Beginning at the end...

At the beginning of this new year, I started reading at the very end of the Bible, and for the past three weeks I've been reading in the New Testament book of Revelation.

Some of you know that I also began the year with some uncertainties about how it would end: some questions and decisions that I needed to make about future steps.

So it was interesting to discover that that the very first verse of Revelation chapter one says that it is a book that is going to show the reader some things that will take place in the future. How reassuring to be reminded that, even if the future is unknown to us, we serve a God who fully knows everything about the past, present and future.

As that first chapter continues, however, the revelation given to John doesn't start off with things about the future; it starts off with a revelation of who Jesus is, in all His resurrection power, authority, glory and love. That is the most important revelation of all.

I began the year knowing that I needed some revelation and understanding about what I should do in the future (from the second half of this year.) But much more important to me is the desire to continue growing in my revelation of Jesus - in my knowledge and experience of the nature and character of God.

The same sense of priority comes up again in the first verse of Revelation chapter four. John hears a voice saying to him, "Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this." The invitation is to come closer to God; the outcome is to understand more about what should happen in the future. 

Sometimes, if we're in a season where we need to make a decision, it's easy to get these priorities all mixed up and to focus on the things we want to know... instead of focusing on the One who knows everything already. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and also the end. Let's heed His invitation to draw closer to Him in this first month of a new year.

A coaching FOCOS

No, it's not a spelling mistake. This month and next, one focus of my ministry involvement is to serve as a coach and trainer in the FOCOS (foundational coaching skills) workshop - an intensive seminar that equips missionaries and pastors to care for people by using a life-coaching approach.

So, last week, we hosted the trainees (pictured above) who are following the course in English. They came from several different countries of Europe, North America and the Middle East, and from a number of different organisations and denominations. They left last weekend, encouraged and energised to see how their understanding and their skills had grown over just one intensive week.

A couple of weeks from now, as we move into February, we'll run the same programme again, but this time with a Spanish language group. I'll be one of the two trainers for that, and I'm already beginning to prepare the thirteen sessions that I'll need to teach in Spanish. Thanks for your prayers.

New year, new season...

It's a new year, and I recently arrived back in Spain after spending Christmas with family in Scotland. Although southern Spain is considered to be a "winter sun" destination, I arrived back this week to pouring rain and snow-covered hilltops. Mornings are chilly when I take the dogs out for their walk, but the sun usually manages to make an appearance in the afternoon.

It's amazing to realise that this is the beginning of my tenth year in Spain. Time has gone by so fast. As a new year begins, it's also the beginning of a new season for us, as some big changes will be taking place for us this year in Malaga. You can read more about that in my January newsletter.

For now, I'll simply wish you God's richest blessings for 2018.

The Word became flesh

For the past month or so, I’ve been meditating on different aspects of the nature and character of God, working my way through a dozen or so attributes or names of God every week. During the week that I was reflecting on different aspects of the Trinty, and wiith Christmas approaching very soon, my attention was caught by the passage in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, where it says that, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

John begins his gospel by referring to Jesus as, “the Word.” It seems a strange name for a person; perhaps the aim was to catch the attention of people who knew that God created the whole universe by His word. His word represents His authority, as well as His power. It also reminds us that He speaks; that He is a God who communicates with us - which means that He is personal, and not just a “thing” or a spiritual force. As John unpacked who “the Word” is, his early readers had no trouble identifying that He was speaking about God Himself:

The word is eternal. (In the beginning was the Word.) He is distinct from God the Father (because it says that He was with God), yet at the same time He is God. He created everything that exists, and He is full of life, light, glory, grace and truth.

Although perhaps a bit controversial to Jews who believed in only one God, what John wrote wasn’t completely unheard of.  Jews had read the Genesis account of creation, where God said, “Let’s make man in our image,” and they knew that the prophet Isaiah had heard God saying, “Who shall I send, and who will go for us?” Plurality within the Godhead had already been hinted at before now, so John’s writing would not be too shocking up to this point, and the idea of understanding “the Word” to be God was not unacceptable to them.

What would have made them stop short, however, was the statement that the Word became flesh. How could their all-powerful, transcendent, infinite God become a limited human being. How could an immortal, invisible God have a physical human body?

As Christians, we’re so used to this concept that it doesn’t shock us. And pagans who celebrate Christmas aren’t shocked either by the idea of the baby in the stable because they probably see Jesus as human, but not as God, not as “the Word.” But the incarnation (becoming flesh) continues to be the biggest problem that Jews and Muslims have with the gospel: if God is really God, how could He possibly also be man?

So, in this introduction to His gospel, John took a concept that was already familiar to the Jews - the idea that God lived among them by being present in the Tabernacle or Tent of His presence - and he used that same word here as a verb. What he literally says here is that the Word became flesh, became human, and “tabernacled” among us. Jesus came to camp in our midst, but instead of being in a tent, He was in a human body. 

