Show not tell

As an author, I am constantly encouraged in my writing to ‘show not tell’.  This means that it is not enough to say ‘The sunset was beautiful.’ Far better to write, ‘the sun sank in a magnificent blaze of red, orange, and pink that stretched across the sky, before disappearing below the western horizon, ushering in the night.’

God is the master craftsman of ‘show not tell’. In the book of Genesis, God tells us about creation; what he created, but when we gaze upon the creation, seeing what God has shown us, it makes us exclaim like David,

When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,    which you have set in place,

 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8: 3- 4

 Creation, despite man’s terrible plundering, abusing and despoiling of this ‘green and blue planet’,  it is still superb, glorious, stunning. The night sky unspoiled by light pollution has to be the light show to surpass all light shows.  There are times when I am literally speechless at the stunning beauty of majestic mountain ranges or overwhelmed by the chilly splendour of the polar regions in all their breath-taking snowiness or the loveliness of solitary marshland, winding rivers and estuaries.

Surely God shows us his glorious creativity in the sheer variety of birds, fish, reptiles and mammals that inhabit planet Earth. One of the creatures that most amuses me most is an extravagant black and white bug that hovers in the heat of South Africa, all quivering frills and tassels. It never fails to make me laugh. However it is fish that amaze me in their incredible diversity and when we think that most of them were unknown, concealed in the depths of the ocean until the technological advances of 20^th century brought them to our television screens. What an extravagant, magnificent Creator God we have!

However the greatness of Creation is nothing compared to how God has shown his love for us. 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 8. 

God did not wait for us to get our lives sorted or even turn to him. He initiated the great sacrifice of his life for ours whilst we were still sinners.

God so desired to restore man’s broken relationship with him that he was prepared to go to any lengths necessary.  It was love, incredible love that took Jesus to the cross and love that kept him on the cross.

How did this amazing gift come to us? By grace – the greatest demonstration of God’s love towards sinful man.  Simon Ponsonby writes: ‘Grace – abundant grace – grace is a gift. Grace is not grace if you earned it; a gift is not a gift if you bought it. Grace is not a reward, or a payment, or a due. It is outrageous, undeserved, unmerited, divine favour’.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2: 8- 9

We have nothing to bring to God, there is no sacrifice we can offer, no treasure that didn’t first come from him, all he asks of us is our love – that rather poor trickle of affection that draws us into the richest of relationship. In his arms we truly learn how valued, loved, appreciated, adored and precious we are to him.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  1 John 3: 1.

God is showing us the greatest treasure of all – his love. He doesn’t tell us how much he loves us, he shows us through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, taking our punishment, forgiving our sins and as we surrender our lives to him, he takes us on the greatest adventure of all -  the discovery of our true identity as children of God and the amazing plan and purpose he has for our lives.

God's training plan

There is no doubt that it was one thing for God to take the Israelites out of the slavery from Egypt but quite another to get the slavery of Egypt out of the Israelites. That first generation of Israelites, with two notable exceptions, never overcame the slavery of their souls. They had been released to walk free, they had seen the mighty miracles of God but inside every one of them was still a slave.

The problem is that slaves have no passion, no purpose, no vision and no personal direction.  They have no rights and there is little pleasure in life because all they are doing is fulfilling other people’s purposes.  They have little or no sense of personal destiny.  They have no freedom of any sort and no ability to choose because their owner provides for them. What they lack most of all is any leadership capability because they rarely if ever lead.

It would have been almost impossible to find someone to take these million slaves out of the slavery of Egypt from amongst the Israelites but God had a wonderful plan. He needed to raise up a Hebrew, one of their own but one not raised in slavery. God hand picked Moses and then trained him up for 80 years.  Moses needed to be comfortable and confident in two different places; a palace and the desert. For 40 years this Hebrew was raised as a prince in the palace and for another 40 years he learned how to shepherd in the desert.

God was working out his plan for both Moses and his people.  When Moses tried to pre-empt the plan by intervening in the lives of the Hebrews and killing an Egyptian who was beating them, God used the event to take Moses from the first part of his training plan (the palace) to the second part (the desert). God uses our mistakes, presumptions and assumptions to work out his plans.

Moses I suspect knew there was a great call on his life. Why else would this Hebrew boy have been brought up in the palace when everyone else was making bricks? However the flame of destiny must have been burning very low by the time God suddenly appeared at the burning bush after 80 years.

Moses’ confidence in his abilities by this time was shot to pieces but that was fine.  God wanted to teach him to be confident in God not in himself. There was no way anyone would be able to bring about the 10 plagues and part the Red Sea if they were looking to their own abilities.  God taught Moses plague by plague, confrontation by confrontation with Pharaoh to trust him. By the time of the tenth plague it says in Exodus 11: 8 Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh.

