Bear With Me Here

“Actions speak louder than words.”

It’s a challenge, right? A challenge to take our words and beliefs and turn them into actions, to make them visible.

Sometimes it’s an encouragement, sometimes a terrifying and miserable challenge.

I’m a Christian. I love Jesus. I love serving, worshipping, praising and following Jesus. I love talking about Jesus and what serving, worshipping and following Him looks like. I think I’m ok with words. Whether words to myself or words to others, I think I do okay at encouraging people to love Jesus and to strive to love Jesus.

While I think I’m okay with words. I’m shamed by the much louder voice of my actions.

I don’t think my actions don’t love Jesus. I mean, I screw up and do or say things that don’t love Jesus. Or I fail to love the “neighbour” that He calls me to love. Obviously, this isn’t great.

But that’s not the thing that shames me.

The thing about my actions that shames me is the frequency with which I see or experience my atheist or secular friends doing a better job of loving their neighbours than me.

To be clear, I don’t think it’s a competition. I’m not ashamed that there are atheists more loving than me. It’s a beautiful thing. I’m definitely not saying that human decency is or should be restricted to something done by Christians. In a way, it’s almost more impressive, I am commanded to love, to respond to the love Christ showed me by imitating His love by following His example. Meanwhile they love simply because their of their conscience.

What shames me is that the Jesus whom I love commands me to love people, but when I stop to think and reflect, the forgiveness, grace, love and compassion shown by my secular friends to and around me far outshines my own.

I am not ashamed that they are good.

I am ashamed by what the light of their goodness shows me.

I am ashamed of my failings.

I don’t think I need to outshine them in these areas. I don’t think Jesus’ love for me hinges on how I compare to my friends.

I’m not ashamed because my secular friends are doing the practical side of Christianity better than me. I’m ashamed by how much better than me they are at it. I don’t need to be better than them, it’s not a competition, but I shouldn’t be falling as short of the mark as I am. I’m ashamed because I can talk the talk, I believe, but when the rubber hits the road, I suck. I am terrible at loving people in deed as well as word. Heck, I frequently suck at even loving people in word.

I guess ultimately this is a weak attempt to apologise. I’m sorry that I don’t love with my actions the way I should. I’m sorry I don’t even love with words the way I should. I’m sorry that I’m so ungracious, unkind, unforgiving and unloving.

It’s also a plea: bear with me. It’s not that I don’t want to love you like Jesus. It’s just that I’m a long way from being like Jesus right now.

We’ve learned at bible college over the last few weeks that, while there are many gifts of the Spirit, there is only one fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love. I guess for me this means that the tree is there, the fruit is growing, but it’s still a long way from being ripe.

I promise the fruit of the Spirit is growing, please stick around till it’s ripe.

So please. Be patient with me as I seek to love Him better and to love you better. Bear with me. Keep in touch. Keep being that shining light that shows how far I have to go. I know I’m not great at it. But I’m trying.

That counts right?

Family of Grace

This year hasn't been easy. It's had its high points but it's also had a lot of low points. So just like any other year really. Some of the high points have been higher than usual, some of the low points longer and lower than usual. This year though. This year is different in a big way.

I was chatting with a friend this afternoon about this year and the annually challenging points and she said something that this year has demonstrated on a profoundly deep level for me.

She said that one of the ways God shows grace is by giving us people who will stubbornly love us when we can't love ourselves. People who won't give up on us when we give up on us. Who won't go away when we want them to. People who will hug us when we just want want to be left alone because they know we need the hug more than we need to be alone.

We have a lot of blessings here in Sydney. We have health and wealth and safety and so many good things.

But apart from the love of Christ the greatest blessing in my life is without a doubt the small group of people who love me when I don't

Who turn up on the nights when I don't want to eat to cook me dinner because they know I need to eat. Who turn up to work on hard workdays to remind me that work is survivable. Who know I can't accept generosity so don't offer it but transfer simply transfer money when I'm struggling so I can afford things I would otherwise struggle to pay for.

