Reflections – Page 4 – Still Learning

Midlife Crisis

I am currently working my way through the third series of The Crown on Netflix, and last week watched the episode from 1969 which featured the historic moon landings. Without wishing to spoil it for anyone there was an interesting theme that was explored in this episode, namely a midlife crisis that Prince Philip experienced.

It’s not unusual for people at a certain age to question the point of life. They may have fulfilled all their dreams in life and still have an emptiness that cannot be shaken off. Alternatively, they get to an age where they realise they are not going to fulfill their childhood dreams and find that difficult to cope with. Some at this stage might simply shrug their shoulders and just carry on with life. Others though try to seek solutions to this dilemma. They endeavour to find their satisfaction in things e.g. change of job, a new younger partner, new hobbies, trendy haircut, new clothes, buying a motorbike, getting an earring etc. The list is exhaustive and incidentally none of them work!

In The Crown, Prince Philip thought he would find his answer by meeting with the astronauts from Apollo 11. Interestingly before meeting them he had attended a meeting, organised by the Queen’s dean, for clergy who were experiencing a mid-life crisis. However, he was very dismissive of the people at the meeting saying that instead of sitting around talking they should be men of action like the astronauts. Strangely though when he meet the astronauts he was very underwhelmed. They were just normal people.

The episode finishes with him returning to meet with the clergy and opening up about his feelings. He talked about how he needed to rediscover his faith and then expressed how helpful it had been meeting with them.

I thought that this was interesting. As Christians we know that true satisfaction is found in God alone. However, I expect if we were being honest we would have to admit that is not always the first place we go when we need answers to the ups and downs of life. Why do we do this? What makes us not turn to God straightaway?

The Psalmist tells us:

“You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.” (Psalm 145:16 NIV)

We need to learn to believe this promise and seek to find our satisfaction in God alone. Whatever stage of life we are at whether: young, midlife or old.

New Habits for a New Year

At the end of a year it’s not unusual for people to reflect and take stock of their life and think about changes that they would like to see in the new year. That might include: getting a new job, starting a new hobby or joining the gym. The thought is often a new year equals a new start. Many of us therefore make new year resolutions to that end. Sadly we normally struggle to keep our resolutions beyond the first week of the new year!

Although we do not need to wait until 1 January each year to look to make changes in our lives, often people feel a renewed desire to do this when the new year starts. Whilst new years resolutions are not wrong, I believe that it is more important that instead we seek to develop new habits for a new year. Habits need to be developed. They do not just happen overnight. It takes time. Developing new habits will invariably mean old habits will need to go.

For example, if you decide that you are going to get up 20 minutes earlier each day to read your bible in the morning then part of this habit will no doubt involve going to bed 20 minutes earlier each night. This means that self discipline needs to be exercised in not staying up and watching late night television or looking at social media!

It’s good to remind ourselves that as we seek to develop new habits it’s not just a case of following rules, but rather the development of godly self discipline. Paul reminds us in Galatians 5:22-23:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is………… self-control”

One of the new habits I want to introduce in my life in 2020 is the better use of my time. In particular I will be endeavouring to spend less time watching television and being online. I want to use the time previously spent doing those activities with undertaking more reading. I am very conscious how easy it is for me to waste countless hours looking at a screen and am reminded of Psalm 90:12:

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

As I close this post permit me to ask you a question: What new habits for this new year are you hoping to develop?

Immanuel – God With Us

Happy Christmas!

Today is the day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

The following devotion from Charles Spurgeon reminds us of the amazing truth Immanuel – God with us:

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)

Let us today go down to Bethlehem, and in company with wondering shepherds and adoring Magi, let us see Him who was born King of the Jews, for we by faith can claim an interest in Him, and can sing, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” Jesus is Jehovah incarnate, our Lord and our God, and yet our brother and friend; let us adore and admire. Let us notice at the very first glance His miraculous conception. It was a thing unheard of before, and unparalleled since, that a virgin should conceive and bear a Son. The first promise ran thus, “The seed of the woman,” not the offspring of the man. Since venturous woman led the way in the sin which brought forth Paradise lost, she, and she alone, ushers in the Regainer of Paradise. Our Saviour, although truly man, was as to His human nature the Holy One of God. Let us reverently bow before the holy Child whose innocence restores to manhood its ancient glory; and let us pray that He may be formed in us, the hope of glory. Fail not to note His humble parentage. His mother has been described simply as “a virgin,” not a princess, or prophetess, nor a matron of large estate. True the blood of kings ran in her veins; nor was her mind a weak and untaught one, for she could sing most sweetly a song of praise; but yet how humble her position, how poor the man to whom she stood affianced, and how miserable the accommodation afforded to the new-born King!

