Want Revival, Redemption, Restoration?

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Frustration comes from the humanness in me when people say they want God’s power in their lives yet refuse to buckle to His will. They insist they know God, yet fail to get the log out of their own eye.

They want something for nothing, never respecting the law of God written in all panels of eternity, even to the irrefutable evidence in this life.

If you want to be forgiven, you must repent by turning your life back to God, and show by your behaviour, that your attitude has changed. It’s very simple and remarkably effective.

Your relationships don’t change
because you don’t change.

You don’t change only for one fact:
you have yet to submit your life to God.

When you turn your life back to God a miraculous thing happens. He shows you the truth. He gives you the gumption to stand there, judged. He helps you see that the truth doesn’t condemn you, it frees you. He impels you to do what you can in the light of that truth. He shows you how you have offended everyone, and He puts in you a heart to live at peace with all humanity.

From that moment onward peace becomes you,
for God gives you the gift of relational sight,
the spiritual ability to stand in other people’s shoes.

In a word, Revival. Nobody who hasn’t experienced such Revival is saved. It’s enough to turn us back to God, for ‘by their fruit you will know them’, as the Lord Jesus Himself has said.

Who stands there, saved of God,
and doesn’t about-face?

Conviction is not self-righteousness, a will against the Holy God, but it is self-admonishment, continually, and then ongoing self-denial, hearing aright just how God will help you put matters right this side of eternity.

This is the most compelling truth this side of death; now is the time; now is the opportunity. Especially for those who call themselves saved… do not be in that class of ‘Christian’ whom the Lord says, ‘they will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and cast out demons, but I say I never knew you; be gone from My Presence.’ Can the prophet be saved without living an adroitly penitent life?

The rub of all life is in the friction of relationships.

What power of God is there if others cannot see
the power of God that has changed you?

Yes, indeed, there are many false doctrines and many comfortable pillows that seem like the fire of God, but it’s all useless unless the Christian gets on his or her knees and begs for forgiveness because they’ve seen the testimony of darkness written on their heart — to the extent of the relationships they have that do not please the Lord.

The revival of redemption and restoration come from the power of God through repetitive repentance.

When repentance is written on our heart, and it has become how we live our lives, the power of God will be seen by everyone.

Cherishing the fact, you’re alive

Preparing to present a devotion at a craft group following a presentation by a funeral director, I decided to run with the flow, and get people engaged in the imminence of their death.

‘What do you want said at your funeral?’ I asked.

Nothing elicits thought for the transient nature of life more, for me, than the panpipes instrumental, The Lonely Shepherd. Any time I hear this music I instantly think of my death. And such a thought is a blessing.

It is not a morbid thought. It is the thought grounded in the reality that God could remove my breath and stop my heart within a second. Or, cause me to be diagnosed with cancer tomorrow. These are such humbling realities. It puts all our stresses and complexities and conflicts into context.

The question that arises for me out of the thought of my death is, ‘Am I cherishing the fact that I’m alive?’ Am I holding life lightly? Am I too buried in my work? Am I making enough time for my relationships? — for my wife, my son, my daughters, my parents? What am I putting off that I shouldn’t be? Who is it that will really miss me when I’m gone? And am I making time for these people now? Have these people seen the best of me yet? Have I made all efforts to reconcile with those I’ve aggrieved? Am I making God known? Am I aware of all should be? What should I do before I die?

Have I got any regrets about life? Can I do anything about them? Have I truly accepted the consequences of my actions? Is there joy in my life? What can I do to connect myself to peace, hope and joy?

What am I missing? As opposed to ‘What am I missing out on?’

This is the most pulsating fact of life: you and I are alive, for such a time as this, and yet soon it will be over. As we all know, with grandparents and parents having passed away, or those getting ready for such an event, life seems long, but from some viewpoints of irony it is very short indeed.

It isn’t a morbid thought to plan for one’s funeral; such a thought reminds us how precious life is, and it causes us to cherish the fact that we are alive.

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Let’s just start again shall we?

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My hope is this article leads you to peace. We need more peace and joy and hope in this life, and Christ died so we might receive the abundance of His grace to the ends of peace, joy, and hope.

I wonder if you are like me, a bit sick and tired of the constant wars being waged in the world, whether through media, or social media, or the factions and infighting that occurs because people have not yet learned that there is more to life than being right.

When we insist on being right,
we are plain wrong.

