Some days ago, I came across the bit in Piper’s book where he asks (with reference to 1 Peter 3:15):

“When was the last time someone asked you about ‘the reason for the hope that is in you’?” (p. 108)

That stopped me in my tracks. When indeed? And why not? Piper suggests the following reason:

“Why don’t people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don’t look like they are on the Calvary Road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don’t need to be rewarded in this life.” (p. 109)

I have to ask myself (and I hope fellow believers in Christ will ask themselves too): What kinds of messages are we sending with our lives? Are our lives, our preoccupations, our lunch time conversations, our favourite music, our outlook, our ambitions (and the way we talk about them), our responses to problems, our work ethic, our attitudes towards our possessions etc. so radically different from those of the people around us that we “shine like stars in the universe” (Philippians 2:15)? Does everything about us proclaim the fact that we serve Jesus, the risen Lord, in all we do? Are we so radically sold out for God that people take a second look at us and wonder, “What’s with him/her?”

If Christians are not noticeably different from everyone else, we can hardly expect anyone to ask us “the reason for the hope that we have”.

I know that my problem is that I sometimes forget. I know very well what is truly important on this earth. It’s not money. It’s not reputation. It’s not career. It’s not providing a comfortable life for our families. These are not necessarily bad things in themselves, and Christians are not called to neglect such responsibilities. But they pale in comparison to the weight of eternity. We were created to know God, to glorify Him, and to help others find their way to Him … because at the end of our earthly lives, only one thing will matter: whether God will say to us “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21) and welcome us into His presence for eternity, or whether He will refuse us entry into Heaven, saying to us “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:23).

John Piper has said that it is crucial for Christians to adopt a “wartime mind-set”. He explains why he finds this phrase helpful:

“It tells me that there is a war going on in the world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used, but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite: heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).

I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth “home”. Before you know it, I am calling luxuries “needs” and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I don’t think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. … I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.” (John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, Crossway, 2003/2009, pp. 111-112)

At the start of this new year, I know that I need to challenge myself … to not love the same toys that the world loves, to not forget that my faith is to be in what God can do and not what man can do, and above all, to not forget that there is a war going on for the souls of people yet unsaved.

And to all fellow Christian believers, I leave this thought: May many ask you this year for the reason for the hope that you have.

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Photograph (by R Tang): Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 2011

This makes it very important for us to examine the expectations that we have of people and things, to make sure that we have right and reasonable expectations of them.

It just occurred to me the other day that the very same applies when it comes to our walk with God. One Bible verse that is very frequently taken out of context and quoted is Matthew 7:7 – “Ask, and it will be given to you.” I find that it can be misleading, to say the least, to dangle this in front of people who are exploring the Christian faith or believers who are new in the faith.

If we expect that God will always grant us whatever we ask for in prayer, then we are going to get disappointed and disillusioned when things don’t work out that way.

Henry Blackaby sums this up very nicely:

“Some Christians say with frustration, ‘I prayed, but God didn’t hear me,’ when what they mean is, ‘God didn’t do what I told Him to do.’ But God doesn’t intend to do what you tell Him to do. Prayer isn’t designed to get God to do our will; prayer is designed so that we can stand in His presence and know what His will is, and submit to it.” (Experiencing the Cross, 2005, Multnomah Publishers, p. 164)

We have to make sure that the expectations we have of God are right and biblical. If we don’t, we run the risk of coming to a conclusion about God based on wrong expectations.

For example, some people may think that a good God must want to give us what we want, to make us happy. And thus, if they don’t get what they pray for, then they may come to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist or that God isn’t really good or that they haven’t prayed hard enough. We have to realise that God in His infinite wisdom wants us to know true and lasting joy, and the Psalmist says in Psalm 16:11 that it is in God’s presence that there is fullness of joy. Thus, God’s purpose is not to give us everything we think we want, but to draw us to Himself.

