Tag: God

Holy fixer-uperer

Holy fixer-uperer

Phil Lowe

Sometimes I take a skim back through the first bogs I wrote about this journey to God through his son Jesus. It is a reminder of not how far I have come, but of how far they have brought me. Radical renovation. The fixer-uperer. I suspect God and Jesus look at all of us and spot potential.

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By Matthew Christopher, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I came to a heart understanding of G&J long before my head caught up. It is my heart that keeps me in step, or reminds me when I’m out of sync. Whenever my God signal goes on the fritz it’s usually because I’ve been over-thinking.

Which makes it kind of hilarious that have I wound up in one of the most brain-dominant, intellectual denominations. I’ve written enough publicly now to receive some intellectual critiques. Suggestions how I could have better presented doctrine. While I graciously take it aboard, and enjoy the perspectives, I’m happy to say I don’t write in order to defend my head understanding of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I write to celebrate them. The way they touch my heart and make me cry over the gifts they send me, even when I’ve been spending too much time in my head.

2016 started up with a bang for our household. Challenges and sadness. Lies and egos. Death and more death. A time when the heart stutters and my head sought to butt its way through the obstacles, because if I plough through fast enough that hurt may just be outrun.

I have learnt a few lessons in the past 18 months or so. Rather than ploughing through, I now plough down with a Psalm or two. As I dragged myself out of my head and back into my heart a week ago, spitting plum stones and tears at a scripture passage, all I could say was, “I really need some encouragement right now.”

I know, this is hardly the ACTS approach to prayer (Adoration, Confession, give Thanks,  Supplication). But ACTS is head structure and I needed to take heart. Given my dialogues with G&J are typically like an ongoing conversation, it may feel to them that I have a ACTSTCASASTACTSAAASTT morse code kind of prayer stuttering and beeping away…or even SACT when I’m slanging…

The amazing thing about staying in my heart with God and Jesus is how quickly they respond. It’s almost like when I withdraw into my head they shake their own – not in a negative way, but in a ‘Really? Are you going to try that again? Ok, dear heart, we’ll be here when you’re ready’ and they wait kindly and patiently for me to sort it out.

Within ten minutes of my prayer, I took a call in my office sharing encouragement over some changes taking place on quite a broad level at the Christian charity I am involved with; the next day there was an engagement spike in a campaign we had been testing; and then small yellow post it notes of God’s love started appearing all around, day in, day out. Even just hours ago, battling with an emotional dragon, there popped a perfect article into my inbox. Today? Of all days? Really?

I can’t dismiss them as coincidence because they are too specific, too personal and too bespoke tailored to what my heart seeks when they happen. The lesson – as always – is staying out of my head and simply having faith in what I know in my heart.

God and Jesus don’t want our heads. They want all of us. But especially our hearts. Spitting plum stones and slanging Psalms. Shaking metaphorical fists and then being moved to weep because the amount of love they pour out is simply too overwhelming to pack into this broken human vessel.

Their radical renovation skills work best when I stop rationalising in my head and start allowing in my heart. When I throw everything wide and offer them holy squatters rights. Allow the HS building squad to move in and do the fixer-uppering.

Urgent, evangelise. With Salt (& Tequila).

Urgent, evangelise. With Salt (& Tequila).

Phil Lowe

“It’s liver cancer.”

“How long?”

“Six months without treatment. 18 months with.”

As she dashed tears from her eyes, I swept this valiant 42-year-old woman into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” I told her, adding some slightly bluer language under my breath for good measure.

Yet like a neon question mark flashing at the back of my brain, there was only this: ‘What does she believe? And how do I ask without sounding like an awful end of days prepper?’

Through business circles, I had known her for years. Not closely, not until the start of 2015 when we ‘just clicked’ as members of the same networking group. We discovered a similar outlook on life. Offered complementary business services. Wicked senses of humour. Some shared emotional baggage that we unpacked over wine as only new friends on discovery can, laughing at each other with a gentleness that said, yes; I understand that screwed up bit of you too.

She was the coolest of cool friends, yet without ego or notion of how beautiful or cool she really was.

“I’m not telling many people about my diagnosis because I want my business to go on as normal,” she told me. “But I’ve seen what you post on Facebook and I see you have faith. I feel ok about it. I’ve enjoyed my life. There’s nothing else I really want to do. I’ve always tried to treat others how I would like to be treated myself. But I don’t believe anything comes next.”

Really God and Jesus? Really?

After six plus years of knowing her around the business traps, we properly connect in the year she is given a terminal cancer diagnosis; her without any belief or faith about what comes after death, and me a scant 18 months after becoming a Christian?

There are no Godincidences.

But, really? Pressure much?

For anyone who doesn’t understand why some Christians behave like shiny-suited TV evangelists, it’s because Jesus said some serious stuff in the Bible about what happens when we die.

“The only way to the Father is through me,” he told his disciples. “The promise of eternal life, the resurrection, the free gift of grace comes only if you are willing to lay down your life and follow me.” (I’m paraphrasing).

If not? Well, it’s not pretty. Too many Christians like to gloss over it, playing safe in the more new-agey pools of God being nothing but love.

Who can blame them? Hellfire Bible-thumping religion has done G&J a huge disservice. In reaction, the pendulum has swung the other way in today’s world of free choice, self-service and freedom.

Standing up and saying, “Well, actually, I do believe that God calls us to account when we die,” is not welcome. Too often the fire ‘n’ brimstone hangover of being called to account overshadows the good news of that Jesus fella.

The good news that through the grace of Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection, I can stand in front of God as a child in front of her loving Father, and receive forgiveness and an eternal gift of life.

But here’s the kicker: you’ve got to get to know and accept Jesus first.

