The Sacredness of Hope

Hope by Martin Gommel

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn. J.R.R. Tolkien The Return of the King

Dark was the night

It chased so hard

 

Wild storms thrashed

Upon my soul

 

Questions raged

Answers unfound

 

Prayers formed

and argued aloud

 

Christ stands

Tears flow down

 

A break of light

A glow in the sky

 

I kneel

He steels

My heart once more

 

Cold winds that blew once

Now at my back

I reach out with hope

 

A Love

A life

A Saviour to be known

There is a sacredness to hope.

Something quite intangible happens at the darkest turning points of our lives. We find a friend who invites us to trust in him, that he knows the way, and that he has walked this walk and can help us too.

Jesus, right from birth, knew that his end would be in agonising pain. The physical pain of tortured death and the relational pain of abandonment.

The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us this

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Jesus had a hope of sitting as one who had overcome. He endured everything that was thrown at him because he knew there was something worth far more than the present pain.

Hope is the alluring song of the future, and faith is dancing me towards it.

Some quotes to consider

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.
Anonymous

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King Jr.

Hope is the feeling that the feeling you have isn't permanent. Jean Kerr

Believe that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Believe that you might be that light for someone else. Kobi Yamada

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up. Anne Lamott

How does hope play a part in your everyday life?

Barry Pearman

Image by Martin Gommel Creative Commons Flickr

What is the Most Important Thing? He Tangata

 Warrior and Sleeping son by Clayton Scott

I started my career in Mental Health support in a large old boarding that was a kind of half way house for people needing quite intensive support. Hanging on the wall of the lounge was a wooden plaque with this Maori Proverb on it.

He aha te mea nui?
He tangata.
He tangata.
He tangata.

What is the most important thing? 

It is people,

it is people,

it is people.

When I first read this proverb I didn't fully agree with it. As a Christian my most important thing is my relationship with God. The relationship I have with the three fold family of God is paramount for me. Out of this relationship flows a love for people.

However, what I think this proverb is saying that the outworking of your life is to be people, not money, career, fame etc..

We can so easily become distracted away from ‘He tangata’ by all sorts of alluring attractions. We can run from ‘He tangata’ because of fears we have. ‘he tangata’ is not safe, ‘tangata’ are like us, messy, unpredictable.

‘he tangata’ are potentially dangerous to your well being, but is being well your first priority?

Some verses found on the wall of Mother Theresa’s bedroom echo our thoughts.

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centred.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

So the question will be asked of you about your life. What was the most important thing? So what is it? Leave a comment.

Barry Pearman

Image by Clayton Scott Creative Commons Flickr

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5 Ways that Jesus Helps with Thinking Ruts

 

One Track Mind by Dan Valentine

It was a track that had been worn into the earth by hundreds of sheep plodding over the same piece of clay time and time again.
As I child being raised on a sheep farm I would often notice these worn narrow paths through a paddock, and often around the side of a hill.
The sheep would walk this same little narrow path that countless others had followed. It was the easiest way to get from A to B. Why go up a hill when around the hill was so much easier. So a track was made, a rut was formed and thousands of sheep would use it time and time again. Over the years the rut grew deeper and deeper until it became the only way to get from A to B.
Ever met anyone that has ruts in their thinking?
They repeatedly think and behave in the same ways as they have always done.
Perhaps it is you? Actually it is you. We all do it. Over the years we form ways of looking at life, and systems of thinking that guide us, good and bad. They often entrap us and take us to places that we actually don’t  want to go to.
We wind up doing the same thing again and again and of course getting the same result. If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got.
How did Jesus help those with deep thinking and behaving ruts?