Some people may also think that a good God must surely want to remove all the problems in our lives.  And thus, when prayers for problems to be removed do not seem to be answered, then faith crumbles, or they decide that God isn’t really there. But God’s plan is not to give us an easy life. His purpose is to help us grow into the likeness of His son Jesus. And Romans 5:3-4 tells us: “we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

Expectations. God expects us to focus on Him, not ourselves.

As John Piper says in his book Don’t Waste Your Life (Crossway, 2003/2009), “God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives” (p. 38).

In our journey towards knowing God, let’s make sure we get our expectations of God right. God does not promise an easy life. God does not promise to remove all our problems. God does not promise to give us and our families everything we think we need for a comfortable life. God does not promise that if we do good to others, we will receive good things in return from them.

God promises to give us the grace to endure problems:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

God promises that if we make Him the number one priority in our lives, always putting His glory ahead of ourselves, giving up our lives (literally or figuratively) for His sake, then we will “find life”:  

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’” (Matthew 16:24-25)

God promises that if we walk so closely with Him that the desires of our heart are completely aligned with the desires of His, we can ask for whatever we wish, and it will be given to us:

[Jesus said] ”If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” (John 15:7)

God loves us, and He wants us to know that He loves us. But we must remember that He is God. He alone is worthy of all praise and worship. In Him alone is true peace, joy, and satisfaction to be found. Thus, the nature of God’s love for us is this: He will do what it takes to help us see that what we truly need is Him.

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“Love is not Christ’s making much of us or making life easy. Love is doing what he must do, at great cost to himself (and often to us), to enable us to enjoy making much of him forever” (John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, Crossway, p. 76).

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Photograph (by R Tang): Portobello Road Market, London

So there is no Christmas tree in our house this year. (There wasn’t any time to put one up.) But even as I am kind of missing its presence, I am reminded that the Christmas trees, Christmas carols, and Christmas food that I love so much do not make Christmas special. It is Christ who makes Christmas special.

Here is a link to a post that I was led to write last year at Christmas time, for those who may be searching for the real meaning of Christmas: Dear Searching Soul

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Photograph (by R Tang): Detail from our Christmas tree last year (since, as you’ve just read, we have no tree this year!)

Why?

Because it feels good when someone “important” knows us.

Well, how about this? The Creator of this universe knows me too. In fact, He knows every single one of us. Not in a hi-bye sort of way either. God created us and knows us intimately. The Bible tells us that God created our inmost being and knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). God has numbered all the hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30). God knows all the plans He has for us, plans for our good (Jeremiah 29:11). Before a word is on our tongue, God already knows it (Psalm 139: 4). God knows when we sit and when we rise (Psalm 139:2). He is familiar with all our ways (Psalm 139:3).

Someone once told me that she found it difficult to believe in the God of the Bible because she came from a background which had never known or acknowledged Him. Well, consider this: Whether or not we know God, God has known us all our lives. In fact, He was watching over us when we were formed in our mother’s womb, so He has known us since before we were born. And now He’s waiting for us to get to know Him.

This Christmas, let’s choose to worship the God who knows us and who created us to know Him. And let’s celebrate the fact that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

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“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

Photograph (by R Tang): Detail from my Christmas tree last year

I find that the verse also reminds us not to overlook the so-called “ordinary things” that we encounter in our everyday lives. If we know and believe that God’s hand is in all things, this should change the way we view the world around us, the people around us, and the circumstances we find ourselves in.  

C. S. Lewis in his book Letters to Malcolm argues that God can be glimpsed in the most ordinary of things if our hearts are disposed to do so. This is how Os Guinness summarises Lewis’s point: “A row of cabbages, a farmyard cat, a wrinkled motherly face, a tiled roof, a single sentence in a book—each can be seen as a tiny revelation of God as Creator. Just as fragments of sunlight break through a dark wood, so parts of creation seen for what they are act as ‘patches of Godlight’ in the world” (Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, W Publishing, 1998, p. 189).