Immanuel, God with us in our nature, in our sorrow, in our lifework, in our punishment, in our grave, and now with us, or rather we with Him, in resurrection, ascension, triumph, and Second Advent splendour.

Trust and Promises

During this general election campaign one issue that I have heard raised is that of trust. The voters want to know if they can trust the promises that are being made by politicians of various parties. I think we have every right to ask this question as this election is very important. The result has far reaching consequences which stretch well beyond our country. Therefore, it’s important that as we weigh up our decisions we feel that we can trust what the politicians are promising us.

However, it’s not just politicians that need to show that they can be trusted. All of us need to be people who others trust. When our families, friends, neighbours and work colleagues are asked about us what would they say? Are we those that they trust or would we be those who they do not trust?

We, like our politicians, have no doubt made promises that we have never kept. How many times have we said to someone, “Yes of course I will do that for you” and then failed to deliver. I expect there have been times when we have completely accidentally forgotten to fulfill our promise. There may have been occasions when we wanted to keep the promise but realised that it was going to be costly to do this and didn’t keep it. Sadly, if we are being totally honest though I imagine there may have been times when we had no intention of keeping our promises.

What about promises that we make to God? I expect we have made many promises to God in our lives. It’s not unusual for us to make promises to God in our worship songs. Do we keep them though?

I will finish with the following passage from Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 which is very challenging:

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool.

When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfil it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfil your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfil it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, ‘My vow was a mistake.’ Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.

What prevents us from learning more?

Following last week’s post on more to learn this week we are looking at what prevents us from learning more. I have identified four things that can hinder and prevent us from learning more.

Sin
Everyone sins, even the most godly person. However, that is not an excuse for us to fail to wrestle and struggle against the sinful desires we encounter. When we do sin we should immediately ask God for forgiveness and seek to turn from that sin. If we refuse to do this then it will effect our relationship with God.

One of the ways is that we will feel a gap opening up between us and God. This will often result in us not praying and neglecting to read the scriptures. Instead of having a hunger to learn more of God we will become lukewarm in our relationship with God.

Unconfessed sin will have a negative impact on us, but when we confess our sin we experience true forgiveness. In Psalm 32: 3-5 we see this in David’s life as he says:

“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of the summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my trangressions to the Lord’ – and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”

Distractions
Another way that we lose the desire to learn more is when other things distract us from spending time with God. These things may not necessary be bad or sinful in themselves, however we need to be aware of these distractions.

We may for example get into the habit of staying up late and watching TV, YouTube videos or browsing our favourite social media sites. Providing we are disciplined and careful with the above activities they can be relaxing. It’s easy though to fritter time away on these instead of spending time learning more about God. If we find ourselves going to bed late and feeling too tired to read our bibles or pray in the mornings, then we need to take action.

Whereas sin is normally obvious to us if we are being totally honest, distractions are not so. It might be a while before we realise how we have not been using our time wisely. When this is revealed to us it’s time to address the matter and introduce some changes to our lifestyles. Maybe we could consider having a day off the internet each week to make time for God or look at other lifestyle changes.

Tiredness
Another thing that can hinder us learning more is tiredness. There may be times in our lives when we are feeling tired and finding it a struggle to get through the days e.g.

When a mother has had a baby and is up during the night to feed them.
When we are involved in a busy work project which involves us working long hours
Following a medical operation when we have to spend time resting

In these situations it would be nonsensical to consider taking on a theology course, especially one that involved a commitment of several hours studying a week! It might be that the best we can manage is to listen to a Christian podcast for 5 minutes a day to edify ourselves. We have to accept that this is a season in our life where it’s not possible to spend several hours with God. The time will come eventually when our circumstances change and we can look forward to this.

Of course, if the tiredness is caused by too many late nights watching TV or YouTube then there is a simple solution: go to bed earlier!

I’m too old!
Another reason can be that we feel we are too old to learn more about God. I’m not referring to an arrogant attitude here that says we know it all. Instead I’m thinking of the lies that come into our mind that suggest we have left it too late in life to learn. This is a subtle form of attack as we might be very keen to grow in our knowledge of God, but feel rather dejected that we are too old and have missed the boat.

It’s probably unlikely that as a ninety year old that you are going to enrol on a three year residential theological course. However, there is no reason why you cannot consider doing a three or six month distance learning course.

In God’s eyes we are never to old to spend time to learn more about Him. There is no retirement age in God’s kingdom and we should never let old age prevent us from serving God.

