The Truth I’ve discovered doing 10,000 Reasons

YOU may be aware that I’m currently pursuing 10,000 Reasons for my heart to find why God is good. Well, on top of the initial gratitude I was chasing, I’ve discovered something else.

It’s possibly the reason long campaigns don’t tend to work.

Recall that I was finding 100 Reasons every day for 100 days = 10,000.

Recall the reason? God challenged me to find 10,000 Reasons because I lacked gratitude.

I’m currently on Day 36 and I’m stalled on my 3,683rd reason. It isn’t unusual that I’ve stalled. I’m finding it hard work. But something else I’ve found is, in the legalistic drive to get my 100 quota each day, I’m looking so hard that I’m no longer experiencing gratitude. I am mentally grateful for each reason, but I’m not feeling it in my heart like I was.

This is clearly a challenge. But not something that cannot be overcome.

One thing that has coincided with the fact I’ve lost my gratitude edge is the busyness of moving to a new house. Anyone who has experienced the stress of packing everything, moving everything, then unpacking everything knows what’s involved. There were countless cardboard boxes on top of all our furniture and other items. For the month before the shift there were regular tasks, including work and ministry loads. The daily quota of 100 helped enormously when there was so much to do — under intense pressure is the best time to be grateful. Then the days around the shift I made sure I was slightly ahead of my quota each day to alleviate the pressure.

It is sad that I’ve had to come to recognise that I’m finding reasons without a heart to find reasons.

So now it is time to repent. To turn back to God and make sure every reason I find I can be genuinely thankful for.

I have 6,318 reasons to go. Still on track to finish by May 1 though.

Like the Tower of Babel, God will not allow me to master gratitude so it can become my idol. I can only achieve gratitude when I’m simply grateful. 

The schemes of man in the Dominion of God

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PEOPLE serve the Lord wholeheartedly, until they are hurt, then they redeem those works as their own.

I’ve seen this time and again in the church. It is too easy to say that these people never did their works for the Lord in the first place, but that doesn’t cater for the human element in following God. Let’s empathise.

Let’s unpack what I’ve said:

People serve the Lord wholeheartedly… They do. Few people sowing deeply into the work of God do so for selfish motives. People who are committed to Christ’s church do their works as faithfully as any human being can.

… until they are hurt… Something happens. Something they could not have predicted. Like the extinction of the dinosaurs, what was significant vanishes as if it had never been there. Something’s happened. A significant wound has been received. None of us are beyond being hurt to such an extent we might leave our church, or the faith for that matter. Think about it. We are all vulnerable. There is a thing, indeed several things, that could happen that would turn our lives upside down. How we respond at these times is the true test of our godly character. But there are times when something wounds us mortally, and we may reel in such shock that to come back is a chastening, harrowing test.

… then they redeem those works as their own… they pick up what they did, what they started, and they take those things with them, as if they were done for themselves.

It happens time and again.

It is rare, very rare indeed, that people have the character to consider their trials pure joy (James 1:2-4). This is why it is so important to read and study our Bibles — to become more and more like Christ. It is our only chance to protect ourselves against the kind of hurt that says, Goodbye!

If we are interested at all in the Kingdom we will, in these secular days, develop a compassionate passion for the dechurched — for their hurt. And yet many, too, who are unchurched may also come into the church for a time and expect secular standards of performance and morality. It is sad to say they may be disappointed. In this modern day I have seen it first hand; the church in many cases is being left behind in both performance and morality. The schemes of man are ever at the forefront in the dominion of God. And the secular world has embraced the systems approach to managing care, and care is done for efficiency gains, if for nothing else.

In the church we must always cater for the human factor, recognising we are all sinners saved by grace, not from sin, but from being condemned for sin.

We, my friends, are walking mirrors

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HAVE you ever noticed that, no matter how confident you are, eye contact is harder with a person who avoids eye contact? Or, when someone gives you intentional eye contact their attention provokes your own attention?

Whilst we tend not to notice it, we do tend to mirror each other.

