Episode 113 - Walking the Flying Dog

Some people have pet dogs. Others have pet cats. Still others have pet hamsters, or fish, or even micro pigs. Those whose pets are of the canine variety routinely take them for walks. It has even been known for people to walk their pigs or their cats. I not quite sure how one might walk a pet fish, but I’m sure that someone somewhere has tried. I don’t have a pet. So instead, I sometimes walk my drone (nowhere near Gatwick I promise). I get many odd looks as I walk along followed by him (his name is Droney McDroneface).

Through the wonders of technology and an app on my phone, as I fly my drone I can see everything that it sees. It’s quite incredible to see how different things look from my drone above me, compared to how things look from my perspective rooted on the ground. As my drone first takes off it’s amazing to watch as the screen of my phone slowly transitions from my perspective to a whole different way of seeing things, still looking at the same things yet revealing much more. Showing paths that look promising but lead to dead ends, or hidden secrets like statues or buildings or even whole lakes that I didn’t know were there.

This is what I think things are sometimes like with God and I. He can see so much more of life than I ever can from where I am. And yet even knowing this, sometimes I am too busy with what is in my immediate eye line that I refuse change my perspective from what I can see to what God is telling me and all that He can see. In doing so, I miss finding out about upcoming dead-ends and hidden treasures.

Episode 112 - DIY

This week I’ve been doing a little DIY. There’s lots of things that I like about DIY. I like the actual making things and putting things together, because it’s essentially just grown-up Lego. I like the power tools because they make me feel like a power ranger or a ghost buster. Secretly I like it when things go wrong because then I have a puzzle to solve. I very much like enjoying the results of my labour at the end of the project. But most of all I enjoy taking something and making it my own. I like taking a space that I frequently inhabit and not only leaving my mark on it, but making it more suitable to me; whether that be by making it look and feel more appealing to me, or by (more importantly) making it more useful to me and more fitting for the way I live my life.

DIY can be a little bit addictive, the more you do, the more you want to do. It starts off with small vital improvements, but can quickly escalate into elaborate changes to whole rooms and soon you can find that there is no longer a room in the house that you’re happy with. This however is not what DIY is supposed to be about. It’s great to be able to improve what you have, but the potential of what could be should never take away from what currently is. Just because something could be made better does not mean that I should not appreciate what it currently is nor should it prevent me from enjoying it as it currently is.

In many ways my life is a bit of a DIY project. Whether it be the situation I find myself, the things that I spend my time doing, my attitudes, or even my very character; there is plenty that I can improve upon. It is actually a huge joy and privilege to be able to work on and improve these things and to know that the potential is there to do so. And do so I should. But this should never stop me enjoying or appreciating what I already have, and nor should I allow this room for improvement to make me look down upon myself or depreciate my own value, because you know what? Whilst we might all still be learning and growing, I have never yet met another human who wasn’t pretty awesome in their own right, and I should appreciate myself more. And I suspect that you probably should too, because I’m willing to bet that you’re already a pretty awesome person. I mean you’re reading my blog so that’s a pretty good start!..

Another thing about DIY, is that everyone has different tastes and different lifestyles. Just because one person likes things a certain way or finds certain things useful and beneficial doesn’t mean that same will be true for someone else. There are people in this life who will freely tell you what they would have done differently or even tell why what you have chosen to do is wrong. Sometimes this advice (unsolicited or otherwise) is actually very helpful and helps you to further improve what you have already done. More often though, the person offering advice is just airing their own desires forgetting who it is that you are, what it is you need and indeed who it is that this DIY is for! This too can be quite a lot like life. It can be easy to feel pressured into comprising the things you want or even who want to be to avoid criticism or even earn applaud. In fact, it can be incredibly hard to stand for what you want or believe in even when the consequence for not standing can be severe. I just pray that no matter what pressure may come against me, that I may always have the strength to stand.

Episode 111 - There and Back

Last week I was the visiting speaker at a Church. I'd arranged to get there half an hour early to make sure everything was ready for my talk. Whenever I've arranged a time to meet with someone, I don't like being late. I also don't like being early. To combat this I have a little tradition. I leave enough time to get stuck in traffic, get lost, and then not be able to find a parking space and still arrive on time. This inevitably means that I usually arrive super early. But not to worry, this is where the second part of my dastardly plan comes into play; I go for a walk. Okay, so it’s neither particularly dastardly nor groundbreaking, but it works really well. I walk half-way in any direction away from the venue, then I turn around and do the same walk the other half back. That is to say, that I work out how much time I have to kill, and then just walk anywhere for half of the time I need to waste. Then when I turn around and walk back, I know I'll arrive exactly on time! I realise as I'm writing this that I might sound a little like a crazy person, but it is actually a really nice way to prepare for a talk, to see a little of the neighbourhood I'm in,and to spend some time with God.

