A wake up call from a Bird

Lisa and I had the privilege of spending the week between Christmas and New Year house-sitting for a friend in Gillitts just north of Kloof.  The home was palatial (by our standards) with a magnificently verdant garden and private leisure area.  It was a great place to unwind from the pressures of 2011 because, though I'd had a very successful year financially, my vertical relationship with Christ had suffered a bit.

On our first morning, we were awakened by a persistent tapping on a downstairs window which, it turned out, was an Olive Thrush hammering with his beak on the glass just above the breakfast table.  Though he came and went throughout the day, he spent most of his daylight hours engaged in this transient activity.  And though I know he was probably just attracted to his own reflection, I imagined his deeper motivation was to try and break in and explore the mysterious universe which lay behind this frustratingly reflective surface.  It turns out, by the way, that this bird is a daily feature of life at this lovely home and that the people who live there have grown quite fond of his eccentricity.

How often, I wondered, am I like that bird?   Tapping with obsessive yet fruitless curiosity upon windows and doors which, quite simply, were never meant to yield in the first place?  And what could it teach me of my working year?  Like that bird,  had I spent most of 2011 trading the world of generious possibilities that I DID have access to for one which is perhaps not meant for me?  How much did the ambitions which fuelled me in the short term actually wear me out in the long? Why, for example do I long to be seen as an authority in my profession - to be renowned and honoured for my expertise?  Yet how big a toll will this (oftentimes subconscious) yearning - actually ask of me?

I am thankful for that simple little illustration because it taught me the importance of perspective in seeing all which God has placed in front of me.  As David says in his song of praise in 2 Samuel 22, even though I have entered the Kingdom through a narrow door of salvation, my entrance has brought me into a spacious place, one which God has given me because he delights in me.

It reminds me of the one of the closing chapters of C.S. Lewis' "The Last Battle" when Tirian and Digory encounter a stable door in the the middle of a Narnian forest.

"It seems, then," said Tirian, "that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places."  

"Yes, said the Lord Digory.  "Its inside is bigger than its outside"

Bill Johnson, in his book "Secrets to imitating God" re-echoes this truth:

"Life in the Kingdom, which is past the narrow entrance of salvation, is completely different.  It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.  It is here we find the Lord saying to us that we're no longer servants but friends"

Because so many of my mis-spent ambitions and worries have to do with work - the quantity, quality and even the occasional lack of it - I have drafted a few imperatives to remind me of God's goodness in the spacious place he has placed me:

• Work is only one of the ways in which God provides for my needs and that God's provision can take many forms - often beyond the financial
• I understand that it is not the LEVEL of provision that matters because in God I can never have too much or too little - the Israelites found this out when Manna fell from heaven (Exodus 16 vs 17)
• I understand that all work - even menial, seemingly unfulfilling and unpaying work - is a means to glorify God.  I will give thanks for it all, acknowledging Him as the source
• My work is firstly the place of mission and influence - income is a distant third place spin-off
• My work is a unique instrument with which to worship God - I am willing and able to work and thus refuse to adopt a doctrine which says that I am perfected in the hardship of unemployment
• I will not second guess my allocation of "talent" as a way of judging how much or how little of it I am to invest.  I will invest it ALL wholeheartedly and in faith to leave a legacy.
• My work is not about being the "best IN the world" but about being the "best FOR  the world"
• When it comes to my dreams for my business, I will seek the Lord for patience - because I believe that it is a lack of patience (and not failure) that sinks dreams

 "Small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life"

Who writes History?

I've been reading Antony Beevor's book "D-Day" these past few days.  It is a meticulous reconstruction of that "Day of Days" when Allied audacity, sheer courage and lashings of good luck changed the tide of World War II for good.

Amidst all the intriguing detail is an amusing vignette of Frenchman Charles de Gaulle.  The general, observes Beevor, was so intoxicated with the glory of the French military that he had once written a history of its exploits but had conveniently forgotten to make any mention of Waterloo. Indeed, what interest would any military historian in his right mind have in the French military without mention of that vital chapter?