As I sat in front of my friend, reeling from the news of her cancer diagnosis, listening to her dismiss her Roman Catholic schooling (heavy on the guilt and wrong doing) and what she’d heard from her brother-in-law pastor (I know, I know, the irony), the true punch in my solar plexus was this:

‘She can’t die without sorting out where she stands with God and Jesus. But, on the face of it, she’s lived a good life. She has an amazing moral code and value system. How do I explain that none of that matters? That compared to Jesus on the cross, because of our very distance from God, we are all broken and needing saving? No matter the amount of our virtue and strength of moral fibre.’

I cried a lot that night. And prayed. I visualised the Holy Spirit (HS) firing through that liver of hers so often it was more lighthouse than vital organ in my prayers. I had one of those slanging, bargaining type conversations with God: “Quick zap of the HS and all will be well. I’ve got my prayer warriors on it too. I know You can hear us. She knows we are all praying. C’mon, what better way to prove You exist than a miracle cure?”

I don’t believe slapping people round the head with G&J gets them closer to understanding. Yet the urgency was horrible. Even more as her treatment failed. It got to the point that if another well-meaning Christian had asked, “Has she said the Jesus prayer yet?” I may well have reached over and ripped out their throat in a very unchristian manner. When one of them asked, quite seriously, “Do you think you’ve done enough?” my tongue bled from my biting it. To ask me, tripping around in my flawed way, if I’d done enough, dismissed God’s sovereignty and my friend’s heart. Whilst it was ultimately down to God and her, not me, it still made me feel like hell. I couldn’t make her become a Christian.

So what could I do? I prayed (as did others) and kept on being the sort of Christian I am: irreverent, flawed, and prone to explaining G&J in my own quirky way. It is less theological college, checklist ‘shiny’ and more sweary, eye-rolling ‘I know, I can’t quite believe I’m a Christian either,” reality.

When Jesus told his early followers to be like salt – let their faith stand out, be a well-flavoured advertisement for Christianity – I’m sure he didn’t expect me to pair it with tequila slammers. By my being the least expected ‘type’ of Christian person (ie: not religious), I pray daily that Jesus can be seen in his true light. Which is all I wished for my friend.

So when she asked what I believed, I said God doesn’t promise me a pain-free this life, but he promises me an eternal next one. Told her, no, her cancer wasn’t punishment for wanting to die during her own brush with depression years before.

I said, simply, how we live in a broken world. That we are all more flawed than we  images-1.jpgcould ever believe, yet more loved by Jesus and God than we could ever dare imagine. And that heaven was way, way better. How I dearly wanted to see her when I got there, so could she please get with the resurrection program that Jesus offers. Plus, when my time is up here on earth, could she start lining up the margaritas for my arrival.

Sadly, the doctors were wrong. My friend died just four months after her diagnosis. We didn’t do any shiny ‘I give my life to Jesus’ prayers. But in those four months she humbled me by reading all my blogs and asking questions. She came along to church – which was a touch and go first visit  – but she came back to sing carols with a passion and hold my hand as she did so. She even whispered that I ought not be frustrated by her experience back at church, “because you made sure you explained it afterwards. I get it.” I don’t think she understood just how much she taught me about God and Jesus as I tried to show them to her. Is still teaching me.

In the final week of her life, as she drifted in and out of consciousness I asked how she and God were doing. “He’s really helping me,” she whispered. I went back most days to sit next to the bed and, when the opportunities arose, read her Psalms and gospel verses. “Beautiful,” she whispered over Psalm 121, my voice breaking at verse 8.

Being a Christian is tough. Being a Christian in the hospital room of someone who is dying, surrounded by her friends and family, who may or may not share your faith, is tougher. They needed their own time with her; who was I – more of an outsider with what may have appeared to be a lesser friendship/business connection – to keep turning up at her bedside?

Back to salt: how could I not? On the first night she was admitted, she had whispered to me: “I don’t want to die.” So even if she – and her other friends and family – did not share my faith and hope in Jesus, perhaps they could find some solace in mine. Sometimes it felt like I was sharing him across eggshells. Like sending John 14:27 to her husband – who at the time may have felt least able to let his heart be untroubled – and carefully adding: “Sometimes it’s like tasting nails…but sometimes there is comfort.”

The last afternoon, her barely conscious, a shadow of the woman admitted eight days before, I said one final prayer to this lover of all things bright and beautiful. “You know, I think Jesus is standing right in front of you now, holding out the most amazing technicolour coat. All you have to do is reach forward, take it, and let him wrap you in it.” Her hand under mine gave the faintest of flexes. She died early the next morning. New Year’s Day.

But the tribe of shiny Christians asking about her ‘doing’ the Jesus prayer scared me. I spent the hours after her death proclaiming God’s sovereignty on one hand, and then whispering how I’d love to know He’d got her on the other. “Just a sign,” I implored. “Just so I know. Please.”

What happened next is how I describe God’s personal love for us all. He didn’t have to offer me comfort. He is sovereign and my exhibiting control freakery over the outcome of His conversations with my dying friend totally disses His sovereign bit. Who am I to be asking, “how did You and she go?”

Yet that day, on the drive south of Sydney to grieve on a less-populated beach with waves and my surfboard, every car I passed seemed to have either a fish sticker on the back or a crucifix swinging from its rear-view mirror. I coughed and hiccupped and saline snot-monstered my hope: “Is that the sign? Or am I imagining things? I’m so sorry God. You know how I need it up emblazoned on a billboard so I don’t miss it.”

At the last minute, I changed my mind over the beach I was going to. As I pulled into the car park, the beachside meeting room boasted this red sign:

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Praise God for His graciousness. I imagined Him asking, “Now, dear heart, is that literally a big enough sign for you?” I sighed, cried some more, smiled and recalled, Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. – Hebrews 11:1

I have faith He has her. Which means, along with no more pain, sorrow or hurt, I have confidence she’s going to have a margarita waiting in heaven with my name on it.

Not because of anything I’ve done, not because of works, not because I deserve a lemon, salty, triple-sec, tequila cocktail for facilitating an introduction between God and my friend. But because of His love and Jesus’ grace I get to see her again.

