Living in a Dream

I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is a town called Taupo in the North Island of New Zealand, and if you haven't been, you really should. All of the photos in this blog are from places I see on a daily basis on my drive to work.

Often people ask me if I mind having to commute half an hour to work (and yes, in New Zealand (apart from in Auckland) that is a long way to travel for work). I can't say that I do mind it. Every day I get an hour to relax, destress, de-work mode, pray and look at the breathtaking creation that is around me (as well as look at the road of course!

Lake Taupo is the largest in this little country of mine, and it has a personality. Some days it is dark and moody, others it is tired and weather beaten. And on yet others it looks as if it has been newly washed and sparkles in the sunlight.

It is on the shores of this moody lake that I get to live out my life at present. The changes on it's mood often reflect in the way I am thinking about life on my drive home. When it is stormy and overcast I tend to think of deep, and often dark, life crises. When it is shiny and new looking, I find myself thinking of the possibilities the future holds for me.

Today it couldn't make up its mind. It went from rainy to fine and back again and, not surprisingly, I found myself thinking about recent changes that have been occurring in my life and my perception of it. But to explain the depth of what I was thinking about we need to go back a wee way.

About 5 years ago I began to have a recurring dream. It was about a boy who I use to have a unrequited crush on. In my dream he lived next door to the house in which I grew up. Every dream would start the same, my parents and I were having a row. Not an ordinary row, but a full on screaming at each other row. I would be yelling, crying, telling them I hated them and that I was leaving the house, and I would run to my room.

Through my window in my dream I could see into the upstairs windows of this boy's house. Every time I was upset or lonely I would look out my window and he would be in his window just watching me. Even if his lights were off. It was comforting yet really really creepy and I would wake with a deeply uneasy feeling and the dream would haunt me for the rest of the day.

About a year after starting to have this dream fairly regularly, it changed. I was still rowing with my parents but now I would go round to his house to hang out with him. My parents would tell me I was forbidden from doing it and I would anyway. We would get into more arguments about that and then I would end up in my room again.

Another year later and it changed again. This time it was his mum who was forbidding us to hang out. She would kick me out of her house and we started meeting by the fence at night time so we wouldn't in trouble. Now let me explain, we weren't romantically involved in real life or my dream, it was more that we were both really lonely and needing a friend and found a common ally. But the feeling of uneasiness stayed with me every time I had the dream. I felt like a naughty teenager again who was about to get snapped for lying and sneaking out of the house. It is a feeling I don't particularly like to revisit and yet that is how I felt after every dream.

After years of these recurring dreams, last night it changed again, This time I was at home and my parents and I were talking and laughing when the boy's mum came over to see us. She was bringing up Christmas presents and she gave a particularly large and heavy one with a note on it. The note said "It's ok, you are welcome anytime." The present turned out to be a huge candle. This time I woke up feeling very at peace.

How does this relate to my drive, I hear you ask?

I was thinking about that dream on my drive home today and I was reflecting on what it all might mean. But just like the lake, I couldn't make up my mind. I went between thinking it was just a dream, thinking it had some deep hidden meaning, and thinking about panda's (you know, as you do). Then I had a little bit of an epiphany.

I wonder if my dream has been changing as I have been changing.

When my dream first started I felt very lost, unhappy with some significant relationships in my life, and alone. I wanted someone who could understand but I was uncomfortable sharing about what was going on. I thought I would be judged and misunderstood and so I only really talked to my husband and my sister about it. Recently though, I have found a deep sense of peace with the decisions I have made. Perhaps my dream reflected this sense of 'making peace' with myself.

Though dream interpretation is notorious for being wishy washy and airy fairy, there is something to be said about our subconcious reflecting what we are going through into our dreams. Or maybe I have just been dreaming about a creepy dude with a strange mother. 

Whatever the truth is, I know that living in a place of such intense beauty has really helped me to connect to myself and my feelings in a way I haven't really done before. My long drive around the lake edge focuses my mind and causes me to think about things that otherwise I would ignore. The spectacle of creation with all its glory and complexity helps my brain to look inwards and simplify. In the enormity of what God has created, I find my own significance.

All of that to say, I live in a truly gorgeous corner of the world.

How far is too far?

It seems like every time I write a blog post there is something new and exciting happening in the world of Christine and hubby. This month's instalment is that I have started my own business (Check out The Admin Company on FB or go over and look at www.theadmincompany.co.nz).

I have been loving this process. I am excited by the prospect of working for myself, of doing something I enjoy, of picking my own work etc. It has been a ride opening the business, making a logo, getting the company registered, and promoting myself.

But there is a really hard side to this that, though I knew about it, I didn't think it would be as hard as it is.

It takes time.

It takes time to build your brand reputation.

It takes time to get a customer base.

It takes time to get the word out there.

