Be Still And Know

1 Peter 1:8 NLT 'You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.' Joy is something that impacts my senses. At the start of last autumn, I remember throwing open the windows at the back of the house one morning and being entranced with the scent of fennel from our garden that wafted across and filled my senses. It was a wonderful experience, shared by no one else. Even had Jayne been alongside me, there is no guarantee that she would have enjoyed the same joy that I did. We are all wired differently, yet God knows each one of us down to and including every hair on our heads (Luke 12:7)! In much the same way, our love for God is unique. We live in an age in which so much of life is reduced to mechanistic models that ‘work’, removing both individuality and the personal touch in favour of efficiency. However, God has little interest in efficiencies, and every interest in each of us as an individually crafted creati

Ecclesiastes 9:7 NLT 'So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this!' My favourite dictionary defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires”. Scripture tells us that “the joy of the Lord is [our] strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Life has a habit of crushing the joy out of us. Once our joy is gone we, like a squeezed lemon, are reduced to an empty skin. Our substance has gone; our principal ingredient lost. Recently I discovered an online tool (thejoyprinciple.net) that promised to measure my joy. It was simple and immediate, as any online experience must be. It measured more than 16 yes/no questions where I perceived my state of happiness with family, friends, the world around me, and finally my possessions. I scored 95 per cent joyful. Not bad, the average being 68 per cent. I was encouraged since I had set the parameters high on family, low on friendship, medium on the world aroun

Luke 4:13 NLT 'When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.' Jesus has experienced three separate and acute temptations in the wilderness, and now the devil departs from him until a fresh opportunity will appear. Jesus had steadfastly resisted and therefore endured the struggle. For each of us there is the temptation to buckle under pressure. God does not deliver us from the struggle, yet is there when we reach out and use what lies within our resources to resist the temptation to crumble. Of course, the intensity of the struggle is real, and usually all-consuming. Here, Jesus, hungry and alone, draws upon scripture to battle against the mind games the devil plays with him. We live in a society in which we are invited to establish normality on the terms set by others. In an age of mass media, platformed commentators shape our world view. Society is unfairly weighted in favour of those it defines as physically and mentally “able”. So, if born with a learning disabili

Luke 4:3-4 NLT Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’” One immediate challenge with persevering is that we never know at the start how long we shall need to endure. Here Jesus faces his first approach from the devil. We know with the benefit of scripture that this season will be for 40 days, around six weeks. Jesus is unlikely to have known how long he was to face temptation in the desert. What he discovers is that the devil wants to mess with his mind. What’s more, the devil approaches him after 40 days of desert life. One imagines Jesus is at a low point for he has been fasting and would have been in great need of food. When we are tested, it is our resolve that is slowly challenged and we become increasingly vulnerable to Satan’s tricks. The experience of the desert generally leaves us feeling distant from God. Like Jesus, the enemy will whisper in our ears somethin

Luke 4:1-2 NLT 'Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the River Jordan. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.' Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent. The word “Lent” means “lengthening” and identifies the growing hours of daylight as spring advances. Symbolically, it speaks of the approaching light of Christ, with the resurrection dispelling darkness once and for all. Easter is the moment darkness is defeated and God re-established friendship with all humanity. Today, in many traditions, Christians will receive an ash cross upon their foreheads, a sign of penitence and reminder that it is “through many tribulations” that we enter God’s kingdom (Acts 14:22, NKJV). In an instant, the Spirit leads Jesus from the glory of his baptism to the wasteland of the desert. How often have I fallen from the heights of worship and wonder to the despair of doubt and despondency? The desert is an essent

Romans 5:3-4 NLT 'We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.' Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day is the day before Lent starts, a season of abstinence in preparation for Easter. It recognises Jesus’ trial in the wilderness and is also called the Great Fast by some churches. On this day all the fats and foods that were to be avoided throughout Lent are used up, hence pancakes. The idea is that if all the temptations are removed from the house, it is easier to manage our human frailty, and thereby offers us support in persevering through this voluntary fast. There are no rules as such, although some traditions, such as the Orthodox and Catholics, offer a framework. The idea is that we embrace a fast to focus on our faith choices and reflect upon our faith commitments. It offers an opportunity for couples and families to draw together around their fa

1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Perseverance is characterised by the ability to achieve something despite difficulties and obstacles that stand in our way. It takes both grit and determination, and is not easily accomplished. In fact, it reveals the depth of our convictions and the lengths to which we persist. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ encounter with the devil in the wilderness reveal perseverance is not simply grim determination. It requires clarity of thought in finding ways to press on and avoid capitulating early. Jesus used scripture to counter Satan’s craftily composed temptations (Matthew 4). The core of our perseverance as disciples lies in the reality of the depth to which we are loved by God. Great news here – no matter where we find ourselves, God never gives up on us. We are invited to build our faith muscle by persevering through challenges. A friend introduced me to the concept of the learning zone. Thi

Acts 4:32 NLT 'All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.' Unity creates an atmosphere of trust and harmony. Within such an atmosphere, remarkable things become possible. I grew up with stories from my mother of life in Britain during the Second World War. The war years affected her from age 14 to 20. She lived away from London, but close to Plymouth, which as a naval port, suffered from enemy bombing. Yet, it was not the inconvenience or danger of war she spoke most of, it was more the way her local community came together and cared for each other. The war had united them in heart and mind, and consequently they shared freely with one another in a common goal. When there is no visible threat, it is easy to become consumed with my own interests. Individuals and families are shocked and appalled when some interruption to their plans breaks in, such as an unwelcome illness. There is usually little motivation to pull

Philippians 1:27 NLT Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News. A quick search on Google will identify how different countries identify citizenship. Common to all is that it is a relationship between rights and responsibilities. The scripture contains the essential elements required of a disciple, aka a citizen of heaven. As with all relationships, my freedom in Christ is related to my willingness to abide by God’s life-giving instructions. Perhaps, as Ghandi, the Indian nationalist, declared that he would be a Christian if it wasn’t for Christians. This followed his exclusion from a Christian church in Kolkata on the grounds that it was for high-caste Indians and whites. Having been drawn by what he read of Jesus in the Gospels, Ghandi turn

Romans 12:4-5 NLT Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. Last summer I ran down the garden, stretched down and picked up a fallen apple, recreating my great cricketing fielding past. I felt my right tricep scream out in complaint, and so began a journey of sorting out an injury. St Paul’s analogy of the human body (Ephesians 4) for the community of Christ is well-made. It’s all too easy to forget that we each exist and play an essential role in making the community function. After some delay after injuring my arm, I made an appointment with a physiotherapist and got some advice on how to manage the healing process. This was not instantaneous and demanded a lot of me, some of which included further physical discomfort. The tricep injury impacted my ability to cook, garden and do other tasks. There is a unity to the human body in that each part is designed to work with every other part.