It is a problem that is easily fixed, for instance, if we are fearful of being rejected and we rarely open ourselves up to be accepted. In such a case, we need to be courageous to facilitate people accepting us. If we wish to be accepted by others we need to model such acceptance. Do it and things slowly change.

We are walking mirrors in this relational world — what we receive we tend to mirror and give, and what we give others tends to be mirrored. The opportunity is to both break the pattern and become more a social pioneer, and to use the pattern and give only what is worthy of mirroring.

The world is not against us without us make our own contribution to rejection.

In feeling rejected we reject others due to low desire and confidence, then they reject us, so we feel rejected. Never does the twain meet. The process is so circular.

As we feel rejected more and more, more and more are we forced to think why we are being rejected. We, being creative and negative about ourselves, make up all sorts of stories that aren’t in keeping with reality. We come up with a story and assume it’s correct, never thinking the fault is with our own thinking.

But the truth is we don’t make the effort to reach out, because of our fear.

So, what can be done?

Face your concern, ignore your fear.
Face your target, ignore your shadow.
Face your truth, ignore your voices.
Face your desire, ignore your history.

See that it is the story in your head that matches your behaviour. Strip that story bare, live present in reality, refuse to be a mirror, and see people begin to mirror your positive intent. Rewrite your story. Help them rewrite theirs.

It is time to resist being sucked into the social story of our time.

A gentle landing when life is harsh

[God] himself has said: I will never abandon you; under no circumstances will I leave you to cope on your own. (Hebrews 13:5 USC)

Have you ever noticed how easy it seems to give up on life; to make that key decision of action to stop going on? I felt it yesterday several times, even amongst friends and loved ones; that loneliness of soul that had lost all sense of hope in the seconds before it.

What a forlorn experience. What a chastening way. To be in life, doing your thing, trying your best, only to be berated by the still small voice of meaninglessness. That there is no impact being made. In those moments, all is split asunder. Nothing holds. All basis for life vanishes. Life is hard, and we don’t know why. We face it for what it is, and no wonder we’re found inept of conscience.

But then I noticed something happen to me; to my thinking. A kind of resurrection occurred. Being that it was my undertaking that those present were there for, I found myself, almost beyond my own will, be lifted by a separate will — the will of God; a power of reckoning.

Suddenly my legs operated with purpose, and my arms moved with passion. My mind was restarted, my eyes selective, my ears hearing a new thing.

God was reminding me of something crucial to life. Never are we truly alone, though we might feel alone. Never does the Lord of all life abandon us, though we may feel abandoned. These tenets, of course, we who are Christian accept by faith. God has rectified us. We are in a right relationship with him who gives life and grants light.

What difference does this make? All the difference in the world. If our world can fall apart in an instant, we too can be raised again in that same instant. Having created us, God is a gentle landing amid what we find is a harsh life. Believe this and prosper. Failing to believe this is unconscionable.

Seeing that this test is no pest

MODES of frustration in life are merely the defeat of our disposition. We choose our disposition. But first, there is something you must know about tests.

They can be managed very effectively by imagining it’s us with God against the world; where the world is destined to learn the hard way. It’s not that the rest of the world is evil or anything. The rest of the world just doesn’t understand us as God understands us.

That’s an important distinction.

When we know that God is for us, never against us, we know He is for us in a war for understanding, respect, appreciation and acceptance.

The test before us cannot be seen as a pest when we imagine that it as the world’s ultimate compliment; he or she needs to be tested and knocked off balance. Not being knocked off balance says something to the watching on world. It also compels us to enjoy an unconquerable reality.

Times when I’ve been rejected in life have been the pinnacle moments for me, especially when I’ve not deserved such treatment. It’s like, ‘God, they’re against us! How foolish… don’t they know who they’re dealing with?’ It may sound arrogant. It isn’t. It’s the voice of resilience. Many people are despondent when they’re rejected. Don’t be despondent, get even, by refusing to be contorted by it.

Having belief in ourselves with God is the essence of faith, and the worse things get the more we see victory is just around the corner; whatever corner God chooses.