And time is money. It really is in this case. Because I work for myself now if I don't make money then my bills don't get paid.

This has meant that hubby and I are down to the wire with our money for rent and food. I can't get a business loan as I have nothing to secure it against. I don't want a loan shark loan. I am trying to raise funds on a funding website (check that out here) and I have looked into any help that can be offered by the government, but all to no avail.

This means that I am still looking (never really stopped) for any type of employment, even if it means I have to run my business in the evenings or weekends until it is economically viable.

But from a faith point of view this whole thing has been a roller coaster.

When my contract job finished 3 weeks ago, Luke and I both felt very strongly that God was telling us we would be ok. But job application after job application kept getting rejected. 

As I started my business I felt God very much behind it. But so far nothing has happened with it.

Luke did look at work, but we both were overwhelmed by God telling us that Luke needed to focus on his music, a career that has no income at the moment. This seems like pure madness to us but we both feel so strong that this is the right path for Luke, and we can't ignore it.

And now we have 1 week of money left and then we are really up the proverbial river with out a paddle.

Stress has now kicked in. I can be reduced to tears in a heart beat because I feel so overwhelmed. Though I keep telling myself that today we are ok, today we have a house and food, I still panic about the future.

And yet, the question "How far do you trust Jesus?" keeps resonating in both our heads.

Do we trust Jesus only until life gets hard and then give up?

Do we trust what we know God is saying to us, until we can't handle the stress and then do the opposite?

Do we trust God to provide as promised, until we don't want to lose our house and then do it our way?

Or do we keep trusting, even if we lose the house, even if we end up with no job, no home, and no way of paying for food?

Do we trust God even though it is hard and we don't like it?

Even though this situation is hard and frankly a lot of what we feel God is saying doesn't make sense to us on a financial scale, we both feel an underlying peace with what we have chosen. We both know it makes no sense to others around us, or even ourselves, but there is this sense of peace that somehow we will be ok. 

Our instinct is to do it our way, to run the show and to ignore what we feel to be right. 

But how far is too far when it comes to trusting Jesus?

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.

Why Does a Good God let Bad Things Happen?

In my last blog post about I answered a question from a friend about why I believed in God. I then expanded that to explain why I believed Jesus is that God. A comment was left on that blog that goes like this:

 A lot of people have asked me not why is there so much evil in the world, but why is God letting it happen? Why is He letting people suffer? What would your response to that be? I can answer it but it seems a very uncompassionate answer. One thing I suddenly think of is what you moved on to talking about - Jesus. Before Jesus, God seemed to mostly worry about what the Israelites were doing, as the people of God. But when Jesus came, God in human form, he started to heal people and talk them through stuff in a way I don't think God had so much, BC. It was the human that went out and started the process of 'healing the world' and giving that example of what we should be doing.So it appears to be our duty to be the change we wish to see in the world (together with others).
I still don't get where cancer comes from, though. It doesn't make enough sense that 'God is with us through the suffering'. It's almost like a parent saying, 'oh whoops, you got hit by a car and got paralysed. But it's okay, cos I'll sit with you in hospital'. 
I am kind of thinking that one's faith cannot be based on knowledge alone, but as you say, a personal encounter with Christ, which cannot be scientifically proven, or completely falsified, because it is each person's experience. Even when people have experienced miracles, others will not believe because, well, maybe because those miracles have not happened to them. Maybe their friend died of cancer. Maybe they themselves still haven't been healed. Sorry about the rant but I am putting stuff out there that probably lots of people are thinking. The kind of questions that don't go away..

There are so many things I want to respond to in this comment that it took me a couple of days to get my head in order! First off, thank you for leaving this post and asking the questions that are difficult and that Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with. The problem of suffering is a HUGE issue that often we are too afraid to speak about in case we sound stupid or whiny or because we are afraid that the answers (or lack thereof) will hurt our faith. So thank you for your bravery and you 'rant' haha.

Secondly, I think the only way I am gonna be able to tackle this is to state from the get go that there is a lot about God that I don't know (shock! haha) and that anything I say are my opinions and not necessarily the Truth about the situation. I have only my biblical study, my opinions, my experiences, and my community to draw on. These are big questions that I more than likely will not resolve but maybe I will help add to the discussion, clarify it, or even just point people in the direction of where to look to wrestle with these sorts of things. In other words, this blog post is not going to attempt to solve the issue of suffering in the world, and I am ok with that.

So I am gonna break this down into sections with what I believe are the big issues being talked about here. If I have read this wrong please feel free to redefine and get me to answer the actual question :p

Ok, here it goes.

I see three big topics in this comment:

1) Why does God allow suffering to happen?
2) What is the relation of the OT to the NT in terms of suffering in the world?
3) What is the role of Christians in the face of the suffering we see? How do we respond to it?

1) Why does God allow suffering to happen?

