Be To Your Life, a Blessing, Today, and All Days

PANFLUTES have always dredged up emotion from within me; a spoil of my heart’s movement, and often tears, that are not quite sadness and not quite joy.

They are tears of an eternity’s longing — not to long for eternity, per se.

But touching eternity is an experience that any human being will welcome if they value their truth. There are some topics with which only God can converse upon. Some topics are well out of the reach of human ingenuity. Topics that liven the emotions, for instance.

As I listen to instrumental hymns this day, I’m accorded God’s sanctity, and it wells up from within me, the state of having been touched — deeper than cognitively, deeper than emotionally, yet nourishment for my soul.

The Holy Spirit has visited when we are brought before heaven’s holy seat, even in the midst of the flurry of life.

Coming into the realm of God, even as we prevail over the earth, we are reminded we are never alone. No matter what kingdom we have set up that is apart from God, our Lord is still there — be to your life, a blessing, today, and all days; in Jesus’ name.

***

Whatever radiates from within your renewed heart, may it be a blessing to you, to God, to others, today.

May you go out in joy as you come home in joy — despite all the frustrating things that torment you. Allow those vexations be. They are no harm if we let them be. And unless they concern others why should they concern us. May we be able to absorb the stresses and shoddy mediations of the world, for the Holy Spirit makes us capable for this and much, much more.

May it be to you that you are blessed this very day; this most prized of afternoons; this most eternal of nights.

Whatever you may think of, may it be the blessed of all thoughts; stirrings of the mind that resonate within and come forth in all goodness without.

May you, in your soul and being, come to know all of what God has for you; at this time and ever.

May you gain a reprieve from the haunting nature of an issue of life, right now, or just in time. May your faithfulness in this matter be to you your blessing.

May you know the gentle and calming hand of the Lord on your shoulder.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Real Experiences Series – Meeting My Deceased Son

NOTHING could prepare me for what I was about to experience. It was after 10PM as we waited in pre-op room. Dancing between denial of the situation with nursing staff, sometimes in aloof banter, some of which was light-hearted, my wife lay there; her abdomen a distinct shape, in that I could see the contour of our infant, motionless, still for all time.

As I conversed with others, and, as my wife lay shivering through shock and fever, because of infection, I massaged her abdomen; the shape of my son’s left side, hip, and thigh, discernible. I found myself strangely aware of all that was going on; strangely calm given my son had passed away hours beforehand. Indeed, as I faced those very interminable moments I found God, there, with me, giving me the strength to be real. And it wasn’t hard to be real. Through it all, so was my wife very real, despite the spiking fever that presented.

And, “through it all” was an anthem for us, when this period might have rather been an anathema to the enemy of God who would seek us pile-driven into the ground; a time when God’s Presence transcended any numb indwelling. “Through it all my eyes are on you… it is well…” were the words of a song we played twice through, during the birthing process, through tears of eternity’s longing and through the fearful anticipation of what lay just before us as an unprecedented experience.

I will never forget the moments leading up to Nathanael’s birth. It was a long Caesarean Section birth procedure, (in comparison to having had my previous four children born that way). The mood inside the theatre was stark. Silence, apart from Kristene DiMarco’s voice and her ethereal music. Nobody wanted to mention the elephant in the room. My response was to issue grace — heaven knows, we all needed it in spades.

Every time we discerned a movement from my wife’s abdomen, as the surgeons manipulated tissues, we prepared ourselves for the moment of Nathanael’s actual arrival. There seemed to be several iterations where we readied ourselves. The medical team were struggling to get Nathanael in a position where they could extract him. When they ultimately did birth him, our midwife gave me the cue. She draped my cradled hands in a towel. As I got up from the stool I was sitting on I was greeted by the surgeon who gave to me my son. As with the births of all my children nothing could prepare me for the emotions I was now feeling. But this moment was world’s different. There was no feeling of positive pressure amid joy to care for the baby. There was no eye contact or interaction from the surgeon. The moment was dormant; void of something. It was an incredibly sad moment for which courage was made.

