the very annoying little brother

Last week as I was reading Luke 15, I felt my annoyance grow against the younger brother; he not only cussed his dad by wishing him dead and taking his money, but he only wanted to go back to his family home because he was thinking about his stomach! There was no remorse or consideration about how much pain he had caused- both to the hearts of his family, the reputation, the relationships..

I come to this chapter a few times during a year and he has been getting more and more on my nerves! I find him selfish and self- absorbed, without any cares about hurting anyone else- just as long as he gets what he wants. I think he probably brings up all my personal annoyance towards those in my own life who I have felt hurt and offended by! (Mirror, mirror in the Word!) So when I read about how the son was then making a script about becoming one of his dad’s servants, I thought how merciful that would be on a human level for the dad to accept this. His dad even thinking of accepting him back into the house- even to serve- would be human’s high mercy… But then we read that his dad doesn’t even respond to the son’s script but goes WAY above and beyond and invites him back to come and live as his SON!!

How challenging is this to us- when our great mercy would look like allowing the son back in our lives at all!

This parable shows us the kind of standard of love that God is showing us the example to live by- that we should love others so much that we hold nothing against them including unforgiveness and offence.

This higher law is beyond feelings and ‘our truth’, and even beyond what others will say and opinionate about our dealings with such matters, it is beyond how we will look to others (weak, pathetic, doormat, walkover, etc).

It was such a cold smack in the face as I was reading this as this is the Truth that we need to live by if we want to be fully free and fully secure and active in our true identity. But as the smack started to fade in its sting(!), I consider how much I need God to help me in absolutely everything, and how amazing that He desires to help me in everything!

new year’s resistance

Each New Year I ask God for a word to have for the coming 12 months and it is so interesting that as I look back, the words that I’ve had have been the exact opposite in what has either been ‘manifested’ or even come anywhere close to the word. I’m not sure if this is pure attack, or if the word has produced but in a different format to what I expected, or if it is even deeper still and was just given in seed form
in the at year that will produce over different time periods..

This year (and we’re only 4 days in at the time of writing this!), my ‘word’ has almost tormented me and kept me awake at night and it has been SO crazily difficult to fix my mind and position to align with God. 

As I’m trying to organise my thoughts, I find it interesting to think that as soon as we move into an assertive stance or position to grow or expand, the resistance increases massively! When our intention is set then it seems that everything within us goes into revolt and wants to then start taking away the little ground that we had!

To engage in growth we must be so aware that we have a real enemy that is against us- the devil and all his demons- as well as our own flesh and comfort zone (or even pain zone- whatever is most usual and accepted as our normal). When we go from passive to assertive, we will always find that the path of least resistance is trying to lead us right back to where we are trying to move on from!

Let us not become discouraged or fatigued as we move forward and let us fix our eyes on the goal. If things don’t look like what we expected then that’s fine- as long as we are investing our all into what we believe we need to be doing, everything else is out of our control.

the offence of Love

God is Love.

He wants us to have life in all fullness so He is not afraid to challenge our unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, selfishness, pride… but in a world where challenging someone is seen as not loving them and as hate-speech, this is now totally twisted.

If someone you love is planning on slowly dying would you really be loving them by agreeing that “that is what they want so I’ll respect that”? Is love truly that insincere and weak, feeble and pathetic??

Does love really look like agreeing with something that sees people binge on selfishness and be totally consumed by self? 

Doesn’t love look more like being kind when we totally disagree? Or staying friends and respecting people while having opposite ideas in life?

Love shows itself best in hard times. In times where we have to make decisions.. to lovingly call out the crap we see in each other as well as the gold.. To stay faithful to our word when we want to run, to be committed and fully respecting to our spouse when they are not as ‘exciting’ as so and so..

Love is absolutely resolute. It is not weak or flimsy. It is strong and painful. It is patient and faithful. It is being honest when that will create pain instead of a fleeting pleasure.

Let us never make the mistake that agreement equals love. It absolutely does not.

Love is self-sacrificial, truth, challenging, patient, kind, compassionate, painful, persevering, clear, uncompromising with death, faithful.

Remind you of Anyone?