Father lost and found

John Reynolds: 30/12/34-23/9/85

September 23, 1985
Another day at school finished, and we were just having the register at the end of the day before going home. The Head of Year came into the room and asked me if I’d accompany her to her office. Uh-oh, had I been in trouble? But then she said we needed to walk to my mum’s workplace, which was quite close to the school. This was odd. For some reason I didn’t ask why, we walked silently. The police cars outside my mum’s office didn’t help the feeling of foreboding that was growing inside. Walking into my mum’s office, seeing the police men there, seeing the look on my mum’s face – I braced myself. As she told me that my dad had been killed in a car crash on his way to work, the floor beneath me seemed to fall away, or rather the rock on which I had based my life did, and my mum and I just clung tightly together.

December 30, 2010
I may have lost my earthly father, but in the last 2 months I have found my Heavenly Father. Which is probably an odd thing to say, for someone who has been a Christian for 18 years. I have started rereading The Forgotten Father by Thomas A. Smail the last couple of weeks, and he expresses so well my experience. He lost his own father as a young boy, and he says “Experientially it is possible to confess Christ and not live in the power of the Spirit or have confidence before the Father. All Christians believe in the fatherhood of God, but not all have entered into the confident trust and willing obedience that belief implies. And they can do so, not by being taught or exhorted but only as a result of a distinctive activity of the Holy Spirit within them. God must send the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba Father...In Christ God has made himself our Father and us his children. For that to come home to us in the power of the Spirit is one of the most healing things that can ever happen to us.” Mmm. This happened to me 2 months ago. I have always known my Heavenly Father since He opened my eyes to the gospel when I became a Christian, but I never had confidence before Him, I was always hiding behind the righteousness of Christ, so that He wouldn’t see my dirtiness. Now I have come to the realisation that the blood of Christ has actually washed me clean, and I have discovered a new-found delight and confidence in approaching my Loving Heavenly Father, and an ability to receive His love for me.

I am stunned at the way God is speaking to me at the moment. For example, last night I was led to do an impromptu bible study on the word compassion after the lovely Christina Langella posted on Facebook a comment about God’s compassion. Not only did I discover to my shame that I don’t know very well those verses that speak of His compassion, I discovered He is called the Father of compassion (2 Cor 1:3) and amazingly that the Bible proclaims “in you the fatherless find compassion” (Hosea 14:3).

I miss my dad. I miss most of all not being able to discuss my faith with him. His dad was a priest in the Anglican church, and my dad also wanted to become a priest – but returned from a liberal theological college disillusioned with the teachings there that denied the virgin birth. He loved all the bells, incense and singing in the High Anglican church, and had been a choir boy at Ely Cathedral. My dad was a brilliant pianist and I used to love to listen to him play The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. He struggled with life – we believe he had Aspergers Syndrome, and had mild obsessional behaviour, and we used to get so frustrated as a family waiting for him to join us in the car to go out as he did all his last-minute checks in the house, but he was a great dad.

Today would have been his 76th birthday. I have tears today – but they are tears of joy at finding my compassionate Heavenly Father.

 

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him—his name is the LORD.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.
(Psalm 68:4-6)

Incarnation

(photo by Becky Pliego)

The mystery of the incarnation has been occupying much of my thoughts lately, for obvious reasons! I can’t even begin to fathom how the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. I can’t understand how He could leave the glory He had with His Father before the world began, in order to be born of a woman as a vulnerable baby, dependent on His mother for her care. I can’t comprehend the humility with which He made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

This mystery is too great, too awesome, and these words of mine are too inadequate to do it justice.

So I have to turn my attention to a part of the story on a more human level. Mary, to whom the angel declares “Rejoice, highly favoured one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28). What a greeting! What greater commendation could a person receive? To hear that you are highly favoured by the Mighty God, that He is with you, and that you are blessed – surely this is the heart’s desire of us all. No other testimony matters, other than that which God declares.

Then to be told: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end...The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31-33,35). Not only favoured by God, but chosen to bear the Son of God! What greater honour could a woman receive? What greater privilege?

What follows such an awesome encounter with the angel of God and such words as these?

Shame.

Despair.

Suspicion.

