Christmas time

Not everyone enjoys Christmas time.  There are a variety of reasons for this.  Stress (have you seen Aldi's Christmas ad this year?), grief over lost loved ones, disappointment that the family get-together didn't include reconciliation.  I'm sure there are many more.

And it's only made worse by those Christmas songs that call this "the most wonderful time of the year".  Those who don't find it wonderful feel pressure to enjoy this season, but it seems in the act of trying the joy slips out of reach.

We think we should be happy at Christmas time.  We should enjoy time with our friends and family and good food.  And these are right and good desires.  That's why it hurts so much when they're not fulfilled.

But I think it's okay to have a good Christmas without these things.  It's possible to have a good Christmas without these things.  Because there are a number of things that we think Christmas is about that are actually wrong.

Christmas is not about your happiness.
Christmas is not about family.
Christmas is not about food, or presents, or generosity, or friendship.

Christmas is about Christ.

That little baby, whom God sent into the world as a gift.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not die, but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Christmas is about Jesus.  But you can't understand the gift if you only look at the baby in the manger.  Take a look at Jesus' life, what he did when he grew up, how he died, and what happened next.

When we understand the gift God gave the world at Christmas time, we see that to truly enjoy Christmas is to receive this gift and thank God for it.  So go and check out God's gift, you might be surprised.

My neighbour makes me paranoid

Let me start by clarifying that not everyone who lives in my block of units is from college.  Some of the units are privately owned and rented.  The units either side of us fall into this second category: not-college people.

We've had difficult people living on our left the whole time we've been living here.  You may remember me writing about our noisy neighbour in first year.  He moved out towards the end of our first year and since then we've had a noise-sensitive neighbour who has gotten progressively more hostile and paranoid.

Mostly he just glares at us, and will never respond when we say hello.  But we've also heard from other neighbours that he thinks J and another college student are hacking into his computer and stealing things.  We think he probably has paranoid schizophrenia, and I find myself sadly thinking: how do you love someone who is determined to hate you?

But God did just this, didn't he?  The whole world was determined to hate him yet he was determined to love us.  While we were still his enemies he sent his son as a gift to us (Rom 5:8).  If God did this for me, how can I not also love my neighbour who hates me?  Jesus even tells us to do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27).  But how do I do good to this neighbour who wants nothing to do with us and believes lies about us (and will probably take anything we do the wrong way)? 

One way that I try to love him is by walking quietly on our stairs.  Our stairs are against the wall we share with this neighbour and they can be quite noisy (if his stair-walking is anything to go by.  Seriously, it sounds like someone else is in the house with you!).  I know he is noise-sensitive so I try to keep our noise levels low.  How much of this is being loving and how much is fear of him reacting, I'm not sure.

On to why I'm paranoid.  Because I know that our neighbour hates us I'm afraid that he's stealing our mail.  I'm sure this is a silly fear, but we've had two undelivered parcels this year and I'm anxiously awaiting a parcel that Australia Post tells me will arrive today.  What if it comes while we're out?  What if our neighbour takes it from our front door step, or signs for the parcel himself, saying he'll pass it on but really just keeping it from us? (Sometimes the posties don't care who signs for it, which is admittedly helpful if a college friend is the one who signs for you).

But I now realise that I'm doing just what he's doing.  I'm being paranoid that he's out to get me.  I'm believing untruths about him (or at least worrying that they're true) when there's no evidence for it.  So loving my neighbour in this situation is not worrying or thinking the worst of him. 

I'm not sure how else to love and do good to our neighbour.  Anyone have any ideas? 

When things are broken

It makes me really sad when things get broken or damaged.  Today I dropped my phone on a brick and the edge of the phone got dented.  Now I'm really sad because it's less than perfect.  I know that this is a trivial problem and I could console myself with the fact that at least the screen is still intact and everything is working fine.  But I'm still sad about the damage. 

I've written about this before.  Not in a blogpost, but in an old journal.  In year 12 I accidentally cracked the spine of a new book and was really sad about it.  It was ridiculous to be that sad about a book, and I knew that.  I reflected then about what it says about me that I felt like a book with a cracked spine was now 'ruined'.  The new book was less lovely because of its flaw.  I didn't really come up with an answer back then, I just hoped that I would get over it.  And of course I did get over it. 

So I was thinking today.  Who doesn't get upset when something is broken or damaged?  Of course it depends on the original value of the object, not just monetary value but sentimental, and use value as well.  When things get broken we know this is bad, that something has gone wrong.  We have this innate knowledge that this shouldn't happen.  But it does happen.  We live in a broken world so of course things break and are damaged.   