Tests are not pests. They’re moments where we snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat. That victory is not something far off. That victory is in the moment we know nothing is against us when God is for us. That is no cliché. Such a reality finds its fulfilment when we can say, ‘Just you wait, and see.’

Where is God when I need Him?

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PRESENCE is such a pregnant concept. You meet a person who sees right down into you, but you’re not in any way threatened, but relieved, because they see you; they understand you without you even asking; they accept you for who you are. This person has presence.

God, too, has Presence — but it is completely different to the presence another human being has with us, or what we have with another human being.

It is understandable to confuse the two, but God is no human being. God’s present is personal but in so many ways profoundly universal, evident in the flow of life wherever we go and wherever we are.

God speaks powerfully through circumstances. God has the special penchant for doing things that are crazily connected. In ways that could only be God and His Presence in our lives.

Yet, just like a person of divine presence compels us to feel met, like we’ve had a divine encounter, God’s Presence too is the guarantor of faith. He makes it so we can no longer sustain disbelief. Simply put, He proves Himself! Beyond any doubt. In fact, we find we have now transcended doubt in this area of our lives.

But perhaps you want to believe God is, that He is present, that He cares, that He loves you, but you do not sense Him? Are you connecting the dots? Are you seeing Him at work in your life? Those dots are being connected. He is working in your life. He always is.

The problem we have with God is we need Him on the back of not having related with Him. But we can only relate with God through need; if we don’t need God we don’t relate with Him. We need to need God more than we need anything else. And only through extreme hardship are we granted access to such a path.

God’s felt Presence comes as a compensation for the hardship we experience. We may think we need Him, but do we really need Him as we should? Are we open to God, craving Him, in our pain.

Being jubilant about what doesn’t bring joy

HOSPITALS, I find, are not the kind of place I find God speaks fast and furiously. Normally God speaks profusely when I’m moving. But it was during a time of hospital visitation recently where He ushered five or six potent sayings and visions.

This is one of them.

God said to me, ‘It’s hard following Me.’ I got this as I was redirected from one part of a hospital to another. So many directions for someone who is often spatially incoherent. I somehow knew I’d get to where I was going; to the actual person I was visiting, but I felt it was some kind of Jason Bourne adventure, with time pressure and all.

But there is a deeper connection with the Word God gave: following God isn’t just about being patient with and open to direction. With this Word, I experienced a certain divine empathy. God meant to communicate that it is hard actually submitting every decision to Him. Hard as far as discernment on the one hand, and hard also regarding the obedience required.

Following God, if we’re honest, is rarely cause for jubilation. We are certainly jubilant for what Christ has done, and for the Father’s love for us. But in the grind of the daily Christian walk, it’s a trial sprinkled with temptation and the occasional experience of humiliation and odd nuance of despair.

Life is the long game, and spiritual passion can be expected to wane.

But more than that, following Jesus can be expected to be like that visit to an unknown facility like the hospital. Nothing is certain or straight forward. There are snares to be avoided. Jesus tells us to be shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. That’s no easy task, and impossible without the Holy Spirit.

When we serve recalling God’s saving us, we experience jubilation which makes the impossible challenge of following Jesus possible.

God expects far less perfection from us than we often expect from ourselves. Indeed, God expects imperfection from us. This fact ought to make us jubilant.

The less pressure we perceive from God, the more joy we experience following Jesus. The fact is, all the pressure we feel for following God has its root in us or others, not God.

The heart searches for what it delights in

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PRAYING for God to give us the desires of our hearts is redundant when we suppose that God already gives us what our hearts delight in.

If our hearts delight in evil, idolatry or wickedness, God will accede to our lifestyle, and we will reap the destiny we are seeking for and searching out. It won’t end well. Never does ultimately.

If our hearts delight in achievement and success, we will either attain it or God will allow us to be thwarted by frustration. Either way, achievement and success without God are thwarted in the end. Building without God is vanity (Psalm 127:1).

If we take delight in the hope of marriage, God doesn’t so much give us marriage, but an interest in it, sufficient that we are open to its possibilities. But too much delight in marriage takes us into idolatry.

