Facebook Fast: Day 2

 So I am aware that I am being good, and it feels a little good....but, also, a lot more bad, because Iam struggling a little.  I am fine in a way. Able to function and not even think about it for a large percentage of the day, but the thoughts and impulses to look at my phone for notifications are still present, even though I have deleted the app, and no longer have prompts from the phone itself. It's a little like phantom limb syndrome.

I know, because I am told by just about every article on the subject, that there is a reward mechanism intrinsic to the social media habit, that when I get likes or shares or comments, there is a dopamine hit somewhere in my neural receptors, but to be honest that is, to my conscious mind, almost negligible. It doesn't really feel that good, and yet my behaviour certainly suggested there is an addiction formed by habit. I am certainly missing it, although I can't really say why.

Another little phenomena I am becoming aware of is that although I have got rid of Facebook, my mind is switching to other forms of online communication to replace it. I am, in the absence of my FB app, now looking regularly at my emails, texts and whatsapp group, ironically my life group whatsapp, which exists because we used to communicate entirely by Facebook, and so needed an alternative. But all this is to say, I'm looking for 'replacement idols', as my friend calls them. I have certainly found this in the past when fasting. My inner nature almost instantly inclines for something to replace the thing that I have given up, or am fasting from, with anything, almost anything BUT God.

I have found this with fasting too; How do you replace something with God or with a spiritual discipline? If I give up food, how does that draw me to Him?  There is of course the time one would spend eating. This could be spent in prayer. But how does it draw the heart? And with my FB habit, it's so small, in a way, a glance here, 30 seconds there (probably a hundred times a day), five minutes on the toilet, any time waiting to go into an appointment, etc. But then of course sometimes, once in a while, those 30 seconds  turn into 30 minutes and they turn, unchecked into an hour or two. How do I use this small and sometimes large chunk of time to lavish my attention on my Father, and not the demands of my fragile deflated ego, looking to be pumped up.

I have found with lent, often, because I am not following a program (but just rather giving stuff up and seeing what happens) the vacuum created by it's absence is not filled with God, and, as I have said, if anything gets filled up with other non God stuff.

So if this fast doesn't have a structure, I surely can expect more of the same. I mean right now I am writing this blog instead of getting stuck into some intimate prayer time with Father.

So back to the book. One of my friends from life group has started to send me the pages by screenshotting them, so now there is something to connect to. Although this is day two, being written on the morning of day three, the first days chapter really did have something to say to me.

This is the thing that jumped out at me:

“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.” ― C. S. Lewis

This is such a good quote and even now I am dying to post it to my Facebook. The author (Wendy) is talking about how everything is permissible but not everything being beneficial, and about God only being good (Why do you call me good, only God is good) and all goodness emanating from him. Into this we see that God has a claim on every moment, even those spent on Facebook (and those spent not being on Facebook). So I suppose for me the challenge is 'how is God claiming this moment, and what is the counterclaim, and where and how do I resist it?'

So, thanks to my friend, the book is beginning to have an impact. I just hope I can translate this into the reclamation of time and space for 'intentional devotion' rather than random distraction. 

Watch this space, I guess.

Facebook Fast: Day 1

 Yesterday was the 15th of September. The first of a forty day fast from social media, which, for me, means Facebook. I want to record my experience of this fasting here on a daily basis. Just for reflection mainly. 

I was not feeling especially challenged about social media. For me, while it has been a problem in the past, these days it feels like it has a place in my life but it feels more integrated and not that pervasive. However when I heard that some people from my church life group were going to be doing a 40 day social media fast, it was the fasting itself I felt challenged about.

I asked the Lord for a theme for 2020, back in January, and he told me that 2020 for me is about fasting and feasting. I was conscious that I hadn't yet fasted and we are in September already!

My friends are following a fast program tied in to a book launch on the subject of fasting social media, the author of which is 'Wendy Speake'.

