New season, new journal...

LDC breakfast buffet

Today is the first day of LDC (leadership development course.) The delegates finished arriving yesterday and we had a brief "get to know you" session last night, before starting with a special welcome breakfast this morning. The orientation will continue this afternoon and, after a short trip to town, we'll end the first day with a time of praying for each other this evening.

"Travel" journals for 2016

LDC always seems to mark the start of a new season of the year, so it seemed particularly appropriate that yesterday I reached the last page of my first quiet time journal of 2016. There's been so much to reflect on during these recent months of meditating my way through Genesis and Exodus, that I've managed to fill a whole notebook since the beginning of the year.


Knowing that I'd be doing some international travel this year (in spring to the USA and in summer to Africa), I had bought a few notebooks that had the same cover design of passport stamps. This morning, as I wrote the date on the first page of my brand new journal for the LDC season, I realised that my reading for today would be in Exodus chapter 33. It's a favourite chapter of mine because of the way it reveals the character of God, as Moses meets very personally with Him after a challenging episode in Israel's journey. Before I even opened my Bible to read the chapter, one verse leapt immediately to my mind - the promise that God makes in verse 14: My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.

The promise of rest is a welcome one, as I've known such a battle in my health over the past six weeks that it's been rather exhausting - emotionally as well as physically. The bronchitis that began in Hawaii never totally cleared up, and soon the doctors here in Spain were telling me that I had pneumonia. Weeks of violent coughing ensued, complicated by a bizarre episode where a strong antibiotic caused me to have cramps in my arms and legs, as well as muscle spasms in other parts of my body. Even as recently as last week, I ended up at the emergency department again because the chest pains were so intense that my neighbours began to wonder if I was having a heart attack.

Another ECG confirmed that my heart was fine, although my blood pressure was all over the place - one minute very high and the next minute very low. Fractured ribs became the next suspected cause of the excruciating chest pain, but x-rays revealed that nothing was broken. However the x-rays did allow the doctors to see a shadow on my lung, and to revise the pneumonia diagnosis. They told me that I had pleurisy and that the pain might take a few more weeks to subside. 

I've had pleurisy once before (it was pleurisy and whooping cough that originally damaged my lungs in 1989) so I knew it could be intensely painful. What was more of a concern to me last week was the possibility that the pain could still be due to the nerve damage (something called peripheral neuropathy) that is often caused by the antibiotic they'd given me. It seemed strange to me that the pain was one day worst on the left side of my chest, and the next day on the right hand side. Surely lung pain would always be in the same place, and not moving around?

My wonderful team mates in the LDC prayed fervently for me last week, and I knew that others around the world were also praying. I've also been doing some baths and footbaths in Epsom salts as it's a traditional remedy for cramps and for purging toxins in the body. As of today, the cramps are much less intense, and the cough is almost completely gone. (I have just the occasional coughing fit.) The chest pains are still there, a sort of strange dull pressure that hurts  when I breathe or cough, and as I wrote in yesterday's blog post, "Praying in Ignorance" I find it a bit difficult to discern whether the pain is from my lungs, from my muscles or from the nerve endings. I'm trusting that it is from pleurisy, like they say, and not from anything more sinister.

So, it was interesting this morning when I opened my Bible to read that well known verse in Exodus 33:14. This year I'm using the NLT translation instead of the NIV Bible that I usually read, and I discovered that it has a whole phrase that is not there in other translations. It says, I will personally go with you, and I will give you rest. Everything will be fine for you. I guess that last phrase is an attempt to express the full meaning of the Hebrew nuwach. What an encouragement it was to me in this season of not being sure what's going on in my health - whether the pain I've felt is simply from my lungs or whether there's some other explanation for it. As I enter this new season, new journal, new LDC course… it gives security to hear God say everything will be all right. 

Thank you for your prayers over the coming weeks - for my role in the leadership course, as well as for complete restoration from these recent health challenges. Join me in faith that everything will be fine.

Bathing the cat...

It's that time of year again: I had to give the cat a bath! I've realised now what happens: whenever I make my annual ILT trip in March (which is the end of winter in Spain), Teddi has a few weeks where no one brushes him. Eventually he just stops grooming himself - presumably because he's sick of getting huge mouthfuls of hair. So a couple of weeks after I'm back home and have taken the scissors to him to cut off all the dreadlocks, I notice that he has un unkempt, greasy-hair look. I now know that this is not the symptom of an underlying disease, but rather is the consequence of his not washing himself for a couple of weeks. A mild shampoo sorts things out and returns him to his handsome fluffy self again. Here (above) is the wet boy on his towel, after he had forgiven me for covering him in bubbles and giving him a cold shower. He'll now begin to groom himself again and will soon have his sleek and shiny coat back. (below)

And the third step is….

