Month: July 2018

James’s Blog: More Daily Bread Thinking…

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James’s Blog: More Daily Bread Thinking…

Sometimes an idea just won’t let me go, and so it has been with my thoughts about dependence on God and just asking for what we need each day.

It occurred to me that the future is often a source of anxiety and frustration for me. It doesn’t have to be, but it is. Jesus understood the way that our minds work, which is why he said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, because you’ve got enough to worry about today.” The thing is, the future is all in my head. How I think about it is what creates the anxiety and the frustration, not the future itself. Developing an attitude of relaxed, daily dependence on the Father is the cure.

This is what I have figured out: If I am thinking about the future, then what I have today isn’t enough, but if I am just thinking about this day, then what I have for today is an abundance. Does that make sense? If I expect God to give me everything I need for my whole life today, then He is a stingy and unhelpful deity. If I expect God to give me just what I need for today, then He is a generous and extravagant Father. I do not have nearly enough to get me to the end of my life (assuming I make it to old age), but He has provided ample to get me through the next twenty-four hours.

This isn’t a rant against wealth or putting things aside for the future, rather it’s a pointed conversation I’m having with myself about where my trust lies. If I take Jesus seriously then my focus is clear – “Put the Kingdom first, and God will take care of the rest,” he said. If I’m seriously putting God and His agenda first, then I can live fearlessly with empty hands. “Father, give us what we need for today,” becomes enough.

James’s Blog: Empty Hands.

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James’s Blog: Empty Hands.

Sometimes I challenge myself but more often I leave it to others to challenge me. Recently, I came across an observation made by someone else: the suggestion to pray for ‘our daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer is supposed to encourage us towards a daily trust in God to meet our needs. It challenged me because I know that even when I’m asking for my ‘daily bread’ I’m already thinking about what I’m going to eat tomorrow.  I’m not in the habit of asking God to meet my daily needs, I’m in the habit of asking Him for a surplus so that I don’t have to worry about empty cupboards for the next few years. I wonder what would happen if all I ever asked for was just what I needed for that day? I know one thing it would change – It’d certainly be an incentive to check in with my heavenly Father at least once every twenty-four hours…

It made me think about ‘stuff’, why I worry about it and why I cling so hard to it. Sometimes I think I justify acquiring stuff by telling myself that it’s another resource I can use for God’s purposes. I’m not sure I’m being entirely honest with myself, and I wonder if – in my case – empty hands are more useful to Him.

I had a little thought last weekend. What if we get to heaven and God asks us to show Him our hands? What if everyone’s hands look the same – damaged and battered and bruised and scarred? But what if our hands aren’t the same? What if God knows that some of us have wounded hands because we’ve worked hard for Him, but others of us have wounded hands because we’ve been holding on to our treasure too tightly?

James’s Blog: McChurch.

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James’s Blog: McChurch.

Welcome to St. Ronald’s,

May I take your order please?

We can give you a serving of Jesus,

With an extra helping of cheese.

 

We can do a Resurrection Burger,

And a side of Holy Ghost fries,

As long as you like it LOUD,

We don’t do any other size.

 

We’re all about convenience,

You don’t even have to stay,

No-one really likes washing-up,

That’s why we do takeaway.

 

Sure there’s other restaurants,

And other places you can eat,

But we’re cheap and quick and easy,

And we won’t disturb your sleep.

 

Don’t worry about nutrition,

Or if we’ll make your soul fatter,

As long as you leave feeling good,

Then quality doesn’t matter.

 

Our menu’s tailored just for you,

Our staff will help you to begin,

Our manager is God Himself,

But I’m not sure He’s ever been in.

James’s Blog: Meta Edition.

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James’s Blog: Meta Edition.

I’m sitting in a cafe, with my notebook and pen, trying to come up with something for this week’s blog. I’ve got a hot chocolate in front of me, and I’m waiting for God to show up. Maybe He’s down the road, with the street preacher, whose muffled but earnest words drift in through the open window. I feel guilty. Why aren’t I out there, on the street, preaching instead of sitting here with an empty page and a hot chocolate? Mentally I list the reasons, both good and bad. I offer up a quick prayer for the young man trying to get something of God’s love out into the world.

I ask myself why I feel guilty. I wonder if it’s got something to do with my view of God. I imagine myself in one of those fairground mirror funhouses , but instead of rows and rows of mirrors distorting my image, I’m looking at dozens of distorted images of God. Is that what it’s like? I scribble that down.

Thoughts and ideas zoom through my imagination, like wasps at a summer picnic. I spend a moment wondering if Belgian chocolate is really that much better than other chocolate, or if it’s just a triumph of marketing. I go back to the funhouse mirrors, and wonder if the issue is not so much false views of God, but rather false views of myself. I picture my own distorted image instead. That’s just as much a source of misplaced guilt and confusion as distorted images of God.

I look at what I’ve written. I feel like there’s something in the funhouse mirror idea and that I’m on the cusp of putting together a blog post, but the idea just won’t firm up. It’s a mist that disperses when I try to grab it. I’m distracted by the couple on the table across from me. She’s reading out the titles of articles in her magazine, while her husband (I assume it’s her husband) listens mutely. One of the articles is wondering about the real reason behind JFK’s assassination. I wonder what magazine it is, as the couple don’t look like conspiracy theorists. Maybe that’s what they want me to think…

I try to get back to the blog post. I write some more thoughts down. How do we view ourselves in the mirror of guilt? How does that distort who we are? It’s not real. It’s not how God sees us. I pause. I feel like that’s something it would be good to pray for – that I’ll see myself as God sees me, as I really am. I would pray right here and now, but I’ve just decided that I’m going to write this process up as my blog post, and I know that I’d only be praying so that I could write it down and put it in the blog because actually praying reads better than just intending to pray.

I momentarily feel a genuine yearning for the freedom of being ‘disillusioned’, and seeing myself as I really am, and seeing God as He really is. I reflect, not for the first time in my life, that it’s not actually much fun being a deep thinker. But we’re all complicated in our own way, and we all make things more complicated than they need to be. God likes simple things, I write. I notice that I’ve actually written “God likes simple things, I write”. I decide to stop before I get too clever for my own good.

The hot chocolate is gone. The street preacher might still be there. It’s time for me to go. I think God probably did turn up, in some way.

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