Moving Forward

I have no idea where the days went! One moment I was happily mapping out 2011 and the next I was wondering why I didn’t get the time to do all the wonderful things I’d planned for the year! It seems that once again life, and time, has had the best of me, and I’ve spent this last week debating between trying to salvage the year or let it go and plan for the next, again.

I suspect I’m not alone in this dilemma, and I know that for many of us, this can be a mighty depressing time of the year, since being human as we are, our tendency is to chronicle our failures and use them to color our conclusions as to whether this past year was a success or not. Whether there are written resolutions or not, the sense of ‘failure’ at some unachieved desire or things one just never got round to, weakened and failed relationships or prayers seemingly unanswered can seem rather overwhelming.

Ultimately though, we all have a choice when it comes to how we finish the year and enter into the next. We can choose to do it mopping around at our shortcomings or in thanksgiving at the things that did go well. We can move into the New Year looking behind or resolve to firmly look ahead without fear.

One of Paul’s most famous verses of Scripture is found in the third chapter of Philippians. In that chapter, Paul points out the folly of trusting in the flesh, noting that though he used to, he has come to a place where he has set aside that ‘legalistic righteousness’ for something higher. Then he says “…I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead…”

Paul knew what it meant to have missed the mark in human understanding. He also knew the fallacy, and danger, of camping in that un-attainment. So he provides what in my opinion is a practical and quite useful tool for continued success: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. As children of God, we must always be looking ahead, with the realization that our goal is eternity. Our perceived (and sometimes real) failures should never stop us from continuing to strive for the things that God has for us.

Thankfully, one of the benefits of being a believer is the truth of redemption. God is not bound by the dictates of the calendar and His redemption spans lifetimes, even His redemption of time. What this means for us is that we can always trust Him with tomorrow, and we can trust Him to get us where we need to go, as long as we will keep ‘straining towards what is ahead.’

So this time round I’ve done a couple of things – I’ve written out a lengthy list of all the great things that God has done, the goals I’ve seen accomplished, and am spending time thanking Him about them. What about the other list, the one with the undone(s)? I simply edited and re-titled it afresh, believing again for this New Year. I’m moving forward.

I quite agree with the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson on this subject: “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high spirits to be encumbered by your old nonsense!”

When Kings Stay At Home

It wasn’t that he was a lustful man. Really, it was a very bad time. He was tired, the battle had taken quite a toll on him, and things just followed in rapid succession. Plus, she was really beautiful. Thinking about it later, he realized something else he hadn’t paid much attention to – all of his peers were away, still fighting his war. They understood he needed his rest, even if for a moment, and hadn’t disturbed him when they left to go back to the battlefield.

So here he was, walking on his roof, and there she was, swimming naked in the compound next door. One thing led to another and by the time he was done, he had killed his friend, her husband, to hide his indiscretion. David had fought and won many battles, but this afternoon was his waterloo.

I’ve often wondered what went through David’s mind on realizing the weight of his sin. I wonder what discussions went on between him and his Lord as he pleaded for the life of the child Bathsheba carried from their union. Did he blame her for tempting him with her foray into the pool? Did he rant at God for allowing him to see her? Was it the circumstances of his weariness and the weight of battle that he pointed fingers at? Or was he angry at Uriah for having built his house so close to the palace?

In all likelihood, all of these thoughts went through David’s mind and more still. We all know the ‘morning after’ feeling, the realization that in giving in to an impulse, you had made an irreversible mistake. And as often happens to us, I suspect the things that David kept beating himself up about over and over again was not his weakness, but his being where he was at that particular time.

David’s whole army was out fighting, a war that he should have been leading. In fact, the chapter begins thus: in the spring, at the time when kings go off to war…David sent Joab out. But David remained in Jerusalem. It was the season for war, it was the season for people to be out conquering territory for the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people. But the king opted to remain at home. What followed was not a disaster for the army (they won), but for the king.

And what a powerful truth it gives us - whenever kings stay at home, trouble surely and swiftly follows them.
This is the truth I’ve found – the enemy likes to find the kings in God’s army, and give them reasons to stay at home. Away from the war, in a place of ease and comfort. In that place, he finds temptation to present to them. With the laziness of peace having crept in, few of us are awake to his devices, and like David, we rarely make it. He likes to make sure that we have ‘things’ to do on our own, away from the family of God, and when he attacks, we are by ourselves and unable to stand.