Betrothed to Joseph, yet pregnant. A young, unmarried woman clearly carrying a child, bringing shame on herself, her family’s name, her husband. One can imagine the talk in the village. Matthew tells us that “And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly” (Matthew 1:19).

Mary’s life has gone from the heights of joy and gladness at finding favour in the eyes of God to having to deal with the unbelief of men. Faith in God immediately comes up against the negative reaction of the world.

Isn’t this the way of our Lord Himself who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame? Isn’t this the way of all those who would follow their Master? “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Cor 1:23-25).

May our hearts firmly seek the favour of the Lord and not of men. May we seek His praise, and not the praise of men. For we have this great promise to hold on to: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (1 Pe 2:6).

Thirsty

At a bible study recently, our pastor asked whether we were content with our knowledge of God, with our understanding of who He is. Surely the response from the heart of those who have been touched just a little by the love of God is that as we grow in our love of Him, and as we receive more of His love, our hunger for Him grows. This is another of those glorious Divine paradoxes! A.W. Tozer puts it so well:

“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.” (The Pursuit of God)

Moses was a child of the burning heart. Having already seen the visible glory of God when manna from heaven was rained down, and when he met with God on Mount Sinai to receive the Law, he asks God “Now show me your glory” (Ex 33:18). He has seen what I would dearly love to see – the visible glory of God, yet it is not enough – he asks for more.

David was a child of the burning heart. He loved his God. He knew his God loved him. And his longing to know more of his God poured forth in these words:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?”
(Psalm 42:1-2)

Paul was a child of the burning heart. He says “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (Phil 3:8). Yet he then goes on to say “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:10-11). He knows Christ, yet his heart cries out that he wants to know Christ.

To those whose hearts have been touched by the God of Love, there will be a continual hunger and thirst for more of God whilst we are away from home. Now we see but dimly. Now we see but glimpses of God’s glory. Now it is as if we are climbing in the mountains, and we make it to one peak and our hearts cry out in gladness and joy. Then our perspective widens and we see we are not at the summit at all, but rather still in the foothills, and a higher peak comes into our vision – sometimes requiring a downward traverse first. But the exhilaration at reaching the peaks is treasure from heaven, and we continue our upward climb. Now we cry out with Job:

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27).

For we have faith that one day, we will see our blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ our King and Saviour, and when we are gathered before Him, we are told that “Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst” (Rev 7:16). On that day, we will be satisfied. On that day, the yearning of our hearts will be quieted. On that day, we will drink deeply from the River of Life and our thirst will be quenched. Until then, may God grant us the grace to keep straining towards what is ahead.

The embrace of my Heavenly Father

As a mother of a young child, there is no greater feeling than being able to offer comfort, hope, safety and encouragement through a warm embrace. To know that as I hold my child in my arms, I am able to convey to him more deeply than mere words ever could that he is my child and he is much loved.

As a child of my Heavenly Father, there is no greater feeling than receiving comfort, hope, safety and encouragement through His warm embrace. To know that as I am held in His arms, He is conveying to me more deeply than mere words ever could that I am His child and I am loved.

This prodigal daughter has returned home. When my eyes were finally opened and I recognised that I was a sinner before a Holy God and shamefacedly returned to Him to plead for mercy, He came running towards me, threw His arms around me and kissed me. He ran towards me! He embraced me! He kissed me!

How is this possible? Because of Christ. Because the Son of God made Himself nothing, took on the very nature of a servant, was made in human likeness, and humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!

Is it possible year after year to be filled with ever-increasing awe and wonder as we contemplate the miracle of the incarnation? This heart of mine is overwhelmed this Advent-time. So much to wonder at – Mary, the young virgin, receiving a visit from the angel Gabriel to tell her she would bear the Son of God in her womb; the shepherds receiving a visit from a great company of the heavenly host singing praises to God; but above all that the Son of God would leave the glory He had with His Father before the world began to come to earth to save us.

And because He came, because He lived, because He died, because He was resurrected, because He is ascended, I can enjoy the embrace of my Heavenly Father.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)

On Seeing a Lake Dancing for the Glory of God

“Let the heavens, rejoice, let the earth be glad,
Let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;
They will sing before the LORD, for he comes,
He comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
And the peoples in his truth” (Psalm 96:11-13).

