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.)