just for you

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

There is an excitement at seeing your own name on the tag attached to the ribbon that wraps the brightly decorated package - whether or not you give any credence to the commercial christmas elf.
Someone loved you enough to create or find something that they believed and hoped would bless you, that communicated how much they cared for you.
You don’t have to do anything special, you don’t have to pass any tests, you don’t have to follow some rule or code. It’s just that there is this relationship in which you are accepted as you are, including the understanding that you’re not perfect; you matter to someone, warts and all. And the gift is a way for them to tell you that you’re a person of surprising value to them.
They think about you with love and appreciation, they want the best for you, they enjoy being your friend, being with you, around you.
So you too have thought carefully about what you’d like to give them, or do for them, to affirm their personhood and the value of your relationship with them...so they’ll find a gaudily wrapped package, with a card naming them as the loved recipient.
This is a picture of a mind-blowing and eternal reality; that we are thoughtfully and extravagantly loved by the Creator of our very lives, that He seeks for our company and that He wants us to become aware of how much He cares for us and has an almost unbelievable plan for us, both as individuals and as a community, a family of His loved ones.
Just as we would be offended if a loved one tried to pay us for the gift we had so lovingly sought or created for them because the cost is part of the love we are offering, so God does not expect or seek for payment from us for the astonishing gift He has for us. The truth is we couldn’t even begin to earn that gift even if we had a million lifetimes in which we unerringly worked to persuade God that we deserved His kindness and grace.
Because it’s a gift His love is free, it’s just for you...get it!

anticipation

our series for Advent and Christmas is called
The Gift.
What follows are the bulletin inserts called Pete's Page:

"You better watch out You better not cry You better not pout I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town He's making a list, Checking it twice; Gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town"

Advent is a time of anticipation, of having something to look forward to - which at this time is not the same for many of our fellow citizens as it is for us. For many of them it’s about the stress of finding gifts for hard-to-please people, planning to feed a family invasion from all over the country, and just plain coping with all the commercially communicated stress. So they make lists that reveal what they’re anticipating, what they’re hoping for. I know they make lists cos the woman I live with and our mothers did the same.
So what are you hoping for this advent and Christmas season? Is there a gift that you’d been hoping someone who cares for you would buy? Is there some family member you’d not seen for more than a year that you would love to come home this time? Is there some family grief that you’re hoping you’ll be able to handle, perhaps even ignore, as you and the rest of the family try to celebrate the season? Is there a relationship you kind of hope might be rescued in the spirit of a season of good will? What’s on the wish list of your heart?
Can I ask if you’ve asked the true Lord of Christmas for the fulfillment of your heart’s wish-list?
This season is rally about us preparing our hearts for the wonder of a great miracle, whereby the God who dreamt of and fashioned the whole Cosmos became clothed in human skin, complete with nose, eyes, a loudly complaining mouth and an unreliable digestive system. It is also about the belief that because of this God-man there is hope beyond hope that at some point everything that’s wrong with the world will be set right and at peace.
That’s where the hard-to-find peace and hope of the season is.
In His unrelenting grip
Pete

desperate
so a new series starts with returning to the hotspot up the front.
it invites us to look at how much the spiritual life actually means to us...even how much it is genuinely entwined with all the stuff we take for the ordinary. is this how i felt returning to the hotspot after 3 months away? not really, but there is an element of desperation that things oughtn't to be the same any more. however i was really responding to where i perceive people around me to be as far as what makes life worth the trouble. so the first word is " to see - seeking God."

Jonah 2:1-10; Matthew 7:7-11; John 6:35-40

A. DOING WITHOUT GOD

...we’ve been taught to say “God helps those who help themselves.” But is that true? Really?
in a desire to seem independent in a "material world" we find it hard to envisage a God who would disrupt the natural order to either communicate with us much less intervene in our tawdry everyday lives...so we say He blesses our independence. we come to the decision that whatever was the motivational currency of the day we have a better idea - do it yourself and God will have to bless your hard work. hmmmm. really? is that the best we can hope for?
Jonah acts like he knows better than God [see Jonah chapter 1]
Jonah didn't like any idea that his doing things God's way would lead to the liberating of the Ninevites from well deserved judgement and the consequent destruction! So he chose to run away rather than do what he was called to do...y' can never run away from the omnipresent.

B. LOST WITHOUT GOD

Jonah comes to the end of himself to see he needs God [2:1-45]
So there's Jonah in a terrifying storm knowing he's badly messed up...yelling his head off for help from the everpresent who, lucky for him, is also the allpowerful. From the belly of the fish of his salvation he realises he's at the end of himself, totally dependent upon God.

We will come to the end of ourselves
It is part of God's rescue plan to bring us to the end of ourselves as well, because it is only when we know we've reached the end of our autonomy that we know the only hope is beyond us...in the good grace and mercy of God.

“You will seek me and find me,
when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13

C. GETTING DESPERATE (Getting it right.)

calling for God’s intervention [2:7]
so desperation is the only attribute that impresses God that we mean to be shown something of His startling attitude of loving acceptance...and it's the only satisfactory attitude we can bring to a relationship that has any chance of engaging with God's rescue plan...it also guarantees that we will take seriously the means He has put out in our path to be the medium of that engagement.

taking Him seriously [Hebrews 11:6]
when God offers to help or rescue He means it and we can't enhance that startling willingness to engage in any way...we can only go with it the way it's offered...without strings, or any ability on our part to qualify. so we concentrate on getting through as it were...only to discover He was on-line the whole time.

"anyone who wants to come to Him,
must believe that He exists and
rewards those who sincerely seek Him."

heartfelt desperation
...it's all y' got...it's all He sees...use it, go with it.

D. DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT [2:8-9]

paying attention - the Bible - read, study, think
pick it up...give it a real go...take time over it...again, take it seriously

turning to God - prayer - honour, confession, guidance
the point is He's listening more keenly than we ever give Him credit for...unbelievably, He actually likes hearing from us...we're His kids after all.

learning from His friends - listening, asking, humility
y'see, He's already at work in a bunch of similarly flawed people just like you and me, and has made them available to rub off a few rough edges and to speak such words of wisdom that even startles them, if they're honest.
find some of His friends, often to be found in churches on Sundays (but not always), take time to get to know them, and practice a little humility in learning from them...especially from what they do.

own the hunger...don't be afraid of it...I can show you how to satisfy it...

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