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Twists and Turns of Life…

Posted by David Ward on 15/03/2024
Posted in: Bible, discipleship, Personal thoughts. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

We’ve recently had to leave our home of 14 years in the Scottish Borders and after a period of “spare room surfing” with friends and family we’ve moved 60-odd miles south, back into England. We’ve been homeless before, back in the early days of our marriage. Following the collapse of a couple of jobs we simply couldn’t afford to pay the bills anymore, and for a while lived with another family from our church, while we recovered financially and were able to get back to more stable work and income.

Both experiences carried with them a significant sense of loss and uncertainty as we went through those times of transition.

I guess you may be thinking “that’s just how life plays out sometimes”, we all have our ups and downs, and even for those of us who follow Jesus, life often twists and turns in unexpected ways.

I was thinking about all this recently, and smiled when I remembered an incident that happened many years ago, when I was a young teenager. I was at a youth group meeting where we were asked to share a favourite verse from the Bible, something that meant a lot to us. For some reason I didn’t have a verse to share, so I’m ashamed to say I opened my Bible randomly and read the first verse my eyes focussed on. I hasten to say that I do not recommend this method of choosing a significant verse, let alone employing this ‘open and point’ method to get some guidance from God. The verse I had randomly chosen was:

“You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honour and comfort me once again.

Psalm 71:20-21 NLT

Could be the story of my life! As I reflected on my past, I thought about the hardships I have suffered (although they pale into insignificance compared to the things that many people have to suffer). Betrayals in work, in church and in relationships all leave nasty scars. Two lots of homelessness, divorce…actually make that three lots of homelessness…being separated from my children…the list goes on.

And as I was reminded recently when reading John Mark Comer’s excellent book “Practicing the Way”, all these events have a part to play in our formation, in making us the kind of people we are. As John Mark says, “Spiritual formation isn’t a Christian thing; it’s a human thing”.

He goes on to say:

“Spiritual formation is not optional. Every thought you think, every emotion you let shape your behaviour, every attitude you let rest in your body, every decision you make, each word you speak, every relationship you enter into, the habits that make up your days, whether or not you have social media (if you do, how you use it),how you respond to pain and suffering, how you handle failure or success-all these things and more are forming us into a particular shape…We are being either transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin and death.”

John Mark Comer, “Practicing the Way”

Wow! If we thought spiritual formation was all about adopting some ancient spiritual disciplines (good as that is!) we need to think again.

Which brings me back to that verse from Psalm 71. The psalmist has confidence that God has a major part to play in his “spiritual formation”, a God who is faithful, a God who will lift him up, comfort him and restore his life, the life he thought he had lost.

And I want to echo that. However tough these times of ‘hardship’ and change have been, we have always come through them transformed and restored. At least, we have when we’ve chosen not to dwell on the pain from the past and co-operate with God’s Spirit in the renewing process. I can’t pretend that I’ve always got it right, but when I have, God is faithful. And sometimes, even when I’ve got it wrong God has changed things for our good, because God is also full of grace! Some time ago a friend who has witnessed some of these life events commented that she’d always been impressed by the way I “re-invented” myself…I know what she means although I might prefer to say that I went along with God in his process of changing me.

The Northumbria Community has a wonderful liturgy dedicated to St Brendan, a saint who followed the prompting of God and ventured into the unknown. Towards the end, we find these words:

“I choose to live beyond regret, and let You recreate my life.
I believe You will make a way for me and provide for me,
if only I trust You and obey.
I will trust in the darkness and know that my times are still in Your hand.
I will believe You for my future, chapter by chapter, until all the story is written.”

Brendan – in exploration of a vision from Celtic Daily Prayer Book One

I hear echoes of those verses from Psalm 71 in these words, but they take it a bit further. God’s promises should not induce in us some kind of passive belief. Faith is about action born out of trusting what God says. It’s about moving forward hopefully. It’s about focussing our eyes on the possibilities and stepping through opening doors. It’s about being changed to be more like Jesus.


Ancient Prophets-Modern Message

Posted by David Ward on 04/07/2020
Posted in: Podcasts, Prayer and liturgy, Software, Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment
Ancient Prophets-Modern Message logo

I’ve been reading quite a lot during lockdown. A little while ago I read a book by Paul Bradbury, called “Stepping into Grace”. It’s a look at the prophet Jonah from the Old Testament.