In recent blog posts (see 14th and 23rd April) I've written about the sad way that God's people  in the desert backed off from listening to His voice.

Step one: the people made a choice to hear God "second hand" - through Moses - instead of listening to His words for themselves. (Exodus 20: 18) 

Step two: the people got tired of the long silence and started to create their own gods to worship. (Exodus 32: 1)

Further on in chapter 32, we see the inevitable third step. When Moses asks his brother Aaron for an explanation of what is going on, Aaron replies, "When the people gave me their gold, I simply threw it in the fire… and out came this calf." (Ex 32: 24) How ridiculous! Aaron makes it sound as if the gold took shape of its own accord, and simply popped out of the fire as a fully formed statue of a calf. The reality, of course, is that the people knowingly sacrificed their gold jewellery and Aaron himself formed the gold into the shape of a calf. (Exodus 32: 4) 

Step three: denial of our own responsibility.

 It can be easy for us as Christians to slip into the same sort of denial as Aaron. We may no longer remember the point where we decided that listening to God was not something for us (step one). We may not have noticed that we began to slip into idolatry, sacrificing our time and energy on gods of our own making (step two). And so it's an easy third step to find ourselves blaming God for the fact that we no longer hear His voice or we no longer find any life in our reading of the Bible (step three).

Our God is not a silent God. When we can't discern Him speaking to us in prayer or through the Bible, it's seldom because He's silent. (Occasionally it might be that He's not telling us something because the time isn't right yet. Or sometimes He's silent because we've not yet obeyed the last thing that He said to us.) But usually He's not silent at all; it's just that we're not hearing because we've allowed our ears to get blocked, or we've allowed unbelief to deaden our expectation of hearing from Him. Golden calves don't "just happen." They're the outcome of a series of choices that move us away from God's highest for our lives. 

Moses (after he got over his temper tantrum!) forced the people to face up to their responsibility and make a decision about what they were going to do about it. "Make a choice right now," he said. "If you are on God's side, come and stand over here with me." (verse 26) Sadly, many didn't make that choice to align themselves with the Lord. They chose instead to continue denying their own responsibility for the situation they found themselves in.

What a sad episode in Israel's history - and so soon after God had done amazing miracles on their behalf. If you're in one of those seasons where you don't seem to hear God clearly, check in with Him and find out the reason: Is it just a waiting time and you need to have patience? Is God remaining silent because you've been walking in disobedience? Or have you slowly slipped away from hearing His communication because of a series of steps like those in the journey of the children of Israel?

The good news is that U-turns are always allowed. You can embrace your responsibility and take your place "on God's side" even today.

Praying in ignorance?

Does God ever change His mind? Seemingly so. There’s a story in Genesis 18 where God announces a change of plan after Abraham has prayed fervently; and this morning, in Exodus 32, I read another account of how God “changed His mind” after Moses presented his case before the Lord.

The interesting thing about the Exodus story, though, is that Moses was praying in absolute ignorance of what was actually going on. Moses and Joshua had been up on Mount Sinai for six weeks, and the people at the bottom of the mountain had got tired of waiting; they had built a golden statue and given themselves over to drunkenness and wild pagan revelry.

God, in His omnisicence, saw what was going on, and His heart was broken. Idolatry is so abhorrent to Him that He told Moses they deserved to be destroyed. He even told Moses that they had made a golden calf for themselves. But Moses, in relative ignorance of what this idolatry looked like, pleaded for mercy on behalf of the people. And God, whose heart is full of mercy and grace “changed His mind” and forgave the people - even though they were still in rebellion.

A few verses later, when Moses came down the mountain and saw the mayhem for himself, he became so furious that he broke the stone tablets (with the ten commandments on them) and proceded to carry out judgement on them. I wonder if he regretted that he had asked God to have mercy on such wicked and rebellious people.

The thing that caught my attention this morning, though, is the way that God is so willing to answer our prayers, even when sometimes we’re clueless about what’s going on or how we should be praying about it. God is so much bigger than our lack of knowledge and understanding and is always ready to move in mercy.

Right now, I’m in a season where I honestly don’t know what’s going on in my body, with my health. Bronchitis that began in Hawaii was later diagnosed as pneumonia and now, more recently, as pleurisy. Two trips to the emergency department, with debilitating chest pains, saw me on an oxygen tank to regulate my breathing, twice having an ECG to check my heart, and also having x-rays to find out if I had any broken ribs. 