I’m not someone you could call a “tree-hugger”. However, I’ve always appreciated nature and have often been over-awed by God’s handiwork, none more so than when on the top of a mountain. Ski holidays in the Swiss Alps left me in wonder at the beauty of God revealed through the mountains. Standing atop Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK, thrilled and exhausted at having reached the top, and seeing the barren landscape around us, made my heart sing praises to God. In fact, thinking of mountain top experiences, nothing beats climbing Pen-y-Fan in South Wales, which we climbed in the mist, and as we stood at the top of the mountain, feeling that sense of achievement, the mist suddenly evaporated before our eyes and the view before us opened up. Awesome. What a mighty God we serve who created all this!

Yet, there is a difference between looking on nature and appreciating God’s handiwork in it, and actually seeing nature with eyes of faith praising its Maker. I came across this poem recently which took my breath away: “And a dewdrop quivers in His dawn with praise”. Wow. I had never given dewdrops a second thought, let alone seen them quivering in praise before their Maker. This poem reminded me much of Francis of Assisi “preaching to the birds or calling upon sun and moon and wind and stars to join him in praising the Lord” as A.W. Tozer states in ‘Man: The Dwelling Place of God’.

I determined to set out to see, with eyes of faith, nature praising the Lord. I took a walk through the woods at the back of our house, and sat down on a bench by a lake. It was a beautiful autumnal sunny day. Birds were singing, the sky was blue, there was a hint of warmth in the air. Beautiful.

And then my breath was taken away. On the lake I saw lilies reaching out their leaves as if they were lifting their hands in praise of their God. Ducks ran atop the water in delight at this gift their Maker had given them. And the lake. Well. I suppose someone else who had been there would have said the lake glistened in the sunshine. That is not what I saw. I saw light flashing from the top of ripples of water – small eruptions of brilliant light exploding in absolute joy before their Maker, starting off slowly and then building to a great crescendo of light as more and more ripples appeared – it was as if the lake was dancing for the glory of the Lord.



Honestly, I sat there, my mouth open, tears rolling down my cheeks. How have I missed seeing this all the years of my life? How have I missed the beauty around us of the trees of the forest singing with joy before the Lord? How have I missed the sea resounding in its praise? How have I missed the rivers clapping their hands? But I was so thankful to God for opening my eyes to this awesome display of wonder and praise before Him.

And whilst I may have to be content with seeing with eyes of faith for the moment, I know there is a time coming when we will see in full.

“The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God's purpose it has been so limited - yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God!” – JB Phillips translation of Romans 8:19-21.

Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

Christian loses his burden

“So I saw in my dream, that just as CHRISTIAN came up to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble; and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.” – John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress

This is the way I have always seen Christian living (apologies that it's a bit blurry! - if you click on the pciture I think it will enlarge so you can see it a bit better!):



My early years of the Christian walk, where the teaching focused on how our lives should be lived as a response to what God had done for us in Christ led to despair as the focus was on us most of the time. Over the last 3 years I have shifted my focus away from my response to Him and back onto Him, and I have been relieved of this despair. However, whenever I am encouraged by the Word to examine myself to test whether I am in the faith that sense of despair returns, especially when I read 1 John and see this verse: “No-one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No-one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6). People tell me this means living in persistent, deliberate, wilful sin. I then find myself trying to draw distinctions between different types of sin - is John saying that say, sleeping around is a worse sin than not giving God the love He deserves? This really doesn’t help – and I always come back to the fact that if I am continually sinning despite being saved by God, what does that say about me and my love for Him?

I am starting to consider an alternative possibility to Christian living:



“Love is the fulfilment of the law” (Romans 13:10). It just doesn’t sound when I read that whole section in Romans that Paul is saying “but by the way, there’s absolutely no way you can do this”. Is it just possible that the commandment to love is not after all an impossible target where I am condemned because my love is imperfect? Rather, as I am called to bear fruit (Romans 7:4) maybe I am not after all judged on the perfection of the fruit, but instead on whether the fruit is growing. I am starting to see this as being headed in the right direction, as opposed to meeting a pass/fail test. So I think I can start to say (albeit a bit hesitantly and not entirely 100% confidently) that yes, I DO love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength – not perfectly, but I do love Him, I want to please Him, I want my whole life to be devoted to Him, and the imperfection of that love is not a sin. After all, King David was commended by God for being “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22) – not condemned because that devotion may have been “imperfect”. Yes, I will sin, I will mess up, I will get it wrong – but not every second of every day.

