A stoned life

Forgetting. It’s very mysterious thing when you think about it (holding a degree in Psychology means I have been coerced through the use of course credit into doing so). Why do we forget? How do we forget? It is in fact impossible to prove that anything is ever forgotten which has led some psychologists to say that there is no such thing as forgetting (somewhat ironically I have forgotten their names). They rightly point out that until you can prove that no prompting or time spent trying will result in recall (something that is not possible to do) then you can’t say something has been forgotten for sure, it may just be languishing somewhere in the grey matter, along with the date of your wedding anniversary and the day the dustbins are supposed to be put out. But outside of the world of theoretical applied cognitive psychology, human experience says we fail to remember things and it changes our lives consequently.

Take letters for example. I am shocking with letters. I forget letters a lot. My dad oft puts a letter on the radiator by the front door and asks me to post it on my way out. ‘I’ve put by the door’, ‘don’t forget it’ ‘don’t walk out without it’ he calls from the nether regions of his office. Who can guess what happens next? Somewhere in between my focus on checking I’ve got my phone, keys and wallet (the ‘Trinity of Materialism’ as I like to call them) I walk straight out the door without the letter, or if I’m lucky I pop in my pocket and then focus on finding the latest Mark Driscoll rant…I mean sermon on my ipod, only to come home hours later with the letter snugly tucked into my pocket, untouched by natural sunlight. Point is I forget things a lot. And it impacts my life be it by being shouted at for missing a meeting or having a extra reading because I forgot a lecture or walking back down the road to post the letter. God knows I forget things all the time! No really, God knows I forget things. God knows we all do. Just read Joshua 4.

Ah Joshua. One of my favourite guys in Israel’s history. In Joshua 4 my hero has just witnessed God glorifying himself in front of the whole Israelite nation by stopping the river Jordan flowing so that the ark of the covenant and the people could cross it into the promised land. I would imagine that Josh and his crew were about to break out into song and praise, a biblical version of High School Musical with superb choreography and music no doubt. But God wasn’t done yet. He hadn’t finished his intervention. His communications weren’t complete. Just as Josh was getting out his jazz hands (note: this is a dramatisation, it is possible that Josh didn’t do jazz hands) God spoke up:

‘Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight’ – Joshua 4.2-3

‘Ok…’ thinks Joshua, ‘seems a wee bit odd but God has just split the Jordan in two so maybe I’ll do what he says’…God continues…

‘Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.’ – Joshua 4.5-7

Seems an odd thing for God to do, no? Why make them do this? Same reason as my Dad tells me eighteen times where the letter is. He knows I will forget. I will focus on other things and fail to remember what the letter I’m supposed to post. ‘But surely the Israelites wouldn’t forget this. This is no minor letter. This is big. This is magnificent. This is God moving. Surely they are sure to tell their children and their children’s children?’ Think again. Turns out Israel was about as good at remembering stuff as me.

‘You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth’ – Deuteronomy 32.18

‘You have forgotten God your Saviour; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines’ – Isaiah 14.10

‘Does a maiden forget her jewellery, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number’ - Jeremiah 2.32

‘A cry is heard on the barren heights, the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel, because they have perverted their ways and have forgotten the Lord their God’ - Jeremiah 3.21

Ah. They had forgotten God many a time in the past and had indeed gone on to forget God time and time again. God was onto something with this ‘memorial’ for Joshua. He knew they would forget because people forget. But he didn’t want them to forget this. So he got them to take a souvenir from the bottom of the Jordan to take home.

In my room I have this rain-maker. It’s a hollow wooden cylinder with rice inside. It makes the noise of rain, hence the inspired name. I was given it when I went to Argentina. It sits in my room and reminds me I went to Argentina. If people ask what is it I am reminded and I tell them. The same is true of these stones from the Jordan. A good choice of a memorial. God wanted the Israelites to remember what he’d done for them and for his glory. He wants to be remembered and our lives changed accordingly.

I wonder what God wants us to remember. What has God done in my life that He knows I will forget one day when the pressures of life kick in and when my focus drifts and further on, when new generations come? Will moves of God, big and little, be forgotten? What stones could be taken out of my life and put somewhere on display?

What about the ultimate move of God? What about Jesus? How will He be remembered in our lives? What He did for us on the cross? Do we have a permanent sign of His work and transformation in us? Or are we relying on memories of experience?

If this passage teaches us anything then it’s this: God knows we forget. But God doesn’t want us to forget. He wants His glory and love to us to be remembered, to be cherished, and ultimately to be passed onto those around us and new generations. Generations will ask me ‘why do you have that rain-maker in your room?’ and I shall recall all the transformations and miracles that God brought through Argentina. I don’t have a physical Jesus memorial at the moment and I think I should. Whether we can say we’ve seen God move in a big way or small way or not really at all, I think we all have a use for a Jesus stone in our lives that both makes people ask ‘why do you have that?’ and ask ourselves ‘why is it that I still do that?’