When another person insists on being right and we disagree with them, they cannot be anything else but plain wrong.

Can we therefore not see how deranged of mind and heart we are when we polarise into our view and cannot legitimise another person’s view.

What is it that causes this desire in people to raise what they think are important issues, that inevitably draw out opposition, that causes relationships to disintegrate? What causes us to fight to win? A lack of repentance.

A heart that doesn’t repent,
doesn’t know how to receive or give love.

The evidence of a regenerate heart —
one that is being transformed
into the likeness of Christ —
is the fruit of repentance,
which operates in
the context of relationships.

What this means is we cannot insist on being right about anything to the extent we are willing to hurt people to win a point. Truth without grace is not love, for we are called by Christ, His final command, to love one another. Period.

The regenerate heart has gone the journey to the end of the self in finding Christ has been there all along ready to pick up the pieces of a shattered life that has no answers as to the meaning of life.

When we find Christ,
we can find Him saying to us,
“Finally, you arrive at
and can accept My truth.”

The regenerate heart, therefore, has come to the knowledge of God’s majestic truth; we are ruined, and our relationships become destitute, without God.

God’s truth is Sovereign;
our truth is deception.

The issues are now secondary. The differences of opinion we have are of far less importance than are other people who hold those opinions. James 4:1 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the desires that battle within you?”

We must be careful, because the desires in us that are not satisfied too easily become demands, and when those demands aren’t met we begin to judge people who disagree and then punish them with our anger. It isn’t getting us anywhere.

More and more in our world we are coming face-to-face with the horrible reality that even the people we love have different viewpoints, disagreeable perceptions, and to us, can seem to be deceived, all the while they are thinking the same about us. It is giving us nowhere.

Don’t we recognise it is the enemy’s idea
to create walls of division between us?

***

Maturity suggests that we can love people
at the same time as we disagree with them.

We don’t understand them,
but we choose to accept them.

Love lives in the awkward reality that accepts
we cannot control others and what they think.

Love lets others be, and does not force a viewpoint, or manipulate with pressure. Love can certainly communicate what we think and feel, but remember love does it in such a way as to hold the other person’s viewpoint as precious to them. We respect their right to hold a view, just like we hope they respect our right to hold our view, without being hurt if they cannot respect us.

Do you have any desire to live at peace in a troubled world? Then you must understand how peace is won, first and foremost, in your troubled soul. First. The person who can take responsibility for their individual peace has some control over living at peace in this troubled world.

It doesn’t mean in our search for peace that we cannot advocate for the things that are important to us. We just need to re-sort our priorities, and be willing to put every human being we come into contact with as a higher priority than the issues. I think you’ll find it’s the Jesus way.

Where are You, God? (and other good questions)

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Where I am, I’ve been before

Knocking, knocking, at Your Door.

Each time I knock, I ask again

Why do I feel like I’m going insane?

Each time I’ve been here before Your throne

I’ve been unable to unpack my grief on my own.

They tell me that You are there, alright

But why can’t faith be done by sight?

Why does each ‘helper’ only offer advice?

Why can’t they just say something nice?

I wonder who You truly are, Lord

I truly wish within me, You were adored.

How can life have thrown this curveball at me?

I can’t cope with this grief, can’t life see?

Is there nobody who truly does care

Why does life seem so darn unfair?

Is there truly any purpose in being pushed this far?

Surely God doesn’t work this bizarre!

I ask You, Lord, what can I do?

What of my experience can You show me is true?

Someone told me true faith’s forged through trial

But how do I get there when I can’t help denial?

Can You help me see my purpose in this pain?

To believe in the sunshine in the presence of the rain.

Give me some assurance to keep holding fast

Show me in Your Glory that this pain won’t last.

Maybe I’m coming to know You for real

Just protect me right now so the enemy won’t steal.

I think I understand I’ll never understand

Help me to trust You have my life in hand.

***

These are the serious meditations of someone enduring the winter season of grief, however long it lasts, in their unique context. Grief, by its nature, will undo us, but there is hope in this: God often needs to deconstruct us before His Spirit sets about the resurrection and restoration process. We can generally only accept this truth when we are a good part through the process. Until then it’s all faith.

The kind of sentiment shown in this poem is real and raw and true and needs to be validated, as part of the godly process for the restoration of a broken heart. It can seem to the uninitiated that the doubting lacks faith, but quite the reverse is happening. Doubting in the Presence of God is part of a wrestle that is biblically backed and God honoured.

