What will she be like?

We are on a countdown – six weeks left if baby follows the doctor’s text book. Some days I am excited, others nervous & others a bit fearful. What will she be like? Will she look more like me than her Dad? Will she pick up my good habits or my bad habits? Whose temperament will she have – will she be talkative like me or thoughtful like her Dad? Will she be a contented baby? According to science she won’t get my blue eyes but curls are very likely. At the top is a photo of my mum & I 35 years ago – many people have mistaken it for me and a baby – we are enough a like that some people get sad me because I remind them so much of mum. My prayer for our baby though is not that she would take after her Mum or her Dad but that each of us would take after Jesus instead:

2 Corinthians 3:18  All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. (The Message)

The future is both exciting and unknown. What will her life be like – I know we won’t be able to shield her from every hard time, but what lies in store for her? I’m sure I will do my best to protect her from all life’s faults and for a long time I’m sure she will think her Dad hangs the sun out for her every day. Yet the best gift we can give her is to know that know that all things are in the hands of the One who made her:

Colossians 1:15-17  We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created.  16  For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels–everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.  17  He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. (The Message)

What will she be like – well we’ll just have to wait and see. What we do know for sure is that she will be well loved, not just by her family but more importantly by the One who made her.

Average pushy mom?

 

A thought crossed my mind the other day that took me by surprise – I actually shocked myself. I was at the baby doctor and Baby Soko was being measured on the scan. According to dates she was exactly 33 weeks that day and the baby doctor was very impressed that all the measurements – head, tummy, leg  and weight came out at exactly 33 weeks. He declared our wee girl to be perfectly average. This is where my surprising thought popped in – ‘Don’t call my child average!’. Thankfully it wasn’t one of those moments when you think you only thought something but really said it out loud! My reaction surprised me. Since when is average a bad thing? Oh no – am I going to be a pushy mom?

We live with a lot of pressure to succeed and do well – to excel at everything. Yet while doing things to the best of our ability is what God requires of us we have added peer pressure and self-pressure to perform to impress others. I know I am guilty of it – I like to do things well. I’m not keen on ordinary when spectacular can be found. Yet by always aiming to impress am I missing out on the ordinary? Surely the aim should not be the applause of others but knowing that we have done the best we possibly can?

Colossians 3:23-24  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,  24  since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

For myself I need to change my standards – God’s approval and His knowing I have done my best needs to replace the applause of others. Lord help me to honour you with the highest standard of living a life to honour and please only You.

Wet bottoms and red faces – some thoughts on work

I had a bit of a shock the other day – I guess I was a bit out of the loop when it comes to toilet technology. I was in a shopping centre and thanks to my baby bump I’ve become a connoisseur of public toilets. This particular mall has automated doors to get into the bathroom and then no actual flush buttons or handles in each cubical to flush with. Instead the toilet is meant to automatically flush as you leave. However I must have visited a dysfunctional toilet for as I sat down I started to hear a gurgling noise and all of a sudden the toilet flushed while I was still on top of it! It happened once more before I could get free – I ended up wet bottomed and red faced! In another public bathroom a few days later I struggled to get paper towel out of the dispenser thing until a lady gracefully waved her hand in front of the dispenser and some towel gently rolled out!

All this automation got me to thinking – I’m sure it is meant to be there both to make our lives easier and for helping the germ phobic (although you still had to open & close the cubical door – I’m glad that one was not also automatic otherwise I would have put on quite a show!). I wonder if our drive to make life easier is actually making us lazy? With instant coffee, drive throughs, internet banking, email on our cell phones etc is our life of better quality or are we actually more stressed?

God designed us to work – it is the way He built us. Work was introduced from the beginning and is not a result of the fall.

Genesis 2:15  The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Yet we spend so much time trying to think of ways to get around it. For many of us this week is the first week back to work after the holidays and I have heard many complaints and sighs. Yet we are created to work. Paul instructed the Thessalonians church to keep away from idleness:

2 Thessalonians 3:6-10  In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.  7  For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you,  8  nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.  9  We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.  10  For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

So my embarrassing incident reminds me that God did not design me for a life of idleness and as I start out on the new working year I am thankful for the work I have to do and pray that God will be glorified by it.

