BY WHICH NAME?

This morning I read a comment by Karl Barth that is both provocative and convicting, it made me think about what it will take to bring change in our lives and in our nation, that moves beyond activism, political lobbying, media sensationalism and manipulation, and puts the responsibility back on the shoulders of those God sees and knows.

It read as follows:

"...there is a difference between Christians as the Christ-possessed and Christians as 'the multitude of the baptised'...".

There is so much more to this than a decision made by our parents, or even ourselves, it is about being willing to let everything we ever were, are, and will be, die with Christ and rise again in new life with Him.  The old me has gone, the new is reformed and possessed by someone far greater, and far better, than myself.

I once had a conversation with a man who had such a powerful encounter with Christ that he came out of it a completely different person, his statement was that he could never go back because what had been no longer existed!  Can we say that?

Right now I feel the very heart of this nation is being contended for more furiously than we have ever known.  There is something set deep in the creation of Aotearoa/New Zealand that is a purpose beyond human comprehension, and unless we are Christ-possessed we will never know what that is, nor will we be empowered to live, pray, love, and act, in the ways He alone knows will bring this forth.

I am weary of hearing fear-filled statements from Christians about what the enemy of God's purpose is doing, what we need to do to combat this, what we need to read to understand this, what we need to pray to keep ourselves safe, how we should prepare materially for the uncertain future......on and on and on and on......!

The disciples asked Jesus Christ how they should pray and He gave them a prayer ... I wonder how often we pray that prayer, with heartfelt intent and focus, these days?  If we pray that way, do we really believe that our God who rules and reigns truly does so?  Are we so possessed by His Son and His Spirit that we can conceive of nothing greater and more powerful than our God, and allow for nothing else but His plan and purpose in all things?  How big is your God, how big is mine?  Do we overflow constantly with praise for His goodness and greatness?

Psalm 149:6 cries out "May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands" - somewhere the two became separated to cause a thinking that we praise and then do some kind of heavy work with this great sword.  I don't believe that is the intent in this statement, the praise IS the double-edged sword!  The overflow of loving praise and appreciation for a great God renders powers and principalities powerless because they are given no space to operate.

What if we were to stop fussing, fighting and fretting and simply began to be grateful every day, every hour, every minute for the one who made us and allows us to live and breathe?

What if that overflowed from our lips, our hearts, our souls, our spirits, touching heaven and all around us?

What would that do to this great and beautiful heart He has created in our nation?

Teresa of Avila, who affected a nation, and continues to affect nations with the prayer houses she was responsible for establishing centuries ago, gave some beautiful advice:

"It seems clear to me that in some way we must unite our wills with God's will.

But it is in the effects and deeds following afterwards that one discerns the true value of prayer.

There is no better crucible for testing prayer than compassion."

If we were all "Christ-possessed" would the outcry in our nation over family violence,abuse, molestation, murder, crime, rising health costs, poverty, hunger, homelessness, , be as great?

Herein lies the challenge and conviction of Karl Barth's statement!

Dear Lord Jesus, come and possess your people, draw us to Yourself as never before, that we might lay down our own agendas and be filled with Yours.

BREAD

 bread

Lately I've had to look very differently at bread.  The exclusion of all gluten for the rest of my life has shone a bright light on a whole lot of things that I previously took for granted.

One of the challenges is taking Communion, the bread and wine that Jesus said would be a constant reminder of Him and all that He has done for us.  So what to do without the 'bread'?  As I contemplated this I remembered that He is the 'bread of life' and so I speak that out as I sip my little glass of juice that represents the wine, and feel quite content with it all.

This morning I was reading some Hone Tuwhare poems and these words just grabbed my heart and wouldn't let go:

"...the children and the quiet priests

come separately in to lip

the brine of His sad wounds

the vinegar in the blood

the rough dry bread of love."

Have I ever come to Communion with those beautiful thoughts? They remind me again of the great cost of the gift my God gave me though His Son, and what my hope and joy cost Him.  His wounds were huge, and the vinegar offered did not satisfy His thirst, and over all of that is the toughness of a love that was willing to make such a sacrifice.

Today I want to live in the fullness of all I have been given, and in my heart and mind chew on, and be energised by "the rough dry bread of love" until it completely overtakes every area of my life and there is a surplus that pours out and brings this incredible nourishment to the world around me.

GOD'S RIGHT HAND

Why do you hold back Your hand, Your right hand?  Take it from the folds of Your garment and destroy them!  Psalm 74:11

To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.  Psalm 77:10

The first scripture seems a bit shocking on first reading, where is our loving God?  Then I remember that Your right hand is the hand of blessing and power and this is what the psalmist is appealing to in Psalm 77.