But I think there is also something wrong with the fact that I love something like my phone so much.  I'm not always aware of how much I love things until they are damaged or destroyed.  There is idolatry in my heart, which too easily loves created things rather than the creator of all things.  

So I'm looking forward to a time when things won't get broken.  When I won't love things as much as I do because they won't come near to comparing to the joy I have in God and the wonder of worshiping him forever.

Thankful Thursday

Friends, I’m sorry that it’s been a while since I’ve written.  There isn’t really an excuse.  But here I am again, perhaps procrastinating a little from my research week assignment, but I really did want to get a post out today since I haven’t posted in a while.  So here are some of the things I’m thankful for in the midst of this mad assignment–writing week:

A package in the mail
This wasn’t a surprise because I ordered it myself, but I was surprised with how quickly it arrived.  On Tuesday I got my gumboots! 
I have complained twice on Facebook (and more times out loud) that I didn’t own a pair of gumboots.  The first time was when I went to the show (you can read about it here) and it rained for half the day.  I walked around with wet–sneaker feet all day. 
I haven’t had a chance to wear these gumboots yet because it has been sunny all week (I’m not complaining about that) but when I do I’ll try to remember to take a picture to share with you.

 Concentration
There has been a sad pattern to my research week experiences.  I’m not very good at staying on track (this may be partly my personality but I might talk about that in a different post).  The assignment is so big it overwhelms me and I often wonder what I’m even doing at college at all.  I’m not smart enough for this!  So I get distracted and waste time on other things because I can’t face the fear of not being able to get my head around the assignment.  But it’s a vicious cycle.  The assignment looks bigger as the time left to do it gets smaller.  But I am thankful to say that this week I have been pretty focused (aside from this small break, shh!).  I prayed at the beginning of the week that God would help me to concentrate and to understand what I read, and while I’m not sure about the second part, I really do think that God has helped me this week.  So this thanks goes to God. 

I think I’ll stop there and get back to my essay.  Thanks for the break!

What are you thankful for this week?

Suspend your morals while I tell you a story

Last night I watched a romantic comedy with a friend and I couldn’t help remembering something J said to me once (or maybe it was someone else, or I read it somewhere.  Anyway, I just remember the conversation I had with J about it).  I’ll tell you what it was in a moment, first I want to write about the movie. 

In the movie we watched there was this guy and girl, best friends, who clearly felt more for each other than friendship, but were always missing each other and were never able to be together until the end (…spoiler?  I haven’t even named the movie, but it’s a romantic film so of course they get together in the end).  All through the movie I groaned whenever one of them was close to telling the other how they felt only to find that the other was in a relationship with someone else. 

As I reflect, this movie wasn’t as bad (subjective term) as some romantic films.  Neither of the main characters cheated on their clearly-wrong-for-them-partner to be with their best friend (a.k.a. love of their life).  But both of them ended up with dissolved marriages before the end.  But that’s okay, right?  They can finally be together now. 

And I know there are other films where you as the viewer are waiting and hoping for a marriage to break up so that the ‘real’ lovers can freely be together.  Of course, the film makers always spin it to make it okay in our minds.  The marriage wasn’t happy, the spouse was having an affair, the spouse was…etc. (because it’s often the spouse’s fault).   

Here’s what J said:  Why is it that in movies we still root for the characters who have fallen in love, waiting and hoping for them to get together, when it is at the expense of a spouse or partner?  We want them to be together even if it means breaking up an existing relationship that one (or both of them) has.  Why are we okay with broken marriages in movies for the sake of ‘true love’?  Somehow we suspend our morals, not just our disbelief, when we get hooked into such a story. 

While I suspended my belief in the importance of marriage during this movie there were a number of other things in the film that did grate against my morals, and I noticed them.  Drunkenness (when does good ever come of it?), lying (this one especially grates when you just want the character to tell the truth about their feelings!), and sex outside of marriage (this one doesn’t always grate, particularly if it’s with the ‘right’ person, the love interest).  So I didn’t suspend all my morals.  But it’s not as though the film was asking me to endorse those things in the same way. 

More could be said on this topic from the perspective of the action or crime-drama genre.  Sometimes we suspend our belief that every life is valuable and murder is wrong when we watch these genres.  We may even suspend our views on justice if it means the bad guy gets caught. 

So what should I do?  Give up romantic comedies and just watch G-rated films (or no films at all)?  Maybe.  I don’t want my culture (or the pop-culture seen in films) to shape my morals.  But I don’t want to disengage completely from my culture either. 

