Gideon’s strength

I have recently been reading the book of Judges as part of my community’s reading plan. It was a refreshing reminder for me to read Gideon‘s calling…

11 Then the angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!” 13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” 14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” 15 “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” 16 The LORD said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.” 17 Gideon replied, “If you are truly going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the LORD speaking to me. 18 Don’t go away until I come back and bring my offering to you.”The LORD answered, “I will stay here until you return.”19 Gideon hurried home. He cooked a young goat, and with half a bushel of flour he baked some bread without yeast. Then, carrying the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out and presented them to the angel, who was under the oak tree. 20 The angel of God said to him, “Place the meat and the unleavened bread on this rock, and pour the broth over it.” And Gideon did as he was told. 21 Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and bread with the staff in his hand, and fire flamed up from the rock and consumed all he had brought. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he cried out, “Sovereign LORD, I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!” 23 “It is all right,” the LORD replied. “Do not be afraid. You will not die.” 24 And Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and named it “The LORD Is Peace.” The altar remains in Ophrah in the land of the clan of Abiezer to this day. 25 That night the LORD said to Gideon, “Take the second best bull from your father’s herd, the one that is seven years old. Pull down your father’s altar to Baal, and cut down the Asherah pole standing beside it. Judges 6 :11-25 (Taken from the New Living Translation Bible)

When I read this passage two parts of it is highlighted in my heart; namely: the angel’s assurance and the calling of Gideon.

First of all, the angel of the Lord asserts Gideon that the Lord is with him in verse 12.  More often than not I encounter students who are Christians and struggle with the assurance that we have for certain hat God is with us in his Spirit. The moment we are saved, (through our spiritual baptism), the Holy Spirit resides in us and we can be certain of that.   Some say it is in a way like having a lamp plugged into the socket. God indwells in us already through his spirit; we are already plugged in so to speak.

I enjoy reading Gideon’s calling because it is so much like it is in our days. To my mind, us Christians fall too much in the cheesy “miracles of God”, that is, we expect God to respond to our prayers in ways that may put the natural structure of the world, the scientific  reality into question. After all, we do find remarkable things in our Bibles; things that we hold true and are “scientifically impossible to have happened”. I ask God that at least 100 students trust Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and then expect it to happen with no one to reach out to them. It can happen but I don’t think that is what God is up for. When I read Gideon’s story I see myself so much like him, failing to expect God to do his miracles through us, through our insufficiency. I love how the angel does start reinforcing Gideon in the knowledge that the Lord is with him.   Through our believing in Jesus, God is with us and this gives us the power and the confidence that God can do mighty things through us, with us and in spite of us. However, I must confess that turning water into wine is a very very cool miracle to witness.

Yet again, we see nowadays, just like Gideon, the big question.  If God is with us, then why all these things happening? Why do bad things happen?… I would not like to direct the point of this homily on this but I would venture say that these things are not a proof of the nonexistence of  God but rather the presence of brokenness, and sin in us, in the other, in the entire world.

In light of God’s presence in us, the second point comes along with it. Y’weh wants to use Gideon to deliver the people of Israel from the Midianites. It’s a bit as if God was telling Gideon: “Gideon, I want to use you to deliver my people, are you in?.” Gideon in return flips out and wonders “how on earth would that be possible? For starters, if God is with us, then why are we going through all this? Plus why me, the least of least?”

Throughout the history of God’s people I see that he thrives in turning the weakest link into the strongest. It’s part of the immense analogy that we see about God’s people: the last will be first, the smallest tribe and people become the biggest, the weak, then becomes the strong.  Gideon doubts in humility. Later on Mary, the mother of our Lord, doubts in humility. We doubt that God can do great things in our lives for his glory. We see ourselves too small, ignoring how big we are in Christ.

“Why me? How come you  are calling me to do this and that? I am just one person, I can’t change the world, or my surroundings for that matter!” I often complain to God. In return, he assures me that “it is all right”, “Do not be afraid. You will not die” (verse 23).

What is God calling you to do? What is keeping you from taking action steps towards it? Do you truly believe that God is with you and that you will not die?

My prayer for you is that you may find the confidence to fulfill God’s calling to be one person with God to change the world for the glory of His name. So be it.

Abba’s Kid

English: Gideon is a judge appearing in the Book of Judges, in the Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The powerful fearful

Deutsch: Bleiglasfenster (Ausschnitt) in der katholischen Pfarrkirche Saint-Pierre in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Darstellung: Der Zöllner Zachäus und Jesus, siehe Saint Pierre de Neuilly 1898-1995, Bayeux 1995 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1 Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was one of the most influential Jews in the Roman tax-collecting business, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowds. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree beside the road, so he could watch from there. 5 When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!”he said. “Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today.” 6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the crowds were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled. 8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have overcharged people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” 9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a son of Abraham. 10 And I, the Son of Man, have come to seek and save those like him who are lost.” Gospel of St. Luke 19:1-10  (taken from the New Living Translation)

In the summer of 2010, the city of Granada (southern Spain) was preparing herself to welcome the annual festivities of the Corpus Christi. This feast has been celebrated in the ancient city for centuries. The whole city becomes a feast, with ornaments everywhere, and the city centre becomes even more populated than it normally is. Yet, in this specific summer  something different was happening. At the Alfa (stands for Almanjáyar en Familia) civic centre, Marcos* was rather disappointed.  Unlike other days, Marcos was sitting alone on one of the school’s chair using a big cardboard box and putting random stuff  such as used straws, pieces of paper and magazines in it. Normally he would use his gypsy, witty irony to make fun of other kids; something which was custom among the children of that neighbourhood  when it comes to entertainment.