And I’m going to remember to post letters.

Love's Anger

So this topic is the biggest challenge yet to my young writing career. I have been received some positive feedback on my reflections (those of you who I am talking about I thank you honestly, it means a lot) but if I’m honest I’ve been sticking to maybe challenging but generally palatable topics. God’s protection, God’s calling to us and our commitment to building out lives for God. However for the last two weeks I’ve had something very ‘unpalatable’ in my mind, something I’ve never really thought about before and something that many Christians, myself included, tend to avoid thinking or talking about for fear of…well if I’m honest, fear. I believe this topic is not talked about for fear of fear. What is my topic? God’s wrath.

Now the reason for this autobiographical slant to the opening is not because I want to take my blog into a new direction of telling you all about my life and how I went to the post box and posted a letter and came home and am now writing to you about how I went to a the post box and posted a letter and came home (I wish people would stop writing those blogs, I feel they are the written equivalent of Big Brother). No, I am writing more personally because I wish to make something clear. I am no expert in the theology of God’s wrath. I am no trained expositor of scripture. I am not about to try to answer all your questions on God’s wrath. I may run the risk of saying something you don’t agree with. I am not saying I am right.

I was telling my friend Greg yesterday about how I have been enjoying thinking about God’s wrath recently and he said (while trying to find not to run over a cat) ‘I’ve never been able to balance the wrath of the Old Testament with the New Testament’. Unfortunately Greg this isn’t a neat answer to that theological equation but hopefully my thoughts will help you and me get a bit closer to it. I am seeking to provoke thought and encourage, by giving airtime to a subject often deemed, at best, dark, and worst, unmentionable.

So my interest, if that is the right word, began like I said a few weeks ago. I have been power-reading through the Old Testament in the free time I had over the summer and had come up to Isaiah. Isaiah is probably one of the best known prophets in the Bible, quite a big name, yet his writings are probably the least known. This is the boat I was in, ‘Oh Isaiah, yeh he was a great prophet…what did he say you ask? Um…well…I think he mentioned Jesus a few times…err’. That’s me. So I had no idea what to expect from his guy if I’m honest. What I found was quite, well shocking really. I wrote four words in my journal that night ‘God really hates sin!’

Before I go on I want to clear something up quickly. A barrier I feel that maybe forming in your mind. Why am I talking about God’s wrath when God’s love is far more worth talking about? A simple answer is this. God’s scripture talks more about His wrath than His love. I know, I was surprised to when I found that out. Further, it’s not just by a little bit more; it’s a whole lot more. And most of that comes in books like Isaiah. I love talking about God’s love, God is love (1 John 4.16, my italics). In fact I hope that by the end of this I will have explained how God’s wrath and love are inextricably linked through Christ Jesus. So why am I talking about God’s wrath? Because a) God talks about it and b) it necessary to understand Jesus fully!

So back to Isaiah. The opening chapter weaves a majestic speech or vision that came to Isaiah concerning Judah and Jerusalem. ‘Listen, O Earth. For the Lord has spoken’ (v2). When the Lord speaks you listen, when he says you should listen, you listen doubly hard. ‘I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me’. Oops. The next 20-odd verses detail how they have rebelled and then the Lord sets his response in verse 25, ‘I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities’. Oops again. To say God isn’t best pleased would be an understatement of, well biblical proportions. Isaiah continues in this vain, bringing prophecies of disaster and judgement on Jerusalem and Judah, as well as their enemies including the mighty Babylon. I challenge you to read through Isaiah and see the passion, determination and finality with which God condemns and judges unrighteousness and rebellion. I’m tempted to say ‘it’s not pretty’ but in fact it was actually the opposite for me. It was incredibly beautiful. Why? Two reasons.

One. My God is perfectly just and righteous. My God is perfectly just and righteous. My God is perfectly just and righteous. Say it one more and think about it for a second. My God is perfectly just and righteous.

Imagine the scene. A parents’ nightmare. Their daughter is walking home when she is stopped and attacked and sexually abused. She manages to scrape home and into the arms of her father. The dad sees her and says ‘shame really’ and turns away. Does that sit comfortably with you? If it does I suggest you check your pulse. If it doesn’t then why not? Did you want to father to make sure his daughter was safe before heading out the door with heart in one hand and baseball bat in the other? Did you want the fury, or wrath, of the father to be so great against this unrighteousness that he would leave no stone unturned before that evil was literally wiped from the floor? I did. However two things stop this from happening on earth. Firstly we rarely have the pure heart to take such action out of pure hatred for evil. We are contaminated by desire to save face, to retain personal dignity and glory. And second, we have no authority to rule over life and over good and evil. However there is one person who passes both those tests, the Lord Almighty. So would you rather he said ‘shame really’ or would you rather he wielded his baseball bat of righteous judgement when He saw evil in and to his children? Isaiah is all about him running after his people swinging and swishing and declaring judgement on all evil in his sight! He’s the father who does the right thing and with the authority to do it too! (Note that the bat finally fell with one tremendous force, slamming down on the body of his Son, allowing the real evil doers a second chance).

