Summer is well and truly with us now - albeit slightly later than usual. Down here, near the southern coastal region, our temperatures are varying between 20 and 32 degrees celsius, a good ten degrees lower than the scorching temperatures of the inland towns and cities like Madrid and Toledo.
Even so, it still feels just a bit too hot to take the dogs out for a walk in the afternoon; the hot air only starts to become bearable after 7 pm (which is the reason why many Spaniards head to the beach at that time, and then only eat their evening meal at 9.30 or 10.00 pm.)
So yesterday afternoon, after church, I bundled all three dogs in the car and drove up the road a bit to a forest area where we could enjoy a walk in the shade, instead of in the blazing sunshine.
Yes, we're a three-dog team this summer. Buba's little "sister," Bonnie, a chihuahua-pekinese cross, doesn't usually go on the longer walks with Buba and Nelson, choosing the lazier option of wandering round the park with her owner instead. So she kept getting rather out of breath last week when we took her with us during the two days that her owner was in hospital. Turns out the little chihuahua has gained weight over the winter months and could do with losing a couple of pounds.
So when her owner got home from the hospital, she announced that it would be a good idea for little Bonnie to come on our 3-kilometre circuits morning and evening, to help with her weight loss programme. That's why you see her in the above photo, bearing up bravely on our walk in the woods yesterday.... and also in the photo below, looking back longingly at the road to the park.
The theme of this year's leadership development course was, "Remain in Me" - taken from John's Gospel chapter 15, where it speaks of how God is like a gardener who prunes fruitful branches in order to make room for even more growth. Even so, the rather brutal pruning (by the town council) of the pretty yellow mimosa trees in a park near by house made for an ugly and sobering picture of what pruning can look like: it's always going to be painful! Our own experience of closing the leadership retreat centre in order to make way for the international multiplication of the leadership development course is a very real example of what pruning feels like.
It's been five weeks since the local authorities cut back those mimosa trees, leaving only ugly bare branches (I confess that I gathered up some of the logs to add to my firewood stock for next winter) and so this week I was amazed to see that new growth had already begun. By next spring, or maybe even before then, those trees will be covering the park in a carpet of yellow blossoms again.
In stark contrast, the jasmine plant at the entrance to my house hasn't produced many blossoms this year. I think I waited too late to prune it, and instead of cutting it right back in January, I did a less brutal pruning in March. The growth has not been nearly as lovely as in previous years. What a visual parable! If we resist God's pruning in our lives, or don't respond in a timely way, we may miss out on some of the fruitfulness and the fragrance that He wants to bring from our life.
It's been two months since my last blog post. I think that's been my longest gap since starting this blog back in 2007. The reason for my long silence was that this year's leadership development course (LDC), the last one to be held here at the Leadership Retreat Centre, seemed to monopolise all my time over the past two months. We had a wonderful international group of leaders with us for this time, and it was a joy to see God at work, encouraging, equipping and transforming lives. The above photo shows the LDC staff and delegates at the "graduation" and thanksgiving time that we held at the end of the course.
Once the LDC was over, we took a few more days to bring closure to the Leadership Retreat Centre, which will be closing this summer after ten years of very fruitful ministry. We have a sense that this local expression of the leadership development ministry needs to be put on hold for now, in order to serve the international multiplication of the LDC courses in new regions of the world.
Among those who joined us last week for the closing celebrations was my friend, Sue, who spent ten months here when the retreat centre was just beginning in 2008. She stayed on for a few days holiday afterwards and we had fun exploring some new locations: we swam in a lovely little lake called Pantano del Agujero, and we went to visit the Iberian wolf sanctuary near Antequera. Sue returned to England yesterday, and now begins my summer season of coaching missionary leaders (including four who just completed the LDC) as well as helping to pack up the retreat centre.
There was a man who owned a dog and a handful of sheep. He had a nice house and lush fields, but passers by were consistently concerned with the condition of his animals: the dog looked thin and unkempt; the sheep were sometimes limping due to an injury or had sores around their eyes.
Just up the road lived another man; he had two dogs and a larger flock of sheep. The difference in the quality of his animals was noticeable: the dogs looked healthy and full of energy; the sheep seemed contented and often produced new little lambs.
One day, someone phoned the authorities to report the first man for neglecting his animals. An inspector came and, sure enough, discovered that the dog and the few sheep were not well cared for, and so they fined him and took the animals away from him. But someone needed to look after that dog and sheep, and so the animals were given to the other man, the one who lived up the road.
It's not a true story, but it makes sense to me. If someone is neglecting their animals, a different solution needs to be found. and what better option than to entrust them to someone with a good track record of taking care of his own dogs and sheep.
I've often been puzzled by Mark 4: 25, which appears in the middle of some parables that Jesus is sharing about shining our light and planting the seeds of the gospel. It says, "Those who have something will be given more, and those who have nothing will have taken away from them even the little that they have." It sounds vaguely unjust - like taking from the poor to give to the rich. But when you think of it in terms of faithfulness, it makes a lot of sense. As in the parables of the talents, those who prove themselves faithful can be entrusted with more, while those who are lazy or neglectful risk losing the little that they have.
Jesus also makes this statement in the context of explaining to His disciples why He speaks in parables. In fact, one. Bible translation expresses verse 25 in this way: "To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. To those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them." It's to do with how obedient we are. In His kindness, Jesus does not want us to become increasingly accountable for growing levels of disobedience... and so the gift of greater understanding is granted mainly to those who are faithful in obeying what they already understand of His Word. The more we obey, the more we can be entrusted with; the less we obey, the less we will understand. It's our choice!