This is the true miracle of Christmas. It was mind blowing back then, and it still is today. But when we begin to grasp it, when we understand that God cared about us so much that He become one of us, it will change everything else from that point forward. It will prepare us to be participants in another miracle too: to those who believe and receive Him, He gives the right to become children of God. What exquisite symmetry: Jesus became the child of human beings, so that human beings could become children of God!

Bitterness leads to barrenness

Michal hadn't had an easy life. You would think that being born in the royal palace would have guaranteed her a life of ease and privilege... but that was only part of the story. This princess's circumstances meant that she also faced some unusual challenges.

For example, she fell in love with a wonderful, God-fearing man called David, and her father, King Saul, seemed delighted about this. Imagine her shock and disillusionment when she discovered that Saul was jealous of David and was actually trying to arrange for David to be killed in battle, so that he would never in fact become Michal's husband. (1 Samuel 18: 20 - 28)

However, David returned victorious from the battle and Michal was able to marry her dream man after all. It soon became apparent, though, that Saul was still trying to kill him, and Michal had to conspire against her own father in order to help her husband escape and run for his life. (1 Samuel 19: 11 - 17) 

Many years passed with David on the run and, during that time, Saul gave Michal in marriage to another man, someone called Palti. The Bible doesn't tell us much about Michal's marriage to Palti. Did she come to love him, and settle down happily with him? Or did she pine for David, waiting and hoping for the day when he would send for her, and find a way for them to be together again?

But that didn't happen. David was living in the land of the Philistines at the time, while Michal stayed in Israel with her family and with her new husband. Perhaps that's when the disappointment and bitterness began to take hold of her. Did she feel perhaps that David had forgotten her and no longer cared for her?  Did she hear the news that he had taken other wives and had children by them? 
(2 Samuel 3: 2 - 5)

It was only after her father died and David had become king in Judah, that he contacted Michal's brother, Ishbosheth, and said, "Give me back my wife, Michal, because I bought her with the lives of a hundred Philistines." (2 Samuel 3: 14) 
I wonder how Michal felt on hearing this. Was she overjoyed that David had sent for her at last, or did she feel dishonoured that she was referred to like a piece of property to be bought and sold? Did she look forward to being reunited with David, or was she heartbroken at being separated from Palti, the man who had been her husband for many years now? We read in vs 15 - 16 that Palti wept bitterly at losing his wife and followed her disconsolately until King Ishbosheth finally sent him home.

And so Michal became David's wife again.... but something had shifted in their relationship, and she was clearly feeling bitter - bitter, perhaps, at the way she'd been neglected for years; bitter at being only one of several wives and seeing that some got more of his attention than she did; bitter at being torn away from Palti and not having any say in the matter; resentful, perhaps, that her love for David had cost her so much; bitter about the circumstances that had sabotaged her dreams of true love and happy-ever-after.

So things come to a head in 2 Samuel chapter 6, when the Ark of God is being returned to Jerusalem and King David is dancing exuberantly as he worships the Lord. Michal watched from her window, and she felt contempt and judgement in her heart. Her bitterness spilled over in harsh, accusing and judgemental words towards David (vs 16, vs 20) And the chapter ends, vs 23, by telling us that Michal remained barren and childless throughout her whole life.

What a sad story! We can understand why Michal felt sorry for herself, and perhaps we feel sorry for her too. But there's also a message here that we would do well to heed in our own lives: whenever we allow resentment, bitterness and judgement to take hold of us, it invariably leads to barrenness in our lives. In Michal's case, it was physical infertility and childlessness. In our case, it can lead to spiritual barrenness. We're still Christians, but we're aware of a noticeable lack of fruitfulness in our lives. We're not experiencing the fruit of peace, joy and intimacy with God. We're not seeing the good fruit of friends and family members coming to the Lord. We struggle to have a sense of vision and purpose for our life...

It doesn't matter whether our bitterness is against God, against the church or against a particular person. When we allow it to send its roots deep into our hearts, it will always lead us into barrenness.

That's no doubt why the New Testament (Hebrews 12: 15) warns us to watch out for any root of bitterness, knowing that it will not only bring barrenness to ourselves, but can also spread its poison to many others that we come in contact with. How important it us to deal with hurts and offences quickly, before they morph into bitterness and judgement within our own minds and hearts. By God's grace, we can rise above life's hard times, and move into abundance instead of barrenness.

The King's Walkway.... stepping by faith

Last week, the first week of October, I looked at the date one day, and realised that it had been exactly nine years since I had come to live in Spain. How time flies!

Among the first places I ever visited, about an hour inland from Malaga, were the stunning turquoise lakes of El Chorro, and they have continued to be a favourite destination of mine for a summer swim. At the time, there was much talk of a walk called "El Caminito del Rey" - a narrow ledge, built in 1905, that hugged the side of the cliffs (see above) and was often touted as "the most dangerous walk in the world" or "the scariest hike in Spain." It was illegal to do the Caminito, so we would simply stand down by the lakeside, taking photos of the crumbling walkway and the iconic bridge that spanned the river gorge. (Adrenaline junkies still ventured up there in secret, and took great pride in posting their exploits on YouTube. However, there was at least one such thrill seeker who fell to his death every year.) 

