Rewind to this time last year, I had entered a new season in my spiritual life that I simply could not get accustomed to. The best way I can describe it is “The Still Waters”. Bear with me here and we’ll paint a picture together.

My spiritual journey first began in the summer of 2012 on my first missionary trip to Kenya; a time in my life that I frequently reminisce on – the first couple of days I met my First Love, my Jesus. A chapter of great emotion; The Beginning. Bucketfuls of joyful tears from being introduced to the One who stole my heart and learning that I am a consecrated temple for Him (1 Kings 9:3). A season where I began to discover the difference between the Truth and my many ever-changing truths. I’m sure many of you can relate to a similar period in your life; when you first actively decided to make the shift from a “Sunday church-goer” to an “I want a real relationship with God” Christian.

That chapter lasted all of two pages, before the next, twenty paged, chapter – one that did not seem to ever want to end – came and really tested me; The Storm. A season of many questions and many tears (this time, not so joyful). A time that I begged the Lord to take away from me, nonetheless a time that showed me the real, practical side of God. The loving Father, the supporting Son and the comforting Holy Spirit. The Storm taught me the power of Hope; what it means to hope in Him and trust that I will not be put to shame (Psalm 25:3) even when darkness seems to prevail. God didn’t just use The Storm to open my eyes to His real, practical love for me, but also utilised it to convict me to serve others in the same way that He was ministering to me.

As quickly as it had come, The Storm had passed with the grace of God. I had grown accustomed to dreaming about what “could be” during that period of my life, that when I reached the other side, I couldn’t quite believe it.

The Still Waters; a season in your life where external circumstances are very comfortable, so that no intense emotions are evoked in your everyday living.

I had been liberated from what felt like the harshest storm, now finally making it into the still waters of a vast ocean. Freedom! Joy! Thankfulness! Gratitude! Relief! Excitement! I could do whatever I pleased and go wherever I wanted.

Except that I couldn’t…

I wandered in The Still Waters for an entire year, literally. I got lost; I circled around myself month after month finding myself right at the same spot where The Lord had originally delivered me to, after The Storm. The plethora of emotions I had experienced once delivered, faded away as fast as daylight on a cold November’s day. What was interesting was though I was completely lost at sea, I felt a comfort in knowing that “at least I was no longer in The Storm”.

And this is where it all went south…

Lesson 1: Still Waters Do Not Stir Emotion

What I hadn’t realised as I sailed into The Still Waters, was that up until this point in my life, my spirituality was entirely based on emotions (even though I genuinely didn’t think it was).

You see, Kenya to me was almost like the “honeymoon” stage of a relationship for The Lord and I; He outpoured His grace onto me and I gladly soaked it in. My relationship with Him at that time was heavily based on the stirring of my emotions – oh how the Spirit would move me in all circumstances! I began to know His heart but had placed Him in this nice ‘airy-fairy’ Christian bubble in my mind. And though The Lord impacted my everyday life choices, it almost felt like a daze – far away from reality.

I believe that is why He permitted The Storm to hit when it did – to wake me up! So I could be overwhelmed by “real life” and choose to integrate Him into it. So I could encounter His love and despite the pain of the world, would learn to take heart, for He has overcome the world (John 16:33).
What I hadn’t accounted for, was though I was growing in faith because of the trial, I was still completely dependent on emotions. Negative ones albeit, but emotions nonetheless. Despair would have completely overtaken me had I not run to Him, but it was that same despair that drove me to His arms in the first place.

“St. Diadochos of Photiki says that the Introductory Joy is one thing and the Perfecting Joy is another. The first one, being strongly emotional, is mixed with fantasy, “is not devoid of fantasy”, while Perfecting Joy is associated with humility. Between Emotional Joy and Perfecting Joy there is “god-loving sorrow and painless tears”. Emotional Joy, which is called Introductory, is not entirely rejected, yet we must be led to the Perfecting Joy. This perfection and cure is achieved through the cross.”

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

When you’re smooth sailing in life though, there are absolutely no intense emotions being evoked. You’re neither ecstatic nor are you devastated, so coming to the Lord becomes an active choice. Your external circumstances do not push or force you to hold onto Him – it all becomes a choice. A true freedom bestowed on us from The Father; the freedom to completely abandon Him when life is neither healing nor hurting. A freedom I am not accustomed to and still figuring out how to handle.
Becoming dependant on your emotions in your walk with God can only lead to darkness. Emotions are fickle, ever-changing and temporal. They’re a great side dish to a main course, but they can never satisfy your innermost hunger.

What I have only come to realise now, is that emotions can only take us so far because of their nature; being passive. A relationship with our Creator, and consequently with our fellow men, has to be based on Love to succeed, and Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

Love is an action; an action that we deliberately perform. We have a Saviour who initiated that Love towards us, and that is how we are able to live Love, speak Love and think Love (1 John 4:19). While Love is an active decision to do, emotions are a passive result of receiving. Because you can Love with no emotions, but you cannot feel emotions without Love (or lack thereof).

We must train our spiritual muscles to rest on Truth in our relationships with the Lord, not on emotions; for the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6), and knowing these things, blessed are we if we do them (John 13:17). We are new creations; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17); therefore we have the power to not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

Lesson 2: Still Waters Can Lead To Death

I have a pet bunny called Joel (cutest little guy) who lives in my room (don’t worry, before you start saying ‘eww’; – I’m very clean and my room is usually very tidy), and I often think about what little visual stimulation he receives on an average day compared to me. As I walk the streets of London daily, my eyes are exposed to colours and shapes, while he stays loafing around in my room eagerly awaiting the moment when dad comes home so he can eat and play (mostly eat).

