I can’t believe you’re here close to me
It’s getting hard to stand
But I don’t want to leave
Your beauty stands out
Like a bright light shining through the clouds
It’s overwhelming just to be with you now

I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you
I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you
Your love is in my heart tonight (yes, I know)
I can’t stop, I can’t stop falling in love with you
I’m in love with you

Sickeningly sweet, yes… but definitely romantic, no one can deny. Later on the album, there’s another song with similarly soppy lyrics:

I’d give myself to find you
Stumble and fall to see you
You’re worth it all
To me you are

I’d swim across the stormy seas
And scream it from the mountain peaks
You’re worth it all
To me you are

(And I said)
Hey! You are the one
That I’ve been looking for
And I found you here
And I found you here

To read the lyrics, it just makes me start humming “Ain’t no mountain high enough” – same sort of feeling with the words.

Now, as you’ve probably noticed, I’m not generally in the habit of posting random love songs… but there’s a reason I’ve posted these ones. They’re two songs by a band called Leeland…

…and they’re about Jesus.

I’ve joked plenty about “Jesus is my girlfriend” songs before, but listening to these songs just absolutely took the cake. How on earth can those lyrics refer to anything other than a romantic love? I would even maybe understand it a little better if it were sung by girls, but by blokes? Singing songs like that to Jesus? It just makes me shudder. Somehow I don’t think that’s what the Bible had in mind when it commands us to “Sing unto the Lord a new song”.

I do have further thoughts about this trend in worship… but I think they’re going to wait for a secondary post. The question I want to ask in this one is this: If you changed the words “Jesus” or “Lord” in songs to “Honey” or “Sweetie”, do the songs work better? If so, is that really what we should be singing?

Snow White from a Christian Perspective

From Milton’s visions of a lost paradise through to C.S Lewis’ allegorical tales of lions, witches and wardrobes, Christianity has always been a source of inspiration for stories. These stories, while being original in their own right, are founded on Biblical imagery, values and ideals that may not be immediately apparent to the viewer but on closer inspection are made clear.

One such story is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs[1]. This classic tale has been subject to many reinterpretations over the years from many different perspectives; however it is my goal to reinterpret the story from a Christian perspective. While the story has been told in many iterations, due to the limited scope of this essay I will largely be focusing on the 1937 film (Disney).

The first character that we are introduced to in the film is the evil stepmother/wicked witch (she remains unnamed throughout). The fact that she is referred to by these descriptors is our first clue that she is a representation of evil and everything that we should not be. Pinsky (2004) writes:

From this beginning there is also the introduction of sin, presented in a clear, unambiguous, and negative light… So, within the film’s first moments the sins of envy, vanity and jealousy are presented, with much worse soon to follow.

As the film progresses, we are shown that the queen’s representation is more specific than generic sinfulness – rather than being a nameless embodiment of evil, she is intended to be representative of the devil himself. Certainly her use of fruit to tempt Snow White cements this in our minds (a clear allusion to the fall of man in Genesis 3), but there are several more subtle nods in this direction. As an example, the throne that she is seated on is in the shape of a peacock (the symbol of pride – Lucifer’s first sin), while on the backrest we see carved images of suns and snakes (biblical imagery used to describe Lucifer – being described as “the morning star” in Isaiah 14:12 and appearing as a serpent in Genesis 3).

Snow White, on the other hand, is meant to be interpreted as a representation of innocence. All of her actions throughout the film – from cleaning the dwarfs’ house through to looking after the disguised witch – are the embodiment of Jesus’ command to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39, English Standard Version). Even after being mistreated by Grumpy, her reaction is not one of hatred or annoyance, but rather to pray for him.

With this in mind then, why does Snow White succumb to the witch’s scheme and eat the apple? The argument has been made that, like Eve in the garden, Snow White was simply ignorant to the witch’s scheme (Brashares, 1938). However, both the film and the Genesis account portray the women as knowing full well what they were getting into as they accepted the fruit. In the film, we see several acknowledgements that there are good and wholesome ways of having your dreams come true – Snow White makes her requests both to a wishing well and also prays (although the recipient of her prayers is never mentioned[2]). Trying to take the easy way out is clearly portrayed as wrong, and in fact we should simply do everything we can to make the time enjoyable while we wait for our dreams to come (such as “whistling while we work”).

With this moral in mind, we know that as the hag offers Snow White an easy solution to her dreams, she knows in that moment that it is wrong of her (just as Eve knew this in the garden). And thus, with one bite of the apple, we see the story of the fall of man unfold in the film – only while in Genesis 3 we read that Eve’s eyes were opened, Snow White’s eyes are closed forever.

Up until this point, our whole evaluation of the film fits within a Christian perspective, but not a distinctly Christian one. The argument could be made that this is also a Jewish or Islamic perspective, as these faiths also use Genesis as part of their beliefs. What sets Snow White apart as a distinctively Christian story is the role of the prince, and the Biblical allusions made therein.

Genesis 3 does not end with hopelessness. Although it would appear that all is lost once the fruit has been eaten and death has entered the world, the text makes reference to someone that would come and solve the problem:

The Lord God said to the serpent, […]
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:14-15)

This passage is known as the ‘Protoevangelium’ – that is, the first proclamation of the “Good News”, that someone would come and defeat death and the devil once more. For Christians, this protoevangelium finds its fulfilment in the coming of Christ.

Snow White has its own protoevangelium – the sleeping death can be defeated only by love’s first kiss. There is absolutely nothing that Snow White can do to save herself by this stage – she is doomed to sleep for the rest of time. Her only hope is to be found in love’s first kiss, which she cannot pursue herself due to her condition. It is this message that gives Snow White a distinctively Christian perspective. The prince pursues his princess long and far, in order to bring her the salvation that she herself could not obtain in her death. The prince brings life.

Once familiar with the biblical story, one cannot help but allow this imagery to bring to mind Christian passages such as Ephesians 2:4-5:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

The prince, out of love for Snow White, even while she was dead as a result of her sin, made her alive again. And then, in the final shot of the film, we catch a glimpse of his palace that he takes her to – a golden palace in the clouds. What clearer allusion could be made to the final destination of those who have been raised and seated in the heavenly places?

Thus, through the three main protagonists in the film – the queen, Snow White and the prince – we see embodiments of the three main progressions of the Biblical narrative; Innocence, the fall into sin, and finally redemption through the resurrection of the dead. While not a complete allegorical tome (there is no mention of repentance or justification in the film, just to name two other important Biblical concepts for example), it is abundantly clear that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is ripe for Christian interpretation.

References:

Brashares, C. W. (1938) “Walt Disney as Theologian”. Published in The Christian Century, August 10, 1938.

Disney, W. (Director). (1937) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [Motion Picture]. Walt Disney Productions: USA

Pinsky, M. I. (2004) The Gospel According to Disney. Westminster John Knox Press: Kentucky

[2] We also see prayers being offered in Disney’s second film Pinocchio, in which the recipient is designated as being “fate” as embodied in a wishing star. It seems likely that this, too, is to whom Snow White directs her prayers. Does this diminish from the Christian allusions made therein?

I was five, and I was grumpy that day that we were going to have the family photos taken. But on this particular day, Dad managed to cheer me up enough to get me to the place, by saying that there was going to be a clown there. I love clowns! It was going to be great!

…there was no clown there.

We had our photo taken, and I smiled and what have you, but as soon as we were out of that place I took up the issue with my father. He’d said there would be a clown there, and there was no clown! His reply? “Yeah, the clown was there, but you didn’t see him because you were too grumpy”.

What kind of an answer is that?!? Now, granted, that was seventeen years ago, and my memories of that period of my life may have become slightly twisted with age (but I’m still positive that we had that pet cockatoo that Mum and Dad deny!). But even so, it’s put a subconscious hatred for family photo days into my life that has extended until today, and I’m sure that there’s some sort of psycho-babble out there that can prove it.

Today, however, we read that love is not resentful – or, in the NIV, that it “keeps no record of wrongs”.

So today, Dad, if you’re reading this, I forgive you. I will never again be resentful of that non-existant clown that only appears for happy children, and I will be happy for family photo days from now on.

Boy, if that declaration doesn’t show love, then I don’t know what does!

Then something strange dawned on me. My shoulder and upper body muscles over the past few days have been incredibly tense – so much so that it would hurt to apply any pressure to them. Then I realised that I hadn’t slept a full night’s sleep for over a week. I recognised these symptoms on a theoretical basis, but never from personal experience…

My body was telling me that I was stressed.

It took me as a massive surprise, because I don’t DO stressed. Mentally and emotionally and spiritually, I felt completely fine – but physically, I was stressed. How on earth does that even work? How can my mind be telling me that I’m relaxed, and my body tell me that I’m stressed? Obviously one of them is lying!

And the odds are, it’s my mind that’s doing the lying. Because as I reflected on this quality – of love not being irritable – I realised that although right now I was at peace with everything (even if I may have just been kidding myself about it), it really wouldn’t take all that much for me to become irritated when I didn’t get my own way with something. It harkens back to that patience quality from day one – while everything’s going fine, it’s easy to be patient.

I don’t think my laid-backness or my relaxedness is a facade – I really am a very casual person. Yet as I reflected on this whole experience (which really is a new one to me), I realised that the reasons I was becoming physically stressed over are really inconsequential in the long run. The reason I was bothered by them in the first place was because they’re not things I need to be worried about, yet I am. They’re not things I should even by FOCUSING on, yet I am. And as a result, when they don’t go the right way for me, it’s so, so easy to become irritated or angry over it.

After much praying and soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that I needed some serious reevaluation about what’s important, and what I should be focusing on. The dumb thing about it is that I’ve done that exact thing countless times before, and I keep coming back to the same answer; yet I continually get distracted by unimportant stuff, that leads to my being impatient and irritable.

What is that thing?

Well, I mentioned a few days ago that I’ve been snapped by Colossians 3:12 – “Put on, then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience”. I see a whole stack of similarities between “Not irritable”, “Not easily angered” and “Meekness”.

And to see what it means, we need to once again look to the life of Christ. Christ epitomised meekness, yet He also got angry. Really angry. Make-a-whip-and-hit-stuff type angry. So what was it in Christ that made him meek, not irritable, and not easily angered? How do we define these qualities as they relate to Christ?

The conclusion I’ve come to is that it’s all about the Gospel. It’s all about the good news that although we’re sinners and have rejected God, He loved us enough to send His son to die in our place. Christ was all about that message!

This meant that when people would come to Him wanting to argue their own points of view or how much he was doing wrong, He didn’t get irritated or angry. Instead, he showed us how to be meek – completely nonplussed by what they were saying. He just let it all slide.

But when people distorted the Gospel message, well then He let it rip. His life had a single focus, and that was the good news. If something was important to that message, it was important to Him. If it wasn’t important to that message, then it wasn’t important to Him.

It’s exactly the same in my life. I find that when I’m wholly focused on Christ and who He is and what He’s done, then I’m far less irritable, and far less easily angered – because everything else just isn’t that important. But when I lose that focus, then everything starts to change. That loss of focus is something that had been happening to me recently.

To be honest, I’m really thankful to God that He’s given me physical indicators of stress. If my body hadn’t started yelling at me, then I have no idea when my mind would have finally realised just how off-topic I’d become. By the time my mind picked up on it, there would be countless opportunities missed, and I’d be so obsessed by unimportant stuff that it’d be even more difficult to get back on track.

So my question to you – what’s your focus? What makes you irritable or angry? Is it God-glorifying?

Love does not insist on its own way. That’s the ESV translation – the NIV says that “love is not self-seeking”. Either way, it’s a call to selflessness, which is something that I’ve always seen as being the highest form of love.

But that makes it difficult, because you have to ask yourself the question – can we ever do anything that is truly selfless? Even while loving others “selflessly”, there’s still an element in me that wants to do this because I get a kick out of doing the right thing, to put it completely bluntly. Even when loving someone gets no other reward apart from that, it’s still somewhat self-seeking it would seem.

You know what though? You can take that train of thought until the cows come home, but I’m not sure it’s the best description of selfless love. Because something I’ve realised while meditating on this verse is that if that’s my description of selfless love, then Jesus didn’t love selflessly. Have a read of this well-known passage:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

I’ve heard that passage plenty of times, and it’s a good one because it rightfully reminds us to base everything that we do on what Christ has already done for us. That our motivation for doing anything is based on Christ’s love for us.

But take a look at how it describes why Christ died on the cross for us – for the joy that was set before him. If we take a stance that to love selflessly, we must be completely non-plussed by any potential outcomes for us, then Christ didn’t do that. The reason He died for us, the reason He showed His love in that way, was for the joy that was set before Him!

As I reflect on that, and realise that I’m supposed to be imitating Christ’s love through all of this, the whole selfless love thing starts to come a little more into focus. Christ was not self-seeking in His death for us. We see in the garden of Gethsemane that He would have much preferred not to go through with it – but He didn’t insist on His own way. Rather, He insisted on God’s way, because that’s what brought Him the most joy.

It’s the same for us. If we’re to truly encounter joy, then we can’t insist on our own way. We need to insist on God’s way. If we’re to love God, we can’t insist on our own way – we need to insist on His way.

And that takes itself into everything. As I reflected on this verse, I was plagued with the question, “But what about when people are making the wrong decision? Am I supposed to be selfless and let them just make the mistakes?” That would be a fair assumption to make, if we translate “not insisting on our own way” to mean “letting them have their way”. But that’s not what it’s about at all.

