Lots to think about

Life has settled down again to a discernible rhythm. It's a bit of a relief, actually—I work better like this. I find it hard to concentrate and make decisions when my day-to-day routine is less stable and predictable. So when I do things like try to work and travel, even though most of my work is done remotely, it gets tricky and I don't do as good a job. But I also get bored if life is too same-same. So I'm glad for a job that always includes new challenges and has a fair amount of variety in it, even if, like last week, I sometimes get overwhelmed by it all.

Magazine matters

I'm glad that the Autumn issue of the magazine I manage has gone to the printer and we get to mail it out next week! I've been working fairly solidly on this since we got back to Tokyo in early August. 

I've been working on this magazine for around 15 years, and I can tell you that some "issues" are harder than others. There are all sorts of reasons for that. It can be team challenges, a difficult issue-theme, unexpected random obstacles, author difficulties, or at times when my own transitions or travel interfere with my ability to concentrate on the work needed. 

This issue was particularly difficult for some of these reasons, and has required "above and beyond" over the last few months. I hope that it was all worth it, and pray that God will take it and use it for his purposes.

This month is our magazine "annual meeting" month. Because our remote team works across several different time zones it's hard to hold meetings. I've never been a fan of meetings, they can easily be a waste of time! I'm in a position to have been able to shape my work in so many ways, both with the magazine and with the social media work, and I've tended towards setting up processes that mean we don't have to meet often, though I have been called out on that!

Our magazine team gets together once a year to talk about team and magazine stuff, to pray, to have fun, and to plan. In the last few years that has been achieved with four 1½ hr meetings. I really enjoy this team. We have fun when we get together, even online. They are passionate about the mission of this magazine and that makes them easy to lead. And the four shorter meetings are actually a lot easier to manage than a single one-day event, like we used to have. (I've written about this meeting/ these meetings before, here's one back in 2016 when it was an in-person meeting: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2016/08/energising-meeting.html)

What have I been thinking about recently?

Well, if you know me, you know that there's usually a lot going on in my brain! This week I've had time to listen to some podcasts and I've been trying to be disciplined about continuing to gradually (usually a short portion over coffee in the afternoon) work my way through non-fiction books that are on my to-read list.

I listened to John Dickson's Undeceptions (my usual go-to for lunchtime listening), an episode about the boy Jesus. It gave some interesting historical background to the life Jesus lived.

I came across an OMF US podcast interview with a new worker I met last week. She was effusive last week about the social media work I do and how that had been a pivotal part of her coming to Japan, so I was curious about her larger story (if you ever get into the position to ask, find out a missionary's "call story" they are usually fascinating and never the same as any other missionary's). The 45 minute interview was well done and I loved the bit where God led her to look at Instagram, just after she'd surrendered her desire to go to Japan...and she saw a post from OMF Japan!

I also listened to a podcast from Moore Bible College about Neurodiversity and the Christian Life (part 1 of 3). I wasn't so impressed with their format, it's a bit academic, although there were some redeeming interview clips. Yet it's a topic that is close to our hearts, so I'll go back later and hear what they have to say in the next two parts.

I've just finished one non-fiction book (after several months) and have started another. The first I've read before, and will probably read again. Gentle and Lowly is deep and full of many things that will take a lifetime for my heart to absorb. It's about the heart of Christ for us and what small amount I can grasp, even though I've been a Christian since I was a child, it still breathtaking.

The new book I've just picked up, Life interrupted, by Susan Chapman, an OMF colleague, starts out on a similar line: understanding that we are loved by God. It's something that is easy to say, but hard to live. I'm only just starting this short book, but am already challenged by what she says next: "we need to be totally content in being finite". She goes on to quote Ruth Hayley Barton who says:

Living graciously within the boundaries of our life as it has been entrusted to us gives our life substance. Oddly enough, something of the will of God is contained in the very limits that we often try to sidestep or ignore. Living within limits is not in any way an acquiescence that is despairing, passive or fatalistic. Rather it honours the deepest realities of the life God has given us. Life in this body at this age and stage. Life in my family at its age and stage. Life in this personality. Life with this community. Life in the midst of this calling. (Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry), p12 in Life Interrupted. 