You've heard that old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb? Well, it seems like the lion and the lamb are battling for supremacy in these early days of March 2018. Last week, our KKI European leadership team was meeting at a friend's home in Alella, just north of Barcelona. We wandered down to the beach one day after dinner, and found ourselves caught up in lightly falling snow, and then in winter rain. So much for being in the land of winter sun! I found it rather cold up there in the north of Spain, and was kind of relieved to arrive back to a warmer and sunnier day in Málaga.
It wasn't to last, though. Before we knew it, torrential rain swept in for the weekend: driving winds uprooted palm trees and a a relentless downpour caused flooded streets throughout the province. The photos below show how the access roads to the airport were impassable this morning - not a very promising sign, when I need to to around a dozen airport trips this week to pick up the members of the KKI international leadership team, coming to meet here in Alhaurin de la Torre this week. As you can see in one of the pictures, the violent wind and rain even damaged the roof in the airport terminal building.
Then, just when you're expecting to see Noah's ark sail by at any minute, the crashing rain begins to give way to less noisy pitter patter, and then it stops completely. You can see patches of blue sky and bright sunshine, even though the huge grey clouds are still loitering there on the horizon. You hear the sound of washing machines, as neighbours rush to do some laundry in the gap between downpours. Joyful barks sound in the street, as people grab leads and take their dogs out for a walk before the rain starts up again. Who would believe that the photo below was taken on the same day as the four pictures above?!
And so a week of international meetings lies ahead. Mostly we'll be indoors, seeking the Lord and catching up with ministry "business." But I can't help hoping, when it comes to our weather, that the lamb will make more appearances than the lion. It would be nice to be able to eat outdoors sometimes, or to have pleasant sunny weather when we take the group on an outing to the mountain village of Mijas. It's not going to be warm enough for our ice cream shops to open up for the season... but it would be a blessing if our March weather was more wonderful than weird over the coming ten days.
A very full week of ministry lies behind us; we were busy every day with the intensive workshop in foundational coaching skills (FOCOS). This is the same workshop that we ran for a week in January, but this time our trainees were mostly from Spanish speaking nations: they were from Costa Rica, Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, and of course from Spain. We also had some Brazilian missionaries and pastors in the group.
The full schedule meant that I left home pretty early in the morning, which meant that I often saw beautiful sunrises and cloudscapes while driving to the retreat centre... and then it was already dark again by the time I headed home in the evening. The week was very full, but it was also very fruitful and we are really encouraged to hear the feedback from the trainees, and the testimonies of what God has done in their lives during this week.
Spanish FOCOS is one of the most challenging weeks in my year, as it's the only week where I have to teach and work uniquely in Spanish for the whole week. (All our other seminars at the retreat centre are in English.) This year I had to teach more than a dozen training sessions, as well as giving short coaching demonstrations in Spanish. I was encouraged, though, to notice that the Spanish seemed to flow more easily than it did this time last year, and by the second day I was feeling a lot more confident and excited about the week.
The 20 participants are now moving into the third phase of their training: they will begin coaching their own "clients" while we as staff mentor and coach them in their developing skills. The course will finish with an online "graduation" in September.
If I asked you to think of someone in the Bible who really wanted to be pleasing to God and who had spent his whole life seeking to obey Him, whose name would you give me? There are many people that you might think of, but I kind of suspect that it wouldn't be the person I was reading about this morning.
However, if I asked you to think of someone in the Bible who wanted to have eternal life, but wasn't sure if he was willing to pay the price... you might think of this person immediately. I was reading this morning in Mark chapter 10, which includes the story of the rich young man.
You've probably heard more than a few sermons preached about this man, and I wonder perhaps if we don't give the poor guy a raw deal. He is so often held up as an example of someone who was not willing to "give up everything" for Jesus. (At least, we don't know if he was. At this point in the story, he went away troubled and sad about what Jesus had asked him to do. We're not told whether he thought things over and finally came to the hard decision to give up everything he had.)
We do know that he was a sincere young man, who had honestly spent his whole life seeking to obey God. It could have seemed arrogant or self-righteous when he said that, but I don't think that it was - because Jesus didn't look at him with anger or judgement, the way He related to the Pharisees. Instead, we read that Jesus looked at him with affection.
But we don't remember this young man for his godly life or for his years of faithful obedience. No, for some reason, we always seem to remember him for his sadness and his reluctance to make that supreme sacrifice that Jesus asked of him.
And yet I know that my own reaction is not so very different when faced with the prospect of sacrifice and loss. Not because I'm rich (I know I probably have very little in the eyes of the world) but because I also feel a sense of sadness when I think of losing the things that are precious to me. Last year, for example, I was invited to consider leaving Spain and moving to another part of the world. I confess that I shed tears as I considered the prospect of yet again losing my home, my team, my friends, my pets...
Maybe a key difference was that I knew from the outset that I would definitely obey and give up everything if that was what the Lord was asking of me... whereas we're left with the impression that this godly young man went away sadly, unwilling to pay the price.
As I look into my own heart, however, I see the warning: the awareness that people and things, animals and places, can so easily entwine themselves around our hearts in a way that means that our obedience will sometimes have a great cost to it.
Perhaps this was the very first time that someone had asked this young man to give up the things that mattered deeply to him. It's been said that none of us knows what idol we are worshipping until Jesus puts His finger on it and asks us to give it up.
Those of us who have been walking with the Lord for years, even decades, have probably been there a few times. We've taken steps of obedience that called for true sacrifice; we've made personal and ministry decisions, knowing full well that they would entail losses as well as gains. We've come face to face with our own hearts at the times when wholehearted commitment only came after an intense inner struggle.
Perhaps that's why the times of grief and loss, when they do happen, help to cement our commitment to the Lord and free us from the question or the possibility that other people and things could be important enough to take His place.
So let's not judge the rich young man for his sadness; rather, let's be humbly aware of the things in our own lives that would be hard to give up if Jesus asked us to.
