Trudging when you want to Fly

I have this amazing friend who I love a lot. She and I are very similar in some ways and in others are completely the opposite. We use to live next door to each other and would see each other all the time for coffee and catch ups, but now we are in different cities and I miss seeing her and being able to chew the fat.

She is an incredibly talented and passionate woman, but she suffers from a debilitating illness. It is one of those illnesses that doesn't show on the outside so often people don't realise that is just a struggle for her to get out of bed some days. If she does make it out of bed, that is an epic win! But she doesn't feel like that. She feels like she is trudging when all she wants to do is fly.

Her and I were talking about it about it last night, and I really feel like I know where she is coming from. I too feel like I am just doing the daily trudge at the moment. Though I do not have an illness as severe as hers, I do get migraines that throw out my plans. I have to watch how much I do, how often I rest, and when I take my medication. I feel like my life is dictated by me head.

I also know how she is feeling when she asks me what God has planned for her and how it is possible. I sometimes feel like I have done all this study and research and now I am not using it or working in the field I am most passionate. I feel like I just live from day to day waiting for the opportunity to do something else, something more.

Our experience of church is very much dictated by our experiences of life; we both find it a struggle to go to church. We find it hard to do small talk with people who don't really know how we are struggling silently. We find the music often contrite and dishonest to how we are feeling. We can find the sermons boring and/or rip them apart mentally due to our theological training. So we tend to avoid church, or go very unwillingly.

We are trudging, but oh how we want to fly.

During these times it is the story of Joseph that really sustains me. If you know the story, fell free to let your mind wander as I summarize it for those who do not.

Joseph was the second youngest of 12 brothers. Though usually the eldest brother was the most loved, the most favoured, but Joseph, the first child of two children from the favourite wife of Jacob, was the most loved by his father. We was doted on and, frankly, was a little spoiled and outspoken to boot. He annoyed his brothers by telling the of dreams he had where his whole family would bow down to him. In a fit of rage, the brothers took Joseph, intending to kill him. Instead, they sold him to slavers that then took the young boy to Egypt to sell. He was sold to Potiphar, an important man, and he worked hard to please his master. However, his master's wife took a little too much of a liking to him and, when he didn't reciprocate, falsely accused Joseph of rape. Joseph languished in prison for 14 years, working hard and earning the respect of the guards of the prison in the process. When fate brought two men of Pharaoh's household to the prison, Joseph was given the opportunity to interpret their dreams and, in the process, asked them to remember him to Pharaoh. The dreams came to pass as he said, with one man being killed and the other being reinstated in his former position. It was another two years before Pharaoh had a dream and the reinstated man remembered his promise to Joseph. He told Pharaoh about the now fully grown man, and Joseph was released to interpret the Pharaoh's dream. He did so correctly, thorugh the Spirit of God, and was made second only to Pharaoh in all of Egypt. Eventually a famine struck the land for 7 years and Joseph's brothers were needing food. They went to Egypt to ask for grain from Joseph, who had been preparing for the famine for years after being warned in Paroah's dream. It was then that the dreams of seeing his family bow before him were fulfilled. Joseph forgave his brothers and brought his whole family to Egypt and died an important, wealthy and loved man.

That was a very brief explanation of the story. If you want more look it up in Genesis and have a read. It is worth it.

Anyway, back to my point.

It was 16 years before Joseph was set free. He didn't know if he would ever get out of prison alive. He didn't know what the plan was or how God would get him out of it all. He had a terrible experience as a child and now he was locked away for something he didn't do.

If I was Joseph I would have despaired. There seemed to be no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, no justice.

Even though the story doesn't end that way, it is this part I want to focus on. The part where for 16 years Joseph trudged through everyday in prison.

He had dreamed he could fly, and was made to trudge with no end insight.

But it was he did in prison that impresses me so much. He worked so hard and so faithfully that the head of the prison made him his right hand man. He was put in charge of other prisoners and earned the respect of both them and the people paid to keep him locked up. He didn't give up, he just found another way to serve God.

This challenges me. So often I ask God what his plan is for my life and when will it come to fruition. But really, all God calls us to is to live faithfully in loving him and loving others where ever we find ourselves. 

Whether we are trudging or flying, our purpose is the same. Whether we feel defeated or elated, our response to God and to others is meant to be the same. We are meant to live faithfully in love. Maybe our circumstances will change, maybe they won't, but that should not determine how we live or what God is asking from us.

We may feel like we are trudging, but it is living out our faith in Jesus that brings us to flight, whether we feel it or not.

Remember that it is the sacrifice and love of God that makes us fly, not what we do or where we are headed. We may feel like we are in a prison and that we will be in it for life, but it is how we live and how we respond to God that will define us.

I look back at the last ten years of my life and see how far I have come, even though most of it has felt like one long trudging slog. I remember that this time a decade ago I was in an abusive marriage, was alcohol dependent, was in and out of psych wards and suicidal. Today, I am loved, happy, healed, and 7 years sober. It was a long hard walk, but I am flying, whether I feel it today or not. God's work in our lives is not dependent on our feeling it. However, it is our hope in God that keeps us going everyday.

You may continue to trudge, but remember that it is our hope that makes us fly.

Ambitious Christianity

This week I said goodbye to my mentor and friend, Dr. Rod Thompson. After 12 years in this fine country, and 5 as principal of Laidlaw College, Rod and his lovely wife Rosie are heading back over the ditch to Sydney to start a new chapter in their lives.

I have been privileged enough to call this man my friend. He has been an unwavering support to me as I have struggled and fought my way through the past years. He was always there to turn to, to seek advise from, and to be admonished by (when necessary). In many ways Rod and Rosie have been surrogate parents to me over the last five years and I will miss them terribly.

