AID(an's) MEMOIR(s)

Velvet Elvis Part 3 - God wants you to be you

My final reflection on Velvet Elvis for the moment is a short piece towards the end of the book about God’s purpose for us. It’s one of the most encouraging descriptions I have heard. I don’t want to say very much about it, just let the words speak for themselves…

God makes us in his image. We reflect the beauty and creativity and wonder of the God who made us. And Jesus calls us to return to our true selves. The pure, whole people God originally intended us to be, before we veered off course.

Somewhere in you is the you whom you were made to be.
We need you to be you.

We don’t need a second anybody. We need the first you

The problem is that the image of God is deeply scarred in each of us, and we lose trust in God’s version of our story. It seems too good to be true. And so we go searching for identity. We achieve and we push and we perform and we shop and we work out and we accomplish great things, longing to repair the image. Longing to find an identity that feels right.

Longing to be comfortable in our own skin.

But the thing we are searching for is not somewhere else. It is right here. And we can only find it when we give up the search, when we surrender, when we trust. Trust that God is already putting us back together.

Trust that through dying to the old, the new can give birth.

Trust that Jesus can repair the scarred and broken image.

It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to prove anything or achieve anything or accomplish one more thing. That exactly as I am , I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance.

God knew exactly what he was doing when he made you. There are no accidents. We need you to embrace your true identity, who you are in Christ, letting this new awareness transform your life.

That is what Jesus has in mind

I will pray for this trust, it is so difficult to let go of the things you want to hang on to in life, things that I think make people like me or make me popular but God wants us to let go of all of those things and trust.

Velvet Elvis Part 2 - Binding and Loosing

Another thing I have been reflecting on in relation to Rob Bell’s book Velvet Elvis is what he says about the Bible. Many books I have read quote the Bible and tell you that it means a particular thing. In a way Bell is no different but he first explains that someone else talking about the Bible has to be an interpretation whether they like it or not. He shows how he thinks it’s important to look at the Bible in the way Jesus looked at it.

He talks about how a woman told him that she “has the absolute Word of God (the Bible) and that the opinions of man don’t mean anything to her”. But much of this woman’s ministry was around telling people they need a personal relationship with God through Jesus. Bell states that the phrase “personal relationship” isn’t found anywhere in the Bible, so at some point someone has introduced this phrase, so it is an “opinion of man”. He is not saying that the woman was wrong to encourage people to a personal relationship with God, but he just calls on us to be honest when we say things like “we just teach the Bible”. In fact the Bible has to be interpreted because if it isn’t it can’t be lived out today.

Bell goes on to show how the Bible was viewed by rabbis in Jesus times. They knew the Torah off by heart by the time they were 10 and the prophets and books of wisdom by the time they were 14. They wrestled with the text with other rabbis. Two other rabbis had to lay hands on any new rabbis and say they had authority to make interpretations of scripture. When Jesus was baptised he was affirmed by John the Baptist and God himself, “this is my Son whom I love, with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17)

The rabbis would forbid and allow things based on their interpretations of the Bible, this was called binding (forbiding) and loosing (allowing). Giving the keys to the kingdom was the term a rabbi used to give his disciples (trainee rabbis) authority to bind and loose. Which brought a wonderful interpretation of Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 16:19. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”.

So we need to wrestle with God as Jacob did and go away limping. Bell says “some people have no limp because they haven’t wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience of God.

Once again Bell has made things difficult for me, if I really agree with this then I have a lot of work to do to learn my Bible. It is much easier to sit back and have the Bible interpreted for you but this was not Jesus way or his intention for us. But the difficult way offers the opportunity to experience the Living God which has got to be the most rewarding option.

Velvet Elvis Part 1 - A wall or a trampoline?

I’ve just finished reading this book by Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis. It’s a book that lots of people have recommended to me over the past year, so I’m long overdue reading it. I’m so glad I did get round to reading it, I ended up reading it in less than a week which is very quick for me, unless I’m on a long plane journey! But, it’s such a rich book and I know I will keep coming back to it.