As I do this more, I've started to realise that the two halves of the walk feel very different. The first half is a delve into the unknown, with uncertainty hidden behind every corner. I see everything that I pass like it's the first time I've ever seen it. I mean it is the first time I've ever seen it so I would. But I really look at everything, taking it in, trying to make sure I don't get lost. Yeah I know that the idea of not getting lost when you're not going anywhere in particular might seem ridiculous, but the idea actually begins to consume you. For you know that you have to remember your way so that you can make it back to the venue, and not just make it back, but make it back on time. Which is another thing; I keep checking my watch every two minutes convinced that I might have somehow let twenty slip by, desperate not to miss my scheduled time for turning around.

The second half by comparison is totally relaxing. I don't concern myself at all with such things, safe in the knowledge that all the groundwork has been done; my subconscious now knows the way and all the timings have been set. I barely notice any of my surroundings as I become lost in my thoughts, so secure and comfortable in my situation am I. This week I realised that sometimes my life feels a lot more like the first half than the second. Full of the unknown and the uncertainty that surrounds it, with my trying to grasp at it, to wrestle some sense out of it all. And all the while time seems to go so slowly and yet I don’t seem to make much progress. I can't help wondering if my life might feel more serene and like the second half of the walk if instead of trying to do everything myself, I trusted that God had gone ahead of me and already laid down the groundwork.

Episode 110 - I Don't Know Where I'm Going

I was talking with a friend recently and he shared a wonderful prayer with me which was written by a man called Thomas Merton. It was wonderful in fact, that I decided that this week I'd share it with you, so here it is!..

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Episode 109 - Special Delivery

Over the years I have visited the airport with my parents on numerous occasions. There's something about the journey that instantly brings up a whole range of emotions from past trips; excitement and nervousness, the anticipation of stepping out into a new adventure and leaving familiarity behind at least for a little while as I wave goodbye to my parents and watch them drive away. But yesterday the journey went differently. This time it was them who got out and waved whilst I drove away. Okay, there was some poetic licence used in that last sentence, my point is that this time it was them who were getting an aeroplane not me. They didn't actually wave to me as I drove off. That's because I insisted on walking them to the check out desk and explaining everything that would happen once they walked through the magic corridor along which I could not follow them. Just to be clear, between them they've flown once in the last 35 years, so I wasn't being patronising, or at least not without any reason, I was just really nervous for them.

In life, I think I have a tendency to always think of myself as the on who is being taken to the airport. I'm the one going on the journey or the adventure and I'm focused on what I'm doing and on what I'm hoping to achieve. And I think I've also always wanted to be that guy who's going somewhere, after all, who wants to be the driver when you can be the person going on holiday? It was kind of strange driving the car feeling all the usual feelings, only this time feeling them by proxy, feeling them on my parents behalf. It was strange, but also a weird privilege. To share in their journey as opposed to only being in immersed in my own. And another strange thing was that whilst these feeling were familiar to me they felt different to ever they had before, because they no longer existed for me and my circumstance, but for my parents and their current experience. It was strangely humbling to feel something I don't think I could ever feel for myself and to be a part of an adventure that wasn't my own. So from now on when life gives me the opportunity to be a taxi driver (metaphorically, although I am quite happy to give lifts when needed) I will grab it with both hands

Episode 108 - Seeing What’s Not There

When I’m outside and have nothing to do, I like to look to the sky and watch the clouds. As I do, I see all manner of things, Sausage dogs, Dragons and Dinosaurs riding motorbikes all included. Of course I don’t really see these things, I see the clouds which I am able to imagine resembling these things. The human mind is incredible in its creative ability to imagine all sorts of things and to see very plane ordinary things and to imagine them to be something unbelievable and out of this world. It’s not just clouds, its soapy dishwater, patterned carpets and even pancakes. No matter what the canvas though, I am always fully aware that these are mere likenesses not reality.

Yesterday however, as I watched Casper the friendly ghost being chased by a confused narwhal holding a hair drier, I realised something. Sometimes, when I see people, or when I see events unfolding in life, I use my ever so creative mind to fill in the blanks, to create the information I don’t have to help me better understand what is going on. Now there is nothing wrong with this in itself, when done well it helps me engage more fully with what is going around me and makes me better equipped to help with the possible things that may be going on. But then, unlike the clouds or the soapy dishwater, I forget that this information is a creation of my own mind, a probable deviant from reality. And so my perception of what is before me becomes warped. Instead of reserving judgement and remaining open minded, I too quickly judge by appearances and jump to conclusions. I’m sure that’s it not just me, at least I hope it’s not, but either way, whilst it’s okay to form first impressions, I’ll try to remember that they are just Dinosaurs riding motorbikes.

Episode 107 - What's the Point of Going Around and Around in Circles?

Yesterday I did something that I often do on a Sunday afternoon, I watched the Formula 1 Grand Prix. My Mum faithfully sat beside me and watched it with me as she often has done ever since I first started watching it as a young child. When she first started watching it with me she found it hard to understand what I found so entertaining about it. In fact I think she found 22 cars going around and around in circles not only boring, but pointless. What after all was the point? After two hours of racing they all (hopefully) end up exactly where they started and that only after having gone over exactly the same ground somewhere between 44 and 77 times. Of course it seemed pointless to my mum because she had missed the point. The objective was not what she might have wanted to achieve from a Sunday afternoon drive. It was not about where they got to, but how quickly. And every lap the drivers completed may not have got them any further from where they began but which each completed lap they got a step closer to their final objective. Not only that, but with each repeated loop the drivers became better acquainted to circuit they were navigating and were able to go around it faster still.