When You take out Your right hand and extend it over a person, situation, nation, etc. ALL the power of creation is brought to bear on it, and Your order is once again established.  Your right hand brings everything into divine order.  Off course it will destroy Your enemies!

This is a strong and wonder-filled revelation.  God's power and order is His alone.  It is not man-made or understood by man, but the One who knows the beginning and the end is lining everything up for His plans and purposes which are always ultimately GOOD.

Psalm 74 speaks of a time of attack and devastation and ruin.  No prophets, no miraculous signs, and seemingly no end to it all.  The call to God is to once again stretch out His right hand of blessing.  Then comes a reminder of all the greatness of God, the deeds He has done, and a call that He will rise up and defend His cause.

To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.  I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago.  I will meditate on all Your works and consider all Your mighty deeds.  Your ways, O God, are holy; what God is so great as our God?  You are a God who performs miracles, You display Your power among the peoples.   With Your mighty arm You redeemed Your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

It sounds old-fashioned to say 'count your blessings' but this is indeed what the psalmist is doing.  As we remind ourselves of God's actions and blessings, we renew our understanding of His greatness and sovereignty, we can again be still and know that He is God.  Once that is peacefully settled within us everything is possible in Him.

Psalm 78:25 reminds us that God's ability to take care of the situation is so good and great that "men ate the bread of angels"  When we learn to place ourselves constantly under His right hand then we learn to walk in faith whatever takes place in our lives and know that the Lord can bring us bread anywhere and any time.  We will cease to be afraid, and walk in this world with seed to sow and bread to share.

This place with God is summed up well by Thomas Merton in "Thoughts in Solitude":

"Truth rises from the silence of being to the quiet tremendous presence of the Word. Then, sinking again into silence, the truth of words bears us down into the silence of God.  Or rather, God rises up out of the seas like a treasure in the waves, and when language recedes His brightness remains on the shores of our own being."

A SMALL LIGHT IN A DARK ROOM

I've lost count of how many times I've watched "The Freedom Writers" DVD as I use it in my groups and see it twice every term. That has been for a whole lot of years now!

It never ceases to impact me significantly, and remind me that when our focus changes, the story of our life takes on a whole new aspect.  In the film Meib Gies, who hid Ann Frank and her family from the Nazis during the Second World War, speaks of what she did as simply doing 'the right thing'.  She says that each of us, whatever our place in life, "can turn on a small light in a dark room".

It challenges us to ask God what dark room He wants to shine His light into through us.  The place He knows it is needed most.  But most of all, it challenges us to hold that focus every day of our lives, wherever we find ourselves in that particular day.

Whether in our work place, or on our knees, as we turn our hearts towards God He is able to shine through us.  Many are waiting for the glorious moment and the great call, but He is waiting for the obedient heart, open eyes and ears, to do the simple thing that will make a difference.  It brings a childlike wonder at what God can do, and each day becomes a treasure box in which we collect His surprises.

This week has been full of lovely things, but a couple stand out quite starkly.  Last week in one of the groups I noticed a young woman with her face practically on the paper as she wrote.  This week she was given some magnifying glasses from the chemist with cute frames and wore them for the whole group, this time writing at a normal distance from the paper - she was so joyful.  Another woman wrote about 20 pages in her journal about her life and wanted to share it.  The story breaks your heart, but her new determination to move forward and make a great life for she and her daughter is driven by her own terrible childhood.  She has begun to take solid steps in that direction and feels empowered by them, and in writing her story has recognised her own courage.

My God continues to stand at the right hand of the needy ones, and He needs many more lights to walk onto the lamp stands He has prepared so that He can shine ever more brightly there.

This is not about overseas mission trips, several weeks of having our comfort zones messed with, and then returning to the status quo and getting on with our lives, maybe changed a little in our heart and thinking.  This is about taking His hand and walking out into the places near our own homes that are screaming for love and healing, and trusting Him to supply everything we need to be with Him there for the rest of our lives if necessary.

“I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!”
― Minnie Louise Haskins

DESERT

"The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else.  So too the mountain and the sea.  The desert is therefore the logical dwelling place for the man who seeks to be nothing but himself - that is to say a creature solitary and poor and dependent upon no-one but God, with no great project standing between himself and his Creator...............So the man who wanders into the desert to be himself must take care he does not go mad and become the servant of the one who dwells there in a sterile paradise of emptiness and rage."  Thomas Merton "Thoughts in Solitude".

I awoke this morning thinking about the desert and the place I've lived with You Lord these past 10 years or so (it honestly doesn't seem that long!).  Lately I've really questioned why my heart and head constantly seek for spaces of quietness and rest - it is 'holiday' in my head, but really You in my heart.  The question has been 'have I gone mad or begun to serve a different master?'

Today I feel encouraged that to save me from both those things, You have given me the work of serving and loving the poor and oppressed.  You have blessed me with them, they have been my help and salvation in this desert place and You intended it all along.

