Did you know that in this day and age you can buy a toilet seat that closes slowly so it doesn’t slam down? That’s right! Instead of risking a toilet seat slam, as it’s known in the trade, you can release the seat at it’s apex, safe in the knowledge that 5-10 seconds later it will gently touch down without a sound. I know because I own one of these marvels of the modern world. Or I did until it broke. That’s right something has happened and now my slow close toilet lid is no more than a common gravity obeying lid.

The thing is I always forget that it’s broken until the very second I have let it go, and as it loudly crashes into the seat I have a moment of frustration at my ever decreasing capacity to remember important things like this. This unique phenomenon doesn’t affect me anywhere else, I am not a habitual toilet seat slammer. I generally assume that other people aren’t as up to date in loo seat technology as I am and place their seats gently down. But my seat was designed to be dropped! It was drop proof! I had become so used to it, that now it is hard to unlearn what I had learnt! It is hard to form a new habit.

As it is with my toilet so it is in life. Forming habits is hard, and is it me or are good habits much harder to form than bad ones? And although I may not have a noisy toilet seat to remind me of every time I fail to stick to a good habit, I do have my backstabbing mind to point out my every fault and failure. Surely there’s a better way? A way to form good habits quickly and effectively?

Matthew 11:29-30 ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’

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Last time I wrote about Adam.

The first man.

The blueprint.

The short term man who couldn’t make a stand. But thankfully the story doesn’t end with Adam, it’s just the beginning. God’s plan is for the whole of creation to be restored, to be redeemed. But for that to happen he needs a new Adam, a long term man, whose very life and death are the ultimate stand. One of the Bible contributers, Paul, describes Jesus as the last Adam. Paul sees Jesus as this new Adam, the trueprint. Like Adam, Jesus was to be tempted, unlike Adam, Jesus wouldn’t bow to his own desires.

Just like Adam, Jesus is in a garden. But this isn’t like the garden of Eden, this is not a place of freedom, life and laughter, it’s a garden of death, sword, betrayer’s lips, and savaged ears. Jesus is no fool, he knows what’s coming, that within hours he will be beaten, mocked, humiliated and nailed to a tree, and he is praying – praying so hard that one account tells us that drops of blood fell from his brow. And what is this last Adam, this trueprint praying at the time of his greatest test? He is praying for a way out. Yes you read that right. ”Father this burden is too heavy, it’s too much surely you can’t expect me to? There must be an out, a plan b?” Jesus? Praying for a way out? An escape?

It’s understandable really, he’d spent three years teaching these people how to live a better life, and none of them really got it, not even the ones he was closest too and now, right as he was praying some of them were arming themselves, gathering the local hired thugs to come and force him to his death. And his friends? The ones he needed in his darkest hour? Oh they were catching up on their beauty sleep – know who your mates are? A Carling advert this wasn’t.

It’s very easy to skim over the significance of this prayer, this request for God’s plan to be changed, to think of it as a minor blip in an otherwise perfect life, a slip in the heat of the moment, a quickly uttered mistake even more quickly forgotten. But it is in fact none of these. It is the real and heart felt emotion of a man who loves life and who really doesn’t want to lose his. Jesus repeats this prayer three times. Three times he begs and pleads with God that there be another way. Three times he asks that his life be spared.

But, there’s always a but, that’s not the whole story. You see in order to keep your attention and to draw out the suspense, I have omitted a small but important line from Jesus’ prayer. A line that means this Adam succeeds where the first Adam did not, a line which is long term as opposed to short. A line which takes responsibility, a line which saved your life.

‘Enough about me, Father Your will be done Your way.’

Previously published on Ebs and Flows …

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I was recently asked to do a five minute talk for a mens breakfast. As I pondered what to talk about I thought about Adam.

The first man.

The blueprint.

But as it turns out Adam didn’t do all that well. The story goes that God made a helper for Adam called Eve. The serpent came to Eve and told her to break the one rule that God had given. You see it wasn’t a hard life in the Garden of Eden, there was only one rule – don’t eat that fruit, the rest is yours.
The snake tells Eve it’s actually ok to eat that fruit and that everything will be better afterwards, and so she does.

Hang on – where’s Adam? Shouldn’t he be looking out for this woman? This helper? This gift from God?

Genisis 3.6 ‘6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.’

Adam was right there with her. The whole time. Yet he said nothing. Being a married man myself I can understand that perhaps Adam just wanted to keep the wife happy, he didn’t want to rock the boat, perhaps he didn’t have the energy for a disagreement. He was thinking in the short term.