In order to answer this question I actually want to start with the second one. So...

2) What is the relation of the OT to the NT in terms of suffering in the world?

The reason I want to start with this question is because the only way we know the truth about who God is and how God acts is through Scripture. It's the starting point from where we can judge all experiences of God in our lives, or the theology we are taught in churches, and figure out what is God and what is not by seeing if it is compatible with the God in the Bible. For example, if someone says "God told me to steal that person's wallet", chances are God didn't actually tell them that because we know that God in the Bible was really against people stealing. Comprende? 

So by looking at the OT and the NT we should be able to answer question 1) a little better (hopefully....fingers crossed).

It is true that in the OT God seems a little preoccupied with Israel as opposed to the rest of the world. Remember that these books were written by Israelis for Israelis about Israel and Israel's God. They aren't gonna talk a lot about the rest of the world. BUT, in amongst this history of a chosen people, there are whole sections dedicated to people who weren't part of Israel and yet are called Godly people and are seen as saved by God!!! This is pretty mind blowing that they were included in the story of a people who thought God's salvation was for Israel alone!

Let's start with Abraham. He is what we call a pagan (a worshipper of many manmade gods) when God calls him and tells him to go to a 'land which I will show you'. So Abraham (at this point called Abram) goes. Talk about a leap of faith! Leaving everything you know to follow a God you have never heard of and can't see! Like Noah before him, Abraham was seen a a solo righteous man among many unrighteous men. Noah and Abraham were both called and they both followed. Both are really messed up!! Noah gets drunk and naked one night after the flood, and Abraham lies about his wife (calling her his sister) in order to save his own life. Not exactly perfect men but God still used them.

Abraham meets a man called Melchizedek on his travels. This man is outside of the covenant God formed with Abraham, so he isn't part of the nation that will spread God's word. He appears from nowhere, no history of him, and is called the King of Salem (translated as the King of Peace). He is recognised by Abraham as a righteous man and yet not part of the 'elect'.

Jonah is sent to Ninevah, the ENEMIES of Israel who God said were outside the elect people of Israel, and God saves their lives because the repent!

Job is not from Israel, he is not a Jew. Yet a whole book is given over to him as a holy man who God cares about. He suffers greatly and dares to address God and God ANSWERS him. Trust me, in Hebrew literature for God to answer a pagan is a flippin big deal.

When the Jews leave Egypt they also take with them, as part of their number, Egyptians who wished to follow them and they become part of Israel when the land is given to the Jews. So does Rahab, a Moabite prostitute, and Ruth, a Moabite pagan. Both these women are great, great, great....grandmothers of Jesus.

What I am trying to get at here is that God in the OT wasn't just concerned with Israel. Through Israel God is forming a great plan (Jesus) that will save the world, but in the mean time he is also working outside of Israel to save the world also. Jesus acts in the same way. He purposely shows up the Jewish religious leaders by acting in a way that says "God cared about these people, the people you rejected, and always has. It is YOU that has read the text wrong, not God asking you to reject them".

In this the OT and the NT line up. God doesn't act differently. In both he is concerned with the care for the poor, alien, widowed etc (check out the laws in Leviticus, there are heaps of these). God is not only focused on Israel. They are a people that he is making in order to send his Son, but he is at work with love and concern for those not in Israel too.

I hope that answers this question.

That said, let's go back to number 1.

1) Why does God allow suffering to happen?

I think I need to clarify three different forms of suffering here. There is suffering from natural causes (earthquakes, tsunamis etc), there is suffering at the hands of others (rape, child abuse, name calling), and there is suffering through illness.

Suffering at the hands of others is the easiest to answer. In these cases God has given everyone the free will to act as they chose. Though this means that we will all act in a bad way at some point in our lives, some people will chose to act in a way that is purposely harmful to others. It is their choice. It sucks for the person who is at the hands of perpetrator (and as a sexual abuse survivor, I know what I am talking about) but God has chosen, out of love for us, to let us make our choices, even when they hurt others.

Now I know people out there are gonna say "but why doesn't he stop them? What if they are hurting a child?" I get that, I really do. Nothing makes my blood boil like child abuse and I would quite willing castrate anyone who lays a hand on anyone else in violence. But if we would let God take away free will there, when do we say stop? What about stealing? Cheating? Lying to your parents? When does intervention actually start meaning no free will and we become robots made to serve God, instead of people who can chose to love him? When is it ok for God to intervene and it not ok? As someone who has been through it I would say God did intervene in the fact that he gave me a choice to either live on in anger, or to give it to him and learn to forgive. He didn't have to do that. 