I was previously prescribed a strong antibiotic which within days had caused sore muscles and painful cramps all over my arms, legs and body. Now, when I have the excruciating chest pains, I simply don’t know whether the pain is from my lungs, my heart, from strained intercostal muscles or from nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy) as a result of the levaquin toxicity. It feels like my body is a battlefield, but I don’t really know what’s going on, and it sometimes seems that the doctors aren’t completely sure either.

A number of friends have been praying fatihfully for me, even though we’re all aware that we’re kind of stumbling in the dark and not sure exactly what to pray for. All we can do, is pray with the understanding that we do have, and with the awareness we have of how God is leading us.

And so this morning I took comfort in the fact that God was not limited by Moses' ignorance in prayer or his lack of knowledge about what was really going on. I may not know exactly how to pray; I may not even know the cause of my chest pains, but Father God is still able to move in mercy and healing. I believe that it’s important to tune in to the Lord when we pray, but perhaps praying in ignorance is better than not praying at all. Thank you for joining me in praying that I will soon see relief from this strange medical episode that has cast such a shadow over the past six weeks.

Our choices have consequences.

Some days ago (click here to read post of 14th April) I wrote about how the Israelites made a choice not to listen to God’s voice for themselves. Now, some weeks later, we see the devastating consequences of that choice. In Exodus 32, we pick up the story at the point where Moses has been up on the mountain meeting with the Lord. If the people had stuck with doing things God’s way, they would have heard every word He was saying to Moses. Instead, after six weeks of silence, they begin to wonder what has happened to Moses and they say (vs 1) “Let’s make us some gods who can lead us.” And so begins the tragedy, and the travesty, of the golden calf. 

All choices have consequences, and the choice (conscious or unconscious) not to listen to God’s voice for ourselves can have a particularly devastating knock-on effect in our lives in terms of the potential errors and heresy that it exposes us to.

Read on in the post below for more about the implications of creating our own gods.

Who are you sacrificing for?

When the people decided to make their own god in the form of a golden calf (Exodus 32: 2 - 6) there was a cost involved: they had to give up their gold jewellery in order to craft the gold image they wanted to worship. Gods and sacrifice go together: there will always be a cost involved. If your god is your work, you may end up sacrificing your health; likewise if your god is food or if you are addicted to a substance like drugs, cigarettes or alcohol. 
If your god is comfort and materialism, you will pay the price financially. If your god is leisure or technology, you’ll probably sacrifice a huge amount of time in front of your computer or television, or on your smartphone. 
If you choose to follow the one true God, there needs to be a sacrifice of self will and prideful independence. There will always be a sacrifice. The question is: who or what are you sacrificing for?

Wrecked and restored...

"Barbara, there's a man outside, drilling holes in your car!" I knew it was a joke when one of my team mates came into the house last night to tell me this, but I nonetheless headed outside, eager to see what was happening.

The story began about ten days ago, when my cough was still particularly bad. Doctors had taken x-rays and told me that it seemed I'd had pleurisy over the previous weeks. As I got into my car and began to reverse down the hill, I took a sudden violent coughing fit and it must have caused my foot to slip off the brake. I didn't realise I'd gone back further than usual and was positioned dangerously close to a low wall, until I turned my wheel and began to head up the next slope. There was a sickening wrenching sound, and when I got out of the car I discovered that the back bumper and mudguard had been scratched and torn from their position. Stephe came out of the house and managed to help me do a temporary repair job, so that the bumper was lifted up a few inches and wouldn't fall off any further. But it wasn't possible to lift the broken part completely back into its original position. (See photo on the right.)

The "man drilling holes in my car" was another team mate, Andrew. When I went outdoors, I discovered that he had completely dismantled the lamp section of the car and was drilling new holes where the brackets supporting the mudguard and bumper had been severed. This allowed him to lift the bumper back into place again, leaving almost no gap at all. (See photo on the left.) And he disguised the scratches with the old trick of filling them with a wax crayon (or candle) and rubbing it with your finger to darken the colour. My car looks like new again, and I'm feeling very thankful to have such helpful and handy team mates. (I knew both Stephe and Andrew when I lived in Paisley in the 1990s, and it's an interesting turn of events that finds us all now team mates here at the leadership retreat centre in Spain.)

Ousted...

One of the dangers of getting up for a drink of water in the middle of the night is that you risk coming back to discover that your bed has been occupied by squatters!

Which do you choose?

This morning I was reading in Exodus chapters 19 and 20. It's the part of the story where the Israelites have been travelling in the desert for two months, and finally arrive at Mount Sinai, where God gives them the ten commandments. We probably all have our own ideas about what this was like - our impression shaped partly by the Bible narrative and partly by the way these events have been portrayed by Hollywood. Everyone knows that a dense cloud descended, there was thunder and lightning, and Moses went up to meet with God on the mountain. In fact, that paradigm of a leader, priest or prophet connecting with God on behalf of the people is a familiar theme to us throughout the Old Testament. But one thing that stood out to me in my reading today was that this concept of an intermediary hearing from God for us wasn't exactly the way God planned it in the beginning.