I guess part of this issue can be dealt with by moderating the amount of input these things have in our lives.  As a Christian I get my beliefs and morals from what God says is right and wrong because I believe that he created the whole world and everything in it, including us, and so he not only knows, but made, the best way to live.  So the input of the Bible, God’s words, in my life should be far greater than any input I get from my culture.  In fact, the Bible should shape the way that I view my culture, and everything else. 

I’m sorry that movies can cause me to suspend my morals for the sake of the story.  But after it is over I remember reality, I turn again to look at God and ask him to shape me, knowing that I am a work in progress.  And maybe in the next film, whatever genre it is, I’ll see more of it through God’s eyes. 

When I didn’t want to pray

Last week at college we had week of prayer to pray for the mission teams that we would all participate in the following week.  This meant that we prayed more than usual in our morning chapel times and chaplaincy groups, usually in small groups rather than being lead from the front.  

At some point in the week I suddenly felt exhausted from praying.  I didn't want to pray anymore, I was tired of praying and it had tired me out.  

I was shy of admitting this here.  After all, I'm a Bible college student, I've chosen to study my faith full time, shouldn't I love praying?  Shouldn't I be good at it by now?  I shouldn't be feeling like I don't want to do it.  

But in case there is even just one other person out there who feels the same way as me sometimes, I thought I should share this.  And I want to be honest here not just about the good things, but the struggles too.  

I know I can come up with a number of reasons to explain away why I was tired of praying.  I'm an introvert and praying in groups for 20-30 minutes each day with people I don't necessarily know well, if at all, is emotionally taxing.  I'm also shy about talking in groups so often praying out loud is a push out of my comfort zone.  Then there's the fact that you have to reword and add-lib on the fly because simply reading out the prayer point doesn't quite feel like I'm praying sincerely (even though that's a totally legitimate way to pray, particularly with the detailed points).  

But honestly, I don't want to let myself get away with excuses for my attitude to prayer.  Prayer has often been hard for me, in groups and alone.  I know that I'm not alone in this.  Pray is hard, that's the truth.  It's hard to keep at it, to keep trying, because it feels so weird.  There's nothing else that we do like it.  And often we wonder what's wrong when we pray because we don't feel any different, as if feelings are the gauge of God hearing us.  

But my thought that day last week shocked me.  Because while I don't expect that I will always love praying, and I certainly don't expect to be good at it without a lot of hard work, I shouldn't let that stop me from persisting.  And I shouldn't want to opt out from doing it.  Prayer is our lifeline to God.  It is our expression of our utter dependence on him for everything, and a product of our relationship with him.  How can we have a relationship with God if we never speak to him (prayer) and if we never listen to him (reading the Bible)?  

It was my sinfulness that said I was tired of prayer.  And I know I'm not disgusted enough with my sin, but the shock at my sin was good.  I was glad it shocked me because it showed me that God is changing me, little by little, working in my heart to make it like his and to despise my sin and love his righteousness. 

We visited a mosque today as part of our mission, to learn more about Islam and what Muslim's believe.  I've often been impressed with the amount of praying that pious Muslims do (at least five times a day according to the rules of their faith).  But I shouldn't need rules about when to pray to get me to pray.  Paul says to pray continuously! (1 Thess 5:17).  I know that God has made it possible for me to approach him in prayer without any need for special words or special actions.  Jesus has interceded for me before the Father and made me clean.  Praise be to God.  I need to remember this and keep trusting in God for everything, knowing how much of a privilege it is to come to him in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.

(“What a Friend we have in Jesus”, lyrics Joseph Scriven)

That’s Christmas to me

A few days ago J and I watched The Polar Express.  I remember really enjoying it the first time I watched it several years ago.  I thought it was a sweet film with a nice message.

This time I found myself frustrated. 

The message of the film is essentially that if you just believe you can keep the magic of the spirit of Christmas alive for yourself.  But believe in what?  That Santa is real?  All the adults who watch this film know the truth there.  And what exactly is the spirit of Christmas? 

The truth is that Christmas is not about keeping the dream of Santa alive.  It’s not about ‘the spirit of Christmas’.  It’s not even about giving and family time, though we do enjoy doing this at Christmas time. 

Christmas is about celebrating the greatest gift this world has ever received.  We share the love by giving each other gifts, but it’s not even really about this.  God has given us the amazing gift of his son, Jesus Christ, God incarnate among us, Emmanuel.  Jesus humbled himself from his place as creator and ruler of everything to become a helpless, dependent baby. 