Sailing the Still Waters – as tranquil and peaceful as it is, does the same to us as Joel staying in my room all day; we are not stimulated – whether by sight, sound, smell or touch. Before long, the sight of the blue ocean and blue sky becomes repetitive, and we can develop a numbness to the season we’re in.

If we do not choose to involve God in our everyday lives during that season, Idleness can creep in; an ungodly lifestyle that the Lord condemns.

“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” Proverbs 6:6-11

In my case, it crawled ever so sneakily, reintroducing me to an old abusive friend; Lust, and Lust as is her nature, suffocated me (James 1:15).

For some of us, shame is not enough to help gear us back into the arms of the Father when we have succumbed to an ungodly life, numbing us from the neck down. We choose to believe the enemy’s guilt over the Holy Spirit’s conviction. It took a moment of complete helplessness, realising that though I had given myself to the world, the world would never be loyal to me, for me to comprehend what Jimmy Needham is saying in the clip below;

“Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.“

1 Timothy 2:22

“I have seen impure souls crazed for physical love; but when these same souls have made this grounds for repentance, as a result of their experience of sexual love they have transferred the same eros to the Lord, They have immediately gone beyond all fear and been spurred to insatiable love for God. This is why the Lord said to the chaste harlot not that she had feared, but that she had loved much, and was readily able to repel eros through eros…

Let them take courage who are humbled by their passions. For even if they fall into every pit and are caught in every snare, when they attain health they will become healers, luminaries, beacons and guides to all, teaching about the forms of every sickness and through their own experience saving those who are about to fall.”

St. John Climacus

Lesson 3: Still Waters Lead To New Rivers

When you give the Lord authority to lead the way, to set sail, you feel immense peace and assurance in His will, even if you have not yet reached your destination.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.” Isaiah 26:3-4

It’s the casting of the net, when there is surely no fish in the sea. (Luke 5:4)
It’s purposely going into battle with 300 men, instead of 32,000. (Judges 7:7)
It’s the sacrificing of your only son, because God told you so. (Genesis 22:10)

Only now am I beginning to understand lyrics of a song I had heard so often; “‘Cause learning how to love, is learning how to lose”. How true it is, the mystery of losing oneself in Christ, to find oneself.

Chris August sings “I gotta find You, if I wanna find me”… the same melody the Psalmist had long spoken of when he wrote “I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love forever and ever ” Psalm 52:8, finding himself in His Saviour and Creator.

The beauty of submission, is though I do not know what is beyond The Still Waters, I remain hopeful and unshaken as I am rooted in Him.

The Still Waters are a blessing; a season to enjoy a pure, undefiled, real Love with my King. A chance to grow and to practice putting on the armour of God in preparation for my next trial; whether it be another storm, an earthquake or a fire. A season of open dialogue with The Word, to be corrected and refined.

It is the recognition that I can grow in love with Jesus on the journey, not just at the destination.

May you see The Lord in your Still Waters.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”― Sylvia Plath

Last September I had a pretty big decision to make about where I was going to accept a job. I called up the people who knew me best to get their insight, asked my father of confession for his wisdom and spoke to people working in the same field for their perspective.

Whether it’s deciding over relationships, colleges, schools or jobs, sometimes we might find ourselves with two seemingly great choices, and so we find ourselves in a dilemma. Each choice will come at a cost; each choice will have positives and negatives, and ultimately no choice will be perfect.

I’ve never been a fan of pros and cons lists – I find that life can’t be categorised that easily. However, a friend gave me advice that helped. I was told to assign a value to each point under my two options. When I started writing the values I held, I started to see that while both choices were in line with the vision I had for my life, there were some values that were more significant than others. And while one option had way more values than the other, the other which only had a couple were much more fundamental to me.

A few of the things I’ve learned this season…

“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). In the midst of his crisis, King Jehoshaphat acted by praising God. We also in the midst of our confusion and turmoil over decisions, need to learn the art laying our anxieties and restless thoughts down, being still and opening our heart in worship. The voice of the Holy Spirit can be so gentle that it’s only when we spend time in his presence that we can discern His Voice from all the noise.

Pray and learn from whatever happens on the other side. No matter what you choose, there will be struggle, and there will be trials for we know “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Sometimes those are a result of our choices, but in the end, they will be used by God to sanctify us and purify us. Living with our eyes on eternity is important in those seasons to understand that nothing is outside of His never-ending and unfailing love and mercy. There is no such thing as Plan B or Z with Christ. He will use all for our deification; it might take us longer on certain paths but even then, all we need to do is repent, and we are restored.

There’s a principle in radiology that says even if you find the fracture on an x-ray you should keep looking for other signs because you don’t want to be blindsided. Bring your decision before the Lord in prayer and meditation but challenge yourself to be curious and look deeper into your intentions, motivations and reasons for each choice. Give yourself time, patience and space and trust that the Holy Spirit will examine you, try you and reveal what is in depths of your heart.

Sometimes God’s will is clear and other times, most times, God allows us the freedom to choose and become whoever we want, though He may certainly have a direction for you. Submission is hard as we deny our self that we may be dedicated to Another. The hardest part in all of this is asking God “Who do you want me to be?” I think of Mary, called to be Mother of God; Abraham called to be Father of Nations and the disciples called to be Fishers of Men. God revealed to them who they were in His eyes and with that promise He gave them the strength and grace to become. Sometimes we don’t know how to choose because we don’t know who God is asking us to be. That may not be a question that gets answered overnight, it needs silence and self-awareness and time alone with Him. Sometimes it’s a process – it takes making one choice faithfully, and waiting faithfully and then making another and waiting to see what is revealed. But it’s a question we all desperately need the answer to – more than what we do God wants us to know who we are. It is only in knowing that, can we then make the decisions about what we do, how we spend our time, money and emotions. Because where we invest our heart, there we invest our life.