Okay, I know that to some of you reading this, the whole endeavour of a Formula 1 race will still seem boring and a waste of everyone’s time, but whether or not that is true stands beside my point. Whether or not you enjoy watching motorsport, sometimes life feels like it is just going around and around in circles, doing a lot of travelling but never getting anywhere. Much like a Formula 1 car. When my life feels like this I like to remember my Mum and the Formula 1 because often it’s not that I’m not getting anywhere in life, it’s just that I’m missing the point. Often I think I’m trying to get to some place far away from where I am, when really God wants me to stay exactly where, and to really get to understand the lessons I keep repeating. Other times my misunderstanding of God’s plans and purpose don’t fit nearly so well into this analogy, but the point still remains; I feel like I’m not making any progress because I’m looking at the wrong objective. So when I feel like I’m going around in circles, I like to ask God; “what’s the point?”

Episode 106 - The Great Escape

This week I’ve been having a great time visiting a friend in Cornwall. My friend has a house cat called Hugo. Being a house cat Hugo always stays within the house. This includes the back garden which has a tall custom made fence with spikes on top to prevent any attempts of a break out. Remarkably this works; Hugo can’t get out, neighbouring cats can’t get in and Hugo is safe. Hugo doesn’t seem to particularly like this however. Admittedly it’s difficult to be sure of what exactly Hugo does and does like as he is quite possibly the grumpiest looking cat I have ever set eyes on. Still, the way that he paces along the garden fence, circles the perimeter and sticks his face into every little gap he can find seems to suggest that he has a break for freedom in mind. In fact every morning I half expected to see him riding a motorcycle at full speed towards the fence a little like Steve McQueen in the great escape. Sadly this never happened.

One day however, Hugo did escape. An open window was left unguarded and after a while of not having seen him, once we saw the window we knew he must have taken his opportunity whilst it was there. At first a great wave of worry hit us as we thought about how far away he might already be and about what trouble he could get himself into. This concern was only short lived though, as when we left the front door to look for him we immediately saw him lying on the grass in front of the house. 

The ridiculousness of the situation was apparent to all; having finally got the freedom he has searched for for so long and now having the freedom to go anywhere he wanted to, he chose to stay exactly where he was. I couldn’t help wondering what Hugo was thinking. Did he realise that life outside of his walls wasn’t so great and that he longed to be back in the safety of his home? Or was he regretting not making more of his opportunity to get away from the walls which hold him in? Funnily enough, it’s not just Hugo’s walls that I can’t make my mind up about, but it is also my own. Sometimes I struggle to tell if the boundaries that surround my life are holding me back or keeping me safe; whether or not God wants me to break them down or stay inside them. I guess instead of sneaking out the window I should just ask the Builder and if He wants me to leave them then he can just open the door.

Episode 105 - Flying on Wings Like a Boeing 747

This weekend I went to the Blackpool air show. I've always enjoyed watching aeroplanes. Not just when they do awesome tricks and upside down and do barrel rolls and loop the loops although that is super cool. But I really also enjoy just seeing them flying normally just sitting in the air as if by magic. I think it's amazing. Something so big somehow able to keep afloat on top of nothing. Now I am a massive geek and a trained engineer, so of course I know Bernoulli’s principle and understand why planes can fly. But that doesn't matter. That for me doesn't take away from incredible fact that they do fly, nor does it take away from the spectacle of seeing them do so. Even more so, as I watch the planes career across the sky it doesn't matter whether at not I understand why they stay in the air, they still will.

This is amazing to me. This incredible thing is happening which allow these mammoth tin cans to float seemingly weightlessly and yet the pilot who needs great amounts of knowledge and skill to control the plane needs no knowledge of the laws of physics which allow it fly to do so. If I watch a huge passenger jet traverse the wide open sky the chances are that very few if any of the passengers on the plane are aware of Bernoulli’s principle, the foundation upon which a planes ability to fly is built upon and yet for the sake of their ignorance it won't suddenly drop out of the sky. Planes fly. Whether you understand why they do or not, they still fly.

Sometimes I can get carried away with the why's and how's of life and sometimes they can be important and useful and helpful. And sometimes they don't matter. Not really. I'm not devaluing knowledge,I would never do that. But sometimes some knowledge is more important than other pieces of knowledge, and sometimes some knowledge is just extraneous. In the case of a passenger on a jumbo jet, knowing that planes CAN fly is much more important than knowing why. Sometimes you just need to trust that the engineer knows what he's doing, leave it to him and just enjoy the ride. I try to follow God through this life but sometimes I get distracted or unbalanced by not how or why everything will work. I should learn a lesson from the aeroplane, trust the one who engineered life itself and just enjoy the ride.

