Be Still And Know

Psalm 103:1-5 NLT 'Let all that I am praise the Lord; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!' It is very easy to bless God with only a certain percentage of my “heart”. Much of the rest of it is distracted by a series of less profound anxieties and desires. Who hasn’t realised part way through a time devoted to God, that actually their mind has strayed and in fact the past minutes have actually been occupied by their own thoughts and worries? In some ways, this can be identified as prayers, yet not prayers that are consciously being brought to God. I certainly don’t criticise myself in such circumstances, yet I have learned that to bless God “with my whole heart” is something else, and learned practice. When it comes to cons

Philippians 2:10-11 NLT '…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' You may know that the word “blessing” means “happy”, as in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet, it has its roots in the idea of blood sacrifice from Proto-Germanic roots, as well as it’s Hebrew meaning of “to bow the knee”. As such, it is highly appropriate as we respond to God’s blessing with an act of humble acknowledgement of God’s authority. When entering or leaving the House of Commons, MPs face the mace, the sign of Parliament’s authority, and bow their heads. They are acknowledging the constitutional monarch’s authority under which Parliament officially meets. When the mace is removed by the sergeant-at-arms, whose role it is to maintain order in the Commons under the direction of the Speaker, then Parliament is no longer able to act as a legislative body. It is why we bless God, for we have no authority, indeed n

Psalm 63:6-8 NLT 'I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your strong right hand holds me securely.' It is easy to agree with the sentiment that God is “my helper”. However, my submission to God leads me into contexts I would never have chosen for myself. Yet, God remains my friend, and friends stick with us through thick and thin. This has taken me years to fully appreciate, and even longer to relax into. Is it a resignation of responsibility to quote Romans 8:28: “…all things work together for good, for those who are called according to [God’s] purpose” (ESV)? Or am I merely trying to put a brave face on challenging circumstances? I believe Paul wrote those words in recognition of the reality that God is always on our side. I face the challenge of first agreeing with that statement and then going in search of God to find grace, no matter my situation. So, as I have aged, and hopefully matured (fo

Psalm 63:4-5 NLT 'I will praise you for as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you with songs of joy.' Last autumn I woke one day with a sensation of being bathed in love. I felt a rich and deep inner contentment and well-being. I knew I was with God and this was God’s love. I lay in bed, a smile in my heart, which was reflected on my face. I prayed with hands uplifted. I was deeply satisfied and I took those waking minutes fully to enjoy this state of grace. I always pray, albeit briefly, as my head hits the pillow. I am fortunate in that I quickly fall asleep each night. I want to remind myself of the presence of God with me at all times. It was as though this acknowledgement of both my desire and need for God expressed in prayer even as I entered sleep continued throughout the night. As I woke the next day, not only had I found God without being conscious, but God had found me. We were united and all I could do was give thanks, pra

Psalm 63:3 NLT 'Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!' Knowing myself has helped immensely in developing my appreciation of God. Knowing my strengths and weaknesses means I can develop skills to avoid the worst excesses of my character, which otherwise might prove self-destructive. How we approach God and the world will shape our experience of God. You and I are each created in a unique way, although we share some common characteristics with others. We can be confident that God knows us very well (Psalm 139). What we need to appreciate is that in finding ourselves and making friends with the person we are, we can then explore finding God, relaxed and confident in our own skin. When I don’t know myself, the danger is that God becomes something of a life raft I expect to carry me away from the sinking wreck of my own personhood. When that fails to happen, I will most naturally blame and reject God. We are not offered an escape from the realities of our own personality, nor from the d

Psalm 63:2 NLT 'I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory. Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!' Declarations of love trip easily from the lips. However, they can depend on circumstances. I once relished in the beauty and power of declarations such as we have here from the psalmist. I found it much harder to feel any empathy with today’s verse when Katey, my first wife, was struck down with a neurological disease that would take her mortal life. Until then, nothing had seriously challenged my simple understanding of the Bible. Slowly I discovered that it was far more than having an understanding and appreciation of God’s love and acceptance. I required an encounter with the living God in each experience, every day. Somehow, my worship and faith, while sincere, had been a projection of my hopes rather than an experience lived regardless of circumstance. While I yearned to return to the undisturbed rhythms of the past, my new reality was here to stay. Wou

Psalm 63:1 NLT 'O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.' I only go in search of what I really want. Too often, more pressing needs relegate my search for God to whatever spare time I can muster. Like reaching for the small change in my pocket for the homeless individual I pass, it is a non-priority and more a spontaneous reaction, often provoked by guilt. I believe that one reason Jesus fasted in the wilderness was that he might experience the power of human appetite and then direct that towards the bread of life rather than the baker’s provision. Forty days and nights represents extreme fasting, but if this is the degree to which Jesus wanted to awaken his hunger for God, I’d best pay attention. As a new Christian convert, I loved serving God. Later I became an executive in a large mission as well as a church leader. This was long before my whole being longed for God. As this ‘God-ache’ gre

