Read Hebrews ch 2 v 16-18.

Recite this out loud:

An always all-wise God- who knows?
Who knows the stigma of a fool,
Who’s called a fool by fools but throws
No insult back.
A ruler making every rule?
Who wants to rule with one;
With love, gone on and on, one tool,
My heart to crack.

A light outshining all bar none?
Which shines into the dark
So there from darkness I can run
And overtake.
A sunbeam shaft, a laser’s spark
Which pierces keenly, arrow thin,
Through eyelids, in and pins its mark,
My dawn to break.

One who could every victory win?
But tells his armies, ‘Stay’
And meets hell’s vaunted malice grim,
Weak and alone.
And counts the countless cost to pay,
No other man could share,
And dares to face that fearful day,
My fears to own.

One who is tempted with the snares
Of comfort, wealth and fame?
But never bows and so he bears
Them more than all.
So when I’m bowed beneath the same,
He knows the weight I take.
And on his strength I make my claim
And stop my fall.

One whom power and heaven forsake?
Sick joke to decent men;
Left writhing, nailed up, on a stake?
I ask Him, ‘Why?
And why d’You take the scorn from them?’
He answers, ‘It’s your scorn.
I’m torn, your chains to break, for then,
Your death I die.’

Who would run with me? For we
Would best not run alone.
Of all the runners there might be,
Just give me Him.
The lonely, tortured nailed one,
The man run through for me;
Now running with me, life re-won.
We’ll run and win.

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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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The water hit the dirt floor with a puff of dust as the cold, clear liquid splashed onto the surrounding stones. The three dirty men watched the last drops trickle from the skin, at once stupefied and angry.

- – - – - – - – -

The fall had been an especially dry one. Earlier that evening, as the men sat in the cave resting from another day of raiding enemy bivouacs and capturing their scouting parties, the talk inevitably turned to food and drink, which always seemed in short supply. A mother’s cake, a wife’s roast lamb, or a choice wine from an uncle’s vineyard … somehow, the nostalgia sated the hunger, rather than increase it.

This time, even their commander broke in to the conversation: “By God, I would love to drink from the well that I used to visit as a boy. Its water was cold, refreshing, and sweet. What I wouldn’t give for a drink of that water right now.”

“I think I’ll go look for some game for tonight’s meal. You two layabouts, why don’t you come with me?”
The fact that he actually entered into the banter that evening raised eyebrows. His three captains shared sideways glances with each other and one nodded to the mouth of the cave.

Outside the cave, the three big men didn’t even have to speak. They knew what their mission would be tonight. They put on their light armour, took their short swords, and an empty waterskin. The well of Bethlehem was on the other side of the main force of the enemy’s encampment — this wouldn’t be an easy task but it was worth it. They loved that man, and if just one of them returned with the skin, it was worth it to serve their commander for this simple wish.

- – - – - – - – -

It took the men a moment to register what had just happened. As the final drop fell to the dirt seemingly in slow motion, their mouths began to form a response — a rebuttal — a …

Instead David silenced them with a terse, “How am I supposed to drink this!? Far be it from me to drink it — the blood of my men!”

The conversations, the banter, the arguments, it seemed that even the dogs eating scraps around the fire — all went silent as the actions of the Three and the words of the Commander began to sink in. The power of the moment was lost on no one.

The three men, weary yet still reeling from the adrenaline, took up their positions beside their leader and dutifully began to unroll their beds. They would sleep beside him tonight, as every other night. Guards were posted at the mouth of the cave. Tomorrow was another day, and once again the assembled men would battle for the their commander and their Lord God.

- – - – - – - – -

Where are you, men?

Are there other men in your life that you would give your life for? Are you living and serving with a group of men that have your back and you would trust with your life? Let this challenge and inspire you: Find brothers that you trust, men that will go to battle with you and for you.

Men that would risk their lives just to see the thirsts of your life fulfilled.

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The practice of the presence of God was popularised by Brother Lawrence  in the classic Christian book of the same name. (The Practice of the Presence of God on Amazon)  It is a great aspiration but one most of us find difficult to achieve.

I came across a guy who does a lot of driving and consequently found that his day, with all its frustrations, was very difficult and he quickly lost any sense of the God’s presence. He decided that he needed some way of being constantly reminded in his car to seek out a space to acknowledge God.

As traffic lights were one of his major frustrations he thought he would use them to his advantage.  Instead of cursing his luck as the lights turn red he would treat them as a reminder to turn his mind briefly to God.

He says it has made a big difference to his day making him more ‘God conscious’.  Is this something you could try? or do you have other ways that help you practice the presence of God in the everyday?