Episode 104 - Driving Each Other Up the Wall

This week I drove a car for the first time in 19 months. The last time I drove I was driving back from the clinic in Papua New Guinea for them to look into whether or not the little jerks I got occasionally were anything to worry about – I even got pulled over by a police man, don’t worry, it was just a routine check. I have to say, getting into the driving seat I was quite nervous, but everything went very well, I didn’t even get pulled over by the police! Beforehand I was worried that I may have forgotten some things or lost my driving instinct but it all came straight back to me. It was just like riding a bike – except with very different pedals and a steering wheel instead of handle bars. 

As I was getting my confidence back, I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that everyone else driving around me had no idea about my circumstance or experience. I was just another faceless driver to them. And likewise, so were they to me. They could be having the best day of their lives, or their worst. And I wouldn’t know. They may have just been given a promotion – or the sack. They could be on the way to the hospital, to visit a new born relative or a dying one. Or they could just be having a really normal day. Should I treat them any differently depending upon how their day has been? Yet truthfully it seems only fair to have more patience with someone if they’re having a bad day. Should my ignorance to their circumstance be an excuse to my lack of patience? 

It’s easy to dehumanise the other drivers on the road, but I fear that I can be just as flippant with the humanity of all the people I meet during a regularly day. It’s easier not to consider them as people so as to excuse my cold behaviour towards them and even at times allow me to pour out my frustration towards them. And yet allowing myself to feel negatively towards them does nothing to lighten my burden or to cheer my mood. Strangely however, if I stop just seeing the retail worker or the postman or the cold caller, but instead see; Dave the guy who’s just started a new job, or Lucy who’s been walking for three hours in the pouring rain, or Mike who’s got a poorly little girl at home who he’s worried sick about, then something changes inside. Because we’re all people, we all have our frustrations and problems, just as we can all be frustrating and all make mistakes. And so I feel less inclined to feel frustrated and impatient towards them and more likely to feel compassion towards them. The negative feelings that slowly gnaw away at me are replaced with love, which actually feels pretty nice. It changes how I behave outwardly, but it also changes how I feel inwardly and it is without doubt I who benefits the most. I will never know the half of what is going on in the lives of those who pass me by, but I won’t allow that to be an excuse to discount their humanity.

Episode 103 - Unboxing the Past

This last week I have started going through old boxes of my things that my parents have lovingly kept in their garage for years and years and years. Amongst it all there were a few boxes of stuff from when I was in school, mainly books and projects. As I went through it all I found memories coming back to me that I didn’t even know I had. Nothing very solid, just glimpses of the person I had been. To be honest I wasn’t the most street-wise or socially aware of children, in fact in many ways I could be quite naïve and ignorant. I remembered (not too clearly) some interactions with my friends where looking back, I wished I had behaved differently. I can’t help thinking that they must have been hurt by my actions even though I was totally unaware of it. I really do wish that it had happened differently. And yet I remember no fallout from those incidents, and looking back through the evidence in my boxes it’s clear that we were not only friends afterwards, but that they cared an awful lot about me too.

It makes me feel very grateful for those friends. It also makes me realise how easy it is to regret mistakes we make in our relationships with other people. I know that there have been many times that I’ve worried that I should have done something differently or responded to something better. But looking over these things, I can see that whilst it would have been better if I’d had followed a different course, in the long run it really didn’t matter, and worrying and wishing has never changed anything (although a good apology can be worth more than gold). My friends have never loved me because I didn’t make mistakes, but they’ve loved me despite them. I’ve always been blessed enough to have friends who understand that my mistakes don’t define me but rather what I define as mistakes determine who I am. Perhaps I need to start being a little easier on myself when I mistakes and see it as an opportunity to make them shape me into who I want to be.

Episode 102 - Three Cheers for the Class of 2018

On Friday I had the privilege to be at my old college as the degree students who started when I started my short course nearly three years ago had their graduation service. It has been amazing to be back with them again, having fun just like we did when I was studying there. Being back again, it was impossible not to think about the two and a half years that had passed since I finished studying at All Nations. It’s strange to think of what I had imagined my future was going to be and then to compare it to what is now. It could be easy to think that I had planned so much but find myself exactly where I was. But of course our plans are not always God’s plans, as it says in proverbs; in his heart a man plots his course but the Lord determines his steps, and God’s plans are always best!

Also, it would be wrong to say that I am in exactly the same place. Yes, the buildings are pretty much the same, the atmosphere is as electric as ever and I’m surrounded by many of the same amazing people, but those same people are not the same as they were. They still have the same unmistakable characters that made them who they were and define who they are, but they are different. They are more. The last three years has changed them. Shaped them. Grown them. Taught them. And I am so incredibly proud of them, not just for getting their degrees, but for who they are. And not just them, but me too, I am not the same. God has changed me. My classes may have looked a little different but I have had the same God shaping me. With God there is no going back, only going forward, even when He takes you back to where you have been before.

Episode 101 - The Unfamiliar Places of God

I’m currently in the middle of three weeks that I will spend volunteering at my old college. I have mainly been helping in the kitchen so far. I have never worked in a kitchen before. And before you say it, yes I have cooked before! But working in a kitchen is very different, they have deep fat fryers, and food mixers the size of normal ovens. Everything is much much bigger and most meals are made for at least sixty people as opposed to six at most. And it’s not just the equipment and the scale of everything which was new to me. All of the tasks are new to me too, even the simple things needed to be explained thoroughly so that I understood exactly what I was required to do for each task. 

