Tag Archives: meaning

Heaven!

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During the autumn months of 2012 Abbey was still bed bound with pregnancy sickness and I was still trying to recover from my chronic fatigue. These days (and the many days that would follow into 2013 onwards) were long and very monotonous. Each day was just about making it through.

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Slowly making it out of bed. Getting the kids fed. Shipping Noah off to friends to help look after him for a few hours so I could rest while George was at school. Arguing with Abbey during the day about where things were headed and what we were going to do when the money runs out. Losing my patience and stressing out with the kids when they weren’t being perfect or wanting some of my time. Trying to find the motivation to get on with house chores. Getting the kids bathed and fed again and then the saga of bed time! Wanting to be a good husband, father and church planter. Each day felt like climbing up a steep long hill but with no petrol in the tank.

Thank God for McDonalds!
However, on a good day we would treat ourselves as a family with a trip to (wait for it) … McDonalds in Wood Green where if we were lucky we would hear the usual police sirens running up and down the high street outside! And then we would get excited to get the kids to bed early so that we could maybe watch a little Modern Family before bed too! Oh yes, they were good days!!

All joking aside, many of these things are just normal day to day stuff, but when you are feeling depressed and struggling with chronic fatigue its a different story coupled with your wife being bed bound with pregnancy sickness and no job. Perhaps the biggest factor in all this though was that prior to these days just described I had in my opinion the most exciting and purposeful job that existed. I was living the dream! But now… well… life was just boring and hard.

Is this it?
After a while of living everyday like I have described and with no real purpose to it all except for survival you start to ask the big questions! Is this it? What am I living for? How do I live with any sense of meaning and purpose? I would complain to God with my questions, “I just don’t get it God, why is life so hard? Why do you allow this? What’s the point of it? And where is your promised salvation? God I am sick of this life and so fed up with it all!”

A growing desire for heaven!
On one occasion I was out for my usual walk at Alexandra Palace. The sun was beginning to set, there was a beautiful blue sky mixed with all kinds of colors, the breeze was gentle, the air was warm, the flowers and trees full of life and color. And there was this unique peace, calm and quietness. All was well here!

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In that moment I found a strange longing in my heart for heaven! I am not talking about a spiritual heaven floating in the clouds with angels. I am not talking about a heaven where we are in a strange and foreign place. Neither am I talking about some enlightenment or some strange reincarnation. No, I am talking about heaven as described in the bible, the hope of every believer in Jesus Christ.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared…. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:1, 3-5 NLT)

You were made for so much more than this!
Deep down the longing for heaven is written in every human heart and we will never be satisfied until we have it. Though we have new in life in Jesus now through his death and resurrection, the fullness of that will never truly be understood except by looking at what life will be like when He returns again and brings heaven to earth.

Peace, wholeness, life, joy, love, bliss,
The reason the beautiful scenery in my walk in the park resonated with me was this – the beauty, the peace, the restfulness, the purity, and the life that I was looking at was a pale reflection of what our human lives will be like when Jesus returns and brings heaven to earth!

Please don’t mistake me – I am all for healings, miracles, deliverance, signs and wonders here on the earth now! After all the bible says God’s Kingdom is here now… but listen, until that day – there will still be crying, pain, tears, death, sorrow and more! The above verse in Revelation 21 makes that very clear. As someone once said,

“It would be a strange thing for Him (Jesus) who will wipe away every tear, to have no tears to wipe away!”

And lets remember that the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:32 that if we are not going to be raised from the dead through Jesus then ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ In other words – if our hope is not in our future resurrection after death then all we have got it this life right now and everything in the grand scheme of things is meaningless.

Our future hope shapes the way we live now
“… he (God) has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, … ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.” (1 Peter 1:3-6 ESV)

When you start to realize that our purpose, meaning and all those other big words are ultimately fulfilled in our future salvation it frees you from getting angry when life doesn’t work. It stops me from putting all my hopes and dreams in this life and then becoming empty and aimless as I did. It helps me respond to suffering with hope. Suffering in many ways just intensifies our longing for Jesus and his return. It forces me and drives me to put my hope in Jesus’ coming salvation rather than in the things of this world.