A light just went on in a place that was growing dim!  Maybe I've now learned one of the lessons You intended me to?

Now I will let my heart go wandering in the desert with You, and learn to lean on You in new ways, and my head will cease to be troubled by the desire to do so.  Thank You.

"This then is our desert  to live facing despair, but not to consent.  To trample it down under hope in the Cross.  To wage war against despair unceasingly.  That war is our wilderness.  If we wage it courageously, we will find Christ at our side.  If we cannot face it, we will never find Him". T.M.

 

DIGGING FOR THE HEART (2)

I have posted the original vision again below as Digging for the Heart (1) as this next writing needs to be understood in it's context.

The past weeks have carried a new kind of tumult in the Spirit, and currently there is much raging around something great and new that is happening whether we can see it or not. This morning I began to pray and see this within the context of the vision of digging for the heart which I have now carried in prayer and my own heart for nine years this month. The vision had such an intensity that it is as clear today as it was then.

One could look at events in the natural realm right now and see things that are (to my mind anyway) mad, bad and sad. We could go down in a depressed heap of negativity or rise up in religious self-righteousness, neither would prove particularly helpful. However, in the face of these things there is a new kind of intercession taking place and the Lord is beginning to speak clearly to His prophets - we are emerging from a time of famine in this regard.

We have become a nation of very diverse people groups - so many of earth's nations represented here now. It could look like a loss of our national identity, but could it be the forming of the final identity and heart God always had in mind for us as a nation?

The people who populate Aotearoa now have, each and every one, been created by God, simply because they are alive and breathing and carry His life within them. What does He intend this living, breathing entity to become?

Can such a seething and tormented heart, full of divisions and diverse origins be made into a whole that is peaceful and finds rest in it's Creator? YES.

Can His strength and power work for them more powerfully than evil and poverty and political power? YES.

Can He speak more loudly in love than the 'prophets' of negativity and doom? YES

Can a nation be saved in a day? YES

If we cannot shout our "Yes" to Him, Who and What do we believe in? Can we faithfully pray with Habakkuk,

Lord, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of Your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. (Hab. 3:2)

God's response to the prophet's questions was:

Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. (Hab. 1:3)

Hosea, the prophet who lived the prophetic life in shocking obedience that defied logic, was able to make a call to God's people:

Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us, He has injured us but He will bind up our wounds. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will restore us, that we may live in His presence. (Hosea 6:1-3)

Last weekend we celebrated the incredible way God chose to make the Way to that revival and restoration possible.

My vision of this nation ended up with the people of prayer sitting in deep well-ploughed furrows in the earth - God had been preparing for a harvest. This year He has asked for prayer to release those He has prepared to labour in His harvest.

There is a good deal to consider in this time. Let us pray believing in His great ability, especially when we seriously doubt our own.

DIGGING FOR THE HEART (1)

Vision Of New Zealand April 20, 2004

This vision and word for New Zealand came at the very end of an extended time of intercession.

The vision began with the Lord bringing BREAD to the intercessors in the middle of a green field.

He then released a light covering, or mantle, like a tent over everyone.

I saw workmen under this tent (like workmen when they are repairing telephone wires), they were digging deep down into the soil.

As the digging went deeper they uncovered a new substance, I believe the Lord was saying it was the true heart of the nation which no-one has yet seen.

I saw Maori warriors doing a haka on top of the land, but the Lord said even the Maori have not yet dug for His heart.

We were connected to the beat and pulse of this heart.  Those who get down low, close to the land, will find the heart.

There is still something to be found/released in Matamata (geographical heart of the North Island) in this regard.  He clearly said “I have not yet finished with Matamata”.

I saw strong figures emerging from a thick gray fog and mist.  The Lord said there would be a new release of leaders in the nation, unknown men and women brought forth by the Lord.

As those who were prepared to dig deep in the Lord continued to dig, the heart was found and I saw the whole of New Zealand become a huge heart.  Every part of the nation was this immense heart.

Then I saw the Lord’s hand take pieces of this heart and drop them into the nations.  He had lifted me up high and I saw the nations of the earth, they looked like pieces of paper floating on the ocean compared to the size and depth and substance of this ‘heart’ nation.

There was so much substance that the pieces of heart placed in the nations radically affected each one.  All the nations of the earth were affected.

Then the Lord showed me connection between this heart and Jerusalem.  I saw a surge outward over the northern tip of New Zealand that became a powerful arrow-shaped flow into Israel. 

What has been prepared, and will be released, in the uttermost parts of the earth, will reach back into the land of Israel.

Finally I saw those who had been digging.  They were sitting deep down in a furrow, between banks of well-tilled soil.  These were deep ploughed furrows.