At first it is quite uncomfortable being in a totally unfamiliar environment, not just not knowing where anything is kept, but also not knowing what most of the stuff there is either! On top of that there is the not knowing how to engage with your surroundings, how to do even simple tasks, not knowing how to do the very work that you are there to do. It must be said that in many of these respects it’s not too dissimilar to doing “missionary” work abroad! I have to say that although not comfortable at first, and a little frustrating, I think it has been good for me.

For most of our lives we spend our times in places that are familiar to us doing things that we have done many times before. Even when we do go to new places or try new things they usually have aspects of familiarity to us and we usually only engage with them for a short time before returning to more familiar places or activities. Being immersed in the unfamiliar for long periods of time has helped remove some of my self-reliance, my pride, my inward focus and my blinkeredness to others. It has helped me to cultivate under used skills, not just cutting carrots and peeling potatoes, but things like asking for help and advice.

There seems to be a sort of sweet spot in the world of the unfamiliar. Just beyond the overwhelming disorder but before familiarity sets in, where something special seems to take place, where all of this seems to happen. And I can’t help noticing that all through our lives God seems to keep bringing us to that place, to new and unfamiliar things. Partly this is undoubtedly because He always has so much more that He wants for us, but I’m also starting to see that perhaps he wants to help keep us in that place; a place where we come to Him rather than looking to our own wisdom for the answers. I just wonder if sometimes I let my own comfort keep me in my familiar places and stop me from following Him into the unfamiliar places of God.

Episode 100 - More Frogs

I’m not really much of a reader. I read slowly, I get easily distracted and I generally find it hard work. Despite this I love stories and I even love books, I just don’t read them much. But there is one book that I read a little bit of every day. My Bible. I read it every day because I genuinely believe that God speaks to me through it and that He uses it to help me become a better me. Now I have read it before (so you don’t need to worry about giving me any spoilers), but unlike the other books on my shelf that I’ve read once and have ever since been collecting dust (or that are collecting dust as they still wait to be read for them for the first time), I keep coming back to my Bible. And the incredible thing is that no matter how many times I read it, God always shows me something new (or sometimes something I’d forgotten…).

Recently I’ve been reading about how God brought the people of Israel up out of slavery from Egypt. In the story Moses comes before Pharaoh (who is enslaving the Israelites) to speak on God’s behalf. Moses would tell Pharaoh that unless he let the Israelites go, God would do something bad to Egypt. Pharaoh would ignore Moses, something bad would happen, Pharaoh would plead with Moses to ask God to stop, God would stop and then the whole thing would start all over again. This happened ten times until Pharaoh finally gave up. It’s a story I’ve heard hundreds of times before since being small and even so, this week I noticed something in the story I’d never noticed before.

At one point in the story Moses tells Pharaoh that unless he lets the Israelites go, God will send a plague of frogs upon Egypt. Pharaoh refuses, and so a plague of frogs appears and there are frogs everywhere. The stories in the bible never fail to amaze me. Often it’s the Character of God and the choices He makes, sometimes however, it’s the people in the stories and the crazy things they do. Upon arrival of all the frogs, Pharaoh calls all of his magicians and wise men to come before him and respond to the crisis in the land. And respond they do. How? Why by summoning more frogs of course. MORE FROGS! Why would anyone think; “I know what this situation requires – more frogs!” I mean if I was Pharaoh, I’d be saying; “that’s just great guys, thanks so much for making the situation exactly twice as bad as it was before you started”. The strange thing is that he doesn’t seem to respond at all. Pharaoh’s not a nice guy. He’s the kind of guy who would have anyone who displeased him killed, along with their families, but it seems that this was actually what Pharaoh wanted them to do.

Well this just seems crazy to me. Or at least it did. Until I really thought about the question that wouldn’t seem to leave me alone; WHY!? Why on earth would anyone do that!? And then I realised that I had made a terrible assumption. I had assumed that Pharaoh, the most powerful, revered man in all of the land was trying to fix this problem that had hit this land which he was supposed to look after. He wasn’t. He had no interest in preserving his country, only his pride. He was used to ruling the roost, giving out the orders and doing what he pleased. Suddenly this guy came along, challenged his authority and told him what to do in his own palace! Pharaoh felt he needed to show his authority and power, to show that Moses (and indeed God) had no business telling him what to do, to show that whatever God could do, he could do to. Even if that what was causing havoc in the country he was supposed to be looking after. Pharaoh’s folly seems obvious to us but it was hidden from him. It would be easy to condemn Pharaoh but the truth is that I can’t say I haven’t wreaked havoc to myself and those around me trying to save my pride. I guess we all have a bit of Pharaoh in us, and we have something to learn from Pharaoh’s foolishness.

Episode 99 - Tresure Hunt!