What if there is no such thing as the perfect choice? Because choosing means we can’t have everything. Because we don’t know how things will change and how those things that change will change us. Because we don’t know who we will be or what we will need in the future? Because we can sit here and play “what if the the grass is greener over there?” all day and it won’t bring us any closer to an answer – only further from being satisfied. And what if none of that matters because the point is to grow and seek His kingdom regardless of our choices?

So trust yourself. Most of our choices are not made in isolation. Where we are now and the choices we are making today is a culmination of all the choices and experiences in the past that have led up to this point. Trust that the God who has knit you from birth, has been guiding you and shaping you like clay can lead you today in this choice. Sometimes it’s fear of not having the perfect picture of our future figured out that holds us back.

A year later I’m fighting to find peace in the unknown road I’m on, but I want to continue to fight and continue to hope in Him because when I put the pieces in front of me, they don’t fit. Before me lays the back of a colourful tapestry and I have little idea what the canvas is going to look like. There are some dark threads from the past and some strange shapes from the present. But if I let Him just take all the colours, threads and pieces, I don’t have to sit and stare at them. The root of every untrusting feeling is the fear that He is not in fact good and that His love will end, especially when I feel I have no clue or answers about what to do. But if I forfeit my desire to know every outcome, if I forfeit the need to have physical evidence or feeling as evidence, then I will trust in His Word that He is with me, and that He is weaving stars and gold from what looks like odd patterns to me. And doesn’t that make all the difference?

C.S. Lewis — ‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?’

One choice we can always make, even in the midst of painful uncertainty, the simplest place to start is with this: “Love the Lord your God … and love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater…”  You will always be where you need to be as long as Love is your aim.

I retell the story once written of a woman caught in her weakness. A tale of piercing words and stones clenched in fists. Yet, there is a Man who bends low, speaks:

“He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” John 8:7

Stones fall like rain to the ground, every voice is silenced. My sweet sister falls too to the ground, and Mama says, “the Word has pierced her, she is humbling herself.”

“Neither do I accuse you, go and sin no more.” John 8:11

Sister wipes her tears in her shirt, cries,

“But I can’t change. I sleep with so many men. I’m 30 and I can’t have one man. My Father and mother don’t believe I can change, they call me a drunkard. So I just drink.”

We hold her close, speak softly: “we are your family, and we believe in you.”

“Really?” She stares at us, wide-eyed, in disbelief. “But how can I change, I drink. I don’t know how.”

“His power is your strength.

You are worthy.

You are loved.”

Wise Mama speaks to her of Paul on the road to Damascus, tells her the truth that no one is ever too far from grace, that there is no such thing as a lost cause.

“Nifuna, Nifuna, Nifuna” (I want, I want, I want), she pleads.

We hold hands in prayer, pleading for every chain and stronghold to break.

I marvel at the God who does not count our sin, only the number of hairs on our head. I marvel at the abundance of that love.

Sometimes those who are serving God become the hopeless, wishing that those whom they serve could change, but lacking the belief that they can actually change. Perhaps most people, if not all, have a list of “lost causes.” But maybe there is power in the faith of friends who believe in His power. Maybe hope for the hopeless starts right here, with us, when we pursue the wholeness of others by believing in the wholeness of others. Maybe our belief is everything; maybe our faith is more potent than we ever imagined. Like the paralytic man who’s healing came when his friends insisted to lay him before Christ.

When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” Luke 5:20

Because a roof was no hindrance when the “power of the Lord was present to heal them.” (Luke 5:17) Maybe breaking rooftops is our call, and maybe the hardest rooftop to break through is our own disbelief. What if hope for the hopeless looks like a man weeping and praying in faith before a holy God on behalf of an unfaithful nation (Ezra 9), until the power of God is displayed through their repentance (Ezra 10)?

What if those around us, who are in need of change, never changed because we never faithfully believed and prayed that they could?

What if we prayed for others, genuinely believing in Gods power?

Sweet sister comes the next evening for prayers, runs up to the altar weeping on her knees. Maybe our faith in Him on behalf of others is the most we really have to offer, maybe He is more powerful than we have ever known…

Well, He’s dead.

In the end, they took Him and nailed him to a cross, watched Him suffocate under the weight of His own body, and then stabbed Him to make sure He was dead. Then everything seemed to go mad; the Veil of the Temple split down the middle, blasphemously revealing the Holy of Holies. The earth started shaking and the ancient dead burst from their tombs, as though strolling around Jerusalem was the most natural thing in the world after a thousand years of bodily decay. They say that if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the whole netherworld beginning to creak and shudder; the dead are waking up, and the Devil is screaming.

It all seems a lot of fuss for one dead man. You can see Him there, moving down the path toward His tomb. He’s the bleeding bundle of cloth at the front of the group. The man holding His feet is Nicodemus; one of the wealthiest men in Jerusalem. The man holding His shoulders is Joseph of Arimathea. They’re both religious types — they’re even on an important religious council called the Sanhedrin, with sixty-nine other extremely religious men, which would definitely make them two of the seventy-one most religious men in Jerusalem.

