Playing small

Hello God.

I've been thinking about my hopes and dreams recently -  and I began to wonder what it is that is stopping me from really going for it; giving it all that I have. What stops me from going out on a limb. What is it, really?

I read about stepping out in faith and following the path you have chosen for us. Not dawdling along and collapsing on the nearest bench, opening my packed lunch when it's only half past ten, but actually striding down the path, one foot after another. Walking with you, trusting that there is always more path even though I can't see it. Believing that if you started me down this path then you know where it leads and you do want me to get there.

'For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

Ephesians 2:10

You made me. You made me to do something with my life and you have a plan. You didn't intend for me to sit comfortably and admire the view.

I am pretty sure that the plan is not for me to sit here drinking coffee, eating too many biscuits and waiting for something to drop into my lap. Just treading water. I need to find some get-up-and-go, and for someone low on confidence and energy, whose inclination is towards excessive napping and whose default position is procrastination, I'm going to need some help.

I do think that recently you have been prompting me. Not in any subtle sort of way, either; it's become impossible to ignore, and so here I am, preparing myself for the next step.

Max Lucado (Again. I am a big fan) said this:

'What about you? As God calls, he equips. Our maker gives assignments to people. What have you done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness. You have one. An uncommon call to an uncommon life.'

(Cure for the Common Life, 2006, Thomas Nelson)

I want to live an uncommon life. I don't want to be run of the mill. I don't want to meet you on the Big Day and feel that I let you down. I don't want for you to ask me what I did with the gifts you gave me and for me to be unable to look you in the face because I never tried.  I don't want to look back and see how wonderful the tapestry of my life could have been if only I'd had more...what?  Courage? Faith? Get-up-and-go?

This inspires me:

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.'

Marianne Williamson, 'A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles' (often attributed to Nelson Mandela).

My playing small doesn't serve the world. If I bury my talents in the ground and eventually give them back to you unused and muddy then you've said that you won't be best pleased. If I plant the seeds that I have, then who knows what might grow?

From tiny acorns grow towering oak trees.

From tiny acorns...

But it's easier to play small. Less scary to curl up in a ball and hope nobody notices me if the alternative is to stick my head above the parapet.

I'm not good at boldness and I live in fear of failure. I hate being laughed at. I worry about what people think. What if I invest enormously in something and nothing happens?

On the one hand I know who you are and I know what you're like and I love you and I trust you and I know that you have a job for me to do with this life and I know that you won't let me down. On the other hand I doubt myself and I worry about things going wrong and the result is paralysis.

Rabbit in the headlights.

My playing small doesn't serve the world. Who am I to hide my light under a bushel? The world is my oyster!

Ahem.

This is hard. I feel as if I'll set myself up for disaster. If I claim to be good at something, to have Big Plans, then people will laugh at me. It will all go wrong.

Mr L again:

'The fire of your heart is the light of your path. Disregard it at your own expense! Blow it. Stir it. Nourish it. Cynics will doubt it. Those without it will mock it. Those who know it, those who know Him, will understand it.'

Max Lucado Daily Devotional, 19 April 2012

Who cares what the cynics say? (Little voice in my head says, 'I do') Who cares who mocks? (and again). But maybe it's worth the hassle and the ridicule to look in the eyes of those people who know you and understand. I'm working through this in my mind. I'm not sure what the plan you have for my life looks like, but I do know that you have one. I know that you've made me just the way I am for a reason. There's something that you want me to do with this short time I have down here, and I'm certain that it's not just to sit here and worry at my hangnail.

When I meet you face to face to I really want to try to explain that I could have made a difference and I chose not to?

But I don't want to live my life as you would have me live it just because I'm afraid of the consequences if I don't. I want to please you.  I want to achieve something for your sake; to show the world a little bit of your glory. To wrap up my life's work with a bow and present it to you as an offering. To leave this place a little bit different (and in a good way) from the way it would have been without me.

Good and faithful servant, as the story goes. I want to be one of those.

So I don't want to play small. I want to think big, because my big, even my BIG is only the tiny tip of the iceberg of your Big.

'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Chris Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!'

Ephesians 3:20

So is my small insignificant? I have found over and over again in the last couple of years that if I give you a little, you give me back something huge. You take my tiny, imperfect offering and magnify it until it becomes something wonderful. Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Think of that.

My wildest dreams are nowhere near wild enough.

You can do it. I can't, but you can. And you don't wait for me to be ready, you ask me to step out in faith, relying on you, not myself. If I waited until I was ready then I would still be sitting here contemplating a coffee and a packet of biscuits in a decade's time.

'If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.'

CS Lewis

See? I'm getting the message. You know what I'm thinking and you keep nudging me. I tell myself, I can't do anything much at the moment - maybe there'll be a better opportunity in the future. You send a morning devotional with CS Lewis to tell me that a better time will never come. I convince myself that I don't have what it takes and you send Max Lucado to tell me:

'God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called! Don't let Satan convince you otherwise. He'll try. He'll tell you God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. He'll tell you God only employs specialists and experts. '

You keep on going. Am I listening yet?

