I was listening…

Have you noticed how important it is to feel listened to? Often we can have a chat with a friend and we’ll both remember the gist of the conversation, but there will be some bits we won’t remember, that haven’t lodged themselves in our brains. And sometimes we can be thinking up a reply to one comment and miss the next one because our focus is elsewhere.

But then there are the times when you are talking to someone and although they do make comments and ask questions, they do so after you have finished speaking. And then they’ll say something that shows they have listened and taken in everything you’ve said.

This isn’t so crucial in a friendly chat with someone, but is so important when you are sharing something or asking for help. I had a conversation like that today and at the end they basically summed it all up, referencing things I’d said in passing. I told them they had a good memory to bring up all the things I’d said. They’re response? Well, I was listening.

It struck me how rare it is to leave a conversation and feel truly listened to. Not someone comparing stories, not someone thinking up solutions, not someone projecting their own life/ambitions/problems, just someone listening to me in the moment, no distractions.

The thing is, because so often conversations can be frustrating because of wandering minds or others’ agendas, I can sometimes choose not to talk. Sometimes it’s easier to just keep quiet than try and be serious and be let down because you’re not being listened to.

Why do I mention that here? Because, as with so many other aspects of life, what we can experience with other people we can project onto God. If people won’t simply listen and give you their full attention in the moment without making suggestions of jumping to conclusion, then when we talk to God, won’t the same happen?

But throughout the Old Testament, there are passages where it says, “I have heard your cry, says the Lord”. Whether the people crying out or praying have followed the laws or gone astray, whether they pray daily or just when they are in need, God hears their prayers and responds. And when Jesus comes to show the way to the Father, he teaches to pray about everything. He teaches that the Father is listening.

So when you talk to God, talk as if he is listening intently, as if you have his full attention. Because he is and you do. You are heard. No problem is too small or too big. He won’t get distracted thinking of questions or solutions. He will patiently listen, and once you have finished he will respond. You can talk to God. He is listening.

A light in the… fog?

A few days ago there was quite a heavy fog in the town where I live. (When I say heavy, I mean more than I’m used too, and it considerably restricted sight). I was giving a friend a lift somewhere in the afternoon when the light was failing, and that combined with the fog meant that visibility was very poor. But as we were driving along, you could see colorful lights on some of the houses. The bright lights showing through the dark and fog was really beautiful. We couldn’t see the houses they were attached too, but lights flickering or shaped like a reindeer just kept coming into sight as we drove past.

The beginning of John’s gospel introduces Jesus as ‘a light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’. As I was driving past the lights, it struck me how powerful they were. The plain brick houses were all but hidden, even cars were hard to see, but the lights broke through the gloom. The headlights of the cars gave a warning and guidance about where to drive. The lights of the street lamps lit the road(ish). And the Christmas lights created patterns that were nice to look at and lifted the mood on an otherwise gloomy and subdued afternoon.

How often have we been going through a patch in our lives where things have seemed dark and gloomy? Maybe it’s hard to see where to go next, or even to see much other than that which is right in front of us. It can be easy to get dismayed and discouraged in those times.

But Jesus came to be a light, to show the way. Its not always easy to see because we can get focused on the ‘fog’. But the lights do shine out, even (especially?) when things are at their darkest. The light can be words in the bible, or the presence or voice of a friend, or even Jesus’ voice itself speaking directly to our hearts.

Not just this advent, but all through the year, when things get dark and the path seems hard, pause for a moment and look for the light. It’s a light of hope telling you to keep going. It’s a light of reassurance that you are not alone. It’s the light that is Jesus who will never leave you, who shows you the way to the Father.

Mushroom or acorn

I recently had the opportunity to go away for a few days to a place surrounded by beautiful country side. While I was there, I met 2 people and we went for a walk together. It was November, but it was a beautiful crisp autumn morning. The leaves were crunching underfoot, there were squirrels and rabbits scampering around, the leaves were all shades of yellow and orange – it was justa glorious walk in God’s creation.