In 2015, the Malaga tourist board decided to rebuild walkways that would make the Caminito del Rey safe again, and an official destination for "active tourism" in Malaga. Of course, this was at the time when the degenerating arthritis in my feet was particularly painful, and it was hard for me to walk more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. The new Caminito looked like a great adventure, but I knew I wouldn't have the physical capacity to complete the 5 mile hike.

However, as I've written in a previous post, I was very aware that limiting my physical activity in order to avoid pain would only make me even more unfit in the end. For a couple of years now, I've been trying to build up my strength and monitoring the distance that I'm able to cover while walking the dog(s) every day. A number of my friends went to walk the Caminito earlier this year, during the LDC, but I was on crutches at the time, and wasn't able to go with them. Tony (our Mexican cook) and I decided that we would try to go up there in the autumn, when the rest of our team were working with the LDC in the USA.

So, last week, on the ninth anniversary of my moving to Spain, we set out for our adventure. We hadn't booked tickets in advance (there's such a huge demand for the walk, that you have to go online and reserve a place) - partly because we wanted to wait and see choose a day when the autumn weather would be mild, and partly because I don't always know in advance whether my fibromyalgia will be giving me a lot of pain or not.

So it was pitch dark when we left home before 7 am, and still dark when we arrived an hour later at the northern end of the lakes. Fortunately, the daylight was just beginning, because the Caminito begins with a three kilometre walk to the ticket office, and we wouldn't have wanted to stumble through the pine forest by the light of the full moon. Too much risk of losing your footing and rolling down the hillside to the river bed. 

We knew that we had to arrive at the starting point before 9 o' clock, as there are only a limited number of tickets available for people who didn't book them in advance. Our timing was perfect and we were about tenth and eleventh in line when we came out of the woods and arrived at the hut where we could get our tickets and our hard hats. (By the time the counter opened, at least forty people were standing in line.) We got our tickets, we got our hats, and we were off. Despite the fact that fifty of us were allowed to enter the gorge, it never felt crowded or touristy. Some people tended to walk faster, while others lingered to take photos of the stunning scenery, and so it never felt as if you were just part of a group.

I'd felt slightly nervous about undertaking the Caminito, because I didn't know if I'd be physically capable of it. Yes, I walk 3 km every morning and 3 km every evening (on a good day) with the dogs, but I didn't know if I'd be able to walk 8 km at one stretch. That was part of the reason why, on the doctor's advice, I'd cancelled my involvement in Africa outreach this year.  So, going to the Caminito was kind of a step of faith. Imagine my surprise and relief to discover that it was a very easy walk - nothing strenuous or scary about it. We'd begun at the northern end, so it was a leisurely downhill stroll amidst breathtaking scenery. After a couple of hours, we were already approaching the famous hanging bridge that I had so often photographed from down below.

After that, comes the most impressive part of the walk (and for me the most strenuous part, as it involves going up stairs and then climbing uphill!) What a wonderful experience and what amazing views of God's creation: the turquoise lakes, the towering mountains, the falcons circling in the deep blue sky...

Now the mountainside walkway part of the trail was behind us, and all that remained was a pleasant 2 km walk down the hillside to the southern access point. We arrived there in time to hand in our hard hats and eat an ice cream before catching the local bus that drove us back up the 8 km winding road (also a lovely scenic drive) to where we had parked my car by the lake at the northern access point. It had been a wonderful adventure, and I highly recommend it.

Was I sore and stiff the next day? Well yes, but I'm always like that after any kind of sustained physical activity - whether it's cleaning the house, carrying a shopping bag, bringing in the firewood, or walking a little further than would be normal for me. I experienced the same kind of stiffness after our outreach days in Wittenberg and Rome this summer.

But was it worth it? Definitely! Being high up on the mountainside of a river gorge made it possible to see all kinds of scenery and geological features that you wouldn't normally be able to see - unless you went up in a helicopter or something like that. It was such a fun thing to do - accessible even for children and older people, and I'll certainly be recommending it to anyone who's coming to visit the Malaga region of Spain.

Click here to see a short video that gives you a taster of what we experienced. Or, if you understand Spanish, you might enjoy this short video from one of our southern TV channels.

Garlic breath

Well, we finally made the "ajo blanco" from the almonds that we hand-picked a couple of weeks ago. (See previous post.) It took us that long to bang all the almonds with a big stone to remove the shells. In the end, the weight of almonds was considerably less than the weight of the husks that I'll be using with my firewood this winter. 

My friend made the ajo blanco this morning. It's kind of a soup that's drunk cold like gazpacho. At first taste, it's a bit like drinking a glass of garlic... (just as well my room mates are feline and don't mind the smell!) but then the taste of the almonds starts to come through. It's an interesting and surprisingly nice taste experience - one of the Spanish dishes that I hadn't yet tried, even though I've now lived here for nine years.