicted long before we even came into being, long before the beginning of time. Jesus was born to be killed, made incarnate to redeem, and that was Plan A right from the start.

Sounds engineered, doesn’t it? I don’t personally think so… more like a wise, omniscient Being saw way into the future and arranged His ducks in a row, so to speak. Not just omniscient either, but One who cared enough about His creatures to work out a way whereby love redeems creation. All this can take a bit to get one’s head around, but that is really what Christmas is all about. Lose the occasion under the red and green, silver and gold, sparkles and tinsel, avarice, gluttony, hate, anger and family violence, but it is still there regardless… the Saviour who was born in humble circumstances, was mocked and tortured for our transgressions, but loved us enough to forgive us, sanctify and glorify us with Himself… if only we care enough to follow Him to the foot of the cross, to kneel at the throne of God.

Just recently I read in the newspaper of an incident that happened between a father and son in the city of Detroit, Michigan.

Because of the appalling nature of it, this news item took me deep into the horror of our human condition and haunted me for the rest of that day… and beyond. How could people behave that way? And yet, they do. How could a father do that to his son? And yet, he did.

That teenager’s last moments must have been everything that is the worst one can imagine… and for those who are left, for them as well. And for me, the other side of the world, a story that I really did not want to read. But it was News, and so it was there in my newspaper, there for me and all others to experience some of the appalling nature of human crime and sin.

Yesterday there was another account of a father and son, this time in my own country. The father also killed the son. For some reason we all had to be told about it. What reason?

It is not that I don’t know these things happen. I know it all too well. As time goes on I am finding myself increasingly more affected by this kind of news, by the sad and terrible things that happen in our world, by the terrible and disgraceful things that people will do to each other. We all end up suffering by being some part of it… having it happen to us directly, or else indirectly by the entrance of it into conscious awareness. For me personally, being made aware has me feeling some measure of responsibility for that which I know, as though I should do whatever I can to stop it from happening.

It is very easy to feel quite helpless in the face of this avalanche of evil, overwhelmed by the sheer amount, intensity and hellishness of it all. It is very easy to reach burn-out before the first hour of morning is up. It is very easy to simply switch off, saying that it is nothing to do with me, and nothing I can do to make it stop. It is very easy not to care anymore. Caring is costly. It takes time, empathy, generosity and faith… faith in myself that what I do counts, and faith in the other that they can respond. Caring will share in the suffering, feel the pain and respond to it, but also feel the joy of suffering relieved.

Is it good that we have these troubling images, photos or verbal accounts of terrible things, thrust at us so often uninvited? Should we avoid them to protect ourselves in some way, thus be safely cacooned away from the reality of others who suffer? Should we be party to their proliferation, and for what purpose? Should there be limits on how much, the nature of their portrayal, and the intensity of assault on awareness. All these questions have played themselves out in my mind over the past few days, and I am still none the wiser for their doing so. Part of me wants to run away from the evil deeds of this world, and part of me knows that I am here to live in it, doing whatever I can to improve it for others… including myself.

Also in our newspaper recently was the obituary of the last Kiwi survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. He had been 14 years old when incarcerated and, lying about his age, was assigned to manual labour thus avoided the gas chamber which was the fate of other children. However, he was operated on by the infamous Dr Josef Mengele and suffered enormous deprivations and acts of barbarous cruelty. At the end of the war he gave evidence at Nuremberg, then immigrated to New Zealand and spent the rest of his life devoted to telling others of the vile atrocities which took place… publicizing and informing the rest of us concerning the Holocaust such that we had firsthand accounts, that we would be aware, that such things should never ever happen again. This tireless witness earned him a Queen’s Service medal for community services in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday honours.

These terrible things thrust into our conscious awareness may not be comfortable or pleasant, but may bring about good in alerting us to what must be avoided in future at all costs… if it will work out that way. But they increase our suffering too, haunted as I am by that terrible deed that took place in Detroit. The publishing of some events can lead others into sin… the temptation to dally with evil, inflaming desires, indulging the senses, committing the acts. I frequently wonder how men deal with those junk mail catelogues of women’s clothes featuring a parade of scantily clad young women with such lovely bodies. How often do those images cause someone to stumble (fall into sin) yet are distributed so freely by marketing companies? We live in a world of temptations, of troubling images, and terrible deeds. I would love not to know about them, but yet I do… and it is important that I do. How can I help stop it if I don’t know it is happening?

As a Christian I do have a responsibility to do what I can to obstruct the proliferation of evil, and not to give myself up to it either. I will avoid promoting it, don’t wish to be assailed by it, but cannot turn my back on it either. It exists, and I must deal with that fact. When it barges into my consciousness, I will counter it with prayer to the One in whom I have faith to move mountains, and in my own mind resort to the antidote offered by Paul, himself in prison at the time, to the church in Philippi almost 2,000 years ago. The antidote follows inscribed on the beautiful image of my beloved Southern Alps here below. Try it for yourselves, and praise Him, our Creator, in doing so.