I approached Marcos and asked him: “Say, what are you creating?” At first he didn’t even look up, since he knew very well who I was. He recognised my voice, and today, it was not the day for me to be encouraging him to behave and to be a good boy. “It’s the fair!” he responded harshly and with a sense of entitlement. “Wow, the fair!” I responded . In a closer glance, you could see that the former chaos was actually not quite so but a nice distribution of the structure of one of the tents of the fair. He had the roof out of straws, the tables and chairs for the people, the dancing area, the little ponies for the kids to ride. It had got everything.

I was very impressed of the detailing and originality of Marcos. Up to this point, it was quite a hard grasp for me to  make him sit and do a couple of math problems or simply read aloud a short story to practise his reading skills. “You could be an architect in the future, Marcos” I remarked. “Me? An architect? Are you crazy, teacher?!” he snorted, as if I was absolutely outside of my mind to think that he could be an architect.

A bit of this is what I see in the person of Zacchaeus.  I always found Zacchaeus as the short (Luke 19,v.3), fearful guy who was so worried about what people would think of him that he would mask himself and shyly climb a tree to be able to see Jesus. In my opinion, I think Zacchaeus had struggled all his life to be like the rest without being like the rest.  His stature forced him to excel on other things to prove his worth on something else besides his failed stature. As a way to compensate for this, he ends up being this powerful chief collector. He had been scarred all through his life by people that he wanted to get back at them by becoming the mean, wicked man who would be in charge of collecting the tribute to the Caesar. In a way he would have spent his young life,  just like Marcos, thinking “If they can’t love me for who I am, they will fear me and despise me. At least those are also feelings.” Again, this is simply a way I like seeing the Zacchaeus of Scriptures, but I could be easily wrong . Yet, it seems right to me that Zacchaeus would be this way; that he would want to know what’s going on and why so many people were following this somewhat prophet. It makes sense that only in this way he would be curious enough to go and climb a tree.  He was able to see Jesus, to know what’s going on, in other words, to be like everyone else, but at the same time, he would be remaining in his comfort zone. His status quo would then be that of being involved in a different way, pretending he does not care while actually caring.

The astonishing part of this piece of Scripture comes when Jesus actually notices his presence and not only does he notice but he talks to him. I love this part. In verse 5 we can read  “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today.” Jesus comes out of his way to reach him. He is graciously spotted out from among the crowds, despite of all that Zacchaeus thought he was: the proud, the sinner, the outcast, the short, the powerful, even the forgiven perhaps. Like Marcos’ incredulity at me suggesting him being an architect, Zacchaeus is having Jesus in his home, with incredulity and amazement.

It’s funny that in spite of how we see ourselves, God sees us through different lenses.  I think that whether you are a Zacchaeus or not, whether you are less or more than the rest in accordance to your self’-image, Jesus calls you by name and wants to live in your home.

In other parts of Scripture, the body is referred to as the house of someone.. Jesus wants to reside in your heart, in your life, in your home. He wants to be part of you.

Zacchaeus, out of such a generosity of Jesus wanting to dine with him, he responds with generosity: he wants to start giving part of his possessions to the poor. He extends his forgiveness to his surroundings.  “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a son of Abraham.  And I, the Son of Man, have come to seek and save those like him who are lost.” says Jesus. I take two things from Jesus’ answer: first that the promise of Y’WH to Abraham is carried out through the New Testament, and even to this day and two, that salvation comes from Christ, accepting that he is Lord and Saviour of my life.

Furthermore, out of that salvation, freely given to me by Christ, I am prone to give life to others as well, just like Zacchaeus did.

I find it right for me to call to your response to Christ. He wants to become the whole in your life. He longs to extend his death and resurrection onto your life. Will you accept Christ today in your heart and proclaim that he is Lord and Saviour of all, of you?

Let me conclude this month’s message with an invitation for you to pray the following prayer, in other words, if you want to but do not really know how to welcome Christ in your heart, let me help you with a prayer I encourage students to talk to God with (please notice this is not some sort of magic formula that you pray and its magical words will make you saved; it is a prayer from your heart, the words are not that important)

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally.

Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.

I open the door of my life and receive you as my Saviour and Lord.

Thank you for forgiving me of my sins

and giving me Eternal Life.

Take control of the throne of my life.

Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

 Abba‘s Kid

* the name has been changed for security reasons.

Encouragement in Jesus

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) – The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experienced when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.” 2 Corinthians 1:1-7 (taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, Anglicized Text)

About two months ago I tore my meniscus. I knelt on the floor from the sofa and my tibia twisted in a very painful way. I immediately   felt the need to stretch out my leg to make it pop, just like I have done many times before. Unfortunately, this time it was different. I popped my  knee by stretching out the leg, I flexed it to get up and I could not stretch the leg again. The pain was so agonising and excruciating that for the first time in my life I cried from the pain of my knee. I soon went to St. Anthony’s Hospital whose staff helped me ease the pain until the operation.

