There is much in life that is a mystery to me. How electricity works. How a computer works. How pretty much anything mechanical works. How I put two socks into a washing machine and only one seems to come out. How no matter how many lists I write, I still manage to forget the one thing I really went into the supermarket for!

And that’s only the things which are not, in reality, that mysterious. I have absolutely no idea how the earth turns on its axis (I’m not awfully sure I even know what those words mean) or how a rabbit knows by instinct how to hop and burrow. (Thumper is all set for the great escape from his outdoor cage, showing more ingenuity than I possess, despite ‘only’ being a rabbit.) Even the things which some people can understand and explain are a mystery to me.

To be honest, I’ve learned to live with mystery. I’ve had to. There is simply so much about this world that I don’t understand. I’ve had to learn to accept that some things simply are, whether I understand them or not. In Maxine Kumin’s words, ‘I put down roots and I put up leaf.‘ I don’t understand how growth comes even in the natural world, but perhaps it’s not as complicated as I think. Perhaps it is a mystery, but not one I’m meant to fathom, simply one I’m meant to embrace. Perhaps life is not so much a mystery to be solved in the way I like to work out ‘whodunnit’ in the crime mysteries I love, but a mystery to be embraced.

‘When the Father longed to show
The love He wanted us to know
He sent His only Son and so
Became a holy embryo

That is the Mystery
More than you can see
Give up on your pondering
And fall down on your knees

A fiction that’s fantastic and wild –
A mother made by her own child!
A hopeless babe who cried
Was God Incarnate and man deified.

Because the fall did devastate,
Creator must now recreate,
So to take our sin
Was made like us so we could be like him.’ (‘To The Mystery’, Michael Card)

I can never fathom how God did this, but I can certainly embrace the reality of salvation.

Our first area of maintenance has to be our relationship with God. This requires us to pray, communicating and spending time with God. We need to read the Bible in order to understand what God reveals of Himself and of life; we need to memorise this word too so that it becomes embedded in our lives, for the Bible reveals what God is like and shows us what we should do. It encourages faith and inspires us. Nothing is more crucial to spiritual growth than developing our personal relationship with God.

We need also, however, to maintain our relationship with other people. We are all created to be relational people; we have a need for fellowship and interaction, no matter how introverted we may be! This interaction involves give and take. We can learn much from other people, including different perspectives on life, and can learn from the more experienced and learn from the mistakes and failures of others as well as from their successes. We have a responsibility to pass on what we have learned and to pray with and for each other. Church is not about a hierarchy (starting at the bottom and working our way ‘up’ to ‘important’ roles); it is about growing into a family, knowing we are loved and secure in that relationship.

In 2 Timothy, we see how Paul mentored Timothy, a young man who accompanied him on missionary trips and was left to look after churches in Ephesus. The letter, probably the last Paul wrote, was intended to encourage Timothy in his ministry. Paul reminds Timothy to ‘fan into flame the gift of God’ (2 Tim 1:6) – reminding him that he had a personal responsibility to maintain his faith. Matt 25:14-30 shows us that God gives gifts to all of us and we are expected to make good use of these gifts. Rewards and punishments were given according to the faithfulness or lack of faithfulness shown by the stewards. We need to take seriously the gifts God has given us and develop these. We need also to make the most of every opportunity we have (see Mk 9:41, Rom 12:4-8) and understand that a wide range of gifts are given (so often, we think of ‘spiritual gifts’ as prophecy or teaching, but Paul includes service and encouragement in his list of spiritual gifts, things we often disregard as being unimportant.)

If God has blessed us with sensitivity, we must learn to come alongside others and share and encourage people. If God has blessed us with wealth, we must learn to give well. Whatever gifts we have received need to be nurtured and used. If we despise these gifts, we will not use them, but will allow them to become dormant or to stagnate. God wants us to maintain and use what He has given us so that we are built up and the church too is strengthened, comforted and encouraged.

Maintenance (the process of preserving a condition, situation or state) is an inevitable requirement in life, for things naturally deteriorate and wear out and need to be maintained if they are to be preserved (the evolutionary theory that things naturally improve or develop is not borne out in practice!) Having a garden is evidence that constant maintenance is needed; without pruning, weeding and maintenance, the garden soon becomes an overgrown jungle! Cars and motorbikes need servicing and maintenance to prevent problems developing.

God wants us to maintain a steady course in pursuit of Him; Paul says in Gal 2:14 that he had to confront Peter and the others because they were ‘not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the message.’ In maintenance, there is a ‘power of three’ at work: God, other people and ourselves.

God starts this process, but does not leave us alone to flounder on the way. Jn 14:15-20 reminds us that He has left His Holy Spirit for ever; His Spirit takes up residence in believers (see Eph 1:13-14) and God does not leave us as orphans. An orphan has lost their closest supporter and a vital family connection, but Jesus promises we will not be left adrift to manage on our own.

Other people are vital to our spiritual growth also. If we cut ourselves off from church, we are making life immeasurably more difficult than God wants it to be.Words from other Christians can encourage and help us (see Acts 15:32); God has given the gift of encouragement to help us (see Rom 12:8, 2 Cor 13:11), but we are all encouraged to encourage, to be sensitive to each other!