It's this that I need to continue to learn as I settle into this phase of my life. What does "life in this body at this stage and age, with the gifts and calling that God's given me?" look like. And how can I be content in that? I think it's something all of us probably need to think about at various ages and stages!

Non-typical retreating

Considering spiritual retreats—I think that I've pretty much decided that I do better with an "active" or "creative" one, rather than a more traditional retreat that requires spends a lot of time alone in meditation or reflection. I think better while I'm riding my bike or walking. I think reflectively while I'm being creative too, like baking and cooking, taking photos and cross stitching. And, of course, writing, helps me to think and to solidify my thoughts. Writing retreats have been so energising to me in the last 10 or so years, and writing here has been a constant help to me as I've processed and pondered God's truths and reflected on what's be going on in my life.

Anyway, the other day I took a few hours to ride to the "big park" and a cafe, and it turned into something of a retreat: a time to ponder God's word, and reflect on life. I'm regretting not writing about it straight away, but here are some lingering thoughts from a few meagre notes I took.

I stopped here in the park. This was not a typical retreat.
Here I read a novel, not the Bible or a Christian non-
fiction book!

"Be still and know that I am God" 

This has been a phrase I've repeatedly been drawn to in the last couple of years. At the start of the day I happened upon a reflection and song by an acquaintance of mine based on Psalm 46 (see the reflection here and song here). She noted that though the psalm famously says "Be still, and know that I am God", it's not a psalm set in the middle of peace and quiet, it's actually a psalm about trouble and war. It was often referred to in the aftermath of the 2011 triple disaster in northern Japan. It refers to God being our fortress, that he is "with us" even through terrible things like nations being in an uproar and the earth melting! 

And indeed I can testify to God being with me through what rates as one of the most trying years of my life thus far, most of the details I've been unable to share with you. The mere fact that we're still standing and functioning fairly well is testimony to God's great graciousness.

Isaiah 40

I also reflected on Isaiah 40. It's the chapter I did a retreat on last year, and actually as I look back over this blog and see that this chapter has come up a number of times in the last five years. It's a great passage.

This time I noted the huge contrast between weak and strong. Humans are repeatedly described as weak—young, ordinary, and ones needing comfort. We're compared to grass and flowers that both quickly fade, like grasshoppers. Even rulers are described as weak and fragile compared to God's strength. And God is repeatedly described in powerful ways—that his word stands forever, as someone who can mark off the heavens with the breadth of his hand, who "weighs the islands as though they were fine dust", whose mere breath can sweep away rulers, the creator of the earth and heavens. And he doesn't get tired. His understanding has no limits.

The chapter ends with great hope: that the God who doesn't have limits, gives strength to those who trust in him, who put their hope in him. Though the gap between our capacity is so enormous it isn't measurable, God chooses to reach down and help us in our weakness. That's great news and one that we repeatedly need reminding of.

The Chosen

At the time we were watching the TV series The Chosen. It's a seven-season series about the life of Christ, and it's free. They've done the first two seasons and we've really enjoyed it so far. They don't pretend it is scripture, but they've tried to fill in some of the story around what we read in the gospels. It's so interesting to see what life then might have been like, to imagine what the disciples were like and how they experienced the journey with Jesus.

In one of the episodes, Peter comes to Jesus with ideas about creating some processes to smooth out the relationships between the disciples. Jesus said to him: Yes Peter, I can see you have leadership potential, but not now. Just wait. There will come a time" (my paraphrase). It was another way of saying "Be still". 

Waiting

Waiting is a meta-theme in the Bible. It comes up again and again, in individual lives, as well as in the wider context of the nation of Israel. So we shouldn't be surprised to find waiting is part of our every day experience of the Christian life either.

Here's a sample from the Bible:

"I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him” (Lamentations 3:10).

"I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope" (Psalm 130:5).

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Romans 8:25).

"While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).

Japanese has a brilliant phrase for this sort of waiting: machinozomu, which means "wait in eager expectation".

So, that was my ride-which-became-a-retreat. Remembering how God has called me to be still, even if everything around me is falling apart. And why can I be still in that context? Because he is God, he is much stronger, more wise and capable than I am. But also remembering that there is no magic solution that will appear at my whim, I have to wait. Because God is God and infinitely more wise than I am, what he's got in mind for my life I can't comprehend, nor can I bring it about—I must wait in hope. I must trust him.