But it’s not the fact that Jesus, God himself, was born into this world that makes him the world’s greatest gift.  It’s what he did with his life that is significant.  He gave it up on behalf of sinners so that we would be forgiven.  It is because of what happened at Easter that makes Christmas important. 

On Sunday we heard a friend preach for the first time (which was exciting to be at) and he reminded us to remember the most important thing at Christmas time.  I felt particularly rebuked when he asked “would you feel like the day was less stressful if you took Jesus out of Christmas day?”  It certainly would make getting to things on time and having time to open presents with family easier if we didn’t go to church on Christmas morning.

I realised that Jesus isn’t often my focus at Christmas time.  Jesus gets about an hour of my day on Christmas day while I’m at church, and the rest of the day is about family and presents and food. 

As I was catching up with a good friend today we talked about this and both committed to putting Christ back into the centre of Christmas.  Here is one practical way we thought of for doing this: every present I open, every good bite of food I eat I want to remember that the gift of Jesus is even greater and thank God for him.  Hopefully this will help me to be more mindful of why we really celebrate Christmas. 

I’m interested to hear how others keep Christ at the centre of Christmas.  What do you do?

Throw away decisions

I’ve never been very good at making decisions.  Big decisions, small decisions.  Often with small decisions I simply don’t have an opinion.  “Where do you want to go out to dinner tonight?”  I’ve never been good at answering that question. 

But I’m not good with big decisions either, life decisions.  I’ve been reading some of my old prayer journals and I was struck by one that I wrote during year 12.  I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I didn’t know what to choose to study at uni.  I just wanted God to tell me what to do.  I wanted someone to be able to look into the future, tell me what I was doing, just so I didn’t have to make the choice.  I remembered that desire.  I still have it sometimes.

I think this was and is because I don’t trust myself.  I didn’t trust myself to make the ‘right decision’.  I didn’t feel that I knew myself well enough to choose something that would be good for me, or would be what God wanted me to do. 

It also shows that I thought there was a right and a wrong decision for my life’s direction.  I thought that God had a plan for my life, and what if I got it WRONG?  Somewhere along the line I was taught, or picked up the idea, that God had a plan for my life.  If he knows the future, and he  knows my every decision then he must have a plan for my life, right? 

Of course these things are true, but not in the way that I thought they were.  God does know what will happen and he does have a plan for my life.  His plan is for me to live a life that loves and obeys him, the rest is just details that he has given me the freedom to choose.* 

God does not have a SPECIFIC plan for my life that I have to discover. 

I’ve had to fight with this idea a lot.  It has paralysed my decision making.  It has stunted my trust in myself.  I’m still fighting this idea.

Sometimes I still wish that God would make decisions for me.  But I’ve realised that making my own decisions is part of growing up, maturing into a well-functioning adult and a well-functioning Christian.  I pray that God would give me wisdom to help me in making decisions and I’m learning not to throw away my decisions.

 

* Discussion about free will obviously fits in here but it’s too much for me to address properly here.  Perhaps in another post. 

Bible verse chain mail

There’s a thing going around on Facebook at the moment where Christians are sharing their favourite Bible verse or verses and then nominating others to share theirs.  I was nominated today.

My friend who nominated me wrote about it as spreading God’s word.  And it got me thinking.  I wonder who started this Bible verse chain.  What was their purpose?  There are a number of purposes they could have.  Encouraging Christians.  Sharing the Christian hope with non-Christians.  The Bible has verses for both of these things.  But what you share will be different based on what you want to achieve. 

I don’t have a particular favourite Bible verse so I’ve decided that this frees me to choose any. 

The verses I chose are 1 John 4:9-10

⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

I want to share the Christian hope.  These verses tell us that God loves us so much that his son Jesus died in our place, as a sacrifice to pay for our sins, which separate us from God.  If you have questions about this, if it doesn’t make sense to you, I’d love to discuss it with you.  Give me a call. 

Thankful Thursday on Friday

So again I’m late with the Thankful Thursday, whoops.  I’ve been sick with a cold this week, since Saturday, and had a bit of a dizzy relapse yesterday afternoon so writing this blog post really wasn’t on my mind.  But here we are, better late than never. 

Here are the things I’m thankful for this week:

A gifted DVD player
We happened to mention to our friends J & E while we were in Brisbane that we didn’t have a DVD player and they offered us his old Play Station 2.  We had been wanting to get a PS2 for a while because we have some Guitar Hero instruments that only fit a PS2.  Well that’s why J wanted a PS2, I just wanted something to play DVDs because I was tired of using my old and slow laptop.  I was so thankful for this on Saturday while I was sick.  I think I spent most of the day lying on the couch working my way through a season of ‘Alias’. 

