Month: October 2020

James’s Blog: The End.

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James’s Blog: The End.

So this is it – my final blog post after five years. I don’t know when (or if) I’ll be back, but I’ll be taking the rest of 2020 off at least. We’ll see what happens, eh.

There’s not going to be any profound words of wisdom in this post, no poem or parable. It’s just going to be me saying “Thank you” to everyone who’s taken the time to read what I’ve written, even if it’s only been once. Thank you if you took the time to comment on anything I posted. Thank you if you ever shared anything I’d written with someone else, digitally or not. Thank you for being a part of this particular leg of my journey.

I hope that something I’ve written over the past five years has been personally encouraging or challenging in some way. In short, I hope that neither of us has wasted our time.

There have been some exceptions, but on the whole I have been happy with everything that has appeared on these pages. The ones that haven’t been very good have invariably been so because the well of ideas had run dry for that week, despite me having committed to posting something regardless – but there have been a fair number of posts that I’ve pulled out of thin air at the last moment that have ended up being much better than they had any right to be. Of everything that I’ve written here, I don’t have a favourite, but I think the one that means the most to me is ‘The Man who Sold me a Pear’, which appeared on these pages in year one. I guess I peaked early.

I’m not going to ask you to post in the comments what your favourite entry has been (this isn’t YouTube) but I imagine that – if I’ve been doing this properly – it will have been different for each person. I’m the one sitting here tapping the keys, but ultimately I have always hoped that this was just another means of building the Kingdom of God. If it has been then I’m sure that the Holy Spirit will have His own selection of favourite posts. Hopefully, the list of posts that He didn’t like is a short one.

So, one final time, thank you for being a part of this. May God continue to bless you all.

James’s Blog: When We Feel Wronged by God.

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James’s Blog: When We Feel Wronged by God.

Poor old Job. He gets a bit of a raw deal, losing everything that he had in such a short space of time. He has a lot to deal with but the author of the book is keen to point out, even though Job is confused about the source of all his trouble, that “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.”

That’s chapter one and chapter two anyway. From chapter three onwards Job gets a little less…stoic. Here are some of the things Job throws at God:

“He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason…”

“Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?”

“God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me;”

“…know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.”

There’s more. It’s quite a long book. If Job avoids sin in the early chapters by not accusing God of wrongdoing, then he’s going to be in for it once God gets around to reading the rest of the book.

Now, I’m sure that a first-rate lawyer would pour over Job’s words and argue that “my client, Your Honour, doesn’t ever explicitly accuse God of wrongdoing (except maybe in that last bit quoted above, though he was under immense strain at the time)…”. We, however, are not under the Law but under the Spirit, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the spirit of Job’s words are very much about wrongdoing. God is to blame for his plight and He’s not being fair. God is unjust.

So, we’d expect that when God finally shows up, Job’s going to be in trouble and, sure enough, God has something to bring to the table. Namely, four chapters of “Job, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And yet…God reserves His anger for someone else. It’s Job’s friends who get it in the neck because, as God says, “You have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.”

Really? After all that stuff Job said about God crushing him unjustly and smiling on the wicked and wronging him? “You have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.”

I suppose I can think of two possible explanations for this. One, God tunes out and stops listening when we go off on a rant. He wouldn’t be the only parent to adopt this posture. Or two, when we’re struggling, when we loathe our life and give free rein to our complaint, when we’re dealing with genuine tragedy and just want to scream and shout and find someone to blame, God cuts us some slack.

I know which of those two I think it could be.

James’s Blog: Encouraged by the Past.

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James’s Blog: Encouraged by the Past.

I’ve touched on this subject before. A while ago I wrote about how beneficial journaling has been to me over the years, while more recently I wrote about the way that the past can ambush you and make you feel irrationally discouraged.

When I say that the past can ambush you, it’s really your memory of the past that is doing the ambushing, and your memory is pretty good at lying. A year or so after I started journaling I decided that I would set myself a task in response to what God was doing in my life at that time. I made a list of all the Bible passages I could find that related to the topic of ‘suffering’, and decided I’d study them. By that, I mean I spent a week on each passage (regardless of length) and jotted down my thoughts and conclusions on how it related to the subject at hand. I took some time off in the middle of it all somewhere, but in two and a half years I had applied this method of study to 72 different passages from the Bible.