Sometimes I think that we humans forget that God does not merely or necessarily reveal Himself through spectacular displays of fireworks. He is an infinitely creative God, and He speaks quietly through the seemingly ordinary as well.

Consider this passage from 1 Kings 19:11-13 in the Bible:

The LORD said [to Elijah], “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

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Do we, in the course of our everyday lives, listen out for God’s gentle whispers? Are we grateful for the simple pleasures of everyday life? Do we even make a connection between God and all the wonderful (“ordinary”) things we see and experience each day? We see design and order in nature, in the way flowers are so intricately formed, in the way the sun rises and sets each day, in the way that birds are so functionally created so that they can fly, in the way that rain falls from the clouds to the ground and then evaporates to return to the atmosphere. We see buildings standing, electric lights working, lifts that save us walking up ten flights of stairs, spectacle lenses that help to refocus light to fall properly on the retinas of people’s eyes – all of which operate on the precise laws of Physics. (And where do we think the “laws of Physics” came from in the first place?) We have people in our lives who care about us and whom we care about. People may try to convince me of lots of things, but there is one thing I know for sure – what the human heart feels is too complex to be the result of molecules and atoms coming together by chance; Someone had to have created us to feel what we do.

Do we make a connection between God and what we see and experience each day? Or do we focus so much on the experience itself  that we, as C. S. Lewis puts it, “ignore the smell of Deity that hangs about it” (C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm (1964), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 90).

It is time for us to take an honest look at ourselves and what’s around us, and to recognise where God’s presence is evident. Dean Nelson in his book God Hides in Plain Sight (Brazos Press, 2009) says:

“Are we paying attention to the everday moments of our lives and seeing God in them, or are we living in such a chaotic frenzy that we hope we’ll have time to look for the presence and mystery of God later, when we have more time – say, when the degree is finished, the kids have moved out, this project is completed, or we retire? 

We have to look now. This is really all we have. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us look for, and see him in it.” (pp. 207-208)

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Photograph (by R Tang): Reflection in water, Bunratty Folk Park, Ireland, 2011

The phrase “Patches of Godlight” used in the title of this post is from C. S. Lewis’s book, Letters to Malcolm.

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“We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but we notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.” (Annie Dillard, “The Meaning of Life”, Life Magazine, Dec 1988).

But the Bible is clear about the fact that the Christian believer is not called to carry the guilt of their past wrongs around with them.

In Isaiah 1:18 in the Bible, we read:

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

I will never forget the day when I suddenly grasped that when we confess our sins to God and ask for His forgiveness, He wipes our slate completely clean. Human logic tells us that we cannot un-do things that have already been done. But God’s word promises: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17). In God’s eyes, when we stand before Him, there will be no trace of that sin for which we sought and received forgiveness. We go from scarlet red to pure white, through God’s grace and forgiveness.

So whatever our past, there is always hope in Christ. And if we want an example from the Bible of how God can turn anyone’s life around and use them for His glory, we only need to look at the Apostle Paul, who called himself “the worst of sinners” in 1 Timothy 1:16. Before Paul encountered God and decided to become a follower of Christ, he mercilessly persecuted and killed many Christians. And yet, after his conversion, he went on to become a great disciple of Christ, bringing many into the kingdom of God, both during his lifetime as well as now through the many New Testament letters that we now have in the Bible.

The account of Paul’s life in the Bible offers us hope that any life can be turned around. And it also reminds us that we need to accept God’s forgiveness and forgive ourselves too in the process. It is NOT saintly for Christian believers to continually feel guilty for their past sins and to hit themselves over the head again and again with the memory of it. If we cannot get past our past mistakes, even after having confessed them to God and repenting, and even though God forgives us, it will be very difficult for us to live in the freedom and victory that God intended for us. Why? Because we are essentially telling God that we don’t believe what His Word says. And His Word says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If GOD forgives us, shouldn’t we forgive ourselves?