In Exodus 19 vs 9, God tells Moses that He will meet with him in the cloud, but that all of the people will be able to hear what God says. Part of the reason for this was so that the people would trust Moses and know that his words were truly from the Lord. Another part of the reason was so that every single person would know they too could hear the voice of God, and that it wasn't only something for a select few.

So that's exactly what happened. Everyone got prepared for the big day (washing their clothes, consecrating themselves, etc.) At the sound of the trumpet, everyone approached the mountain, Moses went up into the cloud, God spoke out the ten commandments and all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, heard every word that God said.

But then something very sad happened, and we can read it in Exodus 20 vs 18 - 19: the people found this whole experience so overwhelming, that they begged Moses to act as an intermediary for them. "You tell us what God says, and we will listen to you," they told him, "But we don't want God to speak directly to us, because it scares us to death." 

Moses tried to explain to them (vs 20) that there's a good kind of "fear of the Lord" - a healthy respect for God that helps us choose not to sin. But then there's also a wrong kind of fear - the kind that makes us mistrust God and keep our distance from Him. These people actually chose to stay at a distance (vs 18) and have someone else tell them what God was saying. How tragic is that!

And yet there are so many Christians today who have made exactly the same choice. It's not that they don't want to know what God is saying; it's just that they prefer to hear it through someone else - through the pastor in church or the preacher on God TV. Like those early Israelites at Mount Sinai, they've backed off from hearing God's voice for themselves - perhaps because of fear, perhaps because of laziness, or perhaps because of disappointment during their early experience of learning to hear and obey His voice.

There's nothing wrong with hearing God's truth through an intermediary like a preacher or the author of a book. One of the ways that God speaks to us is through other people. But He also wants to speak to each one of His children directly and personally - through the Bible, during prayer, and in the quietness of their own hearts.

We have a privilege that was not yet available to those early Hebrews in the desert: because of the sacrifice of Jesus, we have direct access into the most holy place, into the very presence of God. (Read Hebrews 12: 18 - 24 and Hebrews 10: 19 - 22)

Let's not be like the people of Israel who settled for always hearing God's message "second hand." Let's nurture our friendship with God and grow in intimacy with Him, so that we are continually growing in our ability to hear His voice for ourselves. That's the way God planned it in the beginning.

We're growing...

Click to enlarge the photo

Our staff team at the leadership retreat centre has suddenly doubled in size this spring. Our usual year-round team of six staff (Stephe and Rite, Wilrens and Franziska, Anja and myself) have been joined by several other people. Dagmar, who comes to spend the summer with us every year, is back in Spain again, and we've also been joined this year by Tony, a Mexican who is a wonderful cook and baker, and will be serving in the kitchen.

We've also welcomed two couples who are in the process of relocating to be part of our staff team here in Alhaurín, and it's been a bit like welcoming old friends, as we've known these four people since the 1980s and 1990s. Steve and Issie, pictured next to me on the far right of the photo, have been based in England and travelling to work with LDCs around the world. Like Dagmar, they foresee making Spain their home base, at least for part of the year. Andrew and Chris, pictured on the far left, are long time friends that we knew in YWAM Scotland, in Preschool and in Firestarters. Having recently finished serving for several years in Mozambique, they too have made a decision to move to Spain and work with our team's different projects here in Malaga. During the upcoming LDC, they'll be part of the catering and kitchen team with Tony.

We've doubled our numbers, but not our nationalities. We used to be six people and six different nationalities. Most of our new team members share the existing nationalities (British, Canadian, Swiss...), so Mexican and Finnish are the only two new nationalities in our multi-cultural team. Not pictured in the photo are a Finnish couple who also come to Spain for part of each year, and who work with different initiatives related to the current refugee situation in Europe. It's been encouraging to see these different ministry projects and different people added to what we're involved in here, and we thank God for the increased blessing and fruitfulness that such growth brings.

The dozen people in the photo will be joined this week by six others, who will be part of the LDC (leadership development course) staff team with us over the coming six weeks.  Once the LDC delegates and families arrive the following weekend, we'll be a big group of more than 60 people for the six week time frame of the LDC. You can see why we need three people serving in the kitchen!