I was fortunate enough to get two precious days with them before they headed Sydney-side. They are extremely busy people yet they still made time to come spend a weekend with us (and spoil us rotten in the process) and I basked in the moments I had to absorb Rod's wisdom...who knows when the next time will be.

One of the things I have always admired about Rod is his unassuming manner. He never makes you feel like he has accomplished more than you (though he has), that he is better than you at theology (though he is), or that he wants anything more than to share in your triumphs and your suffering (which he does). He and Rosie are two of the most loving people I have ever met.

So how does a man who appears to place no value in position ever get to be the principal of New Zealand's foremost Christian theological college? How does someone who appears to have no ambition climb the ladder so high?

Before I answer that question, let me deviate for a moment and turn back to what this whole blog is essentially about.....me!

I am a very competitive person. I may hide it well behind jokes and laughter, but I have always been out to win, be the best, take no prisoners.

There are people who won't play board games with me anymore because I can get....let's say a little enthusiastic. It's also why I don't like team sports much; I always hated having to rely on other people to win.

This competitiveness also drives my ambition. It is why I started my own business at 30 rather than going on a benefit when I had no work. It is what drove me to finish my Masters thesis (and what made me cry when I didn't get the mark I wanted). It is what keeps me motivated when it seems all my dreams will take years to accomplish.

But I have always felt that ambition is largely looked down upon within church circles. It is OK to be ambitious, as long as you don't bring it to church. If you say you want to be the best preacher, best song writer, best pastor, then people look away almost embarrassed.

I asked Rod about it this weekend. I asked him if it was wrong to be an ambitious Christian. Was it wrong to want something and to strive for it? Was it bad to want to be the best at something?

I was expecting him to say "yes, it is bad." Instead, he once again blew my mind.

"No," said Rod, "as long as it is not ambition for ambition sake."

What he was saying was that I had to check my motives. Why did I want to be the best? Was it because I needed other's approval? Was it because I wanted to lord it over other people? Was it so I could check the boxes and mentally congratulate myself?

Or was it because I was trying to do the best with what had been given me?

I know what it is to not be able to do what I wish I could. I know what it is to have my mind not work well enough to do anything.

So now, I really really want to do the best with what I received back. I want to honour God by doing the best that I absolutely can.

I don't care if I get rich along the way. I don't care if other people like what I do. I don't even care if I make it to my goals.....well, maybe I care about that.

But I do care about being lukewarm, so half-hearted and humdrum. I care about what I will say when I meet my maker and have to give account for my life. I want to say that I did my best, I tried my hardest, I didn't give an inch, and I worked towards the dreams that I placed before my God.

I believe that Rod got the jobs that he did because he always placed God first and did his best to bring glory to his Creator. He tried hard with what had been given to him because that is the only response to a grace that gives freely. It is the only response in the face of a world where so many people do not get the opportunities we do. The only response to overwhelming love is to love with everything we have.

If that is ambition, then I am ambitious.

And I am OK with that.

The Heart Is Fickle (or Why living by feelings alone is stupid)

I have been noticing a worrying trend growing in Western culture.


It is the idea that we should do what we feel is right, that we should love who we feel we love, and we should follow our feelings in everything we do in life.


I call it "Attack of the Feels" and frankly, it terrifies me.


It may not seem that big of a deal to you, but then you would be feeling that it is ok to do what you feel, rather than using your logic to work this scenario out to its fullest extent.


Before we do that though (and yes, by the end of this I am hoping you will be as scared of feels as I am) let me look at some examples that are currently bombarding our news stories, facebooks, twitters, and all the other media out there (including blogs...woah, inception moment..)


The most obvious one is the "you can't help who you love" argument behind legalising gay marriage etc. (and again I must iterate that I AM NOT A HOMOPHOBE, nor do I think it is wrong that there is a secular understanding of marriage that is open to all people, I just don't think that it is in line with Christian teachings, but I have written other blogs about this so lets all just hold hands, sing Kumbayah and not hate on anyone for thinking differently ok?)


I understand what people are trying to say when they argue "you can't help who you love." They are saying that love is an overwhelming feeling that can hit you right between the eyes, and who does anybody think they are to allow some people the right to feel that and deny it to others?


I get that. Love IS powerful and overwhelming and it does hit people in different ways.


BUT, and here is where it gets tricky, let's follow that line of thinking down the track a wee ways.


This is the same argument that NMBLA uses. NMBLA stands for the National Man-Boy Love Association. It argues for peadophilia being legalised. It is a real thing. They argue that peadophiles can't help who they love - namely, small children - and seeing as paedophilia use to be accepted in ancient Greece and Rome, surely it isn't that bad. Scary thing, this is very similar to arguments used in pro-Gay debates.


The same arguments are also used for polygamous and polyamourous relationships, incest relationships, and even bestiality (the research on this depressed me no end).


THE ISSUE HERE is if you allow this argument for one lot of people, how can it be denied to another? According to some stats, there are more paedophiles per population than there are homosexuals, so are they not allowed a voice? But even if we discount them because it is involving children (just remember the legal age of consent in some countries is twelve, so they are not considered children) are we prepared to permit polygamous relationships? What about marrying yourself (which in some places is legal), does that mean you can apply for benefits for married couples? Where does that leave religious institutions who refuse to marry people in this way? Persecution? Do we open this up to so many different understandings of love that the meaning of what a relationship is completely disappears?


If it is all about how someone 'feels' the laws become open to debate by anyone who feels differently. There is no stability, no way to maintain any law or standard that keeps the understanding of relationships and family in such a way that structures like benefits, legal adoption/guardianship etc make sense.