There is something more precious that God is giving to us for whom life has no answer.

It is amazing how the hearts of those in pain so readily identify with the surrender in forgiveness, because they know and believe that the sacrifice of forgiveness is worth the sacrifice of their pain.

When the pain of grief becomes too much to bear

the sacrifice of forgiveness is what we are prepared to wear.

Those first dark months of grief

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Darkness and aloneness and foreignness and brokenness.

Those long days of slow hours which gave way to weeks that morphed into months, and months that had days that felt like I was right back in the sordid beginning.

Grief recapitulates upon itself.

How did it undo me five months
after for a single day of hell
that caused me to pace the room
with thought to end it all?

Those first dark months undid me day after day, as grief stripped my soul of its peace, and the anxiety of a lost soul overcame and became me.

It seemed that every single day, each moment as it were, I was never too far from a fear that would silence any courage of hope in me. There were whole hours where I could escape, but the cowering reality of the emptiness of loss was like a miasma that continually threatened. I had no idea what hit me. Not one hope. And yet, even in such hopelessness, God was my only hope.

There were also whole hours where I was blindsided in a tsunami of fear so unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The unrelenting power of the torrent. Grating confusion as to why and how I got there. Suffocating for breath. A reality that seemed so absolutely unreal. Panic attacks were the form of the season. And when you have no idea what a panic attack even is, they’re frightening experiences to endure.

One such experience I was fine minutes before midday, and I was a catatonic mess minutes after the hour. I couldn’t trust the seconds, let alone the minutes. Three days without sleep didn’t help. I quickly moved into a mental breakdown. My parents had no idea what to do, the day before my father went into knee surgery that would have him on crutches for nearly six months. It was a season that regularly broke us all, but we were there for each other, which steeled us for the trial we were enduring. The scariest thing amid a breakdown is there’s no warning; the end was happening, its own event, and I had no capacity to resist it, shut-in as a spectator in my own skin.

I recall going for a job interview on a very sad Tuesday, the 14th of October 2003. They were offering me a very attractive job. But I can still remember the absolute screaming fear in me as I sat there answering questions with competence yet questioning my very being! They had no idea who they were dealing with. The previous day I’d had the worst news possible and Satan continued to berate me. I had no sense for hope at all, and all faith I had at such moments was fundamentally extrinsic.

Walking ahead in faith with no assurance
of the Presence of the Lord is faith supreme.

The season in focus taught me one of life’s priceless lessons; a truth known at the cross that preceded the resurrection:

… you must go through hell to truly crave heaven on the other side.

We must know that when darkness surrounds and confounds us, God abides closer than ever. I could not see it at the time, but afterward I saw God’s fingerprints over everything. I have such fondness of recall for this the darkest days of my life.

Honestly, I am convinced that when we ‘consider it pure joy’ as we face ‘trials of many kinds’ God’s faithfulness cannot disappoint us, and a healing we hoped for materialises at the proper time (ref. James 1:2-4; Galatians 6:9).

Passing the Mentoring Baton with Dr Keith Farmer

Photo courtesy of the Australian Christian Mentoring Network

Rarely does one get the opportunity to learn from an expert in the field when their purpose with you is to share their legacy. Having been a pastor and a theological seminary principal, as well is a registered clinical psychologist, Dr Keith Farmer has been mentoring the top echelon of Christian leaders in Australasia for over a decade.

In passing the baton Keith shared information on what is mentoring, his personal model, the qualifications of Christian mentors, information on the Australian context, a demonstration of his model, going deeper in order to be able to go further, confidentiality and safety, conflict of interest, financial issues, regularity and time issues, the development of mentoring ministry, gender issues, sabbatical leave, mentoring and advocacy, supportive administration, networking and mentoring.

Dr Farmer talked about some of the contemporary work, including his own, Rick Lewis’s, particularly the historicity and biblicity of mentoring, as well as Tim Dyer’s work. He urged us all to take his model as simply one way among many, and to take what was valuable.

At mentoring’s most basic, says Keith,
it’s all about 1) listening and 2) asking good questions.

Dr Farmer suggested that the role of mentoring today for Christian leadership was both urgent and important; there is much more support needed for our Christian leaders. He stated that mentoring is discipleship 101, and only occasionally 201 or 301, in that it was advocacy for the basic tenets of the gospel for living and maturity. Mentors are commended not to limit their mentoring to within their own networks or denominations, nor even be limited to own gender — if a curly question is asked, the mentoree can be directed to their GP. The mentoring process, aim, and delivery is cross-functional, and if need be mentor from a safe public like a café, and give your spouse and supervisor right of veto.