Psalm 71:20-21 NLT 'You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honour and comfort me once again.' The word “mystery” is often used in relation to God. This suggests that God is an enigma, often hard to comprehend and always beyond our understanding. As something of an academic, I trust my brain and have spent my life working things out through my active thought processes. However, God lies beyond human rationality. If I could satisfactorily explain God, then the God I explained could not be God. If God can be contained within the framework of the human mind, then God is no longer omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent. I’ve written previously about moving from the comfort zone into the learning zone. This makes me feel uncomfortable because I encounter what I don’t already know and so have to learn. Will I be successful in my learning? Can I gain greater understanding and new skills? Past le

Jeremiah 29:11 NLT “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen.” When relational disaster strikes, then trust in relationship at every level is most often lost. I have over the years walked with individuals who are experiencing the trauma of divorce. Here a once intimate friendship unravels and ends, often abruptly and at the instigation of one person in the relationship. While the legal process has been made simpler, cleaner and quicker, there emotional and mental anguish former partners, and in many cases, children feel is acute. Divorce is a recipe for pain. It is through our own relational history that we build a picture of the nature of the trust we can place in another person. The very word “love” is unquantifiable, a feeling rather more than a science. While we can identify objective acts that look like they are born of love, they may be from self-love rather than love fo

Psalm 126:1-2 NLT When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the Lord has done for them.” In the years that I travelled abroad for work, I visited exiles in refugee camps and detention centres. I felt humbled by the dignity of refugee families, but disturbed by the degree to which uprootedness had robbed them of all else. Their exile was almost always beyond their control. In exile, they were displaced and disempowered, unable to pursue a normal life because of their dependence on the actions of others. Return, if possible, offered them the only way they might pick up the threads of their lives. In one sense, as citizens of heaven, we are exiles on the earth. Yet, in reality, we find a way to fit comfortably within the constraints of this “foreign land”. As with every exile, I must seek to make peace with my environment, while never losing sight of my homeland. I want to adjust, bu

Amos 9:14 NLT 'I will bring my exiled people of Israel back from distant lands, and they will rebuild their ruined cities and live in them again. They will plant vineyards and gardens; they will eat their crops and drink their wine.' The challenge in all restoration is deciding what that restoration will look like. Jayne and I restored an old Victorian house in Portsmouth. First, we needed to decide on the character of that restoration. We chose to return the house to its Victorian heritage, while ensuring it fulfilled the criteria for contemporary living. We chose to restore fireplaces, skirting boards, architraving and reveal the original tiled floor. So, a process started which would last some years. The same is true in God’s restoration project. What appears broken can be renewed. Past neglect and mistreatment can be left to the past and replaced with something that is beautiful and fit both for purpose and for today. However, the process takes time, effort and imagination, for no restoration is instant a

Isaiah 61:7 NLT 'Instead of shame and dishonour, you will enjoy a double share of honour. You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.' Daytime TV is filled with shows about restoring old houses or precious artefacts such as Homes Under the Hammer and Your Home Made Perfect. People have great enthusiasm to return something to its original state; this is also what God has upon his heart for each one of us. While we wrestle with sinful thoughts, some of which give rise to sinful acts, ultimately the call of the disciple is to return to that state of goodness and oneness with God that was his original creative intention for us all. The most difficult consequence arising from sin is the shame it induces. Each of us knows the shame and the fear we have of our failings being exposed to public view. Shame differs from guilt in that it tells me that there is something rotten in the core of who I am. Unlike guilt, which I can address through confession and apology, s

Isaiah 35:10 NLT 'Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness.' “It is always helpful to start with the end in view.” As a disciple I have come to appreciate the richness of that phrase the more I’ve progressed along my Christian way. I am quick to become distracted and then captivated by things in hand, both the good and the bad. As such, I quickly lose perspective. That is, I no longer have the end in view. My horizons shrink to the reality of the present moment. For all disciples, the end in view is heaven. Heaven is not some ethereal plane of existence. It is a reality in which I am fully aware of God in all his great glory, and have a part to play in continuing to love and serve him. The good news is that those distractions and demands that accompanied me on my earthly pilgrimage are no longer a part of my eternal existence. One other factor to bear