Amen.

The dangers of bringing a plus one to church

The dangers of bringing a plus one to church

Phil Lowe

Christmas, as many ministry teams tell their congregations, is the time to invite non-church goers along to church. I’d done just that. As I sat next to my guest, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit excited. It had been a lovely welcome, everyone had been friendly and gracious. The kids’ minister had us in laughter, the prayers were lovely and inclusive and the music was vibrant and upbeat. My guest smiled over at me. “Nice that it has a relaxed vibe,” she commented.images.jpg

And then the sermon started. Halfway through she glanced at me and whispered, “What’s this all about? I don’t get why this God of yours is all about punishment and judgement.”

I’d been feeling pretty bummed out about what I was hearing too. Not because it was a ‘bad’ sermon. But for the average person who may have wandered back to church after a long time away? I understand why she asked what she did.

Whilst I knew it was a bit of Old Testament scene-setting in order to relate the gift of Jesus at Christmas time, there’s enough of my ‘before Christ’ (BC) PR persona left to recognise a message totally missing its mark. God & Jesus lost in translation.

You see, the sermon didn’t close the loop. It set the scene, but didn’t make enough of the climax. Jesus, grace and joy deserve an ending of fireworks. Not a damp squib that leaves the listener with echoes of brimstone.

When will pastors understand that the church has done such a disservice to G&J over the years – has lost them so often in translation – that a newcomer is going to hear the ‘negative’ stereotypes one thousand times louder than anything else? You say ‘sin’ and ‘punishment’ and ‘obedience’ three times in a sermon, then please make sure you are saying ‘love’, ‘Jesus’, ‘free gift, not works’ and ‘grace’ at least ten times each to balance it out.

It’s basic message adoption principles: our brains are wired to hear the negatives, so offset each one with at least three positives. Please. Just in case there’s a brand new visitor cautiously finding his or her way back to church that day.

Please don’t pre-suppose knowledge. You may have 99% ‘old faithful’ in the pews, but that 1% newcomer who really needs to get the message – they may not be ready to unpack it. Forget the cliff-hanger sermon series for the next week – because they may not come back. I understand the power of a sermon series, I do. But build it well. Let each week stand alone. Remind, wrap up, and make sure you’re covering off on the grace, goodness and joy each time. Just in case.

I tried to do a fast crisis PR repair job for G&J in the car park before my friend climbed into her car and drove away. But how do you explain it’s a misconception when a 20-minute sermon ‘sort-of’ reinforced the misconception?

I can send her this link, and this one, and this one, all of which I hope explain the real, close, loving relationship God seeks with us, from my own personal experience.

I can try to explain that when the word obedience is used in a sermon, it isn’t because we have a growling, arrogant, up-Himself, punishing God who demands our grovelling to feed His gargantuan thundering ego saying, “I MADE THE WORLD, SO OBEY ME, PRAISE ME, AND GROVEL BEFORE ME, MINION, OR ELSE!”

I can explain when God talks about obedience, it is from the context of His not being human, but of Him being God. He is so much larger, wiser, holier, cleverer and smarter than I. Because He’s God and I’m me.

So being obedient to his precepts means I submit to Him being just that: larger, wiser, smarter, cleverer, more lovely and amazing. By submitting (being obedient) I relax in the total and utter security that He has my back. That He gets the agenda far better than I do. That He loves me with a breadth and depth I cannot imagine, and He only wants what is best for me. So given He has my back, I can relax and trust Him implicitly. Why would I resist (be disobedient) when the other option is me trying to go it alone and quite often making a mess of it?

Of course it means I have to humble myself. Take a hard look inward. It requires growth.

So where does this leave me sharing what I’ve learnt about G&J? I often only get one shot talking about this ‘Jesus loves you’ business with someone. Whilst it’s always God’s will not mine, I really do want to facilitate the best introduction possible.

It takes guts for me to spill my heart to a non-believer. I risk ridicule. I have horrible images of being seen as some shiny-suited, dodgy TV evangelist. I have to be ready to take tough questions on the chin. Yet that’s OK because G&J have my back and for every snigger, for every person who may scoff at my faith, there may be another who unexpectedly finds peace and hope and love.

Pastors, please be aware, for every guest one of your church members brings through the door, they’ve most likely spent weeks before praying, laying the groundwork, having coffee, gently unpacking their guest’s misconceptions of religion and trying carefully to get Jesus front and centre. Anyone who’s doing evangelism well isn’t spraying and praying out a scatter-gun of church invitations. It’s a hand-reared, personal pitch.

So if you’re standing on stage preaching and people in your congregation have invited new guests along? No pressure, but please don’t stuff it up.

Now, all my readers who are pastors may leap to their own defence by citing the great sermon postscript: “But we always say, at the end of each sermon: if you’re new here today, have any questions about what was in the sermon, or want to talk to someone about Jesus and his great gift, come and see me or xyz on the ministry team.”

I’m sorry, it’s a terrible engagement technique so please don’t think it covers you for any sermon misunderstandings by any new listeners.

There’s absolutely no way I’d have wandered up to a stranger my first day in church, especially if my head was overflowing with their sermon’s berating notions of sin and punishment, and asked to discuss it further. Like my guest at Christmas, I’d have been sprinting to the car park as fast as my legs could carry me.

The Prodigal Hangover

The Prodigal Hangover

Phil Lowe

One of my most favourite lines in the Bible is Luke 15:20: ‘But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.’ images

Jesus’ Parable of The Prodigal Son is designed to illustrate the generosity of God towards us. Most theological explanations focus on the forgiveness God offers to those who truly repent. Yet what resonates with me most in the parable is how the son ‘was still a long way off’ and yet the father does not hesitate to run (run! so unseemly in those days) and sweep him up.

All before the son utters a word of apology over how foolishly, awfully, terribly he has behaved towards his father.

There is the brilliance of grace. Yet I’ve often wondered what happened the next day, after the party with the fatted calf and barrels of wine.