Another Attack of the Feels is that to do with gender. I recently wrote a blog on this, so I won't go into too much depth, but being able to question your gender because you feel differently than what you are, would not long ago have got you psychiatric help. Now it is seen as a right that anyone has to change their gender and sexual idenitity.


Again, let's follow this through. That means nationality and race come up for question as well. If I feel I am a black man, how is it ok for me to change my gender but not my race? I may identify with black people more than white, and it is about what I feel isn't it? Because if it is not, then what grounds do I have to change my gender?


Religion is also becoming more and more about feels and less about truth. If I tell someone I am a Christian, well that's ok because I am allowed to feel that there is a God and I feel that Jesus was telling the truth. But if I try and tell someone that it is the Truth and that I can intelligently explain why, then that's not cool because how dare I push my faith on someone else when they don't feel that way.


If we follow that to it's logical end, then we will get to a place where there is nothing that is true, no one can claim an objective truth in anything. No law, no court, no statement can be believed as the Truth. No teacher can tell their students that something is true, because what classifies it as true? History? But history is open for interpretation and can be understood differently depending n your race, gender, creed etc. And if we have none of those anymore, then how are we to understand history? And if we cannot trust history, then we cannot trust that it can teach us anything.


So the deeper we get into living off feelings the more and more we HAVE to as we have nothing left to base anything on anymore.


There are many more examples, but just using these three a picture begins to emerge.


It is a picture that is distorted and confused, with no grounding on what is true and right and good.


There is no point to marriage because if I wake up feeling differently one day, the marriage should end ("I love him, I am just not IN love with him"). There is no commitment or loyalty as feelings are fickle and don't work like that.


There is no point in working as if I ever wake up feeling like I don't like my job (everyday...) then I will quit, because again, there is no sense of permanence, loyalty, stick-to-it-ive-ness.


There is no point in families, because even the word family has become so distorted and confused no one knows what it means anymore.


We are left with children who grow up not knowing truth or where to find it.


They will have no understanding of loyalty, permanence, relationships.


They will not understand sex, gender, or sexuality as it will be so fluid that being called a boy or a girl will mean nothing.


They will not understand what it means to be wrong, to be told, "no, you can't do that" or that something is false. None of those words will have any depth or conviction behind them.


Our children will grow into a world that can offer them nothing more permanent than how they feel each minute of everyday.


And what kind of world will children like that build?


God help us all.

Which is more important....forgiveness or healing?

On my way to work in the mornings I tend to arrive at the train station about 10mins early so I can sit in my car and read my bible and pray a bit (I know, I am so holy and I put you all to shame). I do this so I start my day the right way, focused on God and not on how tired, grumpy, wanting to be in bed I feel.

Sometimes I just go through the motions. I don't really take in what I am reading and/or I don't really care (maybe not that holy after all). But sometimes what I have read really gets me thinking.

Like yesterday for example.

I was reading Mark 2:1-13. For those who don't know their bibles off by heart (shame on you.....you are going stright to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200...jokes) this bit tells the story of a paralytic man. Jesus is chilling in a house, maybe eating some dinner or something, when the people of the town hear he is there. Like the celebrating swarming of the 1st Century, they all flock to see him, filling the house and the road outside and basically acting like people do around the Kardashians today, but for much better reasons (hopefully). 

In this town there is a paralytic man who is hanging out with his mates, who start to think to themselves that maybe they should get him to see Jesus and maybe something like a healing would happen (because by now stories of Jesus' healings have spread). So they pick up this guy on his mattress and start carrying to the place where Jesus is.

When they get there the doorway is full of people who are not gonna give up their precious opportunity to see and hear Jesus. Perplexed, these fellas start brainstorming and decide to climb up on the roof (which is flat in this part of the world, and usually has stairway access), and dig a hole through the roof (really hope the owner was pissed off that this) and then lowered the man, mattress and all, down to right smack bag in front of the great man himself.

Now I can imagine Jesus looking at the man on the mat, then looking up at the hole in the ceiling and breaking into a huge smile. He is really impressed with the faith and commitment they have all shown. So he looks at the man and says "your sins are forgiven." Some religious elders and stuff and kinda annoyed by this because in their reckoning only God has the authority to forgive sins and Jesus is a man. So Jesus (apparently reading their minds!!!) looks at them and says "which is easier, to forgive sins or to tell this man to get up, pick up his mat and walk. But so you know that the Son of Man [a title Jesus uses for himself] has the authority to forgive sins..." he looks at the paralytic man "stand up, pick up your mat and walk home." And the dude, who is paralysed remember, gets up, picks up his mat and walks out.

Now there are many amazing things about this story. I mean, the paralysed guy would have had muscles that were all shrunken and munted and yet he could get up and walk straight away! The full body healing that occurred here is mind blowing in medical terms. It is not just the cause of his paralysis that is healed, but all of the issues associated with that. All instantaneously!! Flippin wow!

But what struck me yesterday was not the healing. It was that the healing was almost an afterthought in the story. 

Jesus didn't heal the guy immediately. He forgave him first. And then he implies that it is harder to forgive sins than to heal this man.

The healing is not of the first importance to him!!

This made me think about the priorities I would have placed on this story. If I had been Jesus I would have healed the guy first then said something like "BOOM! Look at what I can do! Now believe all you peeps, because I am badass and,as a bonus, I will forgive his sins too!"

In churches I see the same thing. We pray often for people's healing, but how often is there salvation or relationship to God seen as more important than their physical ills. It is the mentality that says "show me a miracle first and then I will believe and ask to be saved."

And yet that is directly opposite to what Jesus does here. His main focus is on the spiritual ill of the man. He sees that the healing that had to occur between this man and God was more deadly, more disastrous than the physical disabilities he had. This reconciliation of man and God was the priority.