Suffering from natural causes is a little harder. The bible tells us in Romans (I think chapter 6?) that the earth is groaning with birthing pangs. In other words, when death entered this world it didn't just affect us, it affected the whole of creation. Everything started breaking down. Global warming is an example of where things are breaking down and it is from our choices. We haven't treated this planet well and it is feeling the affects. And when laws of nature come into affect then these things are going to start affecting at least some of the millions of people who live on this planet. It sucks. It is awful and sad to watch it happen. But God created this world to work with certain natural laws. Unfortunately, those laws work really well and cause catastrophes at times. 

Illness is the one that gets me every time. I don't know why God doesn't heal everyone. I don't know why Jesus at times heals everyone who comes to him and then the next day it is only a few. I don't why I was healed and others haven't been. It can make me angry, thinking of the people I know who get sick, and it makes me feel survivors guilt that I escaped and others have died from their illnesses. Perhaps it has to do with choices (ie lung cancer from smoking) and to do with creation breaking down and our bodies going all wrong. 

But what I do know is that in the face of all this suffering God has said "this ISN'T it!" He sent Jesus to die for us and to rise again to show us that this life isn't just "life's a bitch and then you die." There is healing to be found, if not in this life then in the next. There will be miracles for all who believe. That when a friend dies of cancer we can grieve but also be glad that they are free from their suffering and made whole with Jesus. There is HOPE. And that is a wonderful thing. Because God will heal everyone, and he will stop all natural disasters, and we will live without fear of what others can do for us. So God HAS done something about suffering, he HAS intervened. It is just not on our timeline.

And this leads to,

3) What is the role of Christians in the face of the suffering we see? How do we respond to it?

We are to tell others that this isn't it! That there is hope. That they don't have to only experience life this way. We are to sit with them and grieve with them and pray with them and hold them. And we are to love them as people who are worthy of love, people who are worthy of attention. We don't ignore them like the rest of society does. We aren't to put sick and suffering people away where we can't see them. We are to embrace them as children of God and invite them into seeing themselves that way. Because we love them we will want them to know the truth, that God has intervened, that he has a time limit for suffering and one day it will be finished. That this life with these broken bodies in this broken world is not forever but life and joy can be. 

We are to live in such a way that we point them to the one that will heal their suffering and give them peace.

That is my hope. 

That is my joy. 

I am honoured to share it with you.

The Death of YOLO

For those of you who are older than 30, YOLO is the new expression for justifying pretty much any behaviour that lets you live for the moment. The reasoning goes “you only live once so go out and have fun”.

This video clip from a girl called Kesha that really exemplifies this life style.

We see here the belief that to live in the moment is to get drunk, have sex, cheat on our partners, party wildly, vandalism throw away responsibility. This song tells us that if we are going to die young then we may as well live it up as best we can now by not feeling any shame or guilt for the way we act. Rebellion against the established order is also shown through anti-Christian symbols. Did any one spot the pentagram, sign of witch craft, and the upside down cross?

There is another way to view YOLO though, and this video clip that shows this understanding....

Ok so this is obviously meant to be poking fun but it really does have an interesting view point. The idea of YOLO, you only live once, leads to a fear of death. In fact both clips show this.

The second clip shows it in an extreme way, telling us that we really need to lock ourselves away in order to live a careful life and preserve it at all costs. The first clip doesn't seem to be showing fear of death, but think about it this way. It is only fear of not living long enough to fulfill all our dreams, or have enough fun, that fuels a lifestyle like this. It is the fear of missing out, or FOMO, that comes from the fear that if this life is it then we really have to milk it for all its worth.

So what do we do with this? What is the alternative to partying it up or hiding ourselves away?

Surprise, surprise, but the Bible actually has A LOT to say about YOLO!!! Who would've thought it! Here we are 2000ish years after this book has been written and it can speak directly into a situation that they had never even heard of!

HEBREWS 12:1-4 (MESSAGE version)

 Do you see what this means - all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running - and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. 2 Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. 3 When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! 4 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through - all that bloodshed!

Ok, so it doesn't mention YOLO or even FOMO or anything like that.

It might not mention those directly but look at what it is saying. It is telling us that somehow other people know what we are facing, that Jesus knows what we are facing!

But before I go into it too much I want to give you a little context. Before this particular passage the author has just had a huge talk about all these other dudes who show up in the Bible. They talk about what they got up to and how they trusted in God. They pretty much sum up the Bible story in terms of individuals and their walks with God. So at the beginning when they say “all these veterans” what they are talking about are people who have gone before us who had to put their faith in God too, even when it got tough.

This author knows what it is like to live a hard life when being a Christian. Christians weren't exactly the favourite people in those days. In fact they were pretty hated. They were abused and laughed at and seen as kind of weird for living differently to the rest of society.

I don't know about you but that sounds awfully similar to what it is like to be a Christian now who says no to going to parties or having sex before marriage and all that stuff. People think we are strange. They think we are party-poopers, kill joys, fun sponges. Anyone else find that sometimes?