Conclusion
Perhaps these four areas above have been ones that have prevented you from learning more about God. Maybe there are other reasons. The good thing is that once we discover the reason we can do something about these hindrances that are stopping us growing on our knowledge of God.

More To Learn

No matter how long we have been a Christian there is always more to learn for each of us. No one can ever say that they know everything and there is nothing further to learn. In fact I sometimes feel that the older I get the more I need to learn!

With this in mind it is good to ask ourselves what steps are we taking to learn more of God? It’s all very well knowing we have more to learn but what should we do about this? There are many different ways we can do this including:

Making Time To Learn from Others
There are so many resources which are available to help us. We can listen to preachers, teachers and scholars, learning from their experiences of God. The internet provides us with access to a huge amount of Christian material which can benefit us spiritually. We may not be able to attend a conference for various reasons but there is a good chance that material from it will be freely available on-line for us to consume.

In addition to listening to God’s Word being preached from sermons we can also feast on the rich variety of spiritual books that are available to us. Not only can we purchase books from our local Christian bookshop we can find free books available on-line for us to read too.

Christian blogs can also be a source of blessing and edification to us and many offer the option to subscribe to them so we can read their latest postings.

Making Time to Read Scripture
It is important that we make time each day to read and study the scriptures and deepen our knowledge of God. If we neglect reading the bible we will find it difficult to grow as Christians.

Although we live such busy lives it is worth deliberately setting aside a time each day, this could be morning or evening depending on your personal circumstances, to read the scriptures. Even if you find it difficult to do this it is an essential habit to develop. I have found it personally helpful to set aside a period of time in the mornings to read the bible after I have had my shower.

Some people find it helpful to have a notebook with them when they are reading the bible so they can write down what God might be saying to them through the scriptures.

To assist us in our reading and studying of the bible it can sometimes be useful to have a commentary available. There are a number of bible commentaries that can be found on-line for free that we can use.

Making Time to take a Theology course
This will not be appropriate for everyone but another possibility is to consider undertaking a theology course. Anyone interested in this has various different options which they could consider.

There are theological colleges that offer residential courses of varying lengths. Some churches run short theology courses that might be another possibility if a residential one is not practical. Additionally there are a number of courses that are offered for distance learning.

If this is something that interests you it’s probably best to have a chat with one of your church leaders who will be able to advise you on this.

Conclusion
Hopefully the above has given you some ideas of how you can continue to learn. There is always more to learn, no matter how young or old you might be. Let us strive to continue to learn for as long as we are on this earth.

What did I give to the Church Service today?

If I am being honest I admit that on occasions in the past I have had a completely wrong attitude when attending church services. This has resulted in me thinking and actually saying “I didn’t get much out of the service today.” However, instead of making that statement I should have asked myself the following question: “What did I give to the church service today?”

I’m not talking about how much money I might have placed in the collection bag. Instead I’m referring to how much of myself did I actually give to God in the service. Did I worship God wholeheartedly during the service? Did I fix my eyes on Him as I joined in the singing or was I inwardly criticising the musicians or singers?

When the sermon was being preached was I praying for the preacher or wishing they would hurry up and finish? Did I have my ears open to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice through the sermon or did I switch off because I disagreed with one small minor point of their theology?

After the service did I go home and moan about the fact that no-one spoke to me at church or did I make the effort to speak to others after the service finished?

Obviously no church is perfect because it contains humans and none of us are perfect. However if we all, (and especially me) approached church with the attitude of “What can I give to the church service today?” we might be pleasantly surprised at the outcome!

Forgiveness

One of the most astonishing and liberating truths we can embrace is that God totally forgives our sins. However do we actually believe this truth? I guess many Christians would say that intellectually they agree with this. Do we though really truly believe this in our hearts?

I don’t know about you but sometimes I have wrestled with doubts of whether or not God’s forgiveness applied to me. Strangely, I don’t doubt that God can forgive others! I enjoy reading and hearing testimonies of how in the depths of sin people have met with God and received his forgiveness. Yet for some reason it’s my own forgiveness that I have struggled with.

Nevertheless, despite doubts and struggles the truth is God has forgiven my sins in Christ Jesus. There is nothing that I can do to earn forgiveness. God has offered me this most wonderful, liberating and life changing gift. It is freely given to me if I will accept it. Who would not want this gift: the forgiveness of sins and the promise of new life in Christ.

It does not matter if you think you are not good enough. None of us are! If salvation was based on our own goodness then there is no hope for anyone. God’s forgiveness is available. Are you going to ask Him for it?

