I saw a re-post from someone I know on Facebook today. As I read what they’d shared it provoked a desire in me to join in with the conversation. Not from a view to disparage the original post, rather to add more meat on the bones; to flesh out what God had been putting on my own heart during these past 18, Covid-filled, months. And so I hit the comment button and began to type. Some time later, I was still sitting in the kitchen tapping away on my phone when I realised that maybe God had put more on my heart to say than a cursory Facebook comment and so this blog post was born.
The original post that sparked my own ten pennies worth was from a writer sharing what they felt God had put on their heart, some months previously. I’ll briefly sum up what it said to give you some context for my blog.
The author had written about a “shaking” that had occurred through Covid within the church and a continued shaking that was yet to come across all spheres of life. Out of this, things that had previously been hidden would be revealed and an invitation for repentance would occur. The writer felt God was re-establishing purity within some hearts, that would bring a return to a simple adoration of Jesus. They saw some people turning away from idols of performance or platforms, returning to an intimate, simple face to face worship of the Father. They wrote about new things being birthed across multiple avenues with an invitation for new ways of mission to rise up. Their final comment was that it seemed God’s church thrives best in times of unrest.
To read the entire post, I’ll pop the link here for you: https://www.facebook.com/simon.braker.3/posts/10158615693778600
That final comment, “His church thrives best in times of unrest,” stirred something in me. It fanned into flames a topic that God has been leading me through during this season: God’s heart for us, his children.
Last Sunday at church I talked on the subject that God not only loves us, but He cares about us too, despite the noise we often hear telling us the very opposite. We’ve only got to look at the cross to see just show much He really cares for us and how far He was prepared to go for us.
(link to this talk here: https://www.mirandamackministries.com/god-cares)
I talked on the counter intuitive idea that when we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death, either by invitation or circumstance, there is also a blessing that is available to us. I’ve come to see that it’s there in the “deserted places” that our junk, noise, crud (call it what you will), becomes extremely apparent. Under moments of pressure and strife our junk is free to surface. Perhaps this is why we try to avoid such moments, because they feel excruciatingly uncomfortable.
However, crud visibility brings with it an opportunity to stay with it, to take notice rather than rush to avoid the feelings. Staying with it mostly looks like wrestling with the noise, whilst also wrestling with God in hand to hand combat, just like Jacob did several thousand years ago; staying in the wrestle has benefits. It takes effort to give space for the noise to come up and out and you’re likely to end up a sweaty, snotty, mess in getting real with God about it. But in the wrestling an exchange is taking place. Lies for truth. Hurt for freedom. When you stay with the process there’s an opportunity for you to let it go and hand it over to God. Much like the sensation of relief you get after carrying a heavy bag for a long time, wrong thinking handed over to God offers you relief from the tormenting noise and a sense of lightness, as lies get replaced with God’s truth for you.
This willingness to engage with the wilderness times develops something in us. Learning how to be still and know that He is God grows something more valuable than gold in us; it builds strength, character, trust, hope, fortitude, endurance, joy in all things. Doesn't that sound attractive to you? Joy no matter in rich times or sparse times, to loosely quote Paul (Philippians 4:12), in mountain high or valley low times. Yet we resist the wilderness times, we clutter it up with noise, stuff, busyness. Discomfort, in the western world, is not valued highly. In fact we go to great lengths to avoid feeling uncomfortable.
Look into the life of Jesus and you’ll read again and again that when he wanted to talk to his father he went out to these places; the lonely, quiet, deserted places. Why? Well if you’ve ever found yourself out in the dessert, or in a stretch of wilderness land, you’ll have noticed how quiet it is. Many years ago now my eldest and I found ourselves in a Landrover jeep travelling through the outback in Australia. We were on a 5 day hiking/camping trip from Perth, on the west coast, to Alice Springs.
Each night, after hours of bouncing around through the hard, heat baked, red soil in the jeep, with little to mark the miles except scrub and the occasional errant camel, we’d make camp. Four tiny pop up tents, one make shift fire and 360 degrees of nothing else on the horizon but red dust, bush scrub and possibly the odd snake, dingo or other wild critter.
Along with the remarkable experience of having an uninterrupted circular view of the heavens, came the spectacular sound of silence. It was deafening. Without the noise of habitation, people or traffic, it seemed as though you could have heard a pin drop. What noises there were, seemed magnified; a fact that took some getting used to on the first night trying to sleep, with nothing separating us from those wild unfamiliar sounds, but a thin piece of waterproof fabric.
My point is this, out in the wilderness there’s space to hear things that are normally drowned out by the hubbub of daily life. The bible tells us that God often speaks in a still small voice, where better to hear this than in a dessert? A place without distractions and where what sound there is, has been magnified. Yep, the pain of being in the wilderness brings with it one gigantic blessing. Not only does our junk bob up to the surface without anything to keep it anchored down, but we get an opportunity to come face to face with God and know his heart for us.
Of course we don’t need to head out to the wilderness to have God draw close to us. In fact he promises that he’ll never leave or forsake us, but realising you’re in a place that maximises your ability to notice him will bring benefits to your desperate times. You see, God cares about us. He cares how we’re doing and he cares how we’re living. God wants us to walk in the freedom that his precious son died to give us. I don’t believe God was ever interested in the outward show of our lives, but the inward propulsion of it. Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, even declaring he had not come to heal the healthy but the sick. They weren’t able to see their need for a doctor then and I wonder if some of us who are Christians are living our lives in a similar way. Not realising that our need for Christ is meant to be our daily propulsion towards Him.
