New Year wishes from a new year scrooge

I hope you are delighted again by the passing of the seasons: the  snowdrops and crocuses and showy daffodils;
the taste of  chocolate eggs on breezy spring days;
the sight of pink blossom against a blue sky.
The seaside days with ice cream and bare feet.
The lengthening days, the reds and the browns, the candles, pumpkins and drawing the curtains.
I hope you read a good book and watch a good movie; read a poem; see some art; create something that makes you happy; laugh at a good joke.
I hope you have a hot drink with a good friend.
I hope you take a walk, watch the birds, stare at the sky. Waste some time,
Then lets light the lights against the dark and do it all over again.

Sometimes new year doesn't bring a lot of hope. Sometimes it requires us to summon up some courage to look it in the eye. Often there are things in our lives that can 't be changed by sheer willpower. If you know what I mean, this is for you.

Inherit

                                 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up
                                  for us all, how will he not also, along with him,
                                  graciously give us all things?
                                Romans 8

On Christmas Eve Alice declared, in tones of despair, 'I will never get my Christmas presents!'

From her seven-year-old point of view she had been waiting forever (a few weeks) and couldn't possibly wait a moment longer. She was beginning to doubt that the waiting would ever end. From my point of view, I knew I had spent those weeks listening to her requests, helping her write lists, scanning the shelves of toy shops to make sure all the My Little Ponies were represented; I had found things that I thought would please and surprise her, I had wrapped and hidden them away and was poised to fill her stocking that very night.

I wonder how often I am just like an impatient seven-year -old in regard to my Heavenly Father. There are so many good things that I think I can't live without for a moment longer, and I wonder why God isn't seeing it like I do. And yet the Bible tells us that the Lord delights to plan and give good things to his children.

In fact, he tells us that those who depend on God will inherit the whole earth!  How is that even possible?

Before they (we) took His life he had given up everything- they gambled over his last garment.

He gave everything - his last breath- so that we could have everything.

What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived- the things God has prepared for those who love him
1 Corinthian 2:9

How abundant are the good things
 that you have stored up for those who fear you
Psalm 31

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth
Matthew 5

Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. 
Mark 15

The waiting game

I don't know about you, but for me Christmas can highlight all the things that aren't right in my life yet. Perhaps it's because of the expectations raised of happy cosy family Christmases around the fire; perhaps it is simply the passing of another year.

Normally in advent I focus on the different elements of the Christmas story and the characters within; this year, I have been thinking of what it means for us to wait now, what it means to find God in the waiting. That seems to have been the theme of my year!

I bought myself another advent book. No excuses except I love books. It is called 'Those Who Wait' by Tanya Marlow, and is the imaginative retelling of four stories from the bible- Sarah, Isaiah, John the Baptist and Mary. * This book can be read over advent, one chapter a day, but could also be read any time of year. I have found it impossible to stick to one chapter a day; I have wanted to devour it and yet to savour it at the same time. The author knows from her own life the pain of waiting and also shares a little of that story at the beginning. She writes with compassion and humour. She encourages us to lean into the waiting and to see the bigger picture:

       Behind every wish that we'd get a hospital appointment soon, there's a wish to remain healthy. Behind that wish to be healthy is a desire to live forever with healed, whole bodies. When we're waiting for the kids to stop fighting, we are also waiting for an end to all wars. While we wait for a promotion, we're also waiting to be respected and known entirely, using our gifts for the glory of God.

    We spend our lives waiting. 

... 

Deep in our core, we long for wholeness, heaven and the incomparable beauty of seeing Jesus             face to face. 

       We wait for Jesus. 

       We can't help it.

(Tanya Marlow, Those who wait) 

Between the end of the Old Testament and the New Testament was quite a wait- a few hundred years- but there were people to be found in Israel quietly waiting. People like Zachariah, who, the Bible tells us, was a man who loved God and did his best to serve obediently. But - but- his hope for his own circumstances had grown cold. That wasn't surprising, he and his wife were well beyond the age of expecting children- and it is a hard road to walk, knowing God could but doesn't answer a prayer. More than that though, his belief that God could had grown cold too.

In the big picture, God is about to break the centuries-old silence. His messenger Gabriel is here to tell Zechariah that God is about to keep the promise made at the end of the Old Testament- that an Elijah figure is coming to clear the way for the Messiah himself, and that Zechariah is going to be the dad of that man! But first, he speaks to Zachariah by name, and assures him that his prayer- the prayer of his heart for himself and his wife- has been heard. God could have had the angel rush straight to the earth-shattering, history-changing news of the Messiah and his herald, but first he takes the time to minister to one heart. And among the amazing predictions made about this child there is the line 'he will be a joy and a delight to you'. An old couple get the chance not only to be part of God's amazing plan but to delight in their own child.

Zechariah had nine months of silence in which to contemplate the power and goodness of God. And by the end of them, boy did he have faith! He could see how God was about to fulfil all those wonderful old testament promises. What a changed heart.

I am beginning to see that the waiting is the thing- this life of faith is more about waiting than we like to admit. It's hard. So many of the things we long for are not guaranteed. They are, I believe, masking a longing for heaven and the things of God, but to deal with our lack in the here and now by saying 'It will be ok in heaven' is often beyond us- well, me at least, It has to be a work of the Spirit.

But He can do it. He will do it, if we lean into Him with our longings, our hopes (no matter how cold) and dreams (no matter how shattered). He will make our hearts long for His kingdom, and in the meantime dance in His presence, And who knows what blessings and answers he will bestow on you on the way.

May you know that your prayer has been heard. May you know Him in the wait.

(Read Luke chapter 1 for the story of Zechariah)
*The stories are very true to the text and she has included notes on how she made the choices she did)

         

The God who waits

We are all familiar with waiting. We wait for buses, for letters, for a holiday, for a better job, better health, for an end to this and a start to that. We wait and we long for something better.