If we take delight in God, our hearts agree, and we cannot stop searching God himself in all we do. And we see God searching us out in everything. We are taken on a journey of surrender and faith and learning as we lean in day by day. Such a delight doesn’t make our lives easier, but our lives have intrinsic meaning and are more purposeful. When we delight in God, we take delight in serving, and we find that in serving others we, ourselves, are set free.

Our hearts find what they search for. The heart searches and ultimately finds what it delights in. The only pure and rewarding delight is God. If you are miserable, ask your heart what it delights in.

The heart only finds peace in discoveries of truth and love and mercy and justice. And the like. Items of virtue, spiritual in nature. Yet if we allow our hearts to chase anything else our idolatry sees us bonded to a prison of our own making.

The heart delights in what it searches for, and the heart searches for what it delights in. Delight in what is worthy. Search for that which is fulfilling.

10,000 Reasons – it’s not about the list

SET a task, a daunting one at that, something is being forced into my character — to seek, to search out, to explore as the Spirit implores, to lay hands on, and to attain, gratitude.

One hundred reasons for one hundred days – 100 x 100 = 10,000

To find 10,000 Reasons can seem a worthless exercise consuming so much time — probably two or three hundred hours will be invested. Nearly two full weeks of effort over a three-and-a-half-month period. But it’s not about the list. Not really. The list is a means to an end.

Think of what God could be achieving in me as I accede to His request.

He wishes to do a work in me, and all I need to do is grant Him permission and access.

That’s discipleship. It’s the cudgel of effect the Lord wants to have in and through our lives. Christ’s urging through the Holy Spirit is always about the ends of Him who lives in us who love through Him. The method is unimportant, even irrelevant, so long as it is holy — set apart to Him. God is innately interested in me and in the ‘me’ in you.

It’s how God relates to us; about how we relate with ourselves.

The list is about this, as an end: a paradigm shift where all unholy thoughts are forced into eviction, where, more and more, God has His way. Where His mission seeks fulfilment through me.

Complaint cannot thrive whilst my mind burns to be grateful. I need gratitude because I complain. Anxiety falls flat when I’m too busy being thankful to fret. I need gratitude because I get anxious. Frustration hasn’t a chance when I see I’m getting behind my quota. I need gratitude because I get frustrated. Entitlement is an obvious folly when God keeps providing hundreds on top of hundreds of reasons to be appreciative. I need gratitude because I feel entitled at times.

The more responsibility I take for injecting joy into my life, the more freedom I enjoy. The less space I make for what is ungodly, the more God swells what is going in. The more grateful I can be, the more patience and humble I am.

It’s not about the list. It’s about what the list is doing in me as I compile it.

What are you looking for?

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WHAT if God were asking, through our sense of sight, ‘What are you looking for?’

What can you see… taste… touch… hear… smell?

What is it you’re looking for?

Are you looking for reasons to be grateful, perchance?

Are you looking for Me in your everyday going out and coming home?

Can you see Me? Especially in the banal and mundane? Where is your focus?

Can you imagine Me as a God who is curious for you and about you? Have you any questions of Me, or about Me, to quietly ponder as you live for Me? Are you hearing for an answer?

Do you seek me in your suffering, or do you perceive me as far too aloof for that? Do you seek Me for the breakthrough you require? Are you disappointed if it’s not time yet?

Can you detect that I want you to know Me; that I seek you to understand you are known by Me in your innermost parts? I know how much it hurts.

I still want to know, what are you looking for? Do you know that what you look for you will surely find? Do you understand that if you look for Me you will find me? Do you realise if you look for anything but Me, that too you shall find? What do you want? What do you choose?

***

God, I am sure, is hoping we’re looking, that our eyes are open, that we’re able to receive revelation and fulfillments of His goodness. He wants us alive, reachable, hearts open for stimulation, creativity, innovation, good works and reconciliation.

God wants our Spirit/soul connection vibrant, pliable, emergent, thriving. He wants us speaking with Him, no doubt, but more so, He is after a listener in us; someone who is looking for Him in the everyday.

God’s invitation is that, with faith, we would see and hear with the eyes and ears of life.