Given in the parable that the father Jesus refers to is God, I’d say He was still in a fine mood at the post-party breakfast table. His joyous delight would be on display. All back-slapping ‘my son is home’ bonhomie. No tit-for-tat point scoring going on. Simple unadorned joy. The father doesn’t care what the son had been up to in the years that passed. He wants to get on with their relationship afresh.

Son number one is probably still pissed off. Grumbling into his bacon and eggs about his wastrel younger brother. “So typical of him,” he fumes. “I stay at home, hold the fort, comfort dad when he left without a backward glance. I saw what he got up to and with whom (he needs to be more careful with his Facebook security settings). I can’t believe dad just let him waltz back in here. I didn’t get that sort of party when I turned 21 – and he gets it all laid on just because he bothered to come home!”

But son number two is the one that interests me the most in that family. Prodigal. How did he wake up the next day? With a hangover, I’m fairly certain. In the parable he is everyman – or woman – who has received God’s grace and forgiveness, no questions asked. It’s a brand new day. I dare say he awoke feeling thankful. Relieved. Perhaps overwhelmed by the depth of unconditional love displayed by his father the day before:

“I can’t believe how he just ran up and hugged me. He pulled me close and cried. Me too. Then he threw a party. Unbelievable. After all I’d said and done, he just let it go. I thought he might turn me away – and I could understand it if he had. I begged for a job to try and pay off the debt, but he didn’t want to hear a word of it. He said to me: “What’s done is done. I love you. I’m so glad you’re home.””

the-best-moments-from-the-hangover-movies-1070292-TwoByOneA week later would Prodigal have felt the same? Perhaps some doubts and worries have crept in: “It’s been a week. We’re getting on so well. But what about next time? I’m such a mess. It’s taking all my strength to not go into town and get a couple of hours with a hooker. Or burn some cash through the pokies. I’m jonesing to snort a line. Or download some hardcore porn. Big bro is just waiting for me to f*&k it up, I know it.”

You don’t need to have experienced Prodigal’s loose-living to recognise what he battled with. Shame. Of stuffing it up again. Not living up to the gift of grace. Falling off the wagon. Fearful of not being enough.

Yet it’s not about works. We don’t have to do enough to earn God’s love and grace. But I wonder, just quietly, how many – like Prodigal – doubt we can be enough.

That’s because we measure in human terms. Our very means of self-judgement is flawed by it having come from flawed humanity. We know shame because we have been taught it as an emotional response to something. Most likely by another flawed human being, who cannot – by the very nature of being human – love unconditionally and forgive like God can.

I hope in the weeks and months that followed, Prodigal realised he could never be enough. Never. For every hooker he lusted after, God wouldn’t have been surprised by him lusting after 100 more. For every time he put $50 through the pokies, God could easily expect $5000. For every line of coke on the mirror, God was poised to observe him chop another 50.

Not because God is there, cheering us on and urging us to sin more. No. If sin is our distance from God, there’s no-way He wants us to move further away. Yet God knows how flawed we are. We gloss over our faults, whilst He sees them all in the harsh brightness of a hungover morning… and still loves us. The worst we expect from ourselves can never compare to the worst God knows we are capable of.

The SAP kindly shared a new theological term with me in regards to this: prevenient grace. The more we surrender, acknowledge all our faults and step out in our willingness to grow in relationship with God, prevenient grace makes our struggles easier. Prevenient grace means that while Prodigal would have lusted, gambled and snorted at an Olympic-level standard, he is prevented from doing his worst. Blessed with prevenient grace (sort of like divine willpower, a handbrake on the worst of his excesses), the struggles and shame fall away. He may have aimed for Olympic-level debauchery, may even have craved to lose himself in its numbing haze, but by prevenient grace he can’t even stumble to the starting blocks.

Following his return, each time Prodigal hit overwhelm and sobbed out his shame, I hope he realised God was nodding in agreement. “You don’t know the half of it, Prodigal. But you know what, I love you anyway. On a scale that your human heart can barely imagine. But keep drawing closer. My grace will hold you. You’ve a new race to run.”

Why my testimony was wrong and God (of course) was right

Why my testimony was wrong and God (of course) was right

Phil Lowe

It’s coming up to a year since I stood on stage in church and gave testimony. I’m sorry to say I got it totally, utterly wrong. are_you_fracking_kidding_me_womens_light_t_tshirt-r4c6d415942264f528b99590b00d604ba_8nhmp_324

The SAP may well be reaching for his holy intervention kit right now. After all, being chased by the hound of heaven, bibles falling off shelves, songs shoving you awake at 3am, rounded off by a hilarious phone call to a smart-alec pastor are quite the testimony.

Don’t get me wrong. Every word I spoke on the stage was the truth. Now, a year on, I’m recognising I wasn’t truthful enough.

You see, the holy spirit download that accompanies embracing G&J is something I equate to the equivalent of soul fracking. It’s possibly a lot more gentle than its geological equivalent, however I have been known to mutter “fracking hell” as certain soul seams are tapped.

What I didn’t utter on stage during testimony was how Jesus had made me look at my shame around being unloveable. There are some life chapters you don’t read aloud. And, really? Soooo boring. Built a bridge and got over it in my 20s. So God stopped me in my tracks when the excavating holy spirit pressed gently on that carefully hidden soul seam a few weeks back.

“Oh c’mon, really?” I blustered. “That was one threrapied a while back. You’re surely not trying to tell me I’m still missing the point on that one are You, God?”

God smiled. “I know you’re capable. I know you’re confident. I know you’ve done the therapy sessions, and I also know you’re yawning at Me right now in some strange protectionist denial because you did it your way so fiercely and so well. But just stop. Because until you really look and accept that scar – and I know it it is there, dear heart, despite how much you yawn, roll your eyes, and bluster about therapy and moving on – but until you accept and sit with it, there’s always going to be the tiniest bit of you that you try to hide from Me.”