Roy Gregory

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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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 “Ladies and Gentleman, the captain has just switched on the seatbelt sign in anticipation of upcoming moderate turbulence.” A string of words never followed by a cheery, “enjoy it!” When the bumps start I instinctively look out the window, just to make sure the wings are still there. I’m suddenly rudely aware of the extent that I’m not in control. Additionally, the thought occurs to me that if airplane disasters are simply statistics then every flight is a reduction in my odds.

So just how dangerous is turbulence? To answer that question, I turned to that master of knowledge, the Discovery Channel. Three words: airplane disaster documentaries. I was hooked. Human error, mechanical failure, unpredictable weather – I soaked it all in. You may think it an odd way to deal with undesirable high-altitude stress. Maybe so. My rationale was that the more I understood the more I would feel OK (as if my knowing that human error was the number one cause of airplane crashes was going to help me when I was strapped in to seat 49J with as much command over the elements as an Englishman with his BBQ hoping for that “perfect summer evening”).

My obsession with these re-enacted disasters did however bring some consolation. Through these dramas I learnt that airplane crashes are taken very seriously. They are investigated at great depth with the knowledge gained from the studies used to make future flights safer. As I learnt about the resulting developments in airplane technology my fascination with the complexity of airplanes grew and grew. I am in total awe of how advanced these modern vehicles are.

Men have sat in rooms and thought and schemed and sketched and calculated and come out with things like Concorde. Absolutely incredible. Airplane designers have my total respect. Airplane economy-section planners on the other hand … I digress.

As with my marvels at airplane technology I am profoundly in awe and wowed by scientific discoveries. As I write, NASA’s Martian rover, aptly named ‘Curiosity’, is scrambling around the Red Planet at the beginning of its two-year mission to see if conditions were ever suitable for life. Utterly fascinating.

Science describes the world we live in. It unravels mysteries that stun us with their complexity and beauty. Now, some have said, that with all of our acquired collective scientific understanding there is no need today for God to explain things. We can comprehend our world now in ways we couldn’t possibly fathom a century ago and therefore science and knowledge have replaced faith and superstition.

But science is what science is, a description of the way things are. Science relates theories and laws and provides a deeper understanding of what is physically there. Science enhances my understanding of the greatness of the makeup of the world but to conflate my knowledge of the way things work with the question of the existence of God, who explains why things exist, is to make a serious category mistake.

Being in increasing wonder of the way it all works only serves to enhance my utter awe of God. John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, writing in the Times put it this way, “The more Newton understood of the mathematical structure of the universe, the more he admired the creative genius of God, not the less.”

Science is the poetry we use to articulate the genius of God expressed in the creation of the universe. It is a language to explain what exists, not an explanation to the question of why it exists.  Just as understanding how a well-designed plane keeps me safe at 36,000 feet goes no way to understanding what I’m doing in the plane in the first place.

This article first appeared in the Nov/Dec edition of Sorted Magazine.

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Read this: Daniel, Ch 5.

Rap this:
The king was called Belshazzar
But we’re gonna call ‘im Shazz-ar.
He said, “I am a dazzler,
Am go’n dazzle all the Kasbah.
We’ll be drinkin’ good wine;
Be a stinkin’ good time.
Am go’n take it further
When they say, ‘Don’t take it that far!’ “

He invites a thousand,
They’se all A-list glitterati.
Includes his wives and girlfriends,
‘Cause no way they’ll miss the party!
His dad was Neb’ kanezz-ar
It’s bad for poor old Shazz-ar
Livin’ in the shadow of
Ol’ Neb, who was a smarty.

“Am Shazz the man, an’ am so baad!”
He looks to push the boat out.
“Not like ol’ dad ‘cause he went mad
And looked a fool with no clout.”
Ol’ Neb, he had a showdown
With God who brought him low down.
If Neb was wondrin’ who was boss,
Then he found out with no doubt!

But Shazz was like, “What’s with this thing?
C’mon, must be a phony!
A ‘God’ who’s bigger than the King-
So how’d I face my homies?
This ‘God’, needs to be shut down,
A bod who needs a put down.”
He did it and he flashed the bling
In front of all his cronies.

Now Judah, it bin’ treated rough,
Neb pillaged all its treasure.
He carted off the sacred stuff
To Babylon at leisure.
Bling’s no real valuation-
The thing’s God’s reputation.
And Shazz he dissed that right enough,
All through his night of pleasure.

So when the wine was flowin’
An’ they sorta got a swing on,
He set the party goin’,
Said, “Got somethin’ else to bring on.”
Shazz used all Judah’s treasures
As boozers’ drinkin’ measures.
They toasted local idols
‘Cause they’s somethin’ safe to cling on.

His pride got over heated,
Needin’ somethin’ doin’ drastic.
An’ arrogance, deep seated –
That’s a call for the fantastic.
Then where a lamp is standin,’
A hand appears, just hangin’.
The body bin deleted,
And it’s real, it isn’t plastic.