The Mark Drama
J rehearsed Thursday night, Friday night and all day Saturday to be part of the Mark Drama.  It’s basically a retelling of the gospel of Mark.  The actors memorise the structure of Mark and a few key links (a lot in Jesus’ case), and improvise the rest.  It was performed in a church hall set up as a theatre in the round.  The actors walked through the aisles as part of the performance, and the space in the middle was very small and intimate for the audience.  I loved the way seeing the gospel of Mark performed made the story come alive for me.  I’m thankful for the time the actors put into preparing for it and the great opportunity it is for sharing the gospel.  If you ever get a chance to see it I highly recommend it. 

The freedom to be stay home sick
I don’t mean that now I’m an adult I can decided if I’m too sick to go out rather than my parent’s deciding, though this is of course true.  I have the freedom to say home sick because I know that there are people at college who will notice that I’m missing.  There are people who will share their notes with me.  There are people who will pray for my recovery.  I am so thankful for the love of my Christian brothers and sisters at college.  I’m so thankful for the friends I have there.  I am so thankful for the beautiful way Christians care for each other.  And I’m thankful that God has made me part of his family to make this all possible. 

Why you don’t have to believe your intuitions are the Holy Spirit

Or, How the Spirit shapes our hearts

This second chapter of ‘Good News for Anxious Christians’ is closely tied with the first chapter and addressed the question of what’s really happening when we listen to our hearts.

Cary’s basic argument in this chapter is as follows:

We sometimes have a gut feeling or intuition that we cannot explain.  Because we can’t explain it we often attribute this feeling to something from the Holy Spirit.  But sometimes our intuitions turn out to be wrong so therefore they can’t be the Holy Spirit. 

The fact is that everyone has intuitions, all the time.  Christians (who have the Holy Spirit inside them) and non-Christians (who don’t have the Holy Spirit inside them) alike.  Cary suggests that instead of thinking of our intuitions as the Holy Spirit, they are more like skilled perceptions.  Our intuitions are shaped by the set of skills that we have, such as a musician hearing a piece of music as sad.  These skilled perceptions often run faster than our ability to explain them.  But this inability is more about our lack of the necessary vocabulary needed to explain the intuitive feeling, rather than a sign that it is from God. 

But intuition isn’t completely separate from reason either.  It is not a process of reasoning, but the end result (even if you cannot explain the reasoning that got you to that point).  Because of this our intuitions are worth testing and arguing over because they won’t always be right. 

But just like in the first chapter, just because intuitions are our own voices rather than God’s voice doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t listen to them or take them seriously.  The Holy Spirit does work in our hearts, even though the heart and all the voices in them are our own. 

Cary then goes on to talk about a specific habit of the heart, just like the skills talked about earlier.  This he calls virtue, and it shapes our hearts, how we act, feel, perceive and think, just like other skills.  The fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 are a list of virtues.  And like all habits of the heart they can result in intuitions.  But unlike skills that can lead to someone becoming a better musician or sports player, virtues are about becoming a better person.  This is why the Holy Spirit gets involved in them. 

This doesn’t mean that only Christians can have virtues but the Spirit does work in Christians to help them to become kinder, more patient etc. than they were before.  This shaping of the heart enables us and gives us the freedom to do new things.  The boundaries which shape a virtue are essential to the integrity of a good heart.  These boundaries aren’t restrictions to a person’s freedom but the source of new possibilities.  Just like the boundaries imposed by skills (like moving your fingers in the correct way on a violin) gives the freedom to play well and to play more complex pieces.  Spiritual and moral disciplines work in the same way. 

One of the freedoms of a virtuous heart is a new set of intuitions.  Christian virtues are all about following and becoming like Christ.  The Holy Spirit helps this happen in us, he sanctifies us.  So the intuitions of a sanctified heart are definitely worth listening to.  But we don’t have to pretend that they are the voice of God. 

Our heart won’t get sanctified by listening for the Spirit, but by listening to the word of God. 

This chapter has encouraged me to be more aware of the Spirit’s work, in me and in other Christians.  It has also increased my desire to have my heart shaped by Christian virtues by the work of the Holy Spirit.  And it has also encouraged me to test my intuitions and search for the vocabulary to explain them. 

Next up is ‘Why you don’t have to “Let God take control” (or how obedience is for responsible adults)’. 