Kings were not born to stay at home while the army is out fighting. These are times of war. Man of God, don’t stay at home. Don’t be at ease in Zion. If all you do is stroll on your rooftop every eve, soon enough there will be someone for you to sleep with. If your armor sees no war, it will soon be rusty and useless to you, your people and your God.

Kings were not born to stay at home.

The Restoration Guy

This past weekend was a bony one for me. On Saturday, I had the privilege of visiting a group of young men in Kibera who are using bones to make all sorts of expensive things, mostly decorative. Over 100 dollars later, my friends and I left there very much impressed and with bags of ‘evidence’ – evidence that bones are not an ‘end’.

Then come Sunday and my pastor decided to preach on the very same matter – bones. He spoke of how in one historic and much talked about event, Ezekiel spoke tones of them back to life. The Scripture where the story is told reads like a scene from a movie: as it starts, “old and dry bones (bleached thoroughly by the sun) covered the valley floor, scattered everywhere”; and when it ends, “they all came to life and stood up on their feet – a great army of them!” I love this story!

These two incidents have something, or shall I say someone, in common – an individual who dared to believe that more could be made of the bones, that they could do more than just sit there, dead. Yet neither at the factory nor in the valley did the bones just transform to something living and of value on their own. There had to be someone taking them through a process. For the boys in Kibera, it’s a dirty, dusty and smelly process of grinding, cutting and shaping; For Ezekiel, it was applying the words of prophecy that God gave him. The end result was the same – something new, useful, of value and life.

I wonder if these young men realize how much they represent the character of God Himself. Just like them, God is in the business of restoration. In fact, I think that’s probably the largest department in heaven. Putting people back together, giving life to dry, dead bones, over and over again. Taking things that seem useless and written off, charred beyond repair and making them glorious. Taking people that have been battered by life and fellows, and giving them a fresh breath.

Zechariah 3 has an interesting story of Satan accusing a dirty-clad priest who had obviously been through the rougher patches of his walk with God. Yet listen to what God says in Jeshua’s defence: This man is like a burning stick that has been snatched from a fire…and He goes ahead to restore Jeshua, clothing him with new fine robes, giving him new authority and calling him “a symbol of the good things to come.”

The genealogy of Jesus himself is like a soap opera – it’s filled with murderers, prostitutes, adulterers, all kinds of people. Yet God did not hide them or their faults, He chose to restore them instead, and use their very bloodlines to attach the Savior to. He chose to show us that He can take dead bones, cast off lives and use them for His glory. What hope there is in the restoring hands of the Master!

I’m encouraged today, that it doesn’t matter how much you think any part of your life is dead and useless and irreparable, if you will take the step to speak the Word of God to it, you can trust God to bring back life. You can trust Him to put in new flesh to your walk with Him, to clothe you with new raiment if that’s what you need, douse the charred edges and make things whole again, snatch you out of the fire and darkness into His glorious light.

God is in the business of restoration, and He can restore anything!

Shall We Do?

I had a rather rare privilege this past Saturday evening at a Gentleman's Dinner (that, for the uninitiated, is what maybe you would call a bachelor's party, we just roll like that!). I had close to three hours of listening to married men talk about their marriage experience - 33 years, 28 years, 8 years, 2 years, even 24 weeks! And what a wealth it was!

It was so refreshing listening to men who are still madly in love with their wives decades later, seeing men who have gone and done it, have learned to live with their wives, have learned forgiveness and love and making it work, and are enjoying every bit of it. It was amazing to hear a father talk to his son and encourage him to begin the walk of marriage with confidence - not glazing over the bumps that can be found in it, but giving proven tips on how to work through them.

There's nothing that has been dragged in the mud so much over the past few years like marriage has. It has been painted as an impossible thing to do, a misguided idea, a relic on its way out. All sorts of reasons have been thrown up as to why it can't be done, or if it can, why it's no longer viable to say 'till death.' Throw in mixed tribes or mixed races and you're in even bigger trouble, and another litany of 'why nots.'