Here is something I read recently by Steve Diggs that I think puts this across very nicely. It’s from an article published in crosswalk.com entitled “The Toughest Job: Forgiving Yourself“:

I appreciate the words of a man who himself had committed plenty of sins and hurt lots of people. Paul had jailed and murdered a multitude of Christians before he accepted Jesus himself. What a burden to carry! Can you imagine how many times he must have looked out at an audience and caught the eye of a woman whom he had widowed? How many young people did he preach Jesus to whom he had orphaned? And don’t you suppose that Paul wondered over and over, “Paul, you hypocrite! What right do you have to preach when you are the worst of the bunch?” Paul had to deal with this. I suspect he frequently drenched his pillow with tears and filled his waking hours with self-loathing. But instead of melting into a pity puddle, he saw the big picture.

These words from the good apostle have brought a lot of us through some deep waters. “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

God’s forgiveness allows us to put the past behind us, and to press on towards the future. A clean slate. White as snow. A chance to start over. Without a burden labelled “guilt” hanging round our necks.

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Photograph (by R Tang): Snow in Beijing, 2010

I like the distinction that Os Guinness (1998) makes between a primary calling to God and secondary callings to one’s profession. He says: 

“Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him and for him. First and foremost we are called to someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia). Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him. We can therefore properly say as a matter of secondary calling that we are called to homemaking or to the practice of law or to art history. But these and other things are always the secondary, never the primary calling. They are “callings” rather than the “calling”.” (Os Guinness, 1998, The Call: Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life. Waco, TX: Word Books, p. 31)

Many people have said that they feel “called” to the teaching profession. Well, I didn’t know that I would love teaching until I started teaching. I am very blessed to be in a profession that I like, but I am very aware that teaching is not the central purpose of my life. I am first and foremost called to love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul and mind (Matthew 22: 37), and to understand that in all that I do, “it is the Lord Christ [I am] serving” (Colossians 3:24).

My primary calling is to God, not to teaching. And in a strange yet wonderful way, it is this very realisation that gives me the drive to continue  working towards becoming “a good teacher”.

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Photograph (by R Tang): Flowers in Black Kettle, Ireland, 2011   

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24)

Some people love the job that they do. Some people don’t, and dream of the day when they can pack it all in and do something else altogether.

I happen to really like what I do, but I don’t think that I would be going out on a limb if I said that, for all of us, there are days when our work feels overwhelming. There are days when the multitude of things that we busy ourselves doing feels meaningless. There are days when we face a mountain of tasks we have to do that we dread.

I was reading Dean Nelson’s book God Hides in Plain Sight: How to See the Sacred in a Chaotic World just a couple of days ago, and was reminded that perspective makes all the difference. If we view the work that we do as just some necessary evil that we need to get done and get out of the way so that we can then get on with other more important or more enjoyable stuff, then it’s going to be hard to view our daily tasks with much enthusiasm or with a grateful heart.

Nelson, in his book, writes about Eugene Peterson’s view of the link between ‘work’ and ‘worship’:

Worship and work are inseparable, Eugene Peterson said. “What we’re after is a seamless world of work and worship, worship and work … Work is the primary context for our spirituality.” …[B]eing anointed by God, Peterson said, means given a job by God. There’s a job to be done, we’re told to do it, and we’re equipped to do it. … Our present day task is to “recover work as vocation – as holy work. … The key to living vocationally – that is, being ‘God-called,’ Spirit-anointed – isn’t getting the right job or career but doing kingwork in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.”  [1] 

Elsewhere, Nelson also says:

Martin Luther said that “the works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks.” For Luther and for us, the peasant and the merchant, “the business person, the teacher, the factory worker, and the television anchor – can do God’s work (or fail to do it) just as much as the minister and the missionary.”  [2]

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Perspective. Whether we’re teachers, students, engineers, stay-at-home parents, shop assistants, or factory workers, we all have aspects of our work that we don’t particularly relish doing or find terribly fulfilling. I am reminded that whatever I do, I am to work at it with all my heart, as working for the Lord (Colossians 3:23). We need to remember that                          (whatever it is) is part of what God has called us to do for the moment, and thus we shouldn’t view it as a chore or some meaningless thing that we have to do to get it out of the way so that we can move on to better and more important stuff. What we (have to) do as part of our daily routines IS the “important stuff”, because everything that we do is important in the eyes of God, if we view our work as an expression of worship to God.

