One of the Ballarat radio stations have segments throughout the day where they play short segments of stand up comedians. Some of these are really quite funny, some are just funny and some are not. I remember hearing one comedian remark that they always found it interesting when they watched the original Star Trek that despite claiming to "Boldly go where no man has gone before" everywhere Kirk, Spock and the rest of them went, there always appeared to be men (and women) there already.
I remembered this point the other night as I was driving home listening to a podcast from one of my favourite authors and speakers, Erwin McManus at Mosaic. It was kind of a side point to his message, but Erwin was talking about how he thought it a bit odd for people to say that they are taking God to a place, because God is already in that place and is moving there already.
This got me thinking a bit.
It never ceases to amaze me how God has moved in my life. On the rarest occasion I am very aware of God directing me specifically in certain ways, ways that require me to make specific conscious decisions and changes. At other times, I am aware of God being active and involved in my life, but my response needs to be one of continued obedience, keeping on doing what I know God wants and being patient and allowing God to work the rest of it out. And then there are times where I look back and am amazed at how incredibly involved God has been in my life, even at times where I wasn't overly aware of it.
If in my own life God has been active without me being aware of it, how much more is he active in the world without many, many more being aware of it??!!
Christian theology talks about preceding or preveninent grace, the grace that God has prepared far in advance that allows us to enter into relationship with Him. Thomas Oden of Drew University defines prevenient grace as, "...the grace that begins to enable one to choose further to cooperate with saving grace. By offering the will the restored capacity to respond to grace, the person then may freely and increasingly become an active, willing participant in receiving the conditions for justification. (thanks to wikipedia)" So even before we choose to accept, believe or even acknowledge Gods existence, God is going before us and preparing the way for us to enter into a relationship with Him.
Throughout the book of Acts, we see many instances where God had prepared the ground for the apostles to reveal Him to others. I think of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, Peter with Cornelius and his household, the conversion of Saul who changed his name to Paul and how this Paul revealed to the Athenians the true God through a statue in their city dedicated to an unknown God.
I am without a doubt that God has prepared the way for us to share with others our faith and allow God to reveal Himself to them. And if God has gone before us, and is preparing the way, who are we to sit back and not go??
What could possibly stop us?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
INTERESTING CONVERSATIONS
For those of you who have been following this blog over the last week or so, you would be aware that my last post, initially about bullying and the responsibility we have to care for others, not oppress them, sparked quite an interesting debate.
This debate, centred much around the divinity/deity of Jesus; as in, is Jesus God or was he just a human servant of God. I love a good discussion as much as the next bloke, so was happy to enter into the debate with this person for a while. As the debate went on though, it became apparent to me that neither of us were likely to change our minds, and so discussing it further would really prove to be of little value on this blog. I have since received an email from the blogger to which I will respond once I have some time.
This discussion got me thinking though. I thought of all of the places that I have had the opportunity to speak to people about matters of faith and God and religion. One I distinctly remember was while on holidays on the Gold Coast a couple of years ago. I was staying at a backpackers near the beach, and on my last night there a group of people that I had met while I was there had decided to go out to a night club and invited me. being a sociable sort of person and always up for a night out, I tagged along. At some stage during the night I found myself in a deep conversation about grace and God's forgiveness in the middle of the night club with one of the bloke I had met at the backpackers, it was an awesome privilege to be a part of that conversation!!
I have had long conversations with people in Pubs about what it means to talk with God and to hear His voice, and many other places you would not normally associate with talking about God. Although I have never had the conversation that nearly every pastor/minister/preacher seems to have had on a plane where they talk matters of God and faith, I hope that the conversations I have had with people have planted seeds in peoples lives that one day will bear fruit.
This debate, centred much around the divinity/deity of Jesus; as in, is Jesus God or was he just a human servant of God. I love a good discussion as much as the next bloke, so was happy to enter into the debate with this person for a while. As the debate went on though, it became apparent to me that neither of us were likely to change our minds, and so discussing it further would really prove to be of little value on this blog. I have since received an email from the blogger to which I will respond once I have some time.
This discussion got me thinking though. I thought of all of the places that I have had the opportunity to speak to people about matters of faith and God and religion. One I distinctly remember was while on holidays on the Gold Coast a couple of years ago. I was staying at a backpackers near the beach, and on my last night there a group of people that I had met while I was there had decided to go out to a night club and invited me. being a sociable sort of person and always up for a night out, I tagged along. At some stage during the night I found myself in a deep conversation about grace and God's forgiveness in the middle of the night club with one of the bloke I had met at the backpackers, it was an awesome privilege to be a part of that conversation!!
I have had long conversations with people in Pubs about what it means to talk with God and to hear His voice, and many other places you would not normally associate with talking about God. Although I have never had the conversation that nearly every pastor/minister/preacher seems to have had on a plane where they talk matters of God and faith, I hope that the conversations I have had with people have planted seeds in peoples lives that one day will bear fruit.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
BULLYING
It may surprise some of you to know that I was never cool or popular in high school (then again, it may be no shock at all). In fact, in stark contrast to my current size and shape, in high school I was short, scrawny, and a bit awkward looking.
Looking back, it occurs to me that high school is not always the greatest place if you are a little different from the 'normal' of the school you attend. Clearly, I was not 'normal' in high school and as a result was the target of some quite significant bullying at times. As a result of this bullying I have developed a real compassion for others who are picked on and targeted for bullying in whatever form it may take.
