In a moment of critical self-evaluation

The Job mystery in every life

It has become a canon of development and growth, to understand the event of trial and adversity whilst seeking to make a way towards a better story and good report that becomes the grist of testimonies further on.

I cherish much the counsel of those who attempt with all feeling and compassion to walk the shoes I walk, through the rough patches with the immediacy and urgency to help relieve me of the burdens that at times seek to crush and fail to impact, strengthening sinew and muscle of spirit, mind, and body as each day passes.

To those to whom I have not given an ear, much as I appreciate their concern which comes from a good place, persuasion is a lot more than hard talk or tough love. Our humanity in its fragility responds best to encouragement with the light of hope to lead toward a desirable destination. It is not one of vague optimism but of practical consequence, where words are followed by an activity that buoys what to some might seem a sinking ship.

Those beside on your side

In friend, I have found more than the material that suggests one is not in this alone; in lover, the amazing embrace of support and the constant expression of faith and confidence, much of which one might struggle to believe, but pictures are created in the mind of what is both possible and achievable.

In mother, a soothing and comforting voice almost like a lullaby that wafts in the ears of a toddler being rocked to the shore of peaceful and blissful sleep. Then a steeling up of belief that you are both able and capable, to which I promise was made, you have a son who will not throw in the towel. We are fighting this to the end for triumph beyond anticipation.

Blog - Thought Picnic: On mother today and everyday

In parson, counsel and pastoral support came with such Christian compassion and engagement, with advice and reference, help and prayer. We sometimes forget we live in a wealthy place of a community we rarely access and understand enough for the neighbourly succour that exists not for our inconvenience and essentially more for our safety.

A process of self-discovery

Personally, I seek a way to the light, a better understanding of self and purpose to gain focus and advantage in the issues that beset me. In the things of old that once were a source of strength and the search for the new in revelation and exposition of why we exist at all in the settings and situations that we are. Besides that, how else would one be so uniquely different and storied if you do not do crazy things? Each man has to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

So then, my dear ones, just as you have always obeyed [my instructions with enthusiasm], not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]. [Bible Hub: Philippians 2:12 Amplified]

Reference

The story of Job, a biblical figure [Wikipedia]

Dreamscape: A Psalm of the stirred and troubled

 We are guarded by greater than you know

Take me to see what you were shown,
Tell me of the journey to that place,
For out of a dark hole that opened like a mouth,
He was pulled back out by the underarms,
In the uncovering of an act so unnatural,
Ere Abraham found the ram in the thicket,
Abraham was old and will not bury Isaac,
The hole that opened is closed from all sight,
The prayers of the congregations were strong,
For they prevailed upon the unholy sacrifice,
Averting the abomination of patriarchs,
Who are given to the rituals of the cursed.

That to which he was a witness in a dream,
Was made manifest as light shone on his deeds,
In it, he will not prosper or even survive,
The tree is one generation to raise new seed,
Come away from the place he was urged,
His shoulders rapped to bring him round,
As he woke his eyes were filled with tears,
Marvelling at the machinations of forebears,
We will not strive over things that do not last,
Not at this time or in a distant time to come.

He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps,
It is by him that we are lifted from the pyre,
Even by the son of man who became the fourth,
After the heat is seven times strengthened,
By hand and foot and terror in their faces,
Their ashes not found dispersed in the wind,
What shall become the story told of them?
The past that attempts to consume the future,
Itself shall not be remembered or spoken,
Their hands were red and so involved,
The blood of the innocent now for justice calls.

Can you abandon your experience for the extraordinary?

Learning to trust beyond experiences

I sometimes consider my situation with amusement, for I had yesterday said Sunday might well be a day of rest. I cannot say it became the day of expected rest for in the morning I made for church after a night the tracker said was better, but I appeared to struggle through trying to get more sleep beyond vivid dreams.

The message at church was based on trust and being saved from situations and disaster as depicted in the narration where the disciples saw Jesus walking on water in the middle of a stormy sea. The majority of disciples being fishermen would have known the reality of stormy seas. Small boats at the mercy of billowing waves, the fishermen caught between life and death, terrified at their helplessness. [Romans 10:5-15 (NKJV)][Matthew 14:22-33 (NKJV)]

Beyond that, even if the fishermen were strong and able swimmers, it is doubtful that when hit by a storm they’ll just jump in the water and swim to shore and safety. Besides, they might also know other fishermen that would have perished at sea without trace lost forever in the deep as a lingering memory of the dangers of their trade.

Don’t let it be too strange

It is in this context that they saw a man, the man Jesus walking on water and obviously from their experience at sea would immediately think it impossible and suppose they were seeing a spirit. Their being tossed about in their boat was compounded by the fear of the incomprehensible.

