Exodus 16:3

The Greek word ‘peirasmos’ means both a trial and a tempation. The fathers of the church used them interchangeably and I am beginning to understand why.

When everything turns out to be nothing like you expected, its is much easier to despair, to fall into self pity, and to ignore God, in favour of getting lost in a never ending introspection.

When it feels like I’m stumbling around in the dark wilderness and the thistles are scratching at my feet, when even walking becomes difficult and the narrow road just seems too hard. Like Gomer, who cried out for the old oil and drink she once had, and the Israelites who cried out for the meat of Egypt.

I was tempted to take a sip of the soothing ointment of the world, that I know to be poison.

‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

Hosea 2:5

Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Exodus 14:12

For the first time, I am realising why in the midst of Job and his friends talking about suffering and God Job stands and promises to make a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a woman. For as many times I had read Job, I had never noticed how misplaced that seemed… until it was too familiar to ignore.

Maybe I was never listening when they said in times of tribulation, you must be even more vigilant for temptation.

Distracted by the walls of my city crumbling, my own house has been left unguarded.

‘Your own vineyard you have not kept’.

Songs of Solomon 1:6

Oh heart you have forgotten that the only real danger in this world is sin.

“For I have not stopped saying and I will not stop saying that there is only one thing truly distressing, and that is sin. Everything else is dust and smoke.”

St John Chrysostom

Maybe it’s one of the devils favourite games to keep us wrapped up in our own problems that we forget to ask… When I am squeezed, what is coming out? When I am squeezed… I am no longer deceived. Sweet lemonade or bitter lemon?

I am realising that for years I was saying words, words that were so easy to say. But now I am being called to live. To put into practice the endless preaching. In time, perhaps I will learn to say with Moses that these words are ‘not just idle for you, they are life’ (Deuteronomy 32:47) and by them I will cross over into the Jordan. I will cross over to new heights I know He wants to take me.

In the mean time, I am struggling through the labour pains, I am so anxious to give birth to something beautiful, but I must learn to wait patiently and know that in an INSTANT, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than I could pray and ask for.

“stop beseeching this or that person for help, and running after shadows – for this is what human assistance amounts to – instead ceaselessly beseech God whom you serve simply to give a nod and in a moment of time everything is brought into proper order” St John Chrysostom

Now if, while a man is walking in the path of righteousness, and is making his way toward God… he encounters in this path some afflictions of this sort, he must not turn aside from his way. Rather, he should accept whatever it is joyously, without scrutiny, and give thanks to God, because God has sent him this gift. That is to say, because he has been deemed worthy to fall into temptation for His sake, and to become a partaker of the sufferings of the prophets and the apostles, and of the rest of the saints who endured tribulations for the sake of God’s path, whether from men, from demons, or from the body. For without the bidding of God it is impossible that tribulations should be permitted to arise; but they occur so as to be for a man the cause of righteousness -St Isaac the Syrian

for it is not God’s good pleasures that those whom He loves should live in ease while they are in the flesh -St Isaac the Syrian

Let me tell you a simple tale of a man who endured unparalleled pain, and prevailed. Listen, as I share with you the story of he who lost it all, to gain everything.

I recently met up with an old friend and we reminisced over painful events in the past, sharing the ways in which God had helped us to cope with them. As he vulnerably opened up to me, I couldn’t help but notice the intricate works of the Lord throughout his life that had led him to the solid ground he stood on today.

This friend of mine had lost his mother at a very young age and was brought up in a broken home; with very dysfunctional relationships with his siblings. As he shared with me his hopes and dreams as a child, I could see the pain those memories held in his eyes. I sat in the corner of Starbucks repeatedly listening to stories of parental favouritism, negligence from his siblings and emotional abuse, and though my heart ached, I ate up every word he said, eagerly awaiting the revelation of a key to life that I was certain he must have discovered to have become the mighty man he is today.
As he reached the climax of every story he shared with me, a smirk would appear on his face, and after five or six times, I knew exactly what that smirk meant. A big plot twist would ravage the story, and the season of joy or success he would be experiencing, somehow – almost frustratingly – would spiral downwards in an uncontrollably fast way. I’m not going to lie, being the impulsive person I am, his calm demeanor as he spoke began to stress me out, even though none of his past struggles had anything to do with me! I guess I wanted to see the anger and bitterness that had been brewing within him, but to my utter surprise none of that was to be revealed – not because of any wall he may have been putting up, but because there was none.