If I’m to truly love another person, I need to insist on God’s way. Instead of being self-serving, I need to be God-serving. That’s how Christ loved me, and that’s how I need to love others.

Love isn’t rude. Sometimes stuff really is that simple.

And as I taught these kids about the fruits of the Spirit, I had a little bit of a mind-crisis, which somewhat feeds into what I’m doing here, too. Because while everything I taught the kids (love, joy, peace, patience etc) is very good stuff for them to learn and to practise in their own lives, it really kind of misses the point. Paul’s point to the Galatian church is that those virtues are the fruits of leading a Spirit-filled life – that by being a Christian, these virtues should follow. By my teaching the kids the virtues, it’s skipping a step. Sure, they’re learning solid stuff, and if they act that way it will be a very good thing for their family, their school and society at large.

But isn’t teaching them to act like Christians when they’re clearly not just a case of putting a bandaid on a man’s arm, when in reality he’s stone-cold dead? Paul argues that the virtues come out of a relationship with Christ, and until the kids have that, they can act good all they want, but it won’t actually change their spiritual state.

I was able to console myself by the fact that I’ve taught those kids the straight Gospel message every week that I’ve had them, and keep elaborating that “This is how Christians should live – and what makes you a Christian? Belief in Christ” or variants thereof. I still ponder though, especially when confronted with verses like “I decided to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

That brings us to these descriptors of love. Paul writes these to Christians, showing them what true Christian love should look like. I would think that, like the fruits of the Spirit, Paul is simply describing something that should be happening anyway. So does that make studies like this pointless?

I don’t think so, because otherwise it wouldn’t be put in the Bible in the first place. And especially when dealing with something so integral to the Christian faith as love is, it’s important that we know what it looks like. For my Scripture kids, it’s important that they know what true Christianity looks like, so that they know what they’re getting into (and I often pray that many of them willget into it!).

All of that is a round-about way of getting to my point for today’s point – love is not arrogant. If Paul has written these things as a list of stuff to do, and by ticking off each box you can be self-assured that you’re loving and Christian, then we have a dilemma. If that’s the case, then we can earn our own salvation, and we can do all of this in our own strength.

That’s not why it’s written here though. It’s written here for us to be more Christ-like. Christ is the only person who has ever loved perfectly, and He showed every single one of these virtues. Especially not being arrogant – have a read of Philippians 2 when you get the chance to really take in the vast amounts of humility that He had.

My journey through 1 Corinthians 13 is proving to me just how much I need God to help me to love properly. I’m only five days in, and every single virtue is one that I suck at, and need God’s help to become better at. All it takes to tear down your arrogance is to compare yourself to Christ – and judging by the amount of arrogance that I still see in me every day, I don’t do that nearly as much as I should.

What’s my point for tonight? I think all my thoughts are still in a tangled mesh. But you know, I’m cool with that.

You see, late last year I was absolutely hammered by Paul’s words in Colossians 3:12 – “Put on, then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience”. These words whacked me around the head a whole lot, quite simply because I couldn’t particularly see any of them being used to describe me. I took them on as my personal challenge for this year, to improve in those qualities.

Then, to be honest, I’d forgotten about them. Sure, every two or three weeks I would go through a situation that would require one of those virtues and I would re-pray for them, but on the whole I hadn’t been actively pursuing them as much as I could or should. Which is why this journey through 1 Corinthians 13 has been a real challenge to me to get back to that – they’re exactly the same qualities!

We started with patience, which appears in both, then kindness, which appears in both, then not being envious… and now we’re up to not boasting, which is a large part of humility. We also find many of these virtues repeated as fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, as well as a whole stack of practical outworking of them in the other of Paul’s letters. Like it or not, the Bible definitely thinks all of this stuff is quite important!

So, not boasting. This is probably one of the easiest of the elements to accomplish, I reckon – so long as you’re aware of it. A lot of the other elements can just happen before you even realize it, but boasting you can feel coming a mile away. You know that moment when the conversation turns to something that you’re good at, or a topic you know lots about, or a chance to name-drop… You’d be hard-pressed to say that boasting just accidentally happens. More often than not, it’s a case of just waiting for the lull in conversation so that you can make your boast.

And it’s as easy as keeping something like “Do not boast” in your mind to make sure you avoid actually saying it. Again, this is one of those things that you need to actively pursue, until it becomes a habit. Tattoo it to your arm or something – “Do not boast”. It’s so simple!

Now I just need to pray that I remember to keep that at the forefront of my mind…

But I just had another thought. Surely the more we learn how to love; the more we learn what the elements of love truly are; the more we endeavor to outwork this stuff… Instead of having to remember “Do not boast” all day, perhaps its better to make sure that not boasting is such an ingrained element of love, that all we need to remember is “Love”. After all, loving God with all that we are and loving others as ourselves are what it’s all about.

So far we’ve hit ‘patience’, which is a response to something that might ordinarily make you impatient. We’ve hit kindness, which is something that you can get out there and do. Envy’s a whole new ball game once again, because although it can be used as a response or as something you do, the way I saw it used biblically today suggests a different use for the term.

In order to reiterate just how little research I’ve done on this topic, I’ll share with you my process of reflecting on envy today. It began with me thinking through the simple statement “Love does not envy” (which is how I’ve begun each of these days). I was then sitting at uni waiting on a lunch-mate, and decided to see how envy was used in the rest of the Bible, which led me to pulling out my trusty ESV app on the iPhone. (This is the same app that I used to solve Revelation that time in the uni pub, also whilst waiting on a lunch-mate. One of these days I may have to write down that story too… but I’m pretty sure my solving of Revelation would come across as boasting (especially considering it’s taken other theologians centuries to do it, and I did it on my iPhone in the uni pub!), and boasting will be a big no-no as of tomorrow.)

The first “envy” reference that looked interesting was in Ecclesiastes, so I began my search there. It just so happens that I ended my search there also, because I became so engrossed in the book that I gave up the search. Ecclesiastes is awesome! How had I never noticed this before?!?

Thankfully, that one Ecclesiastes verse gave me more than enough food for thought for the rest of the day about love not being envious. It was Ecclesiastes 4:4, which reads:

“Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

From that verse, I was struck by the notion that envy is at its most powerful not as an emotion, but rather as a motivator. While the emotion itself is sinful and unloving, it stretches further than that, as Solomon describes. You’d be hard-pressed to call toil and skill in work a bad thing, but when they’re motivated by envy, they become vanity, and are as useless as striving after wind.

The question I’ve then been asking myself all day is this: What is my motivation for doing anything that I do? If motivations really make that much of an impact on the actual practical outworkings in our lives, then that’s a very important question to be asking.

And I’m afraid that the answer so often points out my own sinfulness. Even in the “Christian” things that I do, my motives are often self-seeking. Specifically in regards to envy, there are issues such as wanting to become a better pastor or preacher – but not to bring more glory to God, but rather to be more like other preachers with bigger and better ministries than mine. Or wanting to get more money – not so that I can give more to the church, but so that I can get all of those big-ticket items that other people have and I so clearly deserve also.

Motives are everything. That’s really the whole context of Paul’s writing 1 Corinthians 13 in the first place – all of those spiritual gifts he mentioned aren’t bad, but without love they’re nothing but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Anything that’s done but motivated by envy is nothing more than vanity and striving after the wind.

But anything that’s done that’s motivated by love – now there’s something we can aspire to.

Just compare it with yesterday’s. Patience seems to be a reactionary virtue – there is something that has the potential to make you impatient, but instead you react with patience. There’s something that you have to wait for, but you maintain your patience. Whereas with kindness, that’s something that you can do regardless of anything else.

I think that’s just in my nature – I really like being able to do stuff. I’d much prefer to be working on my own kindness, because it’s something that I can actively pursue. It’s not too hard to come up with ways to be kind throughout the day – heck, people have made all kinds of acronyms for it (like ARK – Acts of Random Kindness). So kindness becomes one of those elements of love that you can quantitatively see yourself improving in day by day, whereas you can only really see your progress in patience through hindsight.

That being said, it’s not hard to see why Paul follows it up with “Love doesn’t boast”. The danger of kindness is exactly what I just wrote – it becomes so easy to pat yourself on the back for, and become addicted to the feeling of being kind. Somehow we come to the conclusion that if we do enough kind stuff, then we’re showing love. Whereas really, if that’s all we’re doing it for, that’s not real love at all.

So how do you be kind without getting a big head? I think a big part of it is realising how many acts of kindness I don’t do in any given day; how many times I forget to be kind; how far I have to go in order to be lovingly kind rather than just doing stuff. (I’m sure we’ll touch on this more in two days time when we get to the boasting part!)

And when I look at how many of those situations I miss out on, I realise that it’s because kindness is an active rather than a passive virtue that it’s something I should be deliberately concentrating on every single day. One of the challenges I’ve set myself throughout the rest of this sixteen day process is to actively go out of my way to be kind to someone each day – someone different each day. It’s so easy to be kind to some people, and by doing that over and over again, I find I miss out on being kind to others.

Sure, by setting myself a goal like that, you could rightfully ask the question – doesn’t that remove the lovingness of it? Maybe it does, but my goal is more to make a habit out of being kind. We humans thrive on routine and habit, and the bulk of the time for me those habits and routines are unhealthy. If I can replace that with loving kindness, then I can’t see that as being a bad thing.

Because ultimately, any kindness that I can extend is just an extension of the kindness that God has shown me. By keeping Christ’s life and sacrifice in mind as the ultimate expression of love – and thereby, the ultimate expression of kindness – I realise that whatever kindness I show is pretty lame in comparison. That humbles me and stops the arrogance that can come with performing the acts, while at the same time spurring me on to be more and more Christ-like.

I know I say it all the time, but it’s true nonetheless – it’s all about who Christ is and what Christ has done. By keeping that in mind, kindness truly can show love.

I’ve made the “mistake” of praying for patience many, many times, because, quite simply, I am a very impatient person. And although I can look back and see how far I’ve come in regards to patience, I can still look ahead and see just how far I have to go – and it’s a long, long way. The ironic thing about that is that I want to be more patient right now, which in itself just proves how impatient I truly am!

So it was really good for me to spend today pondering this particular aspect of love. And there’s a lot to ponder. For example, why does Paul begin his description of love with ‘patience’? Is it because he’s starting at the very bottom and working his way up to the pinnacle, or does he want to start with a bang? Whatever the case, I’ve always tended to think of patience as a virtue rather than an aspect of love. And I’ve also always tended to think of patience in terms of specific circumstances, rather than as an overall virtue. Patience is something you do when in a trial, rather than something that just is. Or something like that, anyway.

Yet, it does make perfect sense to make patience an integral part of love. Because I guess what I’m learning is that the root cause of my impatience is my own selfishness – that I want what I want right now, regardless of how it affects other people. That hardly seems loving.

But if the root cause of impatience is selfishness, then surely the root cause of patience is trust – specifically, trust in God. Taking God at His word when he says that all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28). If I really believe that promise that God has made, then I should be able to rest securely in the knowledge that He’s got stuff sorted. That I just need to do what He’s called me to right now rather than being impatient about what He’s got in store for the future.

I don’t know about you, but that’s really difficult for me. There’s stuff that I want to see happening in Kurri; there’s people I want to see become Christians; there’s the desire to become a husband and father; there’s the longing to leave this world and be with Christ for all eternity. All of these things are promises from God for my life, and yet the promises come with a “Soon, but not yet” attached. In that regard, 1 Timothy 6:6 has been massively helpful to me many times – “Now there is great gain in goldiness with contentment”. In other words, seek to be more Christlike, and be content with whatever circumstance you’re in.

Because the reality is, as long as we’re on this earth, we’ll always be caught between the “now” and the “not yet”. And while we’re in that position, what are we called to do? We’re called to love. Which means we’re called to be patient. Tough stuff, but look at it this way – one of these days, all impatience will be gone, along with all other sins and hindrances to true love.

I so can’t wait for that day. But, Lord-willing, I will be patient for it. He’s still got so much in store for right now, and I don’t wanna miss any of it!

So how do I actually write more then? What’s the magic secret? I honestly don’t know that, but I do know that I like the discipline of it, and I like the fact that it gives a permanent reflection to thoughts. That’s where having a blog is good also – somehow or another, the accountability of having people reading what you write manages to keep you writing.

Well, in theory, anyway. The past seven months would seem to refute that, however.

In order to overcome this, I do have a few ideas up my sleeve, which I’ll make known as they actually come into fruition (assuming they all do). The first of these is something I’ve been thinking about for a little while – how to truly love. There are so many elements to that one little word that I fail so badly at, so for the next sixteen days I want to take one element per day and reflect, meditate and endeavor to practise it. The elements are coming from 1 Corinthians 13, and unsurprisingly, there’s sixteen of them. Hence the sixteen days, because there’s sixteen elements… it all works, trust me.

Assuming I actually stick to this newfound plan of mine, please feel free to read along and post comments or questions or whatever. This is really more for my benefit than anything else, but you’re more than welcome to come along for the ride!

First stop: Patience. See you tomorrow, assuming I can wait that long…

(see, that was a little joke, because I need to have patience.)

The actual assignment is to deal with a media literacy framework developed by Thoman, Kellner and Share in 2005. This involves evaluating media based on five questions, which I’ll go through in a moment. By doing this, we can better evaluate what meaning is made through media and through texts, how it is made, and how different people may respond to these meanings – or even create vastly different meanings for themselves, based on their social or cultural upbringing.