During all this time, ‘The Passion of the Christ‘ (directed by Mel Gibson) was on TV. It was hard to conceive how on earth did he endured all that pain and suffering. How did he managed to carry a massive log of wood until the Golgotha. It’s mental! “I feel you, brother,” I recall myself telling the Jesus on the screen in the midst of my narcotic-filled reality.  So when I read this passage some days ago, I was brought back to the time when I tore my meniscus. I think it’s absolutely wonderful what St. Paul brings us in this passage. Paul reminds us of the encouragement that we find in Christ to endure and how as a church, our calamities and our joy both have a purpose.

I hardly think of the sufferings of Christ being abundant  in my life (v.5) but come to think of it, it really makes sense. If we have a new life in Christ, then my sufferings are just a constant reminder of Christ’s sufferings for me.

For example, when I was waiting for the operation, I had to use crutches. It’s amazing how much an injured knee can deprive one from autonomy. I barely could do anything on my own.  It was hard to admit that I needed help from others. I had to render my lack of autonomy and accept help from others.

Secondly, Paul brings not only a message of hope through our reality in Jesus but also challenges us to fulfill our part as the body of Christ. In other words, because we can find both suffering and encouragement in Christ, we can go to him whenever we suffer for encouragement; because our support comes from God, we ought to support others.

Some days after the operation, I had Greg and Debbie – my landlords- come over and lay their hands over my knee. It was an encouragement for me to see how the pain disappeared for a little while.  The members of my community were a massive help to carry on as their care, prayer and encouragement really helped me understand that I wasn’t alone. At the same time, my suffering helped them to carry on doing God’s will as a community. They also felt the calling as a body to protect me through prayers, and I think that’s what St. Paul is talking about in this passage. He speaks of his suffering being beneficial to the church. In verse 6 we see this as when I was “afflicted…your consolation and salvation” was taking place. Even in pain, God brings glory to His name by shaping his Church more as it should be.

 

Many students cannot find a close relationship with Christ because they fail to understand why there is still evil in the world if Jesus is Lord of all. Why is there pain, suffering, tragedies, etc? Why do even Christians suffer so much? Why do they have cancer, or they die in car accidents?… Well, this is a much bigger topic to talk about and I would not like to use this space to answer all this. However, I would like to point one of the reasons that we find in this reading. Paul  brings the point that in our suffering we see Christ, so we ought to find encouragement through Christ in the promise of his resurrection and future coming.

 

My prayer for you is that you may always be encouraged regardless the circumstances knowing that in Christ, you have your salvation, your companionship. May you be fulfilling your role in the Church. Amen

 

Abba’s Kid

The King of kings

I recently came across with this passage in Scripture in my church and I thought it would be good to reflect on them prior the new season of advent:

“33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  John 18:33:37 (taken from NRS with Apocrypha version)

I find this passage very significant before Advent and Christmas and all the festivity that is to come because it really reminds us what to my mind is an important aspect of Christology: that Jesus Christ is a king.

The first thought that pops into my mind is linked to the question Pilate asks Jesus: Are you the kings of the Jews? Clearly, different sections of the Jewish population of the time would expect the Messiah to be different from the other section. For some he would be a warrior coming from the high priests; others would expect him in a rather sci-fi view. None of them would remotely expect Jesus to be who he was. “Are you the King of the Jews?”… I ponder on this question and I wonder if we see him as the King of the Jews. I mean, I personally see Jesus as a friend, my personal saviour, a role model, my hero, my god but hardly ever as a king, let alone the King of the Jews. Surely we hear on Sundays that he is the king of the Jews, the King of kings, the king of the Earth, the king of the Church, and even the King of the Institutional Church. He has sovereignty above all.

Yet, he says in verse 36 that his kingdom is not from this world.  I often wonder what Jesus meant by that statement other than the literal meaning. Right at that point of  trial, he is not the king of this world as he hadn’t conquered death and sin just yet. However, when I read his answer slowly, I feel convicted in my heart and start questioning if he is truly the king of this world, if he is truly the King of MY world, my heart,my life? Is Jesus the king of your world?

So I think and think and come to the conclusion that if it is on my own account, that is, if I consciously  and utterly believe that He is my king, then yes. Unfortunately, I fall into the discordance of thinking that I tend to give more credit to the burden of my sin, or my rebellion.In other words, I fail to see him in my life and then what? is he not the king?… Whenever I dwell in my guilt alone, I become a Judas, where hope, and restoration do not come to me. In those times, I let the king of lies, the usurper take over my soul. But that’s not who God is. I have already said that if I declare with my heart and my mouth that Jesus is Lord and has been raised up from the dead, then I am saved, then I can confidently say that HE IS MY KING!! Satan has no power over me nor does he of Jesus being a king.  Accepting who he is in my life and accepting who I am (a total wreck),  makes me like king David, messed up to the bone but restored by his grace. His kingship is not about me but about him; my life is not about me but about him.