On Sunday Night my Church Youth Club had a treasure hunt in the park. I love treasure hunts. The anticipation. The excitement. The mystery. Going on a journey to some place unknown but knowing (hoping) that wherever it leads you there will be something exciting at the end. Solving puzzles (which for me is a reward in itself) in order to move forward and reveal a bit more of the journey and perhaps even clues as to the final reward. And of course, there’s the pretending to be pirates. Okay, that last one is entirely optional. And usually not taken up on by anyone apARRRt from me. Needless to say I had a great time.

Sometimes I treat my life and God like a treasure hunt. Like it’s one great mystery waiting to be solved. Like if I put enough effort in and am clever enough and solve enough puzzles I’ll be able to work out the next step or get the reward that I’m after. Let’s be honest life is full of mysteries and problems and sometimes we just want answers. The Bible has a lot to say about how to live life well and how to be a better person. It gives us all the clues we need to solve life’s problems and so it is easy to see how life with God is like a treasure hunt.

But it’s not. It’s not like a treasure hunt at all. In fact, if anything, it’s like a treasure hunt in reverse. It is easy to see life as a challenge that we need to pass by proving our worth and then we get our reward at the end of our lives in the form of a beautiful eulogy and eternity in heaven. But that isn’t the big reward, that isn’t our prize. Or at least it’s only part of it.

You see, God is the prize. Knowing Him and having Him in our lives. There is nothing better than that. And the crazy thing is that in this treasure hunt we get the prize at the beginning of the game! Having solved no mysteries and fixed zero problems we’re already rewarded with the greatest reward of all. And it’s only through this reward not earned by ourselves that we can complete the challenges that lay ahead; that is to live life well and be the people we were made to be. It’s not like any other treasure hunt I’ve ever played before, but it’s my favourite by far!

Episode 98 - Singing Songs Without Words

I can play the Ukulele. Not very well, but I can play it. I often like to use it to sing songs to God. Songs that would often be referred to as worship songs. Songs which express to God how I feel. But sometimes there doesn’t seem to be words to express how I feel. And so I just sit and play. Singing a song without any words because God knows what I feel and so I don’t need to use words to share those feelings with Him. And I guess too, that in those moments I need to listen more than I need to speak.

As I write this, I feel the same as I do in those moments. That in a way, my words aren’t necessary. So if you’ll allow me (and even if you won’t because you have no way of telling me that you wish to refuse me permission) I will stop. Instead of typing I will sit still and listen. And if you’d like to join me then I’d like to invite you to spend the next few minutes that you’d normally spend reading my long winded rambling explanation of my thoughts just to sit and listen too. You might find that someone who’s much more worth listening to than me has something to say…

Episode 97 - Yesterday Today

Although you’re reading this blog on, well, today, I actually wrote this on Wednesday. I did this because I knew something unthinkable was going to happen… I was going to spend the rest of the week somewhere without internet connection! How is this possible in this day and age? Is it even possible to exist without a connection to the internet? Did I survive? I don’t know. I thinks it’s safe to assume I did though. I am of course being intentionally over dramatic as this is something which is a semi-regular occurrence in my life and to tell the truth I actually find it quite refreshing. I’m more impressed that I was organised enough to remember to write this before I left!

It feels oddly strange writing a weekly blog after only half of the week has passed. I feel a little bit like a fraud, pretending to be somewhere in time that I’m not. Acting as though I would know things that I can’t possibly know. Anything could have happened between today and well, today. Look, I can’t even keep my perspective on time straight! Is today when I wrote it, or when you’re reading it? It’s all very confusing!

Although it’s not something I often think about, this only increases my respect for the writers of the Bible. The Bible was written hundreds and hundreds of years ago and is still as relevant today as it was then, and yet here am I struggling to write something only five days in advance! It’s good for me to remember as I read the Bible that it was written so long ago, as this helps me understand the real message being spoken outside the context of the time and place in history in which it was written. Understanding what it meant when it was written helps me to understand what it means now. Still it amazes me that something written hundreds of years ago can still have something valuable to say to me now.

I guess there are two reasons for this. The first is that people are people. Although our cultures may change, although we may have different technology and different daily experiences, people are still people. What it means to be human has never changed. You could completely change everything external to us, but still fundamentally we would be the same. The second is that although the Bible was written by men, its words were inspired by God. That is to say that the message carried by the Bible (sometimes clothed in another culture) are the very words of God. And God doesn’t see time the way we do.

You see, whilst I struggle to imagine what the world might look like three days from now, God already knows. He’s always known exactly what will happen in the next three days because He’s always known everything that will ever happen. The really crazy thing about God’s view of the progress of time, is that not only does God already know everything that will ever happen, but He doesn’t see life as a chronological exercise that starts at the beginning and finishes at the end like we do. To God time is based on the stories of the lives of those of us who exist within it rather than the hands of a watch. Although He works everything together perfectly at the right time, time is the servant not the master. At one point the Bible says that God is not slow as we understand it, but rather He is patient with us so that we might come to understand Him. What an amazing God That He not only knows everything, but knows everyone, and that He not only knows all we need to know but is patient with us that we might be able to understand it.

