Open Doors

We were done at three.  We were happy in our house, just the right size for us, in just the right place.  Wouldn’t change a thing.

But sometimes life throws up some unexpected things.  Sometimes God has other ideas.

On 27^th August our fourth baby, and our third little girl, was born.  Avril Faith.  Her name is about new beginnings, opening doors and trusting God in the transition.

That’s the story of our lives in the season in which she’s joined us.  We’re a family of five becoming a family of six.  Ezra, our boy wonder, is starting school.  After five happy years outside Cambuslang we’re moving to a new house in a new town.  And we’re doing it all at a time when it literally makes no sense.  Who would move house and take on a bigger mortgage just as interest rates are being hiked?  Who would buy a big old brick-build just as energy prices go through the roof?  Why shift the kids into a new school when they’re only just getting used to the first one?  And why do it all at once?  I mean…. we’re moving in a week and a day.  We’re going to have a babe in arms not 6 days old when our movers come to start packing up our lives.  Why on earth are we doing this?

These are all questions that confront me in my darker more anxious moments.

It doesn’t make sense.  Or rather, without faith, it doesn’t make sense.

But we’ve got faith.  We don’t believe in accidents, but in providence.  We don’t believe in random chance, but in a sovereign God.  We don’t believe that, as Forrest Gump wondered, “we’re all floating around accidental like on the wind”.  We’ve got faith that what we’re doing is for a reason.

Sometimes people talk about faith as if it’s the opposite of evidence.  I don’t see it that way.  I see faith as a choice to trust your weight to the strength of the evidence you’ve seen.  And this season has been a season for faith.  Not blind, reckless or baseless conjecture.  But choosing to trust because of what God has said and done.

Like I said, we were done at three.  And I was never going to move.  “Bury me in that back garden” I used to say to Roxy, not entirely joking.  I hate change.

But then change marched into our lives.  Biology doesn’t always go to plan, and there we were looking at a positive pregnancy test.  Roxy began talking about a bigger place.  She felt like we needed to push on some doors and see what happens.

A house came up just a few streets away – our dream house, in many ways.  “Would you move for the right house if it was only a few streets away?” she asked.  Maybe.  We did our sums.  Pushed on the door.  It didn’t work out.

Another house came up.  Even better, in some ways.  A little outside of our neighbourhood, but in the same town.  “Would you move for the right house if it was just across there?” she asked.  Maybe.  We pushed on the door.  It didn’t work out.

But by now something had changed.  It felt like we were moving.  Were we?  Were we actually going to leave this area?  We love this area.  We had big dreams for this area.  We had a vision for what our lives would be like here.  Was it all for nothing?  I went on a run, asking God for a sign.  Just occasionally God answers your prayers very literally.  He showed me a sign.  I run there every week.  It wasn’t a new sign.  But I’d never noticed it before.  And as I stopped and stared, the words burned themselves into my eyes: work undertaken and complete.  Our work here was done.  We were moving.

Rox had the feeling that pushing on this door meant putting our own house on the market.  Before we’d sold.  Not only do I hate change but I’m naturally pretty risk averse.  So you can imagine this is pretty much a nightmare for me.  But, she’s very pretty, and she knows how marriage works.  So she got her way.  We were told the figure to expect on our home report.  But a different number niggled at us – a number that was important to us because of a random gift we’d received at a significant moment in our lives years ago.  That was the number we based our sums on.  And on the morning where it was do-or-die for putting the house on the market, and all the reasons why not to do it loomed large, we got the home report through.  It wasn’t the number the agent had told us to expect.  It was the number we’d received through the door all those years before.  To us, it was a sign.  A sign that was the plan.  This is what we were meant to do.

I won’t write the whole story… it would take too long, and probably isn’t as interesting to anyone else as it is to us!  The long version is a story of a hundred little answers to prayer, a thousand little coincidences, a word of encouragement here, a dream there.  A million things that we’ve clung to as reminders that God is with us in this, that He’s leading us through this, and that He’ll be with us on the other side of it.

Fast forward to August 2022.  We’ve sold.  We’ve bought.  We’re waiting on missives concluding.  The economy is crashing.  The cost of living is exploding.  And we’re 40 weeks pregnant and about to move house.  There’s lots to stress about.

But something prompts Roxy to have a look back at a message she’d sent someone about a dream she had.

She had this dream a year ago – August 2021.  A full 12 months before.  Pregnancy was the last thing on our minds.  Moving home wasn’t on the cards, not even close.  But in this dream, we were moving house with a new born baby.

Coincidence, right?  Dreams can be crazy I guess.  These things happen.