Recently, I’ve been revisiting those passages and my studies. Like most things that we did when we were younger, there’s a bit of embarassment in facing up to it. I didn’t really understand much when then, but I thought I did. The difference now is that I know I don’t. But still, there’s some good stuff in there, and this time I find myself being ambushed by unexpected wisdom. When I remember those days, my memory doesn’t always paint me in a particularly good light. When I actually read what was going on, and not just remember it, I surprise myself. God has always believed in me more than I have.

However, the cherry/icing/giant sparkler on the cake was on the very first page. Before I began the studies, I wrote a little introduction explaining what I was doing and what my goals were – and that stuff is excellent. I mean, what I hoped for and desired 24 years ago is pretty much unchanged from what I hope for and desire now. It almost brought a tear to my eye to read how earnest young James was, and how much of young James is still here in the heart of old(er) James. And it encouraged me, because it made me realise that – despite my youth and the things I wrote that are a million miles away from what I would write or think now – there was a solid, unbreakable core in that fragile young man, and that core would carry me all the way through the years, half-way across the the world and back again, to where I am now…and that same passion is what will carry me the rest of the way. It was a surprise to me, but God’s always known.

James’s Blog: The Desert is Good.

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James’s Blog: The Desert is Good.

I know that the title looks like I mispelled ‘dessert’, but it’s actually correct as it is.

Being in a spiritual desert doesn’t sound appealing, and certainly anyone who has experienced it will know full well that it’s about as fun as it sounds, and yet…

Luke 4:1 tells us that Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, is then led into the desert by that same Holy Spirit. It’s like the closer you get to God the more likely you are to end up in the desert – and not because you took a wrong turn, but because it’s where God was wanting you to be all along.

Jesus is in the desert to be tempted, or tested, and in this way his journey mirrors that of Israel herself. Deuteronomy 8:2-3 tells us that Israel’s time in the desert was that they might learn humilty and be tested, and that they might understand that we don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God…hang on, I’ve heard that somewhere before…

What I’m getting at is that desert time proved to be a central part of Israel’s identity. It was in the desert that God provided for them out of nothing, it was in the desert that He gave them the Law, it was in the desert that they learnt what it meant to belong to Him. Equally, the desert was Jesus’ training ground, where he learned what it meant to love God and get his identity from Him alone.

In short, if you want to grow, deserts are inevitable, because it’s only in the desert that you learn this type of lesson. As much as we wish otherwise, you can’t learn what it means to follow God from the comfort of a sofa, TV blaring and a cream cake in your hand.

But the desert is not supposed to be our goal. It’s a stop along the way, but it’s a crucial one, and a good one. Every now and then, you might find the Spirit of God steering into the dry wilderness once more, in order to be reminded of a precious lesson that you are in danger of forgetting, or to sit another exam, but He’ll always bring you out, stronger and fitter than when you went in.

I’m not telling you that you have to be happy about it, but the desert is actually a good place.

James’s Blog: Repairs.

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James’s Blog: Repairs.

I once met a man, a connesieur of D.I.Y. if you will. I watched him at work, skilfully carving, cutting and fixing. The thing I noticed is how old his tools seemed. I’d expected him to be equipped with the latest and best, seeing as how he was an expert and all, but instead he used a patchwork of old, venerable tools.

“Why don’t you chuck that lot away and get some new stuff?” I asked him.

He looked at me as though I was an idiot.

“Why? There’s nothing wrong with these. The blades are still sharp, the heads still solid. They get scuffed and damaged over the years, and need to be patched up – a new handle here, a sharpening there – but they’re still good. Better than good actually.”

“Ah, sentimental value,” I said.

He nodded. “A bit, but not just that. They do the job, and do it well. Those new tools are alright, but they don’t make them like this anymore.”

I knew a man in Christ who had been broken but got up again, and been broken but got up again, and been broken but got up again. He limped his way along, leaving the fragrance of the Kingdom of God wherever he went.

“Why don’t you use someone else, God?” I asked. “That guy’s had it.”

He looked at me as though I were an idiot.

“I don’t throw things away, James.” Then He looked at the man with such love in His eyes. “They don’t make them like this anymore.”

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