Taking stock of the good things
I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord;
apart from You I have no good thing."
Psalm 16:2
(first journalled, May 6)

Here I was finding it hard without Bernie, realising that she the is most wonderful person in my life on this Planet - how well she organises and arranges things - don't know that I would have gotten very far on this Grand Adventure without her love and her attention to detail and far-sightedness. (Coupled with having incited the generous help of a friend in England.) But it's not just the organising of this trip - it comes out of a tremendous gift of relationship that fills and completes me as a person - not a gift I've always appreciated for all she's worth (beyond calculation anyway)! So thanks to the Divine Lover for this tremendously "good thing".

Another good thing is the relationship that sees me here in this place at this time. That's the circle of relationship that's Forrest Hill Presbyterian - they're so kind and affirming - and very generous. There has been real growth in character and confidence because of their kind and good encouragement; and it looks like they're growing too - in character, in fruit and more recently in numbers showing up and their giving to God. So here I am, in the midst of a whole new Grand Adventure, in large part because of my wife's gifts and the generosity of my loved fellow-travellers at home. Another "good thing".

A new "good thing" is mostly appreciated in potential, yet already experienced as remarkable generosity; this is the other, single "r", Forest Hill community here in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their openess to me coming and their generosity in providing a lovely place for me live and sleep; - pure Americana and truly comfortable. This is a relationship to nurture and cherish, and to be surprised by in the nicest ways - and in which to grow, and to find and explore new potential in myself, as well as this rather vast work of God.

Under all of this is the amazing "good thing" of having been called to a ministry, this giving of my life to the Gift, and to those among whom I find myself to love and serve in the name and for the sake of the Lord - the relationships that come from it, the joys of seeing lives change (and yet not being at all sure it comes from anything I'm doing - actually the Lord at work, but through me? - well that's the surprise and the delight!) So apart from the Lover of my soul I have no good thing - and that in itself is strength.

Pete

staying in touch with the gift

One of the things that concerns me with being away is the threat of losing my edge in reading and drawing out the nourishing life of God's word of self-revelation. So I'm going to take some time each week to think about a verse or two from Psalm [16 as it happens] which was given to me as a passage to carry into the Grand Adventure of being so far from home.
Keep me safe, my God,
for in You I take refuge
The first phrase depends entirely upon the second for its likelihood of becoming a reality. In our struggles, at some time we must come to the realisation that there is nowhere safer, more secure, more likely to lead to our heaing and restoration than consciously and intentionally bringing ourselves into the presence of God. This has been my experience during the pain of being separated from my wife Bernie. For nearly a whole week I wallowed in the most horrible grief and loneliness - finding all sorts of things repugnant about the environment in which I'd become immersed. A salutary challenge from my daughter got me searching for a better frame of mind.
Then as I read through Rob Bell's excellent book "Sex God" he talks about channelling my life's energy into something that is both good and generous. I saw that applying to launching into things here with real verve, but also about the passion and vision that I'm hoping to take back home to both Forrest Hill and the North Shore Presbytery.
This came as I had sat reading and seeking God (almost without knowing that was what I was doing.)
From that point the sense of ache has remarkably diminished - but not only due that particular nocturnal conversation, but has been sustained by successive similar conversations. And these conversations can actually had out loud too when no-one else is around.
So take refuge in God and find the safety that he longs to impart to you.

If you want to ask how to take refuge in God, you're going to have to reply to this or email me directly at brickbristow@gmail.com

HEARTS AND TEARS.1

Longing Heart (tears of passion) March 22 Lent 4

Ex 20:1-17; Ps 19; 1 Cor 1:18-25; Jn 2: 13-22 

Exodus 20:1-17: The account of the giving of the ten commandments which is in fact a display of God’s heart for  healthy relationships; between God and creature, between one person and another, between a person and the world around him.

In the first three commands God reminds them that He stands alone as the one who rescued them and cared for them, and that He has chosen them to be His unique and special people. His longing, expressed in this communication is that they would learn to trust and rely upon him and His compassion for them.

He then gives them a prescription for healthy living for the community of both people and animals. Don’t try to work every day of your existence – take time to rest and reflect on this God who has selected and surrounded you with His goodness. This ensures a godly focus as well as justice for all people in their community whether slave or free.

The final five commands are about relationships within the community of God’s people. These commands create an environment in which every person and relationship is treated with respect as one who is equally loved and treasured by their Creator. They also strengthen the need to rely on God and His provision as sufficient for each.

