-this is stuff i took from my gap year "diary" (really a word doc called what i learnt on my gap year) and am posting it here because as much as it is really messy, i hope that it might be encouraging to others who know me to read about all the things ive learnt and be encouraged (or tell me where im deluded still!!)-
7th
July
Have
have have to get all this down. Just had an extremely long conversation with
grandma which I have to record!!
So the
reason I haven’t been writing anything down about how the entire month of June
has been was #1 because I never found the right time #2 I didn’t feel like I
had anything to put down here #3 I was recording a lot of things in postcards
and whatsapp conversations instead #4 I was also in a flux
Being in a
flux, meaning (as I told Grandma just now), I was doubting a lot of things (and
this doubt dates back to even before I left for the UK), second guessing a lot
of things I thought to be true and also quite upset with God in the face of bad things happening and the holiday being less than perfect. What I was doing was
I was comparing my “state” in the present with the sort of “on fire for God,
close walk with Jesus” sort of person i used to be and
finding that something was wrong. I didn’t feel as close to Jesus as I did
before. I didn’t want to read the bible as I had before. I didn’t understand
Jesus as I had before, everything was just going wrong and I was really quite
down and miserable.and angry in fact too, because I didnt understand why a loving God would be so silent and distant and allow me to be so sad.
Grandma
asked me how I got through that. (and I really truly ONLY JUST got through it,
like now I feel like Im back on track) I think the answer was that even as I
was constantly reassessing everything I believed in, on all those long car
rides through the highlands, trying to reason away all the doubts that kept
popping up in my mind (and failing) (and just sinking further into a quagmire
of OMG I CANT EVEN JUSTIFY MY BELIEFS TO MYSELF EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW SO
CERTAINLY MUST BE A DELUSION), even then, the ONE THING that I never let go of
was the surety that God is real. And I can never let go of that. It is a fact.
God has revealed himself to me in my life. There
have been too many God-incidences for me to deny his existence.(even if i wanted to) And so even
though I went to that small Dalrossie church and I couldn’t even sing wholeheartedly, or at Rougham Church last week and I wasn’t very into it,
or even at Saint Pauls Cathedral, where I still felt half like an outsider who didn’t buy
into all that man made religion stuff, the point is I STILL WENT.
I feel like
crossing that out now “I still went”, because it makes it seem like I did
something that saved myself. That it was my own actions that preserved me
through the valley of the shadow of death etc. but that’s not what I mean…
because really, it was God who was able to keep reaching out to me, slowly,
slowly…through Aunty Sheila’s present of that book of morning moments/quotes
with God book that the first two pages really spoke directly to me- I remember
that whole week God kept telling me Praise God Praise God, and it was around
that time that I felt like doing the exact opposite, it felt like I had nothing
to praise God FOR, but he kept telling me the same message, sort of reminding
me of Who God is. And other things, the hymns in the dalrossie church which
made me cry, I remember one of them was God speaking to me telling me that he
would never leave me that I was his child, words of comfort which I really
really needed. The choir singing at saint pauls, reading The Problem of Pain, still reading my bible occasionally...And then today, through the sermon at West Road church which
was on Hebrews 11:12-
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of
witnesses let us throw off anything that hinders, and the sin that so easily
entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (fixing
our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith)
This really
has to be my LIFE VERSE. Because IT IS the only way to live the Christian life.
And so this is why I said to Grandma that even though I felt quite lonely at the church cos no one talked to me, God has a plan and makes all things work together for the good
of those who love him! Why, well because this verse tied in perfectly with the
section of the Crazy Love audiobook that I was listening to on the Coach back
to Bury from Cambridge last night. Ive been thinking about this issue of Love a
lot I think because I kept feeling that I didn’t love God enough, that I didn’t
desire him enough of that this desire kept fading and I didn’t know how to
force such emotions. I wanted to love God but I just didn’t, I wanted to read
the bible but I didn’t feel like it, I wanted to be on fire but I just wasn’t!
So anyway, I listened to the audiobook and Francis Chan was saying that
basically, all God requires of us is FAITH THROUGH LOVE, believing in Him, and
Loving Him (loving God also means loving others). But the only way to love God
is to pray and ask God to help you to love Him! Its all God! And I think he
even mentioned the running a race imagery, or he said something along the lines
of- ultimately, we just need to pursue God (and I take this to mean through
prayer and reading the Word primarily) because if we think that we can make
ourselves love him, that’s not dying to ourselves and its works righteousness,
thinking that WE can DO something right. Im forgetting some bits, so Im just
going to write here what I scribbled down in my note book as I listened to the
key bits of the book last night (thank you rick warren for reminding me that the best way
to remember things is to write them down you are so right!!!)
Anyway,
All God wants of us is Faith working through love
Help. I don’t love you.
-the answer is not to try harder to love God, but to let
him in (Rev 3:20 behold I stand at the door and knock). Draw near to God and he
will draw near to you.
-we need God to love God!
& the Holy Spirit needs to work in our lives (added
note: BECAUSE THIS KIND OF LOVE IS SUPERNATURAL!!! IT IS SET APART, HOLY LOVE!)
Its like a race,
Keep running,
Keep pursuing Christ>
Its when we stop running towards Christ that we feel
restless
So, really, this “spiritual drought” that Ive been facing
wasn’t because something was wrong like I thought it was. I thought that I’d
done something wrong or something must have been wrong with my theology etc…but
really what had happened was that I had stopped running the race with my eyes
fixed on jesus. Well, actually I hadn’t stopped running because I still
believed that God is real, but I was definitely crawling along at a slower pace
than before and now. I think I want to mention something amazing that I read in
C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain[1]
recently that I think contains some real wisdom about why I suddenly stopped
sprinting and started to brisk walk (like how people give up in NAFA 2.4): ***it’s
a long passage that I will have to re-read and fill in the blanks later but all
I remember was that I was saying that we are always overwhelmed with how much
God loves us, and we ask for less love, not more.