So for the purpose of this blog post, assume that you are a Year 12 Advanced English student. In the HSC syllabus (NSW DET, 2009), we find that students are to not only recognise how different contexts shape meaning (outcome 1), but also engage, evaluate and articulate their own personal response to texts (outcomes 6 and 8). In order to teach students to do this, the text that I’ve chosen to look at is PluggedIn Online ( http://www.pluggedin.com ), a film website run by Christian organisation Focus on the Family. The website has a vast amount of content that deals with thousands of movies, which the students will be able to choose through – it’s highly unlikely that any student won’t have seen any of the films there!

So without further ado, the five questions:

1: Who created this message and why are they sending it?

In the “About Us” section of the website, the website answers this question for itself:

Plugged In Online is a Focus on the Family publication designed to shine a light on the world of popular entertainment while giving families the essential tools they need to understand, navigate and impact the culture in which they live.

Certainly sounds similar to the English HSC outcomes! There is, however, further clarification in their next paragraph as to the specific message they are sending:

Through our reviews, articles and discussions, we hope to spark intellectual thought, spiritual growth and a desire to follow the command of Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

Thus, we have a Christian organisation sending Christian messages to encourage people to think Christian-ly about potentially non-Christian things.

2: What techniques are being used?

The major technique being used is the film review. Admittedly, there are also articles, blog posts, podcasts and videos, but the bulk of the website centres around the reviews.

Within these reviews, we see a brief overview of the film, and then a summary of the film’s positive elements – before jumping straight into the potential controversy. The following subheadings are labeled Spiritual Content, Sexual Content, Crude or Profane Language, Drug and Alcohol Content, and Other Negative Elements. Finally, there’s a conclusion.

So what we have in the review is a sum of the film’s parts. They’re often good at not revealing game-changing spoilers, but when you literally list out every element of the movie then that’s difficult to hold to. One gets the impression that it’s safer to read the reviews AFTER having seen the movie so as not to have anything ruined for you – but then, the question is whether you read the review to pre-warn you of what you’ll be seeing, or to help you analyse it afterward?

3: What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in the message?

This one’s easy. The website views everything through a Christian lens – and if we’re to boil that down a little more through some theological jargon, it’s a Protestant/Conservative/Evangelical Christian lens. (I could probably add a few more words on by reading in between the lines, but even just those three have so many connotations that it would require fourteen more blog posts to clarify precisely what they mean in this context!)

As a result, the more a film engages with, complies with or makes you consider this viewpoint, the better it is.

4: How might different people understand this message differently from me?

Here’s the doozy. There are such a wide variety of reactions to a website like this that it would take an age to overview them all. Instead, I’ll focus on two.

The first is the concerned parent. While I will skip over parts of the website so as not to give away any spoilers, a concerned parent may well analyse every section of the review before allowing his/her child to see the film. While I understand the message as being spoiler give-aways, they understand the message as being helpful information. Admittedly, I can understand where they’re coming from – if I suspect a film that I’m wanting to see has any nudity or overtly sexual scenes, for example, I’ll consult that section of the guide. If it does, then I’ll give the film a miss.

The second group is members of any other religious upbringing. While many Judeo/Christian ethics are shared by many religions, much of the content of the website deals with content that is encouraging/discouraging to those specifically from the Christian viewpoint. Thus, anyone coming from a different viewpoint may have very different conclusions regarding the films’ inherent goodness or badness. (I’m sure there’s a better way of putting that last sentence, but I must admit I kinda like the simplicity of “goodness or badness”!)

5: What is omitted from this message?

In line with the answer to question 4, any other viewpoints are usually omitted, except where relevant to a discussion of the Christian viewpoint. To be fair, reviews will often have responses from the director/filmmakers stating why they have done things a certain way, but these responses are also viewed through the Christian viewpoint.

Is that a bad thing in this context? I don’t think so, due to the fact that it’s explicitly stated all over the website that that’s the view that’s being espoused. If the authors were unclear on what they believed and yet were always just pushing one way, that would be biased journalism. This too, is biased journalism, obviously… but it’s HONEST biased journalism. I feel there’s a vast difference.

References:

Focus on the Family (2010). Plugged In Online. Retrieved from http://www.pluggedin.com

NSW DET (2009). English Stage 6 Syllabus. Sydney: Board of Studies NSW

However, the trouble with writing a blog post for a university assignment, is that one has to write about academic matters in an informal setting. This, in short, kinda sucks. So unless you’re my tutor, you can just ignore all the APA referencing and enjoy a nice little story that I’m going to tell you about my personal literacy development.

But first off, let’s discuss what literacy actually is. If we go to our trusty friend Google and type in “define:literacy” then we come up with a number of different definitions, the first of which says “the ability to read and write”. That’s probably our most common understanding of the term, however nowadays it’s not necessarily the all-encompassing definition that we prefer. After all, what becomes of visual literacies such as drawing or film-making? They’re not covered in the definition, are they?

Luke and Freebody (2000) take this into account when they define literacy. They say that “Literacy is the flexible and sustainable mastery of a repertoire of practices with the texts of traditional and new communications technologies via spoken language, print and multimedia.” That’s basically just a fancy way of saying that literacy encompasses not only our traditional understanding (reading and writing), but it also takes into account all ways that we communicate with each other.

Because ultimately, if we’re making a definition of what literacy is, it’s impossible to define it without taking into account the communication aspect. Reading and writing is a useless exercise if it’s not communicating something – rather, these literacies have been created to share information with each other. Literacies are about sharing that information – about sharing meaning (Anstey and Bull, 2004, p.6). Or, to put it another way, literacy is a technology – the tools that we as humans have learnt to use in order to share meaning (Christie and Mission, 1998, p.4).

How does this work in relation with education then? Basically, we need to be teaching students that literacy is no longer bound by that traditional definition that Google so evilly gives it (it’s always fun to blame Google for this kind of thing) – instead, literacies come in a wide variety of methods that are all interrelated (Cazden et al, 1996, p.68). What’s more, students will have different proficiencies in different literacies, and we would do well to adapt our teaching to these different mediums. One needs only to look at the English syllabus (NSW DET, 2009) to discover that students engage with a variety of written, verbal and visual literacies, ranging from novels and films; speeches and paintings; plays and poems.

These are important points to distinguish, because my personal journey (there’s a HSC keyword from the years gone by) to reading involved a variety of literacies – the beginning of which started with a toy that looked something like this:

But mine was a whole stack cooler, for two reasons: The first – mine had both upper and lower case alphabets on it. The second (which is really the pivotal point) – mine had a steering wheel in the middle. Can you find an image on Google of an alphabet toy with a steering wheel? No, no you can’t. They just don’t make toys like they used to in the good old days. (*end old-person rant*)

The whole point of this particular toy was that the voice would say “Press the lower-case V”, or “Press the upper-case T” and you’d press the button. Then it would play a little song for you if you got it right. That’s about all I remember of this particular toy, but through using it, I knew my whole upper and lower case alphabet by the age of 3. (Yeah, I was one of those clever kids that never realised his true potential. *sigh*)

This began a process of literacy understanding in my life that allowed me to recognise the alphabet, and what each letter was called. This was done through utilising the literacies I had already developed (the English language) and using that to shape my understanding of written literacies. By correctly identifying, and being able to picture each letter in my head, this allowed my mother to begin to teach me phonetics (ie. “What sound does D make?” or “What sound does a C next to a H make?”) Once armed with this educational capital (that’s one of those university buzz-words, see Comber, Badge et al 2001) – it basically means the stuff I knew) I was ready to sit down with my mother to read my first book.

I distinctly remember that event. It was a book called Happy Venture School Reader (Schonell, 1967), or as I knew it, Dick and Dora (as these were the main characters). Its pages looked a little something like this:

And I read the whole thing aloud to Mum, getting only one word wrong in the whole book – instead of “Jane”, I would say “Jan” (because I knew the E was silent).

Why do I include these personal anecdotes? Because it’s evidence that literacies are all linked. I learnt to identify letters by using visual literacy (a toy steering wheel with an alphabet on it) and verbal literacy (the toy calling out the letters’ names). I learnt my phonetics with no visual literacy at all – wholly verbal (my mother talking through it with me). I learnt to read using a combination of written and visual (the pictures surely helped give me understanding of what I was reading).

All of this to say, I find Anstey and Bull’s arguments (2004) that literacies are both “inextricably connected to learning” and “become meaningful only when they are used and shared” to be accurate. My learning to read was through my understanding of different literacies, and this skill became useful only when I was using it. This was, in fact, the reason I wanted to learn to read in the first place – so that I could give meaning to all of those letters that I had learnt, and so that I could understand all of that text that I couldn’t ascribe meaning to.

Which brings us back around in a nice cohesive circle to the point raised in the beginning – literacies are all about communicating meaning. When it comes to defining literacy, we can’t forget that simple point.

References:

Anstey, M., Bull, G. (2004). The Literacy Labyrinth (2^nd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.

Cazden, C., Cope, B. et al. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review; Spring 1996; 66, 1; Academic Research Library

Christie, F., Mission, R. (1998). Literacy and Schooling. London: Routledge

Comber, B., Badge, L. et al (2001). Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Students and the Development of Literacies in School: A Longitudinal Study. South Australia: University of South Australia.

Luke, A., & Freebody, P. (2000). Literate futures: Report of the Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools. Brisbane, Qld: Queensland Department of Education.

NSW DET (2009). English Stage 6 Syllabus. Sydney: Board of Studies NSW

Schonell, F. (1967) Happy Venture School Reader. Australia: Oliver & Boyd

Images:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/hardlock888/08132009214.jpg

http://www.sterlingtimes.org/dick_and_dora3.jpg

I realised something after the countdown ended and the “Happy new year!” cries ceased. Every year until now, at this point I would be declaring stuff like “I’ll be in high school this year!”, or “I can drive this year!”, or “I’ll be twenty-one this year!”. But last night?

I had absolutely nothing I could declare. There aren’t any particularly exciting events that I know for certain will be happening, nor are there any long-term goals that have a definite beginning or end this year. (One could argue that I finish my uni degree, but I don’t actually care enough about that to make the declaration, nor do I know precisely when I’ll finish it!)

Instead… the new year brings with it a whole stack of unknown-ness, for the first time. I’ve pretty well given up on making long-term plans, because I’ve realised that I seriously don’t have the foggiest what God has in store for me. And I’m quite fine with that, because it’s better than I could plan out for myself! Just take a look at 2009 – that was quite easily the best year of my life. And it ended in a completely different way than I would have planned or expected, as well as changing my expectations for the next year something chronic!

In that unknown-ness, then, is a whole heap of desires that I have – stuff that I want to accomplish, see happen, see God move in – but that don’t have a definitive start or end date (unlike 18th birthdays, or finishing school, or even taking a year abroad). One of those is finally entering the ministry – not in the way I would have expected (ie study a few years at college, get a degree and a wife and start it as a full-time job – all that stuff that grown ups and old people do!), but in a way that I wouldn’t exchange for anything.

I guess that’s what happens when we’re doing what God asks of us. So in terms of 2010, that’s pretty much what I want to be doing – whatever it is God asks. James 4:13-17 is massive in this regard, especially verse 17: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” To simply do what God is asking sounds like a corny goal that doesn’t really say anything, but in reality it’s exactly what we should be setting out to do every single day.

And it’s something that must be reevaluated every day. It’s only by doing that that the unknown-ness of 2010 can become fulfilling and can provide us with peace in God’s purposes. What’s God asking you to do today?

In other news, I’d also like to do some more writing – both in short-form (as in this blog) and maybe pump out a book (as I’ve been putting off for at least a year now!). And I’d kinda like to see a whole stack of people in Kurri Kurri become Christians. Both of those things will only come out of a desire to share who Christ is, and what Christ has done… so hopefully that’s what 2010 will entail for me!

Do I miss having pre-defined goals? A little, perhaps. It’s nice to have a definitive thing to look forward to – that’s why churches set in place mission statements and vision plans. But also from James 4 (verse 15 this time): “Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”" So it’s not wrong to set out those long-term goals… so long as we’re wholly dependant on what the Lord wills. And so, for 2010, whatever the Lord wills, that’s what I’m keen for.

2010. Bring it on!

These desires have really matched up with what’s happening in Kurri. As we’ve spent the past two months talking with people and doing door-to-door evangelism, endeavouring to gauge where the community’s at, I’ve been consistently drawn to the massive need for a public proclamation of Christ, and education about who He is and what He’s done. And now that the far-off concept of one day becoming a pastor has all of a sudden become a very near reality, I’ve had to evaluate how the new church services that we’ll be running will look.

For all the vision plans, and event-planning, and strategies for getting people in and keeping them though, the only things that keep running through my mind are this call to proclaim the Bible, preaching and teaching. That’s how the apostles started their church – preaching the gospel, and then teaching the people who responded to that. That’s how Uncle John (Wesley) and George Whitefield did their ministry a few hundred years ago. That’s something that seems to have been lost in the past few decades.

The more I’ve thought and prayed through everything that running a church entails, the younger I feel. So a few weeks ago, I turned to 1 Timothy 4:12, a passage I’d read plenty of times (and heard used in pretty much every youth-group talk, EVER). It wasn’t the letting people despise me because I was young that was concerning me though, it was just the fact that I know that I’m young – and if we’re getting families and stuff into the church, how the heck am I as a young guy gonna minister to them?