Mentors are not coaches. They work on who you are, not what you do. They can work for an indefinite period with an organic process, whereas coaching is structured with goals and deliverables in a timeframe. Dr Farmer depicted mentoring and coaching along a continuum with himself very close to the mentoring end, Rick Lewis about the midway, and Tim Dyer further toward the coaching end.

The key watch-point for Farmer is for burnout — the biggest risk the mentor assists with. Keith started mentoring having been approached by Mark and Nicole Conner, then of CityLife Church, Melbourne. He could smell a ‘whiff of burnout’ in them. After some reluctance, Keith mentioned to his wife, Margaret, ‘I think this might be God.’ Soon he was mentoring three other ministry couples connected with the Conners. The mentoring ministry grew from there.

Pastor Monica O’Neil, Director of Vose Leadership, gave a session on mentoring’s historical and biblical etymology, profiling to the current day how many leaders describe this practice of intentional relating, as opposed to spiritual direction, counselling, supervision, and coaching. My only contention, personally, is that these used to be all parts of the pastor’s role. Any pastor will benefit, however, from assistance in all these areas for development in their own journey. Monica, as an executive member, profiled the Australian Christian Mentoring Network (ACMN) for whom Keith represents. Mentoring, it was stated, helps uncover God-given potential. It notices what God is already doing, especially in the mess that often resembles the canvas of ministry. Mentoring sets its sights on uncovering for the mentoree what is present though unrealised, what is within reach, what is a stretch, and what requires a search. I resonated with the statement, that the heart of mentoring is ‘identifying and promoting the work of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life.’ Mentors offer deep patience. It differs from supervision, which fulfils regulatory, teaching, and restorative functions relating to practice, though those elements have varying degrees of occasional application in mentoring.

Mentoring, according to Dr Farmer, is discipleship. It uses a whole-of-life model. It’s open to the whole of the mentoree’s life. Like a GP check-up, there may be no symptoms or signs of ill-health, but in the process, something might come up. The major qualifications to be a mentor are to be healthy, deeply in love with God, family, the church, and people generally, and be avid in confessing and repenting of sin. Mentoring is generally an informal way of adding structure and accountability for a Christian leader.

Mentoring is not typical pastoral care. On average, Keith meets his mentorees four times per year for two hours at a time. He will Skype but does at least 50 percent of sessions face-to-face, because a significant part of mentoring is being present. Keith likes to see what his mentoree looks like, to encounter them, especially if he can do that in their context. Couples are mentored for three-hour sessions. He likes to go to their office, church or home, and loves to have access to the spouse to really get a true indication of the state of play.

MENTORING QUESTIONS

The first questions asked in a session surround the ‘how are you?’ issues… ‘how are you going?’ and ‘how are you right now?’ Mentorees usually start by stating they’re ‘good’, but by the end of sessions there is usually an accepted realisation that things are ‘not so good’. Most people, even at the best of times, are swimming with their heads just above the water line.

The second question is ‘how are you and God?’ If Keith gets the impression that there’s an authentic, ‘we are friends’ he’s relieved. Dr Farmer recognises that intimate friendship with God is often born out of crisis. Mentoring helps release people from the pressure to perform perfectly; that it’s okay to just be okay.

The third question comes in two parts: do you know God likes you? (In other words, do you connect with his unconditional love?), and, do you like Him?

A big part of this third question is the segue into the parable of the prodigal son. Even though the son had his confession planned, that his heart had turned toward God and his father, and the father not knowing this still runs to the son in sheer delight to see him coming from a long way off. No matter what the son had done, his father loved him. The mentor has an opportunity, through his or her presence, to embody the Father’s love, or intrinsic liking, of the person they mentor.

God, Dr Farmer says, likes us so much, it doesn’t matter what we’ve done or do. I appreciate this view because it bridges a middle ground that used to say, ‘God loves you but hates your sin’ and it says something powerful about grace that transcends the affect and impact of our sin by the glory of God.

The character of God is likeable. Imagine a person full of grace and full of truth. We like them. This is God. If we like someone we want to be with them. If we like God, we will want to be with Him. After all, we’re more a product of our key relationships than we realise. Why would we not crave God all the more?