Get out your magnifying glass

In a recent post, I mentioned how the people of Israel began complaining about their food and water situation barely a month after escaping from Egypt and witnessing God do amazing miracles on their behalf. This morning I was reflecting that Israel's quick shift from celebrating victory to moaning about the menu illustrates an unfortunate tendency of human nature: we often tend to focus on our difficulties and on what we lack,  rather than focusing on our blessings and on what God has already done for us. We focus on the obstacles rather than the opportunities - which causes our challenges to loom bigger, while our perception of God's goodness begins to shrink. Living a life of faith calls us to acknowledge this tendency and to partner with God to reverse it.

Some Bible translations use an interesting word in several of the psalms. Translating the Hebrew word gadal, they say:
Magnify the Lord with me and let's exalt His name together. (Ps 34: 3)
I will praise God's name in song and magnify Him with thanksgiving. (Ps 69: 30)

What happens when you look at something through a magnifying glass? You don't change anything about its reality; you just see it more clearly and can  appreciate it better. We all need to see the goodness of God more clearly! Looking at who God is and what He has done - through the magnifying glass of faith and thanksgiving - helps us also to see our own problems in perspective.

So, what if you're a "glass half empty" rather than a "glass half full" kind of person? What if you, like the Israelites, tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive? What kind of strategy will help you to get out your magnifying glass and begin to focus on God's goodness instead of on the hard things you face?

It's been said - by psychologists and social workers - that it takes at least 21 days / 3 weeks to begin establishing a new habit. Why not commit the next three weeks to intentionally magnifying the Lord instead of magnifying your challenges and problems? Like the psalmist says, in Psalm 69: 30, thankfulness can often play a key part in our learning to magnify the Lord. In your journal or notebook, why not take time every day to write down things you can be thankful for, and to focus on the good things God has given you in life?

If you like, you could download and print this page (click here to download), put it into your Bible, and use it for the next 21 days to write down the things you can be thankful for. It might be a challenge at first, but as your habit begins to change, you'll be amazed to discover how focusing on God's goodness helps put life's challenges and annoyances into perspective.

The importance of remembering...

At the end of Exodus chapter 16, we read about how the people of Israel preserve some manna in a container as a memorial of what God had done for them. Manna wouldn't be around for ever and so they wanted future generations to be able to see and hear of how God had provided for His people during their wilderness journey. Then, at the end of Exodus chapter 17, God instructs Moses to write on a scroll about the amazing victory they had just experienced over an enemy, the Amalekites. The people, with their grumbling against the Lord, had already demonstrated how quickly they forgot what He had done for them. These two actions were ways of helping them remember better in the future:
a) remembering His provision for them - God's goodness
b) remembering the victory He gave them - God's greatness

We would do well to find our own ways of reminding ourselves of God's goodness and greatness in our lives. Nowadays it might involve taking a photo or video, writing a journal or book. Churches might put up a plaque or a banner; individuals and families might hold on to a physical item that represents in some way what God did for them.

In this instance, at the end of Exodus 17, Moses also did something that held great meaning for Old Testament believers: he built an altar where God could be worshipped and, interestingly, he named it Yahweh-Nissi, which means, "the Lord is my banner." A banner proclaims our allegiance - like when a political group carries one during a march or football fans wave one during a big game. "The Lord is my banner" is simply a way of saying, "I belong to Him, and I'm not going to forget the things He has done for me."

Lessons from manna...

In Exodus chapter sixteen, we read that the Israelites had barely been travelling for a month when they started to grumble and complain about their food situation. Less than a month since they experienced an amazing escape and miraculous victory (and surely it was obvious to them that they wouldn't be baking bread and eating stew in the desert) but nonetheless they started grumbling against God and hankering for the meat and bread of Egypt. It was at this point in their journey that God began to give them manna - miraculous daily food provision that sustained them for the next forty years. 

Vast numbers of quail flew into the camp, giving the people the meat that they'd been moaning for; and every morning they awoke to find the ground covered with manna. They had never seen anything like that before. The word "manna" actually means, "What is it?" God used the manna not only to satisfy their hunger and nourish their bodies, but also to teach them two very important lessons about how He sees life. Those lessons were:

1. the value of work
2. the value of rest

Read on in the next two posts below for more about how important these two values are in the kingdom of God.

Manna lesson one: the value of work

Work is an integral part of life. Many people see work as a necessary evil - something they have to do to provide for themselves and their families. But their dream, or maybe even their goal, is to be able to lead a life of leisure where they don't need to work any more. That's often part of the reason why people dream of winning the lottery and becoming millionaires who can afford to be idle. Maybe we even justify this position scripturally by pointing out that Adam didn't need to work until after he and Eve had fallen into sin.

But that's not how God sees things in the world today. He sees work as something valuable that can contribute to our sense of freedom and self worth. So when God provided food for His people in the wilderness (see Exodus chapter 16), He didn't ship it in and distribute it around like we see happen today in so many refugee camps. No, He sent the people out to work for it: they had to go outside the camp and gather as much manna as they needed for their household/family that day.