Sitting Comfortably: Do we need a theology of Discomfort?

I have said before that I like to be comfortable – to live within my comfort zone. Although I have lived in different cultures I don’t exactly like change and strangeness – but I do really enjoy those cultural differences once they become familiar to be me.

I’m in the middle of reading Dave Gibbons book ‘The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church’. I really love the idea of being third culture – it is based on the idea of mission kids who live with their feet in two cultures and develop for themselves a third, kind of best of both. However there is one part that has me uncomfortable – his theology of discomfort. I understand the principle but I’m not entirely comfortable with it – perhaps it is just semantics? Let me explain. Gibbons rightly says that Jesus lived an uncomfortable life:

If any word epitomizes  Jesus’ life, it’s discomfort, from the beginning – his birth amid poverty, in a bed of straw, into a hostile world – to the end – his death, by the Via Dolorosa, full of shame, sacrifice, humility, pain, betrayal, and rejection. (pg 78)

He goes on to say:

Jesus chooses to be identified with people who are on the outside looking in those whom most people of his day felt uncomfortable being around and justified in ignoring. (pg 82)

Gibbons rightly challenges us to move outside our comfort zone and to love those who we are uncomfortable with – however this is also where I have an issue.  I don’t think that Jesus was actually uncomfortable with any of these people – he was at home with the tax collectors & prostitutes and equally at ease amongst the religious elite. Likewise the Apostles spread the Gospel amongst the wealthy influential as well as the poor and enslaved. I think our discomfort is actually sin. When we are uncomfortable with people it is because they are not the same as us – their difference scares us. I agree with Gibbons that we need to reach out to all people – even if they are radically different than us, but perhaps rather than moving out of our comfort zone we need to have our comfort zone radically expanded? We need to see others not through our own eyes which judge people and assess their worth and value, but rather through the eyes of God who despite our sin loves us.

We need to see our commonalities – we have all sinned, we are all in the same boat despite our different races, genders, economic statuses, cultures.

Romans 3:22-24  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,  23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  24  and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

That is Good News we have to share and live out.

Lord, help me, by your Spirit, expand my comfort zone – to love others the way you do and to be comfortable with any person because they are loved by You.

Trusting 2012

 

I’m a bit of a scaredy cat really. You’ll not find me bungee jumping or even jumping from the highest diving board. I will do everything possible to avoid taking part in a ‘Trust Fall’. But I think my issue is not heights, my issue is control and trust. I like to be safe and in control. Unfortunately no matter how much I try I do not have the ability nor the power to control the world around me and that leads to panic and fear. As I look back over the past year there have been many ups and downs, all beyond my control. Sometimes it feels like you are on a rollercoaster – on a roller coaster you don’t get a steering wheel nor set of brakes – you just have to go with the ride. Understandably given my control issues I’m not that keen on Roller Coasters either!

In this past year no matter how I have tried to fix broken situations, to make things better, it has been beyond my control and at the end of it all, frustrating. It is funny during the year some things came right in ways that were totally beyond my control that I had worn myself out worrying about for years also. So as I look towards 2012 I do so with excitement at the new journey of parenthood, but also with a bit of trepidation – what will the year hold?

I have decided that my word for this year should be TRUST. I have chosen the word trust because it seems to me to be the opposite of controlling everything myself. Giving over everything to God is a scary business, except I know the One who is in control is totally Trustworthy:

Psalms 20:7-8 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. 8 They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.

It’s funny – after thinking about Trust over the weekend this morning’s sermons was on the same topic! (I’ll put a link to the sermon once it is uploaded onto the church website).

So this year I choose to TRUST:
T – Seek God for the Truth of who I am and who He is
R – Rest in the knowledge that He is in control so I don’t have to be
U- Understand that God knows what is going on even when I don’t
S – Submit to God’s authority over my life and will
T – realise that I am on Team Jesus so even if my circumstances look bad I’m on the winning side.