Horatio G Spafford
I will leave you with a few verses of the famous hymn – ‘It is well with my soul’. It was written by a Christian man called Horatio G Spafford in 1883 after he suffered the awful loss of his four daughters in a terrible sea accident!

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Running the treadmill all alone

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It was the summer of 2012 and I was now off work for the whole summer in an attempt to recover from my chronic fatigue. During that summer period Sunday mornings were very strange for me as I did not attend or lead the church. On a typical Sunday morning during that summer you would find me at the gym working out while my church was about 100 meters away from me in the same shopping mall meeting in the Movie theatre! I felt like I was out in the wilderness laying low.

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Who was I now?
Who exactly was I now, running on that treadmill all alone? As the months moved on that question popped up as the ‘stripping down’ of my life increased. I went from having a good and high profile job to having no job and being unemployed for a long time. I went from having a decent salary to having nothing (including my family living in a homeless shelter later on). I went from having achieved a lot to suddenly being unable to achieve anything! I went from having lots of recognition to running the treadmill all alone in what felt like no-mans land. That was a very lonely time me.

In the ‘desert’ we find our true selves!
Despite this being a horrible time for me, looking back I can see some gems appearing. I discovered that God uses times like these to help us know who we truly are in Him. What I mean is this – when all your gifts, abilities, performance, achievements, recognition and approval from others is gone… who are you? How much are you worth when there is nothing you can do?

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God loved us before we had achieved or done anything!
I am so thankful for the truth of the gospel. It tells me something incredible!

“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners”. (Romans 5:8 NLT)

This verse is one of my favourite verses in the whole bible! It tells me that when I was at my worst, a sinner, having not achieved any righteousness of my own, God still loved me! You can’t get worse than being a ‘sinner’ and yet God loved us while we were like that. We were precious and valuable to Him before we had earned or achieved anything. He loves us unconditionally and takes us in just as we are and then later cleans us up. I often think of my love for my children. I loved them right from day 1 before they were able to do anything!

My identity is in Christ!
Our God given gifts and callings are wonderful things, but they are not the primary way we find our self worth and identity! The ultimate answer to the question, ‘who are you now?’ is this – my identity and worth is in Jesus Christ. It’s in everything he is for me and has achieved for me. Whether I am a pastor or not, an achiever of great things or not, a money earner or not, my identity and worth is in Jesus Christ. And yes, even if I have failed and sinned throughout the day – I am still a righteous saint in Christ!

Who are you? What’s your identity in?
Maybe your worth and value is in your achievements at work and you are pretty driven! Or maybe you are an incredible and talented athlete but the thought of no longer having that makes you feel very empty and scared. Maybe you thrive from the admiration of the opposite sex because, well lets face it, you are pretty darn good looking! Maybe your hard earned cash and bank balance gives you a sense of achievement, entitlement and worth. Maybe you have a very high position in your work and love the feeling of that, but it’s a little scary when someone else is being praised or promoted. Maybe you were a great mother to your children but now they have all left home, and you feel lost with who you are and what your value is in. Maybe you are just a wonderful, nice and happy person to be around. People really love hanging out with you, but its getting exhausting keeping up that smile!

Don’t be afraid of losing things (or your life!)

Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Luke 9:24 ESV)

Don’t be afraid of losing your life. Its scary at first, I know! But I have learnt that the stripping away of things in my life is helping me find my life again… but this time in Jesus. I lost the job I loved, lived for and dreamed of. I lost my health and ability to achieve things (sometimes all I could do in a day was… well, not a lot!). I became pretty low and self centered at times. But, I am now beginning to find that my real true life is rooted in God’s unconditional love for me. My value and worth is in Jesus Christ and not in what I have or how well I have done that day.

So, if you are going through a desert time in your life right now, or feel the whole world is being taken away from you, God might just be using this time to help you rediscover your life, worth and identity in Him.