In 1995, Jessica a sweet 7-year-old girl from southern Spain, had another brain seizure that caused her high temperature and put her parents’ faith to the test once more. When the temperature had gone Encarni, her mum recalls her saying “Mama, I’ve seen Jesus. He was seated on a throne, with a golden crown and golden rings and he was telling me: “Jessica, I’m with you, do not fear” For an Evangelical family from the south of Spain, seeing Jesus in pictures was not normal and very likely, Jessica had never seen a picture of the western guy we normally paint on pictures with crowns and golden stuff. The chances for her to have seen this in real life were very low. From that day on, Jessica has had the privilege of seeing Jesus as that crowned man who would call her name in that “dream when she was very poorly”.

Jesus calls us today to be welcomed in our hearts as our King and ruler; then we can hear his voice, a voice of love and mercy and we know this because Jesus is Lord and he is Love and he is the Truth and “those who are on the side of truth listen to my voice” John 18:37. Like sheep to the shepherd so we hear our Abba’s voice. Let us rejoice in believing Jesus is the King.

My prayer for you today is that you can admire Jesus as a king and that you make him king of your life.

Abba’s King

Diversity in the body

” Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24 whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25 that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” 1 Corinthians 12:14-25(taken from the NRS with Apocrypha version)

Prior to this part,  St. Paul explains to the church of Corinth that the gospel is supposed to reach Gentiles, that is pagans as well as the Jews albeit not in the same order( Jews first, then Gentiles). However, when reading this part above, it always reminds me of my role in Jesus’ church, in Jesus’ body. Yes, we are all the body of Christ but each part has a function, doesn’t it?

In any good classic fairy tale, each character has a specific  role in the plot, a function. Such is the importance of their roles that Russian professor Vladimir Propp came up with a list of functions within Russian folktales proving the relevance of each role. The list has 31 functions out of which it had to be followed in that specific order, or so it seemed.  Like tales, we too have some functions. Our roles are designed for a purpose, so when I read 1 Corinthians 14 onward, I cannot but think the role that we all have in the body of Christ.

“It’s like the body”, Paul says, “one can not expect the eye to be the whole because it is not the body but part of it; nor can we expect the ear to consider itself the whole body.” Yet all of our organs form the body, however different they may be.

Of course, my purpose is not more important than yours.  Paul says in verse 22 that the weaker is  indispensable. Back in 1993, I was given a book on bees for a school project. I learned then that there was a queen bee, a drone and a worker bee. I couldn’t quite get what was the point of a worker. I mean, they get all the hard work and all for the service of the queen really. So I asked my father, “Dad, why do workers exist, I mean, why are they not queens?” My father’s answer was, “Well, that’s what they do, they work. That’s what they’re there for.” If I had to choose, I would probably pick the drone but the truth is, our roles are given in accordance to our abilities. God gives us gifts so that we can be part of his plans and our gifts are indispensable, however poor, low, or useless they may seem. You may not be the brain but you may be the eyes, or mouth, or even the pinky nail. The freedom comes in our choice to accept our role no matter how irrelevant it may seem to us. What is my role in the body of Christ? What is your role in the body of Christ?

As I said before, prior to the former passage, St. Paul says that in the Spirit “we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (verse 13) For Paul, there were Gentiles and Jews, freemen vs. slaves which in our days would be like Catholics and Protestants, clergy and lay people.  I think these big names of our society are equal to gentiles and Jews, or free person and slave. At the same time, it is alright if you are not a pastor or an elder, a bishop or a  deacon; you can still execute a role within the body of Christ. God longs for your part in his body. He wants us to use our gifts in its full whatever that may be look like.  As Christians we ought to forget surnames (like Catholic, or Anglican, or Methodist…) or job positions (elder, pastor, priest, missionary) and really take up the responsibility of what we are called to do as the body of Christ. It is time for us to let the glory of Jesus’ body to boldly glow through us.

To achieve that, perhaps we  need to ask ourselves the question I raised before; what’s our role in the body of Christ: Where am I needed? Where and how can I give out my God-given gift? Where can the Holy Spirit use me? How can I show a gospel of life and freedom? In my mind I simply want to be a worker but in my heart I tend to act like the “king” bee. What kind of bee are you? And why or why not are you happy with the role you have been given? I don’t care what denomination you are or how “Christian” is your lineage. I want you to be part of Jesus’ body and find enjoyment in it.

My prayer for you today is that you find your role in his plans and enjoy being part of the body of Christ.

Abba’s Kid

Shame

 

As I said before, I’m coming back with a topic recently mentioned in my posts: shame.  On this occasion, I would like to talk a little bit more about it and its significance as opposed to finding God’s love in our lives.   In other words, what is shame replacing in our hearts?

The way I see it, shame is one of the biggest problems of humankind in the 21^st Century.  I can’t think of anyone who is actually free from shame issues in their own life.  We all have problems dealing with shame because to my mind, shame is highly connected to our self worth and how we see ourselves.

Shame affects us differently in different areas of our being. Some people find shame in their physicality; that is, there is something about them physically that they don’t quite like, or they feel worthless because of that physical condition.  Some weeks ago, I was watching TV and found an interesting show called  Embarrassing Bodies. Basically, people who have some sort of complex come to this team of doctors that helps them sort that problem out.  The problems are primarily physical, and the majority of the cases are resolved through a surgical intervention.  I particularly liked the case of the lady who suffered from varicose veins, and her shame was such that she even had gone to a tattoo artist to cover the veins on her leg that she was so ashamed of. The truth is that she was extremely beautiful, and without considering the pain that it may have caused her, they were not as “awful” as she thought them to be.  Eventually the doctors directed her to a surgeon who removed the varicose veins and she felt “restored” again.  I’m personally glad that science is bringing restoration to people’s problems.  Unfortunately, the shame that comes from physical discontentment is normally derived from some sort of shame inside us.

