21C Pilgrim

There have been many times in the past few months where I’ve wanted to jump on and update my last post but for some reason I had a feeling I was being premature.  It has taken almost eight months but now the time is right.

 We were so excited last July that my daughter’s house was under contract and we were amazed at how everything seemed to be falling into place for the sale of theirs and the purchase of another to move to.  That contract fell through as did many others in these past months. 

 It has been a hugely stressful time.  The only thing I can liken it to is a roller coaster ride and with just about the same adrenalin output!  The difference?  A roller coaster ride would have been quicker! 

This week that house sold and a new one was purchased.  Settlement is a done deal.  Moving in and unpacking is now in progress.   I think we are finally finished with that roller coaster.

There were some valuable lessons in it all, including some things which had to be sorted out in the spiritual realm.  Once the ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ had been identified and dealt with things improved.  Sometimes on our journey we are involved with people who we regard as being of like mind and spirit so we share openly our hopes and dreams with them.  We allow them to speak into our lives, however not all are ‘God’s agents’ and before we know it (or don’t know it) we come under the influence of a power that works in opposition to God.  In this instance, it took months for the ‘link’ to be exposed and then for everything else to fall into place. 

Often our journey with God is not a smooth, straight path.  Sometimes we have to engage in spiritual warfare on spiritual battlefields.  Often we do not understand the nature of the powers that we are up against – but we have evidence of them in the turmoil and anguish they cause.  Warfare is hard work but we do not fight alone.  Pressing in to God and claiming the victory in the battle for him, in his name, will crush the opposition.  Then there’s the clean up after the battle – asking forgiveness for unwittingly allowing these forces to gain access to our lives and circumstances.  From there, move on in humility, obedience and trust in God. 

Just this week, with the final act in this scene being played out, I have had cause to ponder these words in Psalm 143 - “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.  Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.  Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in you.  Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” 

Way to go!!

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This is a coffee I made a little while ago at home. It was a completely random pour of the coffee that resulted in something that I think resembles Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Isn’t it amazing that even in a cup of coffee there can be art. It may not last long but it certainly encourages us to stop, take a moment and appreciate some of the finer details of life.

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MORE?  But wait, there’s more! 

How often do we ‘take off’ that commercial that keeps telling us that there’s ‘more’ and ‘more again’ on top of the original offer? 

Then what about ‘immeasurably more’? 

That’s what we have in God-sized proportions!  More than we could ever ask or imagine.

Now that’s a WOW-factor in anybody’s estimations.  And that’s exactly what has happened to my family just this past week…

My daughter and son-in-law have been struggling with ’space’ issues in their home.  Basically, they had outgrown it given the very limited storage available and two young children added to the equation.  Not only that, they are planning an extension to their family when they receive their adopted child/children from overseas.  They had looked at every conceivable angle in order to come up with a solution to the problem.  Finally, they decided the best thing would be to sell their house and move to something larger. 

 To cut the long story shorter, they prepared their house to sell and two weeks ago advertised their first open house.  They had a good response.  They advertised again the next week and had their second open house.  They believed that the house would sell that day – and it did – that is, they accepted an offer.  Awesome!!  A fantastic price as well. 

Then they decided to put in a further offer on a brand new house that they had their sights set on but seemed out of reach.  Previous offers had been rejected as being too low.  Now they found the house was still available and the builder had dropped his price.  This new offer came back again as ‘too low’.  They then decided to offer $1000.00 less than the builder’s absolute bottom line.  He accepted! 

On Friday the contract was signed for the sale of their house.

On Saturday the contract was signed for the purchase of their new house. 

They have saved heaps of money because they did not sell through an agent and they will not have to set up a new loan.  They are selling for a price far above what they initially thought they would get for their house – and the new house has come down $21,000.00 from the original asking price.  All up, it is just wonderfully amazing and such an answer to prayer – in fact, God has given them IMMEASURABLY MORE than they asked or thought possible.  Amazing but true.  Our God is an awesome God.

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, to Him be glory for ever and ever!”  Ephesians 3: 20-21

My scrapbooking layout using this verse is here:

www.scrapbook-elements.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=33067&cat=551

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Recently we’ve experienced some difficulty with the blog engine we were using. This caused an extended period of downtime for the blog. For this we are greatly apologetic. We were finding that the blog engine was a little bit bloated, it had too much of what we didn’t need, making updates, and upgrades somewhat difficult. As such there is a time when every pilgrim needs to determine how to keep moving forward. In our circumstances we decided to try something new, something a little lighter, more nimble and more widely supported.

Often we can find ourselves, burdened down by the former decisions we have made. It is only when we finally decide to take action and do something different, that we can move forward again and progress further on our pilgrimage.

Lets make some change and keep moving forward.

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Today I completed my first digital layout for the "Gotta Have Faith" challenge on a website I found recently. I love to do digital scrapbooking but this is the first time I have scrapped something with direct relevance to my faith journey. Most of my scrapbooking has been of family, family history and my overseas travel adventures.

When I saw this challenge, I knew I just had to participate. The challenge is to create a layout using a Bible verse that you consider to be a ‘life verse’ – one that is always with you. There are a few verses that stand out for me, but for this I chose Lamentations 3: 22,23 because it is a constant reminder to me of God’s unfailing goodness and grace.

You can find my layout here: http://www.elementalscraps.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=641

What is your ‘life verse’? How about sharing it along with the reason you consider it your ‘life verse’?