Dr Farmer stated the polarising truth that if a leader relates well in their home they relate well in their leadership, and gaining insight about the home life is an important glimpse as to what is.

TEAM ISSUES

Keith stated that he doesn’t have much of an issue of conflicts of interest in mentoring several people on the same team. He acknowledges that team issues are often draining and derailing. A good mentor can certainly use good self-discipline to keep team members on their own material, but there is also a gauge for problematic conflict and cultural indicators of concern in one mentor mentoring several team members.

EMOTIONAL WELLNESS

Biblically, emotions are important. Special focus is given to the role of anger. It was stated that more marriages fail from out-of-control anger and probably any other reason. Self-control is highlighted in emotional and spiritual well-being intersecting. Dr Farmer stated also that he believes in mentoring leaders to develop a policy of walking away in conflict — that is to determine when the win-win objective has been lost; that to get away for reflection time is just so necessary. The idea in getting away is that so each person can resolve a position of submission. He stated that suppressed anger comes out as passive aggression or depression, and that we must steward our emotional tank well, and we have to be aware that it takes longer than 12 weeks to recover from burnout.

When it comes to stewardship we have to ask two very important questions: 1) what drains me and what energises me, and the more we do what drains us the more depleted we become, and the more we do what energises us the more replenished we are.

We must learn to stop well to go well. And we must realise what depletes us: conflict, relationships, sickness, and difficult and unsafe people. We have to get used to asking the question, how much is this relationship costing me? And when it comes down to replenishment, all we need to ask is what we can do to have fun. Dr Farmer acknowledged also the Biblical pattern of rest, which is to rest before work, that the first day of the week is the Sabbath. He also acknowledges the principle aligns with resting the land one year in seven (Leviticus 25), and just like the land doesn’t become depleted, neither do we.

Sometimes we are not the right person to mentor a particular person. Keith encourages us to not let the ego get in the way. Some people use a different method that someone else can readily supply. Keith also advocates the value of going on short walks, just so he can get his head and heart straight again, and to gain the peace and calmness that he needs to work effectively. Jesus, of course, walked away a little from his disciples quite often, to find his quiet centre, and Dr Farmer recognises, like we all should, that little things can upset us, and we are implored to attend to the self-talk that often ravages us. He stated that sleep is a natural ‘defragging’ practice, and I have personally found sleep is a natural way of walking away to refresh perspective.

Emotional depletion equals burnout. Biblically, in Exodus 18:13-14 in the Message, Jethro tells Moses, ‘why are you doing all this, and all by yourself?’ (i.e. you’ll burnout). He mentors Moses to accept his limits.

We have to deal with our replenishment needs. It’s only when we are resting that adrenaline will stop flowing. This can actually look like depression, but of course it is not. It’s just an absence of adrenaline where the sympathetic nervous system closes down and parasympathetic nervous system equalises the imbalance. Of course, burnout necessitates and teaches rest.

Some of the early signs of burnout include becoming testy and temperamental, absenting your yourself from relationships, not being present, when the energy is not there, flatness of mood, which is wrongly interpreted as depression, where passion has waned, and we can even feel like we are letting God down. Certainly, in burnout we feel distant from God, and there are fewer and fewer resources for prayer. There are also often bodily signs, including facial tics, which fire muscles around the eyes and lips involuntarily. And certainly, creativity is sapped. Burnout is a World Health Organisation recognised health problem.

Dr Farmer has worked within the WorkCover system and the typical recovery from burnout is six months off, followed by three months at one day per week, three months at half-time load, three months at three-quarter time load, before returning to full-time load at around the 15-24 month period. In burnout we need time away from what drains us.

Dr Farmer’s advice regarding the inevitable problems of waking at 2 and 3 AM in the morning is not to stress too much. It is wise not to do anything too rousing, but whether we stay in bed or get up and do something, we are encouraged to get our sleep when we feel tired enough.

It was stated by Dr Farmer, and Graham Mabury also, that preaching is an activity uniquely draining, probably because of the responsibility attached to the role, and the intense desire we have to do God’s work well. There was also mention of the role of compassion fatigue, which is a variation of burnout. Quality time with our spouses two or three times a week, and engaging our senses in favourite activities are good replenishing activities.

Opinions are an interesting dynamic in managing emotional wellness. The presence of opinions can be a flag of emotional depletion.