Walking with others can be a great experience, like this time. One of the people I was walking with took great delight in everything she saw, and would marvel over little things like the rabbits, or point out things that caught her eye. She really was a joy to walk with.

One of the things she pointed out was a cluster of mushrooms growing near the base of an oak tree. She said how amazing it was that something like that could just grow in a day. I didn’t know mushrooms could grow in 24 hours, but I  have since looked it up and some varieties can. It was a strange juxtaposition, to think of these mushrooms that can grow in 24 hours sitting right next to a huge oak tree which takes 5 or 6 years to be fully self-sustaining.

Sometimes I think we can wish were like those mushrooms – 24 hours and done, quick fixes, all grown up and lessons learnt. But more often life is like that oak tree. Starting off as an acorn and spending years developing, and then continuing to grow even after becoming self-sustaining and becoming one of the grandest trees (in my opinion, partly because I’m British and partly because they remind me of my childhood – I quite like oak trees!)

Philippians 1: 6 says, ‘he who began a good work in you will see it through to completion’. Wherever you are at the moment, if things look like they’ll never change or your stuck somewhere in limbo, remember you are not a mushroom, it’s not gonna be 24 hours and you’re finished. You are an acorn, taking years to grow and develop, and the end result is something huge and grand which doesn’t ever stop growing. Take heart, the Lord is working in you.

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

Did you write a Christmas list this year? You’re probably thinking, ‘another message about how Jesus is the best present ever.’ And yes, Jesus is the best present ever, but that’s not what this is about.

As a child, I would love to go through the Argos catalogue and mark out a whole list of things I wanted. I didn’t usually get them, but I made the list anyway. I know some friends still make lists – although probably more grown up than a list of toys, games and books! I also know a lot of people don’t make a list. But it’s not really about the list, it’s about the magic and joy of Christmas.

In my memory, through the eyes of a child Christmas was an exciting time full of wonder, where dreaming big was allowed. It was a time of hopeful expectation – the promise of family time and board games was just as exciting as the hope for gifts given and received. My Christmas list had some ridiculous things on it, things I knew I’d never get, but I put them on there anyway, just in case…

As we get older, it is easy for Christmas to lose it’s sparkle. Maybe for some it was never there – Christmas isn’t a safe and wonderful time for everyone. Maybe it’s because the cost of heating the house and buying the food has become too high. Maybe it’s because of the loss of someone we loved, changing Christmas forever. Maybe it’s just the general knocks of life that build up and just mean Christmas isn’t anything more than a break from work. Or maybe, quite simply, we got older and stopped believing in Father Christmas.

Someone I am getting a gift for asked for non-perishable items like cans of tomato soup. I’m not knocking that request: they’re a student and those sorts of things are essentials for student living. So I have got her what she asked for. And I’ve included some treats too, because unwrapping a jar if soup doesn’t make me think ‘Ooh, exciting! Just what I wanted!’ (Of course, I mat be wrong, after all it is what they asked for – maybe they really, really like tomato soup!)

But maybe it’s time to dream big again – huge unrealistic things like a hippo on your Christmas list. Maybe it’s time to find joy, not in the gifts or the food, but in the story behind it all. Maybe you should write a list of things you want. Include soup, yes, but also include a hippo (or equivalent). If there was nothing in your way, what would you really like?

The backbone of Christmas celebrations for me has always been church. I grew up with Carols by Candlelight on Christmas Eve and a morning service on Christmas Day, and as I got older I was allowed to go to a midnight service (as long as I went to sleep quickly so Santa still had time to come). And the centre of the Christmas story is the birth of Jesus, the saviour come to show us the way, to restore a relationship with the Father. And Jesus teaches us to pray for anything and everything. He teaches us not to limit ourselves.