But we’ve got faith.  Faith that when everything seems up in the air and thrown together and like it might fall apart at any second… God always knew what was going to happen.  And he’d told us a year in advance all about it.

Welcome to the world Avril Faith.  You were part of the plan long before we knew it.  And your name, and your precious little life, encourages us to press on and trust in God as He opens the door to this next season for us.

Ch ch ch changes

 Macintosh Day 2022.  Three years since we established our little tradition of taking our wedding anniversary and making it bit of a big deal with the kids, like Christmas in the middle of the summer.  A day to celebrate together with our wee clan, sharing stories of our family journey and treasuring the time we have together just us and our kids.

 

This year has been quite a year.  As I write this Roxy is just days away from giving birth to our fourth baby.  And we are also, God willing, just weeks away from selling up our lovely little home and moving on to a new place.

 

It’s been a year of disruption and unsettling change.  Some people thrive on change.  I hate it.  I like routine, the reassurance of consistency, the comfort of the familiar.  But what helps to keep me grounded in the midst of big changes in life is the knowledge that some things are unchanging.  On Macintosh Day especially, as we think back through the twists and turns of our lives thus far, I’m struck once more by the realisation that when everything else shifts and flickers, God’s faithfulness remains firm and unflinching.

 

I guess sometimes God needs to shake things up in order to remind us of what we actually depend on.  Sometimes He needs to make us a bit uncomfortable so He can push is to grow.  In this process of moving house and having this new baby, we’ve been very clearly reminded of how dependant we are on God.  And how He just never lets us down.  I’ll write the story properly when it’s all concluded, when we have our new baby and we’re sitting in our new home.  This entry is very much just a place holder.  But already, beyond doubt, we know that God’s hand has been at work in all that’s gone on this year.  Remarkable.  Prophetic words at just the right time.  Signs and guidance.  Surprising favour even in the nuts and bolts of offers and finances and all the back and forth of buying and selling houses.  Dreams and visions.

 

It’s not been easy – these things never are.  And it’s not over the line yet – who knows if there may be twists and turns yet to come.

 

But what is certain is this: 

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

    and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

    and he will make straight your paths.

 

This Macintosh Day we’re celebrating God’s faithfulness to us past and present.  And as we do so, He strengthens our resolve to trust and know that He will see us through.  After all, yesterday, today, tomorrow, He is the same.

Good Friday (Again)

I should say something on Good Friday, right?  After all, I’m a card-carrying bible-basher, a signed up member of the God Squad.  I’m “one of them Christians”.  Since I was old enough to talk and walk, I’ve been – in my own fickle and faltering way – trying to talk the talk and walk the walk of a follower of Jesus.  And Easter?  That’s peak season for anyone who loves God and has been heart-captured by the Christian gospel.  I should be on a spiritual “high”.  I should have spent all of Lent deep in prayer and fasting.  I should be as close to God as I’ve ever been.  Move over Theresa: there’s a new Saint in town.

 

But, friends, that ain’t the reality.  Not for me, not this year anyway.  It worries me sometimes that as a relatively visible leader in our little church – people see me up front leading worship and preaching – those who don’t know me that well in church assume I live that sort of life.  That I’m always “on”.  That my private life matches up to my public presentation.  Of course, those who know me well are under no such illusions.

 

The truth is, Lent has been a complete wash out for me.  I started it with good intentions – I’ll fast every Wednesday, start a prayer meeting on Wednesday mornings, and make it a season of really “pressing in” (there’s one for your Charismatic bingo card).  But life took over.  Work was stressful.  I have an ill-advised and increasing number of children who, notwithstanding my occasional cute Facebook posts, are usually not lined up perfectly like the Von Trapps.

 

Roxy’s pregnant and, as miraculous and glorious as that whole process is, even fourth time around, it’s particularly unsettling this time because it’s pushing us to consider moving house, and one thing you need to know about me is I hate change.  I like my comfortable and familiar foundations.  And all of a sudden I’m thinking about someone else tending to my garden; someone else’s family sitting in my livingroom; someone else marking their kids’ heights on the doorframe of my kitchen cupboard.

 

So this Lent I’ve been distracted.  I more or less stuck to my Lenten vows (allowing myself one break whilst on holiday, comforted by a Catholic pal of mine who used to remind me that “Jesus stumbled three times on the way to the cross, so…”) but it was more ritual and rule keeping than empowered and life-giving.  More just “not eating today” as opposed to “fasting and praying today”. 