Thankful Thursday

This week has been… well actually I’m not sure how to describe it.  Perhaps I’ll just tell you what I’m thankful for and you’ll get a picture of what my week was like from that.

Showing off my knowledge of the Zoo
Well perhaps that’s not the best way of putting it, but I was in charge of the map and the route we took to tour the zoo so I did feel a bit like a tour guide.  On Saturday we took three friends from church to the Zoo with us.  In our college community a number of families, including us, pool some money together to buy five Zoo membership passes and this means that we can essentially treat friends to a free trip to the zoo.  One of the girls we took on Saturday is new to our church and new to Australia so it was lovely to show her some Australian animals in particular.  I’m thankful for this opportunity to bless our friends and the fun that we had together at the Zoo.  I’m also thankful that the rain stopped pretty early on in the day so we weren’t miserably huddled under  our umbrellas the whole time.

Learning more about the Holy Spirit
This week our college has been having their annual lecture series.  This year the lectures are being given by Michael Horton, on the topic of the Holy Spirit.  I’ve really appreciated learning more about the Holy Spirit.  He’s the member of the Trinity who is spoken about the least so it has been good to look deeper into who he is and what he does.  Though there are moments when the technical terms go over my head, I’ve been pleased at what I have understood and it has shown me that I really have learnt lots over my time at college so far.  Last year I certainly couldn’t have understood as much as I did of these lectures. 

Opportunities to exercise
I’ve fallen out of my regular exercise routine, since the mid year holidays.  I haven’t been very good at getting back into it after my fitness slid downhill over the break.  Interruptions from sickness, study and being away haven’t helped, but this week I seem to be getting back into it.  I exercise with one of the other wives in our community, I play netball and I do ballet.  I’m hoping these things can help get my fitness back up and give me some more energy. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Why you don’t have to hear God’s voice in your heart

So I’ve finally gotten around to starting to write about each chapter of this book.  Sorry for the wait, I promise this book is worth it.

In this first chapter of his book Good News for Anxious Christians, Cary writes about hearing God’s voice and trusting your own hearts.  He states that you don’t need to figure out which of the voices in your heart is God’s voice, simply because none of them are.   Listening to your heart gives us self-knowledge, and this is good to have, but it doesn’t give you knowledge of God.  To know God you have to listen to God, and this means listening to a word that comes from outside yourself – the Bible. 

The Bible says that  Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph 3:17), but it directs our attention outside our hearts for what we should put our faith in: Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the word of Christ (that is, the good news about Jesus) (Rom10:17). 

We should be confident to name the little voice of wisdom in our heart’s as our own.  But often we label this voice as God’s in order to be able to take it seriously.  We think that our own voice or feelings are unimportant or wrong and not worth listening to.  This belief undermines our sense of morality, responsibility, and self-knowledge. 

Our hearts are largely shaped by what comes from outside them so it is important to hear the word of God properly preached and to take it into our hearts.  God does speak today, but it’s not in the voice of your heart.  God speaks through the Bible, which is his word.  This word gets into our heart and we repeat the word’s of God in our hearts, but this doesn’t mean that it is God’s voice.  God’s word shapes our hearts, but he speaks externally to our hearts. It has always been this way: God in his wisdom has chosen to speak to his people externally through the words of prophets, apostles, preachers and teachers.  

Cary also has some thoughts about how this idea of hearing God’s voice in your heart has gained traction which I won’t go into, you’ll have to read the book. 

This chapter was so warming to my heart.  I realised that guilt that I have felt for not hearing God’s voice is totally misplaced.  I was encouraged to memorise Bible passages so that I have the word of God in my heart.  This chapter has implications for decision making but that will be discussed in a later chapter. 

What are your thoughts about this?  Do you have any questions?  I’m very happy to chat about it so feel free to comment below this blog post.

Next up is ‘Why you don't have to believe your intuitions are the Holy Spirit’ (probably not until the weekend).

Thankful Thursday

I don’t really want to write this today.  This week hasn’t been a great week, and it’s not going to end soon enough for me.  But as I look back there are still some things I can be thankful for, which shouldn’t surprise me.  God’s blessings are all through my life if I only look.  And part of the point of doing this Thankful Thursday thing was to remind myself of the things I can be thankful for, even when I feel like life isn’t great. 

College friends
On Saturday night we had some friends from college over: two ladies from our year who live in the residence at college.  It was lovely to have them over.  I asked for advice with my knitting, a car was washed and we played a few games after dinner.  It was just nice spending time with them.  I’m also thankful for my friends at college and enjoyed seeing them again now that semester two has started.  I had a good conversation with a friend over lunch today about why this week is stressing me out and she was lovely and gentle as we discussed together.  Thank you friend.  