A friend asked me the other day whether I believed I was pleasing to God. I was overcome by the sorrow I felt in my heart as I reflected on my inability to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. How can someone who is continually sinning be pleasing to God?

Just considering the possibility that my love for God is acceptable in His eyes fills me with a hope and assurance that I haven’t known before. I am not saying this is my work – my love for Him is only a response to the grace He has given, and is caused by His Spirit at work in me. But maybe, just maybe, my Heavenly Father does delight in the love I have for Him, which He caused in me, however weak and pitiful that may be at times. And as I think like this, it does seem as though that burden which was on Christian’s shoulders is falling off my back.

““This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins...We love because he first loved us ” (1 John 4:10; 19).

PS I would appreciate comments on this as I feel like I am writing heresy : )

Seeing the Glory of God in the Face of Christ

I recently discovered that the first occasion that the visible glory of the Lord appeared to the Israelites was about a month after God miraculously delivered them from slavery in Egypt through the Red Sea. Concerned at how they are going to survive in the desert, they begin to grumble against Moses and Aaron. The glory of the Lord appears in a cloud, and God tells Moses that He will provide them with meat at twilight, and fill them with bread in the morning. (Ex 16:6-7;10-12).This first display of the Lord’s visible glory results in an act of grace – in response to grumbling, the Lord provides the gift of manna, the bread from heaven. This first revelation of God’s visible glory in the Bible thus immediately points us to the One who would later call himself the true bread from heaven (John 6:32).

The New Testament is filled with the revelation of how the glory of the Lord is seen in Christ:

1. Pre-incarnate glory of Christ:
   “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (Jn 17:5)
   
   
2. Glory of Christ in the incarnation:
   “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14)
   
   
3. Glory of God revealed at birth of Christ:
   “And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified...Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rest” (Lk 2:8;13-14)
   
   
4. Glory demonstrated through miracles:
   a) After changing water into wine – “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him" (Jn 2:11)
   b) Raising of Lazarus – “Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it’” (Jn 11:4).
   
   
5. Glory demonstrated at the Transfiguration:
   “Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him” (Lk 9:32)
   
   
6. Glory of Christ at his Second Coming:
   “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory” (Mt 25:31).
   
   
7. Glory of God revealed in Jesus:
   “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb 1:3)
   “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4-6)
   
   

Seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ is – I have to say it – unnerving. I have recently come to understand that I need a mediator to shelter me from the glory and holiness of God – that mediator is Christ. I have seen Him as the cleft in the rock that sheltered Moses when the glory of the Lord passed by (Ex 33:22). Now I am seeing that the cleft in the rock is filled with as much glory as God Himself and it almost feels like I have nowhere left to run. “You cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live” God tells Moses. Man in his sinful state simply cannot behold the glory of the Lord. Yet the glory of my mediator is...overwhelming.

The apostle John had a revelation of the glory of Jesus which he describes in Revelation 1:12-16. His reaction to this? “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead”. (Rev 1:17). Maybe being unnerved by the glory of God in the face of Christ is not the wrong reaction to have, after all.

Feeling unnerved as I am only gives me more hope for the future – for that day when this body of sin will finally be destroyed, and as part of the bride of Christ clothed in our glorified bodies we will be able to sit down at the wedding feast of the Lamb, and see Him face to face! Oh, to join with the angels in singing His praise!

“Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise” (Rev 5:11-12).

Face to face with Christ, my Savior,
Face to face—what will it be,
When with rapture I behold Him,
Jesus Christ Who died for me?

Chorus:
Face to face I shall behold Him,
Far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory,
I shall see Him by and by!

Only faintly now I see Him,
With the darkened veil between,
But a blessèd day is coming,
When His glory shall be seen.

Face to face—oh, blissful moment!
Face to face—to see and know;
Face to face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ Who loves me so.