Special Photo Challenge: Inspiration

my nickname ‘FISH’ stands for Faithful In Serving God… the main focus of my blog is to hopefully help point people towards an incredibly loving Creator God who desires to be in relationship with them and to let people know that there is a Life To The Full that we are invited to live…

these pictures – taken from a camping worship trip in Namibia called Namrock – give some glimpses of the kinds of things that inspire my blog posting – God and nature and friends and community and the church in action and Love and relationships and worship…

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Green’ click here]

silent god

i sit in silence.
and wait…
nothing!
be still.
i am still.
and know that I am God
hm.

i sit in silence.
and wait.
i am still.
i am still waiting.
as i sit i become aware of my breath
of the tick tick tick tick tick of the wall clock
outside sounds. a car. a mother calling for her child. an alarm.
or is it a siren?

back to the room.
and my sitting.
and silence.
stillness and silence.
i appreciate the sound these words make as i repeat them once more silently in my head.
stillness and silence.
i say them internally one more time with over-exaggerated enunciation.

God.
God?
Nothing.
In the beginning there was nothing.
Nothing but God.
And silence? There must have been silence..
And stillness. Stillness and silence.
Is. Anyone. Out. There?
I know there are people out there.
Because I hear them.
Occasionally I glance the flash of a person hurrying past the window through the corner of my eye.

i.
eye.
funny that.
i am…
still waiting.
i am still waiting. in silence.
He is.
You are.
You are I Am.
Aren’t You?
The beginning and the end.
Did i miss the end?
Did it maybe happen back then, a few moments ago when i dozed off for perhaps a minute or two?

or an hour.
could it have been an hour?
sure felt that way.
sure feels that way.
sometimes.
these times.
this… time.
the time is ticking.
just as that clock is ticking.
as a reminder that time moves on.
as. must. i…

yet still no answer.
is there anybody out there?
is there anyone to pick up the line on the other side?
say something.
say anything.
please say any thing.
something?
nothing!

i refocus
clear my mind
and settle back in
to my sitting
and my silence
still.

Weekly Photo Challenge: (BIG)

this is one of my favourite photos of myself and it is titled “Hebiggermeless” based on the verse in John 3.30 where John the Baptist, talking about Jesus, says, “He must become greater; I must become less.”

it is the essence of Christianity and Jesus-following and problems always erupt when we forget that and this picture helps keep me grounded by reminding me how pathetically small i am compared to something relatively tiny that God spoke into being.

He is bigGER.

and prompts the chant/song i often use when i go speak at places:

God is Bigger than my box
He’s Bigger than my theology
He’s Bigger than my understanding…
He’s Bigger than me.

if all people who claimed to be Christian lived with this in mind, the world would be completely transformed.

 

the days i wrote about hitler, retards, hating christianity and gay people…

one of my facebook friends [Catherine Rogers] posted a status about the overabundance of brett FISH anderson articles/blogs/videos on her newsfeed and the struggle to pick which to give her time to [not complaining that there was so much but that there was too much choice] and so somehow five minutes later i found myself looking back through some early pre-Simple Way blog posts i made two or more years ago and finding a bunch i thort would be good to share… but then i was hit by the dilemma of not wanting to make Catherine’s newsfeed explode and so i had the cunning plan of sticking them all in one blog post, which altho it won’t help with the choice factor, will certainly be a lot better than posting each one separately… i think there is some good stuff here and i hope you find something useful…

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO: shortest blog post in the history of brett fish blogposting but hectically profound: https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go

BLESSED ARE THE RETARDS: this must have been posted before anyone was reading my blog cos i didn’t get a single hate mail for the title – or else maybe people got it – maybe this should be a taboo topic of dealing with or just being around people who are hectically different than you in some way cos they don’t have lessons on how to do that at school – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/blessed-are-the-retards

REASONS TO HATE CHRISTIANITY: in the meantime this one DID get me into trouble, with one of the leaders of my denomination [never mind local congregation, i aim high!] because he lambasted me for writing this having read the title but never read what i was saying which was kinda not the title [but possibly giving a reason to be somewhat annoyed with christians] – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/reasons-to-hate-christianity-part-i

THE WAGES OF GOD, ARE YOU: another short to the point one focused on the economy of heaven, and if it’s the economy God is interested in, the surely we should be as well – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/the-wages-of-god-are-you

ALL MEN SHALL KNOW YOU FOR YOUR HATRED OF THE GAY – another worrying one if you stop at the title but this one is SO much completely close to my heart that it is definitely worth a repost – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/all-men-shall-know-you-for-your-hatred-of-the-gay/