As you might imagine, when I read the story about the Xavier College boy who was hospitalised after a muck up day rugbyesque game and how a friend of his claimed that he had been the target of systemic bullying at the school (read the article here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=651791). Later in the week I was shocked to read in the newspaper that children in prep class at primary school are reporting cases of being bullied.
Bullying should not be accepted as being a 'normal' part of growing up. Yes it happens, and yes, I am a much stronger person today because of the things I have experienced growing up, but this in no way makes it right or acceptable. As I read the bible I see a God who has a passion for those who are oppressed, harassed and bullied by the more powerful. I see God continually call His people to take a stand against the oppression and harassment of others and to promote a society where all are accepted and cared for.
In Amos we see the "Fat cows of Bashan" condemned for their oppression of the poor and the crushing of the needy, James 1:27 says: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God , the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (NRSV)" The Message puts it this way: "Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world."
This week, I would encourage you to look out for those who are subjected to harassment or bullying and reach out to them with the grace and love that God has shown us.
Looking back, it occurs to me that high school is not always the greatest place if you are a little different from the 'normal' of the school you attend. Clearly, I was not 'normal' in high school and as a result was the target of some quite significant bullying at times. As a result of this bullying I have developed a real compassion for others who are picked on and targeted for bullying in whatever form it may take.
As you might imagine, when I read the story about the Xavier College boy who was hospitalised after a muck up day rugbyesque game and how a friend of his claimed that he had been the target of systemic bullying at the school (read the article here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=651791). Later in the week I was shocked to read in the newspaper that children in prep class at primary school are reporting cases of being bullied.
Bullying should not be accepted as being a 'normal' part of growing up. Yes it happens, and yes, I am a much stronger person today because of the things I have experienced growing up, but this in no way makes it right or acceptable. As I read the bible I see a God who has a passion for those who are oppressed, harassed and bullied by the more powerful. I see God continually call His people to take a stand against the oppression and harassment of others and to promote a society where all are accepted and cared for.
In Amos we see the "Fat cows of Bashan" condemned for their oppression of the poor and the crushing of the needy, James 1:27 says: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God , the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (NRSV)" The Message puts it this way: "Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world."
This week, I would encourage you to look out for those who are subjected to harassment or bullying and reach out to them with the grace and love that God has shown us.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
EXPERIENCING GOD
Before I start, let me say that this is by no means a definitive answer on the above subject, just a collection of some of my thoughts on the subject, and I would be happy to hear your thoughts also.
Lately I have been travelling around Western Victoria a bit. As I have travelled around I have had the privilege of sharing with people about worshipping and meeting with God. Recently as I was travelling I was thinking about this concept of meeting with God and experiencing His presence.
After reading a few blogs I began thinking about how we have become such an experiential society. Everything from food to cars to toilet paper is marketed to us as an experience. We seek out experiences and consume them just as we would any other commodity. This led me to thinking about our experiences of intimacy with God.
Do we treat those times when we experience God's presence in some special tangible way as a consumable commodity?? What should our expectation of experiencing God's presence in a tangible way be??
I know that God is omnipresent, that he is in all places at all times, but I also believe that there are times when He makes Himself more present to us at other times. Think the regularity and depth of these times has more to do with us than it has to do with God though. I know that things like sin and disobedience make it harder to hear and experience God. I also know that we can consciously choose to reject God and avoid His presence also.
My real question is: As Christians, how often should we be seeking that tangible experience of God's presence, should we be some kind of Holy Spirit junkie continually seeking our next 'hit' of intimacy with God, or is it OK to go years or even decades without feeling the intimate presence of God in our lives???!!!
I heard a while ago that Mother Theresa stated that for the last 50 years of her life she had not experienced God's presence in a tangible way. digitaljournal.com discusses some of Mother Theresa's letters and says this in summary: "Mother Mary Teresa spent 17 years in Calcutta, teaching with a group of uncloistered Sisters, before traveling to Darjeeling in 1946, at the age of 36. During that trip, she believed that Christ spoke to her and called her to work with the sick, the poor, and the dying. Mother Teresa was able to recount conversations she had with Christ, and even recounted her visions of him. Based on her revelations to her Mother General, her confessor, and even the Pope, she was granted permission to begin her one-woman crusade. It was then that Mother Teresa felt Jesus leave her and stop speaking to her...
...According to her letters, Mother Teresa felt Christ did not communicate with her for the next ten years. It wasn't until after the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, when Teresa prayed that God would give her some proof that he was "pleased with Society", that she felt the long years of darkness end. It was only to be for a brief time, no more than five weeks, before her period of spiritual darkness returned, and continued until her death on Sept. 5, 1997."
I think we all go through periods where we feel like God is distant or even absent. I know that even Jesus felt this way on the cross, crying out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." But to go for 50 years without feeling a tangible presence of God or hearing His voice, what must that be like??!!!
And this brings me into conflict. How can I reconcile a woman who is seen as being so Christlike and spiritual, and yet seemingly devoid of any real experience of Christ Himself for half a century, and the promise that God has made to us that when we search for Him with all of our heart, that we will be able to find Him?
As I look at the bible I see God as an experiential God, not a god to be believed in but never intimately connected with. Isn't the whole point of our creation to be in relationship with Him??!! As I read through the Bible I see God 'turn up' in amazing way and unexpected places. I read stories of people having amazing, intimate encounters with the Creator of all things, of being rescued and delivered, of being given messages and signs. I see God as a God that reveals Himself to humanity, not just though creation, but in intimate, personal, tangible, ways!!!