Ordinary People

Most of us are normal ordinary people. We come from ordinary families and spend our time with similar people. There will be no statues made of us or books written about us. The majority of people in the world will not know of us. That does not though lessen us as people or make us inferior to those who are famous.

These days though, for some reason, it’s not unusual for people to want to be famous. We can observe this from some who may achieve fame through a reality TV programme. Sometimes sadly some base their self-worth on their fame. There are others who might gauge their importance on the number of social media followers they have. They are not content to be ordinary people.

I have recently been reading a biography of Charles Spurgeon, the famous 19th century preacher. One of the lessons from Spurgeon’s life is the important role three ordinary people played in his conversion and early part of his Christian experience.

Spurgeon became a Christian in January 1850. Due to the bad weather on that day he was unable to reach the church he had intended to attend but instead went to a small chapel. No-one knows who the preacher was that Sunday. Spurgeon himself in later years, when recalling that day, was not very complimentary about the preacher’s style of speaking. However God used this unknown person to make Himself known to Spurgeon. An ordinary person had faithfully preached God’s word and the young Spurgeon was changed forever.

William Cantlow, an unknown baptist pastor baptised Spurgeon later the same year. The only reason anyone has ever heard of this man is because he baptised Spurgeon. Once again an ordinary person who was faithfully serving God.

The third ordinary person who played an important part in Spurgeon’s life was a cook called Mary King, who he spent time with whilst at Newmarket school. She spent several hours with him sharing the truths of the Christian faith and helped him grow in his theological understanding. Mary was just an ordinary person. She never preached or was a church leader. However, she played an important role in the development of Spurgeon’s faith.

All three of these individuals were just ordinary people who served God faithfully. Yet they played an important part in the development of a man who became a famous preacher known and loved all over the world. It’s impossible to know the number of people over the years who have been effected by the preaching of Spurgeon. However, without the three people mentioned above, the numerous people who have been blessed by Spurgeon may not have been reached.

The important lesson we can learn here is that God uses ordinary people, like you and me, who are faithful to Him.

Reading a Biography

This year I am endeavouring to vary the genre of the books that I read. I think one of the most interesting genres can be reading a biography.

At the time of writing this posting, about 25% of the books that I have read in 2019 would be classified as a biography. The subject matters come from a different number of fields e.g. sport, Christian leaders, spies, writers, political leaders. No matter what field the person is in there are a number of recurring themes that interest me.

How did the person become well known?
Although it may not be true of every single person for the majority of them there was a time when they were not very well known. You could even call them a nobody. Then they became famous and well known. How did they make this transition from a nobody to a somebody? Was it years of hard work that eventually paid off or did they suddenly appear from absolutely nowhere? Maybe they were in the right place at the right time and things just worked out for them?

What were they like before they became famous?
It can be interesting and enlightening to read comments from their contemporaries before they became famous. That might be from their school teachers, school friends, people they grew up with, their coach at the local sports club etc. Did they display obvious talent at an early age or were others better then them?

What are they really like as a person?
Most of us have only seen the public face of the person in the biography we are reading. However what are they like in real life? We may be reading about a famous Christian leader but what is he / she like away from the pulpit? Are they a good family person? Do they always make time for their children? Are they known for their humilty or do they have a high opinion of themselves? What do the neighbours say about them?

What did it take for them to be successful in their field?
It’s likely that the majority of us do not appreciate the hard work and commitment it takes to be successful in a field. Whilst we need to have a talent in that field, hard work is also needed to make the most of that gifting. I may be the most naturally talented tennis player in the world but without a lot of training I will not reach my full potential. This will no doubt involve sacrifices which may include me not seeing my children for weeks on end because I am at an overseas training camp. Am I willingly to to make that commitment? Do I want success at any price? The person we are reading about has had to make these difficult decisions.

What about their failures?
Unless the person writing the book is very selective in the biography then at some stage in their life the subject matter will have encountered failures and setbacks. We all encounter these but the important question is how did they respond to them? Did they just give up or did they persevere? How did they cope with their failure? Did they learn from it or was it repeated constantly? This part of the biography has the potential to be a great source of encouragement to us. We often put people on a pedestal and don’t expect that they will fail. However, when you read that someone that is well known has made mistakes and come out of the other end you realise that you can too!

If you have never read a biography why not visit your local library and have a look at what they have available to borrow. You can always start with a short one to get you in the habit of reading a biography. Alternatively your local Christian bookshop should have some biographies, if you wish to discover more about well known church leaders. Whatever one you select they are an interesting genre to read,