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.