Really?

Sometimes I hear myself saying the strangest things. Take, for example, those occasions when I have said to someone, perhaps after hearing about a challenge they recently faced, ‘I hope everything went well for you in the end.’ What I really mean is that I hope this person is doing okay now—surely hoping some past event went well is a little pointless, apart from any empathy we may express in the process? The moment has gone, and all the hope we can muster will not change what happened back then.

Recently, while walking to my car, I saw a man nearby wearing the jersey of a particular football team. As he stood chatting to another man, I heard him say: ‘Well, we believe in miracles!’

Initially, I thought to myself, ‘Oh, that’s so wonderful—this man believes in miracles!’ But then his next sentence made it clear what he really meant.

‘Oh, with a little bit of luck we might get there!’ he declared.

I realised then that he must be talking about an upcoming football match and his apparent doubt that his team would actually win! But the more I thought about it all, the more I began to wonder if he had expressed my own strange thinking at times. Yes, I believe God can do miracles. I have experienced them myself and observed them unfold in the lives of others. I have read in Scripture how Jesus performed so many amazing miracles and how God raised him from the dead. On top of that, I see miracles each day in the beauty and intricacy of nature all around me. Yet, to my shame, sometimes I suspect my prayers for God to bring healing to someone or rescue someone from a difficult situation can be more like a wish that luck might be on their side than a fervent faith-filled plea to God on their behalf.

There is a big difference between the two, don’t you think? When we pray, we are talking with and to the all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God of the universe. Our God is personal and alive. And our God is able to heal and renew. Sometimes, that may happen supernaturally but at other times through the care of others, including the medical profession. And our God is able to reach out and rescue us in love too—or give us the strength to walk through our struggles and comfort us deeply in the process. On the other hand, relying on luck involves nothing more than believing in or appealing to impersonal, random forces, without knowing whether they will be on our side or not. All we can do in this case is hope for the best.

Years ago, there was a book around with the title Your God is Too Small, a title which still challenges me today. How often have I lost sight of who God really is? How often have I taken my gaze off God and, instead, trusted in some vague kind of luck? Instead, may you and I raise our sights, enlarge our vision, know our amazing God is on our side and rest daily in God’s loving grace, mercy and provision for us.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my trust. Psalm 130:5

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Same but different

I received an email recently that gave me much food for thought. It was from someone who had just read my first two novels, Heléna and All the Days of My Life. This reader had found them among a pile of second-hand books a friend had been given and now wanted another novel of mine, Heléna’s Legacy, which explores the journey of a minor character in my second novel, then continues Heléna’s story.

I laughed out loud. The day before, I had found my lone, second-hand copy of this novel in my cupboard and thought, ‘No one will want that.’ Imagine my surprise when, the very next day, I discovered someone did!

My contact then told me some friends are now waiting to borrow these novels from her. This was gratifying news, yet I also found it somewhat disconcerting. You see, my first two novels were published back in 2007 and 2008—and I like to think I have learnt much more about writing since then. This reader might have enjoyed them, but would her friends?

In the end, I decided I could do nothing about that. Besides, back then, I wrote as best I could, with my whole heart and soul—and how fulfilling that was!

Then came another thought. I might have learnt much more about writing in those intervening years, but did I still write with that same heart and soul now? Back then, I wanted to write stories that would highlight themes I believed were vital for us all to grasp and experience. I wanted to write about the importance of holding onto our faith in God, whatever happens. I wanted to write about experiencing God’s amazing love and grace, about forgiveness and about becoming all God purposes us to be. Did I still feel so passionately about such themes now?

Since 2004, when I began my first novel, I have written nine books and around 650 blogs and have also spoken over 250 times at all sorts of gatherings. Through it all, I have learnt much more about God and experienced God’s amazing faithfulness and enabling in so many ways. Yes, I am still passionate about those same important themes, yet some things I held dear back in 2004 have fallen by the wayside. Some needed to be discarded—others did not. Some changes in my life and faith have been for the better, I believe, yet others have not. Looking back, I am sad about those times when I may have failed God, others and myself in different ways. But I am so thankful God is merciful and forgiving, always persevering with us and always lovingly pointing us to higher ground.

Yes, I’m still the same person I was back in 2004, yet different too. I want to change what needs to be changed. I want to grow where I need to grow. And I want to keep drawing closer to God, don’t you?

Let’s hold onto those key themes of our faith in God, but let’s keep humbly learning and growing too, as we seek to become more like Jesus each day.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. 2 Peter 3:18

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That place of peace

Of course I could never relate to the following (!), but I wonder if you are the sort of person who often tends to be just that little bit harder on yourself than God would ever consider being. Where God would choose to treat you with grace and kindness, you instead choose to drive yourself on and to berate yourself that you have not done enough or been perfect enough. You may even find it difficult to admit you are only human, after all, and not superwoman—or superman!

Yep, somehow that sounds all too familiar to me—at least at times. There are so many things I may want to do and can do. And so many things I may need to do that are merely part of life. Yet, unless I listen to God, learn to trust God’s guidance and rely on God’s enabling, I can easily run myself ragged.

Recently, I read again the very long Psalm 78, where the psalmist challenges God’s people to look back in their history and see how many times God rescued them and had mercy on them, yet how many times they chose to go their own way. As I read, I began to apply it to my own life—to remember the numerous difficult patches God has brought me through, to recall all the wonderful gifts God has given me along the way in the form of special people or amazing experiences or achievements beyond anything I ever expected. And as I did, I sensed things somehow falling into place deep in my spirit and heard God’s calming voice, reassuring me, as Julian of Norwich once wrote, that ‘all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well’.

In Psalm 78, we read how God’s people at one stage ‘did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his law. They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them’ (10-11). Further on in their history, they apparently ‘did not believe in God or trust in his deliverance’ (22). Things seem to look up at another later stage, however:

They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. (35)

Yet sadly, we find a big let-down once again in the very next two verses:

But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with them tongues; their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant. (36-37)

Wow! Am I like that at times, I had to ask myself? Hmm.

What a relief then to come to the two following verses, right in the middle of the psalm:

Yet he was merciful, he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return. (38-39)

How much we need to remember, like God’s people way back then, that God is our Rock and our Redeemer—that we, who are like that momentary, passing breeze, need to rely so much on God’s strength and love and mercy and forgiveness and grace! Then, and only then, will we be at rest deep down, living out of that place of peace each day.

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