This is just a general review to say EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK, but I’ll come back and talk about various parts of it over the coming weeks as I explore it further. That is what Bell has designed the book for, he invites the reader not to ”swallow it uncritically but think about it and wrestle with it”. I found myself reading parts of it and saying,

“I like that, I totally agree”.

Then I would think about it and say “Wow, if I believe that I should be living my life differently” or “would that idea really work in the real world?”

I’ll give you an example…

In the first chapter he talks about our faith being like a trampoline rather than a brick wall. A trampoline where the springs are beliefs and ideas that help us understand who God is. In the wall each brick represents our ideas and beliefs about God. If there is definitive evidence that one of your beliefs or ideas is not true what happens to your faith? So, say concrete evidence shows the world wasn’t created in 6 days, does that mean nothing else about God is true? In the wall, one rigid brick is removed and the wall falls down, in the trampoline the spring flexes and other springs can take the strain. I thought this was a great analogy and encouraged me in examining my beliefs about things. But as I thought further I became worried, what if something I hold to be important in my faith doesn’t work the way I think it should, how would that affect my faith?

I wonder if my faith is more like the brick wall, where I think (incorrectly) that I’ve got everything figured out and don’t need to think about my faith or work on it? I need to have a trampoline faith where I talk to others and challenge myself and allow the springs to flex and become stronger and give my spiritual life more bounce!

I was then immediately encouraged when he went on to talk about how our faith should not be like a wall that we want to defend and spend time talking about how right we are. Instead our trampoline faith is one where we invite others to come and jump with us. Also, God is bigger than our questions, God is bigger than our faith and when we try to put Him in a neat wall we are limiting an awesome God.

Everyone should read this book but don’t expect it to be a nice gentle read, you will have to do some wrestling!

Bluetree - God of this City

Prayer really works

I have been thinking a lot about prayer recently. My time at Moyallon Camp was bathed in prayer. We didn’t do anything without praying about it. There was thanksgiving for things that had happened and prayers of petition for what was coming up. We prayed at every meal time, we prayed before the speaker spoke, we prayed in small groups.

Moyallon Camp is like this every year but this year I was very struck by it. I thought about how much prayer was part of the apostle Paul’s ministry, such as in his letter to the Ephesians…

Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for Christians everywhere, I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful future he has promised to those he called. I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people. I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 1:15-20)

I was reminded of my need to pray for others but also my need to ask others to pray for me. We can feel connected to each other through God by prayer. I also resolved to tell people when I am praying for them as a way of encouraging them.

I have also felt God has been reminding me about the prayers he has answered in my life over the last couple of months. I must be thankful to God for these times and celebrate them as God being involved in my life. I am reminded particularly about my job situation. My temporary contract was to run out on 31st July and there was no job for me to take on at the airport. So, I prayed, the more I prayed the more I felt God was calling me to pray specifically for people at the airport who might be able to help. And, all of sudden one of those people offered me a new contract for another 6 months, a position that has pretty much been created for me and has increased pay and responsibility with it. I see it as a miracle of God, I know that it only happened because God wanted it to happen, there is no earthly reason for it to happen.

So, I continue to pray and pray more because I know God is listening and I know he answers and I know how connected to God and others we can feel through prayer.

Praying for camp

It’s nearly time for Moyallon Camp again. I am getting quite excited for camp this year. My anticipation of what God will do there is based on my experience of God moving among people at camp in amazing ways ever since I first went to Moyallon Camp. Quakers aren’t supposed to see some places as holier than others but Moyallon really seems to be a place where God’s presence can be felt more easily and in a very real way. I look forward to seeing the campers make these Divine connections whether it be for the first time or the hundredth time.

One of the things that is so important about camp is to pray for it. I have spent some time in vocal prayer for camp over the last couple of weeks and I believe in what I have been praying for. That people would feel touched by the transforming power of Christ, that lives would be changed because of God’s love for each one of us. I’ve been praying particularly for the leaders at camp because they can play a major part in pointing campers towards Jesus by their example.

I have experienced many answers to prayer over the last month or so, in relation to my job, in relation to our wedding plans, in relation to people I have been praying for. So, prayer really works and I look forward to the prayer meeting each morning at camp that sets you up for a day centred on God.

