This past weekend, as I was reading in 1 Thessalonians chapter five and writing some notes in my journal, I was struck by the incredible simplicity of biblical truth, yet with an awareness of how life-changing it can be. In that last part of Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, there are some very short sentences but, if taken seriously, they can make a very big difference in our lives.
For example, there's a section that speaks about how we should relate to different kinds of people. Each sentence is only a few words long, but I couldn't help wondering what a difference it might make if I were to put them into practice, even just for one day. What would it look like if I really did encourage someone who was feeling fearful and timid? What would happen if I made a point of caring for the weak instead of judging them? What difference would it make (to me and to others) if I was honestly patient with everyone that I meet today?
A little later, there's another section made up of very short sentences, some of them only three words long. Yet it would be totally life-changing if we were to make it our goal to obey these short instructions diligently and truly make them part of our lives on a daily basis.
Always be joyful? How would it impact my life if I made a daily choice not to let life's challenges and circumstances rob me of the joy that God wants to give me?
Never stop praying? What would happen if I refused to let discouragement or seemingly unanswered prayers make me give up and stop praying for people or situations?
Be thankful in all circumstances! I know from personal experience that this one is truly life-changing. I could start this year feeling sorry for myself because I still have a cough after ten weeks of respiratory infections... or I can be thankful that I'm now feeling well enough to go out walking with the dogs again, thankful that the mild sunny weather is making those walks so pleasant, thankful for the beautiful scenery around me as we go.
I could complain because a bad fall this week (see previous post) added even more muscular pain to the arthritis stiffness that I live with anyway... or I could be thankful that no bones were broken when I fell, thankful that I'm still able to write despite having a huge, swollen purple thumb.
One of my goals for 2019 is to start the day by speaking out at least half a dozen things that I am thankful for. I can pray those prayers of gratitude while I'm in the shower or having my coffee or going out for our walk. There are so many things I feel thankful for, and taking a moment to remember them not only makes a difference to how we experience life, it is also God's will for each one of us who belong to Jesus. That's the way I want to live my life this year.
You probably recognise the scenario or have experienced it at some time in the past. At church this morning, we sang a song called, "First Love," and one or or two people responded with prayers of repentance, telling the Lord that they wanted to return to their first love for Him.
I understand where those prayers come from; the whole idea of having abandoned our first love for God is drawn from a letter written to the church in Ephesus; we can read it in Revelation chapter 2 verse 4. But I have to confess that I always feel a bit uncomfortable when the pastor or worship leader urges us all to "return to our first love," as that's something I don't want to do.
You see, the longer I know the Lord, the more I get to know Him and discover what He is really like, the more I realise that I love Him so much more now than I did in the beginning when I first gave my life to Him as a twelve year old.
So when we sing songs about Jesus being our first love, I don't think of "first" in terms of time; I like to think of it in terms of priority or importance - asking myself, "Is Jesus truly first in my life? Is He more important to me than anyone or anything else?"
It's so easy to allow other things to become the main focus of our affection or attention. It could be our work or our hobby, our family or our friends, our own reputation or wellbeing. So, even when we can honestly say that our love for God is more now than it was in the beginning, it's still worth pausing to ask ourselves if He is truly our first love; genuinely our number one.
When I was a kid in primary school, "bad news - good news" jokes ; were all the trend. You no doubt remember them; they went something like this.
Doctor: I have some good news and some bad news.
Patient: Okay, well... give me the good news first.
Doctor: You have 24 hours to live.
Patient: How is that good news?!? What's the bad news, then?
Doctor: I've been trying to call you since yesterday.
Yes, they were a pretty infantile form of dark humour, but I couldn't help remembering them last week as my life began to feel a little bit like a bad news - good news script.
The good news: I feel so much better now than over the past months of pneumonia and bronchitis.
The bad news: I still have an annoying, lingering cough.
The good news: we've had relatively mild sunny weather, and that has allowed me to start going out for gentle walks with the dogs again.
The bad news: on my way home, I had a bad fall while walking down my street.
The good news: it's amazing that no bones were broken.
The bad news: I have two huge purple thumbs, bruised swollen knees, and painful pulled muscles down one arm and shoulder.
The good news: I can still write, despite the monster thumbs.
No, seriously, even my little misadventure had a funny side to it. I had just dropped off the dogs and was turning the corner into my street, when I heard a woman's cry, as if someone had fallen or hurt herself. I quickened my pace to see if I could help, and before I knew it, I was lying on my stomach!
I, and the woman in front of me, had both been tripped up by a hole in the pavement, where electrical workers had broken one of the paving stones. Although I was on my way to help her, the other lady had managed not to fall, and she was the one who had to help me get up again.
I fell pretty heavily, so I'm incredibly thankful that no bones were broken and there don't seem to be any serious injuries. I have pulled muscles all down one side of my body, though, so a nurse friend recommended I take diclofenac anti-inflammatories until the sensitivity settles down again.
The good news? It hasn't prevented me from being able to walk, so I'm still enjoying our mild January weather this year and taking the dogs for an afternoon walk in the sunshine. One day, I ran a 4-dog taxi and my canine friends helped me pick up sticks to supplement my firewood.
The postscript to the story is that I wrote an email to the town council, asking them to repair the broken pavement before someone else gets hurt.
On Sunday at church, I was sharing from 2 Timothy 2: 3 - 7, which compares the Christian life to that of a soldier, an athlete and a farmer. A recurring theme in all three pictures is the need for patience, faithfulness, hard work and perseverance. (See picture below.)