I grasped Nathanael with both hands — my boy, every bit nearly 8 pounds, which was very healthy given 36 weeks and 2 days gestation — and immediately kissed his forehead; a kiss of longing. His skin had a distinctive smell about it. He had a frown on his face. He looked like his older brother, just asleep. I just wanted to hold him. I took him over to Sarah and we both cried for a while. The operating staff just got on with their jobs, leaving us alone. We were not rushed. We spent an initial 3 hours with Nathanael, including bathing and dressing him back in my wife’s delivery suite.

Moments like this life and time stands still. Nothing else matters. And you get the distinct impression that your life has changed forever; a very surreal feeling demanding surrender. Yet, strangely, I was also so happy I got to meet Nathanael this way. God was good in sustaining me and us when we could have been so awash with emotion not to make the most of the moment.

Later that morning — literally only five hours later — all the family were in attendance whilst Heartfelt took photos for us. It was a difficult experience for several in our family, but everyone did their best and that’s all anyone can ask. We were so proud of our family throughout the whole period.

Nothing prepares us for an encounter with fear that is certainly coming. Times like this we just simply pray, “God give me strength and courage.”

***

One thing I learned in that darkest hour,

It was definitely not me that held the power,

Only by faith did I have God’s grace,

Because I walked obediently and sought his face.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Real Experiences Series – Baptism In the Holy Spirit

MY PARENTS’ 38th wedding anniversary was a day that something remarkable happened to me. It was December 18, 2003. I had been working from home when I decided to walk to the park and pray. I’d been separated from my then-wife for a period of 90 days. Having suffered the worst grief I could then imagine, I was finding my way back to the church; my faith had never been better, even though it was the most vulnerable time in my life.

Suddenly, in that park, I found myself baptised in the Holy Spirit. I had been running. The experience floored me to the depths of teary, goose-bumped joy. I’m unsure if the manifestation of God’s Presence brought me to praying in tongues, for I was alone and for a time I was struck down to the ground. It was the most remarkable encounter I’d ever experienced. I was overtaken through my entire being.

What led up to the experience — back on December 14, a Sunday night — was the execution of my Step 5, of the 12-Step Program, where I admitted to God, to myself, and to another person the exact nature of my wrongs (sins). Step 5, for me, took 5 hours. My AA sponsor came over at 7pm and didn’t leave until midnight. It was a Sunday night. It took 5 hours to spill that deluge of my sins before him, both of us present before God — the product of two months of Step 4 soul-searching. I had taken to the 12-Step Program with great enthusiasm.

5 days later, still vulnerable and grieving, I found myself the most blessed human being on the planet (not to besmirch any of you from feeling the same way!). Baptism in the Holy Spirit was a real experience. It was something I could not do independent of the work of God.

I attribute this manifestation of blessing to my obedience of confessing all my sins that previous 5 days beforehand.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not something that any denomination of the Church can say they own. My experience is that God pours his Spirit out over the obedient. Only by faith is obedience manifest. My experience tells me that the Lord is the God of the contrite of heart. By contrition my obedience was manifest, and by faith the Spirit of the living God manifested by experience.

God loves nothing more than a sinner turning back to him.

My encouragement, to you and to myself, is to continue in the softness of soul, to step forward out of fear: turn to him, alone, who helps, who saves, who restores; who sanctifies. Spiritual experiences of blessing — God’s very spiritual confirmation — are manifest over the obedient. By grace we are saved, through faith.

***

If we will bless the Lord,

By obeying His Spirit by faith,

He will bless us in His own way,

Then we will know about grace.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

How Adversity Endured is the Worthiest Achievement

WE MAY achieve very much in this life, but what really makes us is what dissolves us; that is, what breaks us down reveals us — who we are from who we are becoming. And who we are becoming is by far more important.

It’s not what we make of ourselves that makes us; it’s how God holds us through adversity that makes us.

The more we acknowledge God, who holds us up, where the wheels of life have fallen off, the more we are made by our adversities.

We make ourselves and we make comparatively nothing of ourselves. We are just more prone to pride. It’s the grandeur of narcissistic folly.