I have had a lot of trouble trying to download the book, so initially it felt like I was just cut adrift. I knew I was fasting but wasn't sure quite why. Inevitably the light-switch moment came, in fact many of them came. Do you know what I mean by light-switch moment. It is that point in a night-time power cut where you look for candles to ease the darkness and because you cant see properly into the cupboards, you go to switch the light on. And then you remember why you need ight in the first place.

My Light switch moment was my first feeling of frustration that I couldnt look at Facebook, and then I had a few seemingly profound thoughts about my experience of being off social media that I immediately thought of posting these on Facebook, you know, about how I wasn't posting on Facebook. Clearly there is a real pull here. I think they call it virtue signaling. My dopamine hit is attention through Facebook. I found myself thinking about it many times over in the day. I knew this before. I've even fasted Facebook before, successfully for month. It really is a substitute and the hit I get has become a bit of an idol.

Old Enemies Require Old Remedies

 

Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

I have been following my church's reading pattern for a few weeks now. We started off in Marks gospel, but for the last 3 days we have been reading, one chapter a day, from the book of....(yes you've guessed it from the quote) Esther.

As I started digging around to find  some background to the story, I looked into Haman, the villain of the story, wondering why so much hatred existed in him for the Jewish people (The story is all based around his plot to annihilate the Jews)  that he would offer 10,000 talents of silver (375 tons, worth around £32, 000,000 in todays money)and found that he was possibly a little more than just profoundly peed off at Mordecai's snub, though it more than likely triggered him.

Haman was an Agagite, a descendent of Agag, the Amalekite King, killed by Samuel, after Saul Disobeyed God and spared him. The reason God was so harsh on the Amalekites? Well part of it was their history with Israel. It was the Amalekites who attacked Israel in the desert under Moses, when they were vulnerable. It was the Amalekites who were descended from Esau, Israel's (Jacobs) oldest enemy, and later on It was the Amalekites who sacked Ziklag and carried off David's wives into captivity, And here It was the Amalekite descendent Haman, trying to wipe out the Jews by manipulating the king. The enmity ran deep.

I was especially encouraged to see how the solution to defeating them had a consistent thread running through all of these encounters. The Answer is prayer.

Have a look. 

Jacob, wrestled with God all night before going to face Esau and was spared in the morning.

Moses held his arms aloft whilst Joshua fought the battle below. When he raised his arms in prayer they were winning, and when he lowered them, they were losing. They won that day.

David, after they had sacked Ziklag, prayed and encouraged himself in the Lord. He then rode out with his men's faith restored and took back what their enemy had stolen from them, and was rewarded with the spoils too!

And dear Esther, having heard what Haman had in store for her people called for 3 days of prayer and fasting and then committed herself to risking death by approaching the king uninvited.

Listen, with all of these prayers there was prayer and there was action. Pete Grieg refers to this model as breathing in prayer and breathing out mission. 

Jesus did the same thing all through his ministry, and lastly at Gethsemne, where he laid down his life for us, before he was ever betrayed to the Romans.

The Seeking of the king and the outworking of the Kingdom.  Committing yourself to God in prayer and committing yourself to God's will in the outcome. 

Once the deed was done in the prayer room, Esther surrendered to God. If I perish, I perish, she said.


Our battle, Paul reminds us, is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

If a new foe feels familiar, it's because the same spirits still seek the destruction of the people God loves, and they are still bested, on our knees, in prayer.

Bible Basher

This morning, as I came to my personal devotional time with God, I placed my bible open on the arm of the sofa, next to where I was sitting. The time being what it was, and the weather being clear, there was a beam of sunlight that passed through my patio windows and picked out the white of the pages of my bible and reflected back off them, causing a glare which later required some squinting. But glare or no, it was quite a profound image, the open bible radiating with light. I had to capture it and take a photo, and having taken it, though it did not do justice to the image,  I broke with my 'rule' that social media not take precedence in my quiet time. Posting, I used as a caption a bible verse, jut a few pages on from where it lay open.