God "works" to sustain the universe and take care of people and animals. Right from these earliest times, He wanted His people to learn the value and satisfaction of working for what they would eat. He warned them that even when they arrived in the Promised Land, they would need to do a different kind of work to provide for their families. And in the New Testament, Paul tells the Thessalonians (2 Thess 3: 6 - 10) that, "Those unwilling to work should not get to eat."

The first lesson from the manna was that work is something valuable and worthwhile. But that vitally important principle needed to be balanced by a second one; read on in the post below for more about the second lesson from the manna.

Manna lesson two: the value of rest

In the post above, we saw that work is worthwhile and important in God's eyes. But some people make an idol of their work. We've coined the term "workaholic" to describe people who are so addicted to their work, so driven to achieve success in it, that their lifestyle is damaging to their health, their marriage and their relationship with family. Right from these earliest times (Exodus chapter 16) God wanted His people to keep their lives in balance and to see work in its proper place.

So the second lesson from the manna was about the value of rest. God explained that there would be no manna to gather up on the sabbath, but that the people were to rest and enjoy the provision from the previous day. (This in itself was a miracle, as they'd previously discovered that any manna stored till the following day became full of maggots.) Some people ignored the Lord's instructions and went out to work on the sabbath anyway. To their surprise, they discovered that there was no food waiting for them on the ground that day.

Speaking to Moses about this, God's response to this wilful disobedience of His instructions is a definitive statement on the importance of rest (vs 29): They need to realise that the Sabbath is God's gift to you.

There are people today, perhaps because of the restrictive interpretations of past generations, who see the sabbath as a duty to be accomplished or a list of stifling rules to be obeyed. While it's true that the sabbath principle was important enough to be included later in the ten commandments, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is God's gift to us: our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing are closely linked to our embracing and understanding of this value. Wrong and repressive understandings of sabbath were behind many of Jesus' disagreements with the Pharisees. But a right understanding of this principle will help us live balanced lives that are honouring to God.

So, the way that God provided manna for His people was a vehicle for two important life lessons:

1. the value of work
2. the value of rest

Do we value these two things as much as God does? And are we careful to keep them in balance in our own lives?

Click here and also here to read previous blog posts about sabbath rest.

The octogenarian dancer

When she was only a little girl, she had been part of laying the foundation for the amazing victory that they now experienced. As a tiny child, she had tiptoed along the river bank, pushing the reeds aside and splashing through the water as she kept her eyes on the floating basket that held her baby brother. That little girl who watched the Egyptian princess lifting Moses out of the River Nile, and who shared a word of wisdom that led to Moses spending his earliest years being nursed by how own mother, has now lived long enough to see her brother fulfil his destiny and be instrumental in leading the people of Israel away from their oppression in Egypt. After a lifetime of slavery, now in her eighties, Moses' sister Miriam is finally on the other side of the Red Sea and has just witnessed the destruction of the enemy that pursued them. No wonder this octogenarian bursts into a song of praise and begins to lead the other women in a victory dance.

Exodus 15 verse 20 calls her, "Miriam the prophet" - the first time since childhood that we read anything about where Miriam was at spiritually. She's in her eighties, she hasn't had an easy life, and her prayers for deliverance have seemingly gone unanswered for decades. But none of that has stopped this woman from holding on to the Lord and growing into a "prophet" - someone who knows how to hear the voice of God.

There's an old axiom that says the hard things in our lives either make us bitter or they make us better. After a whole lifetime of slavery and oppression, Miriam could easily have turned into a bitter old woman who was angry at God and resentful about the circumstances of her life. Instead, she has turned into an octogenarian who knows the Lord and who worships Him wholeheartedly with song and dance.

In the video clip that I attached to yesterday's post, they may not have made Miriam look like a woman in her eighties. (Exodus 7:7 tells us that Moses was eighty and Aaron was eighty three when all this happened.) But the words of her song tell us something of the faith that sustained her through eight long decades in captivity: "Many nights we prayed, with no proof anyone could hear…"
With no proof initially… and yet Miriam chose to keep on praying. It's in the absence of objective proof, that faith kicks in…. and faith that endures prepares the way for miracles in answer to our prayers.

When enemies become friends...

The deaths of the firstborn, in Exodus chapter 11, must have been a real nightmare for the Egyptians, filling the entire nation with trauma and grief. And yet God says in Ex 12:12 that His judgement is against "the gods of Egypt." The people of Egypt were not His enemies; in fact we read a couple of time in chapters 11 and 12 that most Egyptians looked favourably on the Israelites and their God. But these dear people nonetheless paid a high price for their idolatry of false gods and for the stubbornness of their Pharaoh.