How would this attitude impact how we speak to people with disabilities and illnesses? If we adopted this attitude what would change in our hearts towards others? Would we stop seeing people with disabilities as something to be pitied but rather view the state of their faith as more important? Would their disability pale in comparison to their knowledge of God? Would we approach them differently? Would we approach our own issues differently?

I for one am someone who empathizes greatly with people who suffer from disabilities; I have been one and, but for the grace of God, would still be one. I remember feeling like if people prayed for my healing and it didn't happen, that I or they had failed in their faith. I stopped asking for prayer because I felt ashamed.

It was in the prayers of some ladies who prayed for God to be made known to me, not to be healed, that I was healed. They prayed for my salvation, and God, like in this story, forgave me first and healed me second. And the first was more important for me than the second. My shame and fear was lifted. Even if I had remained in my illness I believe that my experience with God in that moment would have changed my life anyway, even if not others perception of my life.

So when you pray for healing for others (and I am not saying not to) remember that of greater importance to God is that this suffering person would know the love and forgiveness of Christ. It is then that true, deep healing is found, that the broken is made whole, and the world is reconciled to its Creator.

Gaming Crisis

As many of you know, I have spent the last year working on a thesis about video gaming and Christian ethics (for related posts see here, here, and here). Apart from this meaning that I haven't blogged consistently for a while, it has also lead me to conclusions that I never thought I would reach. I am, in fact, having a GAMING CRISIS.

When I first started out on my thesis, I was pretty sure I knew where I was gonna end up. I am a pacifist by faith and by nature and the violence that I saw on video games haunted me. Watching my hubby and his friends play Black Ops together really use to bother me, even though what they were 'killing' was a) zombies and b) pixels. My first inclination was to run away and hide.

So when I started talking to hubby and friends about their gaming I was pretty sure that it was wrong. I thought it only glorified violence and killing and that didn't sit well with how I understood my faith and the person of Christ. I also just didn't think it was normal for anyone, no matter what faith, to enjoy watching others get killed, pixelated or not.

I was a student who started on research believing I knew what the conclusion would be. Hopefully I am not the only one who has ever done that.

Colour me shocked when I realised about two months ago that I was changing my mind.

Thanks largely to the work of Kevin Schut and his book Of Games and God (if you are into this kind of stuff seriously spend the few dollars to get this book, it is epic and so well written and easy to understand!) I started to delve into the world of Christianity and gaming and the beauty that there is in this art form. Schut, to my delight, didn't gloss over the difficult questions of violence etc, but rather engaged with it in a way that showed deep commitment to his faith and deep consideration of his love of gaming.

In short, his book blew my mind....and changed my thesis.

I began to seriously consider if I was one of those Christians that I had always despised. You know the ones. They are outside stores that are selling GTA with signs telling people how evil gaming is. I never wanted to be one of those people and yet my attitude was such that I was closed off to the idea that gaming could be anything other than violent and disturbing.

Meet my gaming crisis.

It is rather like a faith crisis, when you suddenly realise that everything you ever thought about the Bible was actually taught to you by a broken human being and maybe they didn't have everything right and maybe, just maybe, you know nothing at all about anything. That was my gaming crisis in a nut shell. I realised that I had formed my biased opinions on a small segment of gaming that I had seen and then blindly applied that to everything without stopping to ask if I actually knew what gaming was.

I was adrift in an ocean of gaming uncertainty.

To some extent I am still there. My thesis is not complete. In fact I am due to start writing my concluding chapters next week. Though I am excited about the discoveries I have made, I am also very uncertain that I really know anything about what I am trying to say anymore. All I know is, my conclusion will not be the same as I thought it would be.

I guess that is the nature of true research.

I have even started to game a little. I have started with Skyrim as my first game because of the possibilities that it offers. I am not tied into a particular character, nor do I have to engage in killing if I don't want to. It is perhaps a baby step, but it is something. This has come about due to the fact that Schut argues that you can't engage with a medium if you aren't involved with it. My friend Kent will be face palming right about now as he has been saying this to me for years, and I simply ignored him, so sorry Kent, I guess I couldn't ignore it when it was in print from a scholar of media haha.

So where does this leave me??

I HAVE NO IDEA!!!

Give me another two months to complete this thesis and I will get back to you. 

Just know, this crisis may end with me playing Black Ops after all.

Wanting to Belong

(the second part of "why I can't be a Muslim....ever" will be posted next time but will be taking a break for this post)

This weekend just gone I had the supreme privilege of being asked to go down to New Zealand's most Southern city, Dunedin, to speak about my experience with mental illness and how the church can take part in the healing and reintegration of people with mental illness back into the community. I was there from Friday afternoon til Monday morning and managed to squeeze in six different talks to a variety of groups and churches.

Apart from being absolutely shattered I loved my time down there. It was an awesome city with an awesome vibe and beautiful architecture. Below is the main talk I gave on the Friday night to a bunch of different church people (along with pics of my time in the beautiful city). I hope you enjoy.

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Mary was upset. A man that she didn't like was whispering nasty things in her ear and touching her inappropriately, and she didn't like it. She told him to stop it but he wouldn't go away. So she started to yell at him, screaming at him to leave her alone. When I found her she was lashing out at the man and screaming at the top of her voice for someone to help her.

Natasha knew that she was sick. She could see it in the mirror every day. Her skin was starting to fall off her bones. She could see where it was tearing and bleeding and she didn't know how to stop it. She had been to the doctor many times about it but they kept telling her that it was ok. She knew it wasn't ok, and by the time I heard her story she was in a panic about how to fix it.

