Threads, plans, patterns and beauty

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:8-9

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11

Decided a few months ago to make a friendship band for a friend’s birthday, unfortunately I couldn’t find the pattern for what I wanted to make ANYWHERE, so I gave up. BUT…. those of who know me and know how much I hate not getting what I set out to achieve, will understand why I couldn’t let it go.

So last week in order to switch my sleep/wake cycle for nights I set about making the pattern and making the band.

Showing the pattern excitedly to friends and colleges it struck me that no one could see the pattern for what it was. I needed to hold it at arms length from everyone so they could make out the pattern that was clearly evident to me. Got me thinking about the pattern God’s planning for my life, how often I can’t see the bigger picture because I’m lost in the detail of now. I can’t see the woods for the trees as they say. His plan is so clearly evident to him because he designed it, it doesn’t need to be evident to me now, cause one day I’ll be able to hold it at arms length and see it for what it really is.

With that thought on my mind I set about making the pattern, I saw the whole process a lot differently, looking at the threads had no idea of the greater picture, they could not perceive their role in the design/plan/pattern that I had made, the threads were sometimes up sometimes down sometimes went forward, backwards, were obscured by different threads, often came full circle to where they’d originally started only to repeat the process again. The treads only requirement was to be faithful to the way I placed them, to remain on top when the pattern called for it and to be put down when the pattern called for it, the thread required no understanding of the overall pattern, required no vision of their role in the bigger picture. But ultimately the pattern was a thing of beauty, a creation of my hands that I rejoiced in, that I took pride in, that when it all came together showed a purpose to the seemingly random movements of threads, that reflected my abilities.

I am that thread, unsure where exactly I’m being placed, why I’m being placed there and what the next step will be. But my role is to be faithful to where I’m placed, to trust that the creator of the pattern of the whole universe is planning a thing of beauty, something that reflects his glory, that is more then I could have imagined, better then I could have hoped, beyond my wildest dreams.

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. - 1 Corinthians 2:9
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, - Ephesians 3:20

Something that when’s all’s said and done He looks on with joy, and pride and say as he did on the first day that “it is good”. Just like I moved the threads it is only through His power that I can do anything, that I may shine like the colors in my band did, only through “being still and knowing He is God” may I be part of the intricate plan he has designed for me, for my life as it play out, as it intertwines with other lives.

May the last day see him look on me with joy and say “this is my beloved in whom I am well pleased, enter into the joy of your master” Pray that I be faithful to the pattern he is planning without resistance, without the need to see the bigger picture which only He sees

By the way – this is the pattern

The present is where time touches eternity

At a friends behest I watched eternal sunshine of a spotless mind the other day. Being neither a fan of “artsy” movies nor a fan of Jim Carey I didn’t expect much. One particular scene in the movie stuck with me though…..it’s the scene where Jim Carey, trying to hide his girlfriend from being “erased” takes her back to a memory he has of his childhood before she was even in his life, and of course that memory is then erased. I began to think if it was even possible to “wipe” someone from your life that meant something to you without having to wipe the whole mind.

Anyone who’s been in serious relationship will understand what I mean, that the relationship although in the present somehow reaches back in time to affect the past, so that your memories of things like childhood are tied into the present, tied in with the experience of sharing that memory. That relationship takes the edge of bad memories and multiplies the joy of good ones…..even when the memory took place before the relationship. That a relationship can in some senses exist outside time, that it goes back in time and affects your perception of the past, it moulds your vision of the future.

I was then re-reading C.S Lewis’ “The Great Divorce” (highly recommended to anyone who hasn’t read it). When I ran across this passage:
You cannot in your present state understand eternity: when Anodos looked through the door of the Timeless he bought no message back. But you can get some likeness of it if you say that both good and evil when they are full grown, become retrospective. Not only this valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved, Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me have this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the blessed will say “we have never lived anywhere except in heaven,” and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.

I love the fact that heaven will turn “what seemed, when I entered it to be the vale of misery” when I look back “to have been a well; and where present experience sees only salt deserts, memory truthfully recalls that the pools were full of water” That one day I’ll see clearly “face to face” that I will see all my present experiences in the light of His grace. That His relationship with me will reach back in time to me past, to my present to the experiences I will have in the future so that when I see Him and see my life through his eyes I will see his hand through it all. That like in “footprints” I will not look back and see my struggle but rather Him carrying me through it, not my wounds but His tender healing, not my plans gone awry but His plans coming to fruition. May I come to see the day where I see my beloved face to face and He wipes away every tear from my eyes, not just in the present, but by enlighting me to his presence in my past.

That which yields is not always weak.

Someone told me they miss my blog posts the other day, I didn’t realize anyone was “listening”. But it motivated me to do another one.

Anyways, I read this quote the other day, really stuck with me, reminded me about something I’d read in one of my fantasy novels. There was a woman talking about the differences in male strength and female strengths, she said that male strength is the strength of steel, it holds and holds and holds but eventually it snaps, shatters. Female strength is that of a young plant, that whilst it cannot hold, it endures, it is malleable it withstands pressure even steel cannot because it bends to pressure, allows itself to be pushed down, humiliated, but in the end, it endures beyond that pressure; it lasts.

Been thinking a lot about yielding to God’s will and ultimately to yield to His will means discerning what it is, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Elisabeth Elliot counsels single people to accept God’s will for their life graciously that for those inclined to have a relationship not to resent their current lives.

