Not A Tame Lion

This week as I've been praying for some literal miracles in my friends’ lives I keep thinking of the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead in John 11. Although the story is all about one of Jesus’ biggest miracles, it really is about so much more than that. It’s about how Jesus loves and feels, it’s about trusting God, and about Jesus doing the unexpected.

It’s back in the day when Jesus walked the earth, and he’s healing people left, right and centre. So when a good friend of Jesus, Lazarus, is sick, his family tell Jesus. Jesus loves Laz. He will rush to him and heal him, obviously.

But no, that’s not what happens. “When he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.” And Lazarus dies. What?! Imagine being his family there and then. That’s definitely not how it should go! He said he loved Laz?! What is Jesus doing; how can he even justify that?!

Here is what I think Jesus’ response to that is: “Just wait, people. I haven’t done what you wanted because I am going to do something so much better and greater. Trust me. Healing now would have been cool, but I’m gonna raise him from the dead: the coolest! Your way ends up with one guy being healed which is nice, but my way results in redemption, in many many people being brought to spiritual life. Trust me.”

And he does what he promised. Lazarus is alive again. Martha and Mary learn to trust Jesus, even through their disappointment, God’s glory is shown and many people believe in Jesus and are saved. Win win win win! So much good out of a dark and dead situation.

Jesus didn’t do what the people wanted or expected because he knew the bigger picture and saw the end. He was always in control, always working for the good of those who loved him and whom he loved.

Copy paste this into your own life. If God isn’t healing or sorting out things you face right now, I believe it’s for a bigger purpose. I believe that we can trust him to move and heal and change things when the time is perfectly right. Ask Jesus to teach you trust and patience and faith through this time of death. Ask him to bring redemption to the people around you through your story. Run to him in your disappointment like Martha, knowing that he loves you, and trust him to bring his life in his time.

Like the great quote about Aslan: “He is not a tame lion, but he is good.” Our Jesus is unpredictable, doing wild and unexpected things, but boy is he good.

He can’t be tamed or told what to do, but you can trust him. He always loves us and he is always good.

Crave

Hope is a funny thing. Like a craving, it's such an internal thing, yet it affects all the external stuff too. My hopes, though no one know what they are, affect my friendships, my choices, my conversations and often the expressions on my face.

And I think that that internality [not a word, but let's go with it] is what causes so much disappointment between people. It's something I've written about before, that when our hopes are not met we are left heartsick.

Like if you didn't know that I was really hoping you'd give me a hug, I probably won't get the hug so you defer my hope. If you didn't know that I hoped you'd be here, it's likely you won't be so there goes my hope again. Silly examples, but do you get what I'm saying? Hopes are being crushed daily; hopes that no one even knew existed.

Also, my hopes are different to your hopes. If you could read my mind and see my hopes, you'd probably be surprised and perplexed by them. In fact, they tend to surprise even me. But something that I so love about Jesus is that He knows the secrets of my heart [Psalm 44:21]. He knows the desires of my heart [Psalm 37:4]. My hopes don't surprise Jesus. He's not perplexed by what I desire. He knows me [Psalm 139].

And not only does He know all my hopes, but Jesus is the fulfillment of every hope.
When I hope for love, He is love [1 John 4:16].
When I hope that someone will listen, God hears my cry [Isaiah 65:24].
When I hope for my future, God has already planned it for me [Jeremiah 29:11].
When I hope that I can face the day, Jesus gives me courage for He has overcome [John 16:33].
When I have no hope left, He is my hope [Colossians 1:27].

Hope is what we crave.
Hope is what Jesus gave.

Friendship 201

A couple years ago I wrote a short and sweet post called Friendship 101. 

Thought it was time to take it to the next level, looking at what Jesus says friendship should be. 

Firstly and most importantly, Exodus 20:3-6 “You shall have no other god before me.”

Putting your friend before Jesus in your life will never end well [it’s a real thing. I know this from experience]. No friendship will ever be good for you if it is more important to you than your relationship with Jesus. That’s because no one can be everything to us that Jesus is; no one but Him can fill the gap. Boy, but when Jesus has filled your heart and is the foundation of your love for people, you will find such sweet friendships, crazy cool gifts from Him.

James 5:16 “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

This is not confessions like in a booth with some guy you’ve never met; this is about being real with each other. You don’t have to tell every second person your deepest fears and struggles, but you do need one or two Jesus-loving accountability buddies [and in general do be real with people]. Keeping your struggles to yourself is like shaking a Coke bottle: eventually it’s gonna explode and it’ll be messy. But when you take the lid off and share it, a lot of that pressure and tension is released. God says there is healing and wholeness in sharing our lives with Him and with a friend. Friends that you can pray with are the best! Be that friend.

James 1:19 “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”

It’s not about solving all of your friend’s problems; it’s about walking with them through the storm, fighting beside them and praying with them. Listen to them and love them, even when you don’t understand.

Proverbs 27:6 “You can trust a friend that corrects you.”

Ephesians 4:15 “Speak the truth in love.”

God gives us friends to sharpen us, to help us stick to His road. Sometimes our vision gets clouded and we lose sight of what is good and important and we need someone outside of us to clean our windows so we can see again. Sometimes that cleaning can hurt a little and not be nice to hear, but boy do we need it! Don’t try and run over the people cleaning your windscreen. Rather listen to them, pray about it, and change what is needed. Know His truth so you can speak it in love. A friend who sharpens you is a gift from Jesus. Be that friend.

Colossians 3:13 “Forgive as Jesus forgave you.”