This author doesn't tell us that, actually, we should try really hard to fit in because it is better if you live in such a way that people don't know your a Christian. They don't tell us that they understand how hard it is and really it is understandable that we give in every now and then because we want to have a bit of fun and don't want to miss out.

Nope. Look at what they do say.

They tell us to start running and never quit!

 I am trying to loose weight at the moment and I tell ya, going to the gym every day is NOT my favourite thing to do.

Anyone who has had to train in anything knows that it is hard. It is brutal. Making yourself get up every day and do the same thing, to knowingly have to push yourself through pain, is sometimes just the opposite of what you want to do. Some days there is a pay off and you feel good afterwards, and some days you just feel more tired and exhausted and you just want to give up and never do it again. 

Usually at those times you will have a goal that you want to achieve that pushes you to keep going. Maybe it is a gold medal, or in my case a weight I want to achieve. Whatever it is, in your mind you keep your eye on the prize because there are days when that is the only reason you have to push through.

This author is using that analogy. They are saying that life isn't about wild living that ignores the pain in the world. It isn't about instant gratification that makes us feel good. Nor is it about quitting, running away and hiding from everything. Instead it is race.

We start the race when we accept Jesus into our lives, when we go “yeah, Jesus, I want you to be the head of my life because really, I have done a crap job up until now”. That day when we ask him to lead, that is the day we start running.

And we keep going. Everyday. We study how Jesus lived his life so we can train in the same way. We look at the love he had for others and the complete submission he had to the Father and we practice that in our own lives. We look at the pain he went through, the suffering, and we know that we can face anything with God beside and inside us. We read the stories of other people who have gone before us. We see that at times they fail, but they do not give up, and it is those stories that give us strength to keep going.

And above all we see that for Jesus the race didn't end in death. We don't run this race for nothing. Our prize at the end is that we don't only live once. We live again, in an eternity of God's rest. We will see this world renewed without the pain and the heartache, and we will finally get to see the man that we were running for. We will get to see Jesus.

 But there is the question of how do we train for life? It seems like a rather strange thing to ask us to do really when we have no idea what life will bring. How do you prepare for something that you can predict?

There are 3 easy steps that I think can help us all train in Christ for whatever may happen in life.

1. Read your Bible's. Now I know this seems like such the obvious Christian thing to say right now. But I am talking about more than just picking up the book and saying “Jesus speak to me today” and then hoping that we get it right in what we read. No. I mean study it. Get books out on how to interpret the verses. Get a good daily reading plan that helps explain the verses. Talk to people who have studied it. This church is full of leaders who have study the Bible. Use them, utilize their knowledge. Because the Bible doesn't start “Dear Christine” and end “Love from God”. Not everything is clear and we may get it really wrong. But we need to train our minds with Scripture if we are to know what it says.

And this leads to my second step:

2. Once we actually know what the Bible is saying to us we need to obey it. There is no point doing all that hard work of reading the thing if we are going to ignore it. Once we have trained our minds we need to train our actions. This becomes easier as you fill your minds with good stuff. Our conscience becomes more clear when we are doing things that might not be good. We start to analyse tv programmes, video clips and books better because we do it through the lens of the Bible. We start living more like Christ and loving God and people. And the more the do this the easier it becomes to
   
   
   
   
   
3. Persevere. This last step is about training no matter what. About studying the Bible, analysing our thoughts and feelings and actions through it, no matter what happens, no matter what life throws at us. Because there will be times when it is harder to do than others, and it is only training in 1) and 2) that will help you with 3).
   
   
   

Now I know that this doesn't sound fun. Things like study, training, perseverance, obedience aren't exactly words that make us jump up and yell “sign me up. I so want a piece of that!”

I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that life with Jesus is sunshine and roses. In fact life may get harder for you as you live in the world but as someone who lives differently to it. There are times when you will want to throw it all away and party and forget the hardship of life. Trust me, we have all been there. Talk to anyone who has been a Christian for a while and they will tell you that they have moments where doubts creep in, where temptation is strong, when they wish they could just walk away.

But here is the amazing thing.

You don't do it alone.

You aren't a marathon runner who is out there pounding the streets alone. You have a great cloud of witnesses, past and present, who have gone before you and who cheer you on. They help you with their writings and sermons, the things that they have learned. And you have Christ, who has showed us the way and modeled how to do it.

See we run for Christ, to Christ, with Christ, and through the strength of Christ. We run to be like Christ, so we train under Christ, because we stand firm on our foundation which is Christ. And as we keep running, it is the story of Christ that renews our strength and faith when we feel it failing.

We are coming up to Easter now, a time when we remember that Christ died and rose again. We remember why we are running the race in the first place. We remember that we follow a God who not only went into the grave, but came back out of it, and promised us the same.

