When Moses asks to see more of God, God’s reply is ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ (Ex 33:19 TNIV). Proclamation is a key part of the gospel; Ps 22:31 TNIV says ‘They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!’ That is pretty much how I feel at the moment, longing to proclaim all that God has done, wanting to tell everyone how He has done mighty things: ‘I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone.’ (Ps 71:16 TNIV). I have seen God move in my own life in recent weeks in ways that still leave me shaking my head in wonder and smiling with that kind of rueful appreciation that is hard to describe.

Back in March, when I finally stopped wrestling with God and accepted that He had something new for me, I was really blessed by a song called ‘Ready for You’ which talked about ‘standing on the edge of something new.’ That captured exactly how I felt at the time; I blogged about it here. Since then, I have been very conscious that we need to have our arms wide open to embrace all that God wants to do in our lives and in our church, even when we are not exactly sure what that is! Recently, Kevin gave me a CD to listen to by Jesus Culture and one of the songs there also captures this idea of proclaiming all that God has done and being ready for Him to move again in our midst. May we all proclaim from the rooftops that we belong to God and commit to Him all that we have and are, being ready to embrace all that He is and all that He is doing and wants to do in us and through us.

“So I shout out Your name, from the rooftops I proclaim
That I am Yours, I am Yours
All that I am, I place into Your loving hands
And I am Yours, I am Yours

Here I am, I stand, with arms wide open
To the One, the Son, the Everlasting God.” (‘Rooftops’, Jesus Culture)
‘Rooftops’, Jesus Culture

This little gem is something I still wrestle with on an almost daily basis. I have come to see that worry is a waste of time. Jesus clearly teaches this in Matthew 6:25-34 TNIV, yet I so often need reminding of this fact. Worry doesn’t achieve anything. It doesn’t add anything to my height or contribute extra years to my life. In fact, quite the opposite. Worry and anxiety bring us into bondage and eat away at our physical, emotional and spiritual strength. There is literally nothing positive about worrying. It’s totally futile, demonstrating a shameful lack of trust in our heavenly Father’s benevolence towards us and in His ability to meet all our needs.

So why is it my default mechanism? Why do I consciously have to work against worrying? I don’t have to practise worrying! It’s not second nature to me; it’s first nature! Some of that is probably down to my personality, but certainly this is an area of my life that needs constant attention.

I can even worry when there’s nothing to worry about! I can worry incessantly about trivial things; I can fret and fume over the unimportant; I can feel sick with anxiety over the critical.

One of the things I have learnt over the years is that worry is often to do with imaginary fears and projected anxieties. I usually look on my imagination as a blessing, but there is no doubt that when it comes to worrying, imagination is more of a curse than a blessing. I have learnt, however, that worrying like this involves hypothetical scenarios and there is no such thing as hypothetical grace.

Grace is real. God’s grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor 12:9 TNIV) and He is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble (Ps 46:1 TNIV). He does not provide grace for hypothetical scenarios, however. There is no grace for the ‘what ifs?’ that keep me awake at night.

There is, however, grace when life is difficult. There is grace when we pass through the fires and the floods. There is refuge and strength when the unimaginable actually happens and we face trauma, bereavement, pain and tragedy. So one thing I have learnt is to let go of the hypothetical worries, let go of the possiblys and the maybes, and depend on God. Two verses have been particularly helpful in giving me a strategy for dealing with worry: ’When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.’ (Ps 56:3 TNIV) – something I can do consciously to deal with the fear that is at the heart of all my worry – and ‘Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.’ (Ps 9:10 TNIV) – recognising again that trust is the antidote to fear and that we have no reason to fear because God not only never has forsaken us, but never will. Another strategy for dealing with worry is laid out in Philippians 4:6-7 TNIV: ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’

If you, too, feel worried, anxious or fearful, I can only say that it’s a waste of your time to spend all your life trapped with those feelings. Choose to trust instead and you will find God faithful to provide grace, help, and a way out when it’s needed. Meditate on the faithfulness of God and worry soon doesn’t stand a chance!

’Never Once’, Matt Redman
’My Troubled Soul’, Robert Critchley

There is a song on the new Matt Redman album ‘Your Grace Finds Me’ which, when I heard it for the first time, reminded me of Joan. Joan is always enthusiastic in worship and often can’t contain her joy when God does something good, shouting ‘Yippee!’ or other such phrases. In the song, the words go ‘everybody praises the thing they love’ and ‘I’ll be praising You, my God’, but towards the end, in a style that reminds me of Irish jigs, the background vocals can clearly be heard adding ‘hey!’ at the end of these lines. That enthusiasm is so typical of Joan that it made me smile when I heard it. Such joy is infectious and surely needs to be our response to all that God does!

“One name alone I am living for,
One name my heart and my soul adore.
Be the first and the last,
Be the song that I sing.
Jesus, be my everything.” (‘One Name Alone’, Matt Redman, Jonas Myrin, Jason Ingram)
‘One Name Alone’, Matt Redman

When I first became a Christian, I read C. S. Lewis’s books ‘Mere Christianity’ and ‘Miracles’. In the latter, Lewis argues that before one can learn from the study of history whether or not any miracles have ever occurred, one must first settle the philosophical question of whether it is logically possible that miracles can occur in principle. He accuses modern historians and scientific thinkers, particularly secular Bible scholars, of begging the question against miracles, insisting that modern disbelief in miracles is a cultural bias thrust upon the historical record and is not derivable from it. I never had any trouble believing that miracles were possible, so it was relatively easy for me to believe that the miracles I read about in the Bible had actually happened. However, it was not quite so easy to believe that miracles still happened or that they could actually happen to me. Logically I knew there was no difference (same God, after all!), but it all seemed a little too surreal for me to expect.