I’ve never been good at sports. In fact, I was very bad at it. Any sports I would try, I would suck at. In my life, I’ve practiced taekwondo, swimming, boxing, kendo, aikido, archery, football, scuba-diving, etc. I did taekwondo the longest. I practiced it for over 8 years and I remember how shame came to me through my performance.

There was this time when our “dojo” – or whatever you call a taekwondo school- performed an exhibition/friendly competition among ourselves for the families of the people who were in the school. When it came to one-to-one fight, I got very anxious.  When I feel exposed and I don’t wear my glasses, I’m absolutely out of my comfort zone. So my performance resulted in a massive defeat. After that fight, we returned to our respective families to go home. When I got to my father, feeling ashamed for having lost, I embraced him so hard to avoid shedding tears. To my dismay, my father said “Why didn’t you fight back? You don’t know how to fight!” The tone of his discontent was of utter despise. That experience of rejection from my own father was infinitely harder than having lost the fight. I say this with no trace of reproach or anger.

When I tried football, or as the Americans say, “soccer,” I experienced another contribution to my shame. One day, I fell down on the ground in the middle of the field that was made of concrete. The shame of being fat and falling down was so that for whatever reason I couldn’t get up. I could see my mum standing close to the entrance looking at me with what seemed to me like embarrassment. The pain of my heart was worse than the pain on my knee, which was bleeding through the ripped tracksuit.

These two instances bear both physical and emotional shame. The physical shame wore off eventually, but the inner shame I have carried for so long.  I think that emotional shame can be worse than any physical “flaw,” because for better or for worse our bodies change, and in that change, the shame can also vanish. Emotional shame, on the other hand stays longer unless we start a process of healing within us.

I had carried that load of shame on my shoulders for years because deep down, I felt that I was not loved my parents, appreciated by any friend, wanted by any employer, desired by any woman. I was seeking love in places that could reject me, and in fact, they did. I felt let down by so many people because, truthfully speaking, I was putting my trust, my love, my heart on them. The bottom line is, love is what my heart was crying out for, louder and louder through many years, and I knew in my head already that God was to fill that void of my heart.

However, for many years my feelings didn’t match my mind until one day it finally clicked in me. I felt God telling me: “You are my beloved son (John 17:23), the one in whom I delight (Psalm 139:14). I love you just as you are, with your imperfections, your clumsiness, your mistakes, and your sins. I take you as you are right now and I embrace you with tender love and care. You are one of my sheep, and I let you rest under the shadow of my wings (Psalm 63:7).” This brought comfort to my heart in the knowledge of my worth being in Christ and my love is God, my Abba. I am Abba’s kid, and I need nothing more.

Shame comes to govern our souls and it becomes this heavy, seemingly never-going-away chain that convinces us of the filth that we are, the tremendous disappointment that our lives are to others, the ridicule that we are and the feeling of unwantedness in our hearts. A child in a car listening to his mother’s cry:  “You’re so bad…no one will ever love you”; a teenage girl who gets picked on in class because her looks are not as they “should be”; a parent who ignores his/her kids keeping them away from their life or vice versa; unloved wounds could last for so many, many years… But God’s love is never ending, never fallen short, always satisfying, always filling, always seeking your heart, always there; even when we don’t feel it.

My prayer for you is that shame goes away from your heart to be replaced fully by the love of God in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Abba’s Kid

“2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, 3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.”  Psalm103:2-6 (taken from ESV)

 

Lies are not true

JESUS WALKS ON THE WATER (Photo credit: Fergal of Claddagh)

“22 Right then, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowds. 23 When he sent them away, he went up onto a mountain by himself to pray. Evening came and he was alone. 24 Meanwhile, the boat, fighting a strong headwind, was being battered by the waves and was already far away from land. 25 Very early in the morning he came to his disciples, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified and said, “It’s a ghost!” They were so frightened they screamed. 27 Just then Jesus spoke to them, “Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” 28 Peter replied, “Lord, if it’s you, order me to come to you on the water.” 29 And Jesus said, “Come.” Then Peter got out of the boat and was walking on the water toward Jesus. 30 But when Peter saw the strong wind, he became frightened. As he began to sink, he shouted, “Lord, rescue me!” 31 Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him, saying, “You man of weak faith! Why did you begin to have doubts?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind settled down. 33 Then those in the boat worshipped Jesus and said, “You must be God‘s Son!” Matthew 14:22-33 ( taken from the Common English Bible)

Let me share a story beside this passage of the gospel of Matthew that is brought to my mind when I read it: In  the summer of 2005 I went to the beach with some friends for the first time. I remember the event quite well. It was the summer when Sean Paul would sing “we be burnin” and I was allowed to go to the beach by myself. Before that the whole family would go to the beach together as we lived in a coastal village.