Another morning devotional sent to my phone in the last two weeks:

'Jesus said: 'What are you producing with your life for the Kingdom of God?'

(Robert Boyd Munger, 'My Heart - Christ's Home Through the Year, 2004, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

And I have my hands over my ears and I'm just wanting to go to sleep, because it's easier and I'm feeling a bit tired.

It seems too hard to look into the future and determine to do something with it. Easier to take each day as it comes, in my routine, in my rut. Trundling along, not pedalling particularly hard. Not taking any risks. Not upsetting the applecart.

But you didn't call us to live ordinary lives. You told us that we were chosen, special, extraordinary.

Your Holy Spirit lives in me; how can I be run of the mill? If you ask me to do something for you with my life, who am I to argue with you? If you tell me that I'm good enough, who am I to say, no, I think you're wrong?

My playing small doesn't serve the world.

Help me not to play small, Father. At times I feel very small indeed. I feel powerless and afraid and inadequate. But you said:

'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

2 Corinthians 12:9

Well, I am weak.

Distractions here, there and everywhere. I feel as if I have a million reasons why nothing I try would ever amount to much. I feel as if there's no way I could ever accomplish anything for you. As if everything I touch will turn to dust. But you keep nudging. With infinite patience you keep on smiling and then sending something else to throw light on the seed you planted a couple of years ago. You have a plan for me and the time is right. Not my time; that will never be right. Your time.

Give me courage to set out on this journey, to take a step, and then another. I look at the mountain and I know that I can't climb it, Father God, but with your help I might just set out for base camp, and then see what's next.

Give me wisdom and patience and always more faith. More of you.

I don't want to play small with my life. I want to show your glory to people; to shine as a child of God, because that is what I am. I want to be all that I can be; do what you made me to do.

I want to live an uncommon life.






Edited and reposted from April 2012, because guess what? I'm still not there. But I am packing my rucksack, and I'm preparing for a long journey. 

Empty day

It's Saturday morning but it doesn't feel like a normal Saturday.

It feels like we're in suspense. 

Waiting. A friend asked me earlier what we were doing today and I said I didn't know; it was a sort of 'limbo day'. She described it as 'an empty day', which I took to mean that she had no plans, but it might just as well have been a sense that something is missing.

There's a void. A void of activity at church after the past week of services to remember Holy Week.

Yesterday we went to the Hot Cross Bun service and looked again at the cross. Tomorrow we'll celebrate your resurrection, but today we wait. We feel the lack of something. Emptiness. A hole. 

We miss you. 

This was the day-in-between. I wonder what the disciples did that day. It was their Sabbath - did they go to the Temple and go through the motions? Did they stay in a room together and weep and try and work it out? Did they blame each other? Did they realise that they abandoned their Lord when it came to the end?  Did they go their separate ways? Merge into a crowd? 

They missed you. 

Max Lucado points out in his book 'He Chose the Nails' that you told the disciples three times that you would be executed and then on the third day you would rise from the grave.

Three times.

How many of them were waiting at the graveside that first Easter to see it happen?  None. Did they believe it? Did they not hear? Would I? Something so amazing? Even if I'd seen Lazarus peel off his own grave-clothes?

But hey, they were only human. They were scared. That first middle Saturday they must have been beside themselves with grief. You were their friend. You gave them purpose. You changed their lives. You showed them what to do and you had gone.

They missed you. 

So I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and it feels a bit like marking time. I, of course, know what happens tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I love Easter day. Even so, today is a forgotten day. A lost day. I had a little smile of satisfaction when I learned earlier on that historically this middle day of the three is considered a limbo-sort of day. 

A friend from church sent me an email all about today. 

I learned that 'Holy Saturday' (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum) is known as 'the day of the entombed Christ'. It is 'the Lord's day of rest' as this was the day that you were lying in your tomb. (Or were you? Were you getting your breath back? Were you off dealing with the devil on that day? Wiping the smirk off his face? Raising up the saints who had been waiting and waiting for you to arrive? I wonder what you were doing.) 

It goes on, 'We recall the Apostle's Creed, which says 'He descended to the dead.' It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World.'

Suspense indeed. A no-man's-land. Christ has died, but Christ has not yet risen. We wait. We are holding our breath. 

And also, I didn't know that, '...for this reason no divine services are held until after the Easter vigil begins that night.'

Funny, that. I had only commented this morning that there should be something at church today to fill the gap. To save me from the feeling of blankness. Empty day. Limbo-day. Since that very first Easter people who love you have felt the oddness of today. The emptiness. 

There's something more powerful, though. Tomorrow you rise again, all over again. We celebrate and we sing and we lift our hands in praise and worship to the Risen Lord. We celebrate your resurrection. Back from the dead. But it's also the beginning of something totally new. 

'This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ.'