This is nothing against the person who has achieved greatly in their field of expertise. It’s not about assuming their world is built like a house of cards. But the true tests of a person’s life are those that have little to do with their accolades of aplomb.

The down-and-outer is a person who may have achieved little, but there is no correlation between their lack of achievement and their poise in a crisis.

Crises build within us the patient resolve to do what must be done. To handle crises, then, is the best type of achievement. Those crises, especially, that push us in our faith, that stretch us, these are the adversities that dissolve us into a better solution for the future.

***

Let’s not be too bitter about the persons or situations that have blindsided us. God knew that these would make us stronger, more capable, more pliable, and less worthy in our own achievements.

We are only what God makes us. Only what God makes of us matters. All else is vain folly, especially if our achievements — which can be taken away at any time — mean the world to us.

What means most in life are the things that take no effort to attain; they are given. All we need to do is maintain them when most of us do our best to make a hash of it.

We cannot say we ‘achieved’ a family, because love is never an achievement. But to work away through the trials and tribulations of marriage, now that’s an achievement.

If we are to glory in any sense of achievement we should, all the more, glory in God’s all-sustaining grace that has underpinned us throughout.

If we have endured much adversity we have acquired the loftier achievement.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

The Essence of a Pastoral Response

PASTORS are shepherds of flocks; as evangelists are messengers of God, as prophets have a spiritual ministry of prayer, discernment and prophecy, as teachers are instructors, and apostles are delegates of the church on mission. But far too many people who are called pastors do not shepherd flocks — they are too often one of the other designates of Ephesians 4:11. But if we are ‘pastors’, in that we have “pastor” in our title, we ought to be just that; at least be capable of a pastoral response.

The pastoral response is simple: the ability to ‘see’ someone, where they’re at, to validate that position they’re in, and to respond with care, in facilitating healing. That is how we might expect a shepherd to act as he or she cares for his or her single sheep.

The pastor is a shepherd, first and foremost. But it doesn’t mean that he or she is not also an administrator, or an apologist or a teacher — indeed, Ephesians links the gift of pastor with teacher. Indeed, Paul may not be seen to be limiting the roles — we may bear effectual facets of all five — apostles (delegates of the church), prophets (spokespeople of the church), evangelists (messengers of the church), pastors (shepherds of the church), and teachers of the church. The church needs all five types of leaders.

But the pastor — if it is assumed that he or she is leader of the church — is foremost a pastor… by gifting, by direction, by purpose — or they ensure somebody else with pastoral gifting, and with similar empowering, is enlisted as support to them. The health of the Body is at stake. And the Lord holds the shepherd to account.

***

The pastoral response is inwardly driven and focused, even in the backdrop of perceptions to an overly internally focused church. (There are many church leaders, who, in seeking the lost, have lost sight of those already won to the Lord.)

The pastor is concerned, above all, for the one sheep. Their concern is not for the ninety-nine, if the ninety nine are happily grazing at pasture. The pastor goes out to seek the lost from their own fold.

The pastor, in this sense, is not an evangelist, though they are not precluded from evangelism in the general sense. But their first priority is the health, safety and welfare of those who are theirs not only by physical proximity, but by divine provision.

The good shepherd knows that there is no strength in the fold when the fold is restless. So, first and foremost, they ensure peace within the fold that God has given them to care for.

Jesus said there is “more joy over one sinner who has a change of heart, than over ninety-nine people who, by doing what is right, don’t need a change of heart.” (Luke 15:7) The pastor’s job is to look for the hurt sinner — in their charge — and do all they can to reconcile them to a change of heart.

The parable of the lost sheep is a pastoral parable, not so much an evangelistic parable.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

When Forgiveness Requires the Acceptance of the Unacceptable

LIFE requires of us some pretty crumby responses at times — responses all the same that are set on taking us to higher levels of maturity.

We will need to forgive people who we have bitterness towards. And that will inevitably involve a wrestle. The wrestle is real, but it’s not without its purpose.

We might be aware that pure forgiveness is a relational concept i.e. that there are two parties involved and forgiveness can precede reconciliation. And reconciliation doesn’t have to mean the restoration of situations the way they were. Sometimes it can be about restoring the relationship to a better, mutually affable result.