Adam was there when God gave the one rule, he knew all about it, yet he couldn’t speak up when the time came. Instead he just went with the flow. Imagine if Adam had had the courage to think long term, to do what he knew to be right, even if it meant an argument ensued, even if the short term result wasn’t attractive.

Unfortunately for Adam it gets worse. Having both eaten that fruit, God comes to see what the crack is. He asks Adam first. And Adam basically says to God ‘It was that woman’s fault – and you were the one who put her here!’

Short term thinking is easy, and often instantly gratifying. The world revels in short term thinking, and the current financial climate is an example where this ignorance of the long term leads. By thinking in the short term Adam misses the chance to make a stand for what is right. How often I replicate this in
my own life, feigning ignorance or misunderstanding to avoid making that stand.

I’m sick of that kind of life. It’s time for a change.

Previously published on Ebs and Flows …

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I have two beautiful nieces and one terrifying nephew. They are all under six and all hail from the same womb. Said womb and womb mate couldn’t attend church one morning so Anna and I offered to take the kids to church for them. I ended up with Molly who is 20 months, the mathematicians among you may have noted that this left the wife with approximately one more child than me. It will be ok, I thought, we’ll only have them for 20 minutes then the older two will be in Junior Church, and I can skive in creche … or it could be a family service where everyone stays in.

With a little assistance from other parents and church members we coped, and about halfway through Molly threw her dolly to one side and settled into my neck for a bit of a snooze. It started with a wayward thought – I hope I have a girl – and that was it: a tidal wave of sadness, loss and self pity crashed in around my fragile heart and mind. As I barely stayed afloat in thoughts of ‘why me?’ and alike the church started clapping. While awake Molly loves clapping, joining in exuberantly at any opportunity. It turns out she is no different in her sleep, and as her open palms slapped my neck and arm respectively the dam broke and I began to weep for the child I don’t have.

In the preceding months I had become numb to the pain of infertility, of the severely decreased chance we have of conceiving without assistance. I was telling myself it was just one of those things and that God has a plan. That morning it wasn’t just one of those things, and God’s plan didn’t look perfect. But as we stood to sing the next song and I struggled with my thoughts, my guilt about having such thoughts and also trying to hide the fountain that had once been my face, I saw him. He had been in the youth group when I was heading it up. I thought he’d be a Christian forever, invincible to the lure of the world. But the world doesn’t always work out the way it does in our heads, and my friend drifted. I’d spent more time with him recently and really didn’t know where he was with everything. But as I looked at him that morning I saw that he was singing and it dawned on me that if I feel so strongly about the child I don’t yet and may never have, how does God feel about this lost son making his first tentative steps back home?

Luke 15v20 ‘So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.’

God feels for His children more. More than I can know, more than my puny words can describe. And he also feels it for me, his heart breaking in time with mine as I grieve my current infertility. I only saw my friend sing one line of the song before I turned away. But the line he sang was perfectly appropriate. A prodigal son singing about a sacrificed one:

“Thank you oh my Father for giving us Your Son.”

Previously published on Ebs and Flows …

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You want to see me angry? Come and watch me play 5aside. It might not happen every week but come a few weeks in a row and sure enough the incredible sulk will appear. The source of my anger? Me. Although if you are participating you might think my childish strops are directed at others. Off the pitch I am entirely realistic about my footballing skills – I’m no slouch, but I’m not going to be signing any contracts soon. However on the pitch I seem blinded to my middling skills, I demand perfection from my every touch, pass and shot. And should I mess up? Well then I am my harshest critic, I cannot forgive myself for any lapse in my imagined footballing skill.

What is amplified on the 5aside pitch plays out more subtly in real life. In real life I find it equally hard to live under grace, but not because I demand perfection from my every move. In life I am far too aware of my faults and this makes it hard to believe I deserve any grace at all. And what does this refusal to live under grace say? It tells God that I basically believe his sacrifice to be worthless. If I don’t live in the freedom and grace that Jesus died to provide in essence I am mocking His death. I am doubting that God is good to His word, that He knows what He is doing.

When Moses was told God’s plan he also had some doubts. When Job suffered awful loss He also had some questions regarding God’s methods. What did God say to Moses? To Job? What does He say to me?