Mary and Natasha are real women who both experienced extremely traumatic events. However, both these women did not receive the help they needed to process what they went through.

For any other people these circumstances would have warranted counselling, church prayer meetings for the women, friends coming alongside to console and advice. Hey would have received medical treatment for their experiences and gained compassion and love from every quarter. Mary and Natasha didn't received any of this.

Because what Mary and Natasha experienced were hallucinations brought on by extreme mental health problems.

Tonight I have the privilege of being able to talk to you about mental health and the church. I can't do that without first telling you a little about myself. I am 28 years old, have been married for two years, am completing my Masters thesis and am looking at doing a PhD in mental health and theology.

6 years ago my life was very different. When I was 12 I developed early onset schizophrenia. By age 19 I lived with full blown psychosis, was in and out of the psychiatric ward at my local hospital, and had attempted to take my life numerous times. At age 22 my parents were taking care of me full time, I had ballooned from 75 kilos to a massive 200+, and I had been told that there was no cure, that mine was a life long sentence.

Enter the little old ladies on the church prayer team. Their prayers that day 6 years ago completely changed my life and thanks to the grace of God I am able to stand before you today free from extreme mental illness, free from medication, and able to share my story and give a voice to those who are often unheard.

My life is a life of terrible suffering and miraculous healing. 

While I was unwell for all those years I was actively involved in my church. This involvement did become less the more unwell I became, but what also became apparent was that I was more UNWELCOME the more unwell I became.

No one ever said to me “You are not welcome here.” I was never asked to leave or told I couldn't join a particular group. I was always greeted warmly at the door every Sunday, and prayed over when I received communion.

I was included. I just didn't belong.

People ceased to ask me out for lunch or dinner. I saw numbers dwindled in my home group and heard the whispers that it was because I made people uncomfortable. I wasn't asked to group outings to the movies or the pools. In fact, between Sunday and Sunday I didn't see anyone from my church. I was alone at home. I was at home, lonely.

As my mental health deteriorated so did my understanding of social niceties. I was a difficult person to be around. I never stopped talking. I would speak too loud. I would fall asleep at church and snore. I would eat anything that stopped long enough for me to grab it and put it in my mouth. I was bad at personal hygiene. I was big, loud, smelly, and an embarrassment to the people around me.

So people stopped being around me. I don't blame them, I really don't. It is really hard to spend time with someone that you can't relax around. It is hard to visit the house of someone who smells bad and won't let you leave. I exhausted people. I drained them.

Natasha exhausted people too. I met Natasha in the ward. She was a sweet woman in her 50's who had experienced a psychotic break with reality. She truly believed her facial skin was tearing off. I avoided her like the plague when I was there. If she could corner you she would tell you non-stop about her face and you would be stuck there for hours. She would follow you around too if you tried to walk away. She was embarrassing and exhausting and so I went out of my way not to talk to her.

I didn't care that Natasha was genuinely concerned about her face. I didn't care that she needed someone to talk to. To me she was a crazy old kook who I wanted to stay away from.

I still think about her and wonder what happened to her.

While in the wards I was exposed to many more people and behaviours that, in my early twenties, I was completely unprepared for. I watched a heavily pregnant woman attack staff and have a fire hose turned on her in an effort to control her. I heard the same lady describe her unborn child as a demon. In reality it was her fathers. I met a 17 year old boy who was dropped off by his parents for suicidal behaviour. He remained there for a week with no visitors. I was verbally abused by a man who thought I was his mother, and I was confronted by nurses who were in equal measure compassionate and careworn. When not in the psych ward I was a daily visitor at the day ward with other mental health patients in the community. Though this was a much more pleasant environment I was surrounded by people I did not know, that were usually much older than me, and by community workers who were understaffed and overworked. The people there embarrassed me with their weird behaviours and I felt left out and alone.

One thing that these people and I had in common was we were all identified by our labels. I was schizophrenic, which meant that nothing I said could be trusted as real. Others were bipolar, which meant you had to watch out for mood swings. Others had extreme depression so they were kept away from anything sharp.

Diagnosis of a mental illness alone creates greater issues for the patient than suffering the illness alone. Diagnosis locates the illness entirely with the individual, apart from their family and environment. It claims that there is something 'wrong' with the person that defines them as outside the acceptable 'norm'. This reduces hope of recovery, creates stigma from labelling, and turns a person into a category.

Currently in NZ today it is estimated that 1 in 4 people will suffer from a mental illness at some point in their lives. It is estimated that 38% of europeans, 62% of Maori, 59% of asians, and 59% of pacific islanders will be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia, in their life time

I find that when I speak of my experiences with mental illness I am met with 1 of four reactions by the listeners. The first is ambivalence. These listeners cannot relate, or don't know how to, and so are quick to change the subject and to move out of the area of a topic of which they have no understanding. They may think that mental illness is “all in your head” and something that can be changed by will power, or they may simply have no interest in the matter.

The second reaction is nervousness and confusion. These listeners mean well but simply do not comprehend what mental illness is or how to respond to it. They may look at you like you are about to pull out a gun and start a rampage, or they may ask to pray for you to release you from the demonic stronghold over your life. These are the listeners that will offer to pray for you but end up lost for words as they become confused as to what to pray for. They often super-spiritualize your experience in order to bring the conversation into a language that they understand.

The third group is perhaps the most interesting of reactions. They are the group that leans forward with eyes shining lapping up every word. When you have finished speaking they will say things like “that is so cool” and ask questions like “so, you could actually see people that weren't there? Was that freaky and what did they look like?” They are curiously excited by what is being said and can ask insensitive questions about experiences in the psych wards. They will also be the ones most likely to call people with mental illness 'crazy' or 'psycho'.