But inevitably we land in a situation where reconciliation — the way we want it — is impossible. The other person has died, they have moved away, or the other party doesn’t want to go there, etc. Sometimes we are the ones who don’t want to go there; and the other person might be the one seeking desperately to be forgiven.

What are we to do?

Acceptance is what we need to experience. And that’s a miracle to pray for; to find ourselves accepting what we cannot change:

God, give me the grace to accept the ugly parts of my relationships I cannot change.

Give me the courage to plunge into those parts of my relationships that can be changed.

And give me the wisdom to discern the difference. Amen.

Acceptance is never easy. If we think we are particularly gifted to accept those ugly parts of our relationships we cannot change, we should dearly praise God. Few are so gifted with such abounding grace. But we can believe that acceptance becomes easier as we nurture softness of soul.

***

Accepting what we genuinely feel is unacceptable is accepting it for the purposes of wisdom and for the hope of something new. There is a step of faith envisaged to break the deadlock.

Faith will see us through to attitudes of the heart we previously didn’t think possible.

Faith procures the miracle — the miracle that was there all along, just dormant. It required us to step.

When we believe God can help us accept the unacceptable, so we might move on, and so others might experience our Lord’s grace, we can expect God to give us that acceptance.

Accepting what cannot be changed is the wisdom of persons with an eternal perspective.

It’s wise to accept an imperfect relational outcome if it’s the best to be hoped for at this time.

The more we move forward, arm-in-arm with God, the more he will take us beyond the present constraints of our bitterness.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

A Short Philosophy On Biblical Neighbourliness

“‘Of the priest, Levite, and Good Samaritan, who do you consider became a neighbour to the person who fell into the hands of the robber?’ The lawyer said, ‘The one who took pity on him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same yourself’.”

— Luke 10:36-37 (USC*)

ALL it takes for evil to conquer goodness is for the goodness in people to remain dormant. When somebody is bleeding and motionless on the pavement, or blindsided by grief and cannot reconcile their pain or see any hope because of their loss, or betrayed by the maltreatment from a friend, and we stand by offering a token compassion, we have missed our neighbour.

Neighbourliness is central to faith. A neighbourliness that goes creatively further than anyone can copy. A neighbourliness that initiates with drive and passion and compassion, and will not dissipate when the heat comes on. A neighbourliness that acts without thinking of the consequences — which is very distinct from foolishness. Foolishness is void of love, thinking only of itself. Neighbourliness, however, in full instinctual flight, is love without thought for self.

Neighbourliness loves without motive for kudos, because it understands that the only kudos that counts for anything is the kudos of God. A neighbourliness gives and keeps giving because it’s right and can never be wrong. Neighbourliness is vouchsafed in God, and it has no need of fear.

***

The Good Samaritan was about as popular as a Jew in Nazi Germany. So it’s like a Jew with a star on his pocket, going across the road to help a Nazi SS agent who’s been accosted by someone in the Resistance. For a Jew to ‘love’ a person who could flay their whole family in frenzied laughter seems crazy. The Jew is a neighbour. The Jew is an example of what Jesus was referring to as Radical Love. In today’s terms it would be exercising love toward someone given to Jihad. It certainly worked for Rev. Wade Watts when he was instrumental in converting former KKK Imperial Wizard, Johnny Lee Clary (1959–2014) who came to be a powerful evangelist for the Lord. Love won over the hate.

But, in some ways, we are departing from simple neighbourliness — to help someone we don’t know who has been stricken somehow.

Real love comes to bear itself in action, unreasonable and unpredictable, always ingenious, eternally hopeful, spiritually resilient.

Jesus has a call for each of us who would call ourselves Christian; to work hard on our devotional life such that we are ready, willing, and able to help people in our daily going out and coming home.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Note: USC version is Under the Southern Cross, The New Testament in Australian English (2014). This translation was painstakingly developed by Dr Richard Moore, a NT Greek scholar, over nearly thirty years.