So I kept reading the passage, and was blown away (as Scripture tends to do!). Paul continues – that Timothy is to be setting an example in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity – which is a massive call. But then he says to devote himself to three things – the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, and to teaching. He tells Timothy to practise them – to immerse himself in them – to keep a close watch on himself and his teaching – to persist in this.

Devote, immerse, practise, keep a close watch on, persist… Paul is so abundantly clear on this point that Timothy’s whole focus should be on those three things. The public reading of Scripture, to teaching, and to preaching. I’d never read it as clearly as that before – it finally made sense to me! And what are the results of that devotion and immersion in those things? Paul gives two primary reasons, both of which answered my exact dilemma.

The first reason is “so that all may see your progress”. This blew me away. So that people can see PROGRESS? That implies that Timothy doesn’t have it all together to begin with – that a pastor can be fallible? That a pastor might not have everything together – but by practising and immersing himself in those three things, people will see a progression? That’s pretty releasing – but also a reminder of the importance of that totality of being completely devoted to and immersing oneself in those things. People SHOULD see progress – if a pastor hasn’t advanced in his knowledge of and ability to read, preach and teach the gospel over his time of ministry, then he obviously needs to spend more time devoting himself to, immersing himself in, practising and persisting in reading, preaching and teaching the gospel!

The second reason? Because by persisting in these things, “you will save both yourself and your hearers”. This, also is freeing – because ultimately, it’s not me that saves people. Heck, it’s not me that saves myself! It’s all God – and as long as we’re being faithful to proclaiming and teaching His word, then it’s THAT that saves people.

After re-reading and re-praying this passage many, many times, I could understand the importance of what Paul was saying – but there was still the question of whether it works in the real world. It may have been good enough for Paul to write to Timothy, but can you really begin a new ministry with your only call being those three things? Every management book in the world would say that shouldn’t work.

Then on Sunday morning, as Mitch was giving the Bible reading (the book of Philemon) before I delivered my sermon to the fourteen people sitting in the church, two twelve-year-old boys randomly walked in and sat down. They listened to the Bible reading and then listened to the sermon – the most attentive I’ve ever seen twelve-year-olds, especially in church! And then after the service finished, they came back and asked if we had any other services on, because they’d love to listen to more – and what time would it be next week so that they wouldn’t get there late again – and was what they were wearing appropriate?

Needless to say, we were all stoked! These two kids had come in, heard the gospel, and wanted to hear more! It’s like God was saying to me, “Yes, if you devote yourself to these things, then it DOES work. I’m faithful to My word, so you can be too.”

And the irony? In my sermon, I’d issued a challenge to the church – how would we react when God started sending new Christians who are completely different to us into our church? Will we greet them as brothers and sisters in Christ, encouraging them and working together with them? Needless to say, God gave that particular message a bit more punch by urging the two boys to wander in to prove the point!

So keep on praying for what God’s doing in Kurri! Pray that we can be devoting ourselves to, practising, immersing ourselves in, keeping a close watch on and persisting in the public reading of Scripture, preaching and teaching. God is faithful to His word – so be praying that we can be too!

As a result, whenever I find songs that do this well, I grab a hold of them with both hands! I re-found another of them tonight, in a pretty unexpected place – at the drive-in. It’s a song that I’ve heard (not to mention SUNG) a million times before, but had never really paid enough attention to the lyrics, it would seem… because as I heard it playing in this movie, I was drawn to the immense power in the words. It sang of Christ’s immense holiness, and His humility in coming to earth – as well as the importance of His mission, in reconciling sinners to Himself.

I was blown away that I’d never recognised it before – the movie was “A Christmas Carol”, and the song was “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. Now it’s got me wondering – how many OTHER Christmas carols have brilliant lyrics that we’ve completely overlooked? And how much of an opportunity are songs like this to be instigating conversation about who Christ is and what Christ has done! Millions of people sing of “Christ and sinners reconciled” every year, and we as Christians have the privilege of explaining how that happens, and how awesome God is for doing that!

So I thought I’d post the lyrics here, as well as a challenge – have a REAL listen to the songs that we’re singing as we begin this Christmas season. From all those songs that we’ve sung a million times and may have even become sick of, what lyrical jewels can we mine? And which of those songs are we sick of that have no redeeming factors at all and deserve to be dealt a swift death? Have a think on that – but for now, have a reflect on these lyrics, and praise God for reconciling us sinners to Himself.

Hark the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled”
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem”
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ by highest heav’n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”

…some of which are instrumental (“Don’t Nick the Funk” and “Thumper” – funk is easily the best genre in the world)…

…some of which are serious (“Surrender” came as a response to that awesome hymn “I Surrender All” and a desire to write a song with 8 vocal parts. I’m not all that happy with the lyrics, but the music goes alright!)…

…others significantly less so (“The Barbecue Song” was written spur of the moment by Miff and myself, “The Josh Taylor Sitcom” I wrote whilst in England as the theme song for an as-yet-unmade (and likely never will be) sitcom about my mate Josh Taylor).

You can check them out here!

The band never actually came together, so all of the written information there is inaccurate – but if I ever DO make a band (it’ll be a funk one for sure), it will definitely be called Geispe. How do YOU pronounce it?

It’d be fun to get back into it again… I also made a series of about twenty for our church bulletin, before heading overseas. I’ll upload them once I get them off my old computer!

I was reading the chapter “On Conversion as our Aim”, and one of the paragraphs jumped out at me as being super-applicable to the church as a whole. So, I thought I’d share it here for the church as a whole to read. Makes sense, no?

With all that you can do your desires will not be fulfilled, for soul-winning is a pursuit which grows upon a man; the more he is rewarded with conversions the more eager he becomes to see greater numbers born unto God. Hence you will soon discover that you need help if many are to be brought in. The net soon becomes too heavy for one pair of hands to drag ashore when it is filled with fishes; and your fellow-helpers must be beckoned to your assistance.

Great things are done by the Holy Spirit when a whole church is aroused to sacred energy: then there are hundreds of testimonies instead of one, and these strengthen each other; then advocates for Christ succeed each other and work into each other’s hands, while supplication ascends to Heaven with the force of united importunity; thus sinners are encompassed with a cordon of earnest entreaties, and Heaven itself is called into the field.

It would seem hard in some congregations for a sinner to be saved, for whatever good he may receive from the pulpit is frozen out of him by the arctic atmosphere with which he is surrounded: and on the other hand some churches make it hard for men to remain unconverted, for with holy zeal they persecute the careless into anxiety. It should be our ambition, in the power of the Holy Ghost, to work the entire church into a fine missionary condition, to make it like a Leyden jar charged to the full with divine electricity, so that whatever comes into contact with it shall feel its power.

What can one man do alone? What can he not do with an army of enthusiasts around him? Contemplate at the outset the possibility of having a church of soul-winners. Do not succumb to the usual idea that we can only gather a few useful workers, and that the rest of the community must inevitably be a dead weight: it may possibly so happen, but do not set out with that notion or it will be verified. The usual need not be the universal; better things are possible than anything yet attained; set your aim high and spare no effort to reach it.

Labour to gather a church alive for Jesus, every member energetic to the full, and the whole in incessant activity for the salvation of men.

http://podcast.com/episode/45471904/73895/

Upon arriving home, I had four major needs – a car, a job, a house (presuming I wasn’t going to be living at home) and a mission. If there’s anything that being away taught me, it’s that God is more than willing and able to provide everything for us – but I was deadset ready to actually have to WORK for something rather than letting it fall in my lap like everything else seems to.

Turns out God had other ideas .

The job need was met by my going about what I would do regularly – that is, helping out at schools with Scripture and the likes. I was filling in for some stuff for Dad (he’s a chaplain at one of the local public schools), and chatted with the principal, whom I told I used to work as a teachers aide before I went away. “Oh!”, she replies, “We’ve been looking for a male teacher’s aide for twelve hours a week. Can you start tomorrow?” Not only did this meet the job need, but it’s given me the avenue to be sharing the gospel in the school (as I wrote about a little while ago), thus hitting part of the mission nail on the head, too!

As far as the house worked out, I got to move out with Phil and Karl for two months in the leadup to the former’s wedding, which was an awesome time. The house was close to a train station, thus negating my need for a car. But that was a temporary arrangement (as I’m pretty sure Phil and Leash wouldn’t be too happy about two other guys crashing at theirs as they were newlyweds!).

So that meant that Iwas in need of car, house and mission – but even then, I’d hardly call myself in NEED, as there was plenty for me to do at our church, and I could easily live at home driving Dad’s car for a while. Even so, Jesus’ declaration that if we seek first His kingdom, then everything we need shall be given to us is so amazingly true, as I was about to find out once again (but somehow, every time it happens it makes me smile afresh and ever so thankful!)

(I just wrote “Ever so thankful”. What am I, a ten year old girl from the 1700s?)

Basically, through Dad’s work as a chaplain out at Kurri Kurri, he had gotten in touch with Kurri Baptist Church, which is an old church that knows they’re dying out. They came to him and basically said that they knew they’d be dead in the next ten years if no new ministry happened, and so could our church do something with their building and resources?

Needless to say, Dad jumped at the opportunity, and as he told me about it, I got pretty stoked too. There’s opportunity there to be preaching the gospel to the community, and doing a new ministry that no one quite knows what it looks like yet – and in conjunction with our church, so the much needed prayer and relational support is already there. One of the things that got me most excited was just the idea of moving into the community (it’s about fifteen minutes from where I live now) and finding out what sort of ministry has to happen there – and then doing it.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one excited about this prospect, as Fluff (aka Mitch, but we all call him Fluff.) heard about it and was super keen to move in there too. We still kinda feel as though there should be a third bloke, but not sure who it is yet – it obviously needs to be someone who’s keen to move out as a missionary and be spreading some gospel into that community!

Fluff, Dad and I were discussing it, and then we just mentioned off the cuff that I was still looking for a car. He told me I could have his old one, as he’d just gotten a new one and was trying to sell it – but I could drive it around for as long as I needed for free. He just had to get it registered – which he was doing on the Thursday, and I was in need of one on the Friday. How good is God! And how good is it to be in fellowship with other generous Christians!

So that meant that we were in need of a house, and a three bedroom one – Fluff and I would just have to foot the bill until we found this third bloke. But as it turned out, a couple in Kurri Baps had a spare house (her dad had been living in it until he passed away a few months ago) that they wanted to be used for ministry – and because we were going to be doing ministry, they offered it to us for HALF the rent we were expecting to have to pay. That means that Fluff and I can EASILY afford to be living there for as long as we need (it’s still cheaper than we were expecting to have to pay with three guys!), and it’s a great base for ministry to be happening.

We move out there on Saturday, and I’m SUPER excited . Be praying for Fluff and I, that we can be all about Jesus in the community, and get a gauge of what sort of ministry we should be doing. I got taken out of my comfort zone this afternoon as Andrew Cole (he’s full into evangelism and church planting in our region) and I went up one of the streets doing some house to house evangelism – it really opened my eyes to the need there, as well as being one of the most daunting and simultaneously rewarding experiences of my life!

So that’s my life in a nutshell for now – keep me in your prayers, and I’ll try and keep you posted on the happenings out at Kurri. Suffice it to say though, that God is good, He provides all our needs, and there is literally nothing else in this world more fulfilling than serving Him.

It’s comforting to know that even back then, people had a bunch of sayings that they used to reflect on. It’s great that Paul gives us a few of them, clarifying that “These ones are trustworthy and you should reflect on them”. If they were good enough for the apostle, then surely these should be some of the foundational ones that we’re memorizing and reflecting on in our own lives!

So this arvo, I spent a little bit of time reading through and jotting down all the times Paul says it. I came up with five, all of which have really impacted me upon reflection. I thought I’d post them here so that we all could see them in one hit:

• “The saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” – 1 Timothy 1:15

• “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” – 1 Timothy 3:1

• “[T]rain yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.” – 1 Timothy 4:7-9

• “The saying is trustworthy, for:
  If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
  If we endure, we will also reign with him;
  If we deny him he also will deny us;
  If we are faithless, he remains faithful –
  For he cannot deny himself.” – 2 Timothy 2:11-13

• “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.” – Titus 3:4-8

Personally, that last one’s my favourite . Such a brilliant description of God’s love, shown through His actions. Lovin’ it!

As a result, one of my passions being back home is taking as many of these Scripture classes as I can and telling the kids about Jesus for half an hour a week – after all, the two groups of people in our society with the time to do it are the retired guys (who are already doing their part), and the uni bums like me and my mates (who could often use a kick up the backside to get us in there!)

The other day I spent time with Brody, a year five boy (11 years old). He’s never really enjoyed Scripture classes all that much (again, that relevance issue), and so this arvo, I told him “Well, why don’t we have our own Scripture class then?” (I often sit with him by himself to go through work). So, we sat out in the playground, and he drew in the dirt and we had a good ol’ chat.

This chat started with him asking if I would be offended if he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross, so I told him to go for it – but did he know why Jesus had to die on the cross in the first place? This instigated a brilliant discussion between us, where we got to talk about the whole gospel – the fact that God is perfect, but we’ve all done the wrong thing and so we need to be punished for that. That punishment is in Hell – UNLESS we believe in Jesus, who took our punishment in our place if only we say sorry for what we’ve done wrong and live our lives trying to do what God wants us to.