I’ve had enough prayers not answered in the way I hoped or expected to understand that sometimes it’s hard to pray. Disappointment can lead to discouragement, can lead to limiting our prayers. But my encouragement for you is that the one you are praying to is ultimately good, and there is a reason even if you can’t see it yet. God sees the bigger picture, he sees the outcomes, he looks at eternity and heavenly things while we are looking at the now, here on earth.

So while you are here, now, make your list. Include your hippo. And if you get it, fantastic. And if you don’t, remember that God has something better planned. You may not see it now, but one day you will. Because against all odds, He became human and was born to a poor family in order that you might have a way to be with Him in eternity. So dream big. God is with you.

I’ve started so I’ll finish

It’s a phrase from the quiz show, Mastermind. The contestants have a limited amount of time to answer questions before a klaxon sounds. If the host has started reading the question when it sounds, he says, “I’ve started, so I’ll finish” and finishes the question.

Why is that relevant? Because even though time has run out, that which has been started is able to be finished.

On the third Sunday of advent, some churches celebrate the prophets, the ones who spoke about God’s redemption plan. They are the ones who wrote the promises of the coming saviour, how he would be recognised, and what he was going to do. They held on to the hope of that saviour even when things around them looked dire, even when there was silence and it seemed so impossible.

And then around 400 years after the last of the prophets (or at least, the ones in the bible – there is a out 400 years between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament) a virgin gave birth to a son in David’s town of Bethlehem where he was laid in a manger. He was visited by wise men from the east who followed a star foretelling the birth of the king of the Jews, called in to Herod on the way and as a result a whole generation of boys were killed. All of this is foretold in the prophets words.

The redemption plan has started.

But then we look to Easter and Jesus is crucified. It’s like the klaxon, time is up. Except…

Except that’s not where the story ends. Jesus comes backs to life. The redemption plan isn’t complete. There’s more to come. Jesus tells of a time of war, of famine, of natural disasters, but to hold on to faith and hope because its not finished yet. The promise of redemption, of eternal life, of things still to come still stand. They are all part of God’s plan, a plan I don’t pretend to understand, but a plan made by one I trust.

Today, we look at promises made, remember promises kept and those still to come. We remember the bigger plan. And we remember that it’s not the end.

God’s started, so he will finish.

How do you decorate a rowing boat for Christmas?

… With oar-naments!

One of the staples of Christmas dinner growing up was pulling a cracker, putting on the paper crown and telling the joke. As a child, at first hearing and with the naivety of youth, they made me chuckle. Now a grown up, and having heard most of them before, they make me groan! I wonder what effect they have on you?

I’m sure we can all agree that cracker jokes are rarely clever. You don’t need much intellect to either chuckle or groan at them. I once heard that that was the point. They weren’t meant to take brain power to work out. They weren’t designed to go over some people’s heads. They were designed to make everyone groan (and a couple laugh). They were meant as an equaliser so everyone was on the same page. They were never meant to be good jokes – they are bad jokes on purpose.

I don’t know whether that is the truth – I like to think it is because the alternative is someone somewhere thought they’d written a bunch of fantastic jokes and would be very disappointed by they’re reception!

I also like it because it means everyone is included. A bad joke can make the rounds in the office or on the bus. People can understand the punchline and no-one feels left behind (at least in principle). And part of the reason I like that idea is because that is what church should be, what following Jesus should be like. Jesus called fishermen and tax collectors, zealots and Pharisees, thieves and rich men, officials and prostitutes – he called everyone with no regard to any societal hierarchy. Everyone was welcome, everyone was equal. Was, and is.

The message of Jesus shouldn’t make you groan or chuckle, but it should be for everyone. It’s a message of unconditional love, of undeserved grace, of the impossible made possible. It might make you gasp or sing or even cry – that’s up to the listener. (OK, maybe a bit of groaning or chuckling might happen, but not because it’s bad!)

As we journey to Christmas we hear of a virgin, pregnant and unmarried, travelling to a backwater village with her carpenter fiance, visited by shepherd’s and wise men. There is space for everyone. It’s not a joke (good or bad) but something real, a promise kept, a hope for the future. Whoever you are reading this: there is room for you too. God’s message and kingdom is for everyone – the greatest equaliser of all.

