A modern take on the Poor Widow story..

While sitting watching people coming to and fro, placing their offerings in the temple treasury, Jesus saw how many rich people threw in large amounts. But one poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

Yet, she was the one Jesus noticed. Calling his disciples, he told them: "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything- all she had to live on." [Mark 12:41-43]


Two friends of mine both attend a church which is being used as a place of refuge for people who are fleeing (mostly) township areas due to various xenophobic attacks that have been taking place in areas in South Africa. Many of them had fled with only what the clothes on their back, some had been able to leave with things they could carry, but the majority of them, already in poorer circumstances than the average church attender of that church, had lost everything. Having no other place to go, when Sunday came, they were all still there. So they were there for the morning service, and in an act of generosity which definitely humbled my friends all gave when the offering plate came around. And at the evening service, they all gave again.

Just makes me wonder about how much I give.

Xenophobia attacks

Otherwise, I've been pretty frustrated, mad, saddened, angry, sore about all the attacks that are happening around South Africa. It just makes me so mad to see how selfish and stupid and just plain sinful people can be. When I see what levels the human race can stoop to, I am blown away completely by the amazing mercy of God.. How is it possible that Christ died for us while we were still enemies?!?!?

Interracial relationships?

The other day a friend of mine mentioned that he'd been turned down by a mutual girl friend and one of the reasons she stated was because of of their racial differences.

After all the steam stopped coming off my head, and I started seeing things in a lighter sepia shade rather than bright red, I went to the bathrooms and sat and cried a little. It might seem a bit of an extreme response, especially considering I'm quite awesomely hardcore, and not given to leaking waterdrops at all, but what really saddened me is that he's a Christian... And so's she.

Is it unfair of me to consider this an immature response? What kind of friendship and Christlike behaviour do you show when your actions say something like "okay, despite your race, I'll be your friend and hang out with you and think you're a cool person, look look, I'm not racist 'cause I have friends of other colours", but as soon as it hits too intimate a level your race suddenly jumps up as a factor? What happened to all being equal in Christ? I remember reading a Christian book for females a while back, and it was actually really sound, but the author was against interracial marriages?!?! I think this, quite frankly, is outright bull, but if you can show me in the Bible that my opinion is wrong, I'm happy to listen.

Money: To give or to keep?

We've been talking about money again recently - oohlala, the taboo subject - and about giving and generosity. It's interesting how people always ask "How much should we give?" In a weird way, it reminds me a lot of the question of "How far can we go?" couples tend to ask. However, a brilliant response I once heard to this was to point out that this was the wrong question entirely -the right one would be to ask: "How far can we stay sexually pure? How far can we stay away from temptation?"

In a similar sense, maybe we shouldn't be asking "How much should we give?" expecting an answer of a certain amount of money that we can give to ease our consciences about not giving anything and to relieve our selfishness so that we don't give too much... Maybe the right question is to ask "How much should we keep? Why not give it all away?"

That might seem a little bit crazy, but it should be a challenge to you to consider your dependency on money - do we really need it? Why are we so attached to it?

hmmm...

The future is swiftly approaching... What to do!??!

A friend and I were recently talking about the future. My future, in fact: What I'm going to be doing in 10/20 years time... Or rather, what I'm not going to be doing, as right now, I have NO idea!

Anyway, we were talking through the idea of working for God's glory, and not your own, and I voiced aloud the difficultly of finding a balance between doing your work well, and doing enough to just keep up with the others in your field/department. He simply pointed out that we shouldn't make it our goal to keep up with others, because there will be people for whom work is everything, for whom work is an idol. And this is not the case for us.

Hmmm...

PS Just to clarify...

Umm... I tend to shout at God a lot. Well, not really shout at, but rather get frustrated, confused, mad, sometimes despairing... Not that I'm saying we should shout at God. But we should come to Him with our true real selves, and talk to Him as if we are His children. Sometimes, for some silly reason, I put pressure on myself to have these perfectly worded prayers etc.etc., but I actually think it's really fake and not what God wants. Umm, yeah. So if you're in a bit of a bad place, talk to God about it, and tell Him how you're really feeling.

Okay.

Ummm... yeah...

This world and the next… #3

[For context, check out This world and the next... #2 ]

So after a turmoil-filled and emotional few days, quite possibly weeks, of thinking about all the injustices of this world, and of the things I wanted to help with, I found myself one evening absolutely miserable: to put it simply, I was just sick of and fed-up with being trapped in this academic circus.

[To be honest, I have an inkling that this feeling could have been aided in part by my many swiftly-approaching deadlines.]

Frustrated, I voiced my thoughts to God [okay, maybe I shouted a little bit inside], asking Him why I was here when I'd be of so much more use out there. Wherever out there was. [I never get a clear picture of what "out there" means; probably because a gritty reality might scare off my overromanticised mental images of being a gracious, supercool, much-beloved humanitarian ;)]

Yet, after more thinking and what-I-shall-euphemistically-call-prayer, I came to realize that my frustration was stemming from a belief that I knew better than God..! Maybe I WON'T be of much more use out there. Maybe my calling will be to stay in this academic high tower, and to be a Christian witness to those that are stuck in intellectualism... [Gee whiz, I hope not! They think too much! ;)]

I must trust in God, that He knows what is best for me, and that He has placed me in a situation where I CAN make a difference where I am. Because He has.

Going home

A good friend of mine helps out at Sunday School occasionally, and she recently related the following anecdote to me:

She'd asked the children in her class what the highlight of their week had been. When it was the turn of one of the young boys, he said without hesitation: "My highlight was that my granddad got to go to the place where he wanted to be the most."

His grandfather had passed away unexpectedly earlier that week.

Many members of the church family were left heartbroken and grieving, yet he had grasped the amazing truth that though the ones left behind were mourning, his granddad was home now.