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[1] From pp. 43-44 of Dean Nelson’s God Hides in Plain Sight (Michigan, Brazos Press, 2009). Nelson was quoting from pp. 27-33 of Eugene Peterson’s Leap Over a Wall (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

[2] From pp. 51-52 of Dean Nelson’s God Hides in Plain Sight (Michigan, Brazos Press, 2009). Nelson was quoting Martin Luther from p. 34 of Os Guiness’s The Call (Nashville, W Publishing, 1998).

Photograph (by R Tang): Bicycle outside post office, Bunratty Folk Park, Ireland, 2011

But I have to trust that God knows what He is doing. If God puts an end to something good, if God throws obstacles in our way that threaten to sap every ounce of our energy, then it must be because He has something even greater in mind to accomplish. I may not see it now. In fact, I may not ever see it in this lifetime, but I know that if we are walking in God’s ways, His purposes for our lives will prevail, and those purposes will be for our good.

I think, so often, we want to serve God in ways that we feel we are able to. We want to grow spiritually in ways we feel that we should. But God is God, and He has plans of His own.

This is part of a song that we sang during a worship service recently. It’s from the song “Come Away” by Jesus Culture:

“I have a plan for you
I have a plan for you
It’s gonna be wild
It’s gonna be great
It’s gonna be full of me”

I have to trust that God will bring to pass the promises that He has made to His children – the promises found in the Bible as well as the personal promises that He has impressed upon our hearts. And I have to trust that God will honour every genuine desire to impact this world for His Kingdom. And thus, whatever my future holds, God is going to be right in the middle of it. It’s going to be full of Him.

If I want Jesus to work in my life and use me for His purposes, then I have to let Him, and wait, and watch Him do more than my finite mind could ever imagine.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

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Photograph (by R Tang): Stepping stones, Winterbourne Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, 2010

– Wikipedia entry for “Christian Ministry” –

A while back, I came to learn that one aspect of my ministry which has been a central part of my life for the past few years might soon be taken away from me. And I got worried. I worried that I’d feel lost with it gone. I worried that I’d lose my sense of purpose. Then I figured, if God is taking away something which is already bringing Him glory, then He must have something bigger in store.

Well, a couple of days ago, it dawned on me that, yes, God may indeed have something bigger in store for my life (in fact, I’m sure of it), but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bigger ministry. Our purpose in life cannot be tied up with a particular ministry that we do (however good and essential it might be). Our purpose in life is to know God, seek God, and love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our mind (Luke 10:27). No matter what we have or what we lose, that purpose shouldn’t change. And it’s the only purpose that we need to give our lives meaning.

Some people have spoken about the emptiness of a life without a purpose, and others have spoken about trying to find fulfilment in their families, in their careers, or in the pursuit of wealth and status. Well, I like something that the Christian writer Donna Partow has written in her book Walking in Total God-Confidence (Bethany House, 1999): “We have a hole in our heart the size of the Grand Canyon, so we hand our husband a bucket and say, ‘Here, you fill it.’ Or we hand it to our church, our friends, or what have you. We fail to realize that filling that hole is something only God can do. And he can only do it if we will let him.”

The Psalmist said, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

Nothing that is taken away from me in this life should make me feel like I’ve lost my purpose in life, if my purpose in life is to know God, to seek Him, and to be in His presence.

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Photograph (by R Tang): taken in Winterbourne House, University of Birmingham, 2010