Yet the example serves to illustrate an important truth.  "History", said Churchill "is written by the victors".  By this, I assume, he meant that the stuff which supposedly counts - the stuff worth knowing - the stuff which moves us forward as a people - can only really be expected from those left standing.
I think he's right.  Look around you.  Even beyond warfare, society rewards winners - obsesses about their winning strategies - makes virtual gods of them - to the exclusion of the losers whose exploits, character and tenacity, regardless of whether they prevailed or not, are either minimised or tuned out altogether.

This raises some really important questions.  Why, for example, have so few bestsellers - if any - been written about Colonel Claus Philipp von Stauffenberg, the man who led a daring and ultimately futile plot to assassinate Hitler?  Why are we not spoiled for choice by volumes on the heroism and courage of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who was so vocal in his opposition of the Nazis that he was hanged only 23 days before their surrender?

The point is this:  if you double click on failure and defeat, you are bound to uncover a few stories that in themselves, often trump the great victory narratives which so intoxicate us.

Is this what makes the bible such a bestseller?  As a best practice manual for winning it seems to fail quite miserably.  Yet curiously, it is this very transparency which makes it so compelling, reaching out, if not to the "loser", then certainly to the underdog in every one of us.

"Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones.  I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves"

Ecclesiastes 10: 6 and 7

Sparrow Faith and my own business

A friend once likened running your own business to jumping out of at 100 story building.  As you hurtle past the 75th floor someone inside yells: "how's it going?" You answer - "so far so good!" 

A curiously apt description for how I feel at the moment.  

I read recently of how battle-hardened and even decorated soldiers of The Great War - in spite of prolonged exposure to fire - would suddenly lose their nerve and be court-martialled for cowardice.

I see a lot of me in that anecdote.  Minus, of course, what Wilfred Owen called "the monstrous anger of the guns".  The so-called "nerve" which spirited me from my corporate job 3 years ago - and which to some degree has sustained me ever since - is faltering once again.  

The relative and inevitable lull which settles at the beginning of the year has me worrying about my future income as though the last 36 months of God's goodness and blessing had never actually happened.

Two things are behind this:

Comparison

When I compare myself to the financial/career struggles of my peers - more specifically the relative blessings I have enjoyed - something in my subconscious says:  "it's just a matter of time before my fortune lapses and I am in the same boat as those poor souls. There's no way some of us can take all the blessings."

This view is flawed on so many levels it's not even worth unpacking.  Instead, let me direct you to my post "Comparison Kills - That is All".

Sparrow Faith - or lack thereof

Probably one of Jesus' most profound illustrations (Matt 6:26) spoke to the type of faith he expected of his followers.  Craig Hill, in his book "Wealth, Riches and Money" calls "Sparrow Faith" the "foundation cornerstone of Christian financial structure".

"This is an absolute trust and confidence and leaning of one's entire personality upon the fact that God loves me and will make provision for me.  If I am working 40 hours a week for an employer, the money I receive is not my due from him, but rather provision made available to me by grace as a gift from my Father, who loves me.  This fact then makes God my source of provision and my employer merely delegated as the current channel through which my provision comes."

Hill goes on to show how Sparrow Faith will serve us when the foundations of our employment are rocked, either by recession, re-structuring or something else:

"...my heart is not terrorized by fear of lack of provision, because my employer is not my source.  The source has not changed.  God's love for me has not changed.  God may simply use a different channel through which to provide for my needs."

In closing, I was greatly heartened by the story of a Congolese refugee car guard who, having erected a rudimentary blackboard in the parking lot of a Paarl shopping centre, provided lively explanations to mathematical problems to whoever would listen.  Once a maths teacher, Fernando Ogadi's obvious flair for sums soon caught the eye of a Sunward Park headmistress who was overwhelmed by his charm and who pulled strings to get him a job at a Boksburg school.

I suppose this story doesn't say much about Sparrow Faith or Comparison.  Yet when you consider that guarding cars is probably one of the lousiest jobs you can have, the spirit and tenacity of this man is strangely encouraging.