 

Rather than coming to Easter fit to burst with spiritual energy and fresh life, I’m actually in a place of feeling quite shaken up and insecure, in a sense.  Not insecure personally – I am, mercifully, not someone usually troubled by self-doubt.  But insecure in the sense that foundational things in my life have been shaken.  I’ve mentioned the possible house move.  That’s unsettling.  I had a couple of really stressful weeks at work where my professional confidence (and perhaps competence) was knocked a little.  That’s unsettling.  Our youngest had a health and safety incident in the house – she’s absolutely fine, just one of those freak accident near-misses that keep you awake as a parent.  That was unsettling.  It’s been a tough season in church, saying goodbye to some people who moved on, trying to plug gaps and be there for people, trying to set an example and cast a vision and lead well whilst spinning all the plates that need to keep spinning in our own lives.  It’s not been easy. 

 

And so, on Good Friday morning I’m not really, if I’m honest, at the peak of my spiritual powers.  I’m distracted, unsettled, mind-occupied, overburdened and lacking much margin for reflection.  Disappointed, in a way.  With myself – maybe I could have made more of it this year, done more with this season.  Frustrated.  Some big ideas, hopes and plans I had aren’t coming to pass.

 

And as I sit and reflect on Good Friday I realise that, though on a different scale, that’s not a million miles away from how Jesus’ friends were feeling around this time.  They were disappointed.  Their Messiah hadn’t ushered in the overthrow of the Romans, far from it: He was a prisoner in their custody and about to be executed at their hands.  And they, His followers, hadn’t arisen as a revolutionary force for good, they had scattered at the first sign of trouble like the cowards they always feared they truly were.  They’d staked all their hopes, invested their prime years and the entirety of their credibility on the God-man Jesus and there he was hanging on a cross – every bit a man, nothing like a God.

 

There are two things that strike me on this Good Friday morning.

 

The first is this: the way things seem in the moment is not always how things will be seen in the end.  As the disciples mourned that Jesus was being killed by the Romans rather than overthrowing them, they didn’t realise that in that very moment King Jesus was overthrowing not just the empire of Rome but the power of death itself.  As the disciples wept tears of grief as their friend died as a victim of injustice and cruelty on a cross he didn’t deserve, they didn’t realise that the victim was The Victor, that His undeserved death was their undeserved salvation, that the cross that took His life was the means by which God would give them life eternal.  God has previous on this.  He has a track record of bringing His Greatest Hits out of our darkest hour.  His light shines brightest when the darkness is at its deepest.  As Paul taught, His power is perfected in our weaknesses.  As Hosea reminds us, He turns the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope.  So on Good Friday I remember that in difficult moments, stressful days, hard weeks and unsettling times, God is surely at work – working all things together for the good of those who love Him.

 

The second thing that strikes me this Easter is the reminder that Jesus didn’t come for us at our best, but at our worst.  He didn’t die for the picture perfect but for the bruised and the broken.  He died in place of His friends in full knowledge that they had rejected Him and abandoned Him.  As the Good Book says, it was when we were still sinners that He died for us.  Though we are faithless, He is faithful.  Perhaps Easter weekend is a time to remember that it’s never been about our faithfulness, our obedience, our saintliness.  It’s never been about our Spiritual High.  When we’re at our best we can be tempted to forget our poverty before the throne.  But when we stumble into Easter, like I am this year, we find ourselves praying a prayer which has the explicit approval of our Lord: have mercy on me.  And day after day, month after month, year after year… He does.  His mercies are new every morning.  And His grace is sufficient for today.

 

If you’ve read this far, maybe you’ll read on a couple of lines further.

 

I opened my bible this morning to my favourite passage when it comes to Good Friday: Isaiah 53.  Written centuries before Jesus lived and died, it was a word from God which helped Jesus’ first followers, raised to memorise the Jewish scriptures, understand what they had seen and heard.  It goes like this:

 

“He was despised and rejected.

A man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.

We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.

He was despised and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried.

It was our sorrows that weighed him down.

And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins!

But he was pierced for our rebellion.

Crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so we could be whole.

He was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us like sheep have strayed away.

We have left God’s paths to follow our own.

Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”

 

Here’s the exchange.  If He carried my weaknesses, I don’t have to carry them anymore!  I can walk in His strength.  If He was weighed down by my sorrow, I don’t have to be weighed down anymore.  I can walk free of that weight, following Jesus who promised that his yoke is easy and his burden light.  And most gloriously of all: if he was pierced, crushed, beaten, whipped for all of my shortcomings and failures, then there remains for me no condemnation, no pointing finger, no judgement and no fatherly disappointment.  All of that was soaked up and satisfied on the cross.  All that remains for me, before God, is love: pure, unflinching, unmitigated and unmerited love.

 

And that, when you think about it, is pretty good news this Friday.