“MUM! Come quick! I need you NOW!”

What’s happened?

“What is it? What’s happened?”

I’m not sure if I should be running yet. Dropping whatever I am doing.

“Just please come. I really need you. It’s really bad.”

Oh great, I think to myself.
He doesn’t sound hurt or in any real trouble.
I begin to mutter under my breath.
What’s he done now.
What mess am I going to encounter.
Don’t cry over spilt milk.

I’m already feeling the frustration and annoyance building.
From being interrupted.

And who knows what I will be greeted with when I reach the so called emergency.
Trying to get a task done can sometimes seem impossible.
Always distractions, an inconvenience.
A problem. Someone else’s problem.

I very quickly forget the grace I’ve been given.
The undeserved kindness and over extravagant love.
What the gospel really means in a life transformed.

The grace.
Unmerited.
Undeserved.
Unlimited.
Unbelievable.

The gospel.
Outrageous.
Incomprehensible.
Inconvenient.
Glorious.

And we all have our own mess.
Or we feel like a mess sometimes.
Our lives are messy.
Not always going according to plan.

And we do make mistakes.
Sin.
We fail.
All of us.

And what then of this grace?
The gospel.

It mustn’t always be convenient to show grace.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be grace.

But what is the gospel if we can’t come just as we are.
Warts and all.
Fears and failures.
Mistakes and mess.

And call out to the one who is good.
Always so very good.
And ask for help.
Please help.

I’ve made a mistake.
I’ve made a mess of my life.
I was wrong.

Do I really believe the gospel is for me?
Again.
Every day?

Do I believe in a God who would really do all that He could for me in my messiest, darkest moment, so that I could have life?

The miracle of this inconvenient gospel.
That is ready to get involved with my mess.
Prepared to drop everything to meet me.
Not concerned about the distraction, the inconvenience of my mess.

That what is broken is made whole. What is lost is found. What is empty is made full. What is darkness is made light. What is dead is given life.

This miraculous, ridiculous gospel.
That embraces me.

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved” Ephesians 2:4

Selah

Selah is a Hebrew word used frequently in the Bible, often in the Psalms. It is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, meaning something like “stop and listen”.
The Amplified Bible states Selah as “pause, and think of that”.

I like the thought of that.
To pause.
To take time rather than have time take from you.

Life moves at a fast pace.
There’s a lot to take in on a daily basis.
I don’t want to miss the richness of life just because it moves so fast. I don’t want to live with the fear that my life is so full and yet I’m missing something.

“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.” (Cesarean Pavese)

I believe these moments are from God.
Our days, our lives made up of many moments.

And God is there.

He is an incredibly extravagant and wildly loving God. Whose nature is to give with such richness. So much so, that each moment captured is bursting with the richness of God’s nature and presence.

And these moments need to be remembered, recorded, taken notice of.
Given the time to soak into our hearts and bleed into spirits.

Leaving a mark on us forever.

Challenging us to look for God in everyday life and the extraordinary miracles.

Choosing to see.

And then there is Selah

Choosing to pause and ponder and reflect.
To drink it all in.
All of His goodness.
The richest of riches.

To fully embrace the moment.
To find God.
Selah

Turn off the music, turn off the TV.
Turn off the phone and the computer. Turn off the iPod and the iPad.
And Listen.

Do you hear that?

It’s quietness.
She’s always there.
Like a faithful, loyal friend.

Not always noticed or acknowledged.
But always there.

Quietness is like the shy younger sister who always gets overshadowed by her older, more outgoing, louder big sister.

She sits and she waits for you.

Knowing you will need, you will crave to be still and listen, eventually.

She understands that we love to be doing and we love to be busy. It makes us somehow feel like our lives are more significant if we can keep on achieving.

She understands that we need to know we have a purpose and time is running out and we can’t waste any of it. And there is so much we dream to do…to be…

But quietness is waiting because when we stop it is there we can find who we truly are and what is deep in our hearts. We can truly listen. Fully hear.

Be quiet,
Be still.
Be still and know.
Be still and know
That He is God.

As we wrestle with the unknown, we can be confronted with questions that are not partnered with answers.
I have learnt to embrace the unknown and trust more.
I have learnt not to run from the questions but to journey with them. To find God in the unknown and the doubt and the questions.

This has actually become a unexpected gift in my life.

Me & God facing the questions together.

“I want to ask you as clearly as I can, to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were rooms yet to enter, or books written in a foreign language. Don’t dig for answers that can’t be given you yet: you live them now. For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually without noticing, live into the answer” (Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke, 1903).

We breathe in and out, every moment, of every day.  The average person takes about 28,800 breaths per day!  And we do it without a thought about what we are doing or how absolutely necessary it is to our survival.

In and out.

Not really noticing how much our body needs that oxygen to keep us alive. It is taken for granted. So much so that we can forget about taking deep, slow, full breaths.