(As a quick aside – preaching the gospel to an eleven year old is FANTASTIC practise – you can’t use ANY Christian-ese, so you have to explain it all in simple terms. The simpler the better – and that, I believe, is the same with everyone we talk with! Unless we can explain simply who Jesus is and why we need Him, then what good is saying anything?)

It was when we started talking about how Jesus died to take our punishment instead of us that Brody said what I think may well be my new favourite summary of grace:

“But that’s unfair on Jesus – coz he didn’t do jack-all!”

It was all I could do not to crack up laughing – because he, in a nutshell, had summarised what many people go through fifty years of church without fully understanding. It was completely unfair to Jesus, who did nothing wrong (or “jack-all”) to have to die instead of us. That’s grace.

Be praying for Brody, hey? We talked about how you pray, and how you say sorry, and how you know if you’re forgiven, and he was interested in reading the Bible to learn more about what God says – so I asked his mum about it, who said that they have a few at home. It’s a pretty exciting development!

Then I figured, nah, let’s just keep it as “Hometime” and change the date. Obviously, we can’t know when it is that God will call us home (or, even better, come back!), but I figured I could have a guess just for the heck of it. As my Dadda had always said, the cricketer’s unlucky number is eighty-seven (and he should know – he was both a cricketer, and a man who died at the age of eighty-seven). So I set in a random date in 2075.

The result? Assuming I die on the 28th of August, 2075, at the age of eighty-seven, I have 24 110 days left on this planet. That’s not an insignificant number, but it still looks quite small in comparison with eternity. Now that I can see that number, it reminds me of how fleeting our time really is.

Having a “Death countdown” is something that, as a Christian, I can be encouraged by. It’s not dying so much as it is, as has always been written on that widget, “Hometime”. I can place my trust in Jesus’ finished work on the cross and know that, when that time comes where I die, I will spend eternity with my Lord. That’s the hope that God provides those who believe and place their trust in Him.

But as Matt Chandler challenged us with at Engage on the weekend, that’s only part of the work of the gospel. We are beneficiaries of the gospel – that is, we receive Christ’s work for ourselves. Yet that’s not all of it, as 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 says:

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

For some strange, inexplicable reason, God chooses to use us to bring about His purposes on earth. That’s simultaneously encouraging and humbling – encouraging in that He gives us something to do (rather than just twiddling our thumbs until He calls us home) that has eternal consequences, but humbling in that all that we do is in response to what He has already done. Nothing good that we do is in our own power – rather, it’s from God.

So if it’s that ministry of reconciliation that God has called you and I to – preaching the gospel and pleading with people to be repent and believe in order to be reconciled with God – how am I going to spend the next 24 110 days? There’s not all that many there, and I’ve already wasted a few thousand on myself and my own purposes.

Imagine, if I could preach the gospel to just one person a day, then that’s 24 110 people who would have heard the gospel by the time I died! But if I spend my time focused on myself, and my own purposes, then that’s 24 110 opportunities where people WON’T hear the gospel. Thankfully God in His sovereignty is already reconciling everything to Himself with or without me, but to not be obedient in this regard is blatantly sinful, and places my fear of man, or my love of self above my love for God.

24 110 days left ’til hometime. Possibly a few more, possibly a few less. In any case, pray that I can see the importance of what God is doing with those days, and devote them wholly to Him and His purposes – and that’s my prayer for you, also.

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)

I’m really not sure which is harder – to see eight-year-old Matt now without his father Bruce, or to see Peter bringing the coffiin into his fifteen-year-old son Daniel’s funeral. Death is so unnatural, so painful, and seems so unfair.

Yet, in both cases, we see the justice of God meeting the mercy of God. We are all sinners, and as such deserve death. It’s something we don’t like to admit to ourselves, but it remains true nonetheless. But through mourning for Bruce and Daniel, we can be reminded that they’re in the presence of a God who has taken it upon Himself to save them – to put Himself in their place and to allow them to be declared innocent in His presence. We mourn for Bruce and Daniel, but they mourn no longer – every tear has been wiped away. Bruce no longer has to worry about heart troubles, and Daniel will forevermore be cancer-free.

So while the mourning is a very real and very important season, I’m reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where he declares that we need not mourn like those who have no hope. Just as Christ rose from the dead, so too will we if we place our faith in Him.

And it’s that hope that can (and should!) influence everything in our lives. There have been many, many instances throughout my life where God has shown me examples of His amazing love and comfort in this life, but one of the most touching came on Sunday.

Before church, little Matt and I were having one of our regular chats outside (that are usually accompanied by a good wrestling session, as all good chats are). As the conversation progressed, I had the honour of being able to explain to him that because both he and I have placed our faith in Christ, we were adopted sons of God – and because we were both now sons of God, that made us brothers. I’m not sure if he’d heard the concept before, but he grabbed a hold of it with a contagious eight-year-old excitement. But it was what he said next that served to simultaneously break my heart and increase my love of God:

“And God’s my dad now, because I don’t have a dad.”

What a glorious paraphrase of Psalm 68:5, that describes God as the father of the fatherless! Although death always has and always will suck, God is bigger than death, and will always be there to comfort us if we place our hope in Him and what He’s done. That’s what Bruce did, and that’s what Daniel did, and that’s the example that we should be following. I miss them, and I mourn over the gaps that have been left in their place.

But I can’t help but give praise to the God who will work in those gaps to make us more aware of His love, His glory, and His mercy. I can’t help but give praise to the God who is the father of the fatherless, and the comforter to those who mourn. I can’t help but give praise to the God who extended His saving grace to Bruce and Daniel and called them home to Himself. And I can’t help but praise the God who extended that same saving grace to me, and to whoever else would accept it, allowing us to have hope in His work, even as we mourn.

Praise God for hope.

Eventually, we figured it out. The warped spot was directly above my grandfather ‘Dadda’s spot at the table – specifically, directly above the spot that his teapot would sit. Directly above the spot that his teapot had sat, every morning, for the past twenty-five years, as he woke up, made a pot of tea, and read for the family the morning’s devotions.

I’ve written about Dadda before, and seeing the spot on the ceiling today reminded me again of the legacy he’s left. Dadda was never a big reader (he was enrolled in Bible college before the war, but couldn’t return because his eyesight was pretty shot), but every morning without fail he would grab his large-print Bible and read from his daily devotional book, and spend those pivotal early morning moments with the Lord.

Likewise, his father-in-law would end every night before he hit the sack by kneeling at his bedside and praying. Over the decades, these rituals became habits – and I have no doubt that they were highly productive and contributed a lot to the spiritual lives of these fantastic men of God.

I also have no doubt that these habits took a long time to form. These productive rituals that I witnessed Dadda and Grandpa performing were ones that had formed over many more decades than I’ve been alive for. They probably started out feeling forced, repetitive, or even pointless. God sees everything, why would He need a specific time set aside each morning/night?

But habits such as these aren’t for God’s sake, they’re for ours. As I reflected on it, I was reminded of Psalm 5:3:

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

The morning ritual reminds the psalmist to be watching. God is the same yesterday, today and forever – the same at 5am as he is at midnight. But so often I forget to watch – to be spending the time with God regularly that I know will be beneficial for me, but usually manages to take a second place to my other habits.

I was challenged by my Dadda and Grandpa’s example. In sixty years, what will the warped paint in my house say about me? If my current habits continue (as habits tend to do), then my grandkids will be finding it above the computer, or above the snooze button. That’s not the evidence I want to be leaving – I want my habits to be ones that bring me closer to God. I want my morning and evening rituals to be ones that help me to watch, to listen, and to be pursuing God above and before anything else.

That’s something easier said than done – but it’s a do-able goal, that just requires a few changes in habits. I pray that I have the gumption to make those changes!

It’s a hymn that brings back the solid theology that you can’t fit into your standard praise chorus, and it comes across in a way that people don’t realise it’s a hymn. This second part is important, because hymns appear to have largely gone out of fashion (although thankfully, many churches/groups are striving to re-popularise them!)

What I found amusing in my journeys however, was who people associate the song with. The song was co-written by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. While I was in England, everyone associated it with Stuart Townend – who happens to be British. To be honest, I didn’t even notice – Townend’s written a lot of stuff, and it doesn’t surprise me that he was the one it was associated with.

But then when I was in Canada/USA, people referred to the song as being by Keith Getty, who happens to be American. I found it highly amusing – the silly Poms naturally assumed that the song was English, while the silly Americans naturally assumed it was American. Their patriotism somehow managed to warp their minds into thinking that they owned the song! What a ridiculous notion!

…then I realised that the majority of people back home in Aus knew about and attributed the song to the Newsboys’ cover of it. What a funny world we live in.

There is a TON of stuff that I’ve just skipped over in Genesis 2, and there will be a TON of stuff that I’m going to have to skip over in Genesis 3. I suppose that’s a necessity if I’m going to stick to one post per chapter – the beauty of the Bible being the Living Word is that there’s always something new to discover!

In any case, I’m up to Genesis 3, which deals with some very heavy stuff. Contained in this one chapter is the first instance of mankind giving God the finger and deciding that they’d rather have themselves as their own God (an event known as “The Fall”), setting the stage for every person from that point on committing the same sin (and many more besides). Every time anyone’s committed an evil deed, questioned the meaning of suffering or wondered why the world’s in the state that it is, the answer can be traced to this chapter.

All that to say, there’s a TON more in this chapter that can be summed up in one measly little blog post. So with this massive overload of heavy, heavy stuff, what on earth do you choose to write about?

Well, it’s all about Jesus.

What we find in Genesis 3 is what is known as the “Protoevangelium” which basically means “The first time the gospel is preached” (incidentally, it’s also the name of one of the apocryphal books for reasons that are unknown to me). The gospel in it’s most basic form can be summed up as “We’ve all sinned – Christ died to save sinners”. Although we may not see it on the first read, that’s all contained in Genesis 3.

The “We’ve all sinned” bit is pretty obvious, although it may appear at first to be an overreaction on God’s part. All they did was eat a piece of fruit, right? Seems a little extravagant to damn them and the rest of mankind to eternal punishment on account of Adam and Eve’s lunch…

But the fruit isn’t the issue. The issue is that Adam and Eve had everything provided for by their loving, compassionate God – but they decided that wasn’t enough. Instead, they wanted to be their own bosses, and thought they could live their lives better their own way. This was Adam’s sin, and ultimately it’s the source of all our sin – wanting ourselves to be God. (For an excellent message that says this a whole lot better than I just have, listen to my Canadian mate John Bell preach it here: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=215092112523)

As a result, God had (and continues to have) every right to punish us, because we all continue to rebel against him. Punishment is an exacting of God’s justice. And yet, God is merciful also. We see this most practically in the fact that He makes Adam and Eve their first clothes – God still provides for them, even though they’ve chosen to reject Him.

But I said this passage was about Jesus, right? Take a look at verse 15, where God talks to the serpent (Satan):

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

The verse is talking about more than man’s annoyance with snakes. Rather, it’s talking about a specific descendent of Eve who, though being bruised, will destroy Satan once and for all. Sound like anyone we know?

All this to say: God is amazingly gracious. Many battles have been waged (and will no doubt continue to be waged) over the origins of sin – did God know it would happen? If it did, did humans truly have a choice in the matter? Is it then just for God to punish them for it? etc etc – but I think at the end of the day, we (or at least, I) can come to a few conclusions:

• God is holy.
• Mankind is not.
• It would be perfectly just for God to punish mankind’s sin.
• Even so, God, from the beginning, set in motion the events that would cover over that sin – taking the punishment on himself, in our place.
• Therefore, we can either follow in the footsteps of our father Adam, or in the footsteps of our Saviour, Jesus.

Whenever we read Genesis 3, we can rest in the knowledge that: Through Jesus, God’s perfect justice meets His infinite mercy in a way that He’s had planned since the very beginning. Now that’s grace!

It’s now 2:45am, and a bunch of guys from church just left after an intense discussion/debate over the validity of the doctrines. Josh, who had never really spent a whole lot of time thinking about it before tonight, surprised even himself by making the following comment as we were all getting up to leave:

“I spose, if there were 100 evil guys about to be killed, and someone said ‘I’m not gonna kill you five’, then they’d be pretty darn grateful. And they wouldn’t be thinking ‘Well, what about the other guys?’ because they were ALL evil and deserved to die. Hmm.”

Brilliant analogy, I feel!