1. He loved them without exception. He didn't reject them just because they weren't doing it right. He continued to meet and eat with the toughest of religious opponents while they threw him barbed questions.
2. He listened to them. Their truth was their truth until they were willing to let it go. Patient love opens the door for people to become real.
3. He told them stories that made them think about their stories. Stories that sow seeds in the thinking that perhaps I have got it wrong. Stories that connected in a very emotional way to their own rut forming experiences, yet had a twist to the story that made them question the rut they were trapped in. Take as an example the story of the loving father or the dehumanised man.
4. He saw beyond the rut they were in at this moment. Everyone can change, no one is impossibly stuck in a rut. Their is hope. Jesus knew this and could see in everyone that came to him a potential of incredibleness.
5. He welcomed their brokenness and repentance as an opportunity for change. The tipping point is when we come to a place of absolute need. There is nothing more I can do, I need Jesus and his help to get me out of this rut.

What ruts do you have?
Who can you show Jesus love to this week, that has deep ruts in their thinking?
May Jesus’ truth set you free as you open your heart and expose the ruts in your thinking to him.
Barry Pearman
Image by Dan Valentine Creative Commons Flickr
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Nose to the Grindstone - Northland Adventure

 

 

If you put your nose to the grindstone rough,

And keep it down there long enough,

You will soon conclude that there are no such things,

As a brook that babbles or a bird that sings.

These three things will your world compose:

Just you, the stone,

And your ground-down nose.

(unknown)

Around and around it would go, faster and faster and then a spade or axe would be placed on the fast moving stone. Friction, heat and sparks would change both surfaces and over time be worn down.
Currently my wife Dayle and I are having a lovely little holiday in Northland. Yesterday we travelled to the northern most part of New Zealand called Cape Reinga.
On the way we stopped off at the Gum Diggers Park which is a living display of how Gum diggers used to live and work. You walk through bush and see how they would live a very tough lifestyle whist digging for Kauri Gum. The image above comes from one of the displays.
I am not going to write much more, I think the poem says it all.
Here are some questions to consider.

• What is the ‘Grindstone’ for you?
• How do you step away from the grindstone and restore yourself?
• The Grindstone featured in the picture is hand powered. What motivates or drives you to keep the Grindstone spinning round?

Here are some other images from our trip to the Far North.
Enjoy.
Barry Pearman

Sunken Kauri Log. These are extracted and beautiful woodwork is created. Check out this site.

Gum Diggers hut. Note the Gum boots to the left.

The wind was so strong that it was reported on in the evening weather news. 140 Kph (87 mph)

Sand boarding

The wonderful Ninety Mile Beach
This blog is not sponsored by Tourism New Zealand, but should be!
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The Place of Prayer Opens the Heart

I could not believe the tight security of this place, it was like the Crown Jewels were hidden away somewhere.
And they were.
A few years ago I went to the Tower of London. Stone walls, rooms full of spears and other weaponry, armed guards, close circuit T.V., eyes everywhere watching your every move. Into a small corridor I was taken, even more cameras zooming in, then around a corner into another room, this one with glass cabinets protecting the valuables inside. The people in that room insured that there was a reverential hush and quiet to it, silencing any thought of talking out loud.
Behind the reinforced glass lay the Crown Jewels. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, gold, silver all placed perfectly into crowns, sceptres, rings etc.
All the pieces displayed had some form of power or authority attached to them. All untouchable, cold, hard, hidden away to be shown only when a key was turned and entry was permitted.The person that owned the jewels had been given the power and authority to rule and govern. No crown?, no King or Queen.
Could I physically touch the jewelled heart of an empire? No way. Walls and glass prevented me. 
Physical touch brings a reality to relationship. There is a substance made available to the senses. I suppose that is why Jesus invited so much touch into his relationships. ‘Here, put your fingers into my spear wound’ he invites the sceptical followers. Touching a blind mans eyes with mud mixed with spit. 
To touch a heart though requires something quite special. Our hearts often have walls of self protection stronger than the Tower of London. The cement in the walls being a small little phrase we say quietly to ourselves - ‘I will never let my heart be broken again’. The cement binds around the pebbles and boulders of memories of abandonment, shame, of being used, rejection, ridicule, loss etc.
Lydia
We know very little about Lydia other than that she sold purple cloth, came from Thyatira, was a follower of God, and that on a certain Sabbath she had gathered together with a few other women to pray by a river. A women’s prayer meeting. She, like us, would have experienced hurts during her life and would have built walls. She had strategies of managing life, but something happened to her that was supernaturally given and changed her life for good.