Friends, believe me when I tell you that evening I heard stories of child abuse, wrongful accusations and consequently wrongful punishments. Stories of deception that would send chills down the coldest spines. Yet this man, with the darkest past, exuded nothing but peace. With the warmest smile, he looked at me in the eyes and said “whatever bad things have happened to me in the past, God has used for good in my life today¹”. Just like that. No complaining, no anger, no self-pity… just the deep revelation that God had used his past seasons of pain for his present joy.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19

As he spoke these simple of words of truth, He who dwells within me began to whisper the words He had inspired St. Paul to write to the Philippians; “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:12-13. My friend had truly known what it meant to be in need – in need of money, respect, justice, and love, and he breathed this revelation; that true contentment in every situation can only be achieved through Him who gives you strength. Strength to endure the unendurable. He recognised that apart from His Saviour he could accomplish nothing², “and that, Michael, is why I feel free” he told me simply, with a joyful smile, as if the Holy Spirit had bathed him in peace and liberty.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5

This wise man that sat before me at our small two-seater table in Starbucks in Westfield Shopping Centre had figured it out. He’d given me the key to life that I desperately wanted to learn from him. He had come to the revelation that seasons change but the Lord God Almighty forever remains the same³. A revelation that gifted him with tremendous confidence in His Maker, confidence during painful seasons that though he stood helpless before great mountains, His Saviour is and will forever be able to turn them into level ground⁴ for him to walk through to greener pastures.
As our conversation came to an end, my friend looked at me one more time, and humbly said “…and you know the best part about all this? It’s blessed my present and made me forget all about my past.^5″.

Those were the simple words spoken by a simple man who lived a great life, and his words rung ever so loudly in my ears. A man who had tasted what it meant to be in need and to have plenty. A man who recognised that apart from His Creator he could do nothing, but through Him could do all things. A man who, with ease, embraced seasons past, recognising that they led him to where he stood today.

If you want to meet my friend, find him in Genesis 37-50.
His name, is Joseph.

And the cutting winds that blew violently, hushed. The roaring waves that crashed ferociously, silenced. The devastated earth that was shaken, became still. A New Season had begun…

[1] Genesis 50:20
[2] Genesis 41:16
[3] Malachi 3:6
[4] Zechariah 4:6-7
[5] Genesis 41:51-52

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

“If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad.”
– Elizabeth Elliot

“Much of your pain is the bitter poison by which the physician within you heals your sick self.”
– Khalil Gibran

Hurt people, hurt people…
I am tattered with scars, scars that if you look closely, you can trace contours and grooves, like lines of a map. They are clues to a treasure, a quest I am still embarking. They are knitted together with love like a patchwork quilt, each part is unique and chosen.

Scars are never ugly because they always have a story.

A story of grace and healing, a story that says that though He wounds,He will bind up.

A story that says that though you were once sick like Simon’s wife’s mother, you too will be called to arise and serve those that healed you and those that hurt you.

“Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.”
– Mother Theresa

It’s true, sometimes the thorn that pierces us can leave others bleeding as they embrace us, the broken sometimes have spiky edges. But what if one day the thorn that once pierced my flesh becomes a seed that grows into a beautiful garden of compassion.What if hurt people stopped hurting people? What if hurt people could heal people?

“Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.”
Hosea 6:1

“For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal”
Job 5:18

“But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. So He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her. And she served them”
Mark 1:30-31

I have been wounded for love. I have learnt that love and pain are streams that lead to the same river, they are notes in one long symphony, they often meander and intertwine. That is why it is said that Love is as strong as death, because if it doesn’t kill you, it sure will make you bleed. To really love someone, means to suffer with them, and sometimes because of them. But, through the pain, I have cast out my blood stained robes of pride, so that unveiled and wounded, I have learnt what it means to partake of His suffering…and of other people’s.

“Through compassion it is possible to recognise that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. Through compassion we also sense our hope for forgiveness in our friends’ eyes and our hatred in their bitter mouths. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying… The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.”
– Henri Nouwen

God uses the broken for His glory. Blessed are the cracked, for they let the light in.