1 Corinthians 13:5 “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”

If you have a list of bad things people have done to you, where they have failed you, please go and burn it right now. If it’s a mental list, ask the Holy Spirit to wipe it from your memory. Unforgiveness kills more than shark and bear attacks put together, and probably hurts more too. It strangles your soul, destroys your friendship and leaves no room for God’s forgiveness to give you life. To quote Frozen, “let it go, let it go..”, but please don’t turn your back and slam the door. Pray for that person. Ask Jesus to use you to love them. He will.

Real life story: A friend disappointed me. I wanted to write them off and ignore them to “make them pay”. Instead Jesus grabbed my attention and I felt to pray for my friend. Not prayers about how they had made me sad, but prayers for their life and family and things they were dealing with. So I did. The next time I saw them, as I looked at them I felt such an insane amount of love for them [had it been a musical I would have broken into song right there]. Not because I’m a special, loving person, but because God’s love for that person and His forgiveness for me overwhelmed me as I let go of the hurt and let Jesus in.

If Jesus can do that in me, He can do it in you too. Let it go and let Him love you. Then love people like He loves you.

There is so much to say about friendship, but before this turns into a book, let me just leave you with this thought:

“Greater love has no man than this: to lay down his life for his friend.”

Snakes & The Cross

Numbers 21:7-9

The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

The Israelites sinned against God, and the consequence of that was that God put poisonous snakes among them. They obviously weren’t stoked, it made them realise what they had done and who God was, and they cried out to God to take away the snakes.

God heard their cry, but didn’t answer them in the way that they asked, God didn’t take away the snakes, and in fact He said that they would be bitten by the snakes. But what He did do is give them a lifeline, a way to live through the snake bites. All they had to do was look to the bronze snake on the pole and they lived.

The same goes for us. We have sinned, and always will sin against God. And for our sin there are consequences, things that aren’t generally great. We often cry out to God to take the consequences away. He hears us, and in Exodus 2:23-25, it says that God hears our cry and is moved with compassion.

Yet He does not take the snakes of our sin away, instead He gives us a way out. He offers us life amidst the poison of death that will bite us. All we have to do is look to Jesus [Hebrews 12:1-3], God’s Son, and the Cross, and we’ll live.

Heartsick

Proverbs 13:12

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

People tend to disappoint; it’s just what we do best. Most things seem to disappoint actually. I have found lately that I have exceedingly high expectations for everything and everyone, and that hope is too often deferred and I'm let down. It makes my heart feel sick. There are things that I so deeply long for, that nothing and no one can satisfy. The false hope the world offers us will continually fall short and fail us. Even in the best job, the greatest friend, the highest marks, the most beautiful marriage, we are heartsick, and have no hope without Jesus.

But inside of Jesus we have this hope, Christ the hope of glory, as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure [Hebrews 6:19]. All our longings will be fulfilled, our expectations lived up to and our hearts at peace. We will become trees of life, entirely satisfied and secure in Jesus our hope.

The Answer

“Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

1 Kings 19:11

Remember Elijah, the guy who asked God to set fire to the rain (/water), who had the faith to challenge a bunch of Baal prophets to a sacrifice and fire duel, knowing that his God would come through and win? [Read all about it]

Did you know that just after that insane display of God's power and Elijah's faith, Elijah ran away, hid, and prayed that he might die [1 Kings 19:4]? This is because the crazy queen of that time swore by her gods that she would kill him. It's amazing how quickly Elijah forgot that his God had absolutely annihilated her gods just moments before.

Remember what God has done in your life. Don't let your circumstances change your view of God, rather let Him change your view of your circumstances. Know that the Lord is great, that our God is greater than all gods [Psalm 135:5].

So God appears to Elijah, and says, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Why have you abandoned your call? Why have you run away from the things I have for you? Why do you fear that over which I so clearly have the victory?

Elijah responds by telling God about the situation he faces. I don't want to make light of what Elijah was facing. People hated him and were trying to kill him. Pretty sure, I'd also hide in a cave. And I don't know what's forced you to your cave, but if you're in a hard time, the best place to start is to speak to Jesus.

Did God respond with, "No worries, mate, I'll go out and smite them all!"? I'm sure that's what Elijah was hoping for. "I'll make all your problems disappear, Elijah!" Nope. God's response was to invite Elijah into His presence. God's solution to Elijah's problem was Himself.

And God's solution right now to anything you may be facing is Jesus. Yes, God is all powerful and can change any situation in the blink of an eye, but He wants us to want Jesus more than any solution or happy ending that He could give us.

You're lonely? Come to Me [James 4:8].
You're hurting? Come, there is healing in My presence [1 Peter 2:24-25].
You're anxious? Come, give Me your burdens for I care for you [1 Peter 5:7].
You're feeling weak? Come, find your strength in me [2 Corinthians 12:9-10].
You don't know what to do? Come, walk with Me and I will direct your way [Proverbs 3:5-6].
Come out of the cave you're in and stand in the presence of the Lord.

God then asks Elijah the same question again. Elijah responds in exactly the same way. His circumstances hadn't changed, people were still trying to kill him. But this time God tells Elijah how to deal with it, and what He would do. God had all the solutions, but He wanted Elijah to realise that He Himself, the Lord Almighty, was, is, and always will be, the first and ultimate answer to all things in life.

Jesus is the answer. Come to Him.

It's Not About You

Romans 1:11-12

"I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith." 

We all need a little bit of courage. And that's what friends are for. 

God has put stuff in you that will give strength to others. It's not about you. Don't be selfish. Don't hide your faith.

Why? Because God's calling on every person's life is so much bigger than we can understand. When we encourage, we become a part of people's stories, of history and, most importantly, of His Story.