That woman behind them, the one who can’t seem to stop crying, is called Mary. She comes from Magdala, and unlike Joseph and Nicodemus, she is not the religious type. We don’t know much about her, but we do know that when she first met her Teacher, her body was home to no less than seven spiritual parasites. They were old, terrible creatures who fed off her misery and desperation. Back then, she had had plentiful stores of both, though we don’t know precisely why. Perhaps she had done terrible things. Perhaps terrible things had been done to her. Perhaps a bit of both. At any rate, she was not what anyone would call a “pillar of respectability,” and it hadn’t helped her Teacher’s reputation to have her hanging around. But He was the one who freed her. All seven of her demonic tormentors had screamed and fled when He came along, and they never came back. Since then, she has followed Him; and she follows even now, when all that’s left to follow is a bleeding corpse.

There are others walking with them, following the blood-soaked bundle that was their Teacher. There are a couple of Mary’s present (but not the famous one), Salome, Joanna and Susanna.

Surprisingly, you are present too.

You’re part of your own procession, a larger one, invisibly leading Joseph, Nicodemus and their bloody bundle of linen towards the tomb. Your procession is headed by golden crosses on poles and at the very back, just in front of Joseph and Nicodemus, men are carrying icons of Jesus’ burial and crucifixion, being censed by bearded priests wearing golden cloaks. Although there are more people in your procession than in the ancient one behind you, yours is a good deal less serious. Where Joseph and the Mary’s are burying a brutally murdered Friend, you are attending a religious festival. The atmosphere is solemn enough, what with the icons and the incense and gold crosses on poles, but in your procession people are distracted, occasionally chatting to one another, making quick remarks about Uncle So-and-So’s chanting voice and what they’re going to eat once the service is over. They’re tired because they’ve been in Church for nine hours. Mary, Joseph and Nicodemus are tired because they’ve just spent nine hours watching their Friend asphyxiate and bleed to death.

And so the two processions make their way slowly to a new tomb in a garden; one decked in white and gold, the other wet with tears and blood. You seem to be in two places at once. On the one hand, you’re walking around your local Coptic Church holding a candle, singing “Lord have mercy” in a tune which seems deeply sad and deeply joyful at the same time (which is different, mind you, to being half sad and half joyful). On the other hand, in some mysterious way, you are also walking towards a garden in Jerusalem to put a blood-soaked corpse into a new tomb. Some would say you’re not really in the same place as Joseph and Mary and the bloody bundle; properly speaking, they would insist, you are in a Coptic Church on Good Friday. You might imagine that you’re following a group of first-century Jews to a new tomb outside Jerusalem, but imagining doesn’t make it true. That’s what some people would say. Perhaps they’re right. But those people have probably never been to a Coptic Church on Good Friday, and so we might wonder how they can be so sure.

As you walk around the Church in procession, you notice some of the tired faces around you. A few places ahead of you in the procession is the man who taught you to be a Sunday School teacher. Like Joseph and Nicodemus, he’s the religious type. He’s attended every Holy Week service so far, morning and night, and he knows more about the Church and its history than anyone you’ve ever met. He loves this kind of service. His eyes are always closed during the long hymns, not because he’s sleeping (although no-one would know the difference if he was) but because he’s contemplating the deep nuances of the ancient hymns. He’s also one of the kindest and most self-sacrificing people you’ve ever known. You can only see his back from where you are, but you’re sure that his eyes are closed now too, as often as he can manage it without crashing into anything.

The procession takes you up the back of the church, where a woman called Selena is leaning against a pillar. Selena still comes to Church for the big occasions, but she’s not really the religious type. She has a complicated history, which she doesn’t like to talk about. A combination of things she’s done and things that have been done to her have convinced her that she isn’t pious or holy enough to be a good, church-going Coptic girl. So Selena only comes on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, because the services are crowded and she can slip in the back without really being noticed. She doesn’t understand the long hymns, but she likes the processions. In the processions, Christ comes to her at the back of the Church, meaning she doesn’t need to wade through an ocean of harsh eyes and perfect people to get to Him. The priests and deacons carry Him around the whole Church, and she can even reach out and touch Him, like the bleeding woman in the Gospels. You meet her gaze as you pass her, but she looks away.

Over there in the corner is the kid you kicked out of your Sunday School class last week. You probably shouldn’t have lost your temper, but in your defence, he was being a royally arrogant little punk. He hit another kid hard across the back of the head, and when you yelled at him, he acted like he couldn’t even hear you. But you remember now that he’s Selena’s younger brother, and you don’t really know what his family is like. The one time you visited his house (your Sunday School mentor was with you that day) you noticed that his mother was limping. The father was in the house but he didn’t come out to say hello. In the car on the way back, your mentor said, “Pray for them. Especially for the father.” You didn’t ask for details. You hadn’t been thinking of that when you kicked him out. You should probably talk to him later.

As the procession takes you through the church pews, you see the faces of your friends, your teachers, your relatives, even one of your old crushes. Mostly you don’t acknowledge them; sometimes, you exchange a quick smile or nod. You have seen these faces nearly every week for years; at liturgies and fundraisers and functions, at fantastically failed church plays, at homeless drives and hospital visits, soccer competitions and youth camps. But it strikes you all of sudden, how strange it is to be here with all these people. I mean, in one sense, it’s no surprise that the usual people would turn up to Church on Good Friday, as they have done for years. But in another sense, it all seems like a strange coincidence that these people, with whom you’ve spent so much time doing such boring, normal things, should be present with you at something so important. This is no parish camp or trivia night; you’ve all come here to bury God. That bloody bundle of linen behind you contains the Firstborn over All Creation, the Word of God, the Father’s Wisdom and Power. Now that He is dead, the whole Kingdom of Death is being overthrown; angels are pouring down into Hades to join the coup. You’d expect burying God and the overthrow of Hades to be a unique and monumental occasion; something totally removed the mundane existence you carry out day by day. And yet, there is your old mentor, your punk Sunday School kid, your old crush, your friends, the woman who heads the Sunday School service, the man who runs the bookshop, the lady who makes sandwiches on Sunday mornings.

