August is coming...

Last night, I emailed the Leadership team at CCN & the people I have the privilege of supporting, ministries wise. The message - I'm 'logging off' for the month of August.

It's something I felt called to do last year & given its value, I'm going to repeat the exercise. The previous version was a bit demanding given I fasted electronics; that being TV, Internet (including Blogs, FB & Twitter) & email. It was further 'exacerbated' by the fact that I was still in a period during which the Lord had told me to read nothing other than His word.

That said, I survived & feel like I can build on my experience this August.

What were my take-outs last year?

1) I re-learned how much of my identity can become wrapped up in busyness & task 

2) alongside this, I was forced to acknowledge that I don't always choose to fill my life with the correct things & that in the absence of my 'norms', I can feel empty 

3) by the end, I was convinced beyond any doubt that life is simpler than I often make it

What will this year's version look like?

I'm still working on all of the details but it is clear the month will be more intentional than during the previous occasion...

1) there will definitely be some travel again; a few days at the Willow Creek GLS & family time, including our main holiday

2) there are also likely to be some adjustments...

- I suspect a partial electronics fast this time, leaving in place the things that invigorate (Blog & Twitter), whilst eradicating the more stressful (email) 

- I'm also hopeful that I will be 'allowed' book interactions; both reading (I have a bit of a backlog) but also collating notes from recent key reads. These include Humility: True Greatness by C J Mahoney & The Me I Want To Be by John Ortberg 

- there are a number of topics I wish to study & given I lack a propensity for detail, this will require discipline 

- more people time; a major learning from last year was that I had insufficient time with others. This meant, I was heavy on input & light of output which brought frustration

What am I expecting?

This has proved to be a tough question to answer - not because I can't give an answer, but because I don't really like my answer & don't feel I can explain it succinctly...

- at one level, I am content to believe I will be back at the place spiritually, mentally & emotionally that I was on August 31st 2010 

- thereafter my 'need' for significance kicks in. My achiever wakes up & a desire to (visibly) 'make progress' raises its head

Would re-calibration cut the mustard? The reality is, I don't know. Which of my drivers are on this occasion worthy? Again, I don't know as yet. I am having to rest secure that whatever clarity & answers are needed will become clear in His timing.

Finally - why write this?

1) as with most of what I'm posting up in this blog, it helps me in that I am 'forced' to crystallize some of my thinking on a given topic 

2) I'm keen on accountability - how I plan to spend 31 days is, at least in part, now a matter of public record

3) it also gives me the opportunity to throw out a challenge! You may not be able to take a month out, but you are capable & worthy of rest. Maybe you ought to consider what your version of my August could look like

I may well blog again before August starts giving more detail on my plans for the month. Whether that happens or not, I will be posting up during the month itself. I find it cathartic & as mentioned above, it crystallizes what's swirling round in my head!

If, in a few weeks time you get an 'Out of Office' reply from me - please throw up a prayer, that I will be being conscious of His presence & attentive to His voice.

Jonathan

PS I'm far from closed to any bright ideas you guys might have on this topic whether around use of time or otherwise

3 wants & isolation

Regular readers will probably realise that maths, patterns & logic are core to my existence......this obviously permeates my reading of scripture. My last but one blog (w3grace) was a good example of that, this one is along similar lines.

I've been reading 1 John for most of this year - the underlying themes of love & sin patterns have been & will be posts on others days, for now I'm elsewhere, to be exact, 1 John 2:15-6 (MSG)

Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world - wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important - has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him

Reading those two verses, it doesn't take me very long to recognise myself. Words like pride, self & vanity come to the fore. And so, I am again faced with a choice as to what's more important & desirable to me in life...

• I do want my own way - so badly, most of the time (but less than used to be the case!!), this isn't helped by the fact that I'm also right most of the time! (that's a mix of leader, pride & a few other things talking)
• I do not want everything for myself - I am blessed with a generous spirit & whilst not blasé, remaining selfless is something I continue to cultivate
• I do want to appear important - at my worst, I couldn't put into words how much this is the case. Those 6 words represent a 'daily taking up my cross', created by a desire for significance alongside vanity
• I do not want to be isolated from Him - in Him I am unconditionally loved, in Him I am complete, in Him I find rest

When I set it down in print it's dead easy & I wonder what all my fuss is about - just choose Him & die will you. Yet, back in the realities of life, the demons of the soul that are pride & vanity exert themselves. That phrase is taken from Finding Happiness by Abbot Christopher Jamison, a book that continually challenges & educates me in my discipleship. More of all that in my next few posts.