That first time has stayed particularly fresh in my mind because it was  the afternoon that I nearly drowned. It was hot, the waves were not too dangerous and quite honestly I didn’t pay attention to the lifeguard flag to see if we could bathe or not.  A bunch of us arrived at the beach and even though it wasn’t very far away from home, it was definitely sweating hot.  We had started getting into the water when all of a sudden I could feel that the tide was rougher than it had seemed at first glance. ” Wow, there’s strong undertow today”, I remember chuckling. My friend J who was close to me also noticed it. Before we could actually realise we found ourselves dragged into an eddy. To speak the truth, I was the one getting sucked in and my friend J tried to help me by pulling me out of the whirlpool. He  eventually got sucked into a different eddy fairly far away from me, I found out later. By the time he got caught up into the eddy, I was already struggling to keep my head above water and I couldn’t jump to move my arms so that the people from the shore would seek help. Nonetheless, they did notise and  the last view that I got at this precise moment was of people on the beach getting closer to the shore in an alarming way.

Then, I stopped fighting; I knew I was going to drown. The first thought that I had, quite honestly, was  “my parents are not going to know that I’m dead”. Then,  I recall having this sort of emergency call to the Heavens in which I told God  “Father, please help me”…

The mystery comes in the story when I felt this push on my back that enabled me to touch the bottom of the sea  and eventually come out of the sea. I reached my beach umbrella and laid underneath it, coughing water out of my mouth. It was then when I started processing all that had just happened.

At first, I thought it was my friend J who pushed me to the shore; that somehow he managed to swim around the eddy and push me out. Then I saw he was already out as if nothing had happened. When I recovered from the shock I approached him and asked him if he was the one who had pushed me. It was then when he told me he had got caught up in another whirlpool and that he couldn’t get out either.

I like calling it a “mystery,” but not because one could not explain what happened back then. Probably, had I known a little bit more of biology, I would have understood how eddies really work or how I really did  manage to get out of it. Yet, to this day, I still don’t know what really happened. I don’t really know!

What I do know is that for a while, I did struggle with believing that a miracle could have happened in my life; that God may have actually pushed me out of there in a powerful, supernatural way.

For quite  some time I thought I was stupid for believing that something like that could happen.  I grew up in a family where the spiritual, the supernatural, the intangible was not to be believed because I would be a simpleton, stupid, naive person, whom the “wicked” people would have brained-washed.

But what my heart tells me is that, if I truly believe what the Bible says, I could also believe that God worked it out for me in ways beyond human capacity that day. I believe by faith (faith not earned by me but through the merciful grace of God) that Jesus died for my sin, that I am saved by believing this.  If  I believe this condition to be true to the core of my heart , then why doubt about God’s deeds?

What I’m really talking about is not whether God did this or that at a certain point in my life. That’s completely irrelevant to you. I really encourage you to believe to the core what the Bible says.For many years, I have suffered through doubts. Call it lack of faith, call it whatever you want. I would question if  God was really for real, or if what the Bible says was true.

I believe those are lies the enemy puts in our minds. That is why I like this passage so much. If you look at a picture of the event, it really portrays the craziness of the situation. Jesus sends his disciples off to the boat and the waters go wild as the night approaches.  Everything looks alright up to this point, misfortunate but very common nonetheless.

What really dazzles me is the fact that Jesus walks ON the water. It’s crazy! He walks on the water in the wild storm, and he tells the terrified disciples not to be afraid. This is absolutely unbelievable.

I think doubts succumb to us when we try to put our understanding  into God’s understanding and by that I believe we limit God. We make God a finite, tangible entity, who does not resemble the God, the Creator, not even a bit.  He made us in his own image, not the other way around. It is ok for us not to understand things from the Bible, the truth that reveals to us who God is; but to my mind, it is not ok to disregard what we don’t understand.

I once met a student who believed that some parts of the Bible were not true and others were actually true. I often wonder where is the line between what’s true and what’s not.

I almost drown once and I still live to say that when I prayed “God help me,” I managed to put my feet ashore. Some people may find it a great coincidence, I found myself with my eyes fixed on Jesus and he made me walk on wild water. I don’t think everything in my life is supernatural but I leave room for the possibility.

My prayer for you today is that you may NEVER loose heart in the belief of  who God is and that the currents of the tides of life  may not cause you to drift away from Him.

Abba‘s Kid

“she came close to drowning, and in these extreme moments, she recalls how she cast herself upon God in a prayer of surrender, fully expecting to die. In fact, her surrender meant that she stopped fighting her circumstances and acknowledged that the power of the undertow was beyond her control. This in turn released something in the situation  and freed her from the downward drag.” [taken from At Sea with God, Margaret Silf, page 89]

Enslaved to shame

Inquisition condemned (Francisco de Goya). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“20And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.“Matt. 9:20-22(taken from ESV)

I have been a Christian for many years and every time I would here this piece of Scripture, the preacher would always talk about the great faith this woman had. Indeed, her faith was astonishing. Just with the thought of touching Jesus’ garment she thought would heal. I simply stand astonished by this great faith.

However, I do ponder upon what happened before all this took place. A Jewish woman who has been bleeding for twelve years. My educated guess from this premise is that she was not feeling  very well neither physically, nor emotionally. Bleeding for quite a while does cause lack of iron in the body which leads to weakening of the body, plus bleeding women in Jewish traditions were considered unclean. If she was married, the husband would not touch her and she would have to make offerings to Yahweh constantly. People would know of her condition and they may think “well, she must have done something very very bad for Yahweh to cause her such calamity”.  The shame she must have felt over those twelve years must have been absolutely soul-nagging.