Episode 96 - 20/20 Vision

On Saturday something most surprising happened. It was sunny. Sunny enough to wear my sunglasses. I didn’t wear my glasses however, because it hadn’t occurred to me that it might be sunny enough for me to need them. Truth is I forgot I even had them. But it did start me think about how great sunglasses are, and in particular, how great my sunglasses are. When it’s too bright, too much light comes into our eyes and it becomes difficult to see – ironic huh? But Sunglasses stop some of the light getting to our eyes so that we can see more clearly. Genius! Simple but effective. Or are they? Whilst these kind of sunglasses help in bright conditions, they don’t do anything to help prevent glare from reflective surfaces. That’s why my sunglasses are so great! (Yes I know I’m starting to sound like a sunglasses salesman, but stick with me…)

The problem is that the light which passes through simple sunglasses like these remain incoherent. Uh huh, that’s right. Incoherent light. That’s a thing. I bet you wish I was being a little bit more coherent right now. Okay then, if you insist, let me grab my metaphorical geek lab coat and explain. When we see stuff, we can see it because light travels from it to our eyes. But that light doesn’t travel in a straight line, oh no, that would be far too simple! It travels in wiggly lines (that some boring people like to refer to as waves). Presumably it travels in wiggly lines because it’s following satnav, I don’t know. So instead of going in a straight line it also wiggles left and right. At least some of it does. Some of it wiggles up and down. And all of the rest of it wiggles at a variety of angles in-between the two. This angle of the light’s wiggle is known as its polarisation.

Any object that we can see has lots of light traveling from it to our eyes. All of the light coming from an object in normal sunlight will have loads of different polarisations – that is to say that although all the light will be travelling in the same direction, the wiggles will all be doing different things and it’s this which causes glare. What’s so amazing about my sunglasses is that they’re polarised, which means they act like a pair of bouncers at a very high end night club for rays of light, and only allow light whose wiggles are in a particular direction to pass through. As a consequence they reduce glare and allow me to see more clearly.

Sometimes life feels like it’s too bright and like all of the wiggles are pointing in different directions. There seems to be so much going on and there are so many voices speaking at the same time that I struggle to really see what’s happening clearly. Sometimes it’s hard to know what I should be doing or what I should believe. Sometimes I wish I had a pair of polarised lenses for life to make it all easier to understand. And as I thought about this for a while, I realised that I do, although not as visually obvious nor as easy to explain (yes that was the easy explanation). In the Bible, God promises that He gives His Spirit to all who choose to follow Him. And that His Spirit will help guide us when things get cloudy (or in this analogy sunny). I guess the truth is that too often it doesn’t occur to me that I need it or even worse I even forget that I have it, but life sure looks better when I’m wearing my Holy Spirit Sunglasses!

Episode 95 - Something from Nothing

Knitting is basically wizardry. You start off with a ball of wool and with nothing else other than a pair of sticks (I’m not sure whether these are best described as needles or wands…). Yet somehow you end up with a hat, or jumper, or a rabbit, or whatever else your heart desires. This week my mum finished knitting me a new jumper and I’m basically using this blog as an opportunity to brag about it. It looks awesome, it has cool little bumps (apparently these are called cables although they look nothing like any cables I’ve ever seen…), it’s super comfortable and it even has a hood!

I’m always amazed when mum finishes one of her knitting projects because quite frankly they never look quite like they could have possibly been made just with a pair of needles. This becomes ever more true having watched the process of the jumper being made. To be honest, there were times when it didn’t really look like it was ever going to become a jumper, a wind sock maybe, but not a jumper. To be even more honest there were times when I thought it had all gone wrong because the bumps just didn’t look right. And yet what looked like mistakes actually became beautiful detailing.

The journey of the wool intertwining with itself to create something unexpected and quite wonderful seems not unlike the journey of my life. I don’t always (read rarely) know where I’m going, and I often seem to be crossing over myself or going backwards, and there are many many bumps in the road, but somehow out of all of it, God makes something beautiful. Or at least that’s what happens when God is in charge of the stitches.

This may surprise you, but I can actually knit too. Okay, no I can’t. I have knitted, but that’s not quite the same thing. Unlike when my mum knits, when I knit, the bumps that form are not cleverly crafted details, they’re just bumps. And there are holes where there aren’t supposed to be holes. And the whole thing is structurally quite unsecure and falls apart at a slight tug or even a stern glance. This too is not unlike the journey of my life when I try to direct my life the way I want rather than the way God wants. Unfortunately I can’t always immediately recognise the difference between cleverly crafted details and straight up mistakes. Fortunately there isn’t a blunder that God can’t repair.

God’s knitting prowess doesn’t end there. In knitting there is something called Fairisle (that’s right, I know the fancy knitting terminology – even if I’m not certain that it’s a real adjective). Fairisle knitting is where a number of different coloured strands of wool are knitted together to create cool looking patterns. And that’s the amazing thing about God. When He knits the story of our lives, he doesn’t just knit them individually, but He knits them all together.   He perfectly Fairisles the stories of the whole universe together so that every strand meets and intertwines with one another at just the right place and at just the right time. I will never be able to fully comprehend just how amazing that is. And when God’s able to perfectly knit together the whole universe, why would I ever possibly want to be knitting my own jumper?

