So, the end of 2011 already, and I for one will be very glad to kick it to the curb. It’s been a tough year, a sad year, and I’m looking forward to starting afresh with 2012.

I may even be more deliberate about re-engaging in the whole ‘Church’ discussion again. Maybe.

For now though, it’s enough to say that I’m thinking about starting to blog again.

Anyhoo, His remedy to this is the promise that one day, He himself will shepherd his people. He will search them out, He will establish them and He will personally provide for them. How? Via his servant David. Jesus himself takes up this theme when he calls himself The Good Shepherd (Jn 10).

Now, I’ve read this passage many times. But today, here’s what took hold of my heart and made me smile…

Ez 34:24
“And I the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.”

A prince among them. With us. As one of us. Now that, right there, the Lovely Word, is beauty.

This autobiographical account is one of the best audio books I’ve ever heard.  The story so well told by Corrie ten Boom and narrated so faithfully by Bernadette Dunne, tells the story of a family of well loved Christian watchmakers who refused to turn their back on the suffering around them, but relied on God to lead them at ever turn, in order to save as many people as possible.

I listened to the book in my car as I’ve been driving around for the last week, and at times I admit, I had to turn it off before arriving at my destination, so powerful was the story that my emotions often got the better of me.  Corrie relates their experiences so well, that I genuinely felt invited into the situation, the family, their associates, those they cared for, and those they suffered alongside of, each making my heart sing, laugh and cry as their faith in their God led them on to stand up to the evil around them.

I cannot speak highly enough of this book.  A definite “must read” (or hear), for every Christian, if not for the story itself, and the amazing expression of faith, but also for a first hand account of man’s inhumanity to man and just how low we really can go. It’s a poignant reminder that  while it seems a million years away from where we are now, the Holocaust really wasn’t that long ago, and people just like you and me, were on both sides of this war, people very much loved by our God, ordinary people who turned on one another.  The Nazi reign is clearly one of humanities darkest hours.

I pray we never again see a time like this, but if we should, I also pray that there are faithful servants like the Ten Booms, out there serving their Lord with all they have.  I pray I may be as faithful as they.

In the interests of honesty in blogging.  I was provided with a free copy of this audiobook from christianaudio.com as a part of their reviewers program.  I was under no obligation at all to provide a positive review.

Jesus…
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

- Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

Isn’t that just beautiful? The answer to our weariness is to turn away from all the religious requirements placed on us, and to walk with Jesus. To let him show us how to really rest. To let him show us how to do life. Let him teach us “the unforced rhythms of grace”… what an incredible turn of phrase!

I can hear the love in his voice. He’d only just been lamenting the response of towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for their response to the things Jesus had done in their presence. But, he knew where they were coming from! He understood their predicament. They were steeped in religion. Steeped in the law. They were so intent on doing their utmost to please God by adhering to all the requirement of their religion, that they completely missed God, himself, in their midst. And Jesus’ answer? He stops to pray for them, and then invites them into a life of rest. With him. In short, he loves them. Oh the great pleasure he must’ve felt in taking the burdon of religion off of them!!

Of course, they didn’t all ‘get it’. Some did, but most didn’t. Understandable of course, I mean, they didn’t get that Jesus was God, their Creator, living life with them inviting them into a better way of doing life. He’d come to save them from their burdensome life of trying to please him… and yet, for some reason, we remain attracted to religios observance and performance.

I suspect it’s primarily about our sence of right and wrong. For, while we know that we’re “saved by grace”, we still, deep down insist upon our own unworthiness and attempt to correct this injustice by doing our utmost to behave in all ways worthy.

Unfortunately, moden Christianity provides us with a plethora of ways in which we can [and must] do this. Attendance, service, tithing, worship, mission, Bible reading, studying, conferences, witnessing, meetings to organise meetings, social programs, and even prayer are all carefully scheduled into our days, weeks, months and years. All the time with us insisting, to a world that knows better, that “it’s not religion but relationship“, and… we believe it.

And Jesus says…

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Today however I feel that I can. Earlier this morning I was listening to a recent God Journey Podcast in which Wayne & Brad were talking with their friend Chris DuPré entitled First Love.

Chris was telling his story, and was saying how he found himself in the midst of a group of people that were “…talking about Jesus again.“. He didn’t mean in the sense that we discuss theories about Jesus, and the things he said and did when he was here on earth, but in the sense of knowing him.

Oh my, how this caught my heart!