Yet,she ventured with difficulty to touch Jesus; “just a bit of him would be enough”. Just a little bit of Jesus will suffice. On the cross Jesus gave his entire self for me. Is the whole of Jesus enough for me? or does my shame imprison me so much I can’t even reach his cloak?

Our God is not a short-sighted  god. He sees into and beyond us. He sees our shame, our imperfection, our brokenness, our dislikes, our pleasure, our sin, our memories, our hurt, our pain, our scars, our dreams and wishes, our deepest desire whether bad or goods and our most shallow ones… He is God almighty and he tells you “come to me just as you are”. In the words of Brennan Manning,  God invites you to come to Him saying  ” I’ll love you as you are, wounded,frightened,angry, empty,lonely not as you should be… cause you’re never gonna be as you should be” (emphasis added).

Jesus paid for your shame, for falling short when you try and for when you don’t even try. He paid for you all your inequities. I truly pray that these words may sink in. God’s Grace is infinitely bigger than our shame. May she stop our shame so that we can move forward.

Only accepting our brokenness we can accept God’s saving grace. God’s mighty powers cannot be reduced to the concept of human’s mighty powers. For Jesus gave it all. As the song says, Jesus paid it all, He gave it all for our own sake, for our retribution to be restored and cleansed. God did not save anything for us but gave us his most precious gift, his only child so that we may have life with him; not because we deserved it. How marvellous this is! If I truly believed this in my life, if we truly felt this in our minuscule faith great deeds would be done for his glory. Now I don’t like dreaming for the sake of dreaming but let us believe this in our heart. My prayer for you today is that this became engraved in the deepest part of our heart and that from there it would change our whole heart, our whole lives so that we may not be mediocre followers of Christ but true, authentic adopted children of the Father of whom Jesus came and “dwelt among us”(Jn1:14). Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. I’ll come back to this shame topic soon with more thoughts.

Abba’s Kid

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Lent

Many churches  around the world celebrate the beginning of a new time in their calendar in terms of liturgy and events: the beginning of Lent.

With Ash Wednesday, Lent is inaugurated. While Easter celebrates the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, Lent celebrates the 40 days when Jesus wandered in the desert prior to his ministry.

Three big words come into place at Lent: fast, prayer, and alms-giving.  All of them are biblical words highly connected both in Scripture, and in meaning. The way I see it is as follows:

Fasting: often understood from food (abstain from eating). In a general way, fasting is preventing oneself from that particular thing that takes  most of our time and effort, and that pulls us away from God. In my life, I have fasted from all these false idols I have had such as Facebook, chocolate, playing video-games, etc.  I felt I needed these things… even more than I needed Jesus; hence my fasting from them.

Prayer: Preventing oneself from what takes away most of our time (like watching television, for example) provides  us with more time to focus on prayer, in which God can reveal during this special time wonderful insights to our daily grind. I can say that, though it brings closeness to God, praying about our flaws takes a lifetime, not just 40 days.

Alms-giving: Again, in a much wider interpretation of the word, I see it as giving to the needed from what you have , i.e. some money, or some time, or some knowledge from what you’re learning, etc. I once used Lent to give time: talking to my grandma as a result from not playing video-games. It was such a brilliant time that I still carry to this day.

So in a way, fasting gives us the room to pray, and prayer leads us to give ourselves to others… just like Jesus.

My heart aches when I see what happens before and after Lent. A wonderful Baptist mother once told me ” Carnival’s motto is: sin as much as you can because you will have to repent at Lent”. That’s pretty much what happens before Lent, we pay extra effort on sinning, as if we didn’t sin without trying already. Then, Easter comes,and  “Yay!! We don’t have to fast anymore!!”. We go back to where we were before Lent. I certainly have done this and I often wondered what was the fasting for, then. A good Lent is the one that really challenges your life to be more like Jesus and not a suffering time for the sake of suffering.

If one’s rationale for contemplating Lent is to be sad, to beat oneself up, or to suffer because they deserve it, then Lent is not worthy. Lent is an inner desire of self-examination to be more like Jesus and remove those things that stand in between us and Him. Lent should be the time-out in the mist of our daily chaos, not because of obligation, but because we want to be constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit.

My prayer for you is that if you contemplate Lent, you do it for the right reason, and that this time may be so fruitful that it changes your life completely so that when Easter comes you know how much Jesus died for.

Abba‘s Kid

RELIGIONS & DENOMINATIONS & THE HEALTH OF COMMUNITIES

I have recently had a conversation with a student who was slightly upset with his community of believers.  After an interesting conversation about rap and whatnot, he finally opened up saying what follows: ” I sometimes feel like leaving everything behind, start my new church and remove everything that I don’t like from Church”.

I was shocked at first when I heard all this since I didn’t expect such a  statement. However, I quickly came back to my senses and saw the astounding logic of it: frustration within the church. This poor guy was frustrated with the way sometimes things are done in church. He was confused and disappointed because he was at the “mercy” of his community leaders in terms of choosing the present and future in the community.