“The important thing is to receive this moment’s experience with both hands. Don’t waste it. ‘Wherever you are, be all there,’ Jim once wrote. ‘Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.’
A lovely moonlit night, but I am alone. Shall I resent the very moonlight itself because my lover is somewhere else?
A cozy candlelight supper with friends – couples, except for me. Shall I be miserable all evening because they are together and I am single? Have I been “cheated”? Who cheated me?
The phone rings. Oh! Maybe it will be He! It’s somebody selling light bulbs. Shall I be rude because he ought to have been someone else?
A letter in the mailbox that (for once) doesn’t look like junk mail or a bill. I snatch it eagerly. It’s from Aunt Susie. Do I throw it away in disgust?
I know al about this kind of response. I’ve been there many times. Something I wrote to Jim once must have revealed me resentment for he wrote, “Let not out longing slay the appetite of our living.” That was exactly what I had let it do.
There were times, I’m sure, when if anyone had tried to talk to me about the happiness of heaven I would have turned away in a huff. The painful thing was that other folks not only had heaven to look forward to, but they had “all this and heaven too,” “this” this being engagement or marriage. I was covetous. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Christians about the happy certianity of heaven, he went on to say, “This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys – we can be full of joy, here and now even in our trials and troubles.”
Even when I’m feeling most alone – on that moonlit night, in the middle of the candlelit supper, when the phone call and letter don’t come – can I be be “full of joy here and now”? Yes. That is what the bible says. That means it must be not only true, but possible and possible for me.
“Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of the sort prodces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us”
Taken in the right spirit. These are the operative words. The empty chair, the empty mail box the wrong voice on the phone have no particular magic in themselves that will make a mature character out of a lonely man or woman. They will never produce a steady hope. Not at all. The effect of my troubles depends not on the nature of the troubles themselves but on how I receive them. I can receive them with both hands in faith and acceptance, or I can rebel and reject. What they produce if I rebel and reject will be something very different from a mature character, something nobody is going to like.
Look at the choices:
1. rebellion – if this is the will of God for me then He doesn’t love me.
2. rejection – if this is what God is giving me, I won’t have any part of it.
3. faith – God knows exactly what he’s doing
4. acceptance – He loves me; He plans good things for me; I’ll take it.
The words “full of joy here and now” depend on the words “taken in the right spirit”. You can’t have one without the other, Taken in a spirit of trust, even loneliness contributes to the maturing of character, even the endurance of separation and silence and that hardest thing of all, uncertainty, can build in us a steady hope.

My life currently is turning out much different to what I had dreamt of, hoped, prayed, planned, and prepared for. God is trying to bless me in His away and I instead of yielding to the change He is bringing about and like the young plant bending to adapt to that change so that I may grow in him, I have preferred to be the steel, obstructive to the soft breeze of change that He sends. Becoming increasingly resentful of all that is good in my life, increasingly envious of those who have what I wanted, unable to bless those around me because I cannot get past the idol I have created.

I read somewhere that “The evil in our desires typically does not lie in what we want but that we want it too much” this is very true of me. My desire has been something praiseworthy, “above reproach” holy even, until became a substitute God in my life and I rebel against God when I’m not given it, becoming ungracious to those around me, increasingly self centered and resenting even the path that led me to this desire.

To quote Joshua harris:
He closed the door on this and he had done it for my own good. The God of the universe was willing to reach down and be involved in the details of my life .

Too bad I haven’t learnt to do what Joshua Harris did
crying I thanked him
“I don’t understand but I thank you”
“I don’t understand but I know your are good”
“I don’t understand but I know you are taking this away because you have something better.

For those that pray, pray that I find the strength to yield, and to yield in joy and happiness knowing “no eye has seen nor ear has heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him”.

HOME!

"Maybe surrounded by a million people I still feel all alone, just wanna go home" - Michael Buble

I was struck today by the intense longing i have to go back home. I'll be going back home in 5 days for 2 weeks, and as the time draws closer my anticipation of being back amongst the people I know and love, the ones who love me. I’m literally ACHING to get back home; I feel restless and out of place away from my usual routine, my family and friends. I feel like my life is based there and knowing I’m only here temporarily leaves me with no desire to lay any roots here. I haven’t made any effort to cultivate friendships, activities etc cause I know I’ll soon be where I have real friends, to resume activities I love and enjoy.

It’s the same longing I’m called to develop in relation to my hearts to true home. There’s a reason Christians have always thought of the resurrection as a “coming home”. It’s meant to feel the same as how I feel about going to Melbourne from Dunedin. I’m meant to approach the whole world as I do Dunedin. My true home, where my life is based is not on earth at all, those that love me are not here. I should approach the idea of laying roots the same way; that it is only temporary that I’ll soon be where I have real love, where I can resume activities (i.e. worship) that fill me with joy and gladness, that make my soul sings.

Only problem I can only develop that mind frame if I truly make my base heaven and not here, if I cultivate relationships with those that love me up there. That I should develop an interest and a passion for the activities I will be doing there. If I know no-one up there, I’ve never loved doing the activities carried out there, how can I expect to be excited about “coming home” it wont be a home coming, it’ll be an exile!

I was struck by how often I said “back home” in everyday conversations here. I must mention Melbourne or back home at least once in every conversation I have! Everything is compared and contrasted with my life in Melbourne. I wish I had that same fervor for my heavenly home, that I constantly talked about it, that I compared everything I did to my life there, that I awaited it as eagerly as I await going to Melbourne. *sigh* I’m a long way from that, I barely know my family there, I don’t have a relationship with most of them.

‘For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives” – St Clement of Rome (epistle to Diognetus Chapter 5)


“It’ll all be alright, I’ll be home tonight, I’m coming back home” – micheal buble - I hope when the time comes mine will truly be a home coming