• Places are all about the people. It doesn’t matter where that place is, if there are great people there, it’s a great place. Likewise, you could be in the coolest spot in the world, but if you’re there by yourself, then it doesn’t really mean a whole lot.
• Christian unity is awesome. God knew what He was doing when He sent the Holy Spirit, and it’s through Him that we can have unity with people all across the world. It’s amazing just how quickly you can feel you’ve known someone forever, because the term “brothers and sisters” is literally true in the body of Christ. I remember Josh asking me after I’d been in Toronto a week what it was like traveling, and I found myself answering him with “This isn’t traveling – this is home”. Where there are Christians in a place, that is a true statement.
• Time spent in relationships is never wasted. When you’ve lived somewhere for a time, and you leave, you remember the times spent with people. Sure, maybe you could have spent that time working and making more money, or writing a novel, or doing something else that’s ‘productive’, but ultimately it’s the time that you spend even sitting and doing nothing with a mate that sticks with you the most – and is most important in the long run.
• Driving is a blessing. Man, I missed driving. Being able to drive people places is, quite simply, one of the easiest and most effective ways of serving them and getting to know them better. That was what I missed the most in my time away.
• God provides. As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to test out Luke 10 (where Jesus sends out the seventy-two) to see if you really CAN just go somewhere without making plans for food or accommodation, and seeing God provide for you. England afforded me that opportunity – and somehow a wrong turn in London led to a random meeting with a Christian brother, which introduced me to someone else who put me on to a pastor in Norwich who had a family in the church looking for an au pair – in exchange for free food and accommodation. God is good, and He’s telling the truth when He says He’ll provide all our needs.
• The world needs the message of “She’ll be right”. In those three words, for the Christian, everything I just said about God is encapsulated. If Paul was an Aussie, that phrase would probably replace most of the New Testament.
• “I decided to know nothing among you except Christ Jesus and him crucified”. These words (from 1 Corinthians 2) are so massively important in all that we do. The whole basis of Christianity is in the cross, and so whenever we talk about God, we need to ground it in that fact. Whenever we do ministry, we need to ground it in the fact of Christ’s crucifixion. If we didn’t have Christ’s sacrifice, we’d have nothing. If it’s of foremost importance in our theology, then surely it should be of foremost important in our lives, too.
• Job 33 is pretty much the coolest chapter in the Bible. I’ve written about this one earlier, you can read it here.

This post is already starting to get long… and I’m sure there’s lots more that I haven’t even realised yet. I shall write more in the not-too-distant future!

Ok, so I haven’t been able to do this much, what with the world-travelling and whatnot. But in just over a week, I’ll be back to the “real world” (whatever the heck that is), with my own actual desk, which is in itself the biggest aid to writing. In any case, I thought I’d hammer out a quick post now, just to get more into the habit of continually writing! A nice short one today, focusing on the first three verses. (Probably just as well too, before we get into all the fun topics of creationism, original sin and gender roles – all those nice, easy, non-controversial subjects!)

God ordained the weekend. Simple as that. Later on He commands the taking of a sabbath (day of rest) as one of the ten commandments, but our first glimpse of that is set in His own example of taking the seventh day off to rest. That seventh day was the Saturday, but the early Christians changed it to the Sunday, because that’s the day Jesus rose again. Somewhere along the way, our Western culture didn’t know whether to do Saturday or Sunday, so we managed to get both. Lucky us!

In some ways (referring back to the last post), this seventh-day-rest is one of the most compelling arguments for a literal six-day creation. Otherwise, I just don’t understand what ‘period’ this seventh day is meant to mean. Does it just mean that now we won’t evolve any further, or that God is doing nothing more in the creation of the world? That wouldn’t make sense, because a few centuries later He sends the flood, which would make that the eighth period, or epoch, or whatever you want to call it.

As such, I’m more inclined to believe that it was literal. And I’m also inclined to be thankful to God for the blessing that is the weekend – although it will probably mean a lot more when I AM back in that ‘real world’ and am actually working again! Can’t wait

When I went to England, I wanted a church that was different to my one back home – and I certainly found one. The congregation’s average age was about 65; the youth worker and I were the only two members between the ages of 18 and 30; it’s Church of England, so they have crazy things like bishops, pulpit-dresses and baby-sprinkling (what’s up with that?).

I count the experience as a real privilege. I was given many opportunities to serve, especially with the young people – teaching confirmation classes (hammering the gospel into them!), leading the games at youth group, and just being their mate.

Working with Vicar Phil taught me a lot about ministry. Phil only got there about two months before I did, so we were both very new to the church. He’s evangelical (whoo!), and the church when he started certainly didn’t seem to be heading that direction.

What I learnt most from him was how to move a congregation in the right direction with grace. It would have been easy (and I’m sure he would have preferred!) to move quickly, at the expense of the congregation’s trust. Instead, Phil moved deliberately, but slowly – always working to include everyone in what was happening. And I really think the church saw fruit out of that, and will continue to see fruit.

Even just to see how far the church came in the year that I was there (one eight-hundredth of her lifespan!) was a massive encouragement, and I count the experience as blessing, and continue to pray for the saints at Eaton – and especially for the young guys that I had the privilege of teaching, that they would turn to Christ and place their whole trust in Him.

Canada and I have a very loving relationship. Ever since the first time I set foot on her soil, I knew I was going to like her. This may well be because it seems to be the country most similar to Australia. But even just going through security in the airport is so much friendlier than anywhere else.

In any case, I’ve always said that I trust my second impressions. This is why I wanted to get back to Toronto so badly – I was only there three days last July, and was pretty sure that had I been there longer I’d have quickly fallen in love with everyone at Grace Fellowship. I also knew that there was a ton I could be learning there.

My second impression of GFC proved my first to be a vast understatement.

So it is with not a small amount of sadness that I sit here now in another continent reflecting on the time that I spent there. One of my concerns was that I was learning all this fantastic stuff about the centrality of the gospel and how to practically apply it, but had no avenue to share it with people as I was surrounded by Christians about 95% of the time.

Then my flight yesterday was delayed by five hours, allowing me to meet and talk with a man named Adrian. He’s really cool, he works in TV and was originally from Transylvania. I kid you not.

The interesting thing about what ended up being four hours chatting with him was how easy it was to talk about the things of God. But it was different to before – it wasn’t just conceptual, or just about how I wanted to be a pastor. I had an opportunity to outline the whole gospel to him, starting in Job 33 (I do really love that passage!) and then going through Romans 3. He wasn’t sold on everything (specifically the idea that those “good” devout people of other religions who spend their lives doing “good” deserve Hell just as much as we all do), but I believe a fair bit of it sunk in.

Then when we FINALLY got on our flight, I was seated next to a lady named Dallas who was elated because her three-month-old grandson who the doctors had suspected of having cystic fybrosis was healthy. She said she’d spent the last few hours praying for the first time she had in twenty years – and much more honestly (she was a lapsed Catholic). This led to discussions about how, until we realize that we need God, we’ll never accept Him – and she then let me lay out the entire gospel for her as well, starting with the sin problem and our absolute need of a saviour! Again, I’m not sure how much of it sunk it, but I told her when she gets home she should read through John and Romans and discuss it with her husband, and she said she would.

The whole experience was massively encouraging to me (and I pray for these two, that God’s truth may have had some kind of impact!). To be surrounded by such good teaching and fellowship for two months, and then to be able to see it working in the “real world” just made my day. So a massive thank-you to all the saints at GFC, for your generosity, your love and your devotion to the cause of Christ – I miss you all already, and Lord-willing I’ll see you all soon.

I’m no scientist. As a result of this little-known, but nonetheless true fact, I don’t feel adequate enough to address all the scientific reasoning behind young-earth/old-earth creationism, macro/micro-evolution and all the other implications that inevitably come out of Genesis 1. If you’re interested in all that stuff though, I’d recommend Answers in Genesis, who take the time to look at it all from a scientific perspective.

The thing I’m more interested in, and feel slightly more adequately prepared to answer (although still can’t claim to have all the answers!) is the theological implications of 6-day Creationism, and more specifically, what we lose if we don’t stick with it.

It’s clear by the layout of Genesis 1 that it’s designed to be poetic. Every stanza begins with “And God said” and ends with “And there was evening and there was morning, the __th day”. Many people have commented that because of the poetic nature of this opening chapter of the Bible, it’s not meant to be taken literally, and that Genesis isn’t a scientific textbook. While the latter is certainly true, regarding the former one must ask HOW much of it is meant to be taken literally, if any? It seems like an awfully elaborate series of events if the only message in it is that “God started this world off, that’s the only important bit”.

This is why I want to look at the opening chapter’s theological implications. The first, and most important one is that it debunks evolution in the form we know now. Evolution is dependent on death and survival of the fittest – which, we’re told, did not exist in this pre-fallen world (see verse 29).

How much can we concede here though? Even if verse 29 wasn’t there to tell us that animals didn’t eat each other, we have trouble when it comes to humanity, who we are told are “in God’s image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (verse 27). If we prescribe to a standpoint of God guiding evolution in His creation, then we have the problem of WHEN exactly man became made in God’s image. At what point in time did God decide to breathe spirit into the neanderthal? There would have to be a man-looking thing that wasn’t in God’s image, and then the next day, WAS in God’s image. It just doesn’t work.

All that to say that I believe the way the fifth and sixth days happened must have been literal. As for whether “day” here refers to a literal, twenty-four hour period, I’m not sure. Many an argument has been made over the wording, but at the same time we must remember the poetic nature of the passage. 

What, then, about the previous four days? I’m not sure that there are any specific theological uncertainties regarding them, apart from the length that these “days” took. Maybe they DID take millions of years, maybe they took a literal four days. I don’t think it matters too much given the point of the chapter.

And that point is: God used this time period to create everything in the world, culminating in humanity, who is created in His image. We are distinct, and separate from the world – because God created it for us. Whether you subscribe to young- or old-earth, that is the outcome.

So how old is the earth then? I honestly can’t answer that. I subscribe to young-earth when it comes to how long mankind’s been on the earth – six to ten thousand years. As for those days before that? No idea. But God knows, and however long it took Him, I think He did a mighty fine job with it. And for that I’m thankful.

(There’s a second theological implication of whether or not we have a literal six-days, but that comes with chapter two, which I shall address tomorrow!

That’s not accurate, as in the first four words of the Bible, we discover that God was not only there at the beginning, but he/she/it/they CAUSED the beginning – which, logic would dictate, meant that he/she/it/they were around BEFORE the beginning.

As a result, this gives us our first glimpse into God’s attributes. We know that God is outside of the created universe, because God created it. This isn’t really a surprise to anyone, and doesn’t particularly distinguish God as being distinct to the Christian religion. Almost every religious system in the world believes in some form of supernatural intervention that created the world.

So, if we take Genesis 1:1 by itself, we have something that doesn’t actually tell us a whole lot that we don’t already know. We know that there is a God who created the heavens and the earth, out of nothing.

Skip to verse 2. We read that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters”. This adds a second dimension to the creator God – we know that God is outside of creation, but also works inside of it, as Spirit. In just two verses, we have a concept of God’s duality – one being in two forms. Yet, one of the core doctrines (and one of the most difficult to understand) of Christianity is the doctrine of the Trinity – that God is three in one. These three persons are Father, Son and Spirit. Surely if we’re being introduced to God, we would see that reflected? Yet in these introductory verses, we only find Father and Spirit.

But the beauty of reading this Bible thing completely chronologically, is that we can look elsewhere for what was happening concurrently with this passage. For that, we turn to John chapter 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

The Word, as John goes on to write, is Jesus. Thus, verse 1 could read “In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.” God is Creator, God is Spirit, God is Jesus. Three parts, one person. That is the Christian God that we are introduced to, and He is the One that the Bible is about.

All that from the first three verses in the Bible’s story… it’s quite an introduction! So often when reading Genesis we get distracted by the creation, and completely miss the Creator. Yet God makes it clear from the get-go that this is a story about Him, not about us. Let’s keep Him as the main thing.

My rationale is this:

• In the Bible there are 1108 chapters.
• There are 365 days in a normal year.
• 365 x 3 = 1095
• Therefore, if one were to read a chapter a day, then it would take just two weeks short of three years.
• That’s my ambition.

“One chapter a day?” you may cry (if you’re into that kinda thing). “That’s not very much, is it?” Well, no, it’s not a whole lot to read, which is kinda nice. But my ambition, over the next three years (give or take) is to read through the Bible chronologically, rather than from cover to cover.

(The Bible is organised mostly by the purpose of the writing (histories, poetry, letters etc) rather than by a strict chronological order. For example, the events chronicled in Job occured during the time of Abraham, but appear seventeen books later, as it’s a poetic book. Similarly, the letters in the New Testament were written throughout the time period chronicled in Acts.)

I figure it’ll be interesting to read everything that I’ve read before (some passages hundreds of times, others only once or twice) in the order that it happened.

There are three main reasons for my writing down this journey:

1. To give me the motivation to keep reading
2. To give me a consistent form of writing, and
3. To give me practise in explaining the importance of Biblical passages

That third one is pivotal. As a young man who will be entering the ministry sometime in the near future, being able to explain the Bible in its entirety is an absolutely essential skill. I can think of no better way of preparing to do this than to actually DO it. Hopefully this blog will appeal to people who are already Christians, and also those who are just interested in exploring it further.

Finally, if all my years of studying English have taught me anything, I know that it’s impossible to read any piece of literature without seeing it through the lens of your own worldview. When it comes to reading religious texts, an objective reading becomes even more difficult.

Thus, I make no claims to be objective in my reading – I offer a full disclaimer here that I am reading the Bible from a Christian worldview, believing that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), and that the whole of Scripture is about three things:

1. God’s holiness
2. Man’s sinfulness and subsequent need for redemption, which can only be found in the form of:
3. Jesus Christ

To put it in more colloquial terms, I believe that the whole Old Testament is pointing forwards, saying “Look at Christ!”, the gospels are saying “Hey, this is Christ!”, and the rest of the New Testament is saying, “Look at Christ!” It’s like God’s painted a consistent picture throughout the whole Bible.

Painting… colours… like colouring by number… it all works, see? See? (It’s tough coming up with rationale for puns, but it works for me)

Practical info: My main text will be from the ESV Study Bible, and you can find the chronological plan I’ll be using here (maintaining that order, but not using those days).

So that’s my goal for the next three years. I’m sure that interspersed will be many a random thought on other topics of interest (and I’ve imported all the posts from my previous blogs, dating way back to 2004 – time flies, huh?), but we’ll wait and see what happens. Sounds like fun, yeah? Let’s do this thing!