Sabbatical leave is not holidays, it’s replenishment, and when we are on sabbatical we shouldn’t do any ministry, unless that ministry is something we find inherently enjoyable, and doesn’t drain us, which means it needs to be something different to what got us into burnout territory in the first place.

STEWARDSHIP

The key question is what lifestyle do we have? Is it sustainable? Is our eating, sleeping, exercise working well, do we have our days off, and do we get quality time with our spouse? Is there fun in our life? Do we have hope, looking forward to things?

Sleep is a huge issue. Do we get enough. Dr Farmer mentioned a Dr Arch Hart course, where he mentioned he gets 10 hours of sleep a night. We should work on at least 6.5 to 8.5 hours per night. Napping when necessary is also an excellent suggestion. And we are advised to prepare to go to sleep an hour before our head actually hits the pillow. We need to ask our mentorees about their sleep.

As far as days off are concerned, Saturdays off are not enough. A day off during the week is very important. On that day off we have to promise ourselves we will not do anything that is not both urgent and important. The important but not urgent work can wait. The urgent work that isn’t important doesn’t need to be done. And when our day off does not come about because something came up, we need to be disciplined enough to take our day in lieu.

As far as activities on the day off is concerned, Dr Farmer again repeated that we need to do things that are replenishing. If housework or work in the garden is replenishing we can do it, but if it isn’t we shouldn’t. The day off isn’t simply an excuse to do a list of things just because we have the time.

Exercise is key, and there is a lot of research to suggest that exercise alone is proactive for cancer, for those who have cancer, as well is for prevention. Keith mentioned that living in isolation or being lonely is scientifically equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

ACCOUNTABILITY / VULNERABILTIY

The opportunity of mentoring is to help people become voluntarily accountable. Just the fact that someone has a mentoring appointment coming up can be enough to motivate them to do something they know they’ll be asked about.

The key question around accountability and vulnerability is, ‘if Satan was going to get you out of this ministry, how would he do it?’ It’s not always about money, sex, and power. The number one ministry killer is, according to Dr Farmer, discouragement; the fear a Christian leader has that they won’t want to do their ministry any more or that at some point they can’t.

Mentors, therefore, have the unique opportunity to become sincere encouragers. We can hear what we can encourage, as God gives us an eye for the two or three or four things in a mentoring engagement that we can affirm specifically. We can use phrases like, ‘I can see how much better you are now than before,’ if that is sincerely the case, to remind them of what has changed. There are not many overt encouragements in leadership. Leaders typically aren’t affirmed, encouraged, or acknowledged. Not many people take the time to encourage leaders, and as mentors we are urged not to miss opportunities to encourage.

One of the most discouraging things for a leader is when significant milestones are missed. Pastors don’t get paid enough to deal with the discouragement.

The mentor has to be aware that encouragement is not flattery, that we need a moral antenna to encourage someone in truth. It is not unchristian to honour those who deserve reward.

As far as vulnerability is concerned we need to learn to live constructively with the ugly bits, remembering that the gospel is redemptive, and that vulnerability puts us in touch with reality and it isn’t a put down.

We don’t trust those who don’t love us, so the mentor is in a position where they have the role to love the person they mentor. When mentoring pastors in new roles and ministry situations it is good to remind them not to choose trusted ones too early. As mentors, we are there for them.

‘Accountability is more powerful than you can ever imagine’ — like a time when you perhaps do something regrettable, and then promise someone your accountable to, like your spouse, that if it happens again, you’ll let them know about the lapse within 24 hours.

Mentors have travelled the path of life,
they are not perfect, and
they help to guide through wisdom.

They help those they mentor to seize the day, they confront issues, and tell the truth. Mentors help mentorees to discern what to fight for and what not to fight for. Every now and then there is something to die for. Wisdom is knowing the heart of God. It is not just knowing information, it’s having the power to live it.

Dr Farmer has a gift of recall. ‘As soon as we start talking, it’s all there,’ he was heard to state. Mentors can take notes with permission and for protection.

It’s good to take a retreat day once a month, and set these up in the diary well in advance.

It’s important that there are no line relationships in mentoring. We cannot mentor a manager or a subordinate. According to Keith it’s okay to mentor cross gender provided gender-sensitive issues are left to the GP.

Mentors can be great advocates for those they mentor. If there is an issue a mentor can advocate for, he or she should not be limited in putting a case forward.

The training event I’ve summarised was incredible value, two days full of wisdom about leading people through the support of mentoring. I’m indebted to Dr Keith Farmer and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Perth, Western Australia, for hosting.