So here’s the nub of my thought as to why the church appears to thrive in adversity. Maybe it’s during adversity that the church turns to God. Of course by church I mean people, since church isn’t a building but you and I. During adversity, extreme difficulty, when the pressure gets great enough, we tend to seek his face, to cry out to him and allow him to come near and lead us through the valley of the shadow of death out into green pastures by still waters. Where the good shepherd leads you opportunities for growth or change usually follow.
All over His word we see evidence of what the Lord God is seeking with his children, connection; grown through a daily relationship, fortified through the roots of love. Our individual lives are of supreme importance to God. He desires our outward lives to be congruent with our inward one. Does our Sunday best roll through to our hump of the week Wednesday? Are we pressing into Him for daily guidance and strength or just pulling Him out when the chips are down? Are we singing songs of worship because they have a great beat, lyrics, and are sung by our favourite worship group; or are we singing to give God praise and glory, thanks in the storms of our lives?
I heard someone say how worship needed to come back to the churches, as it’s been over a year without being able to worship and how this was not God’s heart. I agree that to go over a year without worshipping Him is not his heart, but wonder if the lens somehow got skewed. Shouldn’t our whole lives be worshipping Him? True worship is not about singing songs on a Sunday in corporate worship, but every day living lives laid down for the King. Fully surrendered to each and every ask even if that requires you to lay down reputation, hopes, dreams, and leads you out into the deserted, lonely places.
Perhaps the bride is being encouraged, invited to get ready for the grooms return? Perhaps the church is being shaken to reveal that the lens somehow got distorted? The Church is the people, not the buildings. If we really understood this then how we view lockdown would radically alter. Not locked down, but released into homes and out into streets and neighbourhoods, far wider than an attended Sunday service. Wide enough to reach those who might never have walked through a doorway, but can switch on the internet or receive kindness from a neighbour.
Community is needed, but maybe along with ‘one-anothering’ each other the church is being invited back into its intimate relationship with the perfect parent. God knows how to wait patiently, to encourage earnestly, and to move sovereignly. At the same time He gives His children opportunities for wiggle room because lessons learned sometimes the hard way are retained longer than doors being opened for them.
Lives lived like this would make the world want to know who the bride is looking at, what causes her face to shine so radiantly through even the darkest moments. We would really achieve being God’s hands and feet, salt and light, without striving, just overflowing with the one who came to set us all free. Now wouldn’t that be something to see in our lifetime? Do you live like a person who has been set free? Do you chat daily with Jesus? Do you seek His still small voice in His word? Do you know how loved your really are? Start there and leave platforms and ministries to God. If He’s moving, shaking, raising, promoting, levelling or directing, even if it all seems to challenge your theology of who or what God does or doesn’t do, trust Him in all His ways. God can be trusted through it all.
“Thus says the Holy One, the true one, the one who has the key of David, who opens and no one will close, and who closes and no one opens”. Rev 3:17 (CSB)
The psalmist was right when he declared in Psalm 91 that those who live under Gods protection are those who dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. In other words, sovereign protection follows proximity. To be within someone’s shadow you have to be pretty close to them. Daily life lived with God, leaning in not rushing ahead or drifting away, but following alongside him.
When you do exactly that, keep close to Him, you will see that He will fight for you, guide you, protect you and transform you into the image of his son. God is a God of relationship, order and justice who loves to hang out in the nitty gritty detail. If you’re unsure about this just look at the intricacies of nature.
Perhaps there’s an invitation from God for each of us? An invitation that has been left lying around, gathering dust on your hall table for too long. An invitation from God for you to adjust your course and let go of anything that doesn’t align with who God is, or who he says you are, so you can focus on the only scars that should define you, His son’s. Letting those scars define you will change everything.
Missions, birthed from people walking in the freedom Christ died to give them, will naturally offer hope to a broken world. This world needs real, tangible, ‘taste and see’ hope; the kind that can only be carried in a cup that has been cleaned on the inside.
I’m reminded of the movie “Antz”, and the courageous vision of one ant who believed small changes, working together would mean victory over their enemy.
I would like to suggest that the ‘working together’ that the church needs to do right now is surrendering to Gods still small voice and allowing His ways to guide, lead, encourage and direct your path.
How can you know Gods heart for you if you don’t hang out with him, spend time with him, listen to him?
I’d like to thank the person who wrote the post that sparked a whole blog post in me. The sum of which is: God desires close intimate relationship with his children. The hope of any good parent is that their children will see them as someone to run to when they’re in pain, seek advice from when they need help and as someone who will encourage them to be brave, do more than they think they can. So how much more can you dare to expect from your perfect parent, God? If you would only risk laying bare all your worst mistakes, deepest pains, disappointments and hurts that seem too big to forgive, you would discover He already knows and loves you.
It’s time for you to know the height, width and depth of God’s redeeming love for you. It’s time to accept the invitation, to sit down at the table and feast with Jesus. Even in the midst of your enemies, God will prevail. It might not look how you thought it would, at times it might even look like everything is falling apart, but God can and does bring beauty out of ashes.
I’m sure the followers of Jesus thought everything had fallen apart when they saw him crucified and die, but Jesus had already told them “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.” John 12:24 CSB.
Will you meet Jesus in your wilderness places? Will you let go of expectations, hurts, hopes and pains enough to let them fall to the ground and trust Jesus when he said something beautiful would grow from the pile of ash?
Let all of your daily life, the grit and the groans, nuts and bolts, become a life of laid down worship and watch what the Lord will do with it.