While becoming absorbed in Psalm 139 and allowing those ideas to lead and guide my current journey, its words becoming like the winding roads on a map of the countryside through which one is travelling, I turned some pages and found myself “by chance” in the Song of Songs. This is one amazing book. Here the lover woos his beloved and the dialogue traces their tender and intimate relationship through to its culmination in total self-giving and joy.

Although I write “by chance” I don’t really think it was accidental at all. There is more than a mere hint of purpose in this next discovery of the kind of love we encounter when we seek and find Him, the true lover of our souls.

It is not one kind of love, in accordance with our human categories, but all kinds as we perceive and define them… eros (desire), storge (affection), philia (friendship), and agape (charity) …which come together, woven in perfect combination, to express the completeness of divine love where nothing is held back. It is total, perfect, whole and immeasurable.

The symbolism may be a little difficult to comprehend without keeping in mind that the analogies are figurative rather than literal; that they are not intended primarily to be visual, but to correspond instead to quality and value. How otherwise could a woman be compared to a horse in Pharoah’s court and the comparison not be derogatory in intent… unless it is taken to mean that she is just the very best of her kind? Or a part of her body likened to two fawns, twins of a gazelle, if not suggesting a delightfully engaging youthfulness rather than the species’ own looks?

Thus knowing that, I read with my intuition uppermost, freely associating but knowingly so, and so tasting and savouring the sensuous references to nature and fruitfulness. There to be known was the joyful abundance where satiation and fulfilment are first dreamt then attained, where hope becomes reality, longing becomes ecstacy, and where mutual desire is finally consummated. Such was evocative of God’s great love for Israel, Christ’s love for His church, His love for each soul, the lover embracing His beloved, and the beloved responding in kind. There I found the same experience of being drawn to Him as before… that same yearning for absolutely everything to be seen and known, no holding back, but for Him to hold me, see and know me, to breathe into me those tender words of the lover: I love you.

It was no accident that I found myself in the Song of Songs after some time in Psalm 139, the winding roads of the map having taken me there as surely the Shepherd leads His sheep from one pasture to another. Accidents, like co-incidents, don’t happen on these spiritual journeys where our Father is sovereign, all our days known, and every hair on our heads counted. He searches and knows us, and His beloved are loved intimately, profoundly, and way beyond measure.

“I am my lover’s and my lover is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3)

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Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23,24)

It is not a good idea to ask God to do something if you do not really mean it… but a very good idea to ask if you do. I’ve listened to a number of people tell me that God doesn’t answer prayer. He has not responded in the way, or the time, that they have expected of Him. It is awfully human to decide from such an experience that God just isn’t listening, doesn’t particularly care, or maybe doesn’t even exist. We have very high expectations of Him, especially as He is known to be all powerful and so gracious, merciful and loving… and therefore it is easy to get impatient and disillusioned, those of us with little faith and knowledge of His ways. There is much to be said about that… another time. However, there is one prayer that takes real courage to pray. This is a very daring prayer that will take you on a journey, and it may be through some very rough terrain, stormy weather, and scenery not of your choosing. Pray it with caution, but with sincerity and a willingness to listen, and you’ll certainly not be disappointed. It comes from Psalm 139… the last two verses. A little while ago there was something niggling at my conscience, something to which I really did not wish to pay attention. It just lay there at the bottom of my mind, sending up the occasional little burst of bubbles which broke upon the surface to disturb the pleasant calm. Then one day, having prayed that daring prayer, I knew I had to do it… get up the courage and risk sharing their source with someone, another Christian who could be trusted with such confidences. The result was incredible, and not unlike an intensive spring-clean which went deep into my soul. It was painful… deeply distressing, and it didn’t stop there.

The journey was indeed rough. It was emotional. It was spiritual. It meant stopping something and committing to a different course of action. It meant being sorry, and while my friend (an Anglican priest as it happened) spoke so gently, kindly and caringly without condemnation, it was myself who condemned me. God forgives generously all those who are truly sorry and will turn to go His way instead of their own. There was no doubt in my mind about that, but I had not realized how much our wrongdoing causes Him pain as well. Of course… He died on the cross, crucified for our transgressions, the propitiation for our sin. His suffering was far greater than anything we have suffered or ever will. As the spring-cleaning proceeded, I became aware of other things in need of repentance, but as time went on, the process did come to feel less ruthless and terrible.

But isn’t this all a bit too personal to post? Why? The reality is that we are all sinners, every one of us, our wills biased naturally towards unrighteousness. Only in genuine repentance will we find God’s forgiveness. And in finding it, having turned back to Him, there is the incredibly loving experience of restoration that He brings about. It is certainly painful, quite terribly so, to let oneself hear what God finds when He looks into one’s heart… but equally a real joy to have His hand touch, forgive, heal and bless in return. It is really worth facing the mop and bucket for such a restorative blessing from Him.

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