Learning to Walk

encouragement

There was a prayer meeting at church tonight.  I wasn't planning to go but upon leaving the cinema at 7.28 (it started at 7.30) jumped in a cab and made it a few minutes late.  I don't know whether it was God or me or what but I just looked up this passage.   It rang a bell inside although not quite sure why, so I thought i'd post it hear for any of you to have a read of.  Maybe it's me, maybe it's not, maybe it'll mean something to you, maybe it won't.  No matter what I think it would have been a great encouragement to the Israelites in exile and it encouraged me when I read it tonight.

Isaiah 44.

¹ "But now listen, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen.

² This is what the LORD says—he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

³ For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

⁴ They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.

break to make

I really enjoy weight training and although I never made it past week 2 of the sports science lectures I think that I know (a little) of the principles of how it works.  I think that when you weight train you actually break the muscle fibres and that they then repair stronger and bigger (not very scientific but this is my take on it atleast!)  The reason therefore that we hurt so much after weight training is that we have literally broken muscle fibres in order to make them stronger and bigger.

This morning I was trying to pray and I had a real strong sense of God saying this to me.  That he is breaking me down and that it will hurt - more than I think i've ever hurt before - but like a good weight trainer I can be safe in the knowledge that as I recover I will be stronger. 

We all go through times like this, when God 'breaks' a bit of us in order to make us stronger, and it is at these times when we most need to turn to him.  It always makes me laugh (to myself) when I'm in the gym and I see guys who are lifting silly weights with bad technique, day after day, giving themselves no time to recover and grow.  A thought for any of us as we enter these 'recovery' periods is not to 'overtrain' during them, in other words we mustn't try and take it all on ourselves.  We must simply bring ourselves before God and he will continue this good work that he has begun.

better times

Sleep having started to improve following a doubling up on the dosage of the pills I had been hopeful of a better few days.  This has, i'm glad to say, been the case - in some ways atleast - although have still struggled with motivation and getting myself 'into' the day.  The classes the last couple of days have been good (once I got to them!) and challenging, although have felt pretty wiped by the end of them.  I have also managed to secure some extra time to get on with work although one piece, a personal reflection, I am hoping to attempt a bit sooner.

This evening I had a call from a friend from Hawks and spent the evening with him, his girlfriend and another player.  It was a bit of a drag to get myself out but am glad I did.  I am so thankful to God for the way he puts good folk around at these times, a lesson for me to learn is to start to make use of these friendships and not just shut myself away.  It is hard though when you're not feeling on top form.  I worry that in new friendships a prolonged period of 'down-ness' might result in putting people off so have been steering clear of folk.  Tonight was a lesson for me that I don't have to do this.  I have a busy day tomorrow, refereeing in the morning and then playing some (hopefully short) part in the 2nds match in the afternoon.  Following the double dose of the sleeping pills I have now run out so will be praying for good sleep and that I will wake up in a better frame of mind than of late.

holocaust remembrance day

Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps.  The figure of over 11,000,000 people killed during the holocaust speaks for itself.

Something like this could surely never happen again?

In 1994 the world sat by and witnessed the massacre of almost 1,000,000 Hutus by Tutsis in Rwanda. As In Nazi Germany, where elements within the church supported the Nazis, in Rwanda Christian leaders were involved in the genocide.

That events so terrible that words become inadequate could even happen leads many to question God’s very existence.  As followers of Jesus our answers will never be deemed as satisfactory by those who do not believe and may seem wholly unacceptable even to us.  The fact is however that suffering exists within this fallen world and it is something that in one way or another we will all experience or at the very least witness at some time.  In times of suffering, although it is easier said than done, we need to try and hold onto these words, found written on a cellar wall where Jews were hidden from the Nazis.

“I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when I do not feel it. I believe in God even when God is silent.”

Finally as his followers, using him as our role model, we should copy Jesus’ revolutionary example of speaking out against wrongs and helping those in need, remembering that to love our neighbour as our self means speaking up in times when we would hope that they would do the same for us and not falling into the trap that Pastor Martin Niemoller, the leader of the church in opposition to the Nazis, so eloquently describes.

“First they came for the communists.  And I did not speak out because I was not a communist.  Then they came for the socialists.  And I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists.  And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Jews.  And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

a poem

Not a great day so thought I'd share one of my favourite poems with you.  I didn't write it which I'm sure will come as no surprise to those of you who know me, as my artistic skills are comparable to my dancing ability.

I will follow

It's easy to follow when you know you're off to somewhere good.  But what happens when 'follow my leader' stops being a game and starts getting serious?  This is no child's play, no idle journey.  Stop:  look around you;  savour the sights and smells of a strange, new land.  There's no going back now.

It's hard to leave it all behind - the comforts of home, the old familiar landmarks, the safety of the womb.  But there's a whole new world out there,  a new langueage to learn, fresh perspectives to discover.  You learn, perhaps, by unlearning; growing, sometimes by subtraction, into the light, fashioned in anothers image.

