What about THIS God?

INVITATION TO THE THIRSTY

That is the title Isaiah 55 is given in my Bible.

And a picture that is so foreign to how a lot of my friends [particularly some of my atheist friends, probably even some of my christian ones] view God.

Which to me is really sad. But at the same time does make a lot of sense. Angry vengeful God is sometimes really hard to align with compassionate, grace-filled, loving and forgiving God.

But while a lot of people start at, or trip over, the violent uninterested uninvolved God, i typically try to begin my journey every day with the God who is proclaimed as being the very essence and heart of Love and then trying to wrap my head around the bits that seem to resemble that much less as i come across them. i cannot always understand and align every picture and action of that God, but there has been enough evidence of the God i have discovered and do believe in, to encourage me to keep believing and looking.

If you are someone who tends towards seeing God in a negative light, i want to invite you to try and clear your mind of that picture, just for a few minutes and approach the God that this passage in Isaiah seems to be talking about.

Even if you have a great opinion of God, try this out. Pretend that you have no concept or idea of God and that this is the God you are introduced to. The One who says things like:

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.

So, a God who extends an invitation.

An invitation to those who have a need, a great thirst. And the invitation does not require money or resources on your behalf. Simply a response.

The invitation to feast on [fill yourself] that which is good. That which satisfies.

How does that invitation measure up to the way you live your life and what you fill your time with and spend your money on?

[This is reminiscent of the ‘Free: Spending your Time and Money on what matter most’ book study tbV and i hosted last year]

³ Give ear and come to me;listen, that you may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendor.”

An everlasting covenant. Faithful love. Imagine that the God of the Universe was that to you?

Also interesting to note that before David was a ruler and commander to the people, his first calling was to be a witness.

To be someone whose life bore witness to the relationship he had with his God. That is still the call to the church today [and how wrong we often get it] – you will be known by the love.

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.

This is a powerful line and reminder. This God is near to us and invites us to reach out to Him. To call on Him. Imagine a God who was present [as i know many people have the idea of, ‘Well if there is a God He sits far away with His arms folded and just watched in an uninvolved way.’] We have a God who desires to get involved but also one who works by invitation, not barging in and taking over.

⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

A violent and vengeful God who delights in sending people to hell? Absolutely not.

A compassionate God who loves to show mercy and who freely pardons. But at the same time a just God who doesn’t just let all sin and wickedness pass with no consequence. It does require turning to Him and once again asking for mercy and forgiveness, but He is not slow to hand it out. He won’t even sit and hold the bad you’ve done over your head, constantly bringing it to mind and reminding you what a bad person you have been and everything you’ve done. No, this God freely pardons.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Imagine a God whose thoughts and ways were higher than ours? Wait a second. Surely if there is a God then this should go with0ut saying? And yet, we little pathetic feeble [in comparison] human types dispel the notion of a God because we can’t get our minds around Him? Surely we would have to throw out the idea of God if we could.

And so, if we take this idea on board, then surely we should start living as if it was true. I have this mantra or song that goes, ‘God is bigger than my box, bigger than my theology, bigger than my understanding… He’s bigger than me,’ which i wrote a little bit about here via a Scott M Peck quote from ‘The Road Less Traveled’. The notion that maybe my picture of God or life or religion or a variety of other things [how i do community, how i incorporate generosity in my life etc] is an out of date map that needs to be revised or updated.

¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

i really love this. The idea that God’s Word will not return void. It will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which it was sent out.

This is a reminder that we just need to be faithful with spreading the Word, telling the story, demonstrating the love of Jesus and that God will take care of the rest. This can be a tough one for those of us who are results driven and especially living in the instant gratification age that we are. We want answers/results and we want them now. Just be faithful. God has this.

¹² You will go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.
¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
    and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
    for an everlasting sign,
    that will endure forever.”

Imagine if these lines described every Christian’s religion:

Go out in joy -Imagine being known for what we are for much more than what we are against?

Be led forth in peace – Imagine Christ followers were the most peaceful people you knew and not the most stressed.

The mountains and the hills bursting forth in song – imagine the idea that mankind and nature are in harmony and instead of devastating the planet for our greed, we were able to relate in the most sustainable of ways, so that every person had enough and so that there was no need and no desecration of place.

And imagine a world where instead of the thornbushes of poverty and AIDS and abandoned and trafficked children, we would see the growing junipers of adoption and sharing of resources and strong growing families.

Instead of the briars of racism and sexism, political scandal and nepotism, the insane waste of food supplies and deforestation that is out of control, we would have the myrtle of reconciliation and unity and rebuilding and more.

For me, the God of this passage IS the God i follow and serve and love and try to live to be a witness to. I am deeply saddened by the image of God we have helped create for those who stand at a distance from Him and trust that day by day we will seize new opportunities to put that right. May God forgive us for the shoddy witness we can too often be to His name and reputation. And may we do better.