And then do you know what He said?

“Don’t you know, Phil, how much it hurts Me when even the tiniest, faintest scarred part of you refuses to accept just how much I love you?”

Which is what stopped me in my tracks. I forget I have the ability to wound God. He’s God, after all. How can a mere mortal like me wound Him? Yet he hurts like a parent over us. He bears our wounds and feels our pain. He wants all of us, even the scar-tissued, unloveable bits we paper over. It’s a demanding, honest, confronting all or nothing kind of love. Which I thought I grasped 12 months ago as I gave testimony. And yet, day after day, He reveals there is never any way I can rely on my own, limited, human understanding of it.

Fracking amazing.

What did I do to deserve this, God?

What did I do to deserve this, God?

Phil Lowe

Almost a year ago I sat amongst a group of Christian women, some of whom I would describe as UHT (long, longer Christian life), others just as green and newish as I. We had gathered together over a few weeks to watch the Christianity Explored series, which is essentially an introduction to Jesus, the gospel and grace 101. Whilst I27f82b712677284206c5645e19d68067 originally chose to attend in order to offer my journalist-head some proof, the reality was sitting upon me uncomfortably.

We had reached the point of the crucifixion, Jesus’ exhale “it is finished”,  the temple curtain ripping, of blood, tears and a humiliating public death full of mockery and rivers of spit. The leader of the group asked how it made us feel, Jesus dying on the cross for us. 

I was uncomfortable as hell with the idea. I sat there under no illusions of any sort of self-worthiness. I didn’t feel worthy of someone dying for me, for goodness sake. Die for someone else who deserves it, Jesus, but not me.

I’ve spoken to addicts who, full of shame and self-loathing, were literally delighted in Jesus’ generosity. Feeling broken and unloveable, the unconditional love poured out on them by God – His giving His only son – gave them a sense of worth and esteem that quite literally replaced the need to fill up their inner emptiness with alcohol.

I was less delighted. I recall leaving that evening, driving away and having to pull over due to the tears blinding my vision. They weren’t tears of relief. They were hot, angry, bewildered and irritated. “I didn’t ask You to do this,” I recall firing furiously at the sky. “Now what am I supposed to do with it?”

I suspect, back in the early days, if the SAP was asked for one adjective to describe my coming to Jesus, he would use the word “confronted”. Not because of who Jesus was, but because of what I was and what I didn’t do. For me, Jesus’ gift of love was confronting and uncomfortable.

Love was something I had reason to be cautious of. In my history, love was something I’d learnt to control before it lashed in and tore. My personal thunder road was littered with relationships that, as soon as the magic ‘I love you’ was uttered, I’d exit, rarely gracefully, most often messily, leaving confused suitors behind. Sometimes it descended into restraining orders and, in one memorable case, a young man used a car key to gouge my initials into his hand whilst threatening suicide on a climbing weekend in Snowden. Through it all, I’d wonder at what madness gripped them. I seriously wasn’t worth that much emotional pain. Mata Hari I am not. 

So my experience of love was rarely patient and kind; it was bitter, blackmailing, unforgiving and a wasteland of harsh words. I lived in a hedgehog ball, seeking love and redemption on one hand whilst rolling myself up on another. In my darkest relationship moments, I hurt before I was hurt first.

So Jesus dying for me pressed uncomfortably. Not least because, by the time I’d decided to figure this God and Jesus business out, I was 100% certain I’d therapied all those wounds. Yet there I was again, ridiculously confronted by being loved so much that God would give His son to die for me. Poised to run from the ultimate ‘I love you’ because, oh my God, it’s me. Don’t you know the mess that I make, God? Did you not see what I did to that poor, bewildered man-child on Snowdon? And then there was….  and what about…. and.. I am not a good bet, God. It’s a miracle (and lots of great therapy) I made it to the altar and 20 years with Big T.

Nor did Jesus die cleanly in a way my head and heart could sanitise. It was the equivalent, in my view, of a public beating, dismembering, stuffing the body parts into a suitcase, throwing it into the nearest river, capturing it on video and sharing it on social media to millions of views. This wasn’t gouged initials in a love heart on the back of someone’s hand and frayed climbing rope. It was more, much more – because there were no strings attached.

God gave His son for me before I was born. As God whispered eternity on my heart and sang over me in my mother’s womb, it was already finished. I didn’t have to do anything but trust that this ridiculous, radical, crazy love was for me, all of me. That it would never hurt, wound or blackmail. That it was the most perfect love I could never imagine, yet in a way had always been looking for.

What did I do to deserve this, God? Absolutely nothing. And that’s the miracle.

C’mon, is being saved from sin and getting glorious eternal life so bad?

C’mon, is being saved from sin and getting glorious eternal life so bad?

Phil Lowe

A few short months after my Liptoning, a UHT Christian (someone who has been a Christian for a long, longer life than I) warned me that the honeymoon period would wear off.

If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you’ll know how taken aback I was by all the joy that kept bubbling up as I cautiously got to know God and Jesus. The feeling of anticipation I would awake with daily in my stomach. It was like a split personality disorder. My before Christ (BC) secular self would lie there wondering, “ooh, what’s planned today that I’m so excited about?” Then my AC side would go, “Yay, I get to spend more time getting to know G&J.” images At which point my BC split personality would roll her eyes at such happy clappiness and attempt to batten all this joyful oddness down. Which was like shoving Disney’s Genie back in the lamp. No way G&J were getting crammed back into a small lamp. Let your light shine and all that…

So I was surprised to be warned that this feeling of delight would fade. Was that the reason why I wasn’t meeting more Christians with the same joy bubbling over? Did it wear off? Would this astounding ‘zing’ feeling disappear overnight and leave me acting like Marvin from The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy?

