Holy Spirit Blue - a poem

 

A poem inspired by a word in church this morning on the colour 'blue', the worship and the sermon on Psalm 121)

Wash over with peace
Wash over with healing
Roll in like a river
Roll out like a river
Spill and splash onto others
Jesus, Jesus you silence fear
Jesus, Jesus your promise still stands
Jesus, Jesus you are still enough
Great is your faithfulness

Look up!
Hope in our hearts
Hope in our lungs
Hope in our minds
Help comes from above
No heart cry, no tear escapes his watchful eyes

Look up!
Take courage
Rest in his shade
He's there. He's still there
You are standing. You are still standing

Look up!
Look beyond
Push through those dark clouds
Look beyond
His promise still stands
This is our God
He is still with us
He never sleeps
He never slumbers

Love poured out
Love filled my world with grace.

Look up!

Perspective

 

I was immediately drawn to these bright plastic sunglasses left behind by a child at the beach. My family thought I was a little nuts crouching down to get the shot I wanted!

Different angles, different levels and different perspectives are all important in the way we view life. Sometimes we need to get down on our hands and knees and sometimes we need to climb up high. Sometimes we need to look through or next to or above to find what we need.

Sometimes we need to forge forward and go after something with great force and other times we need to stand back, let go. trust, breathe and have faith.

Isaiah 58:11 The Lord will guide you always, he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose water never fail.

Flowing outlet or stagnant tank

 

I wrote this piece during level 5 lockdown when I was seeing a lot of my garden with walking 17 laps on a daily basis. I tried to find new things to photograph and enjoy on a daily basis. Sometimes it was an analogy.

We have a water tank in our back garden. It collects water from the run off on the corner of the roof. But it has no natural or easy outlet at the moment. It needs a connection at the bottom that we can then attach a hosepipe to. If I want to use the water inside, I have to fill back breaking buckets full, hence it pretty much gets ignored.

Guess what the insides look like? Black, slimy sludge. 

The dictionary says this of stagnant water: A body of water in a confined space having no current or flow and often having an unpleasant smell as a consequence.

Stagnate means no activity. It got me thinking to the Christian life and what happens when we stagnate. This past Sunday our pastor preached on James 2 - Faith and Deeds, and it prompted me to finish  putting this blog together. When we stagnate we stop developing, stop growing, progressing or advancing. Our mind goes to sleep. When we are without current or circulation we become unproductive,ineffective, sluggish and dull. 

No outlet means no freshness, no new life and vitality is lost. We become bored, stop learning and don't use our skills and talents. That tank is no good without an outlet, it smells and is probably a breeding ground for all sorts of undesirable things like mosquitoes and moss. Idle hands and idle minds are a space for evil to flourish.

It was interesting to see during lockdown in South Africa how it was easy to have less activity taking place. It was unusual times and rest was necessary for many. It's okay to stop and rest a while and not engage, but we can't stay there. It's not healthy for us.

As people we generally like action on the part of others. People who have important jobs and positions - we want action. Just think how we have had these expectations of our President in response to Covid-19. It's an expectation in our world.

God speaks about being active in his service. He is not slow to act. We are told in James that faith without works is dead, like a literal rotting corpse. Look at the inside of that tank - imagine if that's what we want the world to see our faith as? God says do not become weary in doing good. He also says, renew your mind, obey my commands, follow me, come to me, help others, tell the good news, worship, do acts of service, pray for others, present your requests, go into all the world, make fishers of men, give, love one another, serve others, encourage others, run the race, work out your salvation, read his word, sing, make music, dance! That's a pretty active life that he expects us to live.

There are always spaces for surrender, but surrender, letting go, being still, resting and trusting God are not the same as inactivity. It is an active choice to let go and surrender.

There have been times where I have watered the nearby plants by taking bucket fulls of water out of the tank. Then it creates newness and life. (My neighbour has actually offered to install an outlet at some point.)

What's filling you? Where's your outlet? As we were asked on Sunday, how's your heart? and how are you living as someone saved with the gift of eternal life? Our faith should have a natural working out with fruits in the way we live.
'Faith is active, it is activating and it is lived out.' (Trevor Anderson)

We need to be a channel of blessing to those around us. Are we bringing life, the aroma of Christ or are we just stinking up the place?