The last group is the minority. They are the listeners who will find you alone later, share their own experiences, cry and pray with you. They usually have had an experience with mental illness and have genuine compassion for what I have been through. But these listeners are few and far between.

Unfortunately mental illnesses have stigmas attached to them that cause reactions of fear, disinterest, and wariness. People buy into the stigma that schizophrenics, and other mental health patients, are WORTHLESS, DIRTY, INSINCERE, DELICATE, SLOW, TENSE, WEAK, FOOLISH, INCOMPETENT, NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIONS, DANGEROUSLY VIOLENT and UNPREDICTABLE. It is my experience that these stigmas are found just as much within the church as from without, but the added labels of LACK OF FAITH, DEMON POSSESSED, and ANGRY. With these labels it is easy to understand why mental health patients find it hard to contribute in a world where the stigma of your illness is often worse than the illness itself. It is also easy to understand why mental health patients often talk of feeling isolated and rejected by their communities and churches.

The simple fact of the matter is, people do not know how to respond to mental illness.

Despite a quarter of the population having experienced one mental illness of another at some point or another, it seems to be a human issue that we cannot comprehend or relate to suffering that cannot be physically manifested. People will react out of fear and amusement, but very rarely out of genuine compassion.

And this is true of the church as well.

In the last six years I have had to relearn socially cues and behaviours, get use to being on my own with no other voices to keep me company, and to survive on my own outside of my family's care.

I carry with me the memories of people who have not been as fortunate as I. The haunted eyes of the lady that believed the baby in her womb was a demon. The dead eyes of the man that received shock therapy at age 8 and has been institutionalized ever since. The fear in the eyes of the lady who believed the skin on her face was melting off. The sadness in the eyes of the young teenager with suicidal tendencies. I hold in my heart the conversations we all had about being forgotten, rejected, hated by our communities. I remember the questions I received when I told the other patients I was a Christian as to why no one in my church came to visit me. I remember the loneliness.

Which is why when I met Mary I acted in a way that I had never previously acted. 3 years ago I heard screaming coming from over my fence at about 10pm. Concerned, I went over to see what was happening and found Mary, the mother of my next door neighbour, screaming at a man that I could not see, that did not exist. She had arrived to visit her daughter only to find the house empty, her daughter away for the weekend, and it was enough to cause a mental break with reality. In that moment I remembered avoiding Natasha at the wards and so I went and sat with Mary, listened to her worries, answered queries from other concerned neighbours, and called her daughter. I sat with her all night waiting for the mental health response team to arrive with her medication. I refused to let Mary turn into another Natasha in my memory.

Jesus is a friend to the broken.

I believe this with all of my heart. Yet is it so difficult to befriend a person who doesn't speak sense, who may not even notice your existence while you sit with them, who can act in a way that seems barely human sometimes.

Yet Jesus is a friend to the broken.

I knew this couple who had met in the psych ward, fallen in love and, against the wishes of their families, got married. Everyone expected them to spiral out of control mentally and end up back in the state's care. To everyone's surprise, they found a house, moved in, and, when I met them, had been happily married for 10 years. Their love and care for each other meant that they reminded each other to take medication and see the doctor. But the most profound thing that she said to me was “he makes me feel human, he doesn't care about my labels.” They had discovered in each other a person who saw and loved the intrinsic value that the other contained in simply being human. It was through this love and acceptance that they were able to move back into the wider community and form relationships there. Their mental illnesses didn't disappear or even get much better, but in being treated as human rather than as an illness they have been able to find wholeness and healing.

It was in their example that I saw a vision of what the church could be. Loving the broken is more than praying for their healing. It is more than listening to their stories. It is more than asking questions about experiences.

It is about teaching the church as a whole to view people as human rather than as broken. To value the humanness of a person is to see past the brokenness, the medical labels, the sad stories, and to see the heart of a person who longs only to be treated as worthy of attention. It is to act out the continuing mission of Jesus to all who are difficult to relate to and to understand and to reincorporate them back into the community.

In my experience I have seen this love of my humanness a handful of times. I saw it in my next door neighbour who would come over for coffee everyday and sit and listen to me ramble, help me clean my house, tell me off if I did something silly, and give me advise on my struggles. I saw it in a fellow student who discovered that I had difficulty in picking up social cues and developed a system of signals to tell me when I was doing something wrong. I saw it in one of my lecturers who let me breakdown in his office when things were getting on top of me.

These people listened, heard the issue, accepted it and worked with it, rather than trying to change it. For me, they were the church being lived out.

I still don't know how this love for the humanness of people works in churches. There is no 5 step program about reintegrating the mentally ill back into the congregation. But in a country where at least 1 million people will be diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives, there needs to be a beginning of a conversation. And it is a conversation that includes those that it is about. They may be unwell, but they will be very aware of what they feel is missing, what they don't like and how they want to be treated.

It is hard to be friends with people that don't fit, that embarrass us, that are difficult to understand. But our mindset is fundamentally wrong. This was never about US. It isn't about our comfort or discomfort, but about loving people as the created image of God, as people who embodied the Holy Spirit, as people that Jesus came in form of and died for. If we get over our own embarrassment and start viewing all people, well or not, as as worthy of belonging as we are, then maybe, just maybe, people like me won't have to feel lonely anymore.

Warrior God & Prince of Peace

This semester I have taken on the mantel of running a young adults group at my church. I love it! It is awesome to just sit and chat with people about real stuff that they are struggling to understand in the bible and to offer any wisdom or knowledge that I may have accumulate over the years. 

The dealio goes, if it is bugging you then ask and we will study it. So one of the peeps decided to bring up the issue of how do we reconcile the violence of the old testament with the 'love your neighbour' of the new?