You reach the end. Joseph and Nicodemus lay down their load and let the women pour a last libation of myrrh and spices on Him. Your parish priest is with them, sprinkling rose petals as red as the blood seeping through the linen. You remember that those hands, sprinkling rose petals, are the hands with which he played volleyball at your last camp. Now, he is using them to anoint the body of God for its burial. You look around at the tired, familiar faces, watching Abouna wrapping the tiny icon in white cloth. No-one is joking now. They are either singing, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal” or saying nothing. And again, you are surprised that you should all be together here, at this place where the whole world turned upside down.

When all is done, Joseph and Nicodemus seal up the tomb, locking their Teacher in Hades to do battle with its dark prince. Abouna kisses the door of the tomb and begins to read Psalms while the ancient mourners go home to weep and ponder the spectacular disaster that had become of all their hopes and dreams. Selena slips quietly out the back. Your old Sunday School mentor stands in the sanctuary, eyes closed and arms folded. When the chanting stops, your class punk is unusually quiet in his corner seat; he is praying that God will teach his parents how to love each other. You realise that you’re glad they were all here with you, to see God die and come to rest in the earth.

It’s only as you leave that you realise who had been walking next to you in the procession. He never said a word, but He had directed your attention as you walked; He had pointed wordlessly to Selena, to your old mentor, to your Sunday School child. And He had looked back at you from inside each of them; from the peace that hung around your old mentor, from Selena’s downcast eyes, especially from your little punk Sunday School kid. When you reached the end of the procession, you watched Him wrapped in linen and sealed behind the black curtains of the sanctuary. But even then, somehow, He hadn’t left your side. He was walking beside you while He was borne behind you in burial clothes; just as He was still in the bosom of His Father even when He went to the depths of Hades. You realise now that it is no coincidence that you were all here together. You have things to do.

And He’s not dead.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal 3:2)

When we make the goal everything, the journey is vaporized; it becomes nothing. The eyes of the world tell me to seek nothing but to achieve. That my time is without purpose, if it is not certified by pen and paper. But I want to experience what it really means to be educated; to be made perfect and whole.

‘And he said unto her, Daughter, your faith has made you whole; go in peace’ – Mark 5;23

‘Paideia’ is a greek work that means the consciously shaping the young to understand and appreciate “the beautiful and the good” ,always pursuing “excellence” or “virtue.” All throughout Greek literature the end goal (telos), is to become a whole-person. Education is understood as the satisfied life of flourishing, that the mature (teleios) alone can experience. This goal (telos) and state of maturity (teleios) are both important Greek words that appear in the Bible, often translated as “perfect” and “perfection.”

“Christ is the true educator. Christ not only is the teacher that ‘guides to develop the capacity to know, but also makes you pure and capable of retaining the revelation of the Word”
– St Clement of Alexandria.

Though it may seem I am stepping on firey coals, eager to jump from one coal to the next, He is purifying my heart with every step. So sometimes that means letting the fiery embers singe the bottom of my feet so that I can one day run free. The world says run from the pain and hush it to silence till the season passes. The world says winter will soon pass, and the summer’s sun will soon crack open the hardened skies with its rays. But I say how soon is now? Because every season is for a purpose. The naked branches in winter are just as beautiful as the full leaves of summer.

The truth is, I will say; ‘wait on the Lord, be of good cheer, the Lord will strengthen your heart’ one hundred times before I say ‘I have overcome, I have run the race.’ Let us stand steadfast in the strengthening. As we turn each page of the book, let us rejoice in knowing that each turn is a step into faithfulness and a step into living fully right where we are.

“Be entirely engaged in the process of your work, and be entirely disengaged in the outcome of your work.
You can’t determine outcome but you can determine to come and put in everything you have.
Let your joy be in doing the work, not in the outcome of the work
The journey not only maters more than the destination the journey actually becomes the destination”
– Ann Voskamp

If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.
Luke 16:10

The greek word for “disciple” is (mathetes). The word means a student, a learner, the follower of an educator/pedagogue. Whether in the Jewish rabbinic tradition or the many forms of ancient Greco-Roman paideia, an educator gathers disciples/students and trains them to maturity of mind and soul. At the fundamental level of our identity Christians are called disciples, students. And one unmistakable—but often overlooked identity of Christ—Jesus is our Great Educator.
So in this season of studying, I will let Christ be my teacher and I will let the each day studying be lived fully.

The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination.
“Don’t ever be concerned with failing, only be concerned with failing to keep going”
– Ann Voskamp

“Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has –and this requires transforming greed into gratitude”
– St John Chrysostom

He replied:

“If you see a humble man with a pure heart, that would be greater than all the visions; because through that vision, you would see the invisible God. Do not ask for a better vision.”

If seeing just one godly man can have such a profound impact on a person, then how glorious would it be to see three godly men living in unbroken communion and mutually offering their lives to Him?

Reading through 1 Samuel, I was awed to read about three such men reflecting the beauty of the Holy Trinity. They are only mentioned in two verses, and to my knowledge they are not mentioned again in the Bible:

“…three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall receive from their hands.” 1 Samuel 10:3-4

Who Are They?

The first thing that is said about these men is that they are “going up to God at Bethel.”

What a beautiful verse!

How great would it be to be described by nothing else but how focused you were on pursing God? These men were not described by their relationships, their occupation, or even where they came from (which was very traditional in those times) but they were simply described by their pursuit of God.

