"what3words" describe you?

A newspaper story caught my attention a wee while back. It was about a young woman called Jess Tinsley. She and her 3 friends decided to do a five mile circular walk in Hamsterley Forest in Count Durham one Sunday evening. After 3 hours they were hopelessly lost. At 10.30pm they called 999 and the the call handler told them to download an app called what3words. 

The friends followed that advice and with the information the call handler received the Search and Mountain Rescue Team found the soaked and freezing walkers. 

I need to explain! what3words is an app that you can download to your mobile phone. The developers of the app have divided the world into 57 million squares, each measuring 3m by 3m and each square has a unique, randomly assigned three-word address. If you find yourself trouble or danger then communicating what3words to the rescue services has the potential to lead to your rescue.

I have found myself reflecting on this fantastic resource and in my thinking broadened the idea out to all of life, especially to the development of our characters. And so if you were to send your exact life location to friends what3words would describe you?

The Apostle Paul’s teaching in Colossians chapter three brings with it this challenge - the '3m by 3m square' we could be standing in today might contain the following words:

◻︎greed, impurity, lust

◻︎anger, rage, malice

◻︎slander, gossip, envy

Alternatively, it could contain the following what3words:

 
◻︎Compassion, kindness, humility
◻︎gentleness, patience, love 

what3words describe you? 

A life yielded to God; one dependent on the Holy Spirit will exhibit:

◻︎ love, joy, peace

◻︎ patience, kindness, goodness

◻︎ faithfulness, gentleness, self-control 

(Galatians 5:22)

(picture - Eaglesham Parish Church)

travelling on the nightsleeper

Over the last three weeks I have been gripped by the BBC drama Nightsleeper. Set on a train travelling from Glasgow to London, two strangers work together to try and avert a disaster after it has been “hack-jacked”. As the train hurtles out of control towards Paddington Station in London one of the employees calls out, “Everything is gone. The only thing we have now is prayer.”

Someone famously said, “There are no atheists on a sinking ship!” Or in this case, a runaway train! That scene from the drama has cause me to reflect that it is often after we have exhausted every option at our disposal that we turn to God in prayer.

That seems such a low bar! What if we raise the bar? What if we move prayer from the extremities of life; the place of utter desperation, to the centre; the place heartfelt devotion? 

Over the last few months I have had a renewed appreciation of the place of quiet at the start of each day. To quote William Booth from last week’s reflection, I endeavour to “rise every morning sufficiently early to wash, dress, and have a few minutes, not less than five, in private prayer.” I hold a cup of good coffee in my hand, have an open Bible on my lap, and seek to reorientate my life, through prayer, in a Godward direction for the day ahead. 

And if we are looking for inspiration on how to raise the bar in prayer, then I have personally found it in Ann Lamott’s book in which she outlines three essential prayers which she refers to as, Help, Thanks, Wow. 

Of course, those three essential prayers are woven into the greatest of all prayers, the Lord’s Prayer, that forms part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:5-13). I repeat that prayer at the beginning of each new day and it continues to move me; the words contain an abiding relevance in every circumstance of life.

Observe how the bar slowly rises in Ann Lamott’s writing, beginning with:

Help

O God, do not be far from me; O my God, hasten to my help" (Psalm 71:12).

Thanks

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God (Philippians 4:6).

Wow

Who is like you -
    majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
    working wonders? (Exodus 15:11).

May I humbly suggest that although that outline is helpful, Jesus’ teaching on prayer begins with the bar already set very high. 

He invites us, first of all, to be caught up in the wonder of God’s character - “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:5). Wow.

From that height a spirit of gratitude develops. Thanks. 

Until we finally fall facedown acknowledging our need of his grace and mercy. Help.

Putting the essential prayers in that order enables us to focus on God above all else.  

(picture - Paisley Abbey from Sauchil Hill)

 

life long resolutions!

On December 6th 1849, William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army wrote his “Resolutions”. He was 20 years old. They became for him a measure by which he judged the fruitfulness of his Christian life over the next six decades. They are worth pondering and, in my humble opinion, emulating…

1. That I will rise every morning sufficiently early to wash, dress, and have a few minutes, not less than five, in private prayer.

2. That I will, as much as possible, avoid all that babbling and idle talk, in which I have so lately so sinfully indulged.

3. That I will endeavour in my conduct and deportment before the world and my fellow servants especially to conduct myself as a humble, meek and zealous follower of Christ, and by serious conversation and warning endeavour to lead them to think of their immortal souls.

4. That I will read no less than four chapters of God’s Word every day.

5. That I will strive to live closer to God, and to seek after holiness of heart and leave providential events with God.

6. That I will read over this every day or at least twice a week.

He concluded his “Resolutions” in the following way, “I feel my own weakness, and without God’s help I shall not keep these resolutions. The Lord have mercy on my soul.”

I believe that every Christian who has ever grown in their knowledge of God and become effective for him in this world has had a similar aim as William Booth. How should we then live?

We ought to aspire to the Apostle Paul’s teaching to the Colossians believers:

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (2:6-7).