‘Who are you that you question my plans? Do you see the bigger picture or just your own small world? Man up and answer my questions! Did you make the lips or cause man to speak? Did you put the breath into his lungs? Did you call light out of the darkness and cause it to shine? Did you carve mountains from rock, and sweep valleys into existence? Where were you when I built the earth? Did you measure the sky? Can you sue God for malpractice? Can you make a claim that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. Why do you refuse to live in freedom? Why do you chain yourself to guilt and regret? Did you design life? Is this your better way of living? Aren’t you tired of trying so hard? Of judging others and being judged? Will you humble yourself and watch me? Learn from me? Come to me, learn how grace works, I will not force anything on you. I will not burden you with more than you can handle and I will never desert you. Can you say the same?’
(Cobbled together from Job 38 onwards, Exodus 3 & 4, and Matthew 11 with a liberal sprinkingly of my own paraphrasing!)
Previously published on Ebs and Flows …

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I have tiny balls. Literally. I wasn’t aware of this incredibly affirming fact until I was examined by a urologist as part of our fertility investigations. I knew that I had been born with undescended testicles and that the local hospital could only find one of them. I knew that I had spent a lot of time as a child going back and forth to Birmingham Children’s Hospital to have the other cheeky fellow located and returned to his rightful domain one step at a time. But I didn’t know that this resulted in my balls being tiny. I didn’t know that these procedures while saving my life, could not enable me to give the gift of life.

Mr Urologist didn’t beat around the bush. After I informed him about my medical history he examined me and exclaimed “Oh yes they are tiny aren’t they.’ Call me cowardly but I decided that being flat out on my back with another man’s hands on bill and ben I wasn’t going to argue. “I have farmers come in here with balls the size of melons! Literally!’ He continued as if this statement would help my rapidly fleeing self esteem.

As I reflect on our journey so far and finish this blog series I wonder how big your balls are? Only this time I am not speaking literally, but spiritually. I don’t know how you conduct your daily affairs, I don’t know how brightly you shine for Christ, but I look at the world around me and it’s easy to conclude that as a group we aren’t doing enough. We aren’t risking it for a biscuit. Our spiritual balls are tiny. But that’s a great place to start.

Knowing I am physically disadvantaged in this area has meant all pride around it has fled. I don’t care if people know that I have tiny balls. I know it’s true, I know I can’t change it. But my spiritual balls? That I can do something about, I can be more daring, I can care less about whether people are aware that I know Christ and more concerned that they don’t.

Maybe I’m childish and just wanted to finish this series talking balls, but maybe I’ve got a point. Medical professionals would tell us to regularly check our undercarriage for irregularities – maybe you’re due a spiritual health check?

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 ‘Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.’

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Nick and Anna would like to thank everyone who has read this series and held them up in prayer. They are pleased to let you know that their adoption application is progressing well and should they get through the next two stages they will be approved for adoption in about 8 months.

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For couples who struggle to conceive Fathers’ Day and Mothers’ Day can be some of the hardest days of the year. As soon as you check Facebook you are assailed with reminders of the day which then reminds you of the fact that you are not a parent. Church services are full of reminders of the day, and of course you yourself have parents to celebrate with or remember fondly. So when I’m faced with the subject of fatherhood, how do I cope?

I cope by remembering my heavenly Father and how He Fathers me. I can’t explain why we got pregnant from IVF only to have that joy snatched from us three days later. But as I reflect on what happened and what God was up to I realise something. When I was born I had a condition that ultimately resulted in my low sperm count. Since that point I have been destined to find out that it would be difficult for me to be a biological father. So what is a loving God to do? Watch uncaringly as I find out that information? Sit unmoved as I go through the IVF process? Remain silent as I cry out for answers as to why? Or does this loving God gently guide me into a place where I can rest in Him. Does He withhold the worst of the situation until my faith was in a place where it wouldn’t be damaged by the hard times but strengthened by it? Does God prove His provision to me in a number of amazing ways before it seems that He isn’t providing? Does God lead my heart to the place where I can say with Job:

‘“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”’ (Job 1:21)

I am convinced that God ‘held back’ the heartache of miscarriage from Anna and I until we were in a place where we could cope. Yes it was still painful, it hurt and still does, but had that happened any earlier in my walk with God then I am not sure I would have faith enough to be blogging now, let alone calling myself a Christian. I don’t have all the answers, but I am happy to wait for them, because as Josh Garrels sings: ‘Farther along we’ll know all about it, farther along we’ll understand why, so cheer up my brothers and live and the sunshine, we’ll understand this, oh by and by.’

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After the miscarriage we decided to try IVF one more final time. There were more occurrences that could have been taken as ‘signs’ from God. Including almost half the money required arriving on our doorstep over the course of a weekend. We hadn’t asked anyone for any help. But unfortunately the IVF failed to work again – we didn’t get past the transfer stage this time.