This brief book (it’s only 4 chapters) is a bit different to the other Bible books that make up the section we call the Prophets…rather than being full of Prophecy, it’s the story of the prophet. I discovered that once the story is freed from its dumbed-down children’s version that it has quite a lot to say to us today…its message is very contemporary.

So I wondered if the other minor prophets may also hold some valuable lessons for today. The minor prophets, so called, I think, because their books are much shorter than the major prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, are a group of 12 prophets who gave God’s message to Israel from about the 8th century to the 4th century BC. They mostly prophesied to either the Kingdoms of Israel or Judah, although some, like Jonah, prophesied to other nations (Assyria in Jonah’s case).

Although I’m very happy studying for study’s sake, I like to have an end product in mind…too much study, without passing it on, just makes your head big.

Jonah was originally turned into a short series of sermons with my church, but I was looking for a way to share the prophets in an accessible way to a wider audience. One of the things I enjoy doing is listening to podcasts, so I decided I’d have a go at one of those. Having chosen a podcast platform to use (Anchor, owned by Spotify) I had to decide on a format.

After a bit of thought I decided to turn my study into a series of weekly reflections. I’ve been enjoying 24/7 Prayer’s “Lectio365” app, so, to get going, I chose a similar format (why reinvent the wheel?). Each episode is split up into sections – Pause, Read, Think, Pray and Live. The ‘Live’ section is important…I wanted people to think about practical ways of living the lessons learned from the Ancient Prophets.

You can find the podcast on a whole range of Podcasting platforms, online or via an App.The podcast is on iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts, Breaker, PocketCasts and RadioPublic. You’ll find it online at https://anchor.fm/david-ward08, or search for “Ancient Prophets-Modern Message – a podcast by Dave Ward” in your podcast App.

Please give it a try.

Anchor.fm logo

Simply a walk-on part…

Posted by David Ward on 27/08/2018
Posted in: Bible, Books/Articles, Personal thoughts, Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

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[24] Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Genesis 5:24 (NIV)

 

[5] By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. [6] And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11:5 (NIV)

A walk-on part…there are two ways of looking at that, and Enoch could be said to encapsulate both views.

If you’re an actor with a walk-on part you at least get to be on stage. You have no lines to speak; you have an opportunity to be memorable simply through your presence and how convincing or unforgettable any action you take is.

Enoch is like that. He appears in the post-Fall and pre-Flood narrative in the Bible. We know he was someone’s son, someone’s father and how long he lived. We are given no back story and he has no lines to deliver in the Genesis epic.

But there is, as I said earlier, a second-way to understand Enoch’s walk-on part…all his life he walked on with God as his constant companion, and apparently that was enough, “he was commended as one who pleased God” (Hebrews 11: 5).

Just a few chapters back in the book we hear how God enjoyed walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Then it all went drastically wrong, our Biblical forebears were kicked out of paradise, and the relationship with God became a bit distant.

But, if the story here means anything at all, it must mean that although the location for the walk has changed a bit, God’s desire for a close relationship with anyone who really wants to walk with him has clearly not changed.

And God went on walking with people just like you and me, until he walked himself right out of heaven and spent time walking across the Holy Land with a rag-tag bunch of followers, showing them that he really is Emmanuel, God with us.

Apparently, the ingredients for a close relationship with God are as simple as believing he exists and wants us to become his walking companions, and having found that out to join in the walk.

And we followers of Jesus sometimes make it all sound so complicated!

In her book “Faith in the Making” (where credit for the inspiration for this post lies), Lyndall Bywater tells a lovely story to explain the verse from Hebrews 5 quoted above.

A little girl was recounting to her parents he things she’d learned about Enoch in her Sunday school session. When it came to explaining how he’d left his mortal life, she scratched her head and thought for a bit, before declaring, ‘What happened was that he kept going for walks with God, and one day he walked such a long way that God said it would be too far to go back to Enoch’s house, so they might as well go to God’s place instead.’

This is the bit that really moved me…what a wonderful way to picture death.

To discover that there is a God who wants to share his life with us in the walk of life, to join up with his walking group and to walk with him through the many adventures of life until one day we walk right out of our world and into his…that’s truly amazing.

And it is enough.

We don’t need to strive to be famous, to do great things, to write books, to make a name for ourselves…although we may be blessed with any and all of those things…we simply need to walk with God, as step-by-step and day-by-day he transforms us into the image of Jesus.

One of the Old Testament prophets summed it all up so well when he said:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8 (NIV)