Gratitude in the valley of Grief

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IMPOSSIBLE concepts are not foreign in the Kingdom of God, but of course impossibilities in a worldly context are possibilities where God reigns.

Gratitude in the time of grief, for instance, is possible as a concept in the Kingdom of God, but the world generally thinks that’s absurd. Such a concept is both bizarre and yet, we know, really the only way forward. So, what seems impossible is also the only thing that makes new life possible.

How do we do this mysterious practice of gratitude amid grief?

By faith. Simply, we express gratitude when we would rather complain. We look for reasons to be thankful. We practice the thing that seems impossible, and in practicing it, we prove to ourselves it is possible.

Sure, there are times in an entire season of grief where we simply cannot be grateful. That’s to be expected. The point is we keep it within our mind’s eye sight, always endeavouring to return to it. We never hold it so far away that it feels ‘impossible’.

The nuts and bolts of gratitude are in the itty biddy things of life. If anything, grief transforms our perspective overnight. Grief makes it possible that we would begin to see the smaller things that we too regularly overlooked.

When we’re thankful for what we would normally take for granted, we’re helped in our grief. Many things are impossible in grief, and gratitude appears to be one of them. But as soon as we engage ourselves in it, God teaches us it’s not only possible, but He teaches us that gratitude helps give our lives perspective, and now when we need it most.

Perhaps we can think of grief as the ideal time to engage intentionally in gratitude. Our world is turned upside down. No typical thinking system will make sense. But gratitude will. By faith. Believe it can help, and keep believing, and it will help. Sooner or later we’re convinced.

Gratitude helps us cut a way through a mountain that feels impossible to climb.

We are not grateful for the loss we have suffered, but we may choose gratitude to make coping easier.

Entering the Cauldron of the Overcoming Life

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THIS article is about defeat, not victory, because we need strategies for defeat if we’re to properly envision victory and experience it. A solid offence feels good, but it falls flat if we can’t play defense.

Now, this is the thing: Life will most certainly defeat us if we let it. Bad days and confounding moments come when we have no answer. This, we all know too well, is the nature of life.

Here’s another thing to bear in mind. Even more so do the tests of life come when we’ve promised God we’re with Him, committed to the overcoming life He won for us at the cross.

What shape does defeat come in? In obtuse designs of frustration and complaint and exhaustion and bitterness, among others, where we’re overcome.

Victory comes straddled between the twin peaks of passion and recollection; times when we run forward in advance, and other times when we’re honestly depleted and need to take stock. The latter can seem to take the form of defeat, but we don’t consider recovery as defeat at all. It is merely the necessary action in a chain of events to make our overcoming life sustainable.

Life will most certainly defeat us if we let it. Of course, we cannot let it. We must get up each day with the mind’s fresh resolve — to discern God’s will and pray for the power to carry it out — that’s all.

The business of God’s people is to make possible what the world thinks is impossible. These are the matters of our attitude to all sorts of scenarios thrust at us. Only by faith can we be observed to overcome when the pressure seems overwhelming. We even overcome by being overcome if we don’t give up.

And only by experience of defeat do we learn how to achieve victory. There is no shame in falling short. In fact, Christians, of all people, should accept this (Romans 3:23). We all fall short. When we bear no shame in falling short, we are quicker getting up from the canvas. We do get up from the canvas. We need to resolve this with our will in having the humility to rise again.

Following Christ is all about the long game. We endure defeat knowing Jesus has achieved the victory, having faith He will show us the way. That way is of learning, and that learning is about character growth in virtue. It is less about effort, more about surrender, letting go of idols, consenting to God.

In essence, it’s the prayer, ‘God, have your way in my life in every way.’ The long game is about getting there. It takes time.

Surrender to the world and go about feeling defeated or surrender to God and experience victory even through defeat.

The Christian life is an overcoming life, but it is never easy. Indeed, it is a cauldron where we must count the cost.

The moment we say we will pay the price our faith requires, we are both ready to serve Christ and about to be significantly tested.

Welcome to the Cauldron!

The enemy loves a challenge.