Bethel, which means house of God, is significant because it was one of the first places where God met with His chosen people. This is actually the same place Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven, having angels ascending and descending on it and having the Lord standing above it. (Genesis 28:12-13)

It almost sounds like these three men are on their way to climb this ladder to ‘go up to’ God.

Living in Communion

I can imagine that these men held one another accountable and encouraged each other in Him as they made this journey up to God together. They were not wise in their own eyes and knew the power of having a companion so as not to travel alone (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

Truly did the Psalmist speak of men such as these:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is or brothers to dwell together in unity! Psalm 133:1

It also seems as though these men of faith had all things in common. Surely there was one goat and one loaf of bread for each of them rather than one man having three goats and another having three loaves of bread to himself. Each brought what they had and made up for what the other lacked.

Furthermore, they had one spirit as they did anything together; it was never one of them doing an action individually. The following phrase makes this clear: “they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread.” They didn’t live in communion with just themselves, but from their abundance they were able to provide for the for needs of those they came into contact with. They only kept for themselves what they needed.

Thinking about how these men might have greeted those in their path I can only think they were genuine, warm, and heartfelt. They were the type of people to ask you how you were and would actually care to hear your response. They were the type of men that didn’t just say “God bless you” to people without actually being a source of blessing to them (as witnessed by their free gift of bread).

Worshiping in Spirit and Truth

These men were worshiping God the way He intended them to worship Him.

It’s likely that the goats they were taking with them were intended to be sacrificed – one for each of them – as a sin offering:

“or if his sin which he has committed comes to his knowledge, he shall bring as his offering a kid of the goats, a male without blemish. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the goat, and kill it at the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord. It is a sin offering.” (Leviticus 4:23-24)

They were not only worshipping God in their relationship with one another, with their giving of themselves physically and emotionally to others, but they were also giving God glory by living a life of repentance.

These men remind me of Melchizedek in that they also prophetically brought bread and wine to offer to God as a prefigurement of the Eucharist. They also seem to be “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life” (Hebrews 7:3) but worship God continually.

What beautiful men!

We are all called to be like our Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ.

Along with that though, we are called to live in harmony and communion with one another and to be an icon of the Holy Trinity. It was the unity that these men had that made them special. Their relationship with one another was a reflection of God Himself.

These three men of faith are a beautiful example of perichoresis, which is a term used to describe how the three Persons of the Trinity are One God. Perichoresis is the divine dance of Love where there is a complete and mutual giving and receiving. It involves Persons in harmony having perfect consideration for each other

Lord, give us to reflect Your unspeakable beauty!

I certainly felt emotionally secure. However, a specific part of my life began to chip away at this security. At home, mum and dad often did not seem to get on. I didn’t think much of it as a child as I assumed most people’s parents fell out from time to time. This was surely nothing I couldn’t take in my stride, I used to think. However, the problems continued to escalate. As the years went by, the division between my parents grew and it began to put a strain in the family. My younger sibling chose to distant themselves from the issue and seemed to want nothing to do with it. I didn’t have a friend close enough to speak to about it, I did not feel connected to any church or a particular priest I could open up to, and I was often made to feel that this topic was such a taboo that it should never leave the front door of the house anyway.

My original belief that I could handle anything myself was beginning to fade away, so I looked to God. “That’s what He’s there for, right?” I told myself. I love both of my parents and I knew they loved me too, wanting only the best for me. I spent years praying for God to intervene and fix their relationship. I asked Him to show me what is was that I had to do in order to play my part. I spent numerous years being the peacemaker in the house, refusing to take one side over another, and feeling too much of a sense of responsibility to detach myself from the issue completely. I refused to stop believing that with my perseverance and prayers, the problems would be resolved and one day we would finally live as a peaceful, happy family.
This day did not come. The cracks turned into gaping crevasses and after moving away to university, I found myself being the recipient of endless phone calls from each individual complaining about the other. It was taking a toll on my studies, my social life, and ultimately on my spirituality. I can recall long nights being in torment with God. I was filled with anger that after all the prayers and belief, He hadn’t come up with the goods. If anything, things were much worse than where we started.

I began to loosen my grip and reliance on Him, and slowly started to revert to my original strategy of handling it all myself. The stress of it led me to take comfort in other areas. I began to make wrong decisions at university and things began to slip. I was losing control – a concept that was previously so alien to me. I had blocked out everyone in my life, including God, refusing to listen to Him. I only had myself to contend with and for the first time, felt truly alone. This broke me. In all of my efforts to try and restore my family, I found myself with nobody.

In my fourth year at university, something within me revved me to get up and make a change. I was not content in staying in this slumber. I loathed self-pity and knew deep down that although I had turned my face away from God, He was still the only one that could change things. In my depths lurked a voice that kept telling me to look at Him and listen one more time to what He had to say.
I got myself back into church; one that I had frequented during my time at university, but never made an effort to get fully involved with. I chose to make a conscious effort to get to know the people there and engage with the community. There was instant gratification. I quickly found a friend I was confident to open up with, pretty much from our first meeting. I had never done anything like this before, but it felt so comfortable. It was amazing to unload to someone who was essentially a stranger. They helped me to start making steps towards the right track and made me feel welcomed in the group. I was wary of revealing my secrets to anyone else, still believing that I was an outsider with a shameful background. I could not have been more wrong. I quickly learnt that I was not the only Copt to have come from a far from perfect family, and was soon able to confide in someone that had been through something very similar.

Through further involvement in the church, I attended my first conference and heard a quote that truly resonated within me;

“The almost impossible thing is to hand over your whole self to Christ… but it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead” C.S. Lewis

I realised that striving to maintain full control of each aspect of my life was foolish, and it was essential that I hand over the reins to my life to Him. I must put Him firmly in the driving seat.