The God i believe in is very likely not the God you don’t believe in.

Mark, my words: The End is the Beginning

And with that we have finally come to the end of the book of Mark.

If you missed any of the previous 50 plus episodes, they can all be found and viewed over here – for those of you who have been walking through this book [at a very leisurely pace i might add] thank you for hanging out with me and for any thoughts and ideas you might have shared along the way.

This final piece sees Jesus revealing Himself to a number of followers after His death and a whole lot of disbelief amongst themselves as to whether or not it was Him:

[For other looks at different parts of the bible, click here]

White Privilege in all shapes and forms

So i have spent the last two days in particular reading a WHOLE LOT OF POSTS on aspects of White Privilege and Race and in particular posts related to the Ferguson incidents in Americaland.

This has been the most research i have done into any topic for a long time and i am not sure ‘enjoyed’ is the right word but ‘appreciated’ definitely. In fact, it has NOT been easy reading but so so necessary and i just wish all my white friends in particular would make the time to take some of these in.

A lot of the research was because i have been wanting to write a piece on White Privilege for a while now, which i finally got around to over here. People are reading it and more importantly SHARING it around and i am hoping that more people will ENGAGE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION and help make this into a conversation.

As i started reading some really amazing posts i realised i needed to share some of them and so i stuck a whole lot of them over here. It is incredible how some of the posts can have such a different angle or perspective and yet be so valuable. From using analogies like riding a bicycle on streets designed for cars, to writing from the perspective of being a parent of either white children or black children, to many more i was being challenged and encouraged and shaken in so many different ways.

And as i sat down to work through a few more today i realised [after adding a post to yesterday’s list] that there were just too many good conversations to lump them all into one email as they are going to no doubt get lost. But THESE ARE SUCH IMPORTANT THINGS and so, if even just for one day, please put down your five minute attention span tendencies and really spend some time digging into these things. IF YOU ARE  A WHITE PERSON, these are things you need to know. You might not feel like they are necessary or important or even relevant, and if that is the case then you more than others really need to GYHOOYA [Get Your Head Out Of Your… Yes!] and start paying attention. This is for you and it is about you. You need to listen up. MY friends of colour – these posts are not news for you, but i can also use your help in writing some others to share these things from your perspective [brettfish@hotmail.com]

So here are a few more that i REALLY feel are worth reading, and while the events may be specifically focuses on Americaland because of the whole Ferguson incident, they are very much relevant to conversations that need to be taking place right here in South Africa.

Austin Channing Brown wrote what was probably the hardest piece i have read because of how much truth it contains and how sad and ashamed that makes me of white people and the church in so many ways, in this piece titled ‘Black Bodies White Souls’

Sarah Bessey who is a Canadian write whose work i generally really admire, held her breath and her voice and waited and watched and then eventually couldn’t any more and wrote this piece titled, ‘In which I have a few things to tell you about #Ferguson’, which was one of the pieces i read which affected me the most emotionally. And is much needed.

This piece by Rev. Erica Liu which is part of a preach on Romans 16 took the whole conversation from a completely different angle and related it to the ‘Road to Emmaus’ conversation of an unrecognised Jesus talking to two followers and turns the whole thing on its head. ‘What Romans 16 has to do with Ferguson, MO – Listening to the Voices of the Stranger’ is a brilliant offering in that it goes beyond the incident at hand and invites us to be aware of who we invite to sit and speak at our tables.

And lastly, this powerful and informative piece, ‘Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person’ by Gina Crosley-Corcoran, helps dig a little deeper in terms of challenging the myth that this is simply an economic issue.

You would do well to read and pay attention to any one of those.

You would do even better to really put some time aside and work your way through all of them, share them with your friends and start some conversations on your thoughts and what kind of action they might lead you to do.

So much great writing by so many incredible people on a topic that is hard and should be affecting so many more of us than it has.

It will be so great when ‘Race’ as a topic can be removed from the Taboo Topics section on my blog, but it has become painfully obvious that it deserves to rest there for the moment.

[For my post asking the question, ‘Where are the other White men speaking about this?, click here]

[For other questions, issues and aspects of race-related things on this blog, click here]

Pearls before Weird Diets

Well, actually this is a two for one offer. The first one is another spot on Stepha Pastis moment of how many of us think of diets or our personal ‘trying to eat good’ plans:

And the second one, you probably have to be a Pearls before Swine to fully appreciate, but if you are it is a classic look at just how plan bizarre Stephan can be [quite possibly when he has not had his morning coffee]

[For a different Pearls Before Swine cartoon dealing with Accountability, sort of, click here]

[For another Pearls before Swine strip that looks at People hearing what they want to hear, click here]

Lies about Sex: Part II – The Myth of the Magical Wedding Night

Perhaps the most often-encountered lie I heard about sex from youth pastors, conference speakers, inspirational books, and the impassioned speeches of parents was the idea that if you wait until you are married to have sex, God will reward you with mind-blowing sex and a magical wedding night.  