What do you use to drain your vegetables at Christmas?

An advent colander!

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

The bedsheets

A few years ago I went to an evening exploration group with some other people from church where we talked about all sorts. One thing that stuck in my mind came when we were talking about the purpose of Sunday church. One of the group who is a few years older than me compared it to bed sheets, the non-fitted kind. When they were washed they got a bit misshapen so her mother and her would take diagonally opposite corners and pull it back into shape. Church was a bit like that for her – the necessities of the week could pull her out of shape, but Sundays got her realigned.

If a week could get someone out of shape, imagine what month or even a year could do! The world around is just goes on and we get tossed about with normal day to day things, plus those extras that come up suddenly. The daily grind of working with other people, maybe driving on roads full of other drivers, dealing with family and people we live with can all get us out of shape in our hearts and our minds. And then you get the unexpected bereavance, bad news about health or job, things that come out of nowhere and knock us sideways. I’m sure by the end of it, if we had started as a rectangular bedsheet, we’d look unrecognisable by the end and would need a good strong pull to get us back in shape.

A bedsheet can’t realign itself, but maybe we can. At the beginning of this advent series I quoted from the book of Isaiah some names for Jesus. Maybe, as we get ever nearer to Christmas, we can realign our hearts and minds to God by remembering who he is, by reading Isaiah 9, and some of the Psalms, and by reading through the first chapter of Matthew, Luke and John (Mark skips straight to adult Jesus, but you could read that too if you wanted!) Maybe we can talk to friends and get help with realigning, or maybe God is trying to do just that and we’re being stubborn bedsheets and pulling back. Whichever it may be, now is a good time to get back in God shape. Whether you’re only a little misshapen or you’re stretched beyond recognition, set some time aside to remember who God is in time for us celebrating Jesus’ arrival at Christmas

Walk a mile in their shoes…

It’s an oldie but a goodie: before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them you are a mile away and you have their shoes…

How quickly do we jump in and criticise? Whether it’s friend or stranger, at home or at work, we can find ourselves putting our opinion in about the way others do things and it’s not always complimentary or encouraging. Or maybe you’ve been at the receiving end of criticism which you think is undeserved or a bit harsh, because you know what led you to making that decision or doing things that way.

Because we don’t know what journey other people are on. We don’t know what unseen scars are hidden under the surface, or what other plates are being spun by that particular person. Unless we have lived that persons life and shared all of their experiences, we shouldn’t judge or criticise.

You know you’re own journey. You know where you’ve been, how you now make better decisions than you used to. You know how you were taught to do things, even if that’s different from how others might do them. And everybody has their own version of that.

Jesus teaches that we shouldn’t judge others. He says the measure we use to judge others will be uses to judge us. This links with forgive and you will be forgiven. So maybe instead of judging and criticising at work or in the coffee shop, or even driving, you could instead have a little more patience, maybe pray a blessing instead of shouting. Maybe you could listen to the why, offer advice or just give a gentle encouragement. You could change someone’s day around, you can start a change in the whole atmosphere of you choose to be different. Let’s face it, you don’t particularly like to be criticised or judged, so be the person who chooses not to do it. You may find the people around you start to copy you.

That’s the way Jesus lived, so that’s the way we can live too. This advent, when the shoppers are getting impatient, when work deadlines are looming and stress is building, try and put yourself in their shoes and build up the people around you instead of tearing them down. Be like Jesus. (But don’t steal someone’s shoes!)

Mistletoe and Wine

Is there a song that really puts you in the festive mood, and Christmas isn’t really on the way until you’ve hears it? I love Christmas music, a mixture of carols and crooners, throw in some Slade and some Wham and you’ve almost got my Christmas playlist.

