20th January 12
The sound of metal vibrating against wood wakes me from a deep sleep, weary eyed I fumble around for my phone to turn the alarm off. My head slowly clears as the digits 5:00AM on my phone remind me that I have half an hour to wash, pack and tackle the 150 mile drive to work….
As I turn the key the engine splutters to life and electricity pours into the CD player, the worship music reminds me that I am not alone on this trip, somehow in the sleepy daze I register that thought might prove to be important at some point.
I make the first couple of turns that take me out of the neighbourhood I call home and approach the main road. Left leads to the motorway, right leads to country roads; I wait a while and consider my options. A light behind me spurs me to action and I turn right, choosing this time that scenery beats the certainty of coffee that the well-known road would offer. A few minutes later I hit the sheer cliffs of Cheddar gorge and feel pleased with my decision, caffeine can wait, beauty is good for the soul. The road climbs for a few miles and faint wisps of fog drift eerily in front of the car, I barely notice as my thoughts, as usual on long drives, are wrestling with some of the more abstract of life’s mysteries. Upwards we travel and the cliffs fall away revealing fields, the sound of wind whistles past the windows and the fog begins to enclose. Within minutes I am aware that I am struggling to see even a few metres in front of the car. My mind quickly snaps back from any ideas it was currently dancing with and focuses on a very real problem at hand. I remember now that my left headlamp blew out a couple of days ago and regret not getting it sorted. I fiddle around with the buttons that glow around the drivers seat trying to find the fog lights in this new car, in an attempt to, quiet literally, flood some light on the problem. This endeavour proves useless and I give up, deciding the increasingly winding road warrants my full attention. Oncoming cars splash muddy water onto my windscreen and turning on the wipers smears a thin layer of filth across the windscreen, distorting the already blurry picture. A glimmer of hope lies in the water bottle that squirts cleaning fluid, but after engaging this lifeline a few times I realize that is also running low and dribbles to nothing, again I realize I dismissed the thought of topping it up a few days earlier. The wonder of this ‘road less travelled’ has changed into a fear of the unfamiliar, the stakes of a simple left or right turn feels much grander then they did just twenty minutes ago.
I decide to focus on the one thing that actually feels trustworthy in this moment and this proves to be literally nothing more than 4 or 5 lights that line the centre of the road in front of me. Every attempt to look further than those few metres show nothing more than a wall of thick vapor reflecting light back at me. Even an attempt to find somewhere to pull off the road seems more dangerous as country roads don’t have hard shoulders and stopping in this light could prove unforgiving. I throw God up a few prayers asking for safety and continue on slowly…
Sometimes passes and I risk a glance skywards, on the horizon the deep black is turning into a smoky grey and then rich blue, reminding me that the sun will rise shortly and enlighten the world in its fullness very soon, I drop God a very heartfelt thank you and realize I have a brand new appreciation that “joy comes in the morning”.
Looking back, some of those emotions probably were a little melodramatic but there is something deeply unnerving about having your vision taken away. It is that thought that inspired me to tell this story. Recently my life has felt a little like that, I only seem to be able to find anything of stability in the few lights in front of my face, the problem is that part of me always wants to look further than that. If I lift my head up from the faithfulness found only in the few days I am living in, I find nothing but uncertainty. Maybe when Jesus said “do not worry about tomorrow, for today has enough cares for itself” he actually knew what he was talking about. As I look for God in an unclear situation I realize he is not in the fog that surrounds me, he is the worship music that constantly reminds me that I am not alone on this journey. I am learning I have grace enough for today, and that is more than enough!
20th December 11
I have noticed that hope is contagious. There is something on a word, doused with hope, that people resonate with. It is an amazing thing to watch when someone is reciting all the problems they are facing, then you inject a word, so hopeful in nature, that it forces them to embrace it or reject it. There is no middle ground with outrageous hope.
A friend of mine once said “Adam, if we are not careful we can spend our whole lives trying to protect ourselves from the ebs and flows of life”. He was right. I think now that maintaining an internal atmosphere of hope is one of the best ways to live above the ‘ebs and flows‘ we face. We can’t define what we face in this life, but we do define how it affects us.
I always lived with the western view of hope, defined as a desire for something to happen. It felt wishful but without form, without substance. I was challenged when I realised that the bible defines hope as ‘a confident expectation’. That feels strong, solid, concrete. I began to realise that our hearts have the power to set the platform by which we live. Every day life throws us ‘forks in the road‘ we spend so much time thinking about what path to take that we forget, the key to victory isn’t in weighing up the pros and cons of each, but in the position of the heart before the journey begins.