But for those hours, the men who have gone before us dispelled the myths, encouraged and exhorted us, and near pleaded for us to restore the family and marriage as God intended. They made us laugh, they made us think, they made us hope. Yes, it's possible, even in this day and age, to have a Godly, solid and exciting marriage, to live in the fullness of what God intended for the family unit. It's work, AND it's possible.

To Mr. Mangucia, Mr. Malu, Gilles Mukusa, Kevin Malu, Albert Sabwa, thank you. Thank you for showing the way. To Tray Murundu and Lydia Stern, to Sammy Baita and Anna Marie, Godspeed as you begin the most exciting journey of your lives in just a few days. We're watching in the wings excited for you and urging you on. Yes, marriage will be everything you have hoped it will be, and more!

Stick With It! - An Ode To Grace

I’m born-again, I’m a new creation. I have a past, an old nature. It was nailed with Christ to the Cross, but sometimes I think it resurrected with Him as well. I am constantly amazed at my propensity towards and affinity for sin, despite my claims to the heritage of heaven. Isn’t it interesting how ‘the wrong thing’ is always so incurably attractive?

As a Christian, I’m called to live righteous. Yet sometimes, it seems that the effort it takes to do so is just not available, at least when it’s needed. The line of men who found that out is long, but two come to mind; David, looking back regretfully at a poor ‘one evening’ decision, and subsequently penning countless psalms bemoaning the fact; and Paul, crying out in anguish at the folly of his choices, saying, ‘the things I want to and know I should do, I don’t; yet the things I don’t want to and know I shouldn’t, I most certainly do!’

I identify with these men on many levels. As a result, I can’t help but ask myself, what is it, really, that God wants from us? When He created us, did He not know, like David said, that we are but clay? Does my every now and then weakness surprise Him? Does He sit in heaven, regretting ever having ‘saved’ me? And right there, that’s where the truth comes in. I am saved.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He saved me – from my past, my present and future sins and failings – He bore all of them. Long before I knew Him and long before I knew how much I would need saving, He paid the price for my redemption. That is the truth. There is another truth - God asks some things of me to keep this relationship going. For one, I must continually work out my salvation with fear and trembling, and when I fall, I must look back up to God and seek His forgiveness and restoration. I must live in the light as a true child of the Light, called of God, and I must remember that all my decisions have consequences – of life, or death.

But most of all, and above all else, God wants me to remember that I am not saved by works, nor by my strength. It is only by His grace that I am saved. The most important of these truths is that His salvation is based on the sacrifice the Lord Jesus made, and my acceptance of that gift. Not on my frailties or abilities. I see it everywhere in Scripture – a Father who asks that we never stop, never give up following Him.

David, He ended up describing as a man after His own heart and the greatest of kings. Paul, He went ahead and used to turn the world upside down and write huge swathes of the New Testament. Men who let their desire for God override and eventually erode their struggle with the old nature – those are the men God used.

Found yourself in struggles of late? Things that you think you should be over but are just not letting you be? Feeling like your one step forward is matched by seven backwards? Be assured that your Father in Heaven is keeping a firm grip on you – as long as you will do your part in staying in the process of seeking after Him and His heart. To quote Jesus, to Peter: I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Deeper...Still

I love swimming. Now, I need to mention that for the statement to be entirely true, we’d need to have a long discussion on what ‘swimming’ is, and I suspect you would not agree with me on whether I even know how to swim. Nevertheless, I consider the definition of the word to be broad enough to include sitting in the pool (on shallow end, of course) with the water up to my neck and holding on tightly to the bars. Oh, bliss!

I get very excited about going to the pool – that’s how I know about the love part. And, I always vow before I leave the house that ‘today’, I will swim the entire length. In that particular dream, I’m beautifully and coolly doing my strokes across the pool and all the fairer members of the crowd are standing around gaping and clapping. Needless to say, it’s taking time for that to become a reality.
 