Finally I was reminded again that He had brought us bread in a green field – this indicated to me that much of what I had seen was ‘grass roots’ (indigenous) in nature.

Judith Grobelny   Who Would You Have Us Be Lord? I would like you to be you. I made you and I love you. My desire is that you would be truly you. Who am I? You are a blend of your spirit and mine. We are like the sand and the sea, The sky and the clouds They move together and are made to be together. Let me ebb and flow through you We are like the soil and the grass. Let me sustain you and cause you to grow, We are like the sun and the rain. Let me be your seasons and determine what will best help you grow. Live in Me, and let me live in you That is who you are and how it is meant to be. Judith Grobelny

SUCH A GOOD FRIDAY

Last week someone told me the story of a young girl who struggled with self-esteem and a feeling of ugliness.  In her desperation she had an encounter with Jesus who said "You think you're ugly, let me show you ugly!", and He took her to see Himself as He hung on the cross, all bleeding and broken.  It was her place of identification and healing!

The cross will be whatever we need from Him because He has accomplished everything through it.  For me the outstretched arms, nailed to rough hard timber, simply enfold me.  It is beyond logic and reason and real enough to sustain me through the greatest crisis.

My prayer today is that the healing, redemptive victory of the cross would be powerful in each of us over this Easter time.  That we would be released from the things that hold us captive, even the things so familiar we don't see them, and we would become all You created us to be Lord.

It seemed the hard wooden structure and the sin of men had claimed You.  Divine life nailed, bleeding and lifeless, to the cross.  Warmth growing cold.  But from Your side blood and water flowed together - redeeming sacrifice and the river of life side by side.  Death brought rest and You were taken down, tenderly wrapped, and placed in a quiet empty cave.  It was after pain and death, and from rest, that You stood up in new life!

You ARE the Way.

Teach us Your processes and how to live and walk in them with You, letting go of the hard structures of this world that would hold us captive.  Teach us how to lay down in rest and to let You raise us up, alive and refreshed in You. 

The price has been paid, the new life flows.

FRIDAYS

I find myself in 'Friday pain' again!  I cannot glibly say 'TGIF' because all I know in this place is that if You are not in Friday Lord then heaven help us all, because that is the only place our help is going to come from.

Thursday AND Friday I am immersed in a pool of broken and pain-filled lives, sinking into Your depths in order that something of You would float out of me and find it's way to sooth the wounded and weary.

As I stare into the pain-filled heart of this nation, everything in me erupts in a silent cry for help...that You, the help of the helpless, would come and reach out Your hand and pour out of Your heart a soothing balm that heals and restores.

I listen to the mother who never had a functioning mother trying to be a mother!  I look at the motherless and fatherless adults of our land as they do their best to do what no-one ever took the time to show or teach them, hoping against hope that the lives of their children will be different, that their children will know a peace and security they have only glimpsed themselves.

In the midst of this, my heart screams and my eyes flow with tears for those who have forgotten how to cry, or cannot stop.  Lord, let my ears be Yours as they listen to those whose voices were never heard as they tell their stories.

'Part the heavens O Lord and come down" ... uphold the cause of the oppressed and give food to the hungry.  Set the prisoners free, and give sight to the blind, lift up those who are bowed down ... watch over the alien and sustain the fatherless and the widows, and frustrate the ways of the wicked." (Psalms 145 & 146)

I lay the burden down in Your great heart Lord.  In the deep heart of Your purpose and promise for this land, I stand silently before Your greatness and remind You of Your words to Your servant David .... "Because of the oppression of the weak, and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise" says the Lord. (Psalm 12)

Come Lord, arise in our hearts and in our land. Touch the head that is wounded and the heart that is afflicted.  From the sole of the foot to the top of the head let there be soundness - every wound, welt, and open sore, cleansed, bandaged and soothed with oil. (Isaiah 1)

SUFFICIENT FOR TODAY

I am reminded this week of the tension we live in, even in the peace that God gives us.  In a season of what I personally call "holy dissatisfaction" and the constant question "there must be more than this", the full circle brings me back to the foundation of life and faith.

It is enough for me to sit quietly with You Lord.  I ask You who I am and You reply "Mine" and it is enough.  Accepted in the Beloved, loved by the One who first thought of me and who saw me before any other eyes.  It is enough to be quiet and content in a love without words, without demands or expectation.

Before I was born You were enough.  As I grew and grappled with life, You were enough.  When I spun out and struggled with life, You remained quietly constant.  Somehow You led me back to the deep pool of Your presence.  There I bathed in Your kindness, was washed clean, and began again.

You drew me into the silent place that is Yours alone.  You maintain the silence within me - in all the screaming rush of life You remain steady and sure.

You pour out Your love it never ends, and You reach beyond me to others You knew first, and lay Your hand on them again.  What patience, what kindness, what love!