But for me, no Christmas playlist is complete without a but of Cliff Richard. I’ve got a bit of a reputation for being a Cliff fan which I try to debunk, but if I’m being honest, I do enjoy listening to his songs. And at Christmas, it’s his songs that set the mood for me. I remember childhood car rides with him on the CD player, or his CD in the kitchen while Christmas baking was being done. I even tried to get my choir to add one of his songs into their Christmas repertoire! (They were as excited as me…)

So, in this run up to advent, I had to visit Cliff. His music is part of my preparation fir Christmas. And as you may have guessed from the title, I wanted use Mistletoe and Wine. It sets the scene for advent and Christmas from the very beginning and what follows are some amazing lyrics:

It’s a time for giving, a time for getting
A time for forgiving, and for forgetting
Christmas is love, Christmas is peace
A time for hating and fighting to cease

Mistletoe and Wine, Keith Strachan / Jeremy Paul / Leslie George Stewart

And the reason I wanted to look at this song today is that it picks up the theme of forgiveness. Yesterday I wrote about forgiving yourself. Today, I wanted to encourage you to look at others you may need to forgive. Forgiveness is hard. It’s hard to forgive someone who has hurt you even when they apologise, it’s harder still when they don’t realise or won’t acknowledge they’ve done anything wrong. But the bible is very clear about forgiveness. It is a choice we make with no conditions.

And it’s right here in the song: a time for forgiving and for forgetting. When you hold onto a grudge against someone, you are poisoning yourself. They will be merrily living their life while you are looking back at what they’ve done. Maybe forgetting is not the correct word (but it rhymes, so works for the song) – forgiving someone doesn’t mean letting them do the same thing again, but letting go of needing to get even, moving on and leaving the situation behind is the best gift you can give yourself. You take the knife out of the wound and let it heal.

It is something Jesus models and something that the bible teaches: forgiving others is not negotiable. You must forgive ‘not 7 times, but 77 times’ – or more times than you can keep track of. And now, as we are getting ready for Christmas and getting our hearts ready for Jesus, now is the time to make that choice to let go of a grudge and to move on, to be open to love and joy and everything laid out before you instead of being anchored to the past. And if can’t persuade you, listen to Cliff tell you:

Forgive, release and be free

Today’s title is taken from a book by Joff Day about forgiving others. The premise behind the book is that in forgiving others and releasing them of any debt they owe you, you are then free to be yourself without any ties to the past. It is a book that I have found helpful in the past.

But today, I want to turn it around a little. Yes, forgiving people is a key part of being a Christian and being in a right relationship with God, but possibly more key is forgiving yourself. Yesterday I posted about believing in your identity as a child of God and not in anything else. Today, I wanted to briefly write about something that can get in the way.

Yesterday I wrote about the difference about making a mistake and being a mistake, about failing at something and about being a failure (basically, what you do is not who you are). But sometimes when we fail or when we make a mistake, it can leave an impression on us even if that’s not where our identity is. We can be disappointed in ourselves, or we can kick ourselves and tell ourselves to do better. We can be our own worst critic. The thing is, God has already forgiven us for mistakes and failures where we did wrong, and he sees the bigger picture and knows that sometimes it wasn’t our fault (although we may still blame ourselves). This blame, whether we deserve it or not, is not helpful. It can hang around and draw us backwards, make us look the the past and predict a negative future. It isn’t healthy for our own self worth or for our relationship with God.

God has already forgiven you. Jesus has already paid the price. To not forgive yourself is to not accept God’s forgiveness. It is easy to say, harder to live out. But you must try. And just as it is a process and a choice to forgive others, so it is with ourselves. We are forgiven. We are loved. We just need to realise it and believe it. And when we can get to a point of forgiving ourselves, and releasing ourselves from some impossible debt or expectation, we can be free to live our lives, loving ourselves and receiving God’s love as we should.

This advent, if you can, set aside some time to reflect on where you are being hard on yourself, on where you need to give yourself a break, and just be kind and forgive yourself. God already has.