Varying details in the gospels... Eeek!??

One of my friends asked me the other day about the seemingly problematic discrepancies in detail between the various gospels.

I say "seemingly-problematic" though, as many historicists credit the varying differences in the gospels as ADDING to their believability as eyewitness accounts. If they had been exactly the same, that's when you should start wondering if the authors had gotten together and decided to conspire together on what to write.

Think of any event for yourself- you'll get at least one slightly different account for every person who saw it! The fact that there are so many minor aspects which differ, don't take away from the gospels as truth- they lend authenticity to the accounts as eyewitness accounts.

Having said that, the points on which they differ aren't major points- so what if there was one angel or two angels? What is important is that the key points remain the same - Jesus rose again and was seen in real life!

Romans 12:12 says

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer."

Isn't that great?

Money and shopping...

So the other day, I went shopping. And was quite disturbed by the amount of money I would need to hand over for one piece of clothing. So I went home. And kinda nearly froze.

Not only that, but one of my pants tore all the way up the leg. And another pair ripped while I was at a friend's housewarming [I was distraught for two reason: firstly, I'd had that pair for 8 YEARS, and was rather attached to them!!! Secondly, it ripped right across the butt area!!!!] [Luckily I was wearing a long coat...]. So that left me with two/three pairs with which to face the awful winter.

At that point, I realized that money is a blessing. Yes, I do need to be wise about how I use it [i.e. do I really need that exorbitantly priced jacket, when this moderately priced one will do?], but I shouldn't feel conscious-stricken about using it especially if it means I'm going to end up freezing.

So I went shopping.


PS Yeah, I realize there's much more that can be said about money and shopping, but that's the lesson I learnt this time, so hold your horses!

This world and the next… #2

After a week of illuminating lectures and movies, I was reminded of the world outside my wonderful First-World bubble. No longer can I conscientiously defend my dreams and hopes of a comfortable future when the majority of the world's people are living in extreme poverty, being executed, oppressed and abused. It is true that everyone needs Jesus, but what kind of witness am I when I tell them to trust in Jesus and do nothing to alleviate their conditions?

And the scary thing about this is that when I went to bible study, I was struck by how I felt that I couldn't speak to anyone about any of this - how everyone seemed to be sucked in by the same commercial dreams as all the other non-Christians...

What crap is this? Why are we being sucked in by the same materialistic ideals that non-Christians are going for? We KNOW that nothing in this world will last, so why aren't we out there helping those in need, suffering for the sake of others... As Christians, we have absolutely NOTHING to lose because in heaping up earthly things we have nothing to gain. We've got everything in Jesus, who will never forsake us. So why are we participating in the rat-race?

Here endeth the ranteth....

This world and the next… #1

So there we were one Sunday, singing one of my favourite songs. Yet when we reached this line: "before the throne of god above/ I have a strong, a perfect, plea", I was suddenly gutted. Not because of the offpitch tones around me, but because I was suddenly hit by the thought that some of my loved ones might never ever be able to sing this, that they might never ever know Jesus, and that they might never end up in heaven with me. I was gutted. There’s no other word for it.

Yet knowing that I was able to enjoy a relationship with Jesus didn’t really comfort me much. Usually when I get reminded of how this world is sinful, sucky and mad/crazy/bad, I am comforted by the reminder that we as God’s children look forward to eternity with Him. However, this time around, I was really struggling to understand how I could be comforted in this when there are so many people out there who don't know Him? It seemed like such an incredibly selfish hope!! I was so frustrated that at a stage I was even thinking that if I couldn’t share in this amazing future with everyone, that I wasn’t sure I wanted it at all myself.

However, I realized that would be the wrong attitude to take in light of God’s mercy and gracious sacrifice. It IS a selfish hope only if we persist in keeping this good news to ourselves. It should instead motivate us to tell others about Jesus so that they too may know the good news. For God is infinitely merciful, and promises us that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be heard…

Being comforted by God's Word

I was frustrated (more on this in my following posts) and looking for words of comfort in God's word, when I came upon the following verses from Psalms:

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and take heart and wait for the Lord."

"My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word."

"My comfort in my suffering is this: your promise preserves my life."

I was so encouraged by the reminder that God, and only God, is keeping us alive. I particularly enjoy the last verse: every time I read it I get a mental image of me as a piece of wrinkled dried fig floating around in some sort of preservative :) heehee...

Struggling along, struggling strong

A few weeks ago, when I was going through a bit of a bad patch [haha, I’m always seeming to go through a bit of a bad patch, aren’t I?!??!], my lovely friend, Princess Sarah, smsed me a phrase of encouragement: “Fight strong.”

Not only did I enjoy the way she phrased this, but it also reminded me of the phrase:

“Be strong and courageous”

We’d both gone on a camp together last year, where this phrase had popped up quite frequently. The speaker had talked on Joshua, and he reminded us that at the beginning of Joshua, the Israelites are camping on the edge of the Promised Land, the seeming beginning of many glorious things which should fill them with much hope and longing, and yet God reminds them to be strong and courageous. Similarly we need to remember that we’re camping on the edge of eternity, and should be emboldened and strengthened by this...

Therefore I encourage you from another book of the Bible:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deuteronomy 31:6).

Yay! God’s rooting for you! Be strong and courageous! Ride the fire.

[okay, the last bit isn’t in the Bible; it just sounded really cool ;) ]

Why, hello there!

A recent message from Byron [yes, yes, my #1 fan! ;)] reminded me of the existence of my blog… And when I checked it out again, I realized that the last time I posted was Feb 23?!?! Three months ago?!?! WOWEE!!

But now I’m back :), so expect a few little catch up blogs just to let you guys know what God has been graciously teaching me and reminding me in the last few months of silence…