Not that I am assuming that God will just turn up when and where we want Him to necessarily. I think that sometimes we need to persist in prayer before that moment when God arrives in some amazing tangible way. I am happy to be corrected in this, but I think it was Commissioner Samule Logan Brengle who recounted a story of a time when he was seeking God and after praying and fasting all day, still had not encountered God. It was not until well into the night, after much prayer, fasting and waiting on the Holy Spirit that God revealed himself in a tangible way which Brengle (I think) described it as "Fire, amazing Holy Fire." I think that sometimes we miss out on those moments of special intimacy with God because we bail out too early, because we cease to persist.
Sometimes we miss out on those moments with God because we refuse to listen to what God has already told us. William Booth said: "Before we go to our knees to receive the Baptism of Fire, let me beg of you to see to it that your souls are in harmony with the will and purpose of the Holy Spirit whom you seek."
Can you remember the last time you had an intimate personal, tangible experience of God's presence in you life?
I am keen to hear your thoughts on the matter, maybe this will stimulate some interesting discussion.
And let me know if I have misquoted Brengle.
Lately I have been travelling around Western Victoria a bit. As I have travelled around I have had the privilege of sharing with people about worshipping and meeting with God. Recently as I was travelling I was thinking about this concept of meeting with God and experiencing His presence.
After reading a few blogs I began thinking about how we have become such an experiential society. Everything from food to cars to toilet paper is marketed to us as an experience. We seek out experiences and consume them just as we would any other commodity. This led me to thinking about our experiences of intimacy with God.
Do we treat those times when we experience God's presence in some special tangible way as a consumable commodity?? What should our expectation of experiencing God's presence in a tangible way be??
I know that God is omnipresent, that he is in all places at all times, but I also believe that there are times when He makes Himself more present to us at other times. Think the regularity and depth of these times has more to do with us than it has to do with God though. I know that things like sin and disobedience make it harder to hear and experience God. I also know that we can consciously choose to reject God and avoid His presence also.
My real question is: As Christians, how often should we be seeking that tangible experience of God's presence, should we be some kind of Holy Spirit junkie continually seeking our next 'hit' of intimacy with God, or is it OK to go years or even decades without feeling the intimate presence of God in our lives???!!!
I heard a while ago that Mother Theresa stated that for the last 50 years of her life she had not experienced God's presence in a tangible way. digitaljournal.com discusses some of Mother Theresa's letters and says this in summary: "Mother Mary Teresa spent 17 years in Calcutta, teaching with a group of uncloistered Sisters, before traveling to Darjeeling in 1946, at the age of 36. During that trip, she believed that Christ spoke to her and called her to work with the sick, the poor, and the dying. Mother Teresa was able to recount conversations she had with Christ, and even recounted her visions of him. Based on her revelations to her Mother General, her confessor, and even the Pope, she was granted permission to begin her one-woman crusade. It was then that Mother Teresa felt Jesus leave her and stop speaking to her...
...According to her letters, Mother Teresa felt Christ did not communicate with her for the next ten years. It wasn't until after the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, when Teresa prayed that God would give her some proof that he was "pleased with Society", that she felt the long years of darkness end. It was only to be for a brief time, no more than five weeks, before her period of spiritual darkness returned, and continued until her death on Sept. 5, 1997."
I think we all go through periods where we feel like God is distant or even absent. I know that even Jesus felt this way on the cross, crying out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." But to go for 50 years without feeling a tangible presence of God or hearing His voice, what must that be like??!!!
And this brings me into conflict. How can I reconcile a woman who is seen as being so Christlike and spiritual, and yet seemingly devoid of any real experience of Christ Himself for half a century, and the promise that God has made to us that when we search for Him with all of our heart, that we will be able to find Him?
As I look at the bible I see God as an experiential God, not a god to be believed in but never intimately connected with. Isn't the whole point of our creation to be in relationship with Him??!! As I read through the Bible I see God 'turn up' in amazing way and unexpected places. I read stories of people having amazing, intimate encounters with the Creator of all things, of being rescued and delivered, of being given messages and signs. I see God as a God that reveals Himself to humanity, not just though creation, but in intimate, personal, tangible, ways!!!
Not that I am assuming that God will just turn up when and where we want Him to necessarily. I think that sometimes we need to persist in prayer before that moment when God arrives in some amazing tangible way. I am happy to be corrected in this, but I think it was Commissioner Samule Logan Brengle who recounted a story of a time when he was seeking God and after praying and fasting all day, still had not encountered God. It was not until well into the night, after much prayer, fasting and waiting on the Holy Spirit that God revealed himself in a tangible way which Brengle (I think) described it as "Fire, amazing Holy Fire." I think that sometimes we miss out on those moments of special intimacy with God because we bail out too early, because we cease to persist.
Sometimes we miss out on those moments with God because we refuse to listen to what God has already told us. William Booth said: "Before we go to our knees to receive the Baptism of Fire, let me beg of you to see to it that your souls are in harmony with the will and purpose of the Holy Spirit whom you seek."
Can you remember the last time you had an intimate personal, tangible experience of God's presence in you life?
I am keen to hear your thoughts on the matter, maybe this will stimulate some interesting discussion.
And let me know if I have misquoted Brengle.
Monday, September 29, 2008
What Will Your Headstone Say??
I was watchin T.V. the other night and while channel surfing came across a program that got me thinking. I cant remember what the program was, but it got me thinking about the different things you read on peoples headstones' epitaphs at the cemetery.
