The very best part of the holiday was the possibility of spending continuous time with my family. As a pastor I am probably able to get more time with my children than many dads – I can sometimes come home for lunch with them and I can often be around for bath time and bed time. But even so, I probably only manage a few hours each day with them and some days rather less.

But there are no two ways about it, the soil in which relationships grow is time. To have time to play and talk and experience things together is a wonderful opportunity. To be able to take the time to run up a hill together just because your three year old wants to is a fabulous privilege. And my relationship with the girls has strengthened.

Now this is patently true in our relationship with God too.  As I jot down these thoughts I am just reaching the end of a quiet morning – time set aside to walk and read and pray. A time to restore perspectives on life and simply to enjoy being a child of God. And it has done me good.

But the truth is, coming back from a week away and with a busy week ahead, everything in me wanted to get straight to the desk, to the emails, to the to do list, to the sermon preparation. Because my default setting is to do.  But I need to learn to take time. To linger in the moment.

Because what I have been reminded of this week is that activity is no substitute for time and relationship.

One of the Scriptures which started me off on this train of thought a week or so ago was our ‘low Sunday’  service reflecting on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:13-35).  I was struck by the thought that on Resurrection day – when Jesus probably had a pretty long list of urgent things to do and appearances to make, he spent several hours just walking and talking and explaining the Scripture to a couple of disciples – one of whom we don’t even know the name of!  Jesus understood the importance of time with people and the priority of relationships.

God’s perspective on time is (unsurprisingly) completely different from ours.  When you reflect on the big picture of the Bible you see that He lays up His plans thousands of years in advance. He is in no hurry but rather does everything at just the right time. And He knows where it is all going.

LORD help me to learn to take time – with you and with others. To linger on the things which you think are important. To trust you that your plans are perfect. And to look forward to the New Heavens and the New Earth where we will literally have all the time in the world…

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I am more and more convinced that what gives a ministry its motivations, perseverance, humility, joy, tenderness, passion, and grace is the devotional life of the one doing ministry.  When I daily admit how needy I am, daily mediate on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and daily feed on the restorative wisdom of his Word, I am propelled to share with others the grace that I am daily reiving at the hands of my Savior.”

Dangerous Calling, p35.

Just one of many deeply challenging and wonderfully helpful sentiments in Dangerous Calling – a must read if you are involved in any kind of Christian ministry.

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Wonderfully, the cry of lament – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? – is not the cry of one who has lost their faith.  It is the cry of one who knows where their only hope is.

You may like to listen to the 3-part meditation here: http://www.farnhambaptist.org.uk/resources/sermons/?sermon_id=63

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… I think that will have to do for now.  Hope to do some incremental tweaking within the flexibility of the new design.

Normal, somewhat sporadic, service will resume…

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“Get in the car L – daddy needs to catch a train.” Cue writhing on the floor and screams of ‘no’. Then my wife wisely encourages me to deal with the other child. The one already captured in a car seat. Perhaps creating compliance by simply carrying a car seat is more your line.

And she in turn begins to woo my older daughter. I find it hard to capture in words her approach – but she brightly encourages L and focuses on the positive outcomes from her perspective – e.g. getting home to a delicious lunch of pesto pasta.

We did catch the train. No children were harmed in the production of this blog post. But as I reflected on what had just happened and on my parenting skills, or lack of them, my mind turned to the gospel.

In demanding compliance and focusing on performance my approach could be summarised as one of law. Law is needed but tends to highlight the fact that we can’t (or won’t) keep it. Over time it can be crushing unless we meet grace face to face and delight in the one who keeps the law (and takes the punishment) on our behalf.

My lovely wife on the other hand seemed to encapsulate grace. Her wooing of a potentially disobedient child recalls how Our Heavenly Father deals so gently with us. Not shouting punishment and penalty (though my daughter knows from past experience that this is an inevitable part of the consequences of disobedience). But gently encouraging and wooing – her love so much clearer to a child than mine might be.

I’m not pitting law and grace against each other. We need both and the one shows us our need of the other. But those of us who understand and teach grace can so easily lose sight of it in the daily grind.

So I thank God for my wife and pray that I might learn from her example. And I thank God for His amazing patience with me – no stranger to writhing on the floor and screaming ‘no’ (in a metaphorical sense you understand!) – and for the fact that He forgives me when I get it wrong. And, incidentally, I tuck in to a delicious tub of pesto pasta on the train…

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In verse 43, where Saul barks at Jonathan “Tell me what you have done?” I think there is a deliberate echo of 13:11 where Samuel the prophet challenges Saul with the same words. Here in our chapter, “Saul was acting like a prophet challenging Jonathan who had broken his word. [This is another sign that] Saul was no longer submitting himself to the word of the prophet but trying to replace the prophet.” (Leithart, A Son to me, 92) And of course, the ironic answer to the question, ‘what have you done’ is ‘saved the people with the help of Yahweh!’

