I Never Loved a Woman

 You know I never loved a woman,

Though I think I thought I did,

Never a woman, or her real feelings,

Whatever she revealed, or she hid.

Oh, you know, I was romantic,

Or at least romantically inclined,

I'd spend sequential hours of a day,

Imagining us romantically entwined,

I'd imagine my fingers,

Running through her auburn/blonde/black hair, 

And gaze into her blue/green/brown eyes,

Romantically loosing myself there,

I imagined her skin smelt of freedom,

And her lips tasted of yesterdays wine,

And her voice would only seductively whisper,

In my ears, then my fears would begin to decline,

Oh and secretly we longed for each other,

Saw in each other, what nobody else did,

But you know, I've never loved a woman,

Whatever was revealed or was hid,

You know a woman was for me a far away country,

Somewhere I could never go,

So I dreamed of those women in safety,

Golden dreams with unlosable glow,

In my dreams those women were promise,

A promise of love yet unsung,

A promise of love, that could not disappoint,

Because it would never come,

And a promise is better than the purchase,

Because unattained it wont fail the test,

And it offers much more,

When it stays before,

And is never the aftermath of the mess,

Oh I have loved a few women, 

I have loved their warmth and their care,

But to the ideal of the idolatry

They could never compare,

Maybe I loved the idea of them,

And loved them a little less than enough,

But pedestals are for putting on,

And then for pushing off,

 You know I never loved a woman

Though I think I thought I did,

Never a woman, or her real feelings,

Whatever she revealed, or she hid,

You know I never loved a woman,

Whatever she would reveal,

I'm sorry for my snake like retreat,

It all got a little too real,

Poison

 If you have ever met me, you'll be in no doubt that I love food. That is not so say that I am a food lover in any elitist or refined sense. It's more about a 'lack of fussiness' when it comes to eating. Sure, there are foods I am not so keen on, such as the evil and falsely lauded aubergine, which, whilst on the outside having a very pleasing colour, on the inside has the texture of a squashed slug scraped off the pavement, but in general I'll eat what is in front of me, and on occasion what is in front of you too! (As a note here for American readers Aubergine = Eggplant and pavement =sidewalk).

In earnest I can't understand how anyone would not love food. I have met a few people who either (So they claimed) didn't really care about food, or those who weren't bothered about films, or some even music!? (And after God and people, that is just about all I live for. Ok, I admit it. I stuck people in there to sound like a good Christian. ) Such people are an anathema to me.

What I really mean by 'I love food', is, I am fat. Now I am fat for a number of reasons. The ones you should know about are that, although I am now well into my forties, I was a skinny kid and I still eat like one. The other is that along with my slowing metabolism and accelerating weight gain came an increased inactivity, and the compounding factor is that when you see this cycle and look at yourself in the mirror, one result for some people is to lose all motivation. I have been guilty of being such a person.

And so recently due to some health concerns and for some spiritual purposes, I came, this January to give up sugar, completely, for 40 days. And along with sugar came bread. 

Now this is not a diet blog but a spiritual one, attempting to explore scriptural themes and social realities from a bible based Jesus-centric position. My goodness I like to be grandiose, don't I?!

So all you need to know about my sojourn in the sugar free wilderness is that it went well, and I lost a little weight. I prayed through it, and throughout the whole thing, but not excessively.

I noticed that I did not appear to suffer from any of the withdrawals that the book I was following described and I didn't feel in myself much different, and as, despite my generous appetite and love of chocolate, I've never had a particularly sweet tooth (I love sweet AND savoury equally) I almost began to dismiss this as simply an exercise of willpower and an aid to weight loss.

It was only on re-entering the sugar orbit on the backend of the 40 days that I began to realise the truth of those early observations. On Friday night I indulged in Pizza followed by ice cream. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I was expecting given the lengthy anticipation. But on Saturday morning I woke up with symptoms akin to an alcohol hangover. And since then, I have been having digestive issues, headaches , mood swings and a lack of energy.

