Episode 55 – Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! An Easter message seems appropriate here, but of all the things I could talk about, none of them seem necessary. Only one thing seems important today. And when this is truly understood, it can be seen that everything of importance stands upon this foundation. This thing seems best described through an image rather than words. No, not the kind of cutesy picture with bunnies and chicks and Easter eggs that I have put at the bottom of this post. No, an image which is best seen with the mind rather than with the eyes. The picture is simply this; the son of God hung on a cross to die by His own choice so that we might be able to know God. Beautiful in its simplicity, yet the depth of the meaning of this moment in history reaches to eternity. In the light of this one image all else takes its place on the side-lines. And so the best Easter gift I can give you today is to leave this image in your mind, and not this one below…

Episode 54 – When everything stays the same

Sometimes writing a blog can be hard. Every week I write about the things that have happen to me that week. The things that I’ve seen, the things that I’ve done. The things that are new, that are different, that are interesting. But some weeks there seems to be nothing to say. Nothing has happened, nothing has been done. There’s nothing new, nothing has changed, everything has stayed the same. Sometimes life can seem a little ordinary. The same things day after day. It’s always the new, the different and the exciting that get our attention, but very rarely the things that are always there, the things that just seem to be. The consistent, the enduring, the loyal, the faithful. These things too often get over looked. And that’s why I am thankful for weeks like these, they may not make the most interesting blog posts, but they make me realise what I have in my life that I too easily forgot to appreciate. The fact that I have never been in need of food or shelter, water or warmth. The fact that I have always been surrounded by wonderful friends who faithfully support me in the good times and the bad. My amazing family who have always been with me and loved me loyally, even when I’ve not been easy to live with or done stupid things. The list is amazingly long from the profound to the seemingly insignificant, but it all culminates into one thing; my God. My faithful, enduring, everlasting God. Who never changes and never changes His mind about me, even though I give Him every reason to. He who is faithful to me, even when I am unfaithful. Whose love for me is constantly enduring, even when mine feels like it is running out. Whose character is consistent forever, even when I am inconsistent and fickle. I hope I never complain about my life staying the same (although I know I almost certainly will) because what I have is so very much more than I deserve.

Episode 53 - When You Have Nothing to Say

With my illness there are some days where I just don’t seem to be able to think at all. My brain just feels foggy and I find it hard to process my thoughts or make sense of the world around me. It feels a bit like the world is a man speaking into a microphone which is turned up so loud that you can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s like the world is too much for me to take in. This isn’t a problem at all. I can just find somewhere quieter (and maybe a little darker) to hide out for a while. My family are great and very understanding of this. They don’t mind me disappearing on them and still find ways for me to spend time with them; from sitting watching TV with the sound turned down annoyingly low to me just sat in the same room as them as they get on with their work.

There’s one relationship however, that I thought might suffer because of this; my relationship with God. Of course I always knew that God understands what I’m going through more than anyone else, but still to my mind, there was a problem. You see my relationship with God is largely centred around me doing stuff; me reading my bible, me talking to God, me singing worship songs… you get the picture. So when I don’t feel that I can do anything, that relationship must suffer. Or at least so I thought. I didn’t want that to happen, but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it.

Something I drew during one of my "quiet times"

Now I had long ago thrown away the idea that me spending time with God regularly had to fit into a traditional routine of “quiet times” that consisted of me reading my bible, saying prayers, and maybe at a push singing or listening to a couple of worship songs. These are excellent things to do regularly, but are far from a complete list of ways to spend time with. I enjoy doing a whole host of things with God; from different ways of learning like watching YouTube videos and even studying maps and genealogies, to things that enabled me to express myself in ways that I find hard to with words like playing the drums and drawing pictures. But when I find myself feeling like I do on these days, all of that seems out of reach.

My favourite thing to do with God is just to sit and listen to Him. I don’t always go away feeling like I have had some great revelation, but I always go away feeling closer to Him and like I can see the world a little clearer. Yet even that seems out of reach on days like these. On days like these I struggle to understand what my Mums saying to me when she talks in plain English so how could I hope to hear God through all the fog. He was out of my reach, and yet I found that I wasn’t out of His. I sat on my bed. No talking. No reading. No listening. And yet I felt His peace fall on me and I knew that He was near. There are many things in this life that can leave us at a loss for words. So when you have no words, just be. And know that you are never out of God’s reach.

Episode 52 - Celebrating what’s important

There’s a lot of things we strive after in life. Some of them accomplishments, others possessions, some of them even emotional states. These things come and go, but the satisfaction from them rarely stays forever. I find myself in a strange place in life. I want for nothing yet have few of these things that I’m used to striving after. The accomplishments that I had been pursuing; training plans and completing work, developing relationships and making a difference in Papua New Guinea, have all been put on hold being rendered unchaseable in the meantime by my illness. My possessions which I have accrued over many years are now on the other side of the world and even joy and happiness I have stopped actively seeking.