We remember that we don't only live once. Don't live waiting to die. Don't live as Kesha would tell you to live, so scared that you will die before you do anything fun that you go wild. Don't live as Lonely Island tells you to live, so scared of something going wrong that you barracade yourself away from the world. Both of these types of people are living waiting for death. Death is what shapes and forms their lives. In trying to hide from it, in reality it is ruling them.

Christ on the other hand brings life and life in full. He frees us from sin. What that means is we don't have to live afraid of death because we have no hope in anything after it. It means that he gives us strength to say no to things that are bad for us. It means that we don't carry around guilt or shame for things that we have done. It means having the weight of the world, of fear, of shame, taken off our shoulders because he already carried it.

The Christian churchy way of saying all this is that we die to ourselves. It's a kind of hard concept to grasp, I mean how do we actually do that. It is easier if I give you some examples than to try and explain it in words.

Dying to self is when a young 17 year old man fails in a suicide attempt that he tried because his life was meaningless. When he came through it he said to God that his own attempts to fix his life had failed so now he was going to give God a chance to sort it out. Since then he has let God direct his path, has fallen in love with Scripture, and has a meaning and purpose that he never had before. He died to himself by giving up his own wish to die, by letting God take control. He gave up what he wanted and listened to what God wanted instead.

Dying to self is the 16 year old girl who had a moment of passion with her boyfriend and ended up pregnant. She went to church and was a sunday school leader but had fallen into temptation that changed her life. She wanted to get an abortion but on the way to the clinic changed her mind. She pulled the car over and prayed that God would give her strength to raise a baby even though she was a child herself. She died to self in that she gave up her own fear to God, her desire to remain young and carefree, and the shame that she would feel in facing her peers. She raised that child to follow God and thanks Jesus everyday that he is in control and that he gave her strength to keep her baby.

Dying to self is the 20 year old who looks at porn everyday. He knows others do too but it is destroying him inside. He feels so ashamed and dirty every time he goes to the websites but the temptation seems too strong and he feels he can't stop. He has tried praying and reading his bible but he fails over and over as the desire takes hold. In desperation he asks God to help him overcome his shame and he reaches out to a friend for help. He died to himself in that he gave it to God, he gave up his desires and his fear of rejection and, with the strength of God asked others for help. He still fails, it is still a struggle, but he gives it over to God every time and dies to himself everyday.

See, if you really believe in Christ then it is time to start living it. Because if we don't live out what we believe then the grace we have been given we are throwing in God's face. We are saying that Jesus' death wasn't important enough for you to give up drinking, drugs, sleeping around, downloading music illegally, watching porn...whatever it is. You are saying that your happiness in that moment is sooooo important, that it is more important than what Jesus did for you. You are saying that your sin is more powerful that his love. That you would rather be a slave to culture than free in Christ.

It is time for the death of YOLO. Stop living as if you are waiting to die. Die to yourself, your own selfish desires and sin, so that you may live in Christ, that you might live forever.

Watch this clip!!

God Slapped

It seems that February is a month of revelation for me.

This year is a decision year for Luke and me. At the end of it we both finish studying (for now) and need to have some idea of where we are going and what we are doing. I like to have things sorted well in advance so I started asking God about it around the turn of the new year. And boy oh boy has God been talking back.

It first started with a conversation that Luke and I had with friends as we celebrated the new year midnight hoohaa. I was asked by one of them what my word was for the coming year. What he meant by this is what do I really want to focus on with God over the next 12 months. I came up with perseverance.

I want to persevere with relationships with friends that have left college and I don't see on a daily basis. I want to persevere with my study and get my Masters degree. I want to persevere with my marriage and continue to grow with Luke. I want to persevere with my relationship with God and learn more about the wonder of the Trinity. I want to persevere in my preaching and look for more opportunities to preach and serve at church. So perseverance became the word for this year.

So I have been praying that God would teach me more about perseverance and give me opportunities for me to grow in that area.

To let you understand the enormity of what comes after this you need to know something about me.

I love the spotlight.

I love to stand up in front of people and preach. I love being the centre of attention. I love telling people what I think and why I think it. As Eminem is to rap, I want to be Preacher to the church. I have daydreams about standing in front of thousands and having them convert and praising God/Me because of my words.

It's a problem. Humility has never been my strong point.

So over the last couple of months I have been thinking of what to do next year. My ideas ranged from getting a scholarship to do my PhD at Oxford University, while writing a thesis that changes the face of theology, to becoming the youngest ever and first female principle of Laidlaw College. I also thought about going overseas and doing youth work, working with women in the sex industry, or becoming the next Joyce Meyer. There was just one problem,

Luke is in a band.

A Metal Band.

Don't get me wrong, I love the band. The boys in it are like family to me and I love that Luke is doing something that he loves and makes him happy. But a metal band in New Zealand isn't going to go anywhere fast, make any money, or even draw massive crowds.