Back to you...

Q: how do you score on John's wants?

Q: what drives those wrong attitudes & behaviours?

Q: where do you need to be more aware & thereafter more intentional?

In his excellent the me I want to be, John Ortberg repeatedly uses a phrase there is a God and it is not you. We'd all happily agree with those words & yet in our actions, our wantings, we are tempted to behave otherwise.

Rather than being downcast (I know I'm not) - my prayer is that even today we will each see a little more clearly the need for less of 'me' & more of Him.

Be blessed

Jonathan

wake up & smell right

This is a quick post up of something I wrote for another context but meant to blog on - around the question...

do I have the right scent?

In a CCN evening service recently, I was listening to Leah speak on ID. She referenced Jacob & it got me to thinking. We see in the Genesis 27 story that Isaac was eventually won over that Jacob was in fact Esau. It wasn't the voice (his words) since that wasn't authentic (v.22), likewise it wasn't the touch (his actions) though this came close (v.24). Isaac was convinced by the fact that Jacob had the correct smell...

He came close and kissed him and Isaac smelled the smell of his clothes. Finally, he blessed him (v.27)

As we go through life, we can say & do the right things, my prayer, however, is that we will carry God's scent on us, such that those that come close will find Jesus in us & find Him for themselves.

Let's stay fragrant

Jonathan

w3grace

Many of us will have heard of the great English cricketer W G Grace...this post is a twist on his name which came to me as I was reading some well known verses recently.

The verse in question is Matthew 11:29 (MSG) - the often quoted part being...

learn the unforced rhythms of grace

I hadn't considered before the injunction to learn & as soon as I did it became clear that there was more to this verse than I had previously grasped. The earlier part of the verse makes it clear that our learning will come out of 3 W's

• Walk with me: I'm challenged as to whether God is an ever present - is his presence the most important thing in my life? On another level, you can't go faster than the person your're following - as a recent tweet put it

God doesn't operate any faster in the twenty-first century than He did in the first. And so while we rush ourselves, we can't rush God

• Work with me: if we aren't working with Him, we are working against Him (even I believe if 'not working' at all). What has God asked of me where I am still to be obedient, do I need to seek fresh guidance from Him

• Watch how I do it: I find the life of Jesus truly inspirational & therefore it's not often a hardship for me to revisit Hebrews 12:2-3 (MSG)

Study how He (Jesus) did it...when you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item

Given my current 'take' on Jesus, I find the 3rd of these requirements the easiest to 'undertake'. For me there is no better way than a consistent reading of the gospels & frequent requests of those close in life as to whether they see me becoming more like Him.

I'm doing better on the 2nd than I used to but as a reforming control freak, this one's not always easy for me - more attentiveness to His voice, even in my everyday existence is a key part of 'conforming'.

The hardest W for me is the 1st. I like going fast, I like achieving, I like being fruitful & so as I've expressed recently (its june say something), the promised land is wildly attractive to me. But, I stay alert, discipline myself & my knowing of God & love for Him are growing such that He is becoming increasing all-consuming.

How about you guys out there in 'blogland'

Q: do you even want to learn the unforced rhythms of grace? if so

Q: which of the W's do you need to be most attentive to?

Q: what would be a good next step for you? 

The verse before the one I have considered (v.28) asks

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?

The verse after (v.30) promises that if we keep company with Him, we'll learn to live freely & lightly. May we each know His yoke as we learn His ways.

Jonathan

 

letter to his impostor – Brennan Manning

If you’ve never read Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning, here’s a taster by way of a letter he wrote to his impostor after a twenty day retreat…

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Good-morning, impostor. Surely you are surprised by the cordial greeting, you probably expected, "Hello, you little jerk." since I have hammered you from day one of this retreat. Let me begin by admitting that I have been unreasonable, ungrateful, and unbalanced in my appraisal of you. (Of Course, you are aware, puff of smoke, that in addressing you, I am talking to myself. You are not some isolated, impersonal entity living on an asteroid but a real part of me.)

I come to you today not with rod in hand but with an olive branch. When I was a little shaver and first knew that no one was there for me, you intervened and showed me where to hide. (In those Depression days of the thirties, you recall my parents were doing the best they could with what they had just to provide food and shelter.)

At that moment in time, you were invaluable. Without your intervention I would have been overwhelmed by dread and paralyzed by fear. You were there for me and played a crucial, protective role in my development. Thank you.