Just lately I have been noticing a dourness on the edge of my faith. The technicolour was greying. Was this the macular degeneration of joy I’d been warned about? I tried to pinpoint why and realised I had spent an unusual amount of time with some seriously serious Christians. On missions. Saving souls. Which is indeed serious stuff. But each ‘Thank God’, each faithful gratitude expressed for a miracle, didn’t rumble with the joy. It rumbled with important seriousness. And so I, almost unconsciously, packed away my joy in order to be more grave and ‘Godly’.

I ended the honeymoon. Not God. He was still waiting for me to come back to the beach, drink Pina Coladas and walk in the rain. Return to the crazy teenage ‘somersaulting stomach’ love that marked the start of all this, no matter how embarrassing I found it at the time.  I missed it. Missed Him.

A few months back I read Francis Chan’s Crazy Love.  As Chan puts it: ‘The God of the universe — the Creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and e-minor — loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.’

Chan writes the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and don’ts — it’s falling in love with God. ‘Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything.’

It’s true. I fell head over heels, I wanted to hang out with the object of my affection all the time. I was Madonna ‘True Blue’ giggly and ‘Crazy For You’ all at the same time. And while plenty of people talk about the honeymoon part of a marriage ending as you grow as a couple, I really don’t think God and Jesus want us to grow with them into joyless matrimony.

Look at what He did. Everlasting, eternal love. Radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love.

And there it is. I think the joy gets lost because too often Christians get caught up in the self-sacrificial nature of what God did for us in Jesus. I mean, that’s a serious gift, right? So, mistakenly, we confuse sacrifice that is the willing, loving, giving of our hearts to God with the sacrifice that is serious, enduring loss. But Jesus died so we may have life. It’s not loss, it’s gain.

It’s a gift to be taken seriously, yes, but no need to be all serious about it. I don’t think God measures the level of our love for Him by how seriously we behave in regards to what He gifted us. Whenever a Christian nods seriously and says, “You know, Jesus died for you,” I think the response ought to be a grinning “I know! How amazing and astounding is that? AND he resurrected. Fantastic!” Stop getting stuck and serious around the death bit, and focus on the three days after.

God’s crazy love can make us all amazing and astounding too, remember, because He gifted a bit of Him into us when He did it. You simply have to accept the amount of love poured out on you, the gift of heaven promised you, and, oh my God, please enjoy it. Smile with it, shine with it, dance in the rain with it and drink Pina Coladas.

It’s a great thing, falling in love every day.

Footnote: a big thank you to Tim MacBride over at Coffee With The King who has just started a great series about Luke 7 34-50 on precisely this. There are no Godincidences that his blog appeared in my feed just as I was pondering faith, joy and honeymoons.

Sorry doesn’t have to be the hardest word

Phil Lowe

I had the the biggest shock of my married life some years back when my beautiful husband Big T shared the ‘noise’ in his head: what he had to do next, what had happened before, what may happen in the next minute, what may not. It was like he lived a constant risk-assessment dialogue, a hamster scurrying round and round on its wheel.imgres-1

So then I started asking friends and colleagues about their inner noise. It became apparent there were a lot of mental hamsters on an exhausting road to nowhere. I reported back, dismayed, to Big T. Intrigued, he looked at me and asked, “Don’t you?”

“Well, no, not really,” I pondered, surprised. “My head’s a fairly placid place. Sure, I know I’ve things to do, but I don’t fret too much over what happened yesterday and what could happen tomorrow.”

This has been my inner-world for as long as I can remember. Which strikes many who know me as odd, because my brain tends to zip through life at warp speed. However, just because my brain processes fast, it doesn’t mean my mind goes along for the ride. I figure I can fly with the wind, rather than be buffeted by it.

At a midnight Christmas Eve youth service, after a poignant poetry/drama about an incredibly busy career woman who finally found ‘quiet space’ in the understanding of Jesus and grace, the SAP asked me if it resonated. He, quite clearly, thought that was me. Yet all the way through the drama segment I had been baffled by the inability of the character to accept stillness and silence, of how her mind was always scurrying ahead to the next meeting, the next ‘place to be’.

God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (G,J & HS) didn’t need to swoop in and fix my busy mind. That wasn’t required. Rather, they improved the landscape. The natural stillness of my mind has now been filled with an awe, joy and wonder that is far easier and more fulfilling than the non-attached striving I mistakenly thought was the path to its ongoing quietness. When I ran from the hound of heaven, it wasn’t because my mind was too busy on its hamster wheel. I ran because I didn’t know any better. If I knew of all the love, care and gifts I would receive, would I have stopped sprinting sooner? Hmm, not sure. Allowing love in is often far harder than shutting it out…

Yet, I also understand how grace can calm a racing heart and apply balm to a busy mind. That by Jesus’ gift of the cross, we may all understand a grace that tells the hamster to quieten down, get off the wheel, and stop running hard on the spot.

After my recent horned Mother Trucker struggles, it would have been easy to stay in a ‘how could I almost do that?’ woe is me, breast-beating state of mind. But, thankfully, I’m not wired that way and, really, what’s the point? I apologised to the SAP (who dismissed it with such ‘all good, no dramas’ aplomb it makes me wonder if he’s been devil-ditched a few times, poor bastard) and it’d only continue to make a mockery of grace if I rolled around in sackcloth and ashes. Plus, you know, I’m in PR. Sackcloth and ashes are soooo not me, daaalink. It’s all Prada and Louboutin over here.

You know Elton John’s lyric, “Sorry seems to to be the hardest word”?  My Mum was a little bit tethered to that. She took pride in never apologising. I know others who are the same. Instead of apologies, they close down all dialogue by saying, “I’m not going to argue with you about this,” and therefore protect their position. It was me too, once. I’d grown up with a role-model who taught me apology meant weakness. I had to learn forgiveness because it wasn’t anything I’d ever been taught.

Imagine instead if sorry was the easiest word to say, and forgiveness was the easiest gift to bestow. What would that look like?

It looks like God and Jesus, that’s what.