Episode 94 - A Blank Canvas

When I was ill, I felt trapped in my circumstances. I felt like my life was fixed to a pattern that I had no choice about.  But now that I am well, I feel completely free of restriction. There are no fixed ideas that I have to adhere to nor a paradigm that I had to follow. I get to make the rules for my new life. And even now as I’m starting to try to piece together what my future life might look like, I have almost complete freedom to choose. I have nothing tying me down, and no obligations to meet. In some ways it’s really quite daunting to have so much freedom and so much choice. It can be hard to know where to begin. But it is most certainly a gift, such freedom to determine my own tomorrow is rare isn’t it?

But is it? Why is it? As I think about how constrained I felt by life during my illness and the wild freedom I now experience by comparison, my thoughts drifted to other times in my life. Times when it seemed that I had complete control of my life and yet seemed fixed to a set direction that life had somehow determined for me. In a way I felt constrained and trapped into that life, particularly compared to now, feeling that all paths are open to me. But why?

That’s not how God works, nor how God made us to be. God is not bound by circumstance or fate. With God all things are possible. He can easily turn our lives and our circumstances completely on their head. Something I have experienced first-hand a number of times now. No matter how hopeless or stuck rigid our circumstances seem, God is able to change them. He is completely free. And Christ came to earth so that we might have that freedom in Him too.

The funny thing is that as I look back on those times that I felt life had become stuck and unchangeable, and I felt trapped by my circumstances, I wasn’t even unhappy with my situation, I just felt aggrieved because I felt like I had no power to change it. But I guess that’s the point – I can’t change it. Not on my own any way. The frustration comes when I try to determine my own future without the guidance or help of God – who knows what is good for me and what is bad, and knows what weighs me down and what sets me free. And I realise that the times I’ve felt the greatest freedom in my future has not just been now I have no constraints at all, but anytime (even when it seemed ultra-repetitive and every day was the same) when my life has been bound and fixed on God and I have trusted Him to determine my future.

Episode 93 - Mental Fitness

I think I understand the idea of fitness, it’s quite a simple concept. You can only do so much stuff until you can’t do any more. The fitter you are, the more stuff you can do before you need to stop. I particularly understand the idea of physical fitness – it’s easy to grasp because its effects are quite visually apparent. You don’t need to be very fit to walk two minutes to the shop but you need to be extremely fit (and a little insane) to run two marathons back to back. My lack of physical fitness is the reason that I get out of breath if I go up the stairs too quickly. And pushing myself beyond my current fitness level leaves me tired, worn out, achy and needing to rest in order to recover. All of this I understand quite readily. After I was healed I felt like I was completely back to my old self – fitness levels and all, but I wasn’t. However, despite this new found condition, I was not only able to quickly realise this but also able to quickly realise where my fitness levels were and what I needed to do to improve them.

Mentally however, not so much. Physical I understand, it’s something that I was taught in school and that has affected me most of my life. The physical is also something that (for me at least) is much more easily interpreted. The mental and emotional aspects of life are far more complicated to unravel. It all seems kind of airy fairy and cloudy and open to interpretation. As for mental and emotional fitness, well that’s just not a thing is it?

Well as it turns out, yes, it seems it is. After I was healed I felt like I was completely back to my old self – I hadn’t even considered mental and emotional fitness levels because I mean, what’s that? But I wasn’t. Since getter better, I still get mentally and emotionally drained far quicker than I ever did before I was ill. And that’s okay. Just like my physical fitness it will take time to build up again. The trouble is that whilst I understand the paradigm of physical fitness and recognise the signs, this mental and emotional fitness seems like a whole new language to me. And that’s okay too, I’m quite happy to slowly learn the language and learn to look after myself better. But that right there, is the real lesson.

I realise that I haven’t been looking after myself properly. Not just since I got better, but always. I’m used to looking after myself physically – I keep fit, eat healthily, and if I’m ill I go to the doctor. But it’s always been too easy to ignore my mental and emotional welfare. As it happens I’ve so far been very blessed and more by good luck than good management I have for the most part kept very healthy in this aspect of life, but I realise that I should be taking more responsibility for myself and for those around me. Not speaking the language is not a terribly good excuse. So now with my eyes open I will take this opportunity now to learn these things better and pray that God can help me make good use of these lessons throughout the rest of my life.

Episode 92 - Party!

So unfortunately I must start this weeks blog with a confession. I'm afraid I haven't written a blog this week, but it is for a most wonderful reason. This weekend a two friends of mine got married (to each other). To be honest, only a few weeks ago I really wasn't looking forward to it. Being ill and looking in on your friends from the side-lines whilst they have fun can be hard no matter how happy you are for them. So now that I'm better, being able to really be part of the celebration has been incredible. To be able to come down early in the week and help prepare for the celebration whilst catching up with old friends has been quite incredible. I have been able to connect with people in a way that I haven't been able to for so long. And as it turns out, I'm also able to party in a way that I haven't been able to for so long too! So I'm sorry that this isn't a proper blog, but here's a rare picture of me dancing to make up for it! And no, I'm afraid I still no good at dancing!..