Rev 3:14-22.
The Laodiceans. The church of the last days.
They are described as “lukewarm”, “to be spat out”.
They are delusional because they think they are doing great and totally oblivious to their actual situation.
Since I believe we are in the last days then this accusation is against me, personally. A difficult label to wear!
Perhaps we have heard the story vaguely. Perhaps we have heard the story many times before.
An innocent girl sees and talks with an other-worldly being who tells her she will give birth to a boy. A boy who will be king. (Luke 1)
The boy is conceived under miraculous circumstance but born into mundane poverty. Angels come to celebrate and announce his birth… to no one but a few shepherds on a hill. Kings come from afar to revere and worship him. But local powers choose to kill him and a few thousand others in the process.
My beautiful cyclamen plant has been providing my house with vibrant red flowers for the past few months. I have been faithfully watering the dish when it gets dry and removing the dead blooms. I was getting proud of my once brown thumb now turning green. But the past couple of days there have been more dead blooms than live ones and the lush, green leaves are turning yellow. Dismayed, I thought, “Are my brown thumbs showing their true colours?”
Recently my family was un-invited on a trip at the last minute. It was not a nice experience to say the least. Feelings of betrayal, rejection, anger, and frustration swirled around and formed a volatile cocktail in my head and heart. Although all of these are normal and valid reactions, they were ruining our holiday time.
In high school art class, one term we learned pottery. I can remember the teacher demonstrating how to use the pottery wheel. He was the type to wax on and on about this and that and never get to the point. And it seemed that was what he was doing with the clay.
He had smacked a lump of clay onto the wheel and was demonstrating how to centre the clay. He did it over and over again and it just looked like keeping your hands still. He stressed the importance of having centred clay before moving on. It looked boring and like a waste of time.
I hear a lot of people say, “Kids pick up languages so much faster than adults.” Now that I have a small child, I think one of the reasons why is because of their tendency toward repetition.
How fast would anyone learn a language if they were repeating the new words over and over and listening to the same thing a hundred times? Little kids can watch the same video 317 times and still want to watch it again. [FYI, this works really well for kids’ Youtube channels!] You can read them the same book every day for a month and they will still want you to read it again. I have to sing the same song over and over and over.
I wish there were more answers to how to raise children. How hard is too hard? How soft is too soft? How much is too much?
I had finished reading a particularly riveting book and was looking for my next literary escape. Darrell was keen to visit Koorong which suited my son well as there is a play area there. While browsing the shelves for a Mark Sayers book, my eyes happened on this book: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. The cover was not so eye-catching with a picture of an iceberg, but I had bought the book before when it was recommended to me and never got around to reading it properly. I had been looking for it a few weeks before and did not find it at home. Here it was!
So here are my thoughts on this insightful tome.
This has answered in part, some of my questions about Christianity and the church. These questions that I have raised are not original but probably asked by many people at almost every point in church history.
Indeed this book even gives more food for thought:
(taken directly from p. 30)
And it quotes Ron Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience:
“Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centred and sexually immoral as the world in general.”
Pretty hard-hitting facts which shows there must be something wrong when Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35 emphasis supplied)
But rather than a call to a stricter Christian life and a berating of oneself for all the misdemeanours committed this week, this book calls us to look deeper into our feelings, our past, our hurt, our grievances, our unspoken beliefs. So much of our lives are pretend, a mask we wear. We are not used to showing our true feelings or even seeing others’ true feelings. Often we are not even aware of our feelings or unspoken beliefs.
Sometimes we reject our past thinking, “What good will it do to bring that up?” not realising that it has already done damage to our psyche and relationships.
But the exploration is not to leave us in the despair of our deepest thoughts but to invite us to enjoy the gift of God’s all-encompassing love that is given to us and that He wants us to simply be with Him. Not to do anything for Him. Not to give Him anything. (but what could we give God anyway?)
