On the Voyage of Discovery

I have been a music geek for a long time. A very long time. I think that, were it not for music, I would be a very sad individual. Music is with me constantly – in my head and in many aspects of what I do for a living. For example, since the Olympics closing ceremony, I have been unable to get out of my head Take That's “Rule The World”. Yes, I'm a sucker for a well-written and well- performed song.

The thing I love most about music is that it is truly a

Eucharisteo

One early theme in Ann Voskamp's book “One Thousand Gifts” is that of thanksgiving (in tandem with joy and grace). So I dutifully sit down to look for all the positive things in my life, and as I suspected, I find very many. To list them helps me to see just how many there are. I would encourage you to do likewise.

So let's start with the obvious causes for thanks, such as life, health, family members, and most importantly of all, the knowledge of the God who created me. If I'm not thankful for that, then I'm not

A Worthwhile Defeat?

For those who do not follow or like English football, I can tell you now – you won't want to read this. But as a long...long time fan of Premiership perennials Liverpool FC I need to get some stuff off my chest following their F.A. Cup final defeat Saturday to Chelsea at Wembley.

First I need to say that the start time of 5.15pm was – I think – the first time the kick off of a Cup Final has been moved from its traditional 3pm start. Sadly, and thoughts of the importance of tradition in football's main knockout cup competition have long been sidelined by the demands of television and their schedulers.

Whilst I do have some sympathy with the fact that TV companies do invest large sums in UK football, and are therefore entitled to a return on that investment, it needs to be pointed out that the fans are still a very large part of the pie when it comes to income for individual teams. No one is going to deny that consistently low crowds will lead to financial woes for any club, and conversely, a club like Manchester United which draws crowds of over 70,000 each home game, will point to that as a large financial contributor for them.

Against this background, the decision by the F.A. And the TV schedulers to move the kick-off to 5.15 had several consequences. On the one hand, they lost a lot of goodwill from those who cling to tradition in their sport. It just didn't seem like a Cup Final, kicking off as it did so late.

A second consequence was a much more serious one for the legions of Liverpool fans making the trip down to London. The last train from London to Liverpool on a Saturday is at 8pm, giving the fans not enough time to make that one. This meant that Liverpool fans were forced to travel by road, unless they could afford an overnight stay in London – not a realistic proposition to most. This in turn meant that the roads both to and from London were much more congested than normal, and I really don't think any further explanation of the consequences is necessary.

Quite why the F.A. TV companies and the train companies couldn't have gotten together and come up with a plan for extra trains is a mystery to me, but it probably involves money at some stage. Still, a large number of very disgruntled Liverpool fans who had already shelled out large sums of money for a similar trip to Wembley just 2 weeks earlier for the Cup semi final with Everton – an event which could quite easily have been staged in the north – was an inevitable result.

As to the game itself, well Liverpool have been riding their luck in cup competitions recently after a desperately underachieving league season, and their lack of ability finally came out on Saturday. In short, they simply weren't good enough, a fact that most discerning Liverpool fans are already well aware of.

I come from the camp that believes Premiership (league) form is more important than a Cup run. I know there are those who disagree with this – including some Liverpool players who would prefer a medal at the end of the season for their trophy cabinets (a rather selfish approach, if you ask me), but I am actually glad Liverpool didn't win the Cup because a season finishing with 2 trophy wins but, as is almost inevitable, a mid-table league slump, might have papered over the cracks in Liverpool's team setup right now. The 2 Cup wins could have easily been used as an excuse to not address the serious flaws in the Liverpool squad, and part of me is glad that this cannot now happen. The need for some serious work to be done over the close season is now clear and undeniable.

I feel that a top 3 (let's say) finish in the Premiership would always be preferable to a Cup win. The league is where it's at, and I know a lot of fans would agree with me.

At the time of writing, Liverpool have 2 Premiership games left in the season, one of them a Cup Final rematch with Chelsea tomorrow night. Although it might easily be argued that there is nothing to play for, I expect nothing less than 100% effort for these last 2 games. Part of me doubts that will be the case though.

Coincidence?

As the time has drawn nearer and nearer for me to leave the USA after 5 years and travel back to the UK, I have become more and more excited about why God has called me to visit there at this time, and just what he has in store for me. One thing which has made this possible is the unmistakable way that God has been speaking to me through what those without my faith would call "coincidence".

Let me explain. When I left Medford 2 weeks ago, the sermon series at my church there had been on Joseph, who - you may or may not know - was compelled to go far away from home through what turned out to be divine providence for good. I couldn't help but take notice of the parallels to my situation. Having to leave my new home for a faraway country, wondering why on earth God would allow such a thing.

When I got here to Olympia, I found that the sermon series at Church of the Living Water was on.....yep - Joseph, and even a guest speaker last week, Banning Liebscher from Bethel/Jesus Culture in Redding was talking about things I could totally relate to considering what lies ahead of me.

You could call this coincidence, but I call it the voice of God. I was also given verses from Hebrews chapter 11 talking about how by faith Abraham was called to a far off place and obeyed, even though he didn't know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8-10).

Taking all these into account, it's clear that God is speaking to me, and I'm excited to see what opportunities he opens up over there. It's up to me to be open and obedient to God and serve as best I can.