What followed was one of our worst summers ever. Upon reflection we think that the realisation that IVF was now off the table affected us both, and during the summer we grieved again. Then there was a life line – someone offered us the money for a third round of IVF. We were confused and unsure, and ultimately we turned this offer down. The final straw for me was watching a video at church for that years shoebox appeal. The joy that a simple box of toys bought children’s faces moved me, and as I watched I felt I couldn’t withhold the offer of parents to a child any longer. So we started making enquires about adoption.

At the start of the adoption process we were invited to an induction evening. During this we were given newspapers which had profiles of all the children who needed parents. It was like some kind of horrendously necessary Argos catalogue of children. After three pages I put the paper down for fear of breaking down in tears at the things these young lives had had to bear. I wanted to stop the evening, to shout ‘I’ll take them all!’ Adoption is an incredibly Biblical principle, even if you ignore all of God’s talk about looking after widows and orphans you are still faced with the fact that God looked at similar catalogue of children, similarly neglected and lied to and He said ‘I’ll take them all!’ Some say when you become a parent that your life as you know it ends, God is the only person who this is literally true for – Jesus died so that we could have the privilege of being His co-heir, His brother or sister.

Romans 8:15-17 ‘For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.’

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The famous maxim leads us to believe that time heals, my experience is that this isn’t true. What I am coming to learn is that I don’t want or need it to.

Our first IVF cycle progressed all the way to pregnancy. We found out we were pregnant on a Friday and immediately started passing this news onto our friends and family. We had made the decision early on to be open with people about our journey. However by the middle of the next week the unthinkable had happened and we lost the baby.

Some medical ‘professionals’ accused us of not being desperate enough to have children, as though our whole life should be aimed at this goal. They didn’t get that we are defined by something bigger. Similarly our miscarriage doesn’t define us, it is something that happened to us. Somedays I can cope without choking up every time I see a baby, other days the desire to have children chokes me as soon as I wake. The pain doesn’t define me, but not to feel it ever wouldn’t be honest or human.

What time can do is give perspective, but for me this is something that came almost immediately. In the days that followed the miscarriage I was sorely tempted to feel sorry for myself and rage at God and anyone who would listen about how unfair the hand I had been dealt was. And then I’d turn on the TV and see Japan ripped apart by disaster after disaster. And I’d realise that I am one very small part in God’s massive creation and I am not the only one going through a hard time, by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t know what you are going through, or what you have been through. But the chance to pray for people going through a more torrid time than I was allowed me to refocus my gaze less selfishly. After all if I love myself enough to pray for my own tragedies then I should do the same for others.

Matthew 22:39 ‘And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

Time may not heal, but it certainly helps.

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Upon hearing our story many people are amazed by our faith. I don’t see it entirely that way. As I look back on events that have transpired I see God’s hand at work in a myriad of ways. These are mostly small and the sum of their parts gives me some comfort, but I have to be honest if it had only been one or two I might not have seen God’s hand so readily or indeed wanted too.

However one of the hard things in a journey like ours is wanting all the signs to say ‘yes’ to whatever it is you are desiring. It’s natural when what you want is a baby to take all sorts of things as a ‘sign’ from God that this is what will happen.

We took almost two years to decide on IVF. IVF is one of those things that is easy to form an opinion on when it doesn’t directly effect you, but now that it did affect us we prayed, sought advice, and weighted up the pros and cons, eventually leading us to explore IVF. The thing that struck us both was that there was so many stages where the process could go wrong. As we passed each stage and got closer and closer to embryo transfer, we tried not to get our hopes up too much.

It was so hard, as we felt within sight of the finish line with so much more that could still go wrong. And yet so many stages had gone right, some that we were statistically unlikely to get past. Could this be God’s had at work? I mean we got through collection (which I called harvesting) to fertilisation and then to transfer where one healthy embryo was placed into the womb. We couldn’t believe we’d come this far, and we so hoped we would have a child on our first IVF.

On one of the many journeys back and forth Anna and I had discussed names. We couldn’t agree on a boy’s name but we both liked Maisy for a girl. That night at a friends house we discovered this name meant ‘wished for child’. It all seemed so perfect.

What do we do when it seems like all the signs are indicating one thing and then the opposite occurs? How do we cope when we felt God was telling us something but it never transpires? What conclusions can we draw about a God who seems to cruelly trick us like this? As I look back at this event which seemed so amazing at the time I still believe God was speaking through it. As Anna and I come closer to adopting children I hold on to the promise in that name. I believe we will receive our ‘wished for child’ but that it will be in God’s timing and on His terms, not ours.

If you’ve missed out on the story so far, here is Part 1 (Firing Blanks)
& Part 2 (The Sperminator)

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