Sixty-seven year old Jonathan Duncan has had a falling out with his lifelong friend, sixty-eight year old William Jones, after the latter forgot to attend a rugby game.

“It wasn’t a big deal, you know, but I just can’t forgive him.” Jonathan told reporters on Monday, the day after the incident occurred. “I had a spare ticket for the game and Will said he’d come along, but he completely forgot about it. Normally I’d just shrug it off, but this time I can’t forgive him.”

When asked why, Jonathan responded, “It’s Biblical.”

Apparently, the rugby game slip-up was William’s four-hundred and ninety-first offense against Jonathan over the course of their sixty-two year friendship.

“I still remember the first one. William stole my bubble-gum. He later apologised – he always apologises, he’s great like that. And of course, I forgave him. I had to, Jesus says we have to.”

But with William, that law no longer applies. “Jesus said that we weren’t to forgive seven times, but seventy times seven. That makes four-hundred and ninety times. I never thought Will would hit that point, but I suppose after sixty-two years, you end up forgiving a lot. We’re practically like brothers as a result. Or, at least, we were until this last one.”

William doesn’t understand Jonathan’s logic. “I always thought Jesus was talking figuratively. I haven’t been keeping track of how many times I’ve forgiven Jonny, it’s gotta be a few hundred too. Now that he hasn’t forgiven me for missing the rugby game, we haven’t really spoken since.”

When asked about the possibility of restitution, Jonathan was sullen. “I’d love to make up with him, it really wasn’t all that big a deal, it was a bad game anyway. But if I were to forgive him, it would be blatantly disobeying a direct command of Jesus, and I have to love my God more than I love my friends, you know? I’ve done what Jesus asked me to with William.”

So what next for Jonathan? “Well, I’m looking for a new friend now. Gordon down the road I’ve known the last five years, and I’ve only forgiven him thirty-seven times. I figure he should last me out ’til I cark it.”

For those who don’t know, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and ANZAC Day is celebrated every April 25th, commemorating the first soldiers’ landing in Gallipoli in WWI. It has, over time, become a day that invites Aussies and Kiwis to recognise the significance of all those who fought for and defended our country.

My grandfather (whom we called “Dadda”) was one of those men. He changed his age in order to protect his country in WWII, and at twenty-one (my age now) was taken as a prisoner-of-war in the Pacific Islands. Many of his comrades didn’t make it out alive due to the harsh conditions that they were forced to live in – Dadda wasn’t expected to live past forty, have children or ever live a normal life again.

In God’s providence, Dadda went Home last October, at the ripe-old age of 87 (the Australian cricketer’s unlucky number, as he would remind us!), leaving behind a wife, six children and a brilliant Christian legacy for the Coller family. It was that last part that struck me once again today, as I was able to witness to a 67 year old Japanese man who does not yet know Christ.

It struck me that this conversation that I had with the man (his name was Ken) was evidence of amazing forgiveness. It was the Japanese that had brutalised Dadda, killed many of his friends and given him nightmares for years following the war. Following these events, the easiest, most natural and most justifiable reaction would be to hold on to whatever animosity and hatred that was surely felt towards them during the war years. Dadda, humanly speaking, had every right to pass on a disgust for the Japanese that would have been handed down to my father and thereby to me.

But Dadda didn’t react humanly. I’m sure in his mind this never ceased to be a struggle for him, yet outwardly he handed down to his children and grandchildren a legacy of love (because God first loved us) and forgiveness (because we have been forgiven much). As if to force this forgiveness in Dadda’s own heart, God went so far as calling my aunty (Dadda’s youngest child) and her husband to be missionaries in Japan, where they served for seven years.

Then today I was able to speak about Jesus in a situation that might have seemed impossible two generations ago, if it weren’t for forgiveness. I am indebted to Dadda for the sacrifices he made to defend my country,

But even moreso, I am indebted to him for the Christ-like example he set for his whole family, through circumstances that, God-willing, I will never even come close to experiencing.

Lest we forget – to forgive.

I’m currently in Tronno, the Canadian version. Lovin’ it. Plenty of awesome people to get to know, and God’s doing some great stuff here.

But I come to you now, dear readers, with a request. My first motivation for coming back to Canada were to get to know all the cool people who I only got to meet briefly last time (and I’ve met a ton more brilliant souls to boot!).

My second was to write a book (or, at least start one!). Over the past few weeks/months in the leadup, I’ve been realising that I have no idea how to do this task, or exactly what to write. All I know is that it’s going to be based around my Elihu post from last September, as that’s been on my mind the whole time since. You can read that one here!

So my request is that you guys keep me in your prayers… I really feel as though it’s an important message, and I’m quickly realising my own weaknesses in trying to get it tapped out. Be praying that I’m motivated and writing the truth in coherent ways!

Any thoughts/resources on the topic would be greatly appreciated also. If you’re a Christian, what does this mean for you? If you’re not, how do you respond to that message? What’s your reaction/does it make sense/do you agree conceptually/any other thoughts? My email is still:

nick.coller@newday.org.au

Cheers y’all, wish me luck! Also, I’ve got some ideas for inspiration to be writing here a little more, we’ll see how that turns out…

Chris is a small equine this morning. 10:59 – Comment – Like

Nick Coller at 11:09 on 24 February
Having a bit of a rough trot are you?

Chris Goldring at 11:14 on 24 February
I’ve been doing too much recently, I need to rein myself in.

Kathy Ross at 11:37 on 24 February
No you don’t Chris, don’t be such a nay-sayer.

Ivan Baker at 11:45 on 24 February
Stop horsing about. In-steed do some work.

Kathy Ross at 11:48 on 24 February
Hay, speak for yourself.

Nick Coller at 11:50 on 24 February
Yeah Ivan, try a bit of encouragement. Less stick, more carrot, as they say.

Chris Goldring at 11:53 on 24 February
Some of these puns are foal, stop stirrup-ing up trouble.

Nick Coller at 11:54 on 24 February
Like you’ve got such a good track record of good puns…

Kathy Ross at 11:59 on 24 February
This is all starting to filly a bit negative guys, let’s not get cantered away.

Michael Allen at 12:02 on 24 February
Lets not get distracted from the mane issue guys…

Kathy Ross at 12:03 on 24 February
Mike’s right, this is all getting quite tack-y.

Michael Allen at 12:05 on 24 February
Yep it needs to be bridled fast.

Kathy Ross at 12:07 on 24 February
I’m chomping on the bit for it to happen.

Chris Goldring at 12:07 on 24 February
I canter believe the quality of this thread.

Michael Allen at 12:08 on 24 February
Yeah but be flattered we aren’t giving you the colt shoulder!

Kathy Ross at 12:09 on 24 February
It has turned into a bit of a dog and pony show…

Ivan Baker at 12:09 on 24 February
Wish I could contribute more but I’m having a bit of a mare. Better giddy up on with my day.

Michael Allen at 12:11 on 24 February
I don’t think Chris appreciates all this attention; he is so shire and retiring!

Nick Coller at 12:11 on 24 February
I think we’ve saddle that can said…

Kathy Ross at 12:12 on 24 February
We really did go off to the races with that one…

Nick Coller at 12:13 on 24 February
I think we’ve pwny-d his status update.

Michael Allen at 12:13 on 24 February
We are all jockeying for the position of ‘best punner’

Kathy Ross at 12:14 on 24 February
Yah, we’ve been a bit trough on it.

Chris Goldring at 12:15 on 24 February
Some of these are oats so simple

Nick Coller at 12:15 on 24 February
I just look for puns mare-ever I can find them

Michael Allen at 12:17 on 24 February
We are all just jumping on the band waggon now

Nick Coller at 12:18 on 24 February
You guys hafta foald sometime and let me win this race…

Kathy Ross at 12:19 on 24 February
You should be carted off for that one

Chris Goldring at 12:19 on 24 February
We are having a bit of a field day here

Michael Allen at 12:19 on 24 February
Well who would be up for a red rum to celebrate this masterpiece?

Kathy Ross at 12:20 on 24 February
Shouldn’t we all be riding essays or something?

Michael Allen at 12:21 on 24 February
All of yours have been close but no shergar!

Nick Coller at 12:21 on 24 February
Shh, guys, people are getting annoyed. We should probably start whispering.

Kathy Ross at 12:23 on 24 February
All this punning is making me hungry… would anyone like a Seabuscuit?

Chris Goldring at 12:23 on 24 February
It is a pity Jim hasn’t joined in. Gym-khana always be relied on for some good puns.

Kathy Ross at 12:25 on 24 February
I think we might be flogging a dead horse here.

Michael Allen at 12:25 on 24 February
Chris is a great ascot for the equine world!

Kathy Ross at 12:26 on 24 February
Hat’s off to that one Mike.

Michael Allen at 12:27 on 24 February
And as sweet as a sugar lump, aintree!

Chris Goldring at 12:27 on 24 February
I think it is about time I Epsom lunch

Kathy Ross at 12:28 on 24 February
Now let’s try not to get off track…

Nick Coller at 12:29 on 24 February
We should probably quit stallion for time

Chris Goldring at 12:29 on 24 February
Some of these puns have Fallon a bit flat

Nick Coller at 12:31 on 24 February
I agree with Kathy though – we really should get back to our stud-ies.

Michael Allen at 12:31 on 24 February
Whip up a bit of enthusiasm guys!

Nick Coller at 12:32 on 24 February
Oh, by the way Chris – that box of bowls last night was really heavy. Do you reckon you could chariot for me next week?

Michael Allen at 12:36 on 24 February
We will have filled your wall before-lock!

Kathy Ross at 12:37 on 24 February
That was lame, you deserve to be shot.

Chris Goldring at 12:40 on 24 February
I think we will have to colic a draw.

Nick Coller at 12:40 on 24 February
This thread is going to give me nightmares.

Chris Goldring at 12:40 on 24 February
I vet it will

Michael Allen at 12:41 on 24 February
Such typical students, grazing around all day with nothing better to do.

Kathy Ross at 12:42 on 24 February
Chris I think this is the most activity your wall has had since the year of the horse.

Nick Coller at 12:42 on 24 February
Be sure to make a good show jumping off Facebook then!

Chris Goldring at 12:43 on 24 February
I must admit this thread has gone a lot farrier than I expected.

Nick Coller at 12:44 on 24 February
Can you get off the Internet now that you’ve centaur of your emails?

Michael Allen at 12:44 on 24 February
We should stop mucking about.

Kathy Ross at 12:46 on 24 February
There you have it folks, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Michael Allen at 12:47 on 24 February
Yeh its all getting a bit samey, a bit unicorn..

Kathy Ross at 12:48 on 24 February
This has been carriaged on too long.

Nick Coller at 12:52 on 24 February
I had a conversation similar to this with a lady once, it eventually drover crazy.

Michael Allen at 12:54 on 24 February
That sounds like a tall tail to me!

Nick Coller at 12:55 on 24 February
Nah, it’s all true, it was quite saddening, especially as she was due to be in my other friends’ bridle party the next day.

Michael Allen at 12:56 on 24 February
I am st-haunch supporter of telling the truth you know!

Sam Saunders at 12:58 on 24 February
Er…why the long faces guys?…

Michael Allen at 13:04 on 24 February
I would have thought the answer was obvious to that equestrian!

Nick Coller at 13:05 on 24 February
Something to do with da birds and derbies or something?

Ivan Baker at 14:18 24 February via Facebook Mobile
Never before in the fields of horse grazing have so many groaned so much at the efforts of so few…

Ivan Baker at 14:31 24 February via Facebook Mobile
Never before in the fields of horse grazing have so many groaned so much at the efforts of so few…

Michael Allen at 14:33 on 24 February
We get it Ivan, it wasn’t good the first time!

Nick Coller at 14:43 on 24 February
We must be almost finished here, be sure to shut the gait on your way out.

Michael Allen at 14:46 on 24 February
It may be the end, but we have been spurred on to new heights of punnery.

Nick Coller at 14:57 on 24 February
Don’t rein on my parade, Allen! I will have the last pun!

Michael Allen at 14:59 on 24 February
This may get violent, lead to a breech of the peace!

Michael Allen at 15:07 on 24 February
I think that settles it, you might say I just rodeo away into the sunset!

Michael Allen at 15:09 on 24 February
Alternatively you might say I just won the joust..

Nick Coller at 15:20 on 24 February
You canter gue that you’ve won just yet…

—–

Good times.

2. I have lived in 13 different houses in 6 different towns/cities (8 if you include different suburbs within cities). I expect this number to rise to 15 houses in 8 towns/cities by the end of the year, but we shall see what happens!

3. Nick’s law #1: You can never go wrong with a kebab.

4. Milk is the absolute best drink in the world. I will easily drink a litre/two pints in a day, sometimes more.

5. My favourite country is, of course, Australia. My second favourite country is Canada. Other than that, I have no ranking system, however, I have been to seven all up. This is another number I expect to rise by the end of the year.

6. As my mate Spurgeon quoted in a sermon once: “I’m a poor sinner and nothing at all; Jesus Christ is my all in all”. This is true of me also, and I find my identity in Christ’s sacrifice for my wrongdoings, which allows me to be reconciled with the creator of the universe. It’s brilliant stuff, and it’s for you too!

7. Charles Haddon Spurgeon is not really my mate, as he has been dead for 118 years. However, if he were not, I am sure that we WOULD be mates. As such, I shall continue to refer to him as “My mate Spurgeon”. He was a good bloke.