You changed things.

Nothing was the same any more.

You cleared the way so that we could approach your Father. You redeemed us. You paid the price so that we were not held responsible for all the rubbish that had piled up and blocked the way from us to you. That first Easter Day was the first day of the new order. The first day that things were different.

The Era of Salvation. 

So something momentous happened yesterday. Something momentous happens tomorrow.

Today we wait. We feel the absence of you. Today we hold our breath in suspense. We get ready. 

Come, Lord Jesus. We're waiting at the tomb.  

Edited and reposted from 2011

Playing small

Hello, God.

I was talking the other day. Talking to my husband, to my friend, to you.

It strikes me that I probably did that in the wrong order. But anyway.

I was talking about hopes and dreams and what stops me from doing anything. What stops me from going out on a limb. What inhibits me, stops me from going for it, as they say.

I've been reading a lot lately about stepping out in faith and following the path you have chosen for us. Not dawdling along and collapsing on the nearest bench, but actually going where the path goes. Walking with you, trusting that there is always more path even though I can't see it. Believing that if you started me down this path then you know where it leads and you do want me to get there.

'For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.'

Ephesians 2:10

You made me. You made me to do something with my life and you have a plan. You didn't intend for me to sit comfortably and admire the view.

I am pretty sure that the plan is not for me to sit here drinking coffee and waiting for something to drop into my lap. Treading water. Killing time. I need to find some get-up-and-go, and for someone low on confidence and energy, whose inclination is towards excessive napping and whose default position is procrastination, get-up-and-go takes a bit of finding.

I do think that recently you have been prompting me. Not in any subtle sort of way, either. It's become impossible to ignore, and so here I am. Trying to work out what comes next.

Max Lucado (Again. I am a big fan) said this:

'What about you? As God calls, he equips. Our maker gives assignments to people. What have you done well? What have you loved to do? Stand at the intersection of your affections and successes and find your uniqueness. You have one. An uncommon call to an uncommon life.'

(Cure for the Common Life, 2006, Thomas Nelson)

I want to live an uncommon life. I don't want to be run of the mill. I don't want to meet you on the Big Day and feel that I let you down. I don't want for you to ask me with disappointment in your eyes what I did with the gifts you gave me. I don't want to look back and see how wonderful the tapestry of my life could have been if only I'd had more...what?  Courage? Faith? Get-up-and-go?

I was talking about this and a quote was nagging at me. Something someone said that I read a long, long time ago and although most of it I'd forgotten, a few words came back to me. I googled the bit that I knew and this is what it was.

'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. it's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.'

Marianne Williamson, 'A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles'

My playing small doesn't serve the world. If I bury my talents in the ground and eventually give them back to you unused and muddy then you've said that you won't be best pleased. If I plant the seeds that I have, then who knows what might grow? From tiny acorns grow towering oak trees.

From tiny acorns...

But it's easier to play small. Less scary to curl up in a ball and hope nobody notices me if the alternative is to stick my head above the parapet. I'm not good at boldness and I live in fear of failure. I hate being laughed at. I worry about what people think. No wonder I don't get much done. On the one hand I know who you are and I know what you're like and I love you and I trust you and I know that you have a job for me to do with this life and I know that you won't let me down. On the other hand I doubt myself and I worry about things going wrong and the result is paralysis.

Rabbit in the headlights.

My playing small doesn't serve the world. Who am I to hide my light under a bushel? The world is my oyster!

Ahem.

This is hard. I feel as if I'll set myself up for disaster. If I claim to be good at something, to have Big Plans, then people will laugh at me. It will all go wrong.

Mr L again:

'The fire of your heart is the light of your path. Disregard it at your own expense! Blow it. Stir it. Nourish it. Cynics will doubt it. Those without it will mock it. Those who know it, those who know Him, will understand it.'

Max Lucado Daily Devotional, 19 April 2012

Who cares what the cynics say? (Little voice in my head says, 'I do') Who cares who mocks (and again). But maybe it's worth the hassle and the ridicule to look in the eyes of those people who know you and understand. I'm working through this in my mind. I have no idea what plan you have for my life, but I do know that you have one. I know that you've made me just the way I am for a reason. There's something that you want me to do with this short time I have down here that nobody else can do. If I don't do it, then that tiny but significant part of your Plan goes undone. I could have made a difference and I chose not to.

Do I want to try to explain that when I meet you face to face?

But I don't want to live my life as you would have me live it just because I'm afraid of the consequences if I don't. I want to please you. I want you to be proud of me. I want to achieve something for your sake. To wrap up my life's work with a bow and present it to you as an offering. To leave this place a little bit different ( and in a good way) from the way it would have been without me.

Good and faithful servant, as the story goes. I want to be one of those.

So I don't want to play small. I want to think big, because my big, even my BIG is only the tip of the iceberg of your big.

'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Chris Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!'