And yet I have them. I am happy and content with life, I’m joyful and often don’t even know why. I’m not pretending that my life is perfect, without the odd frustration or at times sadness, but on the whole, it’s pretty awesome. And as I look back on my life, I see good times in unexpected circumstances, joy in the middle of the storm. And I also see bad times in equally unexpected circumstances, trouble in times of prosperity. As I look through all these times a pattern makes itself clear. Two things stand out. In all the times that things were good these two things were present. Now please understand that by good I don’t mean happiness as an absence of sadness, nor good in the sense of an absence of bad circumstances. What I mean is hard to explain, it’s kind of like everything is all that it’s supposed to be, even the bad stuff, the sad stuff, and the stuff that breaks your heart. An unexplainable and indescribable peace in the midst of everything. Not only were these two things present in the “good” times, but they were also absent in the “bad” times. Now please understand that I don’t mean bad as an absence of those good things that we strive after, nor necessarily as times of sadness. Often at times I was very happy, at least at a superficial level. But deep down, there was a lack of peace, an unrest, an undeniable feeling that something wasn’t quite right or missing from my life.

The first of these two things is hopefully quite to be expected given the life in Christ that I have chosen to follow, and that is a closeness to God. Not whether or not He is close to me (for thankfully He always is) but whether or not I choose to bring myself close to Him. To spend time talking to Him, reading my bible and generally seeing Him when I look at the world. The second thing is perhaps not so obvious. All throughout my life God has blessed me with amazing, good, wonderful loving people. Not always the same people, but God given good people have always been there. And in the “good” times I have drawn close to them and let them in, shared my joys or my sorrows but in the “bad” times I failed to. I shut them out either intentionally or unwittingly, sometimes through fear, other times through hurt that I allowed to get in the way and still other times because I just let myself become too busy.

But right now, they seem to have surrounded me and I don’t think I could push them away even if I wanted to, and I am so grateful for them. For all of them, (now that I think about it, if you’re taking the time to read this rambling blog of what’s going on in my life) for you. So this post is praise for my God who always goes with me, who never ceases to give me what I need should I chose to accept it. And a letter of thanks to all those amazing people that He has put in my life, all throughout my life, whether I reached out to them or not. Thank you to you all, you have quite literally been God’s gift to me whether you realise it or not.

Episode 51 - Papua New Guinea in Motion

Following on from last week, I thought I would make the most of my good internet and share some video's with you from my six months in Papua New Guinea. Apologies for the bad camera work, I don't think I'm ready to give up the day job just yet...

A Traditional Simbu Flute Player

Making Fire the Traditional way

Traditional Singsing bands at the Goroka Show

Papua New Guinea from the Air

Episode 50 - Singing Songs to God

As I was sat in Church this morning singing songs to God, I thought about how powerful music is for sharing how we feel with God. I thought about how we not only show are feelings through the words, but also how we reflect our cultural identity through the style of the songs we sing too. I thought about how different many of the songs I heard sung to God in Papua New Guinea were to the ones I was singing, and I thought that I'd like to share what that sounds and feels like with you. I also thought that I wouldn't know how to begin describing it. And then I realised that I didn't need to. Instead I'm making the most of the amazing internet connection I enjoy here in England (that's right, the one I used to complain about being really slow) and just share some songs with you! So here they are, thanks goes to the Bena Bridge Chorus Singers for letting me share them.

Episode 49 - The Waiting Game

Ever since I have become unwell, I have had real sense of peace over the whole situation and a certainty that God has things firmly under control. Sure I’ve been confused and frustrated at times, but I’ve always felt that God knew what He was doing. As such I resigned myself to wait. To take the position of a bystander and watch as events unfold. To be more the battlefield than the warrior. And indeed there is some wisdom to this; to acknowledge that there are somethings in life that are outside of our control and to give these things over to God. As we are often advised to in the bible, to “wait upon the Lord”.

But recently I have realised that the biblical “waiting upon the Lord” and my “waiting for the Lord to fix everything” don’t quite match up. My “waiting for the Lord” pretty much involves me leaving Him to it. Knowing that He’ll deal with it, that there’s more to it than I can understand, and saying okay Lord, you do what you need to, wake me up when it’s all over. Sure I still talk to Him about lots of things, and I bring my frustrations to Him when I have them and I do pray that He’ll sort it all out, but I leave it at that. I don’t really pray over the details, I don’t even think about it, I just kind of bury my head in the sand. I don’t know why. I guess because I feel a little overwhelmed by it. Because I don’t understand much of it. Because in truth I’m probably a little scared. And I guess because if you don’t think about it, then you can’t get hurt when things don’t go how you think they will, like my doctor’s appointment a couple of weeks ago.

But this isn’t really waiting upon the Lord. Sure it involves this patience and this trust, but it’s more than that, it’s about relationship and walking with God. The Psalmists, who are among the most regular authors in the bible to implore us to “wait upon the Lord” don’t write about how we should leave God to it and not think about the problem. The majority of the psalms are about reaching out to God with all the problems that author is facing, and praising God for all that He has done and all that He will do. It begins in that same place of trust and patience but goes on from that place to seek God’s face in all that is happening.

As I saw that I realised that the peace and trust and patience that I so freely feel should push me forward to explore what is happening, not leave those things alone. To know that these things cannot hold any fear when I know that my God is near, but that instead I might be able to come closer to my God and to see Him work His will close at hand. I could sit this one out and wait until the end. To see one great act of God and then continue with my life that has been on hold. Or I could walk this journey with Him, bring every tiny detail before Him, to have the courage to pray for specific things at specific times as I feel lead. And in the end to witness every tiny event, every strand of this story that God weaves together to create the ultimate climax, to understand more fully what God will do for me and to more fully know my God. And so my prayers, my conversation with God has changed and I wait excitedly and nervously to see how His hand moves…