      "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" ~Psalm 119:105

Although I had read a few Facebook posts before the quiet time I hadn't really absorbed the significance of what had happened in Washington D.C, nor had I linked how my post may potentially be misconstrued as a result. That was the reason for this blog. A sort of clarification.


What happened in Washington was that President Trump, amidst the protesters voicing their unhappiness at the recent killing of George Floyd, by a Michigan Police Officer,  left the Whitehouse, having his path forcibly cleared (reportedly with use of such tactics as rubber bullets and tear gas) and turned up on the steps at the front of St Johns Church (known sometimes as the church of the presidents) where he posed holding aloft a black leather-bound bible.

I don't really want this to be political. I consider myself non partisan in my own political leanings. I am not, having only read articles from links on social media, really in a position to comment on American politics with any authority. I've not done due dilligence or research. I don't fully understand the context.

But from what I do understand of Trump, there is a relationship with religion that is complex at best.

In the lead up to the 2016 election that saw him inaugurated as POTUS, I watched as evangelical commentators I followed, due to my own theological interests, almost entirely began to drop their opposition to him as a thoroughly unsuitable and ungodly candidate, to a grudging endorsement when he secured the Republican nomination, to, in a disturbingly large number of cases, God's chosen leader.

It's no secret that the republicans have frequently courted the religious right but few ever went as far as Trump. His stance on abortion in particular (perhaps the price for the churches endorsement of him) went further than any president before him since Roe v wade had been prepared to go. 

While the more level headed aforementioned commentators are prepared to look on him as someone God has allowed as the lesser of two evils, others seem almost to have hailed him as the chosen one. And the Evangelicals have been given a great deal of access to him, and he in turn has often played up to it.

What is the state of his heart before God? Is he regenerate? Is he like Amon Goth in Schindler's list when he is told that true power is Mercy, the ability to pardon? Playing the part he thinks others see him as?

I can't say, but I have become increasingly worried about his affiliation with Christianity, and more so by far, by the willingness of the Evangelical right to give him a 'blank cheque' whilst he makes the right noises from time to time.

The Bible which he holds aloft is the word by which he will be judged. Scripture teaches that we will have to give God account for every careless word and every action we have taken, and from those to whom more has been given, more will be required. As a leader he will be judged not only for his own actions but for those of the ones he leads.  This is why scripture instructs us to pray for our leaders. These presidential shoes are not ones I would crave to wear.

I worry for him. I worry that he is like Rishda Tarkarn in C.S. Lewis' Last Battle', who does all his evil in the name of Tash, a God he doesn't believe in and is later faced with that God.

Years ago a particularly brattish and badly behaved pop star caught my attention when he had a tattoo of the verse Ps 119:105 'Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path'. He had it on his shoulder and I remember remarking that perhaps he should have got it somewhere he could read it, rather than on his back. That Pop star was Justin Bieber. In a recent interview with Zane Lowe, he said, speaking of his rediscovery of his faith, 'I always believed in Jesus, but I didn't really understand obedience'. (paraphrase) He went on to articulate how obedience to the words in the bible had been key to his recent transformation. I think Trump needs an experience like Bieber.

Many people, preachers as well as presidents, have used the bible as a symbol to hide behind. Even proponents of racial segregation have used the bible! However they clearly weren't reading what we call 'The whole counsel of God' and they certainly weren't interpreting it through the same Holy Spirit that caused the apostle Paul, a Jew, to write;

 "There is neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28)

If such people had read and understood the scriptures they would have realised that Jesus mission was to destroy the dividing walls of hostility, reconciling us all to God, through the cross. For through him, we are told, we both (all) have access to the Father by one Spirit.

And in the same way, if we live by the sword then we die by the sword. And the word of god is living and active, sharper than a double edged sword, able to divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:3). 

It gives light to our path, if we will walk in it, but it will also be the standard used to measure us, and without the grace of God shown to us in Christ, we will all fall short. 