He carried on talking and his confusion led him to also say: “in the end all religions are the same”.  I didn’t judge him but certainly got alarmed when I heard that because I do not believe all religions are the same whatsoever. It is true that some religions share the same origins, but all of them are completely different from each other. A Buddhist doesn’t believe in the same truths than a Christian or a Jewish person. Basically, the basis are different and that’s what differs one religion from the other.

Eventually, I found out that what he meant by “religions” was denominations within Christianity. Indeed, not only did I think he was right but also, that it is precisely the similarities what gives the reason to Christians to be called Christians over their different denomination.

I’m not going to try to solve the whole dilemma of denominations here; whether they are good or bad, whether they should exist or not; or if we ought to turn them all down to have one unified Church of Christ.  What I would actually like to do is to draw the attention to all those community leaders, pastors, priests, group of elders and so forth to really wake up and be very attentive to the needs of their communities.

My work as a missionary is to help students to have a heart for reaching others for Christ, by leading them towards a healthy community in accordance to what they want and need, whether that is an existing community, or building a new one for them in their environment. This is already a hard graft for our team since there are not a great deal of Christians students willing to serve the Lord with their whole lives everywhere they are. My task is to let the Holy Spirit use me to set fire in their hearts so that they see the need in whatever encircles them.

Unfortunately, when that miracle happens the fire is doused by church leaders, or alike. Churches and communities tend to be controlled somewhat in a tyrannical or domineering way sometimes. This is sad because, when that happens, the church or community turn to be an asphyxiating  place; in other words, what is supposed to bring life, takes it away. What is supposed to bring growth, crushes it down to decrease.

This reality has recently been around my mind and I’ve read some articles and had some conversations with my co-workers. I have found out that there are certain features that are very typical of our brokenness.

One is the lack of wanting to let it go. Pastors, priests, and alike normally work very hard to be in that position. Some denominations don’t allow someone with the gift of shepherding to be a spiritual leader unless they had a PhD. Other denominations need to go through seminary, be ordained and then be able to serve in a community.  This hard aspiration to fulfil God‘s call remains indwelt in the leaders’ mind in the shape of lies and grudges by believing that they are superior than the rest. It’s the staff syndrome, when they grab the staff they forget who gave them the job.Yet,  Jesus Christ makes it very clear that in order to be the best among others, we have to be the lowest.

Effort and time are bad allies for pastoral leaders as they both get their mind ingrained in what it seems to be “their right to be”.  I have recently read somewhere in the web that a good leader is he who knows how to delegate in accordance to people’s gifts.  The Gospel shows how Jesus was an excellent leader in this sense as well. He delegated to his appointed ones to do tasks he was able to do.

As a student leader, my task is to ignite people’s heart and help them do what I can very easily do by myself. It is hard most of the time, because I unfortunately find my worth in what I do and not in God; but I have to stop and ask myself: Am I willing to let God work through me?, am I willing to stop being so selfish, look beyond myself and let others do what God wants them to do? Am I an instrument of God, or am I an obstacle in His plans? Usually I fail to ask myself these questions, and as a result, I have to admit shamefully that because of me, God didn’t accomplish His plans. The good news is that He knows my heart so well that He can work around my imperfections,  and His Will gets done… in spite of me.  This is where I find great comfort: to know that no matter how much I mess it up, He is sovereign over all things and He can restore the chaos I create.

” A community should be joyful and noticable”, Mns. Dominique Rey – bishop of Toulon – says. If you go to your community with a bad attitude, knowing that you’re not going to enjoy it, then don’t even bother step outside the door of your home.  A joyful community is the body of Christ. It welcomes, rejoices together, and learn from one another. Things that belong to the past or are not effective to help those new comers feel comfortable, then they shouldn’t be there. Jesus welcomes everyone, and we are sent by Jesus himself to make disciples (Mt 28). We can’t afford having old legalistic behaviours when we’re talking about a Jesus who doesn’t like legalism. We cannot exclude someone who is wanting to have Jesus in their lives if we’re talking on behalf of Jesus. The Gospels say he didn’t do it, so why should we?

In the case of massive churches, where the congregation numbers add up to over 10,000  people, the need is to give each one of the church-goers a deserving importance. To God, each and everyone of us is equally important, and the level of importance is unmeasurable; therefore, we have to give them that importance. As members of the Church our task is to encourage one another in the unending love of Christ Jesus. Hence, to accomplish this task there should be small groups that would gather frequently, and every once in a while meet with the entire body in a massive celebration.

Lastly, and most importantly, there is no growth without a purpose.  The basis of Christianity is self-giving, not self-focusing. Giving ourselves to others should not be a choice but a command. In fact, it is a command. Mathew 28:20 says,

” and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)

The communities and churches of all denominations should be focused outwardly not inwardly. There’s not need to say “come to church” but “I’ll bring you the church to you”. Jesus did go to those who needed Him and did not linger in doing so. We should go and seek those who need Jesus and bring Him to them in the shape of help, and word, whether that means going to a pub, or a classroom.

I often think that my job would be much easier if I had a room and expected those who would never go to church come and seek help. The truth is that my room would be empty. I have to seek them so that they can know, and this attitude should start from the leaders so that their flock would follow wholeheartedly.

Even though I see the brokenness in humankind (myself included),I am very confident that all this can be done because Jesus said he would be with us to the end of times. With His help, we can do it.

 

Abba’s Kid