For example Spike Milligan's headstone is rumoured to read: "I told them I was ill". Others that I found after a short search with Google include: Karl Marx (founder of communism); "Workers of all lands unite. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." - Wyatt and Josephine Earp (Sherrif of Tombstone- cowboy era); "Nothing's so sacred as honour, and nothing's so loyal as love." Dean Martin (Actor Singer and member of the Rat Pack); "Everybody loves somebody sometime." Isaac Newton; "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, 'Let Newton be!' and all was light." Benjamin Frankin; "The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more In a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author." Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier by W. H. Auden; "To save your world you asked this man to die: Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"
As you can see, some are amusing, some are clever and some are truly profound. Each epitaph says much about the person who lies beneath the stone and dirt. I particularly like the epitaph for the unknown soldier.
What sort of impact will you leave?
What will people say about you when you are gone?
What would you like your epitaph to say on your headstone?
For example Spike Milligan's headstone is rumoured to read: "I told them I was ill". Others that I found after a short search with Google include: Karl Marx (founder of communism); "Workers of all lands unite. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." - Wyatt and Josephine Earp (Sherrif of Tombstone- cowboy era); "Nothing's so sacred as honour, and nothing's so loyal as love." Dean Martin (Actor Singer and member of the Rat Pack); "Everybody loves somebody sometime." Isaac Newton; "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, 'Let Newton be!' and all was light." Benjamin Frankin; "The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more In a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author." Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier by W. H. Auden; "To save your world you asked this man to die: Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"
As you can see, some are amusing, some are clever and some are truly profound. Each epitaph says much about the person who lies beneath the stone and dirt. I particularly like the epitaph for the unknown soldier.
What sort of impact will you leave?
What will people say about you when you are gone?
What would you like your epitaph to say on your headstone?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Hardened Heart
This is a copy of a sermon I shared a few weeks ago. It is a little long for a blog, but I thought it might be a good reminder to us to be a little more compassionate at times, I know I need reminding of that at times.
Before moving to Melbourne to go to the Training College, I worked as an Operating Theatre Technician at the Hobart Private Hospital. My job there was to set up operating theatres for different operations, assist the doctors and nurses to position patients for various operations, ensure that there was an adequate supply of things like Saline and other fluids given by I.V. drips kept warm, help get the patient off the operating table, clean up the mess and get the theatre set up for the next operation.
During this time I had the privilege to observe a number of operations at various degrees of proximity. The closest I got was about 30cm (1 foot) from the operative site as I held a patient in place while they inserted a pacemaker into their heart.
A heart has 4 chambers, the left and right ventricle, and the left and right atrium. The right atrium receives oxygen-depleted blood from the body via the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava and pumps it through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
The right ventricle receives oxygen-depleted blood from the right atrium and pumps it through the pulmonary valve into the lungs via the pulmonary artery.
Then the left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs via the pulmonary veins and pumps it through the mitral valve into the left ventricle.
The left ventricle then receives oxygen-rich blood from the left atrium and pumps it through the aortic valve to the entire body via the aorta, including to the heart muscle itself through the coronary arteries.
That’s the way our heart works and why our heart beat is a lub lub sound.
What happens in some people though, is that one of the chambers fibrillates or flutters. When this happens the blood is not pumped around the body properly and the patient starts to get into some pretty serious trouble. To restore a normal or sinus rhythm to the heart something is needed to be done. The first preference is to use drugs like adrenalin to jolt the heart back into a normal rhythm, but in serious cases an electric current is needed to jolt the heart back into normal rhythm. That is why you see defibrillators used on people having a heart attack. A pace maker is like a mini defibrillator, it senses when the heart is getting out of rhythm, and it sends a little jolt into the heart to fix it, most of the time the patient will never know it happened.
As I read the bible I see how God often shocks people to get them to change their heart. In Exodus we see that the Pharaoh needed some serious shocking to change a very hard heart.
Pharaoh was holding the Hebrew people prisoner, and using them as slaves to complete his building projects. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and their terrible treatment they cried out to God to save them.
So God sends Moses, who lets be honest wouldn’t exactly be most people’s top choice (he had a speech impediment, he had killed an Egyptian slave master and was a shepherd, a less than prestigious occupation) to shock the pharaoh into a change of heart and bring freedom to the Hebrew people.
As a result of the pharaoh’s hardened heart and unwillingness to release the Hebrew people, God uses a series of plagues that cover Egypt to try and change the pharaoh’s heart.
Today we are looking at the plague of the Frogs. Now if ever there was a good reason to change your heart, a pile of stinking, rotting frogs has to be high on the list.
On of the most interesting things about the whole plagues of Egypt saga has to be the pharaoh’s response. Each time, after a plague was stopped the Bible tells us that the Pharaoh hardened his heart. Despite the shock of the plague, the pharaoh’s heart remained unchanged.
Three things struck my about the hardening of the pharaoh’s heart. The first was that he made a choice to harden his heart. The Second was that when the pharaoh hardened his heart, he ignored the warning signs around him. And finally the pharaohs heart need to be softened again before he would let the Hebrew people go.
I think it is interesting that the pharaoh chose to harden his heart. He had the choice to allow it to remain soft and release the Hebrew people, but instead after each plague the pharaoh hardened his heart a little more.
While sometimes circumstances around us force us to harden our hearts, I think more often the choices we make slowly harden our hearts, often without us ever really noticing it. At first maybe we just ignore the little things, but after a while as our hearts start to harden bigger and more significant things start to have less and less of an impact on us, until one day we become incapable of feeling much at all. If we are lucky we realise this lack of feeling, but the truth is that there may be times where we do not realise just how hard our hearts have become.
The hardening of a heart can be caused by one of two things; ignoring those around us, or ignoring God. And the truth be told, one usually leads to the other.