In fact, the book is loaded with irony. You could argue that one theme of the book is ‘waiting for the righteous son.’ On this basis, there is another deep irony in Jonathan’s situation. Eli’s children, Samuel’s children – even to a greater or lesser extent David’s children – were all (or would be) a disappointment. Jonathan is the only ‘good son’ in the book – but he is prevented from being king by his father’s actions.

You will be able to listen to or watch the sermon here shortly.

I would also recommend Peter Leithart’s book as a stimulating read. I wouldn’t go with him on every point but he makes some illuminating observations about the text.

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One of our downstairs taps is leaking and yesterday I discovered that our boiler might be leaking too. Every night I go to bed staring up at a growing damp patch on our ceiling wondering whether this is the night when it will collapse. Water is a dirty word in our house at the moment.

How does the gospel affect all this?

The leaking roof was the first thing I noticed. (In fact, technically it was the non-water-related rodent incidents – but that is another story, although as you will see there is a sense in which this is all of a piece.)

I was thankful that it seemed to be leaking in a place where we didn’t store anything, and it made me conscious of how much ‘stuff’ we have accumulated that our loft should be so full of it.  Time to de-clutter perhaps?

The verses that kept on coming back to me were Matthew 6:19-21:

“Do not store up for yoursleves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do no break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This was a comfort and a perspective-restorer. The mould which was appearing all over the place in our increasingly damp home felt like a clear example of moth and rust type decay.  And ultimately these things are not important in the light of eternity.

After Christmas I was fortunate to have some time off work. And as I looked around the house it was full of things to do. But I also wanted to spend time with my daughters. Investing in them is surely more important than leaks and shelves. But though my head knew this I still felt torn much of the time.

And since then, as one thing after another seems to have gone wrong, it is hard to fight for the right perspective.  Ironically I used the security we sometimes place in a house as an illustration last Sunday – my head knows that my house is not the root of my security. But my heart finds itself being slowly depressed by the damp.

And as I have reflected on what is going on in my heart, I realise that in many ways the issue isn’t the water. You see, I’m no DIY man, and so these situations inevitably leave me at the mercy of someone else. The ‘expert’. Who will scratch his head and draw breath through his mouth in a way which can only indicate large quantities of money will be required.

And there was a time when the money would have been the worry.  But our church is very generous with us and over the years God has demonstrated time and again His abundant provision and faithfulness in all these areas.  So the issue actually turns out to be an issue of control. This wasn’t the plan I had for my life (or my house!) at this time.  There’s a problem surrounding me and I can do nothing about it on my own. Does that sound familiar?

And the external pressures are matched by the ongoing internal life-battles in which you feel the same helplessness. Will I never conquer this particular sinful tendency of thought or behaviour? Will I never be the sacrificial husband I am called to be? Will I never be the patient, consistent, Godly example to my daughters I long to be?

And the answer is no. And for this we have Jesus. And He loves me in spite of my weakness and my failures and my desires for control. And He forgives me when I get it wrong. (And He loves my daughters more than I ever could, and has plans for them too)  And He urges me not to worry about that water, but to come to Him and drink.

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But far more importantly, I hope 2013 will be a year when you and I get stuck in to our Bibles more. There is nothing that will do more for your walk with God and your general spiritual encouragement than taking regular time to be in His Word and praying. I write as one that finds this hard, but has seen the benefits. So here are a couple of resources which I have found useful/encouraging.

To get you started – here is an encouraging post which just encourages us to get reading! http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/guilt-free-bible-reading

Secondly, many folk find notes or devotionals of some kind a help. I am really enjoying using The King’s English. You can get it from Lulu in a print edition. Or it is available on Amazon in the Kindle edition.

Thirdly, for those of you with ipads and ipods, I have found a very useful free app which allows you to follow a variety of Bible reading plans – e.g. Bible in a year, Psalms in a month, etc. etc. The nice thing about this is you can tick off when you have done the reading so you can keep track, and you can make it link in to whatever Bible app you use on your smart device – so you can instantly link to the reading. It will also synchronise over the Internet so you can do the reading on any device and keep track on all of them. Very simple, and it just works. ReadingPlan

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I highly recommend the following two books which have been wonderfully helpful along the way:

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Here is some classic Keller insight on two types of repentance…

There are two different ways to go about repentance – religious repentance and gospel repentance. In ‘religion,’ the purpose of repentance is basically to keep God happy to he will continue to bless us and answer our prayers. So, in religion we are sorry for sin only because of its consequences. Sin will bring us punishment – and we want to avoid that, so we repent.

The gospel, however, tells us that as Christians sin can’t ultimately bring us into condemnation (Rom 8:1) Its heinousness is therefore what it does to God; it displeases and dishonours him. Thus in religion, repentance is self-centred; the gospel makes it God-centred. In religion we are mainly sorry for the consequences of sin, but in the gospel we are sorry for the sin itself.”

Gospel in Life study guide, p28.

Oh, for a heart to grasp this more and more deeply.

You can get the course here:

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