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Ever had a spiritual experience on the treadmill? You should.

Our reductionist thinking tries to create artificial boundaries between body, mind and spirit like they are three unrelated things. I’ve seen this illustrated before as three compartments, but I think that the relationship between them is more like a venn diagram with a large common area in the middle.

This is probably why scripture describes the body as being the temple of the Holy Spirit. The astounding effect that our mind has on our body is well accepted – but what about the effect that our body has on our spirit? I’ve certainly never considered it before now.

In the spirit of the ancient Rabbis who would invoke the adage "an hour of study is as an hour of prayer in the eyes of God", I propose a new adage for the 21st century pilgrim: an hour on the treadmill is as an hour of prayer in the eyes of God.

Mind, body and spirit are linked in such a way that if one is in bad shape – all suffer. What does this mean for a society in which obesity tripled in children and adolescents and doubled for adults between 1980 – 2002?!?

Check out About.com’s exercise for beginners section.

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They say that when it rains it pours. It’s funny that during days like that all we want to do is curl up under the duvet and never come out. But thank goodness not all days have us reaching for the aspirin…And that some days can actually make us feel on top of the world! It seems as though all we need to do is to click our fingers and have what we have been working so hard for. Those are the days! What a shame that for the most part most days lie somewhere in the middle – pretty mediocre really. Same shows on TV, same politics at work, bumper to bumper traffic and a family that still drives us up the wall.

And the funny thing is that when you look into the eyes of the people you know – many seem fundamentally unhappy. I can’t help thinking that they are under the illusion that life means each day being amazing, fun and fulfilling. But is it realistic for us all to be happy and fulfilled all of the time? I very much doubt it!! If the bell curve is anything to go by, only between 1 and 5% of us can only be blissfully happy at the one time. So why does it seem like we’re all striving to do something else or be someone else.

When it comes down to it – all we’ve really got is today (even if it is a dull and boring one that looks like many others). The people we know and love and our attitudes towards them are the most important thing. A friend of mine lost her mother today. Her grief was very real and poignant and brought tears to my eyes. How my day was going seemed unimportant all of a sudden. It didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of life.

Relationships we have invested in are the thing that can make the everyday – even the mediocre ones – worthwhile and extraordinary. Relationships are fundamental to human experience and if we invest some more time into them instead of the day-to-day rat race, we may indeed find true contentment and fulfillment. Jesus came that we may have life to the full. Maybe if we took time to get to know the people in our world a little better, we’ll find our happy days.

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I have been reading a few things lately about getting distracted. Have you ever noticed how when you most need to get something done, all these other things start to divert you attention from the really important things? While we are all familiar with this on a small every-day-at-work scale, it also applies to our life as a whole. The great goals we have in life can quite often fall by the way as we do smaller, less significant things. Things that ‘need’ to be done, but distract us from the greater purposes in life. It’s important to reflect and regain our focus on the important things, put down the distractions and focus on our core purpose (that’s a whole other entry or 5). Kathy Sierra has a great article on how our brains work when we try to multitask. Have a look here. There is a scripture in Proverbs (4v25) that says: "Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; then stick to the path and stay safe. DOn’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil." I plan to start to shed the distractions and focus on the real purpose. What about you?

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In my favourite Seinfeld episode, George decides that seeing as his life so far has been such a failure, he should try doing the exact opposite of his initial instincts. Using this strategy he lands a new girl, gets his dream job and finally moves out of his parents house.

Strangely enough, this isn’t actually that far from the truth – and its known as counterintuition. Think about going around a hairpin corner at speed in a car, what does your intuition tell you? Brake hard and turn into the corner. What should you actually do? The exact opposite, accelerate and turn out of the corner. Think about surfing when you catch a steep wave, what does your intuition tell you? Move the weight to your back foot and pull back from the drop. What should you actually do? The exact opposite, transfer the weight to your front foot, lean forward into the drop and slide down the face.

Jesus talked about this kind of stuff all the time: The first will be last and the last will be first. You want to be great – become a servant. You want to be rich – give it all away. You want to have more – give less to others right? Wrong. Do the exact opposite. The book of Proverbs explains that "The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller".

I’ve finally worked out that most of my ‘gut-instinct’ is just indigestion and that what I should be doing is living according to spiritual principles that – no matter how counterintuitive they may feel – release amazing growth and potential in my life.

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If there is one key thing that I have learnt and continue to learn in new and amazing ways, it’s the power and importance of relationships. It never ceases to amaze me where I hear the words uttered “It’s all about the people”. In fact the last place I heard this was from the Managing Director of the company where I work. We were discussing different ways to manage people in our jobs. At the end of the day it all boiled down to having a relationship with the person and understanding how they best work. Relationships aren’t just the occasional greeting in the hallway as you pass someone; it is taking the time to get to know the person. Learning about their life, the things that excite them, the things that motivate them, and the things that make their skin crawl. Only when we truly take the time to build relationships with people and understand will we earn the authority to speak into their lives. Now, relationships are not at all, one way streets. Relationships require our own element of vulnerability. They require us to share things about us; things that might leave us open to attack or ridicule from others. If the relationship is a good one, the person will not abuse this privilege, but treasure it. I look forward to sharing the pilgrimage with you and allowing myself to become a little more vulnerable as we build a relationship along the way.

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