I have a lot of clothes. Probably too much. Most of it is op shop clothing because I love quirky stuff. Some of it it stupidly priced but fun. Some of it was gifted. But there is one piece of clothing I value above everything else I own. It's a size too big and it was second hand. There's slight fading around the bottom. But I wear it all the time. Because this piece of clothing was given to me by a friend when I was mourning someone I didn't know anywhere near as well as I probably could have but who was a massive blessing to me years ago. My friend knew I was hurting and gave me this beautiful, shiny piece of clothing to serve as a reminder that I'm not alone. That I'm loved.

These things. These tiny little things. Done by this beautiful little family God has given me. Are the most valuable, beautiful and encouraging things in my life.

Sometimes I can't love myself.

Sometimes I need people to stubbornly love me anyway.

Sometimes I need to be reminded that Jesus loves me anyway.

I want to love like this. I want to be a person that shows people what God's love looks like. I want to love Jesus and love like Jesus and be someone who shows people what that looks like. I'm not very good at that, I sometimes struggle to love almost as much as I struggle to be loved.

Maybe that's why this little family of grace is so special to me. Because they show me daily what it looks like to love Jesus. To love like Jesus and to love people even when it's hard.

These moments and these people aren't a blessing because of what they do in the moment, although those things bless me, they are blessings because they show me what God's love and grace look like and they help me to love Him more.

The Silence of The Lambs

Imagine for a minute that you have this friend, they're one of the most important people in your world. You go out of your way to always be there for them, always willing to listen when they need to vent or offer a shoulder to cry on or support when things aren't going well. It doesn't matter if they sound like the adult equivalent of a three year old throwing a tantrum or Bella whatshername from Twilight, you are always ready and willing to listen. You would drop everything at a moments notice for them.

Now imagine that this friend decided to only talk to you for five minutes a day, or maybe five minutes a week. Imagine if they spent those five minutes updating you on superficial things, checked their phone three times to see the time and once more to reply to Cindy Lou's message about the party next week.

How would you feel?

I'm pretty sure you'd be pretty upset. You've invested so much in this person and you love them so much and you want to know how they're going and how you can support them and the serious things and all they want to talk about is how happy they are about the cricket score? You dropped everything to answer their call and got five minutes of gossip and hearsay and at the end of the call have heard next to nothing about how they're going.

I would be shocked if you were ok with this turn events.

Which begs a question. If this isn't an ok way for us to be treated by someone we care so much about...

Why is it ok for us to do it to God?

God who loved us so much he gave up everything He had to clear a way for us to have relationship with Him and to be able to talk to Him at all times in all places.

And yet so often we relegate him to five minutes after our Bible reading for the day, or worse tack our “amen” onto the end of the five minute prayer at church each week and hope that will be enough.

It's not.

When the God of the universe came down from Heaven to be murdered on the cross He did not do it so we could more easily update him on the sports scores and how happy we are about so and so's life/relationship/experience. He's God,He knows.

Take a minute to think - when's the last time you prayed without checking your phone? When's the last time you prayed about the serious things in your life? Heck, when's the last time you prayed for more than the five minutes you needed for your “Thank you, Sorry, Please” prayer?

I will freely confess that I'm terrible at this, this post is as much a written rebuke to myself as it is a challenge for anyone else.

Just think, we have a God about whom we can say “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13) and yet we rarely actually stop to ask Him for that strength. Imagine what we could do if we spent more time asking for strength to do things, more time asking Him to act in, through and with us!

We are commanded to “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Imagine how much more would could do if before anything else we stopped to seek His kingdom, to seek His blessing in whatever we are about do, to invite him to participate in every aspect of our life. Think of how much more powerful a witness we could be in our workplace if we invited God to partner with us and be with us before every shift, think of how much more fruitful our coffee dates, bible studies, ministries and church services could be if we stopped to seek God's participation before we started.

My church has a prayer meeting 15 minutes before our young adults service starts, it averages 6 people and 10 minutes. I can't help but wonder how much more our church could do if even half the service turned up and prayed for an hour or more. How much more powerful would our outreach be if we lived our lives in continuous prayer, if we spent half an hour or even an hour in fellowship with God in prayer, if we stopped to seek God before every endeavour, if we stopped every time we saw or heard something that we could pray for and prayer right then and there?

Think how much better this piece of writing could have been if I'd remembered to pray before I started instead of jumping straight in...

The Shepherd is listening, but the lambs are silent.