Lessons of the year

Hmmm, I've been trying to sum up the "achievements" of 2007, as you do. And it's been really hard, hence why I'm writing it now. It was a really heavy year - lots of highs, lots of lows. But through it all, God has been God and has taught me so much. I've written about a lot of that as it came up over the year, but looking back today there are a couple of general things that stick out.

Since the start of the year, one passage from Habakkuk has hit me a few times - "Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. The Lord 's Answer: "Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told"." (Habakkuk 1:3-5)

At the start of the year the only bit that stuck out to me was God's promise that He would do something great. As the year has gone on and I've seen and been involved in different situations that have really opened my eyes to the injustice that is going on, I've understood the context in which the promise was made, and it excites me even more. But often when I've seen these things, or when I've been struggling, my first thought hasn't been of God's promises to deliver, or of God's faithfullness. They've been negative thoughts, doubting thoughts, angry thoughts, etc. As I've been thinking about that recently and reading Habakkuk again I found this passage at the end:

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights" (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

Through recent trials I've really learnt the need to be worshipping God and bringing Him the praise that is due to His name despite our circumstances. Yes that is hard, yes that goes against our natural instincts sometimes, but God is still God even when we don't see the bigger picture. As I've started to learn that and have decided to hand over all my struggles to God and worship Him as I am, I've noticed Him take me as I am and use me in those places to minister to and stand alongside other people in those situations whilst also delivering me from them (the situations not the people!)

Scripture assures us that in all things (Romans 8:28) God is able to work our situations for His glory. And I've come to realise that that doesn't just mean He rescues us from them, but that He uses the experiences that we gain there for His glory. Whatever is in your past, know that God can use that to equip you to serve Him today. And whatever happens now, know that God can use that to equip you and strengthen you for future tasks. I found a good quote, that the chief end of Man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever. Whatever our situations, whatever our struggles, whether there are grapes on the vine or not, God is still God and is worthy of praise. And when we worship we are transformed...thats one for the next blog!

The second thing that God has really opened my eyes to recently is justice - or the lack thereof, hence why I have come to notice the first part of the passage I mentioned earlier. There have been situations that I have been involved in where I have become really angry at the lack of response from the Church to these issues that are so blatantly obvious.

There are the problems we see on the television where entire nations are starving to death or dying of AIDS or walking for days to collect water due to poverty, whilst here footballers are changing hands from £30million. Delerious wrote this song...

40 million babies lost to Gods great orphanage,
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.

100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.

Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

And then there are the issues right on our doorstep. Prostitution, young girls forced to sell themselves to sick and perverted men. It's sick and wrong, yet it is allowed to happen. People with nowhere to live. People held captive by alcohol, drugs, pornography, eating habits. Children leaving school unable to read and write. All of these and so many more are happening right under our noses, and all are things that I have come across in a big way recently. And what makes me really angry is that much of the time the Church is either too busy having fun on a sunday morning to notice the real issues facing its people, or it wraps itself in cotton wool and red tape which prevents it from doing what it was called to do. I ranted enough about that in a previous post, "What's in a name?" and stand by every word I said there so it's pointless saying it all again.

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:21-24)

It would be wrong of me to completely slate the Church for not doing anything, because in a lot of cases it is doing all it can. But it has really hit me that if our lives, the choices we make, the things we do and say - if they don't match up to the words that we sing so enthusiastically in Church then there's big problem. Worship and justice are inseperable. As we worship we press into God and seek to discover what is on His heart. As we look to Christ we are transformed into His likeness (2Cor 3:17-18) - and central to God's character is a heart and a passion for justice, for the last, the lost and the least. Bring it on!