Romans contains this verse “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” It is interesting that sufferings are designed to take us into a process that is designed to result in hope, clearly God holds hope in high regard.
I felt like one day God interrupted me and said “Adam, there is no such thing as a hopeless situation”. If the Bible can make as ridiculous a statement as “he works all things to the good” then how could there ever be a hopeless situation. I know now that I want to become obsessed with hope, my biggest reality being a confident expectation that great things are always on the way. I might be called unrealistic! But to me that all depends on your definition of possible!
Jesus was the most unrealistically hopeful man to walk the planet. I want to be like Jesus.
"We will be asked “Do we believe in the supernatural” ……. and we will respond “Yes! We rely on it every single day"
12th December 11
Joshua Heather
29th September 11
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths” Proverbs 3:5
An interesting verse to be found at the beginning of the book of wisdom sayings.
King David is talking to Solomon, his son destined to be the wisest man who ever lived (except Jesus) a man with “a wise and discerning mind so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you” 1 Kings 3:12. A gift that made him the most successful and sought after man in all the known world.
Yet we find here that the greatest wisdom for Solomon was to not lean on his own understanding but acknowledge the Lord in all his ways, and trust that this would be the very thing to make his paths straight.
So what does it look like to ‘acknowledge’ him in all our ways? This hebrew word, translated as acknowledge, is found 848 in the Old Testament and 750 of these times it is translated as ‘to know’ or ‘to be known’. It speaks of the action of aquatinting ourselves with something or to know by experience. There is something of extreme intimacy and personal relationship en-captured in this word, it is the same word that was used when the Bible talked about a man ‘knowing’ his wife.
I see a beautiful invitation in this passage to walk in a constant state of perceiving God in our lives. That heavenly wisdom, in its purest sense, is found in living a life knowing the God of all knowledge and understanding is holding your hand every step of the way, and your smartest move is to just hold his right back in submission to relentless trust……
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
29th September 11
Robert Frost
19th September 11
I have been thinking a lot recently about how to react well to things. Life isn’t always easy, things change, disappointments come and go and really there are some seasons where it feels like discouragement is constantly lurking in the nearby shadows waiting for its opportune moment.
This is true, of course it is true, everyone has difficult seasons, but it is most defiantly not truth. The bible is in essence, by its very nature, an invitation to live life differently. We are no longer forced to a life of reaction to hurt but an abundant life of intentional action! Jesus said “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn them the other cheek also.” The Old Testament was eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but no longer. Jesus isn’t saying here that he is real keen on the idea of all his followers being beaten up and of course “do not resist evil” is not a universal truth. So what then? I believe he said this because an outrageous act of generosity and grace like this is truly living in an unseen realm, a greater reality that supersedes any situation we find ourselves in, and from this place we live full of purpose, never needing to kick in to purely survival mode.
I was in a time recently where discouragement felt close by and I was chatting to God about it, and I felt like he said to me “Adam it is your privilege to always live as if the most powerful being in the universe was fully committed to seeing you succeed.”……………… What a fantastic God we serve.
In Matthew 6:32-34 Jesus says “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them”
What a beautiful invitation to live life in a greater reality, the world searches and strives for the things that are promised to us while we just keep our eyes on Jesus and his marvelous kingdom.
God’s master plan has entered you into the most victorious partnership imaginable.
Let’s enjoy this opportunity to live free.
"This love that is so great it seemingly turns God against himself, his love against his justice. Here Christians can see the mystery of the cross of Christ: so great is God’s love for man that by becoming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love."
25th July 11
18th July 11
Welcome to my blog. I have set this up because I was challenged by how many great ideas could come and go because they are never given a second glance. How much extraordinary potential was never realized because it was never given the time, crafting and passion to become all it could be.
This blog to me is not about establishing a platform where I can try and publish my version of absolute truth …… but simply to think. The more I look at Jesus the more I see a man who always tried to inspire people to look deeper, think higher and dream bigger. He was the God who was less concerned with giving the right answer and more concerned with welcoming them into the relationship in which all truth is found and all potential realized.
So I hope if you read this you get inspired and provoked to look at your thoughts just a moment longer, because it could very well be the idea the world is longing for…..
"You are only ever going to be as big as your own version of God"
18th July 11
Brennan Manning
