Jesus Is The Way

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Carpe Diem

February 23, 2021

By all accounts the phrase ‘carpe diem’ doesn’t actually mean ‘seize the day’ – it originally had a much more horticultural resonance. Basically it really means, in the original, ‘to harvest something when it’s ready’. Our own more modern translation of the Latin probably says more about the kind of grabbing society we live in. What would it mean today, this day, to harvest the thing that is ready? In the midst of the global pandemic, the past seems like a place that has drifted off into the mist, and the future seems inconceivable. The other day I tried to indulge myself in some future plans, but I quickly realised I had no idea at all what the future might look like. Not the slightest inkling, and to be honest I never have had a clue. None of us have, whether we make plans or not. It came to me that what we have these days is actually a bright shining light on something that has always been true. By the grace of God, we only have now, today, this

Let It Go

February 05, 2021

Let it Go. It’s easy to sing about it. The trouble is it’s much harder to do. For many of us we can tend to wrap ourselves in a covering of past pains and wounds. If the hurt has gone deep enough it can all too easily become who we are, how we define ourselves. It clings to us like a skin. The thing we feared becomes the thing we fear to lose, and so we end up hanging on to hurt. We don’t want to lose anything of what we are, and so we grasp hold of even the stuff that really stops us being fulfilled and who we really are. The chrysalis can feel comforting. It’s familiar and enwraps us. It might even make us feel warm and protected. But the problem is that it’s not what you were made to be. It may be part of a painful stage you need to go through, but it’s not your end-state. Being stuck at this stage means you are not yet fulfilled or fulfilling your ultimate purpose. There is another form awaiting you, where you become the multi-faceted bu

Sticks and Stones

January 28, 2021

It’s not true. Names can damage you deeper than just a few skin scars and offset bones. We’ve all been through playground digs and names that stuck like flung mud. For some the name calling can start to define how we think of ourselves and affect our self-esteem. Sometimes the anticipation is crippling, as we wait for the next insult to blow our way, and we’d almost welcome the sticks and stones, for some relief! We can get labelled, and it sticks out larger than the name tag mum has sown into your coat (embarrassing enough, right?). Then all too easily the label becomes who we are . Not just as others see us either, but as we think of ourselves, and it becomes a tag we are burdened with even in our deeper selves. In the cruel economy of the classroom, these kinds of names exclude us, and mark us for ridicule. They can shadow us into adulthood as well, as we have learned to think of ourselves as we think others see us. We can easily try to minimise the hurt with talk of tough

The vertigo of grace

October 29, 2020

The most disorienting sense of space for those of us afflicted with a fear of heights would see us standing at the top of a skyscraper but looking up a flagpole. There is no sense of solid ground underfoot, and huge emptiness above. The sense of falling in both directions is vulnerability multiplied. The same as standing on the lip of a sheer cliff with a roiling sea below, as though we are tethered to the earth by the flimsiest thread, and our other option is unfathomable. Helpless and wavering. With grace we find we’re clinging on to the undeserved favour of God. ‘He chose and called me out of sheer generosity’ (Galatians 1:15 The Message ). In other translations, he called me out of his grace . I like the word ‘sheer’. It has that cliff-edge risky steepness but also unmitigated blessing. He comes into our vulnerability with an open hand. What God sacrificed out of sheer generosity, his Son, balanced on the edge of the rejection he risked for our benefit. God

How Low Can You Go?

October 20, 2020

It amazes me that the lower we get the more we find almighty God below us. There are no depths he won’t sink to in order to lift us up, if we will just raise our voice. Think about the depths of human experience, the moral mess we can wallow in. So deep we think we’ll never get free, never get cleaned up, never know we are loved in spite of the mud. And underneath us there we find the degradation of the cross of Christ. That Jesus came as vulnerable, so that our muck could be washed off. Think about how we suffer and hurt. Spiritual and physical. Again, there’s the cross, and the agony of driven nails through bone and sinew and splinters. The agony of a mocking crown to pierce the skin. The suffering of separation from the one he loved so dearly, so that we might be loved. Think again about the wounds we carry. From family, friends, the church. Those who have betrayed and left us wanting. There is God again, deserted and friendless before the night is out, sold for silver, scar

Love Is Not Blind At All

October 09, 2020

The old saying that love is blind. I get it. How all our faults and failures are unseen by the one who loves us. A kind of holy bias. In the eyes of the lover we can do no wrong because the lover chooses what to see in us. And yet the love of God sees with crystal clarity, and still loves. Not blind at all but seeing deeply and still forgiving totally. That’s what makes it love. It may be wounded but it clings and longs for the one who cut the scar. This kind of love is beyond us, in every way, but it is a love that can be in us and through us. These three remain: faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Through our faith and hope we can funnel love, as we shape our faith and hope with upward arms. As we look to Christ, looking outside ourselves, our faith and hope in him give us the beating pulse to love the other. Faith and hope can make the unlovable the beloved, and as we trail faith and hope love will surely follow. And in the loving remember we are the beloved too.

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