The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was being said by Paul. Acts 16:14

We like to be in control don't we? To be masters of our own destiny. If we are not in control then we may feel vulnerable and at the risk of the choices of others. We like to control the people around us, so we know that we are safe.
Yet something quite profoundly beautiful happened here. Lydia was already a God follower, she may not have heard about Jesus at this stage, but the heart was ready for the reception of him.
As she listened her heart was opened. The doors were opened for her heart to be changed from the inside out.
So many people want their lives to change from the outside in. Fix all the problems on the outside, my kids, my job, my spouse, but please don't look deep into my heart, the seat of my motivations, because, and here is that whispery thought, ‘I will never let my heart be broken again’.
At the ‘place of prayer’ a relationship was formed.
Not a program, not a course, not a method. The place of prayer offered a transformation of her heart.

"Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very centre of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched."  - Henri J.M. Nouwen

The Lord opened her heart.
What does that mean for you?
Is your heart open to change?
Have you made yourself a life of reliant on your own thinking rather than on Christ’s?
Are you so religiously bound up in rules and regulations that your heart no longer experiences a deep quiet joy? Is the place of prayer a transforming place for your heart? Are you scared of your heart?
Ask the Lord to open your heart at the place of prayer.
Barry Pearman
Image by xurde Creative Commons Flickr
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Finding God in the Simple Things of Life

 

Everyday's Life at 11:11 am by LiLauraLu

The last few months I have been looking at simplifying my life.
Having had my second run in with depression over the last 18 months I realized I needed to take time and smell the roses. However with expenses to meet I also had to juggle this with generating some income and a certain frugality. From this has come unexpected benefits.
I have started a little stress free business housecleaning and not only has this provided local income but also my fitness levels, already good, have dramatically improved. With the increase in petrol prices my mind wandered to the neglected push bike in the garage. I have now made a commitment to myself to walk or bike wherever possible within a 5-10 km radius of home.
I am now beginning to understand Brother Lawrence in his book The Practice of the Presence of God. Brother Lawrence was a seventeenth century lay brother who worshipped God while cleaning pots and pans and cobbling shoes. Although too poor to be a cleric many were attracted to him for his spiritual wisdom and peace.

Men invent means and methods of coming at God's love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him? Brother Lawrence

Now I am not such a saint as Brother Lawrence but I am discovering a certain freedom as I vacuum and as I cycle from job to job.
Like Brother Lawrence I do a lot of cooking, and somehow cooking from scratch is a very relaxing activity. For me I feel closer to God there, than at any other time.
If I quietly go from task to task there is a peace, and from that peace comes a certain ability to be there for others in a more relaxed way.
It also helps me be creative in art and writing as I have more time to think. In fact while in some sense I am less busy than I have been, I can see that as I recover from depression there is a certain productivity in pacing myself and spending that time doing commonplace tasks. Sometimes I don’t talk or particularly listen to God. But I know he is there.
Maybe that is why Paul never gave up tent making?
The more I am into this simple life style, the more I am convinced that I will carry this onwards.
I’m not sure how this will work out in terms of work and lifestyle but I am convinced that I am on the right track. I read the blog of Mr Money Moustache and although I don’t share all aspects of his philosophy I have had an insight into the wisdom of simplifying my wants. By doing this it gives our household more freedom to make good choices in how we live.
Does your lifestyle enable you to make good choices in how you live?
Janine Blackburn
Image by LiLauraLu Creative Commons Flickr
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