Lord, I commit 2012 to you not knowing what lies ahead but with enormous gratitude that You are in control.

Making room in the nativity?

I have one dilemma about Christmas that I will need to figure out in the next few years – what to do about Santa? When she is old enough to understand what we will tell baby? Being in a multi-cultural marriage we don’t have one common tradition – I grew up with Santa, hubby didn’t. I vividly remember the fear of meeting Santa on Christmas Eve – I had been told that if you see Santa he won’t leave you any gifts, a ploy designed to keep us in bed I assume. I remember trying to find the bathroom in the middle of the night with my eyes screwed shut in case I should happen upon the big man! Hubby grew up with none of this.

The beauty of being in a multi-cultural family is that we can make new traditions – taking the best from both and doing things the Soko way. My question is – is Santa a tradition I would want to keep? I know society doesn’t let you easily give him up with pressure to ‘believe’ and not spoil the fun for others  – so, what to do? I really want to be a dealer in truth so that Nativity is central to Christmas – Jesus is the focus. So would we be making room for Santa in the nativity?

I remember a mum complaining that the lies she told to her children about Christmas came back to bite her one year. She had threatened the kids that if they misbehaved Santa would not bring them anything – it worked well until the Sunday a few weeks before Christmas when the church collected toys for the Salvation Army appeal. She asked her kids to spend some of their pocket money on toys for kids ‘who would not be getting anything this year’.  Her son quickly shot back – well if they hadn’t misbehaved they would be getting something. You can’t really argue with that!

I really don’t know how we will deal with this and are thankful to have a few years before baby would be old enough. Should we be balancing traditions that distract from the true meaning of Christmas with the Truth of Jesus’ rescue mission? The nativity is a picture illustration of truth and light:

John 1:4-9  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  5  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  6  There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.  7  He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe.  8  He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.  9  The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

Surely the truth that God loves us so much is so wonderful that that we don’t need to add anyone else to make it magical? How have you dealt with this dilemma? How do we best glorify God in our families at Christmas with our tradition?

Living in my rear-view mirror

 

This weekend has been a little bit frustrating. Whilst my car has been fixed and no longer makes scary squealing noises as you break and neither does it creak around corners the rear-view mirror has become dysfunctional. If you try to adjust it or if you hit a little bump in the road the mirror falls off.  It has made me wonder how much I actually need the mirror – d I really need to pick it up every time and try to persuade it to stay. Do I need to get it replaced or can I live without it. How important is it for me to see what is behind me?

The same is true of my walk with God – how much should I be looking back? Looking back has its dangers – sometimes we can be preoccupied with what is behind that we crash into something that is ahead of us. Yet there has to be a balance.

Sometimes the past is more comfortable for us that the unknown of the future – even if the like the Israelites in the wilderness the past was one of slavery and abuse. When they looked at the Promised Land they got scared and wanted to go back to what was familiar:

Numbers 14:1-4  That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.  2  All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert!  3  Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”  4  And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Yet there is also the danger of always looking forward and not remembering where we have been and what God has done. God says we need to make an effort to remember:

Isaiah 46:9-11  Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.  10  I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.  11  From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.

So my wobbly rear-view mirror reminds me to balance – it is good to look back at the end of this year to see where we have come from and what God has done, yet I cannot live my live in reverse – forward is the God-ward direction even if the road is unknown. As 2011 disappears in my rear-view mirror I look back with gratitude and testify to God’s faithfulness through some very tough times and look forward with confidence, not knowing what is ahead, but because I know the One who leads the way into 2012.

The Movement of Christmas

I associate the build up to Christmas with movement – hustle and bustle, busyness. Rushing to the shops to make sure that you have everything you need, trying to get to the post office to post cards in time for the international delivery dates (sorry didn’t make that one!). Going from one social gathering to the other. Always moving. But there is one movement that we often neglect at this time of year – that coming near, or drawing close. While the movements we follow at Christmas are usually frenetic and whirlwind like the movement of the first Christmas was one of coming close.