When we start ignoring those around us, we begin to switch off to their feelings, to their dreams, and to their needs, and we begin to see people as a commodity to be used and consumed and disposed of. Our hearts begin to dry out and become harder when qualities like compassion and kindness begin to evaporate
When this attitude starts creeping in it is often not long before we start ignoring God.
Rob Bell (the Nooma dude) says that the way we view the creation says a lot about the way we view the creator. When we start turning off to the issues of this world, we start turning off to God.
When we stop caring about others, we stop caring about what God cares about, and slowly this puts us in a position where we begin to block God out of our lives. As we block God out of our lives our hearts begin to harden. The more we choose block God out and ignore that which is important to Him, the harder it is for us to hear God. And as it becomes harder to hear God and communicate with Him, we begin to lose contact with what is important to Him and as our values shift, often ever so imperceptibly to us, our relationship with Him begins to suffer and as a result our relationship with His creations can begin to suffer also.
Take for example the Pharaoh. He cut himself off from God. The more he hardened his heart, the more he started to mistreat the Hebrew people. And the more he mistreated the Hebrew people, the more he cut himself off from God.
Another thing that indicated the hardness of the pharaoh’s heart was that he failed to notice the stink.
We see in 7 that the pharaoh’s magicians were able to use their secret arts to duplicate the plague of frogs that God had sent through Moses, but they could not eradicate the problem, only God could do that.
So Pharaoh begs Moses to get God to remove the plague, and Moses prays and the frogs die. Verse 14 tells us that because of the piles of rotting frogs the land stank. Somehow, even with the stench of rotting frogs all around him, the Pharaoh ignored the warning and hardened his heart once more, blocking God and the things God cares most about out of pharaoh’s concerns.
There are things going on in our world that truly stink. People are oppressed, heartbroken and suffering, and yet much of the world remains uncaring.
Is it possible, that as a group of people humanity has hardened our hearts toward the plight of others?
In failing to notice the stink caused by the rotting frogs, the pharaoh’s hardened heart failed to recognise anything other than the immediate situation at hand.
In the bible passage we see that the pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and asked them to pray for the plague to be removed, but never dealt with the reason for the plague (the enslavement of the Hebrew people).
When we harden our hearts, we become interested in only fixing the problem at hand, not finding the real cause and dealing with that.
Imagine for a moment a child comes to you complaining of a sore arm, in fact it is so sore that they are sobbing with the pain. If all we do is give them some Panadol and send them on their way again, we may have dealt with the immediate issue of the pain, but have not dealt with the thing that is causing the pain, that is the fracture in the bone of the arm. If the arm is broken, X-rays are needed and the correct treatment needs to be performed. By only masking the pain of the situation the arm will never properly heal and will only cause more pain and future problems.
So the pharaoh refused to deal with the real cause of the plagues, instead continuing in his enslavement and abuse of the Hebrew people. Pharaoh continued to refuse to allow the people to leave Egypt and worship God.
The pharaoh’s heart was so hard that no shock alone could correct it. Pharaohs heart needed to be shocked so hard that it had to be broken to be repaired in order to be capable of caring about what God cared about.
In fact it wasn’t until the final plague killed off the firstborn of every Egyptian, including the pharaoh’s own son, a huge shock I am sure, that the pharaoh’s heart was broken enough to allow the Hebrew people to leave.
It occurs to me that a hardened heart is much like an arthritic joint, it is stiff and inflexible.
Sometimes an arthritic joint can be soothed and softened by taking fish oil, maybe it just needed a bit of lubrication.
Other times arthritis requires physical or occupational therapy to loosen it up.
And other times, in the case of really stiff and inflexible joints, the arthritic joint needs replacing all together.
Sometimes I think our hearts become a little hardened and we just need to add a little lubrication to soften it by remembering the plight of others. When we are confronted face to face with hopelessness, and despair, the tears of those we are confronted with can lubricate our hardened hearts and soften them up.
Sometimes we need to undertake a little physical or occupational therapy by actually going out and doing something creative or practical for another person to soften our hardened hearts towards others.
When we do something for another person we begin to invest something of ourselves in them. When we begin to do something for God we begin to invest in Him and as we invest something of ourselves, we begin to make it a priority in our lives, and as things take priority in our lives our hearts begin to soften towards them.
In severe cases of hardened hearts, it may be necessary for God to break our hardened hearts and replace them with a new heart of His own creation in order for us to feel again.
While I worked at the hospital, one operation that was performed with amazing regularity was a hip replacement. I would say that we averaged about 2 a week most of the time, sometimes more.
In a hip replacement the arthritic joint is cut out and replaced by a substitute joint, made from a high strength ceramic or titanium body with synthetic coating created by another company.
This process involves some significant pain and discomfort for the patient in the short term, but the removal of the old joint and the institution of a new joint ultimately leads to more manoeuvrability and a far better quality of life.
When it becomes necessary for God to break our own hardened hearts and replace it with one of His own creating, we may have to endure some short-term pain and discomfort. It is not the most pleasant of things to be suddenly confronted with pain that we have left undealt with in our own lives, and the pain that others experience in their lives, but as we begin to heal and our hearts are softened once again, we find that we have an increased emotional mobility and the quality of our lives will improve.
What choices are you making? Are you choosing to open yourself up to God and those God cares about, or are you choosing to block them off.
Do you notice the stink around you? Can you see the warning signs that things may not be quite right?
How much do you think it would take to soften your heart? Is it already soft? Does it require some lubrication or physical or occupational therapy? Or will your heart need some major reconstructive surgery to be soft again?