All eerie in that dim light,
Seems that somethin’creepy’s startin’;
A myst’ry note, is filled in by
The hand, before departin’.
And, dude, that spooky scrawl
Would prove the writin’ on the wall.
Four words in some weird lingo:
‘Mene mene tekel parsin’.

Graffiti quite outlandish,
Was too much for Shazz to take in.
He couldn’t understand it,
So, like Elvis, started shakin’.
No menu he could drop down
So wha’d he do, but flop down.
He found no-one to crack the code
No matter who he raked in.

Nobody was of any use
Except, that is, The Queen Mum.
Said, “Hail Oh King! Stay cool, hang loose.
We’ll find out what it means, son.
With riddles needin’ solvin’
There’s a man who needs involvin’.
His name is Dan; he’s all good news,
He even sees your dreams, hun.”

“He was the brains for your ol’ dad–
Your dad, the king, I’m sayin.”
(Did she say that to make him mad?
The obvious, she’s statin’.)
“He’s got more intel inside.
The gods sure yell for his side.”
So Dan gets called to Shazz’s pad
And Shazz thinks, “Wha’ do I pay him?”

Shazz says if Dan’s the real thing-
Achieves a resolution,
He’ll get the Gucci an’ the bling,
Be made an institution:
For word trace and translation
Offers third place in the nation.
But Dan says, “Thanks, no thanks Oh king,
No fee for the solution.”

“Ol’ Neb as king of thee known world
Was up himself, and big time.
But God made him look so absurd
It flipped him like a trip line.
He got the thing, the lesson
That God’s the King, no mess’n.
King Shazz, you know all this occurred
But you don’t give a fig, mind.”

“The Lord of Life, you dissed Him good;
The One who holds your future.
That’s why He spoke into the hood
And loud as any hooter.”
That fist, it’s got a punchline-
It’s, ‘he’ll be gone by lunchtime.’”
The Lord, Dan made it understood,
Is judge and prosecutor.

“‘Mene’; that means ‘numbered’ and
The days you got are zero.
‘Tekel’ means that you bin’ weighed.
You lightweight, you’re no hero.”
Four words have bin’ hand written.
Your world y’see is splittn’.
‘Parsin’ means ‘divided’ and
Two into one, you’ll see, go.”

That same night king Shazz got whacked,
(Or ‘killed’ in other versions).
And, as we said, his Empire cracked;
Half each to Medes and Persians.
It’s right, right on, not ‘off the wall’,
That pride might come before the fall.
That plastered wall was lightly scratched
With sober, deep assertions.
A plastered wall, but lightly scratched
With sober, deep assertions.

Amen.

 
You can find more Code Odes featuring Dan and Neb, in The Manual, vol 3, out now …

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‘Prove to me that God exists’, a bloke I was chatting to at a bar said to me. I was drinking a lime alcopop that I’d been given on the house. It was disgusting, and my cheeks were cowering inwards by the second.

Whilst my drink was uncommon and grotesque, his request was not. One of the major reasons people give for not believing in God is simply that ‘there’s no proof’. Now, it will often be phrased as ‘there’s no evidence,’ but what they really mean is proof – something concrete that would absolutely seal the deal, like God writing his name across the sky in stars.

There’s a lot that’s troublesome about that assertion, though.

It may make you feel enlightened and robust to say ‘I’d believe if there was irrefutable proof’, but the reality is that you wouldn’t submit any other aspect of your life to that charge. Outside of pure mathematics, people don’t talk about ‘proof’ in that strict sense. We look at the evidence and make a judgement on where that evidence leads. Nobody owns evidence. We all have the same data to work with.

You will hear people say it. ‘I only believe in what can be proven.’ Fool of a Took! Nobody does – that’s just a soundbyte. For starters, you can’t even prove that the previous sentence is true!

I can’t prove my wife loves me, or that I love her. I can put forward a good case, and I’d be happy to show you the scrapbook that I’ve collated for just such a purpose, but I can’t prove it using science or logic. But if I’d only acted on what could be proven irrevocably beyond doubt, I would never have plucked up the courage to ask her out, and we wouldn’t now be happily married.

There’s so much I can’t prove. I can’t prove to you that 50 Shades of Grey is the worst book ever written and that the author should be force-fed every copy a page at a time until she learns to never do it again and signs a binding contract to that end; but it is nevertheless true.

The point is this: If someone genuinely does live believing in only what can be proven, then they will end up desperately alone, because they will never know love. Even Sheldon Cooper engages in relationship without concrete formulae. So maybe the idea of irrefutable proof is just a cop-out.