This was the Moses who was so scared of re-visiting the palace and confronting Pharaoh at the beginning that he begged God several times not to send him but to get someone else to do it.  By the time of the 10^th plague he knew who his God was and how Pharaoh was defying the plans and purposes of the Living God. It was the same spirit of holy boldness that David had when he slew Goliath. 

Moses was God’s man for the task and God trained him till he was ready to fulfil his divine calling. God has a destiny and calling for you and, though it may not look like it, he is working it out often in small painful steps. Despite our shortcomings, complaining and grumbling God will bring about his plan and purpose in our lives. He doesn’t give up even when we do.  Keep faithful, keep trusting, God is at work.

Christmas Eve 2014

During Advent this year I have been reading J John’s daily devotional Advent Reflections. I have been struck again how God fulfils his purposes in often quite unexpected ways and uses the most unlikely and sometimes downright ungodly people to achieve his plans.

In particular I marvelled that God would use a Roman emperor who thought he was a god to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem and used one of the most evil, wicked rulers, Herod the Great, to get the magi to their destination.

What is incredible though is the reaction of the religious leaders when the magi arrived at Herod’s court and asked, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’ Herod called them and they correctly told both Herod and the magi that the King of the Jews, the Messiah, would be born in Bethlehem.

The magi then hotfooted off down the road to Bethlehem. So why didn’t the religious leaders go as well?’ It was only 5 miles away.

If an entourage of Middle Eastern magi pitched up on your doorstep, having travelled months to get there to come and worship your Messiah, you might think the religious leaders would want to investigate what was going on. They dismissed it though out of hand. They assumed, quite wrongly, that these magi couldn’t possibly know what they were talking about. The very people that the Messiah came to save couldn’t believe that God would talk to some Gentiles rather than to themselves, the religious leaders of the Jewish faith.

Too often, as Christians we wrongly assume we know how God works in a given situation. But God is God and he will do things his way. He will even use ungodly leaders to fulfil his purposes. Too often our prayers are for God to raise up Christians to places of influence and my goodness don’t we need that? Our societies and leaders need the Josephs and Daniels at the highest levels of government, media, education and so on.  However we also need to be open to see God working and answering our prayers in the most unlikely ways, using the most unlikely people.

The sad thing is that though the Jews have been praying for their Messiah for centuries, only a few recognised him when he came. Despite every indication given both at his birth and then during his ministry that Jesus is the Messiah, only a handful believed it.

My prayer is that our prejudices and short-sighted assumptions do not prevent us from seeing what God is doing in our day and that we do not limit God to working the way we think it should be. May our eyes be open to all he is doing and our hearts ready to receive him however and with whoever he chooses to use.

Jesus is the Son of God

On the terrible day that Jesus was crucified on the cross, it must have tested the faith of all his disciples and followers to the core. Despite Jesus telling them several times that this was exactly what was going to happen, the reality of it just hadn't sunk in.

Why was Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah being crucified like the common criminals that hung on his left and right? Surely if he was the Son of God the angels would come and rescue him or why did he not just come down from the cross like his mockers suggested?

How terrible to not just witness Jesus' crucifixion but to have to listen to the taunts and scorn being heaped upon him by the religious leaders and passersby.

Many believers must have turned away from Jesus that day. Their faith was tested and they gave in to doubt and unbelief. By the day of Pentecost there was only 120 believers left praying. Where was everyone else? Jesus had spent three years miraculously ministering to every hopeless situation and circumstance, teaching thousands about their loving heavenly Father yet at the sight of Jesus on the cross, most abandoned him.

Even when darkness covered the earth. Even when Jesus cried out in a loud voice as he gave up his spirit which was impossible for a dying man suffocating  on a cross. Even when the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, no one expected anything more from the Son of God. That was it - all over. 

The brave Joseph of Arimathea just wanted to give him the best burial possible in his own brand new tomb. It took courage to go to Pilate to ask for the body. Having buried him he sealed the tomb to make sure no one got in and desecrated it. The faithful women wanted to make sure his body was properly embalmed either that day or after the Sabbath. Even the guards were only placed to make sure the sealed tomb could not be broken into because the religious leaders did not want the disciples faking a resurrection.

No criminal crucifixion though, no sealed tomb, no guards, no disbelieving disciples or followers could stop Jesus rising in triumph from the dead because Jesus is the Son of God. What God has purposed will happen. Jesus overcame sin and death and made a way for everyone born on the planet to come and know their loving heavenly Father and Creator - just as planned. 

Father forgive us when we lose faith in the face of difficulties that seem overwhelming. Help us to persevere and trust you because you are the Christ, the Son of the living God and nothing is impossible for you. Amen.