Thursday 31 January 2013

Are you sitting in the big fish?

Last week I wrote about how I feel I am 'in the belly'.  I love this song by FFH.  Its a fun song but also has great lyrics.  

I particularly love the second verse where it talks about our inadequacies that we can feel:

You're one brick short of a load now brother
You're one shot away from a bullseye
You are missing the mark on your spiritual walk
You started walking away now you're sinking -
Into the deep, wake up from the sleep
See your one fry short of a happy meal
You are incomplete by your own deceit
You turned your back, now you're going swimming


We often feel like we just aren't good enough and however hard we try we never quite match up to the mark and the truth is that well we don't ever match up to the mark.  This can leave us feeling rubbish and insignificant.  

But the song goes on to this:

You're sinking low how low can you go
So low that you don't know which way to go
To the truth or to the dare?
If you take the dare then you'll be swallowed there
But run to the truth and you will find
That a rescue arrives just in time
To pick you up back on your feet
Obedience is neat.


In those times when we are feeling one fry short of a happy meal (that metaphor made me smile...) all we need to do is turn to the truth and run to God.  Through Christ we are more than enough - He completes us and fills us.  It is such a relief that it isn't down to us to the reach the mark or hit the bullseye as we would never be able to do it.  Thankfully we don't need to - Jesus has already done it for us.  He asks us to come as we are, not try to do a dodgy DIY job of fixing ourselves first.




Monday 21 January 2013

I'm in the belly!


A few weeks ago now (sorry for my slowness!) I wrote a little bit about Jonah (Why why Jonah why?)  and I thought I would share about my main encouragement I got from the weekend learning about Jonah.

"The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.  To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever" Jonah 2v5-6  
Here Jonah is literally at the lowest of the low - I mean he is saying these words from inside a fishes gut!  He had  been as far from God as he could have been.  Jonah actually tries to flee from God.  

But then Jonah prays to God and says these words:
"When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple." Jonah 2v7

Now I had never really thought about the 'in the belly' bit of Jonah before.  I am so used to seeing children's picture bible story books on it where you see Jonah in slightly ripped clothes sitting in what looks like quite a pleasant warm comfortable pink bouncy castle.  I even remember seeing one image where Jonah was sat on a wooden chair inside the belly!! (All the images to the right are ones I found on google which I thought were the funniest bad ones!)

Thing is that is totally not what the case would have been - Jonah was inside a fish for 3 whole days.  It would have been dark, rank, disgusting and very stinky!  He would have been surrounded by and sat amongst bits of dead fish and sea debris.  Absolutely AWFUL!

Jonah had seriously reached the pits - the lowest of the low!  Things couldn't really have got any worse

Yet what we read next in the bible is surprising (well I found it surprising anyway!) 
"But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you."  Jonah 2v9
Jonah is still in the belly here but he is filled with a deep sense of joy.  That seems crazy - how can you be deeply and genuinely joyful when you are sitting amongst caucuses in a fishes belly, serious?!?  Jonah is so filled with joy that he is shouting grateful praise.

This is pretty hard to understand - how can someone in such a rank situation with what seems like nothing to be thankful for be filled with such joy?  He has joy that can only come from God.  Such a deep and solid joy that is not dependant on circumstances, emotions or us, but on God and what He has done for us.

And to be honest I really feel as though I am in the belly.  My situation feels pretty rank. Life is hard, tough and painful.  And its been a lot longer than 3 days (1302 days on crutches so far!)

Even when Jonah was in the middle of a fish in the depth of the sea and called out to God, God heard him.  God didn't ignore Jonah but God did not make the fish spit Jonah up straight away - He waited 3 days.  I don't know why He waited 3 days, but He did and He was in control the whole time.

Yet it was inside the belly that Jonah was so joyful - he wasn't miserable and then once God had rescued him and taken him out of the nasty situation then joyful and thankful.

It is the same for me - life is so tough and hard and painful yet I am not miserable - I am joyful.  I often feel like giving up and like I want to cry, I often feel sad, but I am still joyful.  Jonah called out to God from the deep and God heard him and listened.  I can cry out to God whilst I am feeling rubbish and he hears me and listens to me and is filling me with His joy day after day.

Wednesday 9 January 2013

My Testimony

Two years ago today, on January 9th 2011 I got baptised.  It was a very special day when I was able to reflect back on just how much God has done in my life and just how far He has brought me and I was able to give Him the glory for that.  I thought I would share my testimony on here.


I was very blessed to be born into a loving Christian family who always taught me the wonderful truths of the gospel.  I was also very blessed to be brought up in the Beeston Free church family going to all the kids groups.  They were all fantastic at having the gospel message at the centre of them and so I always knew that Jesus had died on the cross to save my sins but yet I never really bothered to act on it.  I always got taught at Sunday school that coming to church didn’t make you a Christian yet somehow I never really related that to me.  I would always have called myself a Christian and sitting in Sunday school I may have appeared like one on the outside – I always knew the answers and I never doubted that any of it was true, but I suppose that was all Jesus meant to me – a nice story that we could read before bed and hear about on Sundays.

It was before I started the youth group when I was in Discoverers that I realised that actually God needed to mean more to me than just this friendly nice story.  There was a small amount of time when I’d just started secondary school when if someone asked me if I was a Christian my answer would be, well I believe the bible is true and I go to church but I don’t want to call myself a Christian. 

It was when I started the youth group that God really put these things on my heart.  We did some much deeper bible study and that really helped me to start taking God much more seriously.  We did a bible study one evening on Mark 13 and we got to the section about the day and hour unknown.  We were talking about whether or not we would be ready for Jesus’s return.  I distinctly remember one of the leaders looking up and saying, just because Jesus made these promises 2000 years ago does it mean they are old and outdated?  Of course not, it just means that we are 2000 years nearer to it happening.  Something just clicked that night and I realised that even though Jesus had done everything for me and it was all there waiting I hadn’t yet accepted it.  I had gradually realised that I was a sinner but had never really thought about asking for forgiveness and so that night I gave my life to Christ.  God had finally made me realise that He was coming back again and as a judge and when He did I wasn’t ready.
I had learnt that God gave the ultimate sacrifice – His one and only son.  He had given up everything, taken all my sin onto Him.  I didn’t have to do anything. It was all down to God and all by what He had done.  I deserve death but I have a merciful and completely loving heavenly father who is compassionate to me and I wanted to have a personal relationship with Him.

I am very blessed to be able to go to contagious (a Christian camp) every year where we get a week of solid bible teaching which is so helpful, encouraging and uplifting.  Two years ago (well, 4 now...) we had a talk on the lullabies of this world and just how easy as a young Christian it is to give up on it all and to turn our backs on God and to go back to a worldly and sinful  way of living.  God really spoke to me in this talk and I was very moved by it.  It was then that I decided that this is my new life now in Christ and I was not going to let myself slip away from it.  I wanted to make a commitment to God and wanted to show everyone else my commitment to God and my love for Jesus - I love Jesus so much and am striving in my life to serve him but I am still a sinner and still regularly muck up.  This is when I decided I wanted to get baptised.

Unfortunately I had just got on crutches at that time and so decided it would make sense just to wait the few weeks until I was off them... only that never really happened.  Although I do not know when I will be pain free and walking and how long that will be God still continually blesses me so, so, SO much and one thing I can be certain of is that one day I will be dancing with my loving saviour pain free in heaven forever.