God waits too.

I don't know how I haven't seen it before. After all, there is the story of the prodigal son. What does the father do in that story? He waits and watches and longs for his son to come home.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." Matthew 23:37

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
Isaiah 30:18

When the time had fully come...

'But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son'
Galatians 4:4

Advent is here! I've probably said before, I love Advent. As the world gets even more crazy-busy, this introvert longs to light all the candles, grab a book and lose myself in reflection on the Christmas story.

This year the story is sending tingles down my spine- perhaps due to spending so much of the last year reading the Old Testament, and tracing the nuanced, layered, oft-repeated promise of the coming King through book after book and century after century. I can imagine the angels holding their breath, as Jesus is poised on the edge of Heaven, ready to dive into from his throne to the stable floor, because 'the time had fully come...'

I was very moved by this post which captures that very element of promise-fulfilled at long last. The writer speaks of the four hundred year silence between the end of the Old Testament and the angel arriving in front of Zachariah. The Israel Jesus came to may not have been in great shape, but there were people faithfully waiting, telling the stories, trusting and hoping. After four hundred years of nothing!! (Follow 'stewardship' on social media to get their advent reflections.)

I usually have a book to take me through December. Sarah Clarkson has written a fabulous list here, most of which are now on my amazon wishlist. The book I have picked up for this month is not an advent book at all, but a little book of poetry which goodreads tells me I have been reading all year! It is by the writer of 'The Message', and is called 'Holy Luck; Poems of the Kingdom'. Poetry seems to be the very thing to help me slow down and ponder in a season of mad rush, and the second collection (my favourite of the three) is packed with Christmas-themed poems. I will leave you with one which speaks to me of the value of advent reflection...

Dream
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream
Matthew 1 : 20

Amiably conversant with virtue and evil,
The righteousness of Joseph and wickedness
Of Herod, I'm ever and always a stranger to grace.
I need this annual angel visitation

- sudden dive by dream to reality-
To know the virgin conceives and God is with us.
The dream powers its way through winter weather
And gives me vision to see the Jesus gift.

Light from the dream lasts a year. Impervious
To equinox and solstice it makes twelve months
Of daylight by which I see the creche where my

Redeemer lives. Archetypes of praise take shape
Deep in my spirit. As autumn wanes I count
The days 'til I will have the dream again.

From Holy Luck: Poems of the Kingdom, by Eugene H Peterson

In Narnia

I had forgotten the full power and charm of Narnia.

Harry had pulled a selection of books off the shelf (he loves a stack of books to look through) and had included 'The Silver Chair'. I grabbed it on my way out the other day and was immediately lost in another world.

Jill and Eustace are whisked away from their school to Narnia- they meet the wonderful elusive Aslan on top of a mountain and are given a task and four signs. But he warns them- 'up here your minds are clear but down in Narnia they will become clouded'- it will be hard to remember the call with clarity once they are off the mountain-top. They struggle on, messing up more than once, yet holding on to faithfulness to the Someone who sent them and whose purpose is ultimately fulfilled despite the weakness of those he chose to send.

What a beautiful way to illustrate what a life of faith looks like.

A highlight for me is when the children and their companion (Puddleglum, a Marsh-Wiggle) are being enchanted by the witch to forget all about Aslan and Narnia, to believe that her underground world was all there ever was and anything else a figment of their imagination. Then comes a beautiful speech from Puddlegum:

"'One word, Ma'am,' he said... 'One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Supose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

The truth is that a life of faith is a struggle  and at times our minds and hearts are wearied or enchanted just as the Narnian travellers' were, but oh! what an encouragement we have to persevere! 

'There is wonderful joy ahead.' 

This afternoon I came across this, which explores the notion of taking encouragement from Narnian stories into our own lives ** ("It was never about Narnia" [Lewis] writes. We must learn what Aslan is called in our own world.) I loved Aslan with all my heart as a child. I still do.

*1 Peter 1:6

** The Rabbit Room is written by a group of US Christian creatives and 'Hutchmoot' is their annual gathering. 

Sitting on my coat in Nando's

We got the train back from Cornwall. Five hours in total, unless it's 'hot' and the train has to go really slowly over the melting track (yes I'm talking about the UK in April), then it's six hours. Then a stop-stop-start tube at the end of the journey. We went straight to Nando's as we were starving, had no food at home, and it was past kiddie-teatime.

There were no tables free and we had to wait. By this time Harry was all out of the ability to wait, but he was also too tired, hungry and worn out to do anything else. He spread his coat out on the floor by the entrance to the restaurant, and sat there, with all energies spent. I knew to move him would be the last straw so I just let him be.

I know how he feels. In certain seasons, in certain circumstances, I feel like I've done all the waiting I can, but have nothing in me to do anything else. I now have a prayer that goes 'God, I'm on my coat in Nando's!'  Trouble is, I am increasingly convinced that life is largely about learning to wait well.

Right now, my season feels like an awful lot of uncertainty. A lot of wondering just how the pieces of our lives are going to fit together. And not much to do except take it slow and do the next little bit.

As I attend a baptist church I am out of touch with the seasons and rhythms of the liturgical year. However, I do know that we are between the ascension (Jesus goes back to heaven) and Pentecost (the disciples receive the Holy Spirit). I know this because the Archbishop of Canterbury has a prayer initiative focused on these very days. There are a whole host of resources on the website, including daily prayers entitled 'conversations in the in-between'.

The in-between times are a thing. They are a season, ordained and ordered by God just as much as the decisive, happening, eventful days. They have their own blessings, wisdom, strength and joy to bestow. I hope I don't miss them because I'm not looking.