The thing is, on its way out sugar's side-effects had almost been undetectable as they gradually went. But on its way back, it was like I'd taken a drug or some poison.

Now, at no point previous to this in my whole life have I been without sugar for longer than perhaps  24 hours. I say this because also, at no point in my conscious life have I ever know what it was to be sugar free. As Joni Mitchel sang 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone', and now that cleanness was disappearing, I felt it's loss, keenly.

The reason for this blog, and for my slightly alarming title 'Poison', is this. People who preach the evils of sugar will tell you that (refined) sugar is basically both a drug and a poison. As my self description will have divulged, I am not someone usually obsessed with (or even interested in, if I am honest), health and dietary issues, but a part of me was curious to see what sort of effects this sugar free life would bring out in my body. But  the result is now that I feel as though I were poisoned all my life, but haven't really known it. How could I have? I was steeped in the stuff from before I could even walk.

  

     "I feel as though I were poisoned all my life, but haven't really known it"

Now this is where we leave the diet stuff behind, unless it is for the purposes of metaphor or illustration.

The point is, I was poisoned, but I didn't even know it. People talked about it but I did not see any need to worry. I was, on the whole alright, and besides, this was just how I was. Sure I don't sleep well, and have mood swings and dodgy guts, but that's just me. There were other reasons for those things.

And I am convinced, that we as Christians in a secular, liberal society, especially those of us who were born into it, have never know anything else. This is just how it is. The level of tolerance and ignorance of evil is so engrained.

The analogy of boiling frogs springs to mind. All my life the water temperature has been rising slowly and at a steady pace and it is about to turn critically hot but it may be too late for us. 

It is that we are unaware of the temperature, ignorant of any other life lived than the ones we live with the effects of the toxins we are spoon fed on a daily basis. We just have no clue.

Many Christians have seen the documentary 'Sheep Among Wolves' where an Iranian Christian woman comes to live in the west and at one point finds herself wanting to return to Iran with all its persecution because she identifies that it as if we are under a satanic lullaby that has lulled us all to sleep.

And how do you wake yourself up, if you are asleep? You need someone who is already awake to  shake you!

I'd like to give you insights into the culture and tell you what the poison consists of, and I am sure I could have a stab at a few things. In fact I could reel off a huge list of things that we have accepted over and in our lives that are evidence of our being at home with the toxin.

My late mother could not stand to watch anything with Blasphemy in. She could just about tolerate 'Oh My God' but if someone said 'Jesus Christ' as a curse, she would wince the first time and turn it off the second time. Now I can see signs of my mother's own poisoning, but she was way more switched on than I ever was to this. I don't like it when I hear it, but I have literally never turned off a film because of blasphemous language. And I am well aware that if I did, I would possibly lose about 85% of the things I watch for entertainment. And that includes things that would otherwise seem innocuous.

Now I know Christians, both of the older generation than myself and my contemporaries who will be more selective about their viewing choices on the basis of their faith, but I know many, many more who are not.

Don't get me wrong. I am not about to launch a Mary Whitehouse style campaign to clean the stream up. And I am not suggesting puritanical denouncement of blasphemy, book burnings or boycotts or pickets etc. It isn't anything I had in my mind until I searched it just now for an example of the kind of thing which is indicative of our unconscious poisoning, but hear me out. This is how we react to the denigration of the name of our God who we claim to love, (the one we proclaim hallowed every time we pray the Lords prayer), and the name of our saviour (whose name we proclaim higher than any other name) get this....FOR OUR ENTERTAIMENT! We are Christians and we feel no shame for this, nor fear either.

If you do, I salute you, but I speak to those who are like me.

So there you go. I have just plunged the knife in randomly to a piece of our culture to see what the cake's layers will reveal. And I could easily pick on something else within our tolerance zones. Gluttony, vanity, greed, sexual immorality. And so much, more. But I won't right now. I will just leave 3 questions. 

What poison have you been unwittingly ingesting, and what would God have you do about it? What would you have God do about it?

Hey, lent starts tomorrow. What do you say....?

Are You Cold?