That thing Donald Trump holds above his head, could be the thing that falls on him and crushes him. I hope he has some true regard for it.

Voyage of The Born Trader

The Voyage of the Born Trader

When I first heard of the sad news of the sudden death of my former pastor, Bernard Thompson, just a month ago today, my mind was drawn to C S Lewis' fictional character Reepicheep.

One of the reasons it occurred to me, I think, is because he had been on a voyage, a cruise, at the time of his death. Reepicheep too left his friends story on his final voyage; The voyage of the Dawn Treader.I am not now sat next to a copy of that book, so I am left with only my sketchy memories of the story, but if any of you have read the Narnia Chronicles you may well remember The talking Narnian mouse Reepicheep, for his indomitable spirit and courageous valiant attitude. One of the reasons he was on the Voyage in the first place was because of his love of adventure.

I met Bernard when I was just 12 years old. He came to our fellowship to take on the pastorate after a devastating scandalous revelation about the previous leader had decimated us. We went almost overnight from a congregation creeping towards 200 down to just 28. This was the situation when Bernard arrived leaving his successful and thriving church in Bridgnorth, Shropshire to take on a new adventure, because he sensed God was calling him to do so.

Today we said our goodbyes to Bernard and many words have been better said, by people who knew him better. I can't really attempt to do him justice with some huge appraisal of his character or the impact he had on us all. But I have my own memories.

My relationship with Bernard was a little fraught for a period, He started his pastorate with us at the commencement of my adolescence, and henceforth my most rebellious phase, which did not help matters. He even kicked me out of church at the age of 16 for my disruptive behaviour.

But on my return 2 years later, after Jesus drew me back to faith and to fellowship after a turbulent, substance fuelled prodigal period, no-one made me more welcome than Bernard. Although my sensitivity coupled with his penchant for blunt truth-speaking (as he saw it) was sometimes a heady cocktail (Not that I imagine it troubled him much) our mutual fondness grew over the years and we both mellowed a lot, which did not hurt. He officiated at my wedding, and later my mothers funeral, and then a few years on, again at my fathers wedding. He gave his support to every venture I undertook for God, he gave me my first preaching engagement, (and a fair few subsequent ones) he sent me to the same Bible College that he himself had attended, and far more significantly, he never turned me away. He always made time for me. He always made a point of encouraging me.

But as I say, many knew him better and have said it better, but this enduring quality I saw in him was what drew me to compare him to Reepicheep; Bernard was passionate about loving God and not settling for less than what God had for him. He was ever looking forward, to the next thing the Lord had for him, to the hope to come, both in this world and in the coming Kingdom. Whenever I asked him how he was doing, he always said, almost without fail 'I'm in my prime, me!' His positivity was seemingly unbounding in this regard and he was heartily and whole heartedly convinced that the key to everything was being in the presence of God. He was a passionate pursuer of the presence of God.

 

Bernard was something of a natural when it came to bartering and getting a good deal. He collected coins and made shrewd investments and always knew a good bargain when he saw it and knew the value of a thing. One of his favourite characters (if not his actual favourite) was Jacob, who obtained the blessing and the birth right for the bargain price of a bowl of soup. I think that translated from the natural to the spiritual. Jesus tells us a few parables on this theme, the pearl of great price being one. The man, having seen the pearl, went out and sold all he had, we are told, so he could buy it. That pearl may represent the presence of God and I would be convinced that Bernard would have thought that, the price as high as it was, an absolute bargain.

Reepicheep, when the ship and it's crew decided to turn back on the return leg of the Journey, decided that he would continue his voyage, in search of Aslan's country. Earlier in the story he made his intentions clear;

“My own plans are made. While I can I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no more, If I have not reached Aslan's country...I shall sink with my nose to the Sunrise”

The last time we see Reepicheep in this story, he is courageously paddling east in his coracle, having left the Ship to return on it's own.