Philemon 1:7 NLT 'Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God’s people.' In a busy, online world, making friends can prove difficult. While Facebook suggests we are globally connected, it is all too easy to feel isolated and alone. Jayne and I want to be a part of a social community, one in which the friendships were a source of joy in and of themselves, not just a resource for the projects that we might accomplish together in God’s name. Having read Ron Sider’s book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Thomas Nelson) in my 20s, I have carried his phrase, “total availability to and unlimited liability for one another” ever since. I embrace it as much as I draw back from it. It demands everything, and my trust level in other people is lower than when I was young due to some life experiences. The Japanese have a wonderful word: “kenzoku”. It is translated as meaning “family”, yet describes the deepest of human connectedness. This is a family

Isaiah 12:6 NLT 'Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.' I can’t think of many recent occasions when I have shouted, either from joy or anger. We used to live in the shadow of Fratton Park, home to Portsmouth Football Club. No need to wonder what the score was. The roar of the crowd on seeing their side put the ball in the back of the net was an overwhelming shout of joy. You could also tell on the faces of the crowd as they left at the end of the game if the result had gone Pompey’s way. Finding joy in life proves elusive for many. The standard answer to questions about our well-being is: “I’m fine.” A friend of mine suggested this stands for: “Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.” We can look at others and assume that their smile is more genuine than our own and they have found the elixir of happiness. Yet, on closer examination, most people are struggling. Psychologists have shown that we each have different joy levels,

1 Peter 1:8 NLT 'You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.' Joy is something that impacts my senses. At the start of last autumn, I remember throwing open the windows at the back of the house one morning and being entranced with the scent of fennel from our garden that wafted across and filled my senses. It was a wonderful experience, shared by no one else. Even had Jayne been alongside me, there is no guarantee that she would have enjoyed the same joy that I did. We are all wired differently, yet God knows each one of us down to and including every hair on our heads (Luke 12:7)! In much the same way, our love for God is unique. We live in an age in which so much of life is reduced to mechanistic models that ‘work’, removing both individuality and the personal touch in favour of efficiency. However, God has little interest in efficiencies, and every interest in each of us as an individually crafted creati

Ecclesiastes 9:7 NLT 'So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this!' My favourite dictionary defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires”. Scripture tells us that “the joy of the Lord is [our] strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Life has a habit of crushing the joy out of us. Once our joy is gone we, like a squeezed lemon, are reduced to an empty skin. Our substance has gone; our principal ingredient lost. Recently I discovered an online tool (thejoyprinciple.net) that promised to measure my joy. It was simple and immediate, as any online experience must be. It measured more than 16 yes/no questions where I perceived my state of happiness with family, friends, the world around me, and finally my possessions. I scored 95 per cent joyful. Not bad, the average being 68 per cent. I was encouraged since I had set the parameters high on family, low on friendship, medium on the world aroun

Luke 4:13 NLT 'When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.' Jesus has experienced three separate and acute temptations in the wilderness, and now the devil departs from him until a fresh opportunity will appear. Jesus had steadfastly resisted and therefore endured the struggle. For each of us there is the temptation to buckle under pressure. God does not deliver us from the struggle, yet is there when we reach out and use what lies within our resources to resist the temptation to crumble. Of course, the intensity of the struggle is real, and usually all-consuming. Here, Jesus, hungry and alone, draws upon scripture to battle against the mind games the devil plays with him. We live in a society in which we are invited to establish normality on the terms set by others. In an age of mass media, platformed commentators shape our world view. Society is unfairly weighted in favour of those it defines as physically and mentally “able”. So, if born with a learning disabili

Luke 4:3-4 NLT Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’” One immediate challenge with persevering is that we never know at the start how long we shall need to endure. Here Jesus faces his first approach from the devil. We know with the benefit of scripture that this season will be for 40 days, around six weeks. Jesus is unlikely to have known how long he was to face temptation in the desert. What he discovers is that the devil wants to mess with his mind. What’s more, the devil approaches him after 40 days of desert life. One imagines Jesus is at a low point for he has been fasting and would have been in great need of food. When we are tested, it is our resolve that is slowly challenged and we become increasingly vulnerable to Satan’s tricks. The experience of the desert generally leaves us feeling distant from God. Like Jesus, the enemy will whisper in our ears somethin

Luke 4:1-2 NLT 'Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the River Jordan. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.' Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent. The word “Lent” means “lengthening” and identifies the growing hours of daylight as spring advances. Symbolically, it speaks of the approaching light of Christ, with the resurrection dispelling darkness once and for all. Easter is the moment darkness is defeated and God re-established friendship with all humanity. Today, in many traditions, Christians will receive an ash cross upon their foreheads, a sign of penitence and reminder that it is “through many tribulations” that we enter God’s kingdom (Acts 14:22, NKJV). In an instant, the Spirit leads Jesus from the glory of his baptism to the wasteland of the desert. How often have I fallen from the heights of worship and wonder to the despair of doubt and despondency? The desert is an essent