The primary movement, the first steps of Christmas are God Himself coming towards us:

Matthew 1:23 “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”–which means, “God with us.”

I love how the Message version describes God with us:

John 1:14  The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. (The Message)

Literally Jesus came and moved in with us. How amazing, how humbling! God made the first move towards us in our sin.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

What is our response to this movement of God?  Honestly if you look at most of us at Christmas our response is not coming near to Him, but in going – mostly going in circles chasing other things. At the first Christmas there were two main responses – the Shepherds and the Magi came to Jesus to worship while Herod went to kill.

I ask myself this Christmas, fully acknowledging the presence of my growing to-do list, which movement will I choose this Christmas? Will I choose to come towards God as He has toward me, or will I choose to go on going? What will be my movement this Christmas?

Today I’m taking part in the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival – the word is ‘Come” (Actually just discovered that I’m behind the times & this weeks word should have been Down! – Sorry ) and also in Winsome Wednesday – click the links to have a nosy around!

 

Lighting Up Hope

Last night was our Carol Service – this year it was relocated to Living Hope and combined with the first ever turning on of the Living Hope Christmas Tree. Normally I struggle to feel Christmasy in South Africa – the temperature is just too high and singing Carols in short sleeves feels wrong. Yet the combination of the wonderful Carols, great sermons and the turning on of the lights manage to make me feel have that Christmas tingle. It was not a warm fuzzy tingle but that tingle of knowing that with Jesus there is Hope.

The Christmas Tree was a fundraiser for Living Care, the ministry of Living Hope that deals with Health Care. Each bulb represented a patient helped in the Health Care Centre – the aim is over the next few years to sell more than 1400 lights. This year got off to a good start with more than 220 sold. This represents that number of patients who have died in the Centre – meaning more than 1150 have gone home to family! How amazing that what started out as a Hospice to care for the dying had to change its name as patients were getting better and able to manage their chronic diseases and live a life of dignity at home. HIV is a disease that brings darkness and despair but Living Hope has been able to bring the light and love of Christ to the suffering. That makes me feel really Christmasy.

John’s ‘nativity’ is a bit different from all the others – he doesn’t describe the birth he instead describes the Character of Jesus – He is light!

John 1:1-5  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2  He was with God in the beginning.  3  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  4  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  5  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Jesus came to bring light to the darkness, to expose that which is shameful, depressing, binding and fear causing – with light we receive hope. This is the way God designed us to live – in the light full of hope, not in the dark full of fear.

Ephesians 5:8-10  For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light  9  (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)  10  and find out what pleases the Lord.

So as Christmas draws closer I am reminded that Jesus the Light of the World has come and that gives me a real Christmas tingle.

Ten items or less

I confess – yesterday I went through the ‘Ten items or less checkout’ with twelve items. It is very unlike me to do something so terrible – as I counted the items coming through I felt terrible. No one was behind me in the queue and my faux pas was not intentional – yet I felt bad, I even though of abandoning some items.  I have mentioned before that I have an overactive conscience. Yet I have come realised that it is not that my conscience is over active, it is actually out of tune. I get bothered by the breaking of rules – especially when there can be consequences such as fines, or people looking at me badly. Yet when it comes to breaking other ‘rules’ or standards where the consequences are not so noticeable my conscience does not kick in in the same way.

It is funny how I am a stickler for the ‘ten item or less’ rules yet it doesn’t bother me so much to tell a ‘white lie’, to over indulge, to gossip. It seems that in my dysfunctional conscience the rules that can be punished as more important than the ones that disappoint God. It is a scary thought as it is precisely what Jesus realised the Pharisees were doing:

Matthew 23:2-7  “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  3  So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  4  They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.  5  “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long;  6  they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;  7  they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them “Rabbi.’

Yet God calls us to a deeper faith than just appearance. He calls us to holiness, not just good living.

1 Peter 1:14-16  As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.  15  But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;  16  for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Lord, I ask you to help me care more about what You think than about what others think. I pray that You will transform my dysfunctional conscience by Your Holy Spirit so that I will develop a true dislike of sin and a yearning for holiness.