A miracle is an event not ascribable to human power or the laws of nature and consequently attributed to a supernatural, especially divine, agency. Over the years, I have come to think I possibly placed too much emphasis on miracles in those early years, expecting God to perform them almost like a magician performing endless tricks at a show. Nonetheless, I do still believe in miracles and that they happen. I only have to come to the building on Market Street each week to see a miracle in action. How could a church with £7000 in the bank buy a building costing over £150,000? Only through the miraculous workings of God!

In my own life, too, I have seen God do things that just weren’t possible for me to do. I’ve seen Him make money stretch beyond the normal expectations of financial economics (rather like the widow’s jug of oil in 2 Kings 4:1-7 TNIV.) I’ve seen Him provide jobs in the most bizarre ways. In fact, every job I’ve ever had (four to date) has come about in ways that definitely defy human reasoning! I’ve seen Him heal people. I’ve seen so much of His miraculous power flowing from His heart of love.

Yet still I struggle to believe. I don’t find it easy to expect God to do the unexpected. I am trained in rational, Western living and can come up with countless theological reasons why God doesn’t do as many miracles as He used to! I do believe He’s there in the ordinary as well as in the extraordinary. But I know that there are times when He works in ways beyond my understanding and I’m grateful for the miracles He performs.

‘I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end,
Even when the sky is falling.
I’ve seen miracles just happen,
Silent prayers get answered,
Broken hearts become brand new.
That’s what faith can do.’ (‘What Faith Can Do’, Kutless)
‘What Faith Can Do’, Kutless

This nugget is one you’re all probably sick and tired of me going on about. I have probably blogged on the topic of surrender more than any other subject (see below). However, I’ve found over the years that whilst it’s easy enough to understand what is meant by surrender, it’s difficult to actually do this day-in, day-out.

Blog references to ‘surrender’
29 September 2013
21 July 2013
2 June 2013
14 February 2013
10 February 2013
11 January 2013
23 December 2012
29 April 2012
5 January 2012
21 December 2011
25 October 2011
27 February 2011

C.S. Lewis says, ‘As Christians, we try too hard. In fact, we fail as Christians whenever we attempt to do something under our own power and strength. It is the human condition, yet it is odd. We have available to us the power and strength from the Creator of all, yet we try and do things under our own strength. I am no different. I struggle with this daily. There is a paradox here, however, because just when you think you have successfully mastered the art of relying on God, you have fallen back into the trap. This is why Jesus said that we need to die to self daily. We must be constantly vigilant, but in being vigilant, we fall back into the trap of self-reliance again.’

We all have a tendency to want to run the show, ‘the show’ in this case being our lives. We find it hard to ‘let go and let God’. Paradox and surrender are closely linked; certainly, the key thing is that we cannot reason our way into victorious Christian living. We have to be prepared to risk it all and lose it all before we can gain anything at all.

Surrender is closely linked to paradox. Surrender is, above all, a choice we make, and one we have to make daily. The songs below reflect the ongoing importance of surrender in our worship and in our everyday, daily lives. As we surrender to God, we are effectively allowing His will to be done in our lives and are thus participating in the arrival of His kingdom on earth (Matt 6:10 TNIV).

‘Lay Me Down’, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman
‘White Flag’, Chris Tomlin
‘Live To Lose’, Aaron Shust
‘Takeover’, Aaron Shust
‘Giving You All Control’, Jeremy Camp
‘Surrender’, Jeremy Camp
‘I Surrender’, Hillsong
’Magnificent Defeat’, Wes King

At the family service, we looked at the theme of ‘passing on the baton’, subtitled ‘passing on truth in every generation and to every generation.’ We looked at Moses’s words to the people of Israel:

We also looked at his advice to the people in Deut 11:1-7 TNIV & Deut 11:18-21 TNIV. We each have a duty and responsibility to pass on the truths that God has revealed to us to those around us, who will never have the opportunity to hear the gospel if we do not share with them God’s life and light. We need to consider the questions:

Our spiritual legacy does not have to wait until we die. 2 Tim 2:2 TNIV reminds us of the role leaders have to play in passing on truth, but we all have a responsibility to ‘stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.‘ (2 Thess 2:15 TNIV) We need to value the truth and power of the Bible (see Hebrews 4:12 TNIV) so that we can be sure we are passing on truth and we need to understand that our whole lives are living letters which are read by people (see 2 Cor 3:2-3 TNIV).

Life is like a relay race. In the relay race, there is both individual effort and team effort. The handover of the baton is all-important:

We were urged to stop and consider what fundamental truths we want to pass on to those around us and to the next generation (especially our children and grandchildren.) What core beliefs are shaping our lives? What do we believe is absolutely essential for others to know of God and about us? We were all given a plastic baton to take away.

In the baton was a strip of paper. We were urged to write that ‘one thing’ which summarised all we have learnt of God and want to pass on to someone else and once we have done that, to pass the baton on to another person. In the words of the Bryn Haworth song, ‘Pass it on!’
‘Pass It On’, Bryn Haworth