In short, I wrote it off as a hobby that could be sacrificed to follow my dreams.

And then God started talking back.

I was sitting on a bus from Taupo to Auckland listening to Lecrae, a Christian rapper, and talking to God about the fabulous plans I had for my life that he should make work for me, when I realised how unbelievably selfish and self centred I was being. I wasn't interested in what God wanted for my life, I wasn't even thinking about how I could serve him. All I was thinking about was how I could get recognition. I didn't even consider the fact that God was using the band, had called the band members to it, and was working through them. I was thinking only about how God could serve my desires. 

I was God slapped.

And it hurt. 

I felt humiliated and ashamed that I had pushed my own agenda and wrapped it up in a bow called 'God's calling'. It took about 4 hours and everything I had planned for my life was broken.

I am a blind woman. I don't see the world as I should, but through the darkness of sin. I need to hold on the arm of my Saviour so he can lead me. And as he leads me he tells me about the world as he sees it. He describes the beauty and the glory, and he weeps as he tells me of the brokenness. And all the time he leads me gently in the best path for my feet.

But I am stubborn. I don't want to be lead, I want to run ahead. So I do. I leave the safety of his arm and walk by myself, even though I fall in potholes and trip on rubbish. I try to tell him what the world looks like by the limited things I can feel and foolishly believe that this proves that I am not even blind, that I can see just as well as he.

I am a blind woman. God give me sight.

Perseverance is a word heavy with the implication of struggle. I struggle with myself and my own ego daily. If I really do want to follow God and preach the Word then why am I not doing it right where I am? Why does it need to be on a stage where people can see me and know who I am? 

We all have our own individual weaknesses that get us in a sneak attack and we don't even realise that we have shifted our gaze from God to ourselves. This is one of mine. I am still working through it, still praying about it, but I am so grateful that God made me aware of it! 

I will persevere, even against myself.

Killing Ourselves Slowly

Fighting the Flab is back in progress. Just a quick update to let you all know where I am at.

Christmas for us, as with everyone else, is an absolute killer when you are trying to loose weight. We pretty much put everything off for a few weeks as the fun and frivolity took over. Perhaps not the best thing to do but there you are.

So Luke is an amazing husband and has stepped up to the mammoth task of helping me out on this front, or there is no way weight loss was never going to happen. 

Every morning we are going to get up and workout for an hour in the gym (30mins weights and 30mins cardio). We have done it twice now and I am sitting here in so much pain that I will only move for essential issues. My arms hurt, my legs hurt, my abs hurt....everything hurts. Luke is pretty much in the same boat.

We also went through our cupboards and freezer and fridge and gave away (to our all too willing neighbours) all the food that would be self sabotaging. Out went the peanut butter. Out went the heat and eat lasagne. Out went the fizzy drinks and Raro drinks. Oh, and the cheesecake. It was a sad day, we are still wearing black in mourning.

But we are determined. We are even giving up fizzy drink, fast food, chocolate and desserts for lent. 40 days of none of our favourite foods in order to remember what God did for us. Every time we get a craving hopefully it will remind us to pray and think of God.

So back on the treadmill we go. If you don't hear from us for a few days check the gym at Laidlaw: we may have collapsed and haven't been found yet :)

The Fear

Today it hit me while I was waiting at the bus stop.

It's been known to sneak up on me while out with friends, lying in bed, shopping, working...pretty much just about anywhere.

It stalks its prey silently, deviously, and waits until they are their most unsuspecting and then...

...WHAMO!!!

I know it's got you too before.

The chilling little voice in your head that paralyses you with fear.

The voice that says "Is there really any point to this?"

So there was I, at 6:50am, waiting nonchalantly for my bus, quite at peace with the world and all that dwell in it. Two seconds later I was in the grip of an epistemological crisis and questioning the reason for life, the universe and everything.

All because a little voice asked me if there was really any point.

I don't know about you but this type of thinking can really scare the pants off me! I am a fairly imaginative, deep thinking person anyway, so get me started on a topic like this and I start jumping from one scenario to another and soon I am ready to quit my job, leave New Zealand or, failing both of those things, run back to bed and hide under the covers.

Because, really, at my core, I do question the reason for everything. I guess my life has taught me that the one sure thing that will happen in life is that it will bite you. At some point, life is going is going to get hard and you won't know why, you won't know if it will change, and somehow you have to find meaning in all of it.

So colour me pessimistic but I haven't seen a lot that changes this opinion. Crap happens. All. The. Time. To everybody, everywhere.

So what is the point of life if all I am doing is getting up at 6 to go to a job that is full of angry and stressed people to try and work and not getting angry and stressed at the same time? What is the point of earning money just to see it disappear every week into someone elses pocket?