There's life inside of all of us, but it's no good if there's no outlet. How do you allow God to flow in, through and out of you? We can't depend on others to do it for us. If it is to be, it's up to me. Our faith should naturally lead to works of service. It validates and authenticates the faith we profess.

One thing lockdown has done is show the vast difference between those who have and those who don't. There have been and still are many hungry people around us. People in our City and country have risen to this occasion in amazing ways in passing on clothing, bedding, household items and food. We don't have to look far to find needs at the moment. We should never be bored - there is always something to do in reaching out to others in their time of need and show people what the Kingdom of God is all about.

We cannot tire in doing good as lockdown continues and beyond. There will always be many practical ways you can stay like an overflowing outlet of God's love, life, mercy and justice to those around you.

Well-worn paths

It's lockdown in South Africa at the moment because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept across our world. It has caused all sorts of different activities to surface as people are not able to go out unless they need food or medical care. South Africa has been one of the countries with the strictest restrictions with people not even being allowed out to walk their dogs. Some people came up with the idea of doing a marathon in your property over the 21 day lockdown, which means at the very least doing 2km per day. For most this is quite a few laps around your house or garden, for me it's 17 laps.

The other day my son pointed out the paths around the yard of where we had been running and I took a photo, and as I looked at the photo, a whole lot of thoughts came to mind (one being that I hope we don't create trenches before lockdown is over), hence this blog.

God often speaks to me through analogies and I love how the messages stay with me because there's generally a picture or image involved. I am a visual learner - He knows that. It also reminds me of how Jesus used parables when he was here on earth.

As a person keeps walking through the same trail, it becomes a well-worn path... a clear way to go forward. Now, although our garden looks a bit like a jungle at the moment, because we were unable to get the grass cutting guys in before lockdown, I really don't think anyone is going to come and do a trail hike there anytime soon, but I know I have always appreciated when out on a trail or hike and it's visible to see that there have been many before on the same path and so they have created something that is clear to see where to go.

It first of all reminded me of a song we used to sing that had the word ancient paths in it and I went to Google and the Bible to try find some correlating verses. Interestingly I found something written by a man named Nick who was commenting on Psalm 119 with its' 176 verses. he was saying how every verse is a variation of saying the same thing, about how much the writer loves God's law, but each is still different. Jeremiah 6:16 says this, 'Stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.'

God's Word has been around a long time, but it still offers the same that it offered when it first came from the mouth of God. It gives us direction, hope, comfort and shows us how to live a holy and righteous life. Each word is a well-worn path that shows us a clear way forward. Psalm 119:1 says 'Those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Lord's instruction, are truly happy.'

The other thing that has been spoken about a lot because of lockdown is habits. Many people know and agree that it takes 21 days to create a new habit, so many people were looking to do that. Habits are things that we do repeatedly until they don't become work anymore, they just become normal and a part of us. 

I have read a lot from the writings of Dr Caroline Leaf, a neuroscientist who has put such a new spin on how our brains work that she has made many realise how you really can change what goes on inside your brain. We have a network of 'branches' in our brains and our thoughts are attached to these branches. Our repetitive thoughts (well-worn paths) create grooves in our brain and we can get stuck by having bad thoughts and feel captive to them. (bad habits) With over 60 000 thoughts per day, it's quite important that we make them good and helpful ones. 

So how do we create new habits or better thoughts if we have bad habits or unhelpful ones? 21 days of a new thought or habit is the only way to do it. We cannot unlearn in a vacuum, we have to replace that which we don't want. Dr. leaf suggests that sometimes you need to do another 21 days detox if you haven't changed the belief or habit after the first 21 days. It's another case of well-worn paths.There's an interesting process that happens inside your brain as you change your focus - there's a kind of 'brain glue' that holds our thoughts in place to the various branches or networks. As you start to use deep thinking and change your focus to a new and better thought, it loosens the 'glue' and then it moves to the new thought to hold it in place the more you focus on it. It really is like changing pictures in your brain. Fascinating.

The big question I suppose is what do we want in our thoughts, habits and actions? We become what we repeatedly do. I am thankful for some good well-worn paths in my life, things that have been to my benefit, the primary one being my relationship with God and reading His word over and over again until it is wired into my brain. It has been a lamp and a light to my path.