Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing

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It’s not that I’m not sorrowful,
Or not feeling the loss
Of things, and time; I am.
It’s not that being laid low
And being held back
Have not pricked the bubble
Of my dreams; they have.
It’s not that the price I paid
To come was not high, and
For my family too; it was.
It’s not that the expectations
And hopes of others on me
Here do not weigh heavily
On my soul; they do.
And yet as I reflect and
Consider my feelings,
And look at what has been,
How my Father has held
Me close and met with me;
I see that yes, I am sorrowful,
Yet always rejoicing.

2 Cor 6:10

Written in Uganda

Reflection from Isaiah 45:7

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“I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.”
Isaiah 45:7

Calamity as a creative act?
This is the ‘deeper magic’, as Aslan would put it, that gives understanding that suffering and calamity can be entirely the work of God.

Never forget that Satan is on a leash and needs permission for everything he does. Job and Luke and Revelation reveal this to us.
If Satan brings calamity it’s because God superintended and ordained it, and governs it entirely as it happens. He is NEVER absent and ALWAYS in full control.
For the sons of God, we have all the information we need in the Bible to show us God’s goodness and favour in bringing ‘calamity’ into our lives as it will always be for our training, always lead us to a place of perfect goodness free from suffering, and result in the glory of Jesus displaying radiantly in our lives with thanksgiving.

Just read the first part of Hebrews 12 and see that suffering, toil, struggle, wrestling, pain, sorrow, doubt, uncertainty etc are all in view in the context of God turning us into gold medal winners, through His discipline, BECAUSE He loves us.
He is purging, and will continue to purge our sin, and it’s a life and death struggle DAILY. Each day Christ must be crucified in our lives, and each day we must die with Him to our sin, and each day we must put to death the things of the flesh by the Holy Spirit.
Because we grip onto deadly things like love of money, sinful desires, sloth, deceit, malice, unforgiveness… God will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to remove from us this body of death.
Is it not a cause for great thanksgiving that He would dislocate our hip in order to bless us if that’s what it takes?

The implications of this ‘deeper magic’ are staggering and amazing!
If God could only use the ‘good’ things of this world and this life to bless us then that would be fine, but thanks be to God that He can use EVERYTHING to bless us in and through The Beloved.
In extremis it’s the extreme suffering and death of Himself, in His Son that gives us life and blessing. There is no eternal life or blessing for us UNLESS the Suffering Servant is crushed, according to the will of God, to take away our sin and rebellion (Isa 53).

So my prayer is this:
In calamity, thank you Jesus.
In despair, thank you Jesus.
In pain, thank you Jesus.
In suffering, thank you Jesus.
In darkness, thank you Jesus.
In sickness, thank you Jesus.
All of these serve you so that they might serve me.
Suffering serves you.
Pain serves you.
Loss serves you.
Cancer, MS, disability and all disease serves you.
Death serves you,
And will serve me to bring me to your eternal presence.
Sanctify me in your Truth; your word is Truth.

“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job 1:21

Hope for tomorrow

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Hope for tomorrow
And faith for today.
Will I see beyond that
Which is before me today?
In the blur, the defocussed
View of what will be, then,
The sharpness of now,
And it’s glaring ungloss,
Claims to be the future now,
But shows only a frame of
The longer story of my life,
Which tomorrow will tell
A better ending than today.
Hope for tomorrow
And faith for today.
The last word is yet unwritten,
But hope will be its theme
And faith will be its muse.

Hand Behold Nail Behold

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The Tetragrammaton, which is the four letter representation of the revealed name of God in Hebrew, was first written in an ancient form of Hebrew now referred to as Paleo Hebrew.

Paleo Hebrew, like other ancient written forms, is pictorial in nature.
This provides a meaning for words which is built up from pictorial symbols, which when combined express both a complete word and a combination of meanings.

The combined word for the Tetragrammaton – YHWH – is often translated into English as
“I Am who I Am” and expresses the eternal presence and identity of God, as well as other deep concepts as to His self-revealing nature.

When taken as individual Paleo Hebrew symbols however you get the following four representations:
Hand (Yodh)
Behold (He)
Nail (Waw)
Behold (He)

What is the significance of this?
When Jesus confronts Thomas after His resurrection He says these words to Him;
“Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” John 20:27

What is Thomas’ response in John 20:28?
“Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!””