This morning, I began meditating in the first chapter of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, and I was struck by a verse (see picture above) which has long been a favourite of mine. The Bible translation I was reading (NLT) spoke of the Thessalonians' faithful work, loving deeds and enduring hope. But I especially like the NIV translation, which speaks of their:
- work produced by faith
- labour prompted by love
- and endurance inspired by hope.
In this verse, we see those characteristics that are exemplified by the soldier, athlete and farmer, but we also see the root or source of them. Those qualities that could perhaps seem more challenging for us to acquire - like hard work and perseverance - are actually the outflow of the faith, love and hope that we have in Jesus. That is a big encouragement, as we see Him giving us all we need to be all He invites us to be.
Yes, it's already 2019. We're already almost two decades into the "new" millennium. Whenever a new year begins, I take time in prayer to evaluate the year that has just ended and to set goals with the Lord for the year that lies ahead. One of my goals for 2019 is about discovering or creating community, here where I live. With the closing of our leadership retreat centre last year, my local team of missionaries dispersed to different parts of the world, and so I need to invest in new relationships and create life-giving Christian community for this new season. Another of my desires for the new year is that I would have wisdom in making decisions about travel. The closing of our local centre has meant that I receive a lot more invitations to travel and teach in other parts of the world, so I need wisdom to get the right balance between staying at home and being "on the road."
I love this photo, above, taken by a Spanish photographer and border collie owner in the early hours of the new year. She calls it, "The first sunrise of 2019." I love the way the cross rises up above the clouds and mist, and the sun appears to light up the day and allow a clearer vision into the distance. So often we enter a new year without really knowing all that lies ahead, but it's good to remember that the future is in God's hands and He is always there to show us the way.
I'll be turning sixty this year, and the photo reminds me that one of my longstanding dreams was to get a dog again, a border collie, before my 60th birthday. Now that the time is drawing closer, however, I realise that it's probably going to be an unfulfilled dream; I still have quite a few ministry trips in the diary, and this wouldn't be a good time to have to think of caring for a puppy. I guess I'll have to content myself with walking various neighbours' dogs, as I've done for the past few years.
I just arrived back in Spain today, after spending Christmas and New Year with my family and local church in Scotland. I had also been in Scotland for just a few days at the beginning of December, as we all gathered to celebrate my Dad's 90th birthday (see photo below.) If you were reading this blog back at the end of 2011, you'll recall that he had many brushes with death during an extended hospital stay, and it's truly a miracle that he is still with us to celebrate this milestone birthday.
You may be wondering why this blog has been silent since mid-November. Well, it's because the last few weeks of 2018 were a bit of a roller coaster ride in terms of my health. Having come down with bronchitis in early November, I really thought I was okay again and I set off for a ministry commitment in Belarus... only to discover after I got there that my lungs weren't really improving and that I actually had pneumonia. It dragged on for around six weeks, and I was only finally feeling okay again as Christmas approached. So you can imagine my disappointment, after a healthy Christmas, to be struck down with bronchitis again as the new year approached. I (and my parents) coughed our way through the first week of the new year and had to keep a low profile while church friends were getting together for hogmanay.
I'm gradually beginning to feel better again now, and the doctor says my lungs are infection free, but there's a horrible lingering cough and I'm using a couple of inhalers to help my breathing recover and return to normal. I'd value your prayers for better lung health in 2019.
As we enter the second week of 2019, let me wish you God's richest blessings and encouragements, as well as His guidance in this new year.
These two weeks back in Spain have flown by very fast. The first week was full of coaching appointments and online planning meetings for an upcoming youth leaders' forum. Then a respiratory infection struck and I've spent the past week indoors, fighting off a bad bout of bronchitis and tracheitis. The antibiotics finally seem to be doing their job, and I'm starting to feel a bit better now, but I have to confess I still feel a bit weak at the prospect of my long journey to Belarus tomorrow. (Click on the picture to enlarge the map.) I'll leave home fairly early in the morning, but will only arrive in Minsk at 1 am on Monday morning Fortunately, some KKI friends in Minsk will meet me at the airport and take me to their home for the rest of the night, before we move on to our conference accommodation the next day.
Conference probably isn't the right word, as this year is our smaller KKI regional gathering. For the first few days there will be just half a dozen of us - the KKI European leadership team. Then we'll be joined on Thursday by 35 others - the national leaders of KKI ministries in all the different countries of Europe. We'll be together for three days of prayer, fellowship, and seeking the Lord together. We'll also run some training tracks to equip those men and women for their national leadership task.
I'll be teaching two of the training tracks - one on leadership mentoring and the other on youth mentoring - as well as facilitating some of the plenary sessions.
When the week is up, I'll fly back to Spain again, with an even more complicated itinerary than on the outbound trip. I need to be at Minsk airport at 3 am, and will take three flights, criss-crossing Northern Europe before arriving back in Malaga. Thanks for your prayers.
I'm back in Spain, after two weeks in the chill of Northern Europe. We even had snow one weekend while I was in Sweden, as you can perhaps see in these twilight photos taken as the snow was beginning to melt.
The writers' workshop was interesting and I enjoyed it a lot, even though it was quite a busy schedule with lots of homework to be done every night. The first week's topic was about creative non-fiction; that's when you take a true story and write it in an interesting way, like you'd read in a book, rather than in a simple journalistic style. Our homework assignment was to interview a class mate and then write their story, just like writing a chapter in a book.
The second week's topic was about thematic writing - like when someone writes a book to communicate teaching or ideas, rather than to tell a story. Our homework that week included the writing of an article. My topic was to consider the question of whether missionaries should urge native tribespeople to wear clothing!
Our class was a fun group of people. Four of us were there only for the seminar weeks and the remaining dozen will be completing the course and writing their books over the coming six months.