 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25: Paul reflects on the apparent foolishness of God’s willingness to restore us to relationship at an immeasurable cost to Himself – and that this apparent foolishness is in fact great wisdom, so great that it is beyond the wise.

What amazes me is that the One who creates and sustains the Universe by His decision alone chooses a way of bringing us into relationship that to the sophisticated makes him look ridiculous – such is the depth of His longing for us. Of course, as Paul rightly discerns, in the process being willing to look ridiculous, God has made a mockery of all that humanity offers as wisdom, subtlety, and discretion.

God here is demonstrating the lengths to which He is prepared to go in order to draw and hold us in a relationship of healing and transforming intimacy – the Creator with His creature.

 

John 2:13-22: The cleansing of the Temple reveals the radical nature of God’s loving desire for us – He is prepared to sweep away whatever stands in the way (using violence at need). The truth of the matter is that, even in the light of God’s grace revealed in Jesus, we are still trying erect our own religious superstructure on the glorious foundation offered us in Christ crucified and risen.

The Temple had been intended as a place where people, God’s people, would interact with him in prayer – in worship, in listening, in sending out aid to the poor and the weak – instead these same had come to see it as an opportunity for a significant indulgence in free enterprise reinforced by religious edicts that had come to be oppressive and discriminating. In John’s account it comes as an early dramatic statement of what Jesus is about – setting the scene for the conflict between institutional religion and the astonishing freedom of relationship with God to which Jesus had come to call us.

 

Reflect on the ten commands of God to secure great relationships. (Exodus 20:1-17)

Ask yourself what is God trying to help me embrace? What is God trying to get me to reject or even repent of? Where is God challenging me to grow and change?

 

Repent of anything that you discover, especially those things that are firmly entrenched as a way of living or being that is contrary to what God has shown you to be His purpose. Bearing in mind that repenting is turning from the wrong way to the way God points us toward, go on to…

 

Respond by talking over with God what you’re beginning to discover about the longing of His heart for relationship with you; and the longing in His heart for you to relate readily and freely with others. Further, you can answer God’s longing by seeking for ways to build deeper and stronger relationships with others; this in fact a practical way of giving expression to the movement of repentance.

 

Relate what you have been finding out and the decisions you have made as a consequence to others, either in a house group, or a group to whom you are able to make yourself accountable.

from Petes Page March 22

Choc and chicks or hearts and tears

What is the most dominating theme for you as Easter begins to loom on our emotional horizon? The commercial world continues to trot out the same tired clichés of Easter eggs (bet they start calling them “holiday eggs”) and fluffy chickens (& bunnies) – but they know nothing!

This Lent and Easter I’m thinking about hearts and tears as meaningful and evocative images for this season. Why hearts and tears?

Hearts because the heart of God is revealed to us in the achingly beautiful story of His one and only Son taking upon Himself all the nasty things that stand between Him and us, paying the cosmic price of our reconciliation with the One who made us and sustains us. It’s about hearts because it is a heart to heart work that rescues and redeems us; His heart transforming our heart, renewing our heart, rebuilding our heart in the image of His heart.

His heart was caused to cease beating, while the Cosmos held it’s breath to see if God’s incalculable risk had any effect. Would the hearts of His creatures be changed, would the world be changed, would the Cosmos be renewed?

Tears…well do I have to explain that?! See there is Jesus in the garden – confronted with the sin of the world in all its horrid variety and it’s pollutant power – hearing the unerring call to be the One who takes it ALL to Himself. Faced with the choice of disruption in the eternal bond of the Trinity, or the final damnation of the loved but foolish human creatures, He weeps in the anticipation of pain and suffering as if already suffering. This torture almost as bad as the lash of the whip and prick of the sarcastic crown, the excruciating pain of nails and spear.

Tears also as they fall from the eyes of astonished and grateful children of God throughout the intervening years, as they are gently confronted by the Spirit with the truth about the depth of God’s heart of love for them; of His willingness to embrace them heart to heart regardless of, some say because of what they have done in their rebellion.

Hearts and tears? Let it be your theme this year.