Well, so now
I know that I need to cling on to this Father of Love, especially through prayer, which is
something I have always neglected. And the best thing about this race that Im
running is that all I need to do is finish it, and God will give me just enough
of what I need to get through every season of life, even if I don’t run the
whole race at the same bullet train speed.
In our
conversation, me and Grandma also talked about love and the law. Which really
happened because I’d been thinking about God’s love and the example that J sets with her open door policy, she’ll marry/baptise/christen anybody who wants
it more or less, and I asked Grandma if J would marry a homosexual couple.
#1 Im so happy that Grandma took me seriously and was able to have a great
discussion with me on it.
We had
established that we have no right to judge others,J says that if someone
wants to receive God’s blessing “who am I to stand in the way of them and God”
& we talked about the woman that the whole town wanted to stone and Jesus
saying “Let he who has no sin cast the first stone” & everyone walking
away…and how Jesus ate with Zaccheous the tax collector. So clearly Gods love is
for everybody and EVERYBODY (we also read Rev 3:20 later on which say behold I
stand at the door and knock…if ANYONE…I realise I always forget the second part
of the verse which says If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.i always wondered why it was that Jesus said eat...) Then I was thinking, God calls us to be holy, so
while yes we have no right to judge, being holy means being set a part, being
different, so shouldn’t we have some standards?
And Grandma said, very decisively, “Well, the only
standard is LOVE.”
That really just blew me
away. And she’s right! Jesus says love the Lord your God with all your heart,
soul mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself! Only these two
remain!!! And this kind of love is HOLY! Because being holy means being set
apart. And if we keep focusing on BEING DIFFERENT from society- I mean societies
CHANGE so we could be different from thesocietal norm one second and in line with it
the next! And also, if we think about being holy in terms of being good people,
well there are also many good people who are non Christian so what sets us
apart from them! Grandma told me about a church in Trafalgar square where every
night volunteers come and give food to the tramps, and she said that the ladies
there might also notice that a tramps boot needed stitching and they would say
to them, if you just come round the back I might be able to mend that for you.
And of course when the tramp took his shoe off, his feet would need attending
to as well, and the ladies would not only fix their shoes but also care for
their feet and blisters and everything! And the tramps love them! THIS IS HOLY
LOVE! I think that there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE- between being a good person who
doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, always goes to church etc. etc. and a person who
is WILLING TO WASH A TRAMPS DIRTY GROSS FEET. That is so RADICAL that it just
SHOUTS TO THE WORLD THAT IT HAS TO BE THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. And I pray
that I will also be able to LOVE THAT BIG.
So, LOVE IS THE
STANDARD> Which is why things like genocide will never be ethical- unless
you can have a LOVING genocide.but applying that to todays grand debate on homosexuality, how do we approach
it? And we came to the conclusion that you cant say eg. You would always marry
a homosexual couple or you would never. Because what is the most loving for one
couple might not be the most loving for the other couple. The example I gave
grandma was that I might do the washing up for my mum because that would be
loving because shes tired after a long day at work and she would really appreciate
it and need the rest. But I wouldn’t do the washing up (or usually the
collection of a few days dirty dishes) that is left in s and js sink
because that wont help them learn how to be responsible for their own mess and
run a household independently. So you need to know the people and their
situation, and understand them and how they work. And love can be tough love,
it doesn’t mean ohhhh I love you I’ll do anything for you, whatever you say
goes. It not sentimentality. I think theres more to be said on homosexuality
because I think God has laid out some pretty specific things in the bible about
it, so I hope to read up about that a bit more, that and the idea of
cohabitation and what marriage is…but anyway I was saying to grandma that because
of this standard of love, Christians are still called to make judgement calls
–not to pass judgement on other people but to have the wisdom (from above) and
maturity (ditto) to know what to do in difficult situations, to continue to
display Christ’s love and sacrifice and service.
Really praying that God
will strengthen me. And teach me to love him more and desire him more and love
others with his love.
p.s. blessing in disguise:
the tea I drank after a nice BBQ dinner at the woolpack has kept me awake and
lively enough to have that marathon discussion with grandma and get all this
recorded so hurray for that! 3am.
[1]
NB, another part of The Problem of Pain that I bookmarked
that is a great analogy to explain how we sinned “in Adam” (as in Adam all die,
so in Christ shall all be made alive 1Cor xv,22) ---Theoretically, I suppose, we might say “Yes: we behave like
vermin, but then that is because we are vermin.
And that, at any rate, is not our fault.” But the fact that we are vermin, so
far from being felt as an excuse, is a greater shame and grief to us than any
of the particular acts which it leads us to commit. The situation is not as
nearly as hard as some people make out. It arises among human beings whenever a
very badly brought up boy is introduced into a decent family. They rightly
remind themselves that it is “not his own fault” that he is a bully, a coward,
a tale-bearer and a liar. But none the less, however it came there, his present
character is detestable. They cannot love him for what he is, they can only try
to turn him into what he is not. In the meantime, though the boy is most
unfortunate in having been so brought up, you cannot quite call his character a
“misfortune” as if he were one thing and his character another. It is he- he
himself- who bullies and sneaks and likes doing it. And if he begins to mend he
will inevitably feel shame and guilt at what he is just beginning to cease to
be.