HITLER’S MOM – wow, again this must have been the days before people figured out i had a blog – just a short but important glimpse into the way we see people and the influence we may have in their lives and the need for intentionality and always holding on to hope – https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/hitlers-mom/

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 36

another psalm from David and again, it appears as if he hadn’t committed his major facefall yet as he is still muttering about those who have “no fear of God before their eyes.” [vs. 1]

but once he has gotten over looking at “them” and “their awful sin” he has some useful things to say [so useful we turned them into songs… from songs into other songs that it]

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

so much so that i want to just share it like that, so all the poetry and music can drip from it… it is amazing how when a poet/songwriter/artist gets it so right, they can transport other people along with them on their journey and i feel that happens here – basically the writer is shouting out, “God you are big in this way and huge in that other way and just so incredible in that way” and uses amazing language to take us right there with Him…

Your Love reaches to the heavens [which are not necessarily a physical up there, just past the stars, kind of place, so really Your Love just goes on and on and on]…

Your faithfulness is like the mighty mountains [you know, standing firm, unmoveable, unshakeable, You are trustworthy]…

Your justice like the great deep [going way beyond what we see and can experience and even know about or can safely enter into without super special hectic gear – it just keeps going and is much greater than we can imagine]…

and on and on… God you are Huge and Great and Mighty and everything about You is just desirable and mind-blowing and life-transforming…

it is great, and necessary to every now and then [or really regularly actually, which is why i love corporate worship times cos that is a place i feel encouraged to do so] just lose it in your praise and adoration of God, for who He is and what He does and what He has done…

when last did you do so?

For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light. [vs.9]

[To return to the Intro page and be connected to any of the other Psalms i have walked through before now, click here]

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 33 [Guest Post]

one of my best friends, Rob Lloyd, wrote today’s guest psalm for us – he is going for another round of cancer treatment today as he heads towards his 30th birthday celebrations so take a minute to say a prayer for him, for healing and protection from the nausea that has accompanied that, and then read his musings on psalm 33 and be challenged and encouraged:

One of the most incredible things about God is how He interacts with His creation. It’s not a popular word to use today, but God condescends to us – He leans down to speak to us in ways we can understand when in reality His ways are so much higher than our ways. We can get so used to His interacting at our level that we forget that He exists at another level entirely.

And then we look around at the world and it is so easy to see a world out of God’s control. (It’s definitely out of ours!) If God is God how can He let things be as they are? Surely the bible must be wrong for we do not see the wicked failing while the righteous prosper?

Is God really God?

And then we get Psalms like this one, declarations of God’s Godness. BOOM! God is God and there is no place to hide. His reality shatters our complacent existence bringing His sovereignty to challenge our pride and His hope to restore our faltering faith. Our sight is restored so see Him as He is and not as He appears to be.

So what should be our response? In John 6.28, Jesus is asked a similar question. Here’s my personalised paraphrase:
“Jesus, what does God want from me?”
“Just this: trust in Me.”
Of course our lives end up consisting of far more than this, but this is where we start. And if we don’t start here we are lost straight away. This is what defines the rest.

This Psalm has one more challenge for us and it’s a big one for how do we know when we are really trusting God?
“In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.”
How do we know we are trusting? Our hearts are rejoicing.

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 31 [aka the game of thrones psalm]

verse 23 jumped out at me:

‘Love the Lord, all his faithful people! The Lord preserves those who are true to him,
but the proud he pays back in full.’

my translation says, ‘The Lord preserves the faithful…’

and i found it an interesting contrast – faithful vs proud – because i don’t think we would naturally see them as opposites…

yet when i think of being faithful the immediate connection is the idea of ‘faithful to someone, or something’ and that will generally require humility and service, which are much closer to being the opposite of proud

my nickname “Fish” stands for ‘Faithful In Serving Him’ which is something i aspire towards more than can claim i achieve, but it really is an incredibly high value of mine, and when i get it right it is when [as in luke 9.23] i am denying myself and inviting God to take charge

my friend Mugabe [no relation] used to say something like this: ‘When God is on the throne of my life, i have to be on the cross, but when i put myself on the throne of my life, it means i have once again condemned Jesus to the cross.’ it is as if i am crucifying Him again.

Joshua looked at the people and said, “Choose this day who you will serve.” [Joshua 24.15]

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; you will hate the one and love the other” and yeah he may have been talking about money in that specific account but the principle remains – there is only space for one king in your life. who is it going to be today?

there is a whole lot more of juicy stuff in psalm 31 [it’s a long psalm] but i think that’s good for now… maybe something else stood out for you and i’d love to hear it below…