For a long time I knew that the situation at home was my cross to bear, and that I must carry it. However, I had no clue how to carry it. For a great deal of time I wondered what it was that I practically needed to do. I would often find myself being put in situations with my parents, being forced to balance my time equally between them so as not to make one upset that I was picking a side. I often wanted to take a step back and distance myself from the whole situation, but I felt overwhelmed with guilt and the sense of selfishness. Was putting them before myself and my own happiness how I was meant to carry my cross? These questions were so simply answered by my friend who had gone through a similar situation, and who I had previously confided in:

I needed to make sure that whatever I do, it was according to the will of God. I must keep God in my heart and that is who I should aim to please. Only He will satisfy my longing for happiness.

I realised how much I had complicated my life when I tried to work out what I needed to do, alone, not considering His will in my decision making.

This realisation has brought me so much peace.

Through all of the struggles and the anger that I felt towards God, I have learnt that it was all for my benefit. I wanted to work out how to carry my cross with minimal struggle, but instead I have been shown how to live with peace in my heart. I have learnt the true meaning of love and grace.

I longed for a family, and He has blessed me with an entire Church.

How can one make sure of correct doctrine? How does this relate to how I live my life? What does it really mean to study God? 

These are all great questions I want to touch on as I share three things that are essential to studying theology:

A Genuine Desire

The first thing one needs to have in order to learn about God is a heartfelt desire to seek after Him. The hearts of too many of us are callous and unfeeling. We have eyes but do not see God inviting us to learn from Him. We have ears but cannot hear Him whispering great and mighty things which we do not know.

In today’s world, more people are familiar with professional athletes and their statistics than with the books and contents of the Holy Bible. Bishop Kallistos Ware says the following in his book, The Orthodox Church:

“Today, in an untheological age, it is all but impossible to realize how burning an interest was felt in religious questions by every part of society, by laity as well as clergy, by the poor and uneducated as well as the Court and the scholars. Gregory of Nyssa describes the unending theological arguments in Constantinople at the time of the second general council:
The whole city is full of it, the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers: they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask ‘Is my bath ready?’ the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing.”

How great would it be to talk about the things of God and His kingdom on a daily basis?! How freeing would it be to not worrying about being politically correct or “offending” our neighbor by engaging in a conversation about things that matter! Instead of studying and learning about things that will pass away, “let us study while we are on earth that Reality which will stay in our minds also when we are in heaven” (St Jerome)

Correct Dogma

Another thing that is essential to studying theology is a proper method of knowing what is true and what is not. How can someone be sure that what they are learning is what Jesus Christ taught?

Simple!

Jeremiah 6:16 says, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls.'”

Said another way, what Christ taught, the Apostles preached, and the Church Fathers preserved

Correct dogma is that which stands the test of time and dates back to when Jesus Christ was on earth Himself. There have been all sorts of perversions and deviations from the faith since then, but again the true Orthodox faith is that which Christ taught, the Apostles preached, and the Church Fathers preserved.

Why is correct dogma important?

A sentence in a letter from a monk on Mount Athos to Fr. John Meyendorff answers this question:

When the church teaches the wrong theology it a church of activities at best, but when it teaches the right theology it is the church of being and becoming

That is a powerful statement! The difference between just doing spiritual activities and being conformed to the true image of God and becoming like Him is dependent on our theology!

An Experience with God

Theology can be defined as the “study of God” but true theology must be lived out.

The point of theology is not so much to learn about God as it is to know and experience Him intimately.

The last thing we want to do is be so consumed with a doctrine or ideology that we completely miss why we’re learning it in the first place.

Fr. John Romanides says it best in Empirical Dogmatics Volume I when he says salvation is not simply believing in Orthodox dogmas. If that is all it is for us then:

“We are like idolaters who take dogmas, put them in the cupboard and sit there prostrating ourselves before the dogmas, which we do not live in our lives.”

He goes on to say:

“Dogma is not to be believed but to be experienced. Dogma without experience is heresy. The worst heresy is for people to sit at their desks and assume that they can reflect deeply and think great thoughts about dogmatic issues. That is the greatest stupidity.”

Again, the point isn’t to know about God but rather to know Him personally by a living and dynamic relationship with Him founded on a solid understanding of who He is and how He relates to us.

In closing, here is a quote from Ware’s The Orthodox Church that really gets to the heart of the matter:

“Theology, mysticism, spirituality, moral rules, worship, art: these things must not be kept in separate compartments. Doctrine cannot be understood unless it is prayed: a theologian, said Evagrius, is one who knows how to pray, and he who prays in spirit and in truth is by that very act a theologian. And doctrine, if it is to be prayed, must also be lived: theology without action, as St Maximus put it, is the theology of demons. The Creed belongs only to those who live it. Faith and love, theology and life, are inseparable. In the Byzantine Liturgy, the Creed is introduced with the words, ‘Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Trinity one in essence and undivided.”

Let us be a generation of men of whom it is said that we truly know the Lord!

I think of Good Friday, of the Son of God breathing His last, of His followers watching from afar in dismay and horror as the gruesome events unfolded one by one. I think of them looking on in disbelief as they held their breath and held on to some last hope that things wouldn’t end that way, that there would be a dramatic turn around of circumstance and the sky would rend open as the Father’s power and majesty thundered and delivered the Son in a grand display.

Yet, His head hung low and He died.