Leaving Behind a Good Taste

Imparting blessing as witness and encouragement

 

4. Where and When focus for the flavour of God

Isaiah 58:6-11; Matthew 5:1-11; 9:35-38

 

A. First a word from the Word

Isaiah 58:6-11     This, along with other passages like Isaiah 61:1-3; Micah 6:8; Matthew 25:31-46, forms a manifesto of action for those upon whom God has extended His startling and unexpected favour. While there are elements that should command our attention in this passage, I want to simply observe that addressed to us in our place and time, we hear the following: we are here in this state of being special, favoured, selected, empowered to do good for those who have little or no opportunity to do good for themselves or those for whom they care.

 

Matthew 5:1-11   This list of blessings are conferred are not so much about what the blessing is as, about those upon whom it is intended to fall. So what are we say about those qualify for blessing?

* God blesses (marks out for special attention) those who are short on resources…and know it but still want to do things God’s way.

* God blesses those who are not going to get in the way when God wants to work through them

* Those thus blessed by God are more likely to discover the riches of God’s gracious provision… thereby becoming aware of what it is they are being called to share.

* …and they’re not deflected by persecution or blunt resistance.

 

Matthew 9:35-38    In this quick summary of Jesus’ ministry we are provided with a model for our own attempts to fulfil the manifesto to which He has called in following Him.

* Jesus went wherever there was need, and reached out to whoever had need and acknowledged it

* Jesus’ ministry was fuelled and directed by His compassionate sense of the great need of those among who He ministered

* Jesus’ own words encourage us to see this as something best done as a community of fellow workers engaged in God’s good work. (Refer back to notes on the Isaiah passage.)

 

B. Going about it in your world

1. Meaningful Touch

* It communicates positively with your body – there are known health benefits in being positively, physically touched.

* It communicates and increases trust in relationship (giving and receiving.)

* Jesus constantly used touch as multi-level way of communicating the healing, accepting love and power of God. [In receiving the little children (Mk.10:13-16); in healing lepers (Mk.1:4042); in raising Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:41).

 

2. Speaking words of blessing

* The power of words starts at Creation…the whole came from God speaking, ‘and it was so.’

* James writes of the astonishing power of speech (James 3:3-6)

* It is something which we should be very generous and gracious – not withholding affirmation when appropriate, even as an act of discipline – we shouldn’t asking whether they deserve it, but rather whether they need it. (Proverbs 3:27-28)

* The sweetness of an unexpected word of blessing stays with longer than the taste of very dark, very rich chocolate.

 

3. Attaching high value to the one being blessed

In Hebrew “to bless” is from the root “to bend the knee”, which inherently carries the meaning of placing high value upon the one being blessed; hence the word is used often in our relating to God. Look at biblical blessings; Deut 33 is Moses blessing the people of Israel as he dies; Joshua 14:13 has Joshua passing on his mantle to Caleb; 2 Samuel 6:18 shows David blessing the people as the Ark returns to the sanctuary.

Four keys to using word pictures to value another highly include:

* Use an everyday object. Something that catches something from a person’s character trait or physical attribute.

* Match the emotional meaning of the trait with the object you’ve picked. (Songs 4:4)

* Word pictures unravel our defences. How does Solomon’s bride go from ‘don’t look on me’ to ‘I am a rose of Sharon’? Via his kind words of appreciation that bless her. (1:6, 2:2)

* Points out the person’s potential. Jesus renaming Peter (Matthew 16:18) names a destiny that took a while in coming.

 

4. Picturing a special future for the one being blessed.

* They often help to bring out the best in those we bless (Jeremiah 29:11; John 14:1-6).

* They provide a guiding light for the future by which we can chart our lives.

* However it needs to be something about we’re consistent in our family and communal lives – a history by which we’re known and respected. (As one who blesses consistently.) And it needs to be something we’re committed to seeing fulfilled in the lives of those to whom we’ve reached out in such love.

 

5. An active commitment to fulfilling my part in their blessing

There is a cruel illogic in speaking words of encouragement or blessing without any commitment to the one in need of a lift, and James catches this with his words in James 2:15-16. So how do we go from empty words to active commitment?

* Be clear that is God whom you’re expecting to do the blessing. (eg. Jacob blessing his sons near the end of his life says ‘…the God who has been my shepherd…bless the boys.’ Gen 48:15-16) This way we’re keeping the Lord at the forefront of the person’s attention, secondly we’re communicating our faith in a God who involves Himself, personally, in our lives and concerns.

* Commit our selves to their best interests. This may necessitate loving intervention, persistent prayer, even stern words of encouragement at need. What blessing doesn’t imply is a few well chosen words and then we walk away and pay no further attention to that person and their needs.