Right now, there are no concrete job leads. A one-day-a-week possible radio job, and the hope of something linked to a London church, but really nothing definite. I'm not really worried though. I'm trying to follow up some leads and after that it's really up to God to place me where he wants. I know he wouldn't leave me high and dry, because that's simply not the kind of God he is.

So, a big thank you to everyone I've come into contact with here at COLW these past 2 weeks.I look forward to keeping you updated as the journey begins...in more ways than one...tomorrow.

Legalism Vs Grace

Today's Max Lucado excerpt in Grace For The Moment draws a striking comparison between works and grace. I couldn't possibly put it any better than Max himself, so here's what he says in the book "He Still Moves Stones".

"All the world religions can be placed in one of two camps:  legalism or grace.  Humankind does it or God does it.  Salvation as a wage based on deeds done — or salvation as a gift based on Christ’s death.

A legalist believes the supreme force behind salvation is you.  If you look right, speak right, and belong to the right group, you will be saved.  The brunt of responsibility doesn’t lie within God; it lies within you.

The result?  The outside sparkles.  The talk is good, and the step is true.  But look closely.  Listen carefully.  Something is missing.  What is it?  Joy.  What’s there?  Fear.  (That you won’t do enough.)  Arrogance.  (That you have done enough.)  Failure.  (That you have made a mistake.)…

Spiritual life is not a human endeavor.  It is rooted and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.  Every spiritual achievement is created and energized by God."

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The world philosophy that you have to make it happen couldn't be more different from the Christian princple of grace, which - it should be re-emphasized - is not encouraging the lazy approach of sitting back and waiting for something, but is in fact encouraging ACTIVE ACCEPTANCE of what we do not deserve.

"You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.  He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. "

Colossians 2:13-14 (NLT)

Man or Rabbit?

So as I've said, I'm reading this devotional book featuring various writings of C.S. Lewis. Today's meditation really hit me because it shows very well the differences between how Christians perceive doing good, as opposed to non-Christians. The two agree in many areas, but there are just as many areas where the views of the two converge. I've reproduced the passage in full here. It comes from Lewis' book God In The Dock.

"If Christianity should happen to be true, then it is quite impossible that those who know this truth and those who don’t should be equally well equipped for leading a good life. Knowledge of the facts must make a difference to one’s actions. Suppose you found a man on the point of starvation and wanted to do the right thing. If you had no knowledge of medical science, you would probably give him a large solid meal; and as a result your man would die. That is what comes of working in the dark. In the same way a Christian and a non-Christian may both wish to do good to their fellow men. The one believes that men are going to live forever, that they were created by God and so built that they can find their true and lasting happiness only by being united to God, that they have gone badly off the rails, and that obedient faith in Christ is the only way back. The other believes that men are an accidental result of the blind workings of matter, that they started as mere animals and have more or less steadily improved, that they are going to live for about seventy years, that their happiness is fully attainable by good social services and political organisations, and that everything else (e.g., vivisection, birth-control, the judicial system, education) is to be judged to be “good” or “bad” simply in so far as it helps or hinders that kind of “happiness”.

Now there are quite a lot of things which these two men could agree in doing for their fellow citizens. Both would approve of efficient sewers and hospitals and a healthy diet. But sooner or later the difference of their beliefs would produce differences in their practical proposals. Both, for example, might be very keen about education: but the kinds of education they wanted people to have would obviously be very different. Again, where the Materialist would simply ask about a proposed action “Will it increase the happiness of the majority?”, the Christian might have to say, “Even if it does increase the happiness of the majority, we can’t do it. It is unjust.” And all the time, one great difference would run through their whole policy. To the Materialist things like nations, classes, civilizations must be more important than individuals, because the individuals live only seventy odd years each and the group may last for centuries. But to the Christian, individuals are more important, for they live eternally; and races, civilizations and the like, are in comparison the creatures of a day.

The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe. They can’t both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn’t fit the real universe. Consequently, with the best will in the world, he will be helping his fellow creatures to their destruction."

The hands that flung stars into space

My dear friend Trevor gave me a book of readings and meditations by my favorite author C.S. Lewis before I left Medford. Very much in the style of the Max Lucado devotionals, the book consists of passages from Lewis' various writings over the years.


Today's passage was originally found in the book The Problem Of Pain and was all about the fact that God loves man. Nothing too profound about that, you might say. Well, after several days of really not being inspired to write anything on here, this really did get me thinking.


What Lewis was doing was pointing out that what we humans think of God loving us is dependent on our own human definition of love, and you don't need me to tell you that the human idea of love has become horribly distorted over the millennia.


A lot of people would equate love with some kind of disinterested, indifferent concern for our welfare, as Lewis puts it. We tend to envision love as like some kind of "senile benevolence" that "drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way" (Lewis again).


How far could that possibly be from the all-consuming fire who has loved us - if anything - too much, and not too little. The kind of love with which the Creator loves us is unparalleled in human history. We could not possibly hope to see such love in any human example, and I guess that is why we find it just so hard to comprehend.


You see, we humans - whether we realize it or not - want a loving God, but we don't realize just how ridiculously, purely loving He is...or else we just cannot relate to it, and so we experience disappointment, confusion, misunderstanding, and in some cases we simply push it away.


Graham Kendrick wrote of "Hands that flung stars into space..." surrendering to cruel nails....still outstretched.


Now that truly is love.