Ephesians 3:20

So my small is insignificant to you. I have found over and over again in the last couple of years that if I give you a little, you give me back something huge. You take my tiny, imperfect offering and magnify it until it becomes something wonderful. Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Think of that. My wildest dreams are nowhere near wild enough.

You can do it. I can't, but you can. And you don't wait for me to be ready, you ask me to step out in faith, relying on you, not myself. If I waited until I was ready then I would still be sitting here contemplating a coffee and a packet of biscuits in a decade's time.

'If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.'

CS Lewis

See? I'm getting the message. You know what I'm thinking and you keep nudging me. I tell myself, I can't do anything much at the moment - maybe there'll be a better opportunity in the future. You send a morning devotional with CS Lewis to tell me that a better time will never come. I convince myself that I don't have what it takes and you send Max Lucado to tell me:

'God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called! Don't let Satan convince you otherwise. He'll try. He'll tell you God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. He'll tell you God only employs specialists and experts. '

You keep on going. Am I listening yet?

Another morning devotional sent to my phone in the last two weeks:

'Jesus said: 'What are you producing with your life for the Kingdom of God?'

(Robert Boyd Munger, 'My Heart - Christ's Home Through the Year, 2004, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

And I have my hands over my ears and I'm just wanting to go to sleep. It seems too hard to look into the future and try to take control. Easier to take each day as it comes, in my routine, in my rut. Trundling along, not pedalling particularly hard. Not taking any risks. Not upsetting the applecart.

But you didn't call us to live ordinary lives. You told us that we were chosen, special, extraordinary. Your Holy Spirit lives in me; how can I be run of the mill? If you ask me to do something for you with my life, who am I to argue with you? If you tell me that I'm good enough, who am I to say, no, I think you're wrong?

My playing small doesn't serve the world.

Help me not to play small, Father. At times I feel very small indeed. I feel powerless and afraid and inadequate. But you said:

'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

2 Corinthians 12:9

Well, I am weak. Pathetic, even. An emotional wreck, these past few days. Nothing going right, distractions here, there and everywhere. I feel as if I have a million reasons why nothing I try would ever amount to much. I feel as if there's no way I could ever accomplish anything for you. As if everything I touch just turns to dust. But you keep nudging. With infinite patience you keep on smiling and then sending something else to throw light on the seed you planted a couple of years ago. You have a plan for me and the time is right. Not my time; that will never be right. Your time.

Give me courage to take another step, Father God. Give me wisdom and patience and always more faith.

I don't want to play small with my life. I want to show your glory to people; to shine as a child of God as Ms Williamson said in her oft-quoted passage. I want to be all that I can be; do what you made me to do.

I want to live an uncommon life.

More than words

Here's a thing. 

Its a bit hard to concentrate right now as the children are playing some game that involves the playing of a rather irritating little electronic tune over and over again. I am rising above it, but I just thought I'd mention it in case you think I'm a bit distracted. 

My head is full of things. I'm reading several books at the moment and I'm running out of bookmarks to remind me of interesting things that I am pondering. I have hit a vein reading books by Max Lucado; he writes in a wonderfully simple way and yet manages to surprise me. Bless him, Father God. Whatever he's doing, right now, reach down and touch him and make him smile, will you?  Because someone on the other side of the world is able to draw closer to you because of the gifts you gave him that he faithfully exercises. 

I am still finishing 'In the Eye of the Storm' by Mr L, but I've just been rootling on Amazon's second hand shelves and another of his books arrived yesterday. I flipped through it at random as I climbed the stairs to put it on my 'To Read' shelf and a sentence jumped out at me.

'Pray all the time. If necessary, use words.'

(Max Lucado, 'Fearless' 2009, Thomas Nelson)

My heart leaped. That's no exaggeration. This has made a big difference to me.

I've been thinking about prayer a lot recently. Thinking about it, you'll note, not so much doing it... I've been trying to work out why I find it so difficult. Things have been flying about in my mind; lack of discipline, the idea of getting up early in the morning (No! No! No! Please?), how to come to you more often, for longer, without trying to make lists, quiet time, silent retreats, using objects to help meditation, falling asleep before I get to 'Amen' (sorry about this. Happens all the time).

So, the implication that prayer doesn't have to be formal, doesn't have to be in words - that's freedom. 

Freedom to come to you without my vocabulary. To come to you without knowing how to say what I want to say, or even what I want to say in the first place. The other day I was telling you that I sometimes can't find any words when I'm having a panic about Katy and the lumps on her neck and I sit on the edge of her bed at night and just lift to you all the stuff that wells up in my heart that I can't find words for.  Hope and fear and love and praise to you, the God that made my girls and made knowing them possible.

Made knowing you possible. Who am I to make that more difficult than it needs to be?

I have been thinking that prayer was words. Written words, read words, words in my head. Prayers written by me, prayers written by other people. Prayers had form and shape and meaning. I know that prayer should contain worship and confession and thanksgiving and supplication but sometimes it's hard to structure my prayers in that way. Sometimes they're coming at me too fast to tick all the boxes. Sometimes it feels like I don't have the building blocks to make a prayer. And on those times instead of staying silent with eyes averted, those are the times when I can offer you the spontaneous, the undefined. The things that won't fit into a sentence.