 At the outset of this piece let me say, I have not nor should I (or anyone else) ever set aside the grace of God, but I feel, for a moment, at least conceptually, we must. I will return to it, but if the concept of grace has become an excuse, it is not serving us well. A true understanding of grace will never allow for it to become an excuse. In reality grace underpins everything and makes it possible for us to enter into a loving relationship with a Holy and sinless God, but grace is a means and not an end. The end, after the glory of God is holiness, and grace the means through which we arrive there. Not by our merit or righteousness, but by his mercy and grace.

So (the concept of) grace being set aside, let's begin.

The words of Jesus from Revelation 3 struck me again recently and with some force. I am not one on whom these words have yet done their work, so my comments come very much from the trenches and I say them with empathy and identification. I don't believe the evidence of what I have seen around me indicates that we truly believe them. 

He said:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!~ Rev 3:15

 

The intrinsic problem is this. We see lukewarm as preferable. We see lukewarm as superior to cold. We see lukewarm as a step along the way to hot. But we are not listening. 

Jesus would prefer it if you were cold.

Have we really let that sink in?

The lie is that there is an in-between middle ground with Jesus-following. But he clearly told us, whoever seeks to come after me, let them lay down their lives.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?~ Matt 16:24-25

Someone who has determined to lay down their life, to lose their lives whether inch by inch in the daily denying, or the all-in-one leap of martyrdom is never going to be described as lukewarm. This is why Jesus gives us the warnings about counting the cost before we embark on the journey (Luke 14:25-33) and listen to the caveats; 

• If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
• And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
• In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

Is Jesus describing anyone who could be described as lukewarm? What do you think? And the option he leaves for those opposed to these choices is that they cannot be my disciple.

Did we not notice how Jesus the evangelist did almost everything to put (certain) people off, rather than make it easy by appealing to their love of comfort and happiness?

And we allow ourselves to believe that in our compromise of staying lukewarm, we are at least on the journey, but we have forgotten where the starting point is. It's hot. And we then allow ourselves to believe the change is round the corner whilst enabling ourselves to stay in our sins and idolatries. 

Why would Jesus rather you were cold?

Because then at least you would be being honest, and you would not be deceived. You are in more danger than you realise.

And a lukewarm disciple is a false advert for Christ. It is used to spread the lies and misconceptions. It misrepresents and becomes a tool of the enemy.

How many of you know that when you have tried to ramp up your commitment that the devil suddenly went on the offensive?  Why was he so quiet before? Because you weren't a threat in your slumbered state. He was as happy with your tepid temperature as Jesus was displeased.

I don't need to push this with you. I am already falling under conviction myself and I have only scratched the surface.

I can't emphasise grace enough. There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus but we are told also by John;

No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.~ 1John 3:6

Now we can take comfort from John too, as he previously said, whoever claims to be without sin deceives himself and the truth is not in him. This is comforting because there is an acknowledgement of our weakness. John is saying, everyone has sin in them. This in itself is not the evidence of our lukewarm state. But there are remedies for our sin, and as his children we are not settled in it, not happy to continue in it. Going forward though;

• But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)
• If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (v9)
• This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.(1 John 3:19-20)

Clearly we weren't expected to happily live with our sinful weakness indefinitely and excuse it forever. Grace is a treatment program that enables us to tackle our sin, whilst united with a holy God, but it was never supposed to make us comfortable to simply surrender our holiness or postpone or procrastinate and otherwise put off our transformation. Paul starts with the idea 'I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loves me and gave himself for me'.

So grace gives me confidence that this is possible, but Jesus' words challenge me to the core. Would I be spat out? Spewed up? Do I want to cause Jesus to gag and puke?

So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.~ Rev 3:16-18

We see the solution. It is to come to Jesus and exchange our riches for his remedy . Always to come to Jesus. We could take this as condemnation but it isn't. The rebuke itself is a grace if it causes a change in us.  

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. ~19

 

Have we heard his voice today? We mustn't harden our hearts. The invitation that we so often give out to the unchurched really applies to us...