When I hear people talking about heart issues, I think of King David in the Old Testament. He was described as a man after Gods own heart, I guess you could say that his heartbeat to the same rhythm as God’s.
David wasn’t perfect, he made some pretty major mistakes when he ignored the priorities of God’s heart and got out of synch, but God would shock him and he when David realised his heart was out of synch he again committed to make God’s priorities his priorities.
Most of the time David’s heart longed for the things God’s heart longed for. And that is the sort of heart I want, a heart that beats to the rhythm of God’s heart, I want to have a heart that longs for the things God longs for.
How is the rhythm of your heart today?
Is it beating in tune with God’s or does it need a little shocking to get back on the right track? Has God shocked you recently?
Before moving to Melbourne to go to the Training College, I worked as an Operating Theatre Technician at the Hobart Private Hospital. My job there was to set up operating theatres for different operations, assist the doctors and nurses to position patients for various operations, ensure that there was an adequate supply of things like Saline and other fluids given by I.V. drips kept warm, help get the patient off the operating table, clean up the mess and get the theatre set up for the next operation.
During this time I had the privilege to observe a number of operations at various degrees of proximity. The closest I got was about 30cm (1 foot) from the operative site as I held a patient in place while they inserted a pacemaker into their heart.
A heart has 4 chambers, the left and right ventricle, and the left and right atrium. The right atrium receives oxygen-depleted blood from the body via the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava and pumps it through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
The right ventricle receives oxygen-depleted blood from the right atrium and pumps it through the pulmonary valve into the lungs via the pulmonary artery.
Then the left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs via the pulmonary veins and pumps it through the mitral valve into the left ventricle.
The left ventricle then receives oxygen-rich blood from the left atrium and pumps it through the aortic valve to the entire body via the aorta, including to the heart muscle itself through the coronary arteries.
That’s the way our heart works and why our heart beat is a lub lub sound.
What happens in some people though, is that one of the chambers fibrillates or flutters. When this happens the blood is not pumped around the body properly and the patient starts to get into some pretty serious trouble. To restore a normal or sinus rhythm to the heart something is needed to be done. The first preference is to use drugs like adrenalin to jolt the heart back into a normal rhythm, but in serious cases an electric current is needed to jolt the heart back into normal rhythm. That is why you see defibrillators used on people having a heart attack. A pace maker is like a mini defibrillator, it senses when the heart is getting out of rhythm, and it sends a little jolt into the heart to fix it, most of the time the patient will never know it happened.
As I read the bible I see how God often shocks people to get them to change their heart. In Exodus we see that the Pharaoh needed some serious shocking to change a very hard heart.
Pharaoh was holding the Hebrew people prisoner, and using them as slaves to complete his building projects. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and their terrible treatment they cried out to God to save them.
So God sends Moses, who lets be honest wouldn’t exactly be most people’s top choice (he had a speech impediment, he had killed an Egyptian slave master and was a shepherd, a less than prestigious occupation) to shock the pharaoh into a change of heart and bring freedom to the Hebrew people.
As a result of the pharaoh’s hardened heart and unwillingness to release the Hebrew people, God uses a series of plagues that cover Egypt to try and change the pharaoh’s heart.
Today we are looking at the plague of the Frogs. Now if ever there was a good reason to change your heart, a pile of stinking, rotting frogs has to be high on the list.
On of the most interesting things about the whole plagues of Egypt saga has to be the pharaoh’s response. Each time, after a plague was stopped the Bible tells us that the Pharaoh hardened his heart. Despite the shock of the plague, the pharaoh’s heart remained unchanged.
Three things struck my about the hardening of the pharaoh’s heart. The first was that he made a choice to harden his heart. The Second was that when the pharaoh hardened his heart, he ignored the warning signs around him. And finally the pharaohs heart need to be softened again before he would let the Hebrew people go.
I think it is interesting that the pharaoh chose to harden his heart. He had the choice to allow it to remain soft and release the Hebrew people, but instead after each plague the pharaoh hardened his heart a little more.
While sometimes circumstances around us force us to harden our hearts, I think more often the choices we make slowly harden our hearts, often without us ever really noticing it. At first maybe we just ignore the little things, but after a while as our hearts start to harden bigger and more significant things start to have less and less of an impact on us, until one day we become incapable of feeling much at all. If we are lucky we realise this lack of feeling, but the truth is that there may be times where we do not realise just how hard our hearts have become.
The hardening of a heart can be caused by one of two things; ignoring those around us, or ignoring God. And the truth be told, one usually leads to the other.
When we start ignoring those around us, we begin to switch off to their feelings, to their dreams, and to their needs, and we begin to see people as a commodity to be used and consumed and disposed of. Our hearts begin to dry out and become harder when qualities like compassion and kindness begin to evaporate
When this attitude starts creeping in it is often not long before we start ignoring God.
Rob Bell (the Nooma dude) says that the way we view the creation says a lot about the way we view the creator. When we start turning off to the issues of this world, we start turning off to God.
When we stop caring about others, we stop caring about what God cares about, and slowly this puts us in a position where we begin to block God out of our lives. As we block God out of our lives our hearts begin to harden. The more we choose block God out and ignore that which is important to Him, the harder it is for us to hear God. And as it becomes harder to hear God and communicate with Him, we begin to lose contact with what is important to Him and as our values shift, often ever so imperceptibly to us, our relationship with Him begins to suffer and as a result our relationship with His creations can begin to suffer also.