When I was four years old, you taught me how to build a cottage. Remember the game? I would crawl under the covers from the head of the bed to the footrest and pull the sheets, blanket, and pillow over me - actually believing that no one could find me. I felt safe. I am still amazed at how effectively that worked. My mind would think happy thoughts, and I would spontaneously smile and start to laugh under the covers. We built that cottage together because the world we inhabited was no a friendly place.

But in the construction process you taught me how to hide my real self from everyone and initiated a lifelong process of concealment, containment, and withdrawal. Your resourcefulness enabled me to survive. But then your malevolent side appeared and you started lying to me "Brennan," you whispered, "if you persist in this folly of being yourself, your few long-suffering friends will hit the bricks, leaving you all alone. Stuff your feelings, shut down your memories, withhold your opinions, and develop social graces so you'll fit in wherever you are."

And so, the elaborate game of pretence and deception begin. Because it worked I raised no objection. As the years rolled by,  you - I got strokes from a variety of sources. We were elated and concluded the game must go on.

But you needed someone to bridle you and rein you in. I Had neither the perception not the courage to tame you, so you continued to rumble like Sherman through Atlanta, gathering momentum along the way. Your appetite for attention and affirmation became insatiable. I never confronted you with the lie because I was deceived myself.

The bottom line, my pampered playmate, is that you are both needy and selfish. You need care, love, and safe dwelling place. On this day in the Rockies my gift is to take you where, unknowingly, you have longed to be - into the presence of Jesus. Your days of running riots are history. From now on, you slow down, slow very down.

In His presence notice that you have already begun to shrink. Wanna know somethin',  little guy? Your much more attractive that way. I am nicknaming you "Pee-Wee". Naturally, you are not going to roll over suddenly and die. I know you will get disgruntled at times and start to act out, but the longer you spend time in the presence of Jesus, the more accustomed you grow to His face, the less adulation you will need because you will have discovered for yourself that He is Enough. And in the Presence, you will delight in the discovery of what it means to live by grace and not by performance.

Your friend

Brennan

it's june - say something

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that I managed not to blog during May. At times I felt like I had nothing to say, other times, I was overwhelmed with subject matter (hence three drafts where I made a start). More of the time, however, I felt plain old busy & confused - in general & on where I would begin.

It's now June - a combination of my own desire together with promptings from a couple of friends brings me to needing to write a post. Last month, will I believe, prove to have been a seismic & pivotal period for CCN (Christian Centre). Maybe more of that at another time. It is also becoming pleasantly monotonous that every conversation right now, whether in an orgnanised meeting or organic conversation is trending to the topics of development & discipleship.

Given such thoughts & context, I remain unsure as to where's best to begin, but I'm parking my need for perfection, order etc... & choosing Exodus 33 as my topic. This is the passage that I find myself meditating on and talking about most frequently at the moment. It's likely that I will share some of these thoughts in CCN staff meeting next week (stop now if you don't want that spoiling!).

We find ourselves listening in on a conversation between God & Moses. God says that it's time to...

Head for the land which I promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (v.1 MSG)

We know from verse 3 that it's a land flowing with milk & honey, elsewhere we're told about the grapes. In verse 2, we also see that God's intent was to send an angel with them & ahead of them to clear out their enemies (all the 'ites).

So, to be clear, God is talking about a promised & fruitful place alongside His ongoing protection. Sounds good - I'll start packing.

Moses of the other hand was far less bought into this idea, his response was No Deal...

If Your presence doesn't take the lead here, call this trip off right now (v.15 MSG)

The desire & need Moses had for God's presence was so pronounced that he was willing to stay here rather than go there if that's what it took to remain with God. Take a minute...here was the wilderness, a barren place of survival & complaint, a place that had previously caused Moses to ask to die.

Our knowledge of the bible can at times put us at a disadvantage, like in this story, we know that God did actually carry on the journey of promise with them. However...

Q: real time - did Moses know that is wasn't a choice between here & there

Q: real time - would you have chosen the promised land, with all it brought & an angel but without God

I know that I am coming to increasingly crave God's presence. I also know what my answer to the second question can be when I need success, achievement & fruitfulness (as I am tempted to define them). I have to wonder if God was prepared to carry on the adventure with the Israelites because, if push had come to shove, Moses had chosen to stay here?!

My prayer for myself (& you if desired), is that I continue on my quest to know both God & myself better, such that I can love both God & myself more.

Have a blessed weekend - your fellow pilgrim

Jonathan