What are you looking for?

What are you looking for? Do you know? Do you know what you want? What you believe? Do you know what is good and bad? What is true and right, or wrong? Does it change from day to day?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to test or trick you.

I was thinking about questioning and doubt. About its presence, its bad reputation and its value. How does doubt and questioning make you feel?

I like to be safe and to be right and sure. Don’t you? So unknowing, doubt, insecurity – such shifting sands make us feel out of control, vulnerable, insecure – and to avoid this we seek information to bolster our understanding… to know, to be certain… and for our faith – in whatever it may be – to be unswerving and strong. This may be about the basic routines of our day, for example, or our health report, our whereabouts and location when on the move, our plans and preparations for a big event, our political persuasions and support come polling day, our financial safety-nets for retirement, maybe actual insurance policies and guarantees and often our meta-physical persuasions or beliefs and our raison d’etre.

We want assurance, insurance and reassurance again.

I think of adventure quests and heroes in story-books and on film – dangerous quests to find truth, or treasure and for valour and honour – life threatening, self-sacrificing endurance, seeking, for that which is right and true. The stuff that makes heroes. The big questions – the meaning of life and all that. It seems to be part of the heroic side of our nature – to seek wisdom, seek truth at whatever the cost. The Bible is full of such wisdom too – exhortations to seek and find the lost coin, the lost sheep, the ‘pearl of great price’, which cost him all he had. To ‘Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.’  (PROVERBS 4:7) And Solomon’s asking for just wisdom over every other treasure… and so many other examples. Wisdom and truth are seen as great treasure.

When my children were young, they would frequently complain that they had lost something important and had ‘searched everywhere’! I would smile and ask them to look again and this time to actually take their hands out of their pockets and use them to look underneath the piles of stuff!

Because if it were visible, they wouldn’t have lost it!

To seek knowledge, understanding and truth often means to go digging! It means to turn everything upside down, turn it out, get our hands dirty… it means to disrupt our comfort, camp for a while in unknowing, in the unfamiliar and in doubt. It means ‘living from a suitcase’ in questioning and a vulnerable state of being unsure, not at home and not in control. We may have to disrupt and abandon all else… Sometimes it means to admit to ‘not know’ something and occasionally it means to discover that we were partially or fully misinformed, or misunderstood, and to humbly learn…

But we are promised that if we keep on seeking we will find; if we keep on knocking, the door will be opened; and if we keep on asking, we will be answered. We are promised that if we seek Him first, then He will be found and all other things will be given to us as well. Our needs will be met. It is a constant process that we will not come to the end of in this life on earth, and maybe it will continue throughout eternity. I do hope so!

But beware. Be humble. If we seek the truth, we must be prepared to adapt, readjust, enlarge our tent and maybe change our mind. There will be change. When we find what was lost, or find revelation and truth and wisdom, we are forever changed! We have to change, for growth is change. We have to be prepared to expand our limited thinking if we want to seek truth. New wine goes in new wine-skins.

Some say “What is truth?” They say that there are many truths – for each of us, our own truth. Some say that we find what we are looking for, and that we each find something different. Some say there is but one truth. Jesus says that He is “the way, the truth and the life”. Whatever the truth is, we are encouraged to seek it. It is not something to fear, but it is something to make space for, to humble ourselves to receive. For His ways are not our ways. His ways are higher and above and beyond all we could ever fathom or imagine… But trust Him. Life is constant growth and constant change. We will never know everything in this short life on earth, but we should not be afraid to learn new things.

We are invited to seek wisdom, to seek understanding, to seek growth, truth and life.

What an adventure!

September Windfalls

September windfalls

I apologise for having neglected the weekly blog, but the monthly blog must not also go amiss.

No matter the business, the stresses and strains of life; no matter the hardships or even the challenge of un-answered prayer, there is always time, always joy, always delight in acknowledging the constant blessings and the constancies of God’s love and mercies, which are new every morning… and at the day’s end, God is still there!

A Pete Greig video left me with a helpful image of a microscope and a telescope – often we are peering through the microscope, focussed largely on our own concerns and bringing our burdens and needs to the Lord – for we are instructed to do so, by Him who ever lives to intercede for us before the throne of God – but when we take out the telescope and look up at the heavenly realm our perspective shifts… We don’t look up at the heavenly realm and say “Aren’t I important!” or “Poor me!”, No, we raise our sights and praise the Creator God and Father for who He is, in all His majesty and power and we magnify Him, not ourselves.

What we focus on, we magnify.

So I want to magnify God again for the answered prayers and windfalls of September and to remember that God is good, all the time, even when I do not understand.

I thank God for:

A good weekend together with my closest childhood friends.

That the changeover went smoothly for my babies and school and home is all good.

That S and I had another blessed week in London and both managed to accomplish much.

For inspiration and help with my writing.

For perseverance, courage and growth in my relationships.

For five good breaks away this Summer and for cover for work for each of them.

That S finally inspired to write his article.

That S free to travel around in Romania, despite restrictions.

That C and B successfully produced 2 great videos.

That A’s bloods showed that her cancer is now in remission!

That C begun University and is inspired and has risen to the challenge.

That J’s PHD has begun and all is well.

That first 2 prayer groups chez moi peaceful, blessed fellowship and tech improving.

For all the opportunities to serve.

Above all I thank you, not just for doing the things I have asked of You Lord, but for being God, for choosing to be in relationship with little me and for working with us, Your precious children, in this life on earth – for being Emmanuel, God with us – for coming to dwell in our hearts – being Jehovah Shammah – and for the assurance of Your presence. Though Satan should buffet and trials may come, let this blessed assurance be mine… It is well with my soul. Lord, where You are in the boat, no matter the storm, it is well with my soul.

Your Love endures forever and whatever happens, whether I understand or not, I know that You have me in the palm of Your hand.

Blessed be God forever.

Spend some time looking through the telescope today.