This is an amazing revelation given to Thomas that Jesus is the I Am – YHWH Himself – and the root written form of this, before crucifixion with nails was invented and before Jesus was born, was…

Hand   Behold   Nail   Behold

(Thanks to John Manwell for sharing his discovery of this with me)

The meaning of the Paleo Hebrew symbols of the Tetragrammaton

The meaning of the Paleo Hebrew symbols of the Tetragrammaton

Pentecost

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Sound,
Then wind,
Then heat, light, fire.
How the power moves
Transcendentally
From heaven thru Earth,
From God to man.
Spirit, like energy;
Energy, like Spirit,
Never created,
Nor ever destroyed,
But transferred and transformed,
Given and returned.
Spirit of energy,
Dynamic Life,
Move to us and through us,
In power today.
Bring to us,
And in us,
Your Divine person
Into our quickened souls.

Written for Pentecost Sunday, 27th May 2012

Work

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You work
Full of splendour and majesty.
You work
In faithfulness and love.
You work
To show even greater works.
You work
All things for the good of those who love you.
You work
Righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
You work
Salvation for your people in the midst of the earth.
You work
And have been working since the beginning.
You work
All things to perfect completion.
You work
Until it is finished, and then you rest.
On the sabbath,
May we rest in your work.
May we rest in your rest.

Amen

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The Hebrew triconsonantal root of the word amen has the following meanings:

  • To be firm
  • Confirmed
  • Reliable
  • Faithful
  • Have faith
  • Believe

So when you say, “amen”, you are believing by faith and simultaneously affirming and confirming it to be true.
Or, put another way, it’s like saying, “I believe! Yes, I believe!”

Overwhelming waves

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The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt

Rolled and rocked
With pitiless persistence,
The waves swell and roll,
A serpent’s back speeding
The crest to its rocky collision
At the border of land’s edge.
The wind effortlessly moving
From wherever it comes from
To wherever it goes (mystery),
Tearing the air with pitched howl
And rearranging things from
Quiet order to violent disorder.
The little boat offers the pretence
Of safety as it floats atop the
Moving everything, the restless flows.
“Head for shore”, comes the cry,
Barely heard as the wind steals sound,
But shore is far off,
And sharp rocks the harbour,
Foamed up and shaved by
The water’s razor’s edge.
Instinct is to turn askew
To face away from the looming
Waves, piled up to heaven,
Spreading their mantle
To hide horizon’s anchor
And narrow the perspective
Into an impending doom.
Seasoned mariners know
That the sea is queen and only
The brave and humble can
Harvest her bounty, or
Traverse her routes and courses,
But in our little boat we are
Baptised into the seafarer’s life
With no induction, no shallow entry.
We know not which way
To pitch or turn, no sail
Or mast but the taut whine
Of an outboard motor –
That has more than met its match –
Is our only hope of steering
To safety… or who knows where?
But turning aside, not facing
The waves brings a crash course
In how to handle choppy seas;
Crashing waves roll us to the limits
Of buoyancy and balance,
Pushing us way off course into
The open sea and away from
Land’s reach and firmer ground.
With naught to lose and
Challenged by fear, we turn
Our little boat face on into the
Mountainous waves.
Each wave blocks out the sky
Yet draws the bow heavenward
Until its almost standing upright,
Before the wave peak passes
And we nosedive down into
The valley beyond.
But as much as the waves
Threaten to overwhelm,
It’s only as we face them head on
That we can safely ride them,
Seeing them through,
Allowing the full wave to pass by
And under – going with the flow
And not fighting the force and power,
But trusting ourselves to the storm,
And the One who makes the wind,
And the waves and the rain.
Now set, facing forward,
A hymn rises up, and the
Voice to sing it out loud rises too,
The water’s surface amplifying
And accelerating the sound
So that even the crashing cymbals
And timpanic booms of the
Sea’s orchestra cannot drown
Out the rising chorus of
Joy unbounding, and peace
Instilling as the crescendo
Hits the climactic moment of
Rhyme and verse and then,
As suddenly as it all started,
The squall subsides and the wind rests,
And what was mayhem is now placidity
And perfect calm; the waves
Faced up to and faced down as
Our fears were too, and our little boat –
So helpless – now finds strength,
And carries us to harbour’s home.