For those of you who don’t believe there are individuals, churches, and organizations who teach this, here are some ACTUAL QUOTES on the subject:

“For you, the person who waits, your wedding day and night will be everything: every Hallmark card, every romance novel, every poem, every religious text, and every little girl’s fantasy of what a wedding day and night should be.” (www.waitingtilmarriage.org) 

“Married people have the best sex!” (www.marriedandyoung.com)

“Put simply: When you get married, you’ve got a whole lot of awesome sex that you haven’t ever had yet.” (www.waitingtilmarriage.org)

“You’re fighting for (and earning) amazing sex for your future marriage.”(www.singleyoungchristianmom.wordpress.com)

Before my wedding night I had been told that honeymoon sex isn’t usually the best sex. I had heard that good sex takes work. I knew that it would probably be uncomfortable for me at first. What nobody ever, EVER told me was that it was possible that it just might not work at all. On my wedding night, my mind and heart were there, but my body was locked up tighter than Maid Marian’s chastity belt.

I entered marriage with the firm conviction that God rewards those who wait, only to find myself confounded by the mechanics. This brought with it a profound sense of failure. Not only had I failed as a wife by being unable to give my husband something he deserved after years of faithful celibacy, but I was a failure as a woman on the most basic level – unable to perform this one role I was biologically intended for. After all, there are 14-year-olds getting pregnant every day. How hard could it be? For the record, my husband did not express disappointment or any sense of entitlement – but I still felt these things thanks to years of hearing messages like the quotes above. And while we did (eventually) get things working, this was hard, frustrating, embarrassing, and a huge blow to both our confidences.

Some people responded to this part of my original article  by making this an argument for pre-marital sex. “Why would you want to have that awkwardness on your wedding night/honeymoon?” I don’t think there’s any fundamental problem with an awkward wedding night. In fact, I think we should embrace that kind of messiness more in our lives. I don’t believe everything needs to be tied with a pretty bow in order to be good. And I don’t think we have to achieve our most perfect selves in this or any other area to be ready for marriage. The problem wasn’t the awkwardness or the messiness – it was the false expectations and lack of comprehensive information that made us feel isolated and embarrassed, believing we were the only couple on the planet who had experienced this.

Saving sex for marriage is not a guarantee that you will have great sex, that sex will be easy, or in some cases, that sex will even be possible. All it guarantees is that the person you fumble through it with will be someone who has already committed to love you forever. To me, this is still SO worth it. I can’t imagine having stumbled through those experiences with anyone other than my husband. Figuring it out together has brought us closer and has taught us about communicating even when it feels awkward or embarrassing. But we could have done all of that without the added shame and isolation that came from those false expectations.

So now, I make it a point to tell my friends who are getting married the things that no one told me. “Look, this may not happen to you at all, and if it doesn’t, that’s great, but if, for some reason, sex isn’t as natural and intuitive as everyone told you it would be, don’t feel bad. Know that you’re not alone. Know that you WILL figure it out. I know it can feel like this has been built up into such an important and weighty thing, but you really don’t have to be so serious about it. Find ways to laugh together. Look at your wedding night as the night you start a new journey instead of the night you finally reach your destination.”   

[Lily Dunn is an ice cream connoisseur, a Disney fanatic, and a fellow raiSIN hater trying to live an authentic, grace-filled life. She lives and teaches with her husband in Daegu, South Korea and blogs at https://lilyellyn.wordpress.com. Follow her on Twitter @LilyEllyn]  

[To continue on to Part III looking at how ‘Sex is for boys’, click here]

40 Days of Lent: Day 9

DAY 9

Task: Read through and pray this prayer of humility

[taking time on each line to let it sink in and really mean it as you speak it,and if possible i would suggest that you find a space where you can speak it out loud so you can hear the words as you say them]

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated [have false and defamatory statements made about me], Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

[composed by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val]

[For the next post inviting you to a weekend of Lenting, click here]

“Umm, I didn’t ask you to give up coffee. I asked you to surrender your life.” – God

i really enjoy Eugene Cho. He is someone i ‘follow’ on the Twitterer and generally i find that i resonate deeply with what he says. He tends not to get caught up with the mud-and-opinion slinging that so many other Christian personalities seem to and i appreciate his humility, openness and humour in trying to be an honest and real follower of Jesus… he is not perfect and i imagine would be the first to say that… this blog in particular really captures my thoughts and words on fasting and the season of Lent way better than i ever could…