I saw something of that absolute commitment and determination in Bernard and his commitment to the pursuit of God, at all costs. And like Reepicheep, on his final voyage, in one sense, he did not return. In fact his whole life was a voyage and, In my eyes, he kept going, not into Aslan's country but into the precious presence he so persistently sought, this time to stay.

I am so grateful to the Lord to have known this man, and to have had the inspiration of witnessing this burning desire for God for the last 34 years, and to have been warmed by it, and to have caught some of its sparks with which to kindle my own passion.

You have fought the good fight, You have finished the race, you have kept the faith. Now there is in store for you the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award you on that day- and not only to you, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.(2 Tim 4:7-8)

Thank you Lord Jesus for your servant Bernard and for your grace to him and your grace to us in knowing him.

All glory and honour to you,

Amen

.

The Appearing (1 John 1:2)

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

 ~1 John 1:2-4~

 

 

 

The life was hidden. Not hiding, but hidden. Hidden through all of humanity's sin and drifting. Hidden thorough our spiritual blindness. Hidden by our stubbornness and pride. Hidden by the obstacles and objects of religion. But the invisible became visible. Jesus became the visual representation, the Father's exact likeness, the seen manifestation of the unseen God. He had always been present, even before everything, and he allowed himself to be hidden until exactly the right time and then he stepped out of heaven onto the stage of the world and into the pages of scriptures and further still written on the hearts of those who have encountered him. Not least of those was John and his friends, who spent 3 miraculous years in his company, eating, breathing and sleeping Jesus. The life appeared, and it was seen and those who saw testified to it.

Everything that follows in this epistle is an extension of that testimony. This they proclaim concerning the word of life and the purpose of this proclamation? That we may have fellowship with them and their fellowship is with the Father and the Son. And for us to share in this fellowship will make their joy complete! This is the nature of those that have been touched by the word of life, that they want to spread his word, and they want others to know him, for his glory and for our salvation. Nothing makes a believer happier than God's glory and sinners being saved.

It was the purpose for which Jesus came.

And this is how the pattern is to be followed.

1. He appears to us.
2. He appears in us.


Lord, by your mercy and to the glory of Jesus
Open my eyes (to see your glory) and then open my mouth (to speak of it).

Amen.

Prodigal Hearts

When I asked God this morning, in accordance with Pete Grieg's request on my daily prayer app, for a verse or a story to take with me into 2020, the impression I immediately got was of the parable of the prodigal son. I've not had time to reflect much on it yet, but I wanted to get a few thoughts down as soon as I could, if nothing other than to serve as a reminder or pointer to this story. Something that has been highlighted for me quite a bit recently is just how deep my feelings of abandonment and rejection go. I have carried, and have a propensity for carrying, what John Eldridge would call 'an orphan spirit'.

The story of 'The Prodigal' (although it is actually a story of three characters) contains two approaches to sonship. Before God gave me the story of the prodigal, in my end of year reflections, as disciplines he brought to mind feasting and fasting. Of course within the discipline of feasting is the notion of celebration, which is where the two are tied together and how God bought confirmation to me. I had thought briefly about the need to celebrate more, and then the thought of the celebration at the prodigals return came to me, which took me immediately to the older brother. Just moments before I had been being resentful (If I'm honest) about how under appreciated I have felt in certain aspects of my Christian service. The tragedy of the older brother is that he holds an orphaned spirit although he is in the closest proximity to the father. He is, as the song has it, 'standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst'.

I fear, at my worst I am the older brother.

And how much better to be the prodigal?

The prodigal is all feasting whilst the older brother is all fasting.

There is much merit in the duty of the older brother, but never without Joy. There is no pleasure in that, for us or for our father.

You are always with me, he tells the older brother, and everything I have is yours. How can we live in that and have no joy?

The challenge, dear son, should you chose to accept it, is to live in the light of that. To celebrate his presence and abundance in all things. To learn to fast and to feast as a loved son.

Yes please.

Thank you Father.