The second reason why I find it beautiful is that it, as I said earlier, is inextricably tied to God’s immense love for us through the gospel. The most famous verse in the whole Bible is most likely John 3.16, ‘for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life’. It’s a wonderful verse, you read it through and find a lot of comfort, ‘so loved the world…awww…gave his only son…wow…shall not perish…I’m sorry what? Perish? What do you mean I was due to perish? I thought the whole thing was about love? Who brought the tone down by talking about death!?’ As amusing as that monologue sounds, it’s easy to fall into. However ‘perish’ is the total premise of the statement. It’s the state of play before the sentence begun, before the Son was given, before we believed. It is the basis upon which the love has its power. We were in a bad place. The world perish in the Greek is ‘apollymi’. It has a few biblical uses and here are some of the things it means: to destroy, to put out of the way entirely, to abolish, to put an end to ruin, to render useless, to kill, to declare that one must be put to death, to devote or give over to eternal misery in hell and to be lost, ruined or destroyed. Oops.

Why on earth is this beautiful you might ask? Because it’s not the end. ‘Whoever believes in Him may not perish’. Talk about rising from the ashes (or from the dead, whichever phrase you feel is most suitable). God’s love worked alongside God’s wrath to provide a way out. Jesus took the wrath for us. I hope I’ve made clear how powerful that wrath is. We weren’t in line for just a slap on the wrists, and Jesus did not just get a slap on the wrists. If we can truly grasp the terrible magnitude of God’s wrath then we can truly grasp the beautiful magnitude of what God did for us through Jesus. Only then can we worship Jesus in all his glory.

And a final question, why is God’s wrath so firm against unrighteousness, so firm that He sent His only Son to pay the price? ‘I will restore your judges as in the days of old, your counsellors as the beginning. Afterwards you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City’ (Isaiah 1.26) He requires us to be pure so that once again we can be the people he desires, a righteous and faithful people under Him.

So is the wrath of God to be feared? Not since Jesus. I have come to believe that it is to be celebrated. It is part of the cleansing of the past, part of the fullness of the present glory of Jesus and part of the hope of the future in eternity.

44 000 minis

Today I’m skipping a creative introduction because ultimately I can’t find an anecdote or story fitting to the idea I want to write about. My question for us all is this: how far would you go to honour God? One of my favourite quotes is from a guy called Louie Giglio and it is simply this, ‘passion is how far you are willing to go to reach your goal’. So how passionate are you about loving the Lord with ‘all your heart, soul, strength and mind’?

I ask this not so much as a challenge to you but as an extension of a question I am asking myself a lot at the moment. I’ve been asking it ever since I read the account in 1 Kings 6 of the temple that Solomon built for the Lord to dwell. If you haven’t read it then do. It’s an entire chapter devoted to describing, with architectural detail and artistic license, how Solomon used 4,000 tonnes of gold, 40,000 tonnes of silver and countless amounts of bronze iron and stone, over a period seven years and commissioning the land’s most skilled craftsmen and sculptors, on a new temple for the Lord (1 Chronicles 22). Just think about that for a moment. A mini weighs about a tonne. Now imagine 4,000 minis of gold, 40,000 minis of silver, and so many minis of bronze, iron and stone and you can’t count them. All smelted and used to build a single magnificent building. Wow. That’s a lot to give in one go. A lot to give to give on one building. A lot to give to honour God. Or is it?

Well, is it? My brain says it is. My brain that says nothing is really worth that outlay. But what does that say about my perception and value of God? Surely loving God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind means putting it all on the line? As I read Solomon’s immense action, an act showing tremendous staying power and commitment as it took so long, I began to ask what I really do give to honour my Lord? In the same way that Solomon was building an earthly temple worthy of the Lord’s presence, what am I doing to my temple where the Lord dwells, that is my body and my life (1 Corinthians 3.16-17; 6.19), to make in honourable to Him?

Am I spending my wealth on the temple? I might not have the same quantities as Solomon did but Jesus himself said giving was about the heart not the sound of the ‘clink’ in the offering (Mark 12.41-44). Do I just prefer to spend and build elsewhere?

And do I make a real commitment to building plans? Solomon set aside seven full years (or more likely as long as it took). Do I have such longevity or do I begin plans to pray more, or study more, or meet up with an accountability partner more, only to fail under the pressure of time and other burdens. Do I leave parts of my life unfinished, ‘half-honourable’ to the Lord?

And what about the tools and methods I use to build an honourable life? Am I hiring the cheapest labourers around; the quick route to my goal if you like, or am I looking for the best and most successful ways, often the hardest paths, to improve those things in my life that aren’t quite so honourable to He who in dwells?

When matched up to Solomon I fall pitifully short.