Take for example the Pharaoh. He cut himself off from God. The more he hardened his heart, the more he started to mistreat the Hebrew people. And the more he mistreated the Hebrew people, the more he cut himself off from God.
Another thing that indicated the hardness of the pharaoh’s heart was that he failed to notice the stink.
We see in 7 that the pharaoh’s magicians were able to use their secret arts to duplicate the plague of frogs that God had sent through Moses, but they could not eradicate the problem, only God could do that.
So Pharaoh begs Moses to get God to remove the plague, and Moses prays and the frogs die. Verse 14 tells us that because of the piles of rotting frogs the land stank. Somehow, even with the stench of rotting frogs all around him, the Pharaoh ignored the warning and hardened his heart once more, blocking God and the things God cares most about out of pharaoh’s concerns.
There are things going on in our world that truly stink. People are oppressed, heartbroken and suffering, and yet much of the world remains uncaring.
Is it possible, that as a group of people humanity has hardened our hearts toward the plight of others?
In failing to notice the stink caused by the rotting frogs, the pharaoh’s hardened heart failed to recognise anything other than the immediate situation at hand.
In the bible passage we see that the pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and asked them to pray for the plague to be removed, but never dealt with the reason for the plague (the enslavement of the Hebrew people).
When we harden our hearts, we become interested in only fixing the problem at hand, not finding the real cause and dealing with that.
Imagine for a moment a child comes to you complaining of a sore arm, in fact it is so sore that they are sobbing with the pain. If all we do is give them some Panadol and send them on their way again, we may have dealt with the immediate issue of the pain, but have not dealt with the thing that is causing the pain, that is the fracture in the bone of the arm. If the arm is broken, X-rays are needed and the correct treatment needs to be performed. By only masking the pain of the situation the arm will never properly heal and will only cause more pain and future problems.
So the pharaoh refused to deal with the real cause of the plagues, instead continuing in his enslavement and abuse of the Hebrew people. Pharaoh continued to refuse to allow the people to leave Egypt and worship God.
The pharaoh’s heart was so hard that no shock alone could correct it. Pharaohs heart needed to be shocked so hard that it had to be broken to be repaired in order to be capable of caring about what God cared about.
In fact it wasn’t until the final plague killed off the firstborn of every Egyptian, including the pharaoh’s own son, a huge shock I am sure, that the pharaoh’s heart was broken enough to allow the Hebrew people to leave.
It occurs to me that a hardened heart is much like an arthritic joint, it is stiff and inflexible.
Sometimes an arthritic joint can be soothed and softened by taking fish oil, maybe it just needed a bit of lubrication.
Other times arthritis requires physical or occupational therapy to loosen it up.
And other times, in the case of really stiff and inflexible joints, the arthritic joint needs replacing all together.
Sometimes I think our hearts become a little hardened and we just need to add a little lubrication to soften it by remembering the plight of others. When we are confronted face to face with hopelessness, and despair, the tears of those we are confronted with can lubricate our hardened hearts and soften them up.
Sometimes we need to undertake a little physical or occupational therapy by actually going out and doing something creative or practical for another person to soften our hardened hearts towards others.
When we do something for another person we begin to invest something of ourselves in them. When we begin to do something for God we begin to invest in Him and as we invest something of ourselves, we begin to make it a priority in our lives, and as things take priority in our lives our hearts begin to soften towards them.
In severe cases of hardened hearts, it may be necessary for God to break our hardened hearts and replace them with a new heart of His own creation in order for us to feel again.
While I worked at the hospital, one operation that was performed with amazing regularity was a hip replacement. I would say that we averaged about 2 a week most of the time, sometimes more.
In a hip replacement the arthritic joint is cut out and replaced by a substitute joint, made from a high strength ceramic or titanium body with synthetic coating created by another company.
This process involves some significant pain and discomfort for the patient in the short term, but the removal of the old joint and the institution of a new joint ultimately leads to more manoeuvrability and a far better quality of life.
When it becomes necessary for God to break our own hardened hearts and replace it with one of His own creating, we may have to endure some short-term pain and discomfort. It is not the most pleasant of things to be suddenly confronted with pain that we have left undealt with in our own lives, and the pain that others experience in their lives, but as we begin to heal and our hearts are softened once again, we find that we have an increased emotional mobility and the quality of our lives will improve.
What choices are you making? Are you choosing to open yourself up to God and those God cares about, or are you choosing to block them off.
Do you notice the stink around you? Can you see the warning signs that things may not be quite right?
How much do you think it would take to soften your heart? Is it already soft? Does it require some lubrication or physical or occupational therapy? Or will your heart need some major reconstructive surgery to be soft again?
When I hear people talking about heart issues, I think of King David in the Old Testament. He was described as a man after Gods own heart, I guess you could say that his heartbeat to the same rhythm as God’s.
David wasn’t perfect, he made some pretty major mistakes when he ignored the priorities of God’s heart and got out of synch, but God would shock him and he when David realised his heart was out of synch he again committed to make God’s priorities his priorities.
Most of the time David’s heart longed for the things God’s heart longed for. And that is the sort of heart I want, a heart that beats to the rhythm of God’s heart, I want to have a heart that longs for the things God longs for.
How is the rhythm of your heart today?
Is it beating in tune with God’s or does it need a little shocking to get back on the right track? Has God shocked you recently?
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Mercy Seat
Are you ever surprised by what you read in the Bible?
Often the biggest surprises are come from reading some of the least interesting bits of the bible. For example who would have thought that there was anything interesting about the ancestry of Jesus, yet upon closer inspection we find children produced from incest, a series of kings, the son of an adulterous relationship, a prostitute, and several non-Jewish ancestors (not something you would have bragged about in that culture).