A while ago little Katy said to me, 'I want to make a prayer but I don't know how,' and I told her that if she said what she wanted to God then that was a prayer. What happens if you don't know what you want to say or how to say it? If I can pray without words then that's the answer.

Tears can be prayers. Sighs and groans can be prayers. Stillness can be a prayer. Longings and thrills and exhilaration and shock. Undefined feelings of gratitude, or awe, or wonder. The way my heart responds to beauty or sadness or compassion.

I don't know for certain because I'm not a theologian or a priest or someone who knows these things, but I wonder where the line is between prayer and praise. If we should give our lives as a daily offering to you then what we do can surely be worship. What we offer to you can be prayer, or praise... you decide. Suddenly I feel freer and less obliged. Less stressed out by the prospect of 'getting it right'.

In telling the story of the feeding of the four thousand (Matthew 15:29-32) with regard to worship, Max Lucado says that after Jesus had healed many, 'They praised the God of Israel.'

He goes on:

'I wonder how they did that? I feel more certain of what they didn't do rather than what they did do. I feel confident that they didn't form a praise committee. I feel confident that they didn't make any robes. I feel confident that they didn't sit in rows and stare at the back of each other's heads.
I doubt seriously if they wrote a creed on how they were to praise this God they had never before worshipped. I can't picture them getting into an argument about technicalities. I doubt if they felt that it had to be done indoors.
And I know they didn't wait until the Sabbath to do it.'

(Max Lucado, 'In the Eye of the Storm', 1991, Zondervan)

How wonderful. He states the obvious but how trapped I sometimes feel when I think I have to get it right. How many times do I 'fail' at prayer because it's too hard to do it properly. So often I leave it until the end of the day when I have nothing left and then offer you the dregs of my consciousness before I slip off into sleep.

Yesterday in the garden, when Katy was singing to you and I was potting plants I smiled and my heart swelled and I felt you near me. Things were vivid and beautiful and I registered that a blossom of happiness was spreading through me. Could that have been a prayer, Lord? My soul was reaching for yours. Surely we connected. I'm not sure that I can ever do any better than that.

When I go to see my children last thing at night and they look so innocent, so small, so young in their sleep and the frustrations and raised voices and irritations of the day are smoothed away like a wave on the sand - that's when I offer you the love that I have in my heart for my little girls. My hopes for them, my fears, my dreams and my gratitude.

Even when I'm lying in bed just sliding into drowsiness and I feel the softness of my bed, the warmth of the bedclothes, the quiet of the house and it's such a feeling of comfort - physical and emotional - I lift to you the relief of relaxing the muscles of a weary body in safety. Is it a prayer? Or am I going to far in trying to make my love of my bed into a holy thing?

The wonderful Mr Lucado continues, speaking still of the crowds who worshipped you, Jesus:

'In all probability, they just did it. Each one - in his or her own way, with his or her own heart - just praised Jesus. Perhaps some people came and fell at Jesus' feet. Perhaps some shouted his name. Maybe a few just went up on the hillside, looked into the sky, and smiled.'

Now, I know that looking into the sky and smiling isn't adequate if my entire prayer life consisted of it, but I am thrilled to read that it might be part of it. I think often I miss the point. Often I get bogged down in routine and in form and in expectation. I like words and I like using them, but when I run out of the ability to do that, I've been floundering.

And now I have something else.

Praise to you, Lord. You're not a hard taskmaster. You're looking for ways to communicate. Not that you find it hard, but because I do.

Thankyou, thank you, thank you.

'Worship is when you're aware that what you've been given is far greater than what you can give. Worship is the awareness that were it not for his touch, you'd still be hobbling and hurting, bitter and broken.'

I'd like to think I'd have been there when I heard that this man they call Jesus was healing people. I'd like to think that I'd have recognised my need to be mended and gone along to have a look. I expect it might have depended on whether anyone I knew was going - I can be a proper sheep like that. But I hope I'd have been there. I hope that when your eyes met mine and I knew that I was healed, I hope that I might have fallen down in front of you. I might have thanked you from the bottom of my heart. I might have called your name to heaven in amazement. I might have gone home and told people what you had done for me.

I know that what I've been given is far greater than what I can give. I'm so sorry that even what I can give I sometimes hang onto for myself.

'We have tried to make a science out of worship. We can't do that.'

No, we can't. And I wonder if, in trying to pin down exactly what worship is, or prayer, then I miss the point, and miss it spectacularly. I wonder if prayer and worship are so much bigger than I have realised? A huge bracket term that encompasses so many different ways of meeting with you.

I think that you never meant it to become as small and prescribed as it has. I'm sure that you never meant well-meaning people who long to know you to feel that unless they can do it right, they'll do it wrong, and so perhaps it's better not to try.