Chaplaincy Group
This morning I had chaplaincy group, a group of second to fourth years who meet weekly to discuss various issues of theology and life.  This is also the group we went with on mission together.  Today we met our new male chaplain, because the one we had last semester is now away on study leave.  He is a new lecturer at college.  It was lovely to meet him and get to know him a bit, as well as be back together as a chaplaincy group and laugh together.  I enjoy our camaraderie. 

Hope
I wrote about this already in my previous post so I’ll just mention it briefly here.  I heard a wonderful sermon yesterday that was so encouraging.  I am thankful for all that God has done, who he is, and who I am because of him.  I have hope because of Jesus, so I try to look up at him. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Look up with hope

Yesterday I heard a wonderful sermon in Women’s chapel from a friend and fellow second year.  She preached from Ephesians 1:15-23 and reminded us why we need to keep hearing the truths about God and the good news of Jesus.  And she blessed us by encouraging us with these truths.

Sometimes we know things about God and we can even explain them well, talk about them and write about them in an essay.  But do we really know know them?  Do they change our lives, our hearts, our focus?  We have to keep hearing the good news because we so easily forget.  We forget that God has saved us from the evil in our hearts, that he has forgiven us for our rebellion, that he loves us.  I have forgotten this. 

Look up and know the certainty of the hope that you have in Jesus if you belong to him.

I’ve been having a tough week.  Too many things have to get done and I don’t want to do any of them.  I want to just escape.  My friend’s words as she explained this part of God’s word to us were a soothe to my soul.  I have hope in Jesus, and nothing can take that away. 

I needed to hear so much of what she said. 

And then in the afternoon I heard another encouraging sermon from a friend in preaching group (one of my subjects at college).  She reminded me that God is sovereign.  That means that he is still in control even when I feel that there is no control in my life.  I grasped at this truth in the restlessness and chaos I was feeling. 

Thank you God for these sisters.  Thank you for these truths. 

The creative college assignment

Our most recent college assignment was quite different from the usual essay.  For Doctrine 2 we had to write a hymn or a prayer on one of four set topics.  The aim of the assignment was to get us to express theological truths in simple ways for congregational use.  I chose to write a hymn about the ascension. 

I'm not sure how everyone felt about this assignment, but the general vibe I got from the people I talked to was that of excitement.  It was nice to be doing something very creative and more practical than an essay.  I really enjoyed doing mine (apart from the sometimes frustrating nature of metre and rhyme!) and so I thought I'd share it with you and I hope it encourages you like it did me. 

It doesn't have a name because most hymns only have a number.  It's the tune that is named, and that's what I've provided with its metre, as well as a song with that tune and its number. 

FOREST GREEN 86.86D
(“O Little Town of Bethlehem”, hymn 240)

The Christ has died that we might live,
yet rose up from the dead.
Eternal life to us was give,
it was just as he said.
And then he rose up in a cloud,
was hidden from their sight.
With kingly reign he was endowed,
and sat down at God’s right.

When Christ ascended to his throne
he left the earth below.
The Holy Spirit he has shown;
a gift to us who know.
By Spirit Christ abides in us,
his likeness to instil.
We’ve knowledge of his mind to trust
that we can know his will.

From heav’n Christ intercedes for man,
before our God as priest.
By his humanity he can
our weakness know not least.
As envoy to the holy one,
God’s mercy he doth win,
he stands forever, failing none,
our confidence in him.

As king in heaven over all,
the Christ at God’s right hand.
He shares the power in God’s hall,
he’s gloried as God planned.
A place prepared is his intent,
where we’ll forever spend.
Then he’ll return the way he went,
to judge all at the end. 

Testimony

While on college mission I gave my testimony at a country dinner.  In was in a tiny town, half an hour’s drive out of Gunnedah.  There were about 20 people there and I shared with them what God has done in my life. 

I don’t remember when I first heard about God.  When I was young I started going to church with my family.  There I learnt about how God loved me and cared about me and was interested in me.  Somewhere along the line I learnt that God had forgiven my sins, but I didn’t understand why Jesus had to die for my forgiveness.  So I wanted to learn more about God, get to know him better.  I decided to start reading the Bible because I knew I could find out more about God there.  I started from the beginning but I got a bit stuck in the Old Testament.  I didn’t understand what all the short stories said about God or how they were relevant to me. 