While reading through one of the very detailed sections of Exodus recently, although I was searching for something else, I discovered this passage and it grabbed my attention:
Exodus 25: 17-22: 17Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. 18You shall make two cherubim of gold; you shall make them of hammered work, at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other; of one piece with the mercy seat you shall make the cherubim at its two ends. 20The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings. They shall face one to another; the faces of the cherubim shall be turned toward the mercy seat. 21You shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I shall give you. 22There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.
Truth be told I very nearly skipped right over the passage.
It was the reference to the mercy seat that grabbed my attention. In The Salvation Army we often refer to the Mercy Seat as the pew looking thing at front of the hall. It is here that we call people to step forward to and pray at as a sign of their response to what God is calling them to do.
I don’t know if I was just mucking around and making too much noise with my mate Andrew that day in Junior Soldiers where this was explained to me, but I now have a new appreciation for what the Mercy Seat is.
To me this passage speaks of God coming to us, of how God meets with us somewhere special and shares some of himself with us.
The first thing that I notice is that the angels are facing toward the Mercy Seat and their wings are overshadowing the Mercy Seat as though they are watching over the proceedings that take place there and providing protection for those who approach it.
I also notice that the Mercy Seat covers the covenant that God made with the Israelites. I think of the covenants that I have made with God, as a Junior Soldier, a senior Soldier and most recently as an officer of The Salvation Army, they were all made at the Mercy Seat, in the very clear presence of God. This passage reminded me that every time I meet with God, I can renew the covenants that I have made with Him, and he will renew the covenants that He has made with me.
But what I love the most is the last verse in this passage: 22There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.
God speaks to us in a variety of ways and places, but there is something very special that happens when we kneel at the Mercy Seat and open ourselves up to God. One of the most significant moments in my Christian faith occurred because I knelt and opened myself fully to God. It changed my life and I have never been the same since. At the Mercy Seat, when we open ourselves up to God we clear away all of the clutter that seems to fill our life and we can hear God more clearly.
For the Israelites the Mercy Seat was in the most Holy of Holy places, accessible to only the very select few. Only this select few were able to meet with God like this. The good news is that after the crucifixion of Jesus, the heavy curtain that separated the masses from this Holy of Holy places was torn in two from top to bottom, allowing us all access to God and to hearing His commands for our lives.
This week, I encourage you to find your own Mercy Seat. It doesn’t have to be the one at the front of the church, it could be a quiet place outside in nature, or a place you set aside in your home to retreat to and meet with God, but I encourage you to open yourself up to God and listen to His voice in your life. You never know it may change your life forever!!!
Often the biggest surprises are come from reading some of the least interesting bits of the bible. For example who would have thought that there was anything interesting about the ancestry of Jesus, yet upon closer inspection we find children produced from incest, a series of kings, the son of an adulterous relationship, a prostitute, and several non-Jewish ancestors (not something you would have bragged about in that culture).
While reading through one of the very detailed sections of Exodus recently, although I was searching for something else, I discovered this passage and it grabbed my attention:
Exodus 25: 17-22: 17Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its width. 18You shall make two cherubim of gold; you shall make them of hammered work, at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other; of one piece with the mercy seat you shall make the cherubim at its two ends. 20The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings. They shall face one to another; the faces of the cherubim shall be turned toward the mercy seat. 21You shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I shall give you. 22There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.
Truth be told I very nearly skipped right over the passage.
It was the reference to the mercy seat that grabbed my attention. In The Salvation Army we often refer to the Mercy Seat as the pew looking thing at front of the hall. It is here that we call people to step forward to and pray at as a sign of their response to what God is calling them to do.
I don’t know if I was just mucking around and making too much noise with my mate Andrew that day in Junior Soldiers where this was explained to me, but I now have a new appreciation for what the Mercy Seat is.
To me this passage speaks of God coming to us, of how God meets with us somewhere special and shares some of himself with us.
The first thing that I notice is that the angels are facing toward the Mercy Seat and their wings are overshadowing the Mercy Seat as though they are watching over the proceedings that take place there and providing protection for those who approach it.
I also notice that the Mercy Seat covers the covenant that God made with the Israelites. I think of the covenants that I have made with God, as a Junior Soldier, a senior Soldier and most recently as an officer of The Salvation Army, they were all made at the Mercy Seat, in the very clear presence of God. This passage reminded me that every time I meet with God, I can renew the covenants that I have made with Him, and he will renew the covenants that He has made with me.
But what I love the most is the last verse in this passage: 22There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.
God speaks to us in a variety of ways and places, but there is something very special that happens when we kneel at the Mercy Seat and open ourselves up to God. One of the most significant moments in my Christian faith occurred because I knelt and opened myself fully to God. It changed my life and I have never been the same since. At the Mercy Seat, when we open ourselves up to God we clear away all of the clutter that seems to fill our life and we can hear God more clearly.
For the Israelites the Mercy Seat was in the most Holy of Holy places, accessible to only the very select few. Only this select few were able to meet with God like this. The good news is that after the crucifixion of Jesus, the heavy curtain that separated the masses from this Holy of Holy places was torn in two from top to bottom, allowing us all access to God and to hearing His commands for our lives.
This week, I encourage you to find your own Mercy Seat. It doesn’t have to be the one at the front of the church, it could be a quiet place outside in nature, or a place you set aside in your home to retreat to and meet with God, but I encourage you to open yourself up to God and listen to His voice in your life. You never know it may change your life forever!!!
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