Newsflash: Mother Truckin’ Devil steals Smart-Alec Pastor

Newsflash: Mother Truckin’ Devil steals Smart-Alec Pastor

Phil Lowe

imagesSatan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Diabolus, Prince of Darkness. Or, as I now call him after the weekend: Horned Mother Trucker.

According to a 2009 survey by the Barna Group, the majority of Christians do not believe that Satan or the devil actually exists.2 However, according to an AP-AOL news poll, up to 97% of evangelical Christians believe that angels exist.3

Now this is an irony, given that – contrary to the beliefs of many – Satan is not the opposite of God (an anti-god) but rather an angel who rebelled against God. So he’s an angel too. Without the harp and cream cheese.

Much as I’d like to dismiss him as some safe, Prada-wearing character, I have to own the Horned Mother Trucker is far bigger and scarier than that. How do I know? Well, scripture tells me on the one hand. Biblical descriptions of him include everything from an angel of light to a ravenous beast.

Both Christ and Paul were so aware of his influence that their teaching is filled with warnings and dangers (Matthew 24:24; II Corinthians 11:13-15; II Thessalonians 2:7-11; Galatians 1:8). Yet some theologians are persuaded he is non-existent – and therein lies the danger. If you don’t realise you have an enemy to fight, how can you be prepared for the war?

‘Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,’ (Eph. 6:11). Wiles have to do with cunning or skill. The Bible teaches the devil – as he works his craft against us – personifies wiles. He lies to us, wants to trap us, discourage us and snare us. He goes to work daily to produce discouragement, confusion, indifference and imbalance. He will steal our joy if we allow him.

This weekend past I allowed him. How do I know he exists? Because, outside what I have read in the scripture, this weekend my finger hovered over the delete button in my phone’s contacts list. I was set to erase The SAP. 

No, this isn’t some crazy cliff-hanging blog post where I randomly make up SAP storylines for creative adventures. In the here and now I was ready to make a deleting sweep through one of my most significant Christian touchstones. Whatever possessed me? Don’t answer that.

It started with the Suffer The Little Children blog. Readers told me it left them in tears. That it was ‘power-full’. Amongst the best I had ever written. And every compliment left me flayed raw. To know your writing evokes an emotional response is most probably the greatest gift for a writer. Yet on this topic? The compliments were bitter. Yes, I wanted readers to think. I wanted to examine Love Thy Neighbour. But by choosing to imagine how a mother would be with her child in those final, drowning moments was possibly an imagination too far and by the end it left me empty. With defences down.

So in the horned Mother Trucker crept. ‘What difference can you make?’ he whispered. ‘Where’s Jesus in all this? How does meek and mild and tuning the other cheek help that drowned boy? And what about your own sins? What if you get there and, despite grace, Jesus says he does not know you.  Because, what, you write a blog about Christianity referencing a smart-alec pastor? Ha, you reckon it’s about God, Jesus and Christianity. What about the SAP? Hasn’t the SAP been turned into some news hook, some story-writing character idolatry? How often do you check the readership numbers? The likes and shares and comments. Are you still sure it’s about God and Jesus?”

I was raw, tired, and despairing enough over small drowned boys in red t-shirts to listen. And wonder. I pressed play on ‘Clear The Stage’ and these lyrics tumbled at me like barbs:

Anything I put before my God is an idol. Anything I want with all my heart is an idol. Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol. Anything that I give all my love is an idol. 

So I did what all good introverts do when they are feeling flayed and bitter and despairing. I took cover. Dived deeper. Removed myself from Facebook. And tried to pray. Please let me warn you, if you ever hit this sort of low, Jimmy Needham’s ‘Clear The Stage’ is not the soundtrack with which to do it. It’s beautiful at any other time. But not when you’re already wrestling in the deep:

Take a break from all the plans that you have made
And sit at home alone and wait for god to whisper
Beg him please to open up his mouth and speak
And pray for real upon your knees until they blister
Shine the light on every corner of your life
Until the pride and lust and lies are in the open
Then read the word and put to test the things you’ve heard
Until your heart and soul are stirred and rocked and broken

Trouble was, after writing that blog, my heart and soul were already stirred and rocked and broken. Shining light on those devilish whispers of ‘pride and lust and lies’ just added to my sense of anguish. There were tears. And stomping. Lots of, ‘well, why the hell would You deliver me a SAP, then, because You are omnipotent, so You knew already what would happen, so what am I meant to understand from this and I am TIRED. There are toddlers DROWNING. And I’m meant to get saved by MEEK and MILD Jesus?!’

So I arrived at the conclusion that I should cease all blogs because it HURT. And if there was some weird idolatry shit going down over readership spikes and SAP story lines, then I’d have to rip out my eye, suck it up and go it alone. No temptation here, no siree. Open contacts. Search The SAP. Finger hovers to press delete.

Trouble is, I couldn’t do it. Which made me wonder if I was being a bad and unfaithful servant, which led me straight back to the whole “I won’t know you” scenario. But another voice was whispering this didn’t make sense. God doesn’t pull the rug from under us.

The Horned Mother Trucker had cleverly made it all about me. Me, my self and I. Am I really proud about my writing? Is it all about the shares and comments? Honestly, no. But then – then, in the dark and feeling miserable about humanity – it was a wily reverse psychology.

James 4:7: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” Until then, I’d not been resisting. I’d allowed myself to be sucked down the rabbit hole where the echoes of doubts became louder and louder. I didn’t have it in me to resist, to take any action. But I could submit.

So I knelt down on the floor next to the bed, put my forehead on the mattress, and said, “Ok. I’m not strong enough to delete this number. The SAP’s a good guy. I value him. So if I need to sort out pride and readership in connection to this and the SAP, You are going to have to fry my phone or something. You take over. I can’t.”

No lightning strikes. But I was well into self-flagellation by that point. So bruised, battered and bewildered – at the very lowest point in all my Christian journey to date when the SAP would have been yelling, “Pick up the phone and call me!” – I said: “OK, God, I’m admitting I’m not strong enough to delete it. So I’ll stop writing. And I won’t call and get his opinion. That’ll sort out the bad and unfaithful bit, right?”