In and out.

When my children come to me after a fall or a hurt, they are sometimes a little worked up.  Tears, noise and often gasping for a breath, while they try and tell the story of their drama.  My first response is to get them to STOP… and take some deep breaths.

And as they do, I watch as it begins to change their expression, the tension starts to fade and they begin to calm down.

Sometimes God whispers to me… just breathe.

In and out.

I can have a thousand things playing through my mind. I can be trying to deal with a hurt or manage some emotions about an issue in my world.  Or simply grapple with questions, injustices or unknowns.

But when I sit alone with God… the first thing I hear is… STOP and Breathe.

And as I do, it creates a space.

I close my eyes

Clear my heart

and let go.

Recently God has been shifting some things in my life and He is clearly leading me through a season of inner change.  God is doing a deep work in me at the moment and some of that looks like letting go of stuff.

It kinda feels like something is being put to death and new life is coming.  God has reminded me that as He is in this season with me, so will He be in the season of the new.  The old has gone and the new has come.

A new understanding, a new perspective, a new hope, a new dream.  A new way of thinking and doing minsitry.  A new day, a new season.  A new awakening.

TO BE HONEST.. I am blown away by God.  In His love and grace towards us, our holiday was a time of refreshment, reconnection and reflection.  And we come home with way more than we bargained for.

God has spoken (yet again) into our hearts and I believe He is STILL speaking.  It felt so much easier to hear Him where there was time and space to do nothing but listen and sit.   And I don’t want that to stop.  So on the last night we were there, I sat up and wrote some things that God has been saying to me… some things I never want to forget.

I want to remember that our house is our home, given by God and I want to put some more love into it.

I want to remember that my parenting of my children is not about me and is a demonstration of the gospel to them.

I want to remember that God is taking me through a process of letting go of things/people very close to my heart and together me and God are making room for something beautiful to arrive in my life. (more on that in the next blog)

I want to remember to hug my kids for longer, pash my hubby more and appreciate life.

I want to remember that God loves me so passionately.

TO BE HONEST… I feel like I will never be the same again.

WHEN I think about how deep God loves me, I almost can’t imagine how far it actually goes.  God’s heart aches for me, He is jealous for my affection and His love goes so far that He would do whatever was necessary to rescue me from a life of hell…literally.

I don’t have any other love quite like that in my life and so there are times I don’t give that justice. What I mean is, when I really sit a remind myself of God’s love for me…. it actually CHANGES EVERYTHING.  It turns my world upside down!

WHEN I experience His love all over again it changes my perspective and my response to the world around me.  And so it should.  A revelation of God’s real love changes the way I treat people in my  life, it changes the way I respond to pain and hurt, it changes the way I love my family, it changes the way I live my life, it changes the things I live for.

And I want it to change everything.  I don’t want to love the same way the world loves.  Selfish, conditional and temporary.  I want to love with the kind of love that can only come from God.  Unconditional, selfless, forgiving, transforming, extravagant and gracious.  That’s the kind of love that CHANGES EVERYTHING!

I find this verse both encouraging and challenging at the same time.  I am encouraged by the emphasis on love being consistent but when it comes to the reality, ‘always’ is a pretty high standard to live up to.

I am challenged in my life to be as consistent as possible in being a person who loves and lives like this.  I want to be someone who always protects those in my life.  Protects their reputation, and protects the things of God in their life.  I want to be someone who chooses to trust rather than get cynical and skeptical of people. I want to be someone who chooses hope in the face of despair, and I want to be someone who perseveres and doesn’t quit on people.  That’s the kind of love I want to have and I want to receive in my life.

Of course, I can’t love like this without a revelation of this kind of Love that God gives.  It can only come from God, cos none of us are perfect.  Loving God first is the key to loving other people.  But I know that without this love I cannot be the kind of person God has called me to be.  If God didn’t continue to hope and trust and persevere and protect me then I know my life would be very different.

Loving people is not easy but with God’s help, I believe that when we choose to love others, as we have been loved, Love doesn’ t fail.  It brings out the best in people.

We need a LOVE REVOLUTION!

At the start of the day I sent the message out there to anyone who wanted to respond, send me one word that describes something I can pray for you about today!  I had a positive response from people.  And was interested to hear some of the words people requested prayer for.  Things like PEACE, WISDOM, SALVATIONS.

But the real privilege came when I sat down to pray for each of these women.   I love to pray for people and I often do this, but to sit and pray for the people in my world, and in my church, knowing something real and relevant they wanted prayer for – gave great clarity and power to what I prayed for them.

We should consider it a privilege to pray for each other.  The bible talks about praying for one another and loving one another.  And sometimes our worlds can get so inward focussed that to stop and think about someone elses world is important.

What a joy to pray for one another! 

Watch out next week for One Word Wednesday! (thanks Helen)