If I can pray to you by lifting my heart to you, or reaching out with my very soul to offer you...something...something that I need to tell you, then perhaps that's ok with you?  If I can see a glimpse of you in the wonder of your creation, or in the funny words of my children, or in a tender moment in my marriage, or in a hairy caterpillar going about its business, and that glimpse causes me to close my eyes tight and feel the beauty of your Spirit within me, then maybe that's ok with you too.

I think there's a place for sung worship with a guitar or an organ in church - I'm not saying anything particularly revolutionary - and I need to get better at talking and listening to you. Giving you the last few bleary minutes of my day isn't the best way to show you that I love you. But I wanted to share with you the little epiphany that I had today.

I think you're closer than I thought. I think you love me, and want me to come to you more often. I think you like it when I see you and you love it when I turn to you with delight and recognition in my eyes. I don't think that you need me to be able to report what's happened in my heart; you see it clearly already. You are the master of my heart. You know me intimately. I can't fake my moments with you; the most genuine gifts I could give you come straight from the heart without the need for words.

I feel liberated.

I need to pray all the time. Sometimes I will need to use words, but hey, sometimes it's still alright if I don't.

Thankyou.

Empty day

It's Saturday afternoon but it doesn't feel like a normal Saturday. 

It's different for a few reasons; we have company at the moment, the normal Saturday routine is temporarily interrupted, but for me there's definitely something else. Suspense. 

Waiting. A friend asked me earlier what we were doing today and I said I didn't know; it was a sort of 'limbo day'. She described it as 'an empty day', which I took to mean that she had no plans, but it might just as well have been a sense that something is missing. There's a void. A void of activity at church after the past week of services to remember Holy Week. Yesterday we went to the Hot Cross Bun service and looked again at the cross. Tomorrow we'll celebrate your resurrection, but today we wait. We feel the lack of something. Emptiness. A hole. 

We miss you. 

This was the day-in-between. I wonder what the disciples did that day. It was their Sabbath - did they go to the Temple and go through the motions? Did they stay in a room together and weep and try and work it out? Did they blame each other? Did they realise that they abandoned their Lord when it came to the end?  Did they go their separate ways? Merge into a crowd? 

They missed you. 

Max Lucado points out in his book 'He Chose the Nails' that you told the disciples three times that you would be executed and then on the third day you would rise from the grave. Three times. How many of them were waiting at the graveside that first Easter to see it happen?  None. Did they believe it? Did they not hear? Would I? Something so amazing? Even if I'd seen Lazarus peel off his own grave-clothes?

But hey, they were only human. They were scared. That first middle Saturday they must have been beside themselves with grief. You were their friend. You gave them purpose. You changed their lives. You showed them what to do and you had gone.

They missed you. 

So I'm sitting here with a cup of tea and it feels a bit like marking time. I, of course, know what happens tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I love Easter day. Even so, today is a forgotten day. A lost day. I had a little smile of satisfaction when I learned earlier on that historically this middle day of the three is considered a limbo-sort of day. 

A friend from church sent me an email all about today. 

I learned that 'Holy Saturday' (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum) is known as 'the day of the entombed Christ'. It is 'the Lord's day of rest' as this was the day that you were lying in your tomb. (Or were you? Were you getting your breath back? Were you off dealing with the devil on that day? Wiping the smirk off his face? Raising up the saints who had been waiting and waiting for you to arrive? I wonder what you were doing.) 

It goes on, 'We recall the Apostle's Creed, which says 'He descended to the dead.' It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World.'

Suspense indeed. A no-man's-land. Christ has died, but Christ has not yet risen. We wait. We are holding our breath. 

And also, I didn't know that, '...for this reason no divine services are held until after the Easter vigil begins that night.'

Funny, that. I had only commented this morning that there should be something at church today to fill the gap. To save me from the feeling of blankness. Empty day. Limbo-day. Since that very first Easter people who love you have felt the oddness of today. The emptiness. 

There's something more powerful, though. Tomorrow you rise again, all over again. We celebrate and we sing and we lift our hands in praise and worship to the Risen Lord. We celebrate your resurrection. Back from the dead. But it's also the beginning of something totally new. 

'This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ.'

You changed things. Nothing was the same any more. You cleared the way so that we could approach your Father. You redeemed us. You paid the price so that we were not held responsible for all the rubbish that had piled up and blocked the way from us to you. That first Easter Day was the first day of the new order. The first day that things were different. The Era of Salvation. 

So something momentous happened yesterday. Something momentous happens tomorrow. Today we wait. We feel the absence of you. Today we hold our breath in suspense. We get ready. 

Come, Lord Jesus. We're waiting at the tomb.  

You know how I feel

Max Lucado is lovely.

I imagine you think so too.