(Picture - short ferry crossing to the Island of Easdale)

 

that i may know him

 

Over the new year period of 1984 I went with friends to Capernwray Hall in Lancashire for a week’s break. I didn’t know it then but I would return just over three months later for the Spring Bible School having been given a two month leave of absence from work (I still wonder at that provision). However, the one abiding memory of the week was turning in my copy of “Our Daily Bread” on New Year’s Day. The verse for that day had an immediate impact on my thinking. Five simple words combine to form what has become my life verse - “That I may know him…” (Philippians 3:10). Those words, it seemed to me, were the heart cry of the Apostle Paul. And yet how utterly incredible that he should aspire to such knowledge! That I (a finite creature) may know HIM (the infinite Creator).

I turned 60 the other week and my family gave me a beautiful leather bookmark with those words etched on it. “That I may know him…” 40 years have passed since I first read that sentence. It has challenged me, inspired me and urged me to keep going over the years. It has rescued me in my failure and motivated me in my service for God. It has taught me that life is intended to be a journey towards one great and glorious goal...“That I may know him…”

Last week I read Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The central teaching of this letter could be summed up in one small phrase in chapter 3 - ”Christ is all, and is in all” (3:11). Nobody and nothing is great than him. The letter is simply full to overflowing with the character of Christ and the desire to know him.

Two grand truths stood out to me across the four short chapters of Colossians. They have brought me back to that defining reality of the Christian life that first captured my heart four decades ago.

Firstly, Christ is unequalled (he is the world’s sovereign) 

There is an ocean’s fullness of truth in Paul’s vision of Christ’s greatness:

He is the image of the invisible God, 

the firstborn of all creation.  

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 

And he is the head of the body, the church. 

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, 

that in everything he might be preeminent. 

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, 

making peace by the blood of his cross.

(Colossians 1:15-20)

It is no wonder then that Paul having been caught up in such a wonderful vision of the person of Christ should remind us that in the stuff of life we can know this one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3)

And second, he is personally present (the Christian’s supreme focus and rest).

Herein lies the great mystery of Christian experience. The world’s sovereign is personally present with his people. “Speak to him, thou, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can meet - closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet” (Tennyson).

Or as Paul, under the Spirit’s inspiration, describes it so succinctly, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27)

I have come to understand that this knowledge of Christ doesn’t just happen as we acquire more information about him, read more books or listen to more sermons. It’s a knowledge that is revealed to us through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this revelation only comes through a life that’s immersed in the Scriptures and absorbed in prayer. We get to know Christ by walking with him and living out all that he teaches us on that journey. 

I think the essence of this knowledge is expressed in a song called “The Cause of Christ” by Kari Jobe:

It is not fame that I desire

Nor stature in my brother's eye

I pray it's said about my life

That I lived more to build

Your name than mine

(Picture - Buachaille Etive Mor, Glencoe)

dare to be a daniel (pt. 2)

 

Daniel chapter one ends with a sentence that is very easy to pass over. After Daniel’s radical choice (“Daniel resolved not defile himself with the royal food and wine”, verse 8) and its favourable outcome we read, “And Daniel remained there (in the king’s palace) until the first year of King Cyrus” (verse 21). A statement of fact? Yes! But dig a little and you discover that this meant he held a position in the royal court for nearly 70 years under the reign of four kings and likely saw the exiles begin their long journey back to the Israel. Dig deeper still and you discover that Daniel remained faithful to God over these seven decades.  

Around the age of 20 I was asked by my youth leader, Ian Wallace, to join him in leading a church service in Stenhousemuir. At the end of the service an elderly lady shook my hand and said, “Keep going, son, and that will make two of us.” I was deeply touched by that comment and by God’s grace I’ve continued to do just that for 40 years now. 

What do we need to build into our lives to be like Daniel and the elderly lady from Stenhousemuir and remain faithful and true to God?

I believe we need:

1. The Word of God in our mind 

God has given his word as a beacon to guide us.
The Bible is the most precious physical possession we have in life. Therefore, treasure it, read it and live by it.

With little or no access to the Hebrew Scriptures, Daniel chapter 9 informs us that Daniel “understood from the Scriptures…that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years” (verse 2). What an example of a man who invested time in reading and meditating on Scripture.
We ought to follow the advice of Paul to Timothy: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). 

2. The Holy Spirit in our heart

As believers we are promised the presence of the Spirit in our hearts. “Having believed in him you were marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession” (Ephesians 1:13). 

The Holy Spirit helps us in two key areas. 

Firstly, he takes God’s Word in our mind and plants it in our heart in order that it would grow and bear fruit (Galatians 5:22). 

And secondly, he helps us to pray perhaps when our spirits are flagging. Over several decades, Daniel committed himself to praying three times a day. ”Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, JUST AS HE HAD DONE BEFORE” (6:10).

3. Bread and wine in our hand 

Daniel was cut off from regular temple worship. However, we have the great privilege of being part of regular communion services in the local church. And just as food nourishes and strengthens our body so the Lord’s Supper nourishes and feeds our soul. 

4. Fellow believers by our side 

Daniel had three close friends who stood with him, encouraged and supported him. Together they formed a strong partnership and over the years they know doubt spurred one another on to be loyal servants of God.  

Let’s be a community that encourages and supports each other. “Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters” (Romans 12:10). 

Understanding these four realities will help us to set a steady pace and enable us to keep going over the long haul.

Dare to be a Daniel.

Dare to…stay the course. 

(picture - Dumgoyne, Campsie Fells)