It's easy to wonder why - why you embarked on this whole damn thing in the first place.  But remember that first fush of excitement, that first moment of falling in love?  It hurled you into another dimension, and in your heart, you know this love is real.

Where to?  Who knows?  The path is narrow, and you have no A to Zen.  Instead, you've an A to Omega, the guide of guides, the ultimate travelling companion:  a lamp to your feet, a light to your path.

On this journey, I have learned to be humble.  Why?  Because, although I'm on the Way, further down the road than I was, this is still a journey:  and I haven't yet arrived.

(way to go  Eddie Gibbs  2003  InterVarsity Press)

Keep on walking.

yes or no?

One of the hardest things I find is knowing when to say yes and when to say no to doing things for people.  In some cases the answer is pretty clear cut - "Nick, I'd really like it if you jumped under that bus"..."er, no!" - but in others it isn't so.  Today I was asked to do something which at first thought I didn't feel I could do so I said no.  However having thought a bit about it I can make it so will!  Atleast my Myers-Briggs result lists one of my attributes as spontaneity so it shouldn't overly surprise them when I turn up after all!

On a more serious note however I think it is important to be able to say no.  I sometimes think that an inability to say "no" is something that believers struggle with.  On the one hand for fear that not doing things for people will make us a "bad witness" to non-believing friends, and on the other hand for how it makes us feel when we see beievers who can seemingly do everything and never grow weary (they can't by the way).  Learning when to say "yes" and when to say "no" is one of the most important lessons going and is something that I am constantly (or as often as I pray atleast) asking for God's help with.

fit or fat?!

On my last sunday at the 'Meadow' before moving to Glasgow I was speaking from Matthew 7.  I felt that God was challenging us as his followers to be 'fit' Christians as after all even a 'fat' person (metaphorically speaking of course) can fit through the wide gate and navigate the "easy" road.  My concluding line went something like, "So will you be a fit Christian or a fat Christian?"  At this a young girl in the congregation whispered to her mother, "Mummy, he's a fat Christian!"

The reason I mention this is that having, for various reasons, not done any form of exercise for the last 6 weeks (terrible I know...does golf count as exercise?) I have decided to start riding into college.  This morning as I made what should be a gentle ride in to the city centre I thought back to that Sunday morning.  Yes Imogen, you are quite right...I am a fat Christian!  To take up the spiritual side of this metaphor I think I have also put weight on over the last month or so, but I am still trying to keep in shape.  Sometimes I think it's just a case of putting yourself before God and letting him know, in whatever way you can manage, that you are there and that you want to follow him, and then letting him do the rest.

On the sport side of things I might try going training tonight at the Hawks, having not been for 6 weeks.  I'm not sure how the old body will hold up!  It'll certainly be a few more weeks before this man is seen on the pitch again!

sleep

Why is it that when you really need to sleep you can't?!  I have been wrestling with this question for a while now.  Circumstances have somehow led to me not being able to sleep but it is at times like this when sleep is most needed.  Times of general crapiness are when we most need the energy that a good nights sleep would bring.  I tend to find that praying late at night is a sure fire way of getting to sleep but when you're worrying about the fact that it's only a few hours until 'The Gospels and Acts' as well as the fact that you can't sleep anyway it seems harder to pray.  I'm finding that a lot of my praying has to be pretty disciplined at the moment, prayers I know off by heart from childhood are particularly useful as is the Lord's Prayer.

With this in mind I paid a visit to the doctors last week.  The doctor was most helpful, unfortunately the reception staff were not.  I was made (not for the first time at that surgery) to feel like a criminal for wanting an appointment and as though the last thing in the world the lady on the other end of the line wanted to do was talk to me.   An example from my previous life in sport.  As a group of players we would always attempt to sign autographs (yes hard to believe anyone would ever want mine!) as often as possible remembering that whilst for us (not normally me!) it may have been the zillionth of the day for the kid asking it was their first.  If only the lady on the other end of the phone could have had something like that in mind.  Something for us to remember at times i'm sure.

Anyway the doc gave me some sleeping tablets, just ten though so you don't get addicted...yeh right.  To get addicted I would have to know i'd taken something!  I think on my return visit I may have to request the cattle size pills!  Oh well back to counting sheep...or was that cows?!

therapy

A church friend was telling me how she gains great relief in putting down how she's feeling, thoughts/fears/desires - call them what you may, in an e mail and sending it off to a friend who reads over it.  Simple as that.  Having been a long time admirer (from a distance) of blogging I thought I would take her advice, or atleast in part, and launch myself into the www. world of Weblogs.  It will be my aim to remain honest at all times, firm minded yet warm hearted, as I present the views on life of a young follower of Jesus, who day by day, amongst sometimes trying circumstances, attempts to deal with those (sometimes not so) little problems that life throws up.  I hope that for someone out there this can be a help, as I know it will be to me.

Learning to 'walk' isn't easy but it does require one foot in front of the other even when we don't feel like it...