And so it's interesting to read that, when the Exodus began and the people of Israel began to flee from Egypt, they were accompanied by a whole bunch of non-Israelites who opted to leave with them. (Exodus 12: 38, NLT) Were they people who had already begun to worship the God of Israel? Or were they Egyptians who were still reeling from the shock of losing their firstborn children and animals? It's interesting to me that, even on this historic occasion of delivering His people from slavery, God is not exclusive; people are welcome to join the exodus if they want to. Right from earliest times, God has specialised in welcoming His former enemies as friends. 

He continues to do that even today. The letter to the Philippians speaks of people whose lifestyles and choices made them "enemies of the cross." But the letter to the Romans tells of how we used to be enemies of God, but can now be reconciled to Him because of the death of His Son, Jesus. We can become His friends. This amazing reconciliation is only one of the things we celebrate at Easter.

I don't know if you've ever seen the animated film, "The Prince of Egypt." Today I was reflecting on the words of one of its theme songs, where it declares, "You can see miracles -  if you believe." I made time to watch that particular clip in the movie, and I was amazed to see something that I had never noticed before. As the people of Israel begin to leave Egypt in the dead of night, there's a little scene where one of the Egyptian guards takes off his headdress and bows his head; then two other guards throw down their spears and join the hundreds of thousands of Hebrews who are heading towards freedom. At various points after that, you can spot an Egyptian among the throng that is beginning its journey to the promised land. At one point, you can also see two ladies in African dress, carrying pots on their heads.

In the film, as the Israelites exit the gates of Egypt, after 430 years of slavery, they burst forth into celebratory song in their own language, Hebrew: 

I suppose that the Egyptians who travelled with them may not have understood what it meant, and weren't able to join in the singing yet. They were only beginning their journey from being enemies to being part of the people of God. Likewise in our own journey, it takes time to get to know God and understand His ways; some things might seem perplexing or hard to understand at first. But once we take that first step; once we appropriate the sacrifice of Jesus and are born again into the kingdom of God, we're on the right track; we're no longer enemies and we have begun the lifelong journey of being friends of God.

Watch in this film clip how those Egyptians make the choice to lay down their arms, to abandon all that is familiar to them, and to join the victorious journey of the people of God.

Did you notice the point where an elderly lady stops and a little girl takes her hand to lead her forward? Just before this exodus begins, there's a touching interchange where an elderly lady says, " I fear I am too old to make this journey." And the little girl replies, "No one is too old for freedom."

It's easy for people to feel that they're too old to change their lives and begin a journey with God. It's easy even for Christians to feel that they're too old to go deeper and really pursue a close friendship with God. Let's take to heart the words of that little child: no one is too old for freedom!

When miracles seem slow to happen...

I’ve been reading lately in the book of Exodus, and this morning I reached the chapters where the Israelites - more than a million of them - have just escaped from Egypt and are slowly beginning their journey towards freedom. 

How long did they travel in the desert before they even reached the Red Sea? The movies make it look as if Pharaoh was hot on their heels within hours of their escaping from Egypt. In reality, this first part of the journey (chapter 13) was long enough for Moses to give them teaching about  the dedication of the firstborn; long enough to establish the pattern of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night; long enough for God to explain that He was not taking them by the most direct route - in case having to face the Philistines in battle was too much for them and made them want to return to Egypt.

But finally - maybe after a few days - they do arrive at the seashore and set up camp there. And, as God knew all along, this is exactly the point where the pursuing Egyptian chariots catch up with them. As is often the case in life, things looked pretty bleak just before the miracle happened, and the Israelites began to panic and complain. “It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than to be a corpse in the desert,” they said. Moses had to step in and reassure them with these well known words :  

The Lord Himself will fight for you. Just stay calm. (Exodus 14:14, NLT)

I received those words for my own life this morning, as I continue to battle with pneumonia, and experience on top of that the side effects (leg cramps and strange muscular pain in my lower back) from an antibiotic that I was prescribed this week. It would be easy to panic in the face of medical evidence of the thousands of people who’ve experienced disability and had to undergo tendon surgery as a result of taking fluoroquinolone antibiotics. (Just google levaquin or cipro tendonitis, levaquin toxicity, etc, and the stories are pretty scary!)

Although I don’t feel any panic or fear, it would nonetheless be easy for me to get weary and say, like the Israelites: “It’s better to stay where I am; better to avoid international ministry travel than to have to put up with such debilitating lung infections and strange medical emergencies every time.” (Because the pneumonia has often been the trigger for some other bizarre affliction: in 2014 it was an accident that caused bad facial burns, and this year it’s this rather painful levaquin toxicity.)