“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart” (Col 4:2)

Follow the Lord your God

My daily Bible reading notes have taken me to the book of Joshua, one of my favourite books in the Old Testament. I have got as far as Chapter 3 and I was admiring the intention of the Israelites to follow God directly despite the strong leaders they had from Moses and Aaron and then Joshua. The children of Israel are instructed in verse 3 to follow the ark of the convenant across the River Jordan into the promised land. They were not told to follow Joshua across even though he was God’s appointed leader, they were told to follow the ark which was where God met with Moses to give him instructions for the children of Israel (Exodus 25:22) so symbolised where God dwelt to the Israelites.

This is a reminder to me to not base what I believe and what I do on any person no matter how holy they are or how Godly their message seems, I still need to directly follow God. Of course other people are very important in that walk with God as they can help me along the right path but it is God who is leading me, others are just companions and encouragers on the journey. No one is without sin, apart from Jesus who’s prefect life, death and resurrection I am called to strive toward. Ithas to be Jesus who is my example in life not any other person who cannot achieve that perfection.

Visiting the Vineyard

Yesterday my fiance and I went to the Belfast City Vineyard Church for the first time. Some friends of ours go there and it’s about a ten minute walk from my flat so a visit there was long overdue. It’s all part of a quest to find a good congregation that we can feel comfortable in and that will help us in our relationship with God individually and together. Since I returned from London I haven’t felt fully part of a meeting or church, I’ve been going to Joy’s church in Moira but it’s quite a commute on a Sunday morning. So everytime I go to a different church I ask myself “Is this somewhere I could go every week?”

My first impressions of Belfast City Vineyard were that I could see myself going there every week. The first thing that struck me was the average age was much lower than any church I’ve been involved in, it’s so encouraging to be with lots of people of a similar age to you who are going through the same issues in life as you and trying to follow God’s calling through issues in the same way you are.

The Senior Pastors and Associate Pastor were all young as well, the Senior Pastors being a married couple. The Pastor had a really good way about him, he presented the Truth as he understood it but not in a way that suggested that it was the only way of looking at it or that his thoughts and research on the topic were somehow exhaustive and final. The worship was great too, I believe it differs from week to week but this week it was a simple guitar/singer, bass and bongo drum that really invited the individual to experience God’s presence and praise him rather than being a show or being distracted by the band.

Joy and I were quite surprised to see that the sermon was about marriage! God really had led us to be there yesterday so we could hear some insight into God’s plan for marriage generally and seek to live more in God’s plan for our own relationship. We even got the opportunity to be prayed for which was so valuable. I recommitted myself to praying for Joy and praying for our relationship more.

So, it was great to be there, and I could see myself going there again. there are a couple of other congregations in Belfast I hope to visit over the summer so I’ll try to blog on those as well. I pray that Joy and I will find the congregation that allows us to live that abundant life that Jesus has for us to the fullest.

I'd rather be a name in heaven than a name on earth

I heard a sermon recently on the story of the Rich man and Lazarus that Jesus tells and is recorded in Luke 16:19-31. It is a really powerful message from Jesus about what happens after we die and how what we do now affects that.

In the passage Lazarus is a beggar who lies at the rich man’s gate hoping for a few scraps from his table. The rich man is painted as a high society gentleman who only wears the finest clothes and hosts banquets every night for the great and the good. But both the rich man and Lazarus die, Lazarus is taken up to heaven and the rich man sent to hades to be in torment. This is not a story about how beggars go to heaven and rich people go to hell, it is about how your priorities on earth determine what will happen after you die. The rich man wanted to be loved by the people around him, he wanted them all to be impressed by his huge wealth and he squandered it on fine clothes, food and drink and wouldn’t even give a scrap to a poor beggar at his gate, let alone spend any of his money on the kingdom of God.

One of the things that really struck me about the story was how the rich man had no name, he was described as “a certain rich man”. Whereas Lazarus is named. As the pastor said in his message everyone in that town would have known the rich man’s name and no one would have known Lazarus. But when it came to death God personally sent his angels to take away Lazarus, and the rich man was suddenly lonely and nameless. The rich man wanted for nothing on earth became a beggar in death and the beggar in life experienced the full richness of God after death. I know which person I would rather be in this story.