What is the point when where you are and where you wish you were in life are so different that you can't even see the connections to get from one to the other?

How, in other words, do you stop getting so miserably depressed at the thought that all you are going to do for the rest of your life is work a 9-5 job (if your lucky!), save for your retirement, maybe have children who you will break over everytime they hurt, and then die with nothing to show for it, that you don't go and throw yourself off a bridge somewhere and meet God early?

Yup, that's what went through my head early this morning.

At that moment a song came on - "You Are Holy" by The Digital Age - and I had an epiphany.

There may be no point in working!

But it's ok, because work was never meant to give meaning to my life!

If work is what defines me then I am screwed! Bring on death I say! Take me from this hell hole we call consumerism!

It defines so many people's lives though, it makes them who they are, teaches them their self worth and then when they retire we wonder why old people are so depressed and grumpy.

it's because they have lost the reason they lived!

Life is not about work.

Granted I cannot live without my paycheck and Luke would not be too impressed with that as an excuse if I quit my job tomorrow and lived off the dole.

But there is something more to life than just the same old stuff we see around us.

There is hope.

Not "hope that one day I will be in heaven so HAH! to all you suckers I am outta here" hope.

No, true hope comes from knowing that one day this, this stuff all around us, the world and all we see, the famines in Africa, the plagues and dtroughts and storms and miscarriages and diseases and homeless people and child abuse and rape and deforrestation and global warming and greed and anger and stress.....all that stuff...

one day it will all be made ok again.

One day we won't have our hearts broken by what we see and what we have done to us and what we have done.

One day we will see this all as it is meant to be.

One day Jesus will return and the crap will stop.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is my hope.

That one day it will all make sense, it will all be healed and we won't have to struggle to find meaning or fight off the fear or anything because it will be as it was.

I need this hope like I need air.

Without it my world would collapse and I would be the most depressed person ever.

With it I find joy in the little things, hope in the big things and love in everything.

And it makes me realise that after all the crap I have been through, I am still here! My life is good; I have a steady income, a loving husband, a nice place to live and food to eat. I have more than I need in accumulated stuff and I live like a Queen compared to most of the world.

The fear is really a construct of my own pig-headeness and desire to be autonomous. I want to be able to quit work when I like and still get paid, still live as I do and not have to work for it! That is selfish and self-serving and yet that is where the fear is based; in the fact that I can't just do what I like and have what I want for nothing.

When it comes down to it, when I focus on what he has done, and what he will continue to do to his glory, and I pull my head out of my arse long enough to breathe in the quiet morning air and stop focusing on myself, I see that, honestly,

 the Fear pales in comparison to Love.

The Monotony of Life?

I was having a discussion the other day with a friend about his fear of the monotony of life. He told me he was afraid of living a life that was a 9-5 work day, coming home, tv, sleep, repeat. His fear was that life would get boring, friends would get boring and, worst of all, that family would eventually get boring.

This conversation has stayed in my mind the last week or so and I have wondered about his fears at those times in the night when everything is silent except all the thoughts in your head. I have wondered if he is right, that life is a treadmill of monotony and then you die. I have wondered if people have always thought like this, and if not, where did it come from? I have wondered and asked myself and the night if I too fear life being boring?

I think that in a life bombarded by advertising telling us that our lives will not be truly happy til we buy a, b, or c then it is totally understandable that we are growing generations of people terrified of being boring, of being still, of things not constantly changing. We have bred an age of people who do not know how to live the same day in and day out. We must be buying something new, seeing something new, going somewhere new, dating someone new. If life is boring it is our fault, the problem is with us and we must do something to fix it, to make it exciting again. The age of irresbonsibility (cunningly disguised in the title 'adolesence') is getting older and older because people are afraid of being responsible, of being boring.

But if you really stop to consider a life without routine I think that that is a decidedly scarier thought. Imagine a life where you can't rely on your job being there in the morning, can't trust your partner/spouse/boy/girlfriend to be there for you and consistent in the way they are (hmmm, actually that sounds a lot like some people I know....). Imagine not being able to rely on a paycheck every week, food on the table, money in the bank (well, most of the world lives like that so maybe we should count our blessings...). Imagine that the day in day out 'boring' stuff of life changed at random any day in liked and tell me how much fun would it be living in a world like that? Would it be less stressful, happier, more exciting? Or would it become so unstable that people would be desperate for monotony? Is that in fact why we have such high rates of suicide and drug and alcohol problems, because people can't stay up to speed with this world that changes so fast? Perhaps it is the boring that makes the exciting exactly that.

I am getting married in just over two months and, I have to say, I am looking forward to waking up everyday to the same face, to seeing him and dinner time, to knowing he will be there for me, to having our house with our stuff and not having the nomadic life of a single. Call me boring, but I think all of that is exactly what I was made to enjoy.