Brilliant question. I am now officially leaving as leader....

Jokes. Though this question is one that I have struggled with for years. It is a question that usually haunts anyone who has been a believer for any length of time. In the Old Testament you have a God who is proclaimed as the Warrior God of Israel (Ex 15:3). In Jesus you have the acclaimed Prince of Peace (Is 9:6). 

Juxtaposition much?

I really don't like the violence in the earlier half of Scripture. It really bothers me when genocidal actions are attributed to God. It is totally at odds with everything I know of God being kind, loving, and a healer. It makes me unhappy.

Based upon a comprehensive study into the prevalence of violence throughout the Old Testament, Raymond Schwager calculated there to be “six hundred passages of explicit violence in the Hebrew Scriptures, one thousand verses where God’s own violent actions of punishment are described, a hundred passages where Yahweh expressly commands others to kill people, and several stories where God kills or tries to kill for no apparent reason (e.g. Exodus 4:24-26). Violence, Schwager concludes, is easily the most often mentioned activity and central theme of the Hebrew Bible.” 

That is a lot of killing.

Some Christians have found this to be waaaaaay too much to handle so they, like a dude called Marcion in the 2nd Century, throw out the OT and focus only on the NT. This is a heresy called Marcionism. The thing is, we may not literally tear our bibles in half and throw away the first lot like he did, but a lot of us don't read our OT because we don't understand it. Instead we read the NT, the stories about Jesus and the church, and we stay in our safe zones, not venturing out into the vast unknown of the Israelite world. 

But you can't understand Jesus if you don't know the OT.

Jesus came to fulfil the law, not to abolish it, and that means that in everything that Jesus was and did he was the pinnacle of what went before.

So you have to know what went before to understand how he fulfils it.

Which means delving into the angry God stories.

I am not going to do that today, the point of this blog is very different.

What I want to do is to encourage you to read what makes you uncomfortable, to wrestle with it, struggle with it, pray about it, and talk about it. Don't ignore it or run from it, that solves nothing! Take the bull by its horns and stare it in the face knowing that the God you are trying to learn about won't let you fall if you are placing your faith in him.

And the God we place our faith in shows us most fully what he is like in the person of Christ. So while you are struggling and wrestling with difficult passages, remember that it is in Jesus that we see the full picture. It is ok to come back to the person of Christ as a safe zone while you roam through the foreign land of the Bible. It is ok while sitting in the tension of how to reconcile the two to look at Jesus because he is the FULL image of God. 

Just don't give up. It is worth it if you keep pressing forward in hopes of understanding God.

Why I Believe in God

I got a text the other night from a friend asking why I believed in God. This sent me into 24+ hours of thinking why I do actually have faith. What I came up with is below. 

I am not an apologist, and sometimes not good with explaining things that are really personal to me. Ask me about the different theories of atonement and I could go for hours. But ask me about my faith and I get tongue-tied. So here it is, in all its inadequate glory. But maybe it will help someone or point them towards others who are much better at explaining these arguments than me (William Lane Craig and Ravi Zacharias are good people to start with).

So here we are. Feel free to add your own insights to this in comment form below.

Why do I believe in God?

1. One of the biggest things I hear from non-believers is 'if there is a God why is there so much evil in the world?' The thing is, how would we know what was evil if there wasn't a higher understanding of the good that should be? In other words, if this is all there is, why should it be any different? Evil and suffering, if morality is invented by humanity, is just part of everyday life. We wouldn't be shocked by it, argue against it, or think that people should act better. But the fact that we DO get shocked, argue, and think people should act better is because there is a higher moral standard that is above our own. It is one that says some things are inherently right and other are inherently wrong and that there SHOULD be something better than this.

If humanity is the one who creates objective morals then morality is relative depending on who you are talking to, the culture they are in, the time in history that they are born etc. So when people say that morality is relative then when a Hitler kills millions Jews and says it is right in his eyes, we should be ok with that because his morality is just as 'right' as anyone elses. Yet we don't say that. We say that he is wrong. This to me points to a higher objective morality, ie God.

2. Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist therefore there is a cause (the cosmological argument). That cause would be a god.

3. Humanity is hardwired to worship something. If it isn't a god then it is mon

ey, ourselves, science etc. This to me points to the fact that we are made to point to something and worship it as the foundation of our lives.

WHY I BELIEVE JESUS IS THAT GOD.

1. Historically speaking, the gospels have far more evidence for them being historically acurate than any other manuscript ever. We don't argue the existence of Alexander the Great, yet there is more evidence (within and outside of the biblical cannon) for Jesus than any other major ancient figure. So he did exist. And not only did he exist but he claimed something that no one else has ever claimed, to actually BE the same as the monotheistic God of the Jews.

2. The radical change from devout Jews who believed in a monotheistic God to including Jesus AS that God is astounding and calls for a serious consideration of the claims that Jesus was actually who they say he is. The eye witness accounts to miracles etc (all written within one lifetime of Jesus) would show that there is something at work here that needs to be considered.

3. The 'stickability' of Christianity throughout the ages, despite persecution and politics, would testify to the truth that people found in it. Even today the accounts of personal experiences with Jesus are vast and varied but at the same time hold similar elements of facts about forgiveness, peace, and hope. This is true in the majority world (also known as the Third World) as in the West where the church seems to be dying.

4. My own story of healing and deliverance cannot be scientifically explained, even though my doctors tried. I have seen my life changed at the power of his name, I have experience the hope and freedom that comes with believing in Jesus (and you have told me of times past where you have to). It is particularly poignant to point out that when I was healed I was anti-God, anti-Jesus, angry, and not wanting anything to do with him. This wasn't my own mind making things up. I cannot deny what I have been through, what I have seen in my own life and in others. This lead me to Christ, all the other arguments cemented my faith for me.