It is then that Jesus said, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.” Yes, he told them, and of the many translations, I like the God’s Word Translation the best, "Calm down! It's me. Don't be afraid!" [BibleHub: Matthew 14:27]

It was as if Jesus was saying He knew they had never experienced this before and it was time for them to experience the incredible and add it to their wealth of personal experience and the full recognition of his authority on earth. You could not have witnessed this and remained the same afterwards.

How our experiences rob us of the divine

Whilst they were busy processing that information, Peter said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” To which Jesus simply said, “Come!”. At the point Peter did step off the boat with all his fisherman experience in the middle of a stormy sea and walked on water towards Jesus. Until it dawned on him, fishermen don’t walk on water and he began to sink.

We can agree he was far enough from the boat not to grab it and near enough to Jesus when he cried from help and Jesus stretched out his hand to catch him, they both walked back to the boat, and the storm ceased.

For all the additional perspectives to add to this situation, there is one evident thing, your worldly experience limits your ability to experience the wonder and power of God. Then, if you do go against every knowledge you have to listen to and act on the one-word command of Come, you will experience the power of God and when your personal experience begins to cloud that godly experience, you only have cried out to be saved and brought to safety, whether you have little or great faith.

For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” [BibleGateway: Romans 10:13]

That was the depth and beauty of the sermon in church today

Thought Picnic: How would you like to have one?

One question and the answer

You might think there is no clear thinking about what god is; how would you like to have one?

You might believe there is no god, how would you like to have one?

You might believe there are many gods, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god and you were in a desperate situation that you needed a miracle and one that could guarantee one, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god, one who can wipe out your past and history, giving you the reality of a new and changed life, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god and he fully understands you by taking on every situation and experience you have ever encountered, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god that says with him nothing shall be impossible, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god of enormous possibility that he could die for you and beyond that rise again from the dead to guarantee everything he died for, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god of the amazingly incredible that it just blows your mind, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god whose expression of love for you is his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness, his righteousness, his kindness and so much more, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god who offers to live in you and work in you, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god to whom you can express you fears, your anxieties, your hopes and your desires freely, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god that can you pour your heart out to him and know he listens, hears and helps, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god who has done all the hard work of relationship building that all he requires is that you just believe in what he has already done, how would you like to have one?

If you had one god that you can speak to freely in any language and yet so quietly or powerfully, how would you like to have one?

If you once had a tug on your heart strings, somewhere deep inside you about the possibilities, you probably want to have one.

One such does exist, the maker of all things; so great and mighty and yet so personal too; whose love is boundless, who offers ability, vision and provision beyond what your mind is able to comprehend, who takes you from the earthly limitations of the natural to the supernatural in an instant that changes your life forever.

Taking your faults to give you faultlessness, your inadequacies to give to you ability, your weaknesses to give you strength, your poverty to give you prosperity, your questions to give you answers, your anxieties to give you peace, your sicknesses to give you health, your sentence to give you an unconditional pardon – an expression of love that no other god has the capacity or ability to provide all as close to you as your breath; if you just dared say God I need you.

He will reveal himself and his wondrous being just as he did and still does through Jesus Christ for the first step, now, into the eternity of amazing love and power that begins with that one desire, how would you like to have one?

Thought Picnic: I'm a sinner, I'm a saint

Betwixt two and in no place

I have watched with admiration a number of people who are quite well-adjusted with the issues of traditional conflicts between their lives and their spirituality.

In my case, I have not been that fortunate, rather beneath this English and gentlemanly exterior lays a complicated set of conflicting issues that is a conundrum of extremes.

I live as a man in two places, having very few true friends and many acquaintances whose relationships I have not cultivated enough to deal the issues of being single, being alone, being lonely and being apart.

The communities that I strive to participate in have me on the periphery, the satisfaction each provides is temporary and none can provide lasting rewards if things continues as they are.

Perdition and salvation

My flesh has desire; my spirit does aspire whilst my soul like a pendulum that fulfils those needs swings between perdition and salvation.

It does not augur well because it leaves me bereft of solutions to little problems and clueless about bigger issues such that I need to awaken to new inspiration before I am overwhelmed beyond anything my personality can handle.

As I observed the other community it looked like an impossible situation, these are people who are excluded from the community in which I find comfort, I do not relish the task of bridging the gap, it is beyond human wisdom, if anything will be accomplished it will take the mysterious or the miraculous, it is really not be business to think of how, I will just have to do.

Lighting up my darkness

I know that I am tackling these issues the wrong way and that means I am running on empty, I have learnt over time that there are situations that are just beyond me but grace abounds and someone is ceaselessly praying for me somewhere that I am beginning to rise and gaining back the winning attitude that has seen me through the toughest times when there was literally no one to lean on.

There are things to let go of and things to latch on to, that other thing has to go before I brand myself an existential schizophrenic vying to be either a sinner or a saint and doing both badly to my complete detriment.

Scales fell off the eyes of my mind this morning as I satisfied both extremes and the better of the extremes lead me to some enlightenment, insight and ideas, I expect to share some really good news very soon.