Hannah had bitterness of soul over infertility and a broken domestic situation.
Elijah felt so beaten down that he asked God to take his life.
Job and Jeremiah cursed the day that they were born.
David repeatedly asked his own soul why it was so downcast.
Even Jesus, the perfectly divine human, lamented that His soul was overwhelmed with sorrow.
He wept when His friend died.

Our pain is always with purpose, there is a always a message in the mess. Our pain is the point at which, even for just a fraction of infinity, His heart touches mine because He knows what it means to be wounded for others. But, once our wounds have healed they no longer ooze with regret and self condemnation. The wound is the place where the light enters you, where we bleed out love and healing. Our wounds scream out; its because you are glorious that these things happened to you. Through our healing, we can heal people.

I pray and ask, how can I be the oil of the good Samaritan? The Greek word for Mercy is ‘eleos’, which is the same root of the old Greek word for oil. So I pray, let our mercy be poured out on the wounded. Let us stand by valiantly, even in silence, close enough to warm broken hearts, avoiding the distance of pity as well as the exclusiveness of sympathy. Our God is not a God of confusion, so let us reflect the Divine by not adding tip or trick. Having the ability to go to the place of our own suffering and meet them right where they are , having the patience to tolerate not knowing and not saying but facing the reality of the the pain in its fullness, letting it be felt.

“The path to God is a daily cross. No one has ascended to heaven by way of ease. We know where the easy way leads.”
– St Isaac the Syrian

“If God sends you many sufferings, it is a sign that He has great plans for you and certainly wants to make you a saint.”
– St Ignatius of Loyola

Greek Mythology;

‘The Greek myth of Chiron, the centaur from whose name chirurgie is derived in French and surgery is derived in English, can help us to understand. The Greek gods Apollo and Artemis taught medicine to Chiron. Chiron was wounded by an arrow from Heracles’ bow. He did not die (because gods are immortal); instead, he suffered excruciating pain for the rest of his eternal days. It was because of his grievous wound that Chiron became known as a legendary healer in ancient Greece. Chiron later took an orphaned child, Esculapius, into his care. The son of Apollo and a mortal, Coronis, Esculapius had been spared certain death when Apollo snatched him from his dead mother’s breast just as she was about to burst into flames. The orphan was entrusted to Chiron, who taught him everything he knew about the healing arts. It was thus that Esculapius became one of the two founding fathers of Western medicine.

In 1951, Jung first used the term wounded healer. Jung believed that disease of the soul could be the best possible form of training for a healer. In a book published days before his death, Jung wrote that only a wounded physician could heal effectively. In so doing, Jung drew upon the myth of Chiron, making it one of the most fundamental archetypes of human history and modern medicine.

There is always a star in the darkness of the night;

“He [Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:16-21

This was Jesus’ response to my wounds, and I needed those exact words. Just picture yourself in that synagogue, sitting right opposite Jesus as He unrolls the scroll and proclaims those words. As He tells you so bluntly and powerfully that He is anointed and that He’s here to proclaim good news to you. Visualize your spiritual poverty now, visualize the state of your Spirit’s health. He’s here to proclaim good news to the poor. That’s you.

Imagine being on the second bench from the back in that synagogue, overwhelmed by work, studies, money, life. Feeling imprisoned and constricted, struggling to breathe from the pressure and anxiety you feel. And now in this very moment, of complete hopelessness, Jesus, the Prince of Heaven, looks directly at you as He holds the scroll of Isaiah and proclaims “I’m here to free the prisoners”. Just His stare, or his voice alone as He speaks these words, shatters the shackles tying you down into fragments. He’s here to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. That’s you.

As you sit in this synagogue full of shame, surrounded by your righteous Jewish brothers and sisters who, in your eyes, keep the law to the word, you begin to feel the weight of sin. And yet again Jesus steals your attention as He reads the next line of the passage and says that He’s here to recover the sight of the blind. You know He’s talking about you. You know you’re the one blinded by the heavy cloud of sin surrounding you. And you know you need recovery of your sight. He’s here to give recovery of sight for the blind. That’s you.