Mind you, I was once quite the fish - sharks have complained about my making them look bad in inter-coral competitions. Then one December evening, in the Tanzanian part of the Indian Ocean, a near-drowning experience abruptly ended my affair with water bodies, and it took me some time to re-ignite it. So you can understand why my steps are tentative, and restricted abut to the edge. I keep telling myself that this time round, I’ll venture out into the deeper parts, but I’m yet to get round to it. Perhaps this year…

I wonder how many of us are like that. Not in the natural swimming pool, but in the one that actually matters – the expansive rivers of God. Oh, we love God, there’s no doubt about that. We get very excited about ‘being’ with Him. And yet, when it’s time to make a commitment, pay a price to make that happen, we’re happy to stay in the shallow end, holding tightly to the ledge. Getting into the depths of God requires work – work that we either don’t have time for, or don’t consider essential, or that we’ve tried before and gave up.

Yet that was never God’s plan! His desire is that we would get as deep into Him as we can, as near to Him as is humanly possible, and then closer still with the help of the Holy Spirit. Paul says, in his letter to the Corinthians, that (paraphrased) No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, never so much as imagined…what God has arranged for those that love Him…but you’ve seen it and heard it because God by His Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along.

That stirs something in me. God wants me to dive with His Spirit into the depths and discover Him. The shallower our relationship is, the less I can expect to receive from Him. He gets excited about people that will go after Him – in fact, He gets so excited He begins to reveal His unfathomable self to the seeker. And it is there, in the depths of God, that life in all its fullness is found. It is there that the plan of God for our life with Him is brought out into the open.

I’m giving it a decided go, this diving into the depths of God. As for the other matter, I’m still trying to fix a lunch meeting with one of them Dunfords – let’s see how it goes.

Another 365 Days!

The passage of time is always an interesting thing to study. It’s amazing how quickly the seasons change, how tomorrow can make such a difference, how yesterday can seem so long ago. Starting a new year is nothing more than a calendar jump really, but it’s still a daunting undertaking. Yet another 12 months to live, and who knows what may be in them?

When you’ve had a tumultuous year like the one I’ve had, it’s a leap that requires considerable faith. In looking back on 2010, I’ve often felt like the spider crawling up the water pipe - one moment it was bright and sunny, and the next moment, someone poured in water and life became a wet, spluttering and slippery mess. Not once. Not twice.

The wetness goes away, and the sun comes back up, without fail. Away from the spider and its troubles in the drain, life moves on unfettered. But it’s having the faith to start walking again that determines whether the spider lives or dies. And so it is for us too. Who is to say what the days hold? Who is to know whether the rain will start pouring again as soon as we make the first step?

Some people take the world-approved ‘strong’ route, building walls miles high to protect them from any errant spray of a shower. With each day that passes, their skins get thicker by experience, and we admire their ability to feel nothing, and nod our heads philosophically when they pronounce high sounding mantras on living a soul-less life.

Yet others prefer the difficult trail of faith and hope. They believe that no matter how wet the last minute was, the good Lord has sunshine up his sleeve for the next. Their hearts are open and their hurts many. They see eternity where only a moment exists, and believe the promises over circumstances. As soon as it’s sunny enough to walk, you’ll see them whistling along happily up the pipe they slid down last time.

It’s the path I choose to take, though it gets pretty rough. In all honesty, I’m just as unsure as the next guy. But there’s a difference between uncertainty and doubt. Uncertainty is a matter of comprehension; doubt is a matter of faith. I may not understand much, and I am certainly a bagful of questions, but I have no doubt that it shall all be revealed to me in time, and that God is firmly in control. Of the pipe, the weather and everything in between.

It would be great to quote something biblical at this point, like the story of how David’s longest episode in life was as a fugitive, or of Joseph’s as a prisoner, or of Abraham’s barren years. But there’s an example closer home – I am here today. It’s a testament to a true God, who carries his sheep on his shoulders when their legs are broken and they’d rather die than walk; who gently nurses them back to health, and teaches them how to run again, never mind previously disabled limbs.

It’s parts amusing and parts scary to think that HE has 365 days – again – to surprise me, to lead me to places I never thought I would go, to load me with gifts I didn’t ask for, to get me out of trouble I never even thought I’d get into in the first place, to be my father. Even with all the ‘experience’ I think I have, nothing beats that expectation, because I know that with every new day, ‘no eye has seen, no ear has heard…’