Again, God was strangely quiet. I grieved for the next two days for a toddler in a red t-shirt and a SAP.

Until 2am today. Shoved awake. With a ridiculous urge to download the last in the SAP’s recent sermon series on Daniel. I tossed and turned and ignored it. And it kept shoving. Was this Mother Trucker temptation or God trying to tell me something?

I grabbed my phone and plugged in my headphones. “Screw idolatry, God. You’d better not be messing with me,” I muttered.

Not messing at all. God did one better. Daniel 7. With cross reference to Revelation 19: 11-16. That so grabbed me at 2am I had to replay it over a few times, before opening the Bible and digging into Revelation some more.

No meek and mild Jesus there. No turning the other cheek. Instead there was the warrior Lord ‘dressed in a robe dipped in blood’ with ‘king of kings and lord of lords’ tattooed on his thigh. That was who I sought. Treading the ‘winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty’ was the warrior I wanted to sweep up and defend that drowned, refugee child.

Was I instantly revived and healed? I wish. But it gave me some fantastic lessons. And as the horned Mother Trucker whispered that I’d got away with it, no need to mention this to anyone, I smiled fiercely. Because I’m not the only one who struggles. Who gets sucked into wily, hurtful, joy-stealing temptation.

Which is why I write this blog. Which is why, taking a deep breath, I admitted to the SAP I’d almost deleted him from my phone. Because by mentioning it to everyone, rather than being ashamed about it, I shine a light on my darkest corners and shove that Mother Trucker out.

Mother Trucker almost made an absolute mockery of my testimony. And that just pisses me off. Did he think that my God and my freakin’ warrior Lord Jesus would be so evil as to deliver a miracle at the end of the phone in order that I be properly introduced to them and then tell me all that hilarious, honest, joyful adventure was false?

No siree. Get behind me you Mother Trucker. I am stealing back my joy, smiling fiercely and telling you to watch your back.  My warrior Lord is on the throne.

Dear Lord, let’s just ban marriage

Phil Lowe

Hi God, it’s me, Phil.

And I’m sorry but I have to tell You, I’m a little over the marriage equality ‘debate’ that’s raging in Sydney right now. My itchy BC (before Christ) skin, as You well know from my previous wranglings with same sex attraction and Christianity, is rolling her eyes. We have social orphans committing suicide in Russia, poverty in Africa, child-sex trafficking, forced prostitution, Aborginal health, detention centres, women being murdered by their partners or husbands….need I go on? I feel we’ve got our perspective and priorities seriously skewed._gay marriage cartoon

There’s money being spent on adverts that don’t get aired, media events that people don’t turn up to, and metres of vertical trolls on social media.

Screw marriage rights, God, screw ’em. Tell you what, why don’t we do a Brangalina type announcement and say that no-one gets married until we sort out poverty, illiteracy, access to education, domestic violence, world peace etc. etc.

That’s right: no-one. Then we’ll see just how committed everyone REALLY is to marriage equality. What do you reckon?

I know, I know, it’ll upset the unwed Christians because they won’t be getting any, if they are honouring You, due to Your no sex without marriage request (well, maybe a little stronger than a request, but I’m in PR). Anyway. Think of the focus it would achieve. Nothing like enforced celibacy to gird one’s loins for mission and change.

But I really think it’s the best way to sort it out. Kind of like toddlers arguing over a toy car in the sandpit. Take it away. End of argument.

The irony here is the greatest gift You blessed me with: the ability to see both sides. So You set Yourself up royally for my wrestling. I don’t want to be a bad and unfaithful servant, honest, but I’m still figuring out how to be truth-filled and grace-filled and hold the space for Jesus to walk into it on this one.

I admit, I want You to make it easy for me. I want it so marriage equality doesn’t keep making Christians appear like a bunch of intolerant bigots.

Christians, for the most part, are trying to stick to Your word. Which is pretty damn unpopular in 2015. Fastest way to lose friends is wear a cross around your neck these days and point to the Bible as truth. And that breaks my heart because some of the most caring, compassionate people I know are Christians getting a bad rap for sticking to their belief in Your word.

So, Lord, I want to pray for those scripture-focused Christians who say, “I’d rather get to heaven and have God ask me, “Why couldn’t you just keep up with the times on same sex marriage?” instead of, “Well, could you not read My word?””

They are putting God above self and aren’t winning any popularity contests. But to say they are hating bigots is not only wrong and unfair, it’s a dangerous slippery slope regarding freedom of belief.

I also want to pray for the less scripturally-focused Christians (the popularist pastors). And anyone they’ve sent off-piste. That’d be a real kick in the proverbials come the pearly gates. My challenge, personally, is wanting those popularist pastors to be right. For me, they are weepingly, painfully seductive. I want their biblical gymnastics to make sense. I want this to be easy.

But (much like Bogart and Bacall) of all the churches in all of Sydney I could have called that day, You delivered a scriptural pastor at the end of the phone. You could have delivered a hall pass. (Sigh).

A dear SSA friend asked me about the scriptural take the other day.  After I cautiously explained it with as much care and respect as possible, he thanked me. “I have never had the opportunity to explore both sides before,” he said. “I’m not Christian, so I’d never ask to take part in a Christian marriage ceremony. But at least I understand it better now.”

Because both sides deserve a fair hearing. Which isn’t happening in Australia, as Paul Barrie from MediaWatch recently demonstrated.  What happened? Why is holding a different viewpoint now taken as an excuse to vilify? Some of the most dangerous atrocities in the world have stemmed from intolerance and vilification of different viewpoints. So I pray that stops. Soon.

So God, I’ll keep wrestling. Sorry. But I’ll also try my damnedest to hold the space for Jesus’ grace and Your love to walk though.

Amen.