But I refuse to resign myself to being a prisoner, like the Israelites wanted to do in the face of their enemy. I receive those words from Exodus 14:14 - that God will fight for me, and that I simply need to stay calm as I wait for Him to demonstrate His awesome power. There’s some truth in the old adage that it’s always darkest before the dawn. Wouldn’t it have been tragic if the Israelites had started to return to Egypt, just because they found themselves in deep darkness? They would have missed out on one of the greatest miracles in their history, and would never have experienced in their own lives that God really does care enough to fight for them.

What’s the situation in your life that would bring you to the end of your tether and make you want to retreat into slavery? (Slavery to worry, fear, discouragement or whatever… ) Perhaps this promise from Ex 14: 14 is also for you today: The Lord Himself will fight for you. Don’t panic, don’t give in to despair, but be still and wait to see Him act. If you’re positioned correctly (God had actually instructed the Israelites to “turn back and camp” on the seashore) you’ll be in the right place to witness God’s victory in your challenging situation. Take courage today.

Medical adventures

I was one of those children who was hardly ever ill. I hardly missed a day of school throughout my whole childhood and teenage years, so I remember it was a real shock to my system when, just before I turned thirty, a bad bout of whooping cough and pleurisy damaged my lungs, making me susceptible to bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia. The first years were fraught with bad infections that dragged on for six or seven weeks at a time, then it seemed to settle down: I learned how to live with it and how to "catch it in time," by taking an antibiotic before the infection sank too deep into my lungs. I was often able to go a full year without any infections, and when one did strike I was able to overcome it in just a week or ten days. Although slightly aware of my breathing limitations, I can honestly say that I've led a full life and have not been too aware of the illness preventing me from doing the things that I felt God calling me to do.

There seems to have been a change again in the past two or three years. I don't know if planes and airports now crank the air conditioning up higher than they did in the past, but I've been beginning to find that every trip represents a risk. Half a dozen times over the past three years, I've arrived home after a flight and come down with a bad lung infection - either bronchitis or pneumonia - that dragged on for several weeks. As someone whose missionary activities involve travelling to other parts of the world for outreaches or for speaking in training courses, this presents me with a real dilemma. I want to be obedient to God, but I find myself weighing up every speaking invitation because I know the price I might pay for it afterwards - partly in terms of my lungs, and partly because of the post-travel pain and stiffness from my arthritis.

My recent trip to Hawaii is an example of this challenge. Although I think the bronchitis I got there was caused by cold wind and not by air conditioning, I again find myself with a bad bout of pneumonia that stubbornly refuses to shift. After my middle-of-the-night emergency last weekend (see post for 27th March) I saw the doctor again on Monday and was prescribed a strong antibiotic because my lungs were still badly congested and I was having difficulty breathing.

After a couple of days, I noticed something very strange: even though I had been lying in bed all week (trying not to move, as any movement triggered a coughing spasm) I began to feel a sharp pain in my lower back, almost like when you pull a muscle doing sport. Then I noticed the same sort of discomfort at the top of my thighs and further down in my calves. Perhaps it was the Lord who made me suspect the strong antibiotics were behind it; I dug out that long complicated paper that always comes in the box and, sure enough, read that muscle damage and ruptured tendons could be one of the side effects "in rare cases." A little bit of googling on the internet revealed that there are class action suits (court cases) pending in the U.S. on behalf of more than three thousand people who claim that levofloxacin caused them to rupture their Achilles tendon and be incapacitated for months!

I was horrified and made an emergency appointment to see the doctor again that same day. My neighbour took me to the clinic and stayed with me, as I was feeling kind of weak and still coughing badly. Anyway, the end of the story is that they've changed me to a different antibiotic that I've to take for the next ten days. They hope the muscle stiffness will quickly go away, as I had only been taking the other pills for a couple of days. At the time of writing, I still feel stiffness in my back and in my calves. It's not excruciating, or anything like that, but I would certainly value your prayers that it will clear up quickly and not be the cause of any longer-term muscle weakness. (I already experience some stiffness and soft tissue pain from arthritis/fibromyalgia; perhaps that's what made me more susceptible to this side effect from the drug.)

In the meantime, the pneumonia is still a challenge: the coughing is exhausting and I can sense a "crackle" in my breathing. It's a little like I remember from my first lung illnesses in the early 1990s. My neighbours are checking up on me daily and bringing me food. I also have babysitters (furry ones) who watch over me when I'm lying in bed.  But I'd really value your prayers that this will clear up quickly and that I'll soon be back to health again.  Should you feel prompted to, I'd also value your prayers for wisdom in my travel decisions and for protection on my lungs whenever I need to travel for outreach or other ministry. Thank you and God bless you!