The search for meaning can defeat the purpose

Certainly, my meaning and purpose has been deepened and enhanced when I exercise my faith in God and invite the radical and far-reaching power of Christ, further into my life. In short, Christ gives me meaning and purpose when I continually accept the reality of his resurrected life into mine, and then I am able to engage afresh, in love, with myself and those around me.

However, I confess that I am someone who, being philosophically minded, can end-up seeing the search for meaning and purpose as the be-all-and-end-all. This search derives from my frequent over-obsessive desire to comprehend everything about my life and the world I inhabit. To resist this desire I have to constantly remind myself that so much of my life and the world I inhabit I cannot even begin to understand and comprehend. Nevertheless, during this resistance, what I have repeatedly found is that Christ invites me to trust in Him, to trust in God, whether or not I can find a meaning or purpose.  
 
For example, I have often been led to the instruction in Proverbs 3:5-6 ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding’. Moreover, when I meditate on this scripture, and others beside, what I experience is ‘The peace of God, which transcends all understanding’ and this peace then guarding my heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Believing is seeing, not the other way around!

I am in the middle of reading a very thought-provoking book by Don Harris, called The Red Letter Questions: Meditations on the Questions Jesus Asked. The central claim Harris makes is that Jesus, rather than giving neat-and-tidy answers to the various issues we confront in our lives, often asks questions of us instead. These questions are not just rhetorical in nature, and so have their answers already suggested within them; but are open questions which, if we mediate upon them seriously and so don’t view them superficially, apply to us all personally, provoking us to radically rethink our lives and our place in the world.

Harris identifies and explores over 150 questions that Jesus poses throughout scripture which fundamentally challenge our views concerning, for example, conventional morality, our understanding of God, of established religious doctrine and practices, our attitude to others, our concepts of the Messiah, the bible, ministry, amongst many other things. Via these explorations, the meaning and character of faith is also unpacked by Harris in response to one the most important questions of Jesus, found in Luke 8:24-25: ‘Where is your faith?’ - this being posed just before Jesus calmed the storm to save his disciples from drowning. The point is that the disciples did not see the effects of Jesus’ miraculous power first, before they then believed, but rather, had the faith to ask Jesus for help in the midst of their fear and trepidation.

Faith is, therefore, a phenomenon which does not start with seeing as a basis of belief, but rather invites us to step out in faith first, after which we then see the world aright and in the way God intended. It is only at this point we can then ask the question the disciples asked after the storm was calmed, namely: ‘Who then is this that He commands the wind and the sea, and they obey Him?’ (Luke 8:25).

Why does God so often shrug his shoulders and sigh?

Have you ever watched yourself make bad decisions, either in the heat-of-the-moment, or because of a habit that is too ingrained? Then, have you ever thought what does God do in the midst of all this; in all our silliness and ridiculous repetition? I was watching myself this way the other day, and felt God shrugging his shoulders and sighing. As if he was asking, ‘what can I do, when you are like this?’ The point is that God loves our freedom and us being free so much that he will, whether we like it or not, step back, and give us the space to be who we are, warts and all. This is why it is so important to offer ourselves up for change every day; to recognise our failings and to pray that we listen to Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and then ask that he will counsel us and give us the strength and the wisdom to move us forward and not get stuck (and see John 16:6-7). Perhaps when we do this, God’s shrugging and sighing will not be quite so frequent!

A version of the ‘born again’ prayer

(If you are desperate then pray this – pull the emergency cord! When you pray this sincerely, so not just reading it, your life will never be the same again)

Lord Jesus,

I am tired of the rain in my life, of my tears and strife, of my hang-ups, my fears, my loneliness, my sadness, and my stuckness. I am tired of doing wrong – against others and myself – and I am tired of being lost in my feelings and in my over-thinking. I am tired of my heavy burdens – my past which haunts me, my future which scares me, and my now which has fallen, yet again, into a hole. I want to be free from this weighty, heavy mess! I want to be free to love, to sing, to laugh, to dance, and be joyful!

Please help me Jesus and save me! I have tried so hard to save myself many times before, but I am not strong enough, so I need you to take over my life, and for me to depend on your strength and love. Come into my life, my heart, my soul, my mind, my body, and let your power which overcame even death, change me forever. Thank you for forgiving my wrongs, my sins, and that you died for me so I no longer have to be tired in these ways again. I give myself to you, for you to be my Lord and saviour, and please make yourself be more real to me than anything I have ever experienced before; so I can let go of my heavy burdens and walk a life of joy and love, with you. In your name Jesus, please do this for me.

Amen

Simple formula: in heaven perfection cannot blend with imperfection

Let’s just say there is a heaven, which, of course, would have to be a place of perfection by definition. A place of perfect love, perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect laughter, perfect dancing, perfect singing, perfect beauty, perfect all. Now, naturally enough, I want to be there, participating in this perfect place, forever. Who wouldn’t? But, how can I be there as I am? For I have my many, many imperfections, which even if they diminish (that is, if I am Holy enough, which I am mostly not) these will never wholly go away  – my weaknesses, my hang-ups, my tantrums, my selfishness, my ego-trips, my fears, my hates, my aggressiveness, my judgements, my disappointments, my all about me-ness. So, as Groucho Marx wouldn’t join a club who would have him as a member, I couldn’t ever join heaven as I am, as I would definitely spoil it. And, of course, this very simple formula is the same for you too!

What can we do then? We cannot be perfect on our own efforts, certainly, as our efforts, however hard we try, are tainted by these imperfections in the first place; and we would be very foolish or deluded if we thought we could break this ancient Catch-22. So the only option is to believe in a God who washes us clean, taking our imperfections away from us. But how does he do this? He makes himself into a kind of divine piece of blotting paper, where the stains from our lives are removed and placed on him, and where he becomes our imperfections in order to make us perfect (and see 2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, although we can’t make ourselves perfect for sure, we can trust in a God who became human in order for him to make us perfect through his love. In other words, he makes everything his fault and not ours by dying for us, and so we can now enter heaven, assured that we are clothed with his perfection.

Nine Steps to Well-Being

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God bless!

When I get carried away with my own gifts I can often forget to love

Without wanting to sound too pretentious, I have a gift of teaching. It is my job for a start, as I am a university professor, and by all accounts from students and colleagues, I teach pretty well. I also love studying and writing, and have a strong desire to explain and help people understand hard to grasp ideas and beliefs; and, moreover, I have strong desire to explain ideas and beliefs which seek to challenge and deepen our responses and attitudes to life and to God.  However, in my motivation to teach in this way, and to do it well, there is a subtle sin which finds its way in, without me frequently being that aware of it. This lack of awareness is because, as my enthusiasm for exercising this gift gets a hold, I can get carried away with it all. So, I end-up seeking to pursue and explain the alternative position relentlessly, always seeing the counter-argument, and pushing the other person often too hard, and sometimes into a corner. The sin is that in the meantime, I forget to love, and fail to get alongside the other and strengthen her, and then I forget how to simply listen to the view of the other deeply and without looking for a counter-response. Ironically, I also then fail to learn, which is, of course, fatal for a teacher! I am now reminded by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1, that for all the gifts I may have in teaching, that without love ‘I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.’