I've read his books to my children; one of their favourites is the one about the Wemmicks - it's called, 'You Are Special' and it's a wonderful, gentle book about the love that you have for us, Father God. In fact, it's about 'The Audience of One', really - a lot for me to learn as well, and keep on learning. The only opinion that matters is yours, even if other people weigh me up and find me wanting. 

But I was on Amazon a few days ago and I found myself exploring the rest of Mr Lucado's books and I came across one that intrigued me. Reviews for this book were outstanding and so I bought it and started it the other day. It turns out that the author writes just as easily for adults as for children and he seems wise and insightful and gentle and yet really woke me up. I think this will be a book with a message for me. Or maybe more than one, I'm hoping, since I've only read the first couple of chapters and stopped in my tracks a couple of times already.

It's called, 'In the Eye of the Storm', and it's a detailed look at one day in Jesus' life - a day that the author thinks may have been (aside from the crucifixion) one of the most stressful days of your time down here. 

Jesus, I have never really considered that your life might have been stress-filled.  Yes, I know that you were afraid in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I know that you were angry with the money changers in the temple. I know that you were moved to tears when Lazarus died and I know that you were filled with compassion for the people who needed you. I know that you went through agonies both physical and spiritual in the last few days of your life. But stress? 

This is the day that you found out that your cousin, John the Baptist, was dead.  I have read this passage many times and I've never stopped to consider that particular part of it. Max Lucado opened my eyes with this:

'...the man who came closer to understanding Jesus than any other is dead. Imagine losing the one person who knows you better than anyone else, and you will feel what Jesus is feeling. Reflect on the horror of being told that your dearest friend has just been murdered, and you will relate to Jesus' sorrow. Consider your reaction if you were told that your best friend had just been decapitated by a people-pleasing, incestuous monarch, and you'll begin to see how the day begins for Christ.' 

Max Lucado, In the Eye of the Storm, p28

Not good then.

I've always sort of assumed that nothing got to you, Lord. That because you were God, you weren't surprised by anything, or wrong footed, or taken aback, or even particularly bothered. I imagined that you knew what was to happen to John the Baptist and so it didn't shock you. I thought that you were probably so supernaturally prepared for your own fate that it wouldn't scare you that hot on the heels of this news came the news that Herod was after your head too.

So bereavement and a death threat in the same conversation. 

I don't think I ever really credited you with feelings. Sorry about that. Insofar as I've actually considered it at all, I've sort of had an image of you as gliding through life totally in control, completely prepared, unshakeable. If you felt extremes of emotion then they would only be positive ones. That a negative thought never entered your head. That you were just full of peace and love and hope that you were unaffected by the nitty gritty of human life. I think I've always (and still am) a bit confused by the God-and-man thing. How much man were you? How much God?  Is there any way for someone with a small, human brain to grasp the idea that you were fully man and fully God? 

So if you were fully man, you must have been devastated by the death of your friend. Someone who saw you for who you were. Someone who understood (a bit). If I got that news, it would be the end of my day. I wouldn't function. If I heard that someone I loved had been killed, and the murderer was looking for me, that would be it. Too much, twice over.  Can't really get my head round it. 

All it says is that you went off on your own somewhere. 

But not for long. Suddenly the disciples came back. They surrounded you and all wanted to regale you with tales of miracles and healings and wonders that they had seen and performed an been involved with. They were exuberant and full of joy. They wanted to celebrate and they needed you to join in. You had empowered them; made simple fishermen into great leaders who could do great things. They were amazed and happy and full of enthusiasm. You'd just heard that your friend was dead and your life was in danger. So what did you do? Did you turn away and say, 'Not now. I've just had bad news. I can't be doing with all this right now. Leave me alone.'? 

Nope. You found it in yourself to celebrate with them, somehow. 

And there's more. Hot on the heels of the disciples is a huge crowd who are overjoyed to find you. They wanted a piece of the man who the disciples had talked about. The guy who had started all this. They all had needs and wants and you went from an attempt to find some peace and solitude to being engulfed in a large crowd demanding things from you.

No wonder you signalled to the disciples that they should get away with you for some rest. You climbed into a boat and sailed off. But when you got where you were going, it turns out the crowd had followed you. They want to hear you speak, listen to your teachings, have you heal the sick and do wondrous things. If ever there was a time for saying 'I can't do this now. Come back tomorrow,' that was it. But the Bible tells us that:

'When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.'

Matthew 14:14

'He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.'

Mark 6:34

'He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.'

Luke 9:11

You must have been tired. You wanted to get away, we know that, because you tried, twice. Once and your disciples found you, and then again in the boat away from the crowds. And yet, when your plans were thwarted, you didn't lash out or insist on your own way, you felt compassion for the demanding crowds, and you allowed your plan to change. 

I wonder if anyone asked you how you were? I bet they didn't. It makes me think of how I act so many times each week where I feel swamped by demands (and I know that many of these oppressive obligations might be in my own imagination). There are times when I'm patient, times when I cheerfully put aside what I want to do in order to do something for someone else. Those are probably in the minority, I suspect. There are the times when I respond to a need with bad grace, with much huffing and puffing and scowling and grumbling. That is a pretty frequent occurrence. 