Thinking about "come"

I don't make New Year's resolutions (see here), but sometimes it makes sense to start something new in January. 

This year I've started reading Naomi Reed's new daily devotional A Time to Hope with my "daily friend trio". One of my friends took the initiative of buying three copies and giving one to each of us. (I got an Australian calendar out of that deal too, not bad at all!) Not that we've ever lacked things to message and talk about, but not we're also holding one another accountable to do a daily devotional that will take us through the full sweep of scripture in one year, and when we refer to TTH, we've all got the text in front of us. We'll see how things go when we get busier as school and work starts up again for us all.

I've also decided to dwell some on the word "come" that God uses quite a number of times in both the Old and New. Especially the verse from Matt 11:28 "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest".

I've got a book that Jane Rubietta wrote called Come closer. I've had it for more than 10 years and read it a couple of times, but I'm at least going to start the year by pondering it chapter by chapter, the opposite of how I read most books (fast). There's 15 chapters, so we'll see, it might take me into next year (and she's got a second one called Come Along, so this might even be a longer thing than that!). She focuses on the New Testament, but there are some great "come" usages in the Old Testament too. I figure anything that will help me dwell on the Bible regularly is helpful.

So keep your eyes open for my pondering about God's invitations to "Come". I'm hoping to write one towards the start of each month.

Are you starting something new this year? Do you have a major life change on your plate, and don't know how that's going to look? Do you have something you are pondering this year? A verse? A word? A book?

Sunshine surprise

This week we've had some unseasonably cold, wet, and gloomy days. Our temperatures went down to low teens (Celsius). I don't enjoy Tokyo's version of cold, so it was particularly discouraging to have to pull out my long underwear, heaters, and extra blankets that we'd only just put away after the long winter months.

I come from a state known as the Sunshine State and there is good reason for that. Only 30% of days are completely overcast. (Tokyo sits much closer to 50%.) I find cloudy, cold days pretty depressing. Though cloudy warm days (i.e. over 20˚C), not so much.

So, after revelling in some gorgeous warm spring days in recent weeks, this week hasn't been so enjoyable. But then yesterday the sun came out. In fact it seemed a little more dramatic than that to me. I drove an hour to Costco in the cold rain. I had the heater on in the car. I was inside for less than two hours and when I came out the sun was shining brightly and inside the car was very warm.

As I drove home I remembered the words I'd read just the night before in John Hindley's You Can Really Grow. He wrote that you can use creation to help you focus your eyes on Jesus. I knew this, but he went a bit further in explaining it.

When we read a verse like Revelation 1:16 'His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance', it is not that the Holy Spirit was searching for a way to describe the brightness of Jesus' face, and realised the sun would be a good image. No, the sun was made in the first place in such a way that it would declare the brightness of Christ. When you see and feel the light and warmth of the sun, you are not meant to think Jesus is a little like this; you are meant to think that the sun is a little like Jesus, and that he put it there to help you remember that and be amazed by him. (p 81)

So, right there, in the midst of Tokyo traffic I was able to worship Jesus by enjoying the warmth and light the sun brought us yesterday afternoon.

I went on in my reading of the book last night and also enjoyed the next chapter about people and stories. It talks about seeing reflections of God in people and in the stories we read and see. Also balancing that by noticing the brokenness that our sin brings into the world.

He challenges his readers to be proactive in our thinking, not just in worshipping through what we notice around us, but also to reject that which will draw us away. Not by withdrawing from society, but by actually just noticing things that will cause us to draw away from Jesus and not allowing those things to take root.

I'm finding this book a refreshing read. Have you been refreshed in spirit by something recently? Do share.

God's strength not our own?

I was strengthening my muscles at the gym today when I realised that I haven't written on those verses in Joshua 1 that I said in January I would ponder this year. In fact I haven't pondered them much at all recently. 

My recent thoughts have been more about what do Christians really mean when they say things like, "I was doing it in my own strength, not God's." It can tend to be a throw-away cliche, but what does it really mean?

It's very common in Japan to see old trees with their branches
propped up with bamboo sticks.

At conference last week we had an unexpected 30 minutes after the final