I wonder how everyone felt at that moment; the teary eyed knocked breathless, the disillusioned riled up with anger. As the disciples lay hidden in fear, the smell of bread and wine from just one night before lingering in their lungs. As His followers walked away from the scene and returned to their homes, His words still running through their minds. Could they have gotten it so wrong? Could they have misread all the signs? Surely His words were true? Surely if He was God’s Son they couldn’t have killed Him? What comes next?

Confused, restless, crushed.

Waking up numb and blindsided to a dark Saturday morning and remembering all over again what they witnessed on Friday. How he’d gone just as quickly as he’s come into their lives. How everything would go back to the way it was without him. How nothing will ever really change and they must face this hopeless reality as their permanent reality.

Anxious, disappointed and defeated.

How many of us are living in Saturday? We were promised deliverance, we were hanging on to His words that it’s His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom and yet we think of certain points in our pasts, certain relationships, certain failures and disasters and we feel so far from that sanctification we longed for, and that newness of hope we were sure was coming.
How many of us look back and see an empty cross and Jesus is still buried in a tomb when we think of those Friday nights of our past?

We look now on the cross and we think of redemption, reconciliation, and salvation. But on that Saturday with Christ hung high, the choice words must have looked a lot different, a lot like: shame, disappointment and despair.

Will we live out our Saturday till the dawn of Sunday? There’s always two ways to tell the story of the cross. Will we choose to tell it way we know to be true? Will we choose the story that ends on Sunday morning with Christ risen trampling death and our past and our shame in the tomb instead?

“The past is just a story we tell ourselves.” Because we are not our past, yet we cannot deny the story existed, and we existed in it. But we can choose how we tell this story to ourselves. We can chose whether it becomes our whole story or just part of our story. We can tell it to ourselves in a way that the darkness turns into a canvas for all the foolish pride and vain idols to lose their grip as our saviours as we learn to grope in the dark and grip onto Him, finding our heart’s true desire. We can tell it so that our words pave a path through darkness – a path of letting go, a path of abandoning oneself, losing oneself, and in so doing ultimately finding what is real.

“Heaven is God and God is in our heart” so we are living in the eternal now, with the sacred inside. Wherever we go we can bring the Kingdom. And when our mind travels down memory lane and our hearts beat heavy and our spirits falter fast we can bring our stories of old into His kingdom and His eternal story

An eternal story of calmed fear and restored hope
An eternal story our deep and irrevocable communion with the Divine
An eternal story of all that was once corrupted with fickle inconsistencies and restless unfaithfulness restored to their heavenly natures.

And when we tell our story in this way to ourselves we can begin to transcend ourselves on our way to reunification with God. To see God is to see His energies and light through everything and everyone – through our past and our shame. We are a light of love eternal and St Symeon the New Theologian once said: “God is light and all those whom He makes worthy to see Him receive Him as light”

So endure the dark night, it is a guiding night and a night more kindly than the dawn. And let the night leave you vulnerable to God to recreate you as you were made to be: lovers of God and one another. Love is the law. “Let Love come first, it should be the beginning of, and the reason for everything.” So that wherever you go you may see Light.

Will you tell the story of your past in a way that frees you? The pieces of your past and every last wound must no longer be buried with Him and sealed with a stone beyond reach.

It is Sunday morning.

There is an empty cross, there is an empty tomb and there is a risen King. A risen King who is telling a new story of our past – broken homes, broken hearts and all. A risen King who is the Word so He gets the last word. For He gathers all the broken words in every line of every story we’ve strung along and unites all of our words to all of Him, giving them Life. “That is the good news of the Incarnation. The Word becomes flesh and thus a new place is made where all of you and all of God can dwell. When you have found that unity, you will be truly free” Henri Nouwen

And we will run, living testimonies of the great Love story.

“because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:78-80

“oh as you run, what hindered love will only become part of the story” Bethel

Check out part two here!

…..if you haven’t realised already, this isn’t in the bible. Acts only has 28 chapters. We are living in Acts 29, because the book is unfinished and we are the apostles. But sadly, I struggle to see how our stories could go along side verses describing the disciples being thrown into prisons, stoned, and living wholly for His glory. Maybe this sounds kind of fanatical right, kind of radical…kind of weird.

Weird (definition): suggesting something supernatural; unearthly.

We always associate weird with bad (and if you Google weird you really get some crazy results). Nobody really wants to be weird. Growing up, it was our deepest desire just to be normal and accepted. But now, looking at the definition of weird , it seems like we definitely should be weird.

We are unearthly: ‘Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls’ (1 Peter 2:11).

And we are supernatural, we have the divine spirit of God in us: “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD” (Micah 3:8).

So let’s face it…Christians are weird!

More importantly, as it says in Ephesians 5:1 ‘Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love,’ our ultimate aim is to become like Christ to become perfected in His likeness…and guess what? He was weird too!

Jesus says, don’t just avoid adultery because lust is adultery too. Weird! Jesus teaches that the first in life will be last in eternity and the last in life will be the first in eternity. Weird! Jesus teaches that if you give, it will be given to you. Weird! He teaches that when someone curses you, you should bless them. Weird! He tells us that when someone hits us on one cheek, we should give them the other one too. Weird! Jesus teaches that when someone wrongs you, you should forgive them. Weird! Jesus is weird!

‘He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem’. Isaiah 53:3

Do not be afraid to live radically and completely led by the spirit. If people think you are weird, or extreme….then you are doing it right! If you look around and struggle to see the difference between your life and that of a non-Christian, then its time to reflect and see if you are just a fan of Jesus or a follower. Are you fiery or are you lukewarm (Revelations 3:16)?

As Christians, it should be our expectation that we are persecuted and rejected for Christ’s sake, but in that we must remember this is no sacrifice because with every command there is a promise: ‘rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed’ (1 Peter 4:13).