It wasn’t until I got to university and joined a Christian group there, that I understood how the whole Bible fits together into one big story of God working through history, and that it was all leading up to the coming of Jesus.  I understood in a deeper way the reality of my sinfulness and how serious sin was.  I thought that sin was just things like lying, stealing or murder.  But I realised that these are symptoms of a deeper problem, a rebellion against God and the way he says is the best way to live our lives.  So it wasn’t just borrowing my sister’s clothes without asking that was a sin, but my unkind thoughts and my selfishness and my desire to live my life my own way and not God’s way.

I learnt that this rebellion against God is so offensive to him that it deserves punishment: death.  But I also learnt even more how great God’s love is, that Jesus died to take this punishment instead of me.  This is why Jesus had to die for me to be forgiven.  There’s a verse in the Bible that describes this well. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)

Because of this I know that my life is not my own, I should be living it in service to God. Jesus died when I should have died, so I now live my life for him.  Part of this is why I’m studying at college to learn more about God and how to share this good news with others.

I'll be home for Christmas

We're back home for Christmas and spending it with family.  It's lovely to be home, on familiar streets and seeing old friends.

J and I helped to decorate my parent's Christmas tree on Sunday afternoon and we listened to Christmas CDs like we always do.

This tree is taken from the bottom of my parent's block of land.  We've been using a 'home grown' Christmas tree for many years now.  Dad said that this tree was one year's worth of growth, and it still almost reaches the ceiling!

It was fun to see a lot of our old decorations, particularly the ones that my sister or I made as kids.  Here's a few:

J and I were both spoilt this Chritmas but we were reminded of the greatest gift of all and the reason that we gather and celebrate this day.  The gift of Jesus to take away our sins is the greatest gift of all.

The way God gave this gift to the world was so unexpected.  Jesus came into the world in humble and scandalous circumstances; he was born as a helpless baby to an unmarried girl in a lowly stable.  He didn't come with power and might as many would have expected.  Yet this baby would grow up to be the one who took the sins of the world upon himself so that we who trust and believe in him could be right before God.  Jesus and what he accomplished really is the greatest gift of all.  This is why we celebrate Christmas day.

Where's your career plan?

Sometimes I feel like I've mucked up my life.*  Well to be honest that's a bit dramatic.  If I think about it for more than a second I realise that what I really mean is that I feel like I've mucked up my career path.  I love everything else about my life.  I do not regret at all getting married to J at the time we did, or coming to college with him to study the Bible for a year.  

I feel like I haven't planned for my career or future study very well at all.  I've found myself thinking that I should have done something more productive with my year after honours and I berate myself that I didn't.  Then I remember that I did try to.  I tried to find work that was related to psychology and would give me some exposure or experience to help me on my way to studying masters.  But I was never hired for those jobs that I applied for.  Instead I got a job somewhere else.  Perhaps God used that job to teach me something, or develop my character or godliness.  But even if he didn't do any of this and my job last year was of no benefit to me whatsoever (which I don't think is true), it's not about me anyway!

I've realised that ultimately my career or job doesn't really matter at all.  What's more important, what God is concerned about, is that I glorify him.  There is no instruction in the Bible about what career I should have.  God knows what I will do, but he hasn't got one specific door for me to walk through and if I don't I fail at life.  I don't believe that there is one thing that God wants me to do and I have to ask him to reveal it to me. 

Maybe I haven't organised my life well enough to get into a psychology master program next year and follow the plans I had made for my life.  But what if this has given me the opportunity to reassess those plans?  What do you do when your dream changes?

I planned to continue study to become a psychologist some time during my second year of uni when I decided that I enjoyed learning about these theories of human behaviour and I didn't want to become a scientist (the other subjects I was studying at uni).  I was attracted to psychology because I found the subject fascinating and I want to be able to help people by talking through problems and listening to them.  

I feel like I can't change my dream of becoming a psychologist, like I'm betraying myself and the plans that I've tried to make.  Changing things now makes me feel like I'm drowning in the unknown next year.  But I shouldn't let the fact that I've been heading in this direction stop me from changing my mind or taking a detour.  Maybe I'll discover that the detour was the better way to go after all. 

I don't know if I'll get into a psychology course or not.  I don't know if I'm suited to the job anyway.  Maybe I'll try counselling first, or instead.  I just want to know how to listen well and have the skills to be able to help people with emotional problems.  But above all of this, I want to be glorifying God and serving him wherever I am.  That's what I want to focus my life on. 

*Note: I'm taking a leaf out of a college friend's book: because this post is a bit depressive it was not written on the day that I was feeling like this.