When did we stop talking about Jesus? When did we replace this with programs and systems and meetings and theories and principles and theologies and organisations and denominations and institutions and movements and spotlights and… self?

It tires me.
It wears me out.
It makes me sad.

Where I really want to be, is in the midst of a those who are once again talking about the real Jesus. The real Truth. The real Light. The real Way.

Jesus, the lovely One.

For a long time now I’ve had in my heart a desire to blog along the lines of “In Search of Dad’s Church“, but I kept putting it off, kept pushing it aside. Knowing that some will be [willfully] offended, and knowing my total lack of desire to enter into that conversation with them. I’m so tired of it. So very tired.

However, today, and for as long as it needs to be, this will be the theme of my blog. I am now, and have been for a long time, in search of Dad’s Church.

In search of people who are once again, talking about Jesus.

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love—a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

~C.S.Lewis, Poems, “As the Ruin Falls” (1st pub. 1964)

It’s entitled The Flabby Body of Christ: Why is church so dull? A psychotherapist diagnoses the Sunday ritual. By Stephen W. Simpson and if you’re interested or even a little curious, you can find it here.

If you have a read, let me know what you think!

However, I have to say that one of my favourite things is a spring shower on a warm day. I love the big drops of rain. I love the smell after the rain. I love the refreshing a spring shower brings to my senses.

The serendipitous beauty overwhelms me. I sing for joy at the grace of refreshing.

Mercy and love
Blue skies
Gentle clouds that mean no harm shed their life on all below.
Cleansing
Feeding
Freeing

Turning my eyes towards the heavens I smile and wipe the water from my face and thank the One who refreshes this life.

The Word
God
Life
Light
Flesh/Man
Giver of Grace
Gives of Truth
Revealer of God

Lovely One.

Having said that, I’m making my way through the book of John again. It’s definitely my favourite Gospel. I love the extra material in John that’s not in the other gospels, I love the way he talks about his friendship with Jesus, and Jesus’ relationship with the Father. In short, it’s lovely.

Here’s what’s caught my eye this time around. It starts with the incarnation. “The Word” (which, by the way is always used in relation with Jesus, not the Scriptures – but that’s a whole other bugbear of mine) became flesh and dwelt among us.

So, the Word who was always with God, from forever, and who is and always has been God, the Creator of all things, the one who stretched out the heavens and put the stars in their place. This spiritual being who was without limit in anything He could do…. became flesh. Became human. He voluntarily limited himself by stepping out of eternity (as it were) and into our time, in the form of a little helpless baby. He (God!) chose to grow up on this earth and walk about and get dirty and deal with the broken humanity around him. In this man, Jesus, dwelt the the fullness of God. The God.

I love the way Thomas Merton put it in No Man Is An Island,

“Jesus is the theology of that Father revealed to us.”

How perfect is that!? It’s so true. If we want to get to know the Father, all we have to do is look at the Son. Jesus of course said as much, when he was talking to his disciples recorded for us in John 14,

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

The first part of this quote is one of the more controversial statements that Jesus made, and is often quoted by his followers as proof perfect as to why what they believe is superior to that of someone with another faith system. It can come across as divisive and arrogant (yuk!).

The thing that’s struck me about this over the last couple days is that it’s not in anyway said in an arrogant manner. I think Jesus was just placing an invitation before those listening, because they didn’t get that he was in fact God. They didn’t understand that He was the Father. That God himself was sitting with them talking, just like he used to do in the Garden with Adam & Eve. God was present. The disciples of the day just couldn’t make that kind of leap of realisation.

Jesus is the only way to the Father because all that he is, and all that he does and all that he says is the heart of God. The Father had been trying to call us back to himself for the previous 6000 (?) years… but we kept running and hiding. Our shame wouldn’t allow us to dare to come before God. So he came to us. Jesus shows us the Father.

That, right there is what fires my heart. God is indeed knowable. God does indeed love us. He isn’t scary and fearful. He’s everything that he always said he was, and Jesus reveals this glory to us in a way that we never got before…

Exodus 34:6 says,

“And Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed, Almighty Yahweh is:

• Merciful (compassion that moves to action)
• Gracious (favour toward us)
• Longsuffering (not touchy or overly sensitive, slow to anger)
• Abounding (lavishing) in goodness (mercy)
• Abounding (lavishing) in truth (trust worthy, faithful)
• Having/Maintaining/extending mercy to thousands
• Forgiving iniquity/wickedness
• Forgiving transgressions/rebellion
• Forgiving sin

That is why Jesus is the Way. The Way to the Father.