We have a responsibility for our own spiritual walk, however, just as we have a responsibility towards our vehicles (ensuring they have an annual MOT if required, for example) and our gardens! Phil 2:12 reminds us that we have to ‘work out’ our salvation with fear and trembling, making something of the gifts and talents and life God has given us. Sometimes this will mean ‘unlearning’ things that we have wrongly learned, being willing to change and develop. At all times, it means sifting our behaviour and aligning ourselves with God’s Word.

Phil Wickham’s song ‘The Ascension’ looks at our journey towards God:

‘Let us start the ascension
Let’s begin the climb
Up this holy mountain
Where Your glory shines
Further up, further in
Just to be with You again.’ (‘The Ascension,’ Phil Wickham)
He goes on to give us clues as to how we make this journey:

‘We’re fixing our eyes on glory and fire

Your name is branded on our hearts

You are the source of all we desire

Nothing can hold us back;

We’re running to where You are.’ (‘The Ascension’, Phil Wickham)

All of us are on a journey towards God. Some of us may have just started the journey; some of us may be nearing the end of that journey. None of us really knows how close we are to seeing God face to face; none of us know what the future holds.

It’s easy to get bogged down during the journey, to focus on non-essentials, to major on minors. Today, God wants us to fix our eyes on glory and fire. He wants us to rest in Him as the source of all we desire. He wants us to ‘fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’ (2 Cor 4:18) He wants us to praise Him, to lift up our hands in the sanctuary and to bless the Maker of heaven and earth, and as we do that, there will be blessings poured out from heaven. ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’ (Eph 1:3) It’s not all about future blessing; there are also blessings from God for today. James says ‘Come near to God and he will come near to you.’ (James 4:8) Come near. Praise God. Lift your hands. Let God satisfy you. Nothing else can.

Ps 134 ends with a prayer: ‘may the Lord bless you from Zion, He who is the Maker of heaven and earth.’ (Ps 134:3)

The phrase ‘Maker of heaven and earth’ occurs 6 times in the Old Testament, twice more in these psalms of ascent (Ps 121:2, Ps 124:8) It’s a reminder of God’s awesome power in creation (see also Jn 1:3, Col 1:16, Heb 1:3) Every time we are reminded of God’s power in this way, we are also reminded that this affects us personally. Because God is the Maker of heaven and earth, we can be blessed. Because God is the Maker of heaven and earth, we can be helped. Because God is the Maker of heaven and earth, He is faithful. (Ps 146:6) The most explicit connection between who God is as Creator and how this affects us is found in Is 51:12-13.

We have confidence ultimately of help and blessing and faithfulness and comfort because of who God is. We can praise God and bless Him because He is the all-powerful One who rules and reigns. Isaiah asks us in Is 40:28, ‘Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.’ Because of who God is, we are given strength and enabled to soar on eagles’ wings. Because of who God is, we can have hope, even in hopeless situations. Because of who God is, we can turn our backs on despair. That’s why, no matter what our circumstances, no matter how difficult the trials are, we can carry on. The old chorus says:

‘Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know, I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living just because He lives.’ (Bill Gaither)

Praise will always be our response when we see God. He’ll always be more than enough. His blessings will always enrich us. He is the God who stoops down to wash our dusty feet (John 13:1-17) and as we see how much He blesses us, we realise that He will never short-change us or sell us short and our response to that is praise.

Praise is not an automatic reaction, however; it’s a choice (we are ‘made to worship’, but this involves a choice to believe God over our feelings: see ‘Made To Worship’ by Chris Tomlin.) Many find this concept hard to grasp. They believe it’s hypocritical to praise God when you’re feeling cross, hurt or just indifferent. They believe you have to feel like praising God before you praise Him.

The world has a saying ‘fake it until you make it’ which reminds us that feelings follow action, however; they don’t have to precede it.

Ps 134’s command, its antidote to feelings-led response, is ‘Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.’ (Ps 134:2) Eugene Peterson reminds us that, for most of us, ‘you can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; it is a simple motor movement.’ (‘The Journey’, P 176) The Levites had a professional job to do in leading worship through the watches of the night when tiredness and staleness often have a habit of making us feel our worship is sluggish. The practical command to lift hands reminds us that praising God is not all about feelings (Humphrey Bogart once defined a professional as a person who ‘did a better job when he didn’t feel like it’); it’s about a determination and choice to remember who God is and what He has done and to speak well of these things.

Praising God is easy when we start to ‘count our blessings.’ We begin by speaking (or singing) out truths we know about God. We focus on His character and His actions and we pause to remember and declare. The more we do this, the more we find to say and sing! God’s will is for us to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess 5:18) and even to give thanks for everything (Eph 5:20), for we know He is sovereign over all and working all things together for good. (Rom 8:28)

As we choose to believe that and lift up our hands, as we choose to praise no matter what our feelings, we will find that feelings follow faith, rather than the other way around.