Manipulating the Spirit

I posted the other day this article on a social networking site about Benny Hinn, the infamous televangelist. Apart from his extremely suspect theology (seriously, research him one day) he is also widely known for his healing conferences and for people being 'slain in the spirit' (which basically means falling over under the overwhelming presence of the spirit) when they are around him.

When I posted this article I got a very interesting response. Someone said to me that we shouldn't, as Christians, be putting down other Christians if their ministry is working and healing people.

Well, I tell you, this set off some MAJOR warning bells in my head for several reasons.

1) Do Not Judge.

It is a common thing in this postmodern (pomo) Western world that we live in that we are told that all people's views are of equal value and we should never judge anyone. As there are phrases like 'Do not judge, lest you be judged' in the Bible, the church has adopted this policy hook, line and sinker. But the church as a people that claim the truth are, by their very nature, laying down a line that claims that on one side is the truth and on the other is not. Throughout the history of the church that line has had to be argued, researched, and reclaimed as new beliefs and practices came to the fore and challenged the way the church worked. Sometimes these challenges changed the church (for example when the Protestant church formed out of the Catholic church in the Reformation). At other times the challenges have been rejected by the church as anti-gospel and labelled a heresy.

IT IS OUR JOB TO JUDGE TRUTH CLAIMS.

It is our job as people of the Truth that we judge other claims to truth. It is essential that we are analysing and holding to account the people who claim Jesus name as their motivating factor for their ministry. It is vital for the faith that we discuss what we see happening in other churches, that we research it, and that we weigh it up against Scripture.

If we don't do this, if we fail to hold each other to account, to judge ministries by Scriptural truth, then the Truth of the Gospel gets distorted, cults form, and we have no backing to say that Mormonism, to take one example, is not Christian.

I am not going to go into the theology of Benny Hinn here, but if you hear people you know saying that such and such a preacher is dodgy, then do your homework, engage in debate, and don't shy away from saying "But what they say here is totally against the Bible..." when you know that the Truth is being distorted.

2) When 'the spirit' is not The Spirit.

Benny Hinn, as I said before, is widely known as a faith healer and a man who works in the ecstasy of the Spirit. What this means is that at his meetings there will always be prayer times where people fall over, convulse, and in other ways appear to be under the control of some other power. I knew a young woman who was healed at a Benny Hinn conference. She was my flatmate for a year and was healed 2 years before I meet her from a brain tumour. Unfortunately in the year I knew her the cancer came back and she died at the age of 22. I know her story was genuine. I also know that she was a Bible believing Christian. I don't doubt her faith or that God healed her.

But here is the crucial difference. God healed her. Benny didn't. As someone who has also experienced a dramatic healing, I can testify that God can, and will, work even in experiences where people weren't praying for healing (as in mine). If God is gonna heal, it is gonna happen.

But back to the point.

The Bible says in Matt 7:21-23:

 21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Jesus doesn't say that they won't be able to do miracles, these people who didn't know him. Moses in Egypt faced sorcerers who could do many of the things that God told him to do. When Jesus talks about the end days (also in Matthew) he says that many false teahers will come in his name performing signs and wonders and yet will not be from him. 

What we can see here is that there are people who will be able to do stuff like healings and deliverance ministry in the name of Jesus and yet still not be ok in their ministry.

So how do we know the difference between them? How can we spot the preachers who do miracles for God and those that do them for themselves?

That brings me to my next point.

3) Misunderstanding the Spirit.

Something I notice about Christians in NZ is that a lot of us have no understanding of who the Spirit is. We don't think of the Spirit as a person on equal footing with Jesus and the Father. We don't really talk about the Spirit well, making it sound like it is something we 'plug' into when we pray for the 'Jesus hit'. And it is this misunderstanding of the role of the Spirit that I believe has lead us to be afraid of speaking out when someone is manipulating it because we don't know when that is happening. (Let me just qualify that I don't think someone can actually manipulate the Holy Spirit, but rather they manipulate our understanding of it.)

The Holy Spirit is as much God as Jesus and the Father are. It is not some strange force that floats around us and we have to say the right words or go to the right church to 'feel' it as it moves among us. It isn't manifested through the right words or the right musical chord or anything else. 

Rather, it is the Spirit of the living Christ that dwells within us! It is what gives us faith, and peace, in our walk with Christ. It is what connects us with the risen Christ and makes us holy in the eyes of the Father. We don't 'recharge' on the Spirit, we live in it. Being in Christ and Christ in us is all about the Spirit and it's work within us. Sometimes this can be shown through moments of ecstasy and prophecy and healings and the like. But it isn't hovering waiting for us to plug in before those things happen, it is with us all the time and sometimes decides to move through us in strange and mysterious ways.

I am tired at the misunderstanding of the Spirit being used by churches and preachers to convince people that what is being done is from God and not humans. 

We can know whether or not it is the Spirit moving by the fruit that is produced by the people 'working' in it. Is that person, like Mother Theresa, self-sacrificial, loving of all people, have a heart for the broken, giving all they have, recognised for their love? Are they humble and always pointing to God rather than to themselves? Or is that person, like Benny Hinn, preaching that God will give you all you want, money, possessions, etc? Are they living in a humble manner or are they taking the glory?

We can know the difference between people who are working for God and those who are working for themselves. We can tell in the way the preach, and whether it stacks up with what it Bible actually says. Miracles may still happen, but Jesus told us to watch out, to be smart, and to know our Bibles well enough (with the help of those who have gone before and our communities) so we can recognise and speak out against this stuff.

Don't be suckers, be on guard.