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. ~v20

DONT TAP OUT

The subject of wrestling has come up for me about three times in the last week or so. Specifically Jacob wrestling with God.

There are many pictures in scripture of what the life of a Christian is to look like with allusions to us being like soldiers, or runners, or perhaps farmers. Some interesting wording in the the questions for a Life-group study this week described us as 'wrestlers'. The way the word wrestlers was used (in the context of the Jacob story) was meant to refer to us as ones who had to struggle but it conjured images in my mind instantly of all my Life-group mates as WWF style wrestlers. And, although it (sort of) worked for Big Daddy (all the current cultural references) no one want's to see me in a tight fitting wrestling costume, I can assure you!

Now we are told that Jacob wrestled with God. He was slightly mismatched.

I once picked a fight with a boy at our secondary school who had been picking on my younger brother. Yes the boy was a bully and had a reputation as a bit of a, what we used to call 'hard nut', but he was in the year below me, so I thought that would even things out a bit. I found out later that the boy's father was a boxing coach and that he had been in the ring training with his brothers since the age of 4. If I knew that I dare say I wouldn't have started this fight.

Anyway, after about 15 minutes of getting hit in the face by this guy, remarkably I was still standing. I say 'still' but that's not strictly accurate. Every 2 minutes or so I had to keep getting up so I could let him hit me some more. I was bloodied, beaten and clinging on to my attacker for support.

'I'm not giving up' I told him. 'No way'. He looked at me in disgust. 'You're pathetic, he said, 'I can't be bothered with you'. He turned to his friend and started to walk away.

I was left there, swaying unsteadily on my feet and I called out to him as he left, 'So it's a draw then?!' He carried on walking and as he turned the corner I shouted after him 'I DIDNT GIVE UP!'

Now it is an overstatement for me to say I didn't lose that fight, because clearly I lost. But, in a way, I won. It may have only been a moral victory, but I doubt he's telling the story about it 33 years later.

Jacob was similarly outgunned. But he hung in there.

When we go through trials with the things that test our faith, so often we give up when it gets hard, and go and take some solace in some substance or sin or other, because it's too hard.

Like the question 'why', for example. That question, in the ring, is a stone cold Badass. It is hard as nails, unyielding as anything and it doles out punishment like it's giving out sweets to kids at Christmas. Some advice I've been hearing a lot in this season is to abandon the question 'why' and start asking the question 'where'. Not 'why am I going through this', but 'where are you in this, God?'

When you are wrestling and some hold or move isn't working, you switch it up and try a different approach. 'Why?' is just gonna keep slamming your head on the canvas.

And when we tap out, or give up too early, all we've been through is for nothing.

And the scriptures tell us that Jacob overpowered the entity he was fighting with. Got him in a choke hold, as it were. But I think the reality is more like that time my bloodied sorry form was clinging on to that boxer kid and saying 'I'm not giving up'. Jacob said, 'I won't let you go until you bless me'. Right there is the character being formed.

We are told in Romans 5: 3-4

we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And here it is. He is suffering but he perseveres, and before our eyes, out of the perseverance, in the not giving up, character is born. Character that sets you up for any further struggles, and in that there is hope, especially as Christians, who have the love of God in us, by the Holy Spirit, hope does not put us to shame. But if we tap out early.... guess what? No perseverance, no character and no hope. Just a licking of the wounds, a medication for the pain of disappointment with some substance, or sin or some replacement idol and ultimately, no hope.

And God, who was Jacobs opponent, was he really overcome? Look, he has the power to bless Jacob at any point. Even after the struggle is over, he simply touches Jacob's hip and puts it out of joint. This wrestling, is a picture of God's restraint. It is purely for Jacob's good, though he doesn't know it yet, and in our struggles too, can't we say, without being glib or dismissive of the pain, in all things he is working for the good of  those that love him and are called according to his purposes.

So stay in the fight. Change your approach, and maybe consider getting yourself a half decent tag-team who can take the pressure off you for a while. But stay in and say 'So it's a draw then?!'