He knows all that stuff about us but we don’t need to deal with it before coming to Him. We are enough for Him. And God is all that we could ever need, want, dream.
So when we learn about our true selves, we are not overwhelmed by how inadequate we are (although it can be rather overwhelming), but are empowered by God’s greatness to heal those hurts, fill those inadequacies and replace those false beliefs with truth.
Apologies if this is sounding airy-fairy and like spiritual, psychological mumbo-jumbo but seriously, we all have crazy ideas that we don’t even realise. But for a period of my life, I was bullied at church. I didn’t realise it at the time. I thought I deserved it because I wasn’t good enough. I thought that if I were better, I wouldn’t get treated that way. And then I thought that the bullying was a good thing and it made me a better person. So then when others went through a rough time, I thought the best thing to do was to make them push through it because it made them stronger in the end. Isn’t this how the bullying cycle works? What kind of crazy “sanctification by works” was this doctrine I was teaching? Not that I ever said it like that. But that was how I lived and it was the unspoken belief I held.
And unfortunately I don’t think that my experience of crazy theology is unusual.
I don’t have all the answers and neither does this book, but it has definitely helped me with my internal discovery and inner peace.
We aren’t always going to feel like God is right there with is. There will be times when it seems God is far away. But the Bible reminds us how God is constantly wanting to reach out to us. He also promises that even when we are poor in spirit, we still have a part in His kingdom (Matt 5:3).
1/ Go to church – Although it may feel counter-intuitive, it is where your faith family is. It’s where people are worshipping God and allowing God to speak through them. It’s a place that is tuned in to hear God. God could have a message waiting for you in this week’s sermon!
2/ Read the Bible – If you like poetry, try a Psalm. If you need some invigorating instructions, try James. Or if the Bible itself is not speaking to you easily, try something short and focussed like a devotional. My go-to daily spiritual snack is the Our Daily Bread devotional app. There is a Bible passage, a spiritual thought and a reflection. It will even read it out for you so you can hear the message in the car!
3/ Pray with a trusted friend – Praying is one of the hardest things to do when you are feeling spiritually disinterested. But that is why we don’t have to do it alone but with a good friend. Of course when you catch up with a friend it will be chat and prayer but that is an absolutely integral part of it. Be open and honest about where you are spiritually. Be committed to really praying honestly for help even though you feel distant. Tell God exactly what you feel. Ask your friend to pray for you right there and regularly afterwards as well.
4/ Listen to spiritual songs – This is not just limited to listening but also playing, singing, dancing, meditating… Make a playlist of inspirational songs that uplift your mind to God now. It can help you get out of that spiritual funk at a later time.
5/ Switch off to recharge – Switch off all your devices for an hour or two so you can recharge with God. Get out into the wilderness and away from worldly distractions. Go camping or hiking. Really take the time to be quiet, focus inwardly and listen to what God is putting in your heart. It takes time to calibrate and tune in to God’s wavelength when we have been swept up on social media and wired into the daily rat race.
6/ Read inspirational spiritual books – Sometimes gaining the insights of other Christians can help our situation and alter our perceptions. Biographies are also a great read. These days you don’t even have to go to the shop to buy a book. You can find readings online. For some good reads, I like Ty Gibson and lightbearers.org. I also like some books by Chuck Swindoll, Philip Yancey, Elisabeth Elliot and Max Lucado. Post some other suggestions below!
7/ Mind, body, spirit health – Look after your physical and mental health as well as your spirit. These parts of you are all connected and can affect each other. Getting physically active can improve your mental health. This can improve the receptiveness of your mind which God is trying to reach.
8/ Do something nice for someone – Extend mercy to others. Give without expecting something back. By being God’s hands and feet we can experience God’s character for ourselves. We have God’s blessings and when we pass a bit on, it comes back in more ways more than we can imagine.
This list is by no means comprehensive. Here are a few lessons I learned from Matthew 22 – the showdown between Jesus and the major religiopolitical groups of His time.