Praising God for An Earlier, Faithful Version of You

VISIONS are something I’ve been gifted with all my life, I think; visions of the imagination at times, and visions of the prophetic kind at other times. I’m comfortable that many of these visions are the way God works in me to make me to discern what I’m to do and not do.

One of these visions occurred when I was in my early thirties. I was standing at the end of my driveway when God spoke to me, as if to say, “You will thank yourself for your faithfulness to me later in life.” What was strange was, at the time, I was actually far from God. But within a few years I would again be nearer, and perhaps never nearer, as to make some decisions that would prove the manifestation of that prophetic vision.

The vision was of me, in my seventies, thanking the early 30s version of myself for his faithfulness to decide upon a path of living.

Two or three years after that vision I found myself at rock bottom; thoughts of ending it all a requiem for what my life had become; a vulnerable shell of a man who the Lord himself had undertaken to rebuild — if I would submit finally to his rule in my life.

For the first time in my life I submitted — not because I was strong and wanted to obey him who had control of my life for the very first time. It was because I was weak that I submitted. I was not only poor of spirit, I was thoroughly inept of spirit. Yet, as the Beatitudes says, I was blessed. A life run against the rocks, was now routinely shattered and then pulverized against those same rocks. But all this was necessary from the perspective of hindsight.

And, how was I to know that in my weakness God was using the mustard seed of faith I had left to give to sow into a future I could only hope for. Twelve years on, I live a life that is far from dreamlike, but it is a contented life, a life lived at truth, a life of integrity, and a life where I look back and thank God for that younger version of myself who did finally submit routinely and regularly enough to the will of God. It has become a pattern of discerning and doing the will of God that will stretch the rest of my natural life.

***

You may be in the same predicament. God is asking you to be faithful and it feels excruciating. You feel you are going around the desert, finding yourself in a circular pattern, for what seems like forty hard years. Don’t give up. Keep obeying him who calls you.

There is a time coming when all the sacrifices you’re making will bear the fruit that God has planned for you.

God compensates us so amply and abundantly for the costs waged in the battle of suffering. Step in his will and step, ultimately and eventually, into blessing.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Holy Spirit’s Inspired Daily Reminders

DAILY life in the Christian milieu is, at times, a fight — for the spiritual consistency of application that church sometimes implies is easy. Even though we are exhorted to “Consider it pure joy when we face trials of many different kinds” (James 1:2-4) we do verily struggle to submit to God so freely and willingly. So there is a place for a Holy Spirit infused reminder:

Daily I remind myself to be patient,

Though it doesn’t always work.

But daily I choose to be patient, especially on frustrating days.

Daily I remind myself to slow down,

And some days are more successful than others.

But daily I make myself slow right down; my speech, my pace, my schedule.

Daily I’m reminded to resist frustration,

By dealing truthfully with my goals,

And I’m occasionally frustrated despite these reminders.

But I then insist on dealing honesty with frustration by talking it through.

I remind myself weekly that,

I’m on the path of God’s purpose for my life,

And I just as regularly doubt that completely.

But I remind myself that my life is now at God’s entire disposal. His path for me is inevitably working out exactly as he planned it to be.

Weekly is the reminder to act graciously in the lives of others,

And I know I fall short just as regularly.

But I have the reparation of making things healthy again; I can say sorry, prove I understand what went wrong, fix the issue if that’s possible, commit to not doing it again, and I seek forgiveness.

Irregularly I need to be reminded of God’s covenant protection,

Because I wither in fear and discouragement at times — mostly, for me, the latter.

I remind myself that God helps me overcome fear and he provides timely encouragement, too.

Irregularly I need to be reminded of God’s eternal goodness,

Because there are occasional doubts.

I remind myself that God is a good and eternal God and that eternity is my reward for a faithful life — as faithful as I can give — and not to doubt.

Reminders are good, because they bring us back into the sweet spot of Christly allegiance.

The disciple’s walk is never an altogether easy one, nor is the walk of a nonbeliever. Life is a challenge in anyone’s terms. To make discipleship possible we must allow the Holy Spirit to remind us, to trust, to rely, to be patient, to slow down, to stop doubting, and to trust the sovereignty of God in and for our lives.