Your eyes start tearing up, tears of joy, tears of peace and comfort, tears of acceptance, of freedom. As you look into His eyes, you can’t help but smile. You can’t wait to hear what other promises He’s about to bestow upon you today. He sees you and with the biggest smile He reads “to set the oppressed free” then looks directly at you. All the oppression of Satan, all his attacks and lies, that’s tied you down is lifted. He’s here to set the oppressed free. That’s you.

You close your eyes in awe of the words Jesus is speaking to you and your Spirit begins offering a song of praise to God. You don’t deserve all this love. It doesn’t make any sense that you, a sinner in the synagogue with a stained heart, should receive these promises from Jesus. And in that moment, in that moment of thankfulness Jesus says that He is here to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. It wasn’t enough for Him to proclaim good news to you, to free you, to recover your sight and to end your oppression. He’s now promising you a year of the Lord’s favor?! A year of joy and freedom in God?! What.

You eyes are wide open. Your whole being is focused on Him. Nothing and no-one but Him, as if all has gone out of focus. Jesus, compassionately smiling, looks directly at you and says to you “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”.

You are no longer poor.
You are no longer a prisoner.
You are longer blind.
You are no longer oppressed.

You, are favored by Jesus.

As I received Jesus’ promises this morning I was moved to tears. Life is tough, it’s not easy. We won’t always get what we want when we want, and sometimes it’s just going to be rough. That’s fact. But it’s also fact that Jesus has always and will always be here. It is fact that He has the power to free me from any hardship I go through. And it certainly is fact that I am loved and favored by Him and He delights over me with singing.

Today, let your wounds be healed in the synagogue.

…not because it was a phenomenal movie (although I can say that it was really well put together) but because of the profound significance that it had to me personally.

Have you ever had a moment where you deeply identified with a character in a story, whether presented in the form of a movie, play, or even book? Well that’s what happened with me and The Great Gatsby.

The narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, introduces his friend Gatsby as “…the single most hopeful person I’ve ever met, and am ever likely to meet again”

As he comes to know Gatsby more and more he sees clearer and clearer “Gatsby’s extraordinary gift for hope… a gift that I have never found in any other person”

The story, at its core, revolves around an elaborate mirage Gatsby has concocted in his mind and has come to believe wholeheartedly. He hopes without any reservation; he dreams no matter how seemingly unrealistic… that the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan (who is now married to another man), will come back to him. Even more absurd is his persistence that they are to start their relationship right where they left off four years ago as if nothing had happened in the meantime.

[Gatsby] wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.

I liken his mental state to the verse in Romans 4:18 referring to the faith of Abraham “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed”

But there is one major difference.

Gatsby hoped in a situation, a person, an idea –  we are supposed to hope in GOD!

Too many of us (myself included) are so easily occupied in having faith in the wrong thing… things that perish, that don’t satisfy, that don’t sustain…

We believe the lies of the enemy telling us that we would be better off if we only had [this] relationship, [this] amount of money, [this] car, health, power.. whatever it may be.

What Is Hope?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

Hope feeds faith. Put another way, the faith you have in something comes from the amount of hope you put into that thing. The more you hope for health, wealth, and whatever else.. the more you believe [or have faith] that those things will satisfy, sustain, and ultimately save you. See the problem?

It completely shifts our focus from hoping and having faith in God

Have you ever hoped for something and then reached that goal? What happened? I bet you thought to yourself, “Is this all there is? I thought there was more to it than this…”

That’s because we hope and have faith in the wrong thing too long that we fool ourselves into believing that if we only get [insert blank here] we will have it made. Hebrews 3 mentions the “the deceitfulness of sin” and in my opinion there is no better adjective to describe it.

Gatsby’s story portrays this brilliantly:

“Gatsby himself didn’t believe [her call] would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about….”

Hoping for other things besides God always leaves you wanting more. You go from one level of achievement to the next never finding satisfaction – never finding true fulfillment

What Should We Hope In?

Psalm 42 exclaims:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

What a beautiful passage! Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him. God is the one we should trust to save us from whatever situation. God is the one we should focus on. God should be our God and nothing and no one should take his place.

Here are a couple more passages:

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God. (Psalm 146:5)

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love (Psalm 33:18)

No one who hopes in You will ever be put to shame (Psalm 25:3)

My prayer is simple:
Lord teach us how to HOPE IN YOU ALONE!!!