And then there are the times when I stamp my foot (either metaphorically or physically) and raise my voice and snarl, 'No. What about me?  When do I get to do what I want to do? I can't do this now, come back later. Or preferably don't come back at all.'  

But you didn't. You had more need to find peace that day than I've ever had, and yet you had compassion on the people who demanded things from you and you responded with love and patience. You found a reserve of energy when surely you must have been running on empty. 

And guess what?  Out of this enormous crowd, how many of them thought to bring a packed lunch? Nope. Not many. They wanted you to feed them too. You asked the disciples to sort this one out, thinking maybe that their recent exploits would have taught them that God wouldn't let them down - but no. They looked at you with incredulity and so you had to step up once again. If you want something doing, do it yourself, hey?

I am thankful that I have never had news that someone I love has been murdered. I have never heard on the grapevine that someone is looking to kill me. I have never had twelve people descend on me at the moment I want to run away and grieve and ask me to join in the celebrations for amazing happenings and miracles that they have done in my name. I've never had a crowd of thousands asking me to heal their sick. 

What I have had are moments where someone is speaking to me, the children are clamouring for help, snacks, toys, computer passwords and assistance in the toilet (I know, there are only two of them but sometimes it feels like many more), the oven timer tells me that the dinner is ready, the doorbell rings or the phone goes, and I need to reply to an urgent message I've just received and I feel like screaming. Sometimes these moments erupt from nowhere; just before the onslaught I was quietly pottering on my computer with a coffee and there wasn't a thundercloud in sight. Next moment, the heavens open on top of me. My heart rate goes from a steady trundle to a sprint. 

Did you get up that morning with any inkling of what sort of day it would turn out to be? Did you climb out of bed and stretch and look at the blue sky and feel all serene and peaceful, only to be hit by the juggernaut coming your way?

Do you really know how I feel? Always? Really?

Max Lucado reckons that you do.

'His pulse has raced. His eyes have grown weary. His heart has grown heavy. He has had to climb out of bed with a sore throat. He has been kept awake late and has gotten up early. He knows how you feel.'

In the Eye of the Storm, p31/32

He goes on to suggest that it's hard to believe that you did feel all our headaches and heartaches. That we generally believe that you suffered pain and fear and sorrow, but not the day to day hassles that we go through. 

Can it really be that you felt frustration and irritation and disappointment and bad temper and self-pity? Did you really have achey joints or an upset stomach or long to stay in bed? 

If you did, nowhere in the Bible does it say, 'And Jesus went from that place very grumpily and stamped his foot and threw his mug against the wall and refused to come out again until they said sorry.'

So maybe your self control was amazing. Maybe you felt those things but your capacity for love was, well, superhuman. Maybe you were God as well as man. That's where we started. 

'For we do not have a great high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin.'

Hebrews 4:15

It makes sense that being who you were, so in tune with the Spirit, that the fruit of the spirit in you must have been a tremendous crop. No wonder you were overflowing with 'love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control'. (Galatians 5:22/23). It was you that Paul had in mind when he wrote that. So the thing is that you felt all those things, all those crowding-in emotions, all the trapped, resentful, selfish, irritable, self-pitying emotions that I feel and yet you kept on giving? Kept on going, kept on smiling, kept on loving.

That seems a big ask. 

I can't do that without you. And to be honest, even if you help me I can't guarantee I won't give in to the bad temper and scowl and mutter 'What about me?' 

But I want to try, because I don't want to be the one who's always bad-tempered and cross and inward-looking. I want to try because I want my children to be kind, patient, compassionate people and not irritable and selfish and stampy.  I want them to do better than me. I want to try because that's the sort of person I want to be, too. And I want to try because you want this for me and I want you to be pleased with me. 

So help me remember that you have been here ahead of me and even the negative emotions that I feel every day, you know those as well as the noble ones, should there be any. Help me to remember that you were a man, a real one, not an airbrushed one. You probably didn't have shoulder length bouffant beautifully conditioned hair and a manicure. Help me to remember that there were times when you felt cross and wanted to get away and you had good reason, but that you loved people too much to turn your back on them to meet your own needs. Help me to be inspired by that and not discouraged, because I am so different. So far from there. 

Lord, thank you that you are not a distant God who looks down on us without any understanding of the rubbish we wade through here on earth. Thankyou that you knew about demands and stress and overwhelming emotions. You came down here and you lived as we did, and if I believe that then I believe that you lived as we did in every way. You did feel the way we feel, but you didn't give in. Thankyou that you walk next to me when I'm struggling and that you have promised to hold me up. 

Thankyou. 

God-and-man. Still can't get my head round it. I think that cleverer people than me can't get their heads round it either. 

By the way, Max Lucado says that you might have had acne or knobbly knees. 

Surely not. Surely you weren't that human. 

Were you?