Daily,

Holy Spirit,

Remind me,

Of God’s goodness.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

The Day God Gave You What You Don’t Deserve

“… sin pays wages (you get what you deserve), but God gives a free gift (you are given what you do not deserve).”

— John Stott (1921–2011)

Remember the day, the day God gave you what you don’t deserve? Your salvation in Jesus Christ. Until then we got what we deserved; in our sin we were rewarded, but it wasn’t a reward we saw in the way we should have seen it, for the reward was a wage and that wage amounted to death.

In the whole section of Romans (6:15-23) there is this discussion about slavery, masters and payment. We get what we deserve when we go the world’s way. We get what we should always have expected. We get worse than nothing — we get eternal death; a life of death in this life (though it might seem like life) and a life of death in eternity. Yet, these days we hate talk like that. It’s offensive.

It’s also biblical.

***

Let’s talk in more palatable terms; about getting what we do not deserve.

Instead of being paid in kind for the fruit we produce (death for the dead fruit we produce) we are given something for free, for the good fruit we produce, that would not ordinarily attain for us anything on God’s stage. We cannot hope to come close to God in terms of relationship. But Jesus did that for us; on our behalf.

Responding to God in the acceptance of salvation is the first, the pivotal, and the only worthwhile work we may make.

From such a response there is a preponderance of good fruit produced. Every good fruit is an endorsement of the eternal life that is being sanctified from within us.

We do not earn wages by our good fruit, for we are on a ‘contract’ that sees us as heirs of a promise. But our good fruit is consistent in kind with the eternal life we are already enjoying; that which we did not and will never deserve.

Eternal life is a gift. We can only ever open our hands and receive it. We can only ever open our hearts and have this gift indwell our soul by love. We cannot receive anything more than eternal life, for eternal life is the ultimate reward.

***

Now here’s the crux: the acquisition of eternal life — the actual receipt of God’s free gift — is the once-for-all-time compensation for every hardship suffered and every coming persecution. We believe this by faith this side of eternity. We will more fully realise the completion of that reality on That day.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

What Matters Less Versus What Matters More

What matters less: possessions, the past, and perfection.

What matters more: family, friendship, and focus.

***

Possessions come and go. They must be left behind when our souls leave our bodies behind at death. When there is a change of heart, relationship or fortune, there is an exchange of possessions, and so very often this can occur outside our control. So we would be best to hold our possessions lightly — they matter less than we think.

The past will continue to bear onerously over us if we aren’t careful. We all have regrets. We all have components of our pasts that we would gladly leave behind. But the past is both done and it cannot be changed. It is what it is. It is part of our history, but it needn’t be our platform forward without our say so. The past matters less than the future. This is an irrefutable statement when you think you have to live your future. When nobody else can.

Perfection is arduous and burdensome and few can attain to the level of perfection they set for themselves. Perfection is a waste of time and energy. It is a sad indictment on our fear for anything less. It only sets us forward on a journey of fatigue and despair. But there is life in accepting our and others’ best effort. Perfect standards and results matter less than good or acceptable ones.

What matters more is relationships and focus.

Family epitomise how well we love others. If we struggle to love our family members, what good is it that we love strangers? But if we can tolerate and enjoy our familial relationships we are grateful to who God gave us, principally, to love. Loving family, especially those who may be hard to love, matters more than loving those who are easier to love. Love really is not a mushy feel-good type of thing. It’s a rubber-hits-the-road type of thing.

Friendship matters. And it is such a broad relational concept. A friend will give themselves away for a friend. In that way, to be a disciple of Jesus is to be a friend; a neighbour, unconditionally. We may not be friends with some people, but that is no barrier to offering friendship regardless — a concept unrestrained and not relevant to time spent together. Friendship matters more than solo pursuits (not that solo pursuits aren’t crucial for many of us, because they are).

Focus matters. We cannot achieve the things that God has placed on our hearts — his call of us, personally — unless we discern what it is, and then deploy focus. Focus matters more than enjoying life, because we find that focus is enjoyment of life.

***

Family, friendship and focus will serve anyone well who is serious about the good life, to get it right.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.