DISCLAIMER: these notes are a personal aid. The structure herein is not precise. I pray they may be of some help to you.

Brokenness – God’s Only True Salvation

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None of us truly understand nor live the Christian life, until, like Christ, we have been broken.

But the phenomenon of being broken is a harried and confused subject. The uninitiated will associate it as barbaric; how could a good God require us to be broken? For the initiated, it can be a case of Pharisaic pride – ‘I know it and you don’t’ — but, truly, that is not brokenness.

Brokenness is a state of bereftness
before and without God.

To know the true state of heart.
To be of poverty of spirit.
To know our own soul’s truth.

And that truth is ugly
as much as it’s incontrovertible.

Broken people have come to the end of themselves
and have begun a journey walking humbly with their God.

It’s not that they don’t have pride to contend with. They do. They’re just aware of it as it crops up. They see their pride as an inherent part of their brokenness and they pour contempt on their pride. It cannot survive such a continual holy deluge.

Broken people have reconciled a very important issue; in responding to conflict they have resolved through years of learning that both attack and withdrawal reactions do not work.

The Holy Spirit has shown them a third way.

I know my heart – do you know yours?

The state of a Christian’s heart is a quantifiable reality.

Rarely does the heart want to do the right thing, and never without God. On a recent drive home from work, having had a good day, relationships and devotions and sessions with individuals successfully negotiated and accomplished, I was at a loss as to why I was so impatient. On at least three occasions I was tempted to get annoyed at other drivers, at least that was how I was feeling within myself. I praise God that He was able to show me this; that He has piqued such awareness in me regarding the state of my heart. The only response worthy of God was for me to repent — to receive His gentle though firm rebuke.

My heart is rotten through and through,
even though I am ardently devoted to God.

I know my heart. I know how readily I am tempted to sin. And I know how insidious and crafty the one who tempts me into sin is. I am a moment away from a fall, and my only protection is to be honest and accountable before God and others.

My question is, is your heart any better than mine? And if you think it is, can you categorically say it is not pride that mounts such a defence? Remember that pride is cunning, and the wiles of Satan are a ploy to destroy us.

The reason forgiveness is so damn hard

The reason forgiveness is so damn hard is so basic it should floor us for its simplicity. Our heart is rotten and seeks to win at all costs, and their heart is rotten and they seek to win at all costs too. We can only see from our own perspective; we don’t see well from others’ perspectives. We don’t account for the mistakes of others, but when we make mistakes we want to be forgiven. We judge ourselves easily, and yet go harshly on others. And we never realise the rod we make for our backs in blaming other people when we have our own contribution to own.

The reason forgiveness is so hard
is the sheer number of factors
against seeing how God sees.

Our hearts deceive us.

It is very easy to see why God, alone, has the capacity to give grace. Without God’s help we have no way of giving people the grace they need — that we also need from them.

Why brokenness is the only way

Salvation is truly a state and an experience. We are saved by our active belief in the Lord Jesus; not simply by saying He is our Saviour, but by following Him; our allowing Him truly to be Lord of our life.

Such a life is a life given to repentance. Where a Christian does not readily and daily repent, they really are not Christian at all. Christians do not go around carousing with and criticising others in the name of the Lord.

If there is no fruit of repentance in a Christian’s life,
there really is no signs of faith.

The only way is ‘the third way’ – into and through brokenness

Our only hope for living the life that God has chosen for us to live, which is neither attack nor withdrawal, is to live purposefully in what I call the third way. This is a way of living that is intended to break us.

This way, from the peacemaker’s perspective, is the way of brokenness, for only with God’s help, through surrender, because we have no answer or solution we can procure on our own, can we achieve God’s will. Surely, we have nothing of ourselves to offer God in terms of piety.

Through brokenness is the way
of discerning and doing God’s will.

Even as we experience conflict, and are tempted to react aggressively, or retreat into withdrawal, which is its own form of passive aggression, God offers us a third way.

This third way is nothing we can work out. It’s nothing that we can formulise. It’s nothing we can control. And it simply comes about through surrender, and it is given to us as a mystery, even as we figuratively fall to our knees and bark, ‘Lord, help me!’

It’s only when we’re broken,
by realising the folly of reacting in our own strength,
that we redeem the strength of God,
ironically in our weakness.

I have to once again acknowledge the place of PeaceWise in my journey.