The sister statement, that tends to hang around with the idea of irrefutable proof, is the following: ‘If there was a God, He would have proven it to us by now.’ The technical response is the same as above, that nothing that really matters to you in life can be proven in that academic sense. Love, Hope, Beauty, Purpose, Forgiveness: These are the things that really count on a day-to-day basis, and we all know them to be true, even though we can’t prove it.

But when it’s said that God would have proven Himself by now, it’s perfectly correct to assert that, actually, He has – to millions and millions and millions of people across the globe and throughout time. And maybe if you haven’t met him yet, maybe that’s because you’re looking for equations instead of relationship.

Because God’s chief aim is not to get you to merely or blindly believe in Him. ‘Even the demons do that, and tremble’, says the book of James. Again, I believed my wife existed long before I started going out with her. But belief in itself doesn’t bring love or warmth or delight. It was only by getting to know her and spending time with her that those things were possible. Same with God: He wants us to know Him, not just know about Him. There’s nothing to suggest that if God drew His name across the sky in stars, more people would be drawn into a loving relationship with Him.

The guy I was chatting to at the bar was, sadly, far too hammered on the limey alcopop freebies to care what I had to say. I’ve got a few bottles in my kitchen still. I can’t prove to you how disgusting it is as a drink, but if you wanted to come round and taste it for yourself, you’d know I was telling the truth. And then you’d vomit.

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The further I read into this book, I see the simplicity and strength of the message that both Gavin and Anne portray. Lets be honest, we can all come into contact with these ‘Stumbling Blocks’ in our lives. The authors bring these obstacles to life using anecdotes and help you to relive their memories with them. They help you to get over, under, around and through every Stumbling Block we can face as Christians. Each chapter goes into detail on these obstacles and the questions at the end of them, really made me think about my life and my walk with God.

The authors particularly focus one chapter on the lack of men in church. At CVM this is a big issue that we are tackling because as the quote they use, by David Murrow, in this chapter says “Christianity’s primary delivery system, the local church, is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks. That’s why our pews are filled with them. But this church system offers little to stir the masculine heart, so men find it dull and irrelevant. The more masculine the man the more likely he is to dislike church.” He leaves a challenge to us men. “I want my son to be a better man than me. I want my daughter to marry a better man than me. But I wanna be a tough act to follow!”

This book has affirmed what I have seen in my life, that through perseverance and putting God first we can overcome these Stumbling Blocks. As we see in the story of David and Goliath, he was a lowly shepherd boy going against a 9 foot tall monster of a man, who scared everyone even King Saul. With a stone, slingshot and God David overcame the huge obstacle in his way, against all odds. We can’t see the benefits of the obstacles when we are going through them but as Gavin and Anne show in this book the benefits are so great afterwards. They use a cracking quote from Molière in the conclusion which confirms this. It says “The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”

Jack Undrell (Intern 2)

This book is available to buy here

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“Christianity? There are some good points to it, but I just can’t believe that one faith is superior to others. That view is intolerant.” You know the idea, it has been said in many ways. Christianity, it is understood, is basically unfair because it says that everyone else is wrong. Oh, the arrogance of this, the intolerance to other ideas and people!

In Britain today there are many people of different backgrounds, from all types of races and people groups. We can enjoy just about any food from around the world and explore just about any belief without ever leaving these fair shores. The world has come to this country and along with it has come a wonderful variety of customs, traditions, and of course, religions.

Unity in all of this diversity is greatly prized. Ideas which threaten the peace are pounced upon quickly. We can of course agree, discrimination against individuals can and should be fought against. We applaud the efforts of organisations such as FIFA to eradicate racism, a horrible and cruel practice. We celebrate equality for women in the work place as noble and worthy. But does it mean that we have to accept all religions as having equal weight? Is it discrimination to say that just one religion is correct?

Essentially this argument boils down to truth claims. When someone says that they don’t like Christianity because it is intolerant they are making a claim about truth. “I don’t like your exclusivity. I don’t like that you say that Jesus is the only way.” But as we examine those very statements being made we realise that the person making them is asserting an exclusive view too! The person who doesn’t like Christianity’s truth claims is in fact saying that their view of truth – that many viewpoints are equally valid – is the right way, the only way, to proceed. In fact, exclusivity is OK – it just must be this type of exclusivity. But hold on, within this belief this person must grant Christianity’s view too. It all starts to unravel somewhat.

The question in fact reveals that Christianity – or any religion – can’t be written off simply for making exclusive claims. All religions and ways of thinking hold some kind of exclusivity at some point. What we must do is investigate the claims that Christianity makes. Do they stack up? Does the evidence fit? Does Christianity make more sense of the world than other religions and belief systems? What we really need to do is investigate, as Alister McGrath says, what Christianity is all about. This is what we will begin to look at in future columns.

This article first appeared in the Sep/Oct edition of Sorted Magazine.

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