8. After every movie I see, I look up the imdb.com trivia for it. Thus I am basically a treasure trove of useless information about all the movies I have seen, and a few that I have not. When asked where I get said information, I will attribute this to Fantales wrappers.

9. I have made many, many good friends over the past seven months’ traveling, and thank God for Facebook granting me the ability to keep in touch with them! (You know who you are – if you’re reading this and I met you somewhere other than Australia, pat yourself on the back. Thank you for being awesome!)

10. From what I have heard, in order to speak Welsh, you need only clear your throat in a variety of different ways. In order to do an Irish accent, you need to hold an ‘E’ shape with your mouth as you speak. Also, Finnish sounds like Japanese, but with a_lot more syllables.

11. I have also been taught that to write ‘alot’ is a sin at roughly the same level as murdering an entire family. There should be a space between the ‘a’ and the ‘lot’. I never really noticed until I was told off for doing it wrong.

12. I am consistently amazed at how many Christians are completely unaware that there is a talking donkey in the Bible. What are Sunday school teachers doing? Numbers 22, people! Even donkeys speak of the glory of God!

13. I am descended from convicts on both sides of my family, making me almost as (white) Aussie as you can get. On Mum’s side, William Ezzy stole a barrel of brewers’ yeast and was sentenced to seven years in Australia. He arrived in 1789 (the year after its’ founding), and his wife and kids came with him. His granddaughter was the first woman to own a shop in Aus or something like that. Dad’s side came over in 1790 for stealing something or other, not sure what. So when all the English lot call me a convict, they are actually speaking quite accurately!

14. Apparently, if you trace the Collers’ descendants back further than that, we came from one of the Wesleys. Not John as he had no kids, but one of his 11 (?) brothers and sisters. Pretty cool. (As a result, I now refer to him as “Uncle John”)

15. We had a pet cockatoo when I was four. For some strange reason, my parents and everyone else who knew us at the time deny its very existence and insist that we never had a cockatoo. But I distinctly remember having a pet cockatoo. History revisionists, the lot of them.

16. I played violin for a year when I was eight/nine, and hated it. Nowadays I really wish I’d continued, as it just annoys me that I know HOW to play the instrument, but can’t make a good sound out of it.

17. My favourite movie of all time is ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’. The creation of this film is a feat that will never again be repeated in history, as it was animated without the use of a single computer. When you watch it with that in mind, you become absolutely flabbergasted.

18. Along the lines of animation, it is my opinion that the greatest musical sequence in any movie ever was the ‘Holding out for a hero’ sequence in Shrek 2. It is a phenomenal piece of music that manages to capture the essence of the entire movie in four minutes.

19. I once almost ran out of fuel 100km into the bush, which required me to buy petrol off a one-armed man.

20. My favourite Bible passage of all time is Job 33:19-28 which you can read here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2033&version=31

21. Nick’s Law #2: There is no place comfier for an afternoon nap than a trampoline.

22. The greatest video game ever created was Lylat Wars/Star Fox 64 (depending on which country you’re from). I have spent many, many hours on the single player, and still find Corneria (the first level) absolutely epically brilliant.

23. The best car I’ve ever had (out of three thus far) was a blue ’93 Holden (or Opel/Vauxhall for you Europeans) Calibra that I named Adrosteia (which means “She who cannot be escaped”). She was sadly run up the back of six weeks after buying her, and written off. I’ve never fully recovered from the loss. She was fantastic.

24. One of my favourite things to do is to get to know cool people. Because I’ve been travelling and realise that I only have limited time in each place, this has forced me to condense this process somewhat into getting to know people as quickly as I can. I suspect this may have freaked some people out, as it can appear that I am coming on very strong. I apologise if this is you, I just think you’re cool!

25. As a result of getting to know those cool people, my OTHER favourite thing to do is introducing cool people to other cool people. So if anyone elsewhere wants to come to Australia, rest assured that you have a place to stay, and we’ll meet lots of cool people. Any Aussies wanting to go to anywhere I know cool people, I’ll hook you up. I love networking.

First off, I have a new address:

12 Portland Street
Norwich, Norfolk, NR23LF
United Kingdom

Secondly, I’m heading to Wales for the weekend/Australia Day to hang out with the guys at Christchurch again. Woohoo!

Thirdly, you can’t cook biscuits on al-foil.

Boy, was I wrong.

Finland is a unique place, in that you get a very broad range of temperature. Since I’ve been in Finland, I’ve experienced my hottest temperature (88 degrees in the sauna), and also my coldest (minus 20 degrees in the snow). It’s even MORE unique in that you literally step from one to the other. It’s quite a shock to the system to change temperature by a hundred degrees instantaneously!

What I found ironic though, is that while we were in the sauna, it was 88 degrees, but only 50% humidity. So while I hadn’t been in a hotter place, I used to live near Cairns, which could regularly hit 70 or 80 percent humidity. Just chuck some eucalyptus oil in the sauna, and the atmosphere was surprisingly similar to back home.

Now, I’m going to hazard a guess that, because most of the people reading this will be Aussies, you know what it’s like to be hot. But let me just elaborate on what minus twenty feels like – or rather, DOESN’T feel like. Minus twenty basically translates to loss of all feeling in your cheekbones within a minute of stepping outside, with your nose soon to follow. Even though your fingers and toes are protected by super thick gloves and socks/shoes, it only helps for twenty minutes or so. For a while there I wasn’t sure whether my second toe had snapped off or not.

Minus twenty degrees translates to water freezing in the open air after an hour or so; there’s no chance of your car CD player working; and there’s frost forming on the INSIDE of the car windows. In short, it’s freaking cold. I never thought I’d be relieved to return to temperatures of minus five.

We were about thirty kilometres south of the Arctic circle, in Matti’s family’s winter cottage and I got to try my hand at downhill skiing, for free nonetheless! It’s a good thing, because I’ve always said that the best skiing is free skiing. I wasn’t all that good at it, in fact, I couldn’t actually stop. But then I took the plunge and went on a proper slope, and found I was able to once I got a bit of speed up. I didn’t fall over at all, which I was fairly proud of. I wimped out after an hour or so though – it was minus eighteen, and Matti and Emilia were both freezing as well, and they’re both Finnish!

I spent Christmas with Matti and his parents – my first white Christmas. It was very, very enjoyable. They have all their celebrations on Christmas Eve in Finland, so it meant that I was opening my presents at around about the same time my family was back home. There were no prawns to be found, however dinner DID consist of cold ham and salmon, as well as an assortment of random casseroles, all of which were scrumptious.

We went to a Lutheran church on Christmas eve, and then a Pentecostal one on Christmas day. I didn’t understand a word of either service, but thoroughly enjoyed them both nonetheless. Singing in Finnish is fun. It’s a strange experience, singing in an unknown language, but knowing that you’re still singing praises to God, along with an assortment of other believers. I picked up a few Finnish words to add to my reportoir – Herra means “Lord”, and “Mailmaan” means “In all the world”, and “Kitoss” means “Thank you”. Unfortunately, I never got to say “Katte voita” in context – there were no leaking roofs to be seen. It was useful for something though, as all the Finnish people I met were thoroughly amused at the fact that that was the only Finnish I knew.

More to come!

My mate Bob Kauflin and the guys at Covenant Life have decided to memorise ten worthwhile hymns over the next ten months, and to assist with that they’ve recorded a CD with some fairly good remixes. And you can get it for free! (Or whatever you want to pay for it).

Like the rest of Sovereign Grace’s stuff, I listened through it once and it didn’t immediately jump out and grab me – but then I listened through again, and before I knew it, I’d listened through a dozen times. It’s good stuff, believe me.

So head on over to http://www.covlife.org/static/hymns/, download it, and get into some good lyrics put to some good music in a variety of different styles. For free. Did I mention the free bit? That’s what sold me… so worth it!

One of the things that strikes me about the story (which you can read in 2 Kings 5) is the difference in reactions from the king of Israel and from Elisha. Read verses 6-8:

The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”

When approached by Namaan, the king immediately saw it as a challenge, and a situation wherein he would lose some of his own power. Contrast this with when Elisha encountered the situation. Elisha saw it for what it really was – an opportunity for God’s power and might to be shown.

Which got me thinking, how do WE react when faced with challenges from people questioning us about God? Do we get worried or depressed that we’ll say the wrong thing, or that they’ll laugh at us and we’ll lose face with them? Or will we praise God that He’s getting an opportunity to work through us, and show Himself to those people?

Philemon verse 6 reads “I pray that you will be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” When faced with questions and with challenges, it’s an opportunity for our own lives and our own knowledge of who we are in Christ to be strengthened! While Namaan benefited greatly from his experience in Israel, surely Israel also benefited – because they had the opportunity to see how great and powerful their God was.

So in all circumstances, don’t be afraid to do a shift in your mindset and turn challenges into opportunities. Everyone benefits, and God gets the glory.

So I finished up in Edinburgh, and then caught a plane to Bristol, Wales. From there I had to catch a train for thirty minutes, and it cost me eight pounds. Eight pounds for a half hour train ride! Ridiculous. In any case, that took me to Newport, where I met up with Mike. For those not in the loop, Mike was the first Aussie guy to have gone through the Sovereign Grace pastor’s college, and he’s currently doing an internship in Wales.

Spent some time talking with him and the other pastors there, and was quite excited to discover that they’re looking at planting the first Australian Sovereign Grace church in Newcastle. Quite intriguing how God’s leading works, hey? I was able to fill them in on the current church situation around there and we brainstormed about how they would best be able to serve the community and stuff, it was great.

I also got to hang out with these guys:

They’re what’s known as the “Gap team” at the church – 5 Americans and a Pom. I stayed in an old English house with the three blokes, and we had a great time bach-ing it up, playing PS3 and doing ministry stuff.

Anywho, speaking of God’s leading, remember our mate Chris, the guy on staff at St Helen’s in London? Well, I went to that church, and asked about some decent churches in Norwich. One of the pastors there gave my email to another guy there, who emailed me with an email address for a pastor here in Norwich, who I then emailed. He then put a notice in the bulletin asking about accommodation, and the day after I got an email from Janet Malcolm saying that they were going to an au pair agency that week for some help around the house, but saw my advert and decided they’d offer the place to me first.

What that means is that in exchange for doing 15 hours a week of vacuuming, washing dishes and the like, I get free food and accommodation. What’s best is that their house is just up the road from the uni, their 5 kids (from 9-18) are an absolute blast to be around, as are Paul and Janet (the parents), and their house is chockablok with musical instruments (2 pianos, guitars, brass, woodwind etc) and they have a million and two Christian books/commentaries! The theology-nerd in me is absolutely drooling right now.

Speaking of my theology-nerd-drool, while I was in Edinburgh hanging out with Evie and her mate Erin, we went into an old bookstore. Inside said bookstore, I managed to find a book of C.H Spurgeon’s sermons from 1882-83. These are the original printouts that he’d done for the congregation, and someone bound them all together into a book. It’s absolute gold, Spurgeon was one of the biggest champs known to man. I’ve only read through three thus far, but he’s been a massive inspiration to me.

Well, that’s about all I think I need to add for now… I’ll endeavour not to take so long between posts next time.

After silently fuming for a while about the extortion that had just taken place, I came to a new conclusion after talking with God about it. If it was going to cost me seventy-five bucks to catch this different flight, then gosh-dangit He had better have had a good reason for it, and He’d better help the unfortunate soul who sat next to me, because I was going to evangelise the poor codger!

The guy I ended up sitting next to was a cool guy, but the opportunity didn’t really come up to talk God with him, apart from my desire to enter into ministry sometime soon. Either that or I just wimped out, I’m not entirely sure which it was. But on finally arriving at the bus-stop that was near my hostel, I saw a van with people milling around it. From this van, a bunch of Christians were giving out free soup and coffee to homeless guys.

As it turns out, the van runs every night of the year, no matter how cold or wet it gets (it IS in Scotland, after all). And around about 60 churches in Edinburgh help out, taking turns to participate in the outreach.

Now, had I caught my original flight and not the later one, I’d never have experienced this ecumenical marvel. It’s hard enough in Australia to get two churches together to do something, let alone sixty! It was a real encouragement to me to see Christians putting aside differences and getting out there doing Jesus’ work.

But the experience got me thinking. That night, I was deliberately looking for something God-glorifying, because it had cost me $75. Surely if I had been forced to pay that money, then God would have a specific purpose for that expensive excursion was my reasoning, and I was out to find that purpose. I think seeing those guys in that van next to the beautifully lit castle made for a highly encouraging purpose.

Yet, if the excursion HADN’T have cost me $75, would I have been looking? Would I have seen God in that moment if it weren’t for my perceived sacrifice?

Jesus sacrificed His life so that we could see God and His purposes. We were bought at a price, and that price was the death of God’s own son for sinful man like me. That’s a much higher price than $75.

So keeping in mind that ultimate sacrifice, shouldn’t we ALWAYS be on the lookout for ways that God is working? It cost me $75 to see God at work in Ediburgh that night, but the only reason that was possible is because God already made the first move two thousand years ago. Without His payment, it would be impossible for me to come to know Him at all. If it weren’t for Jesus, we wouldn’t see anything of God.

It’s my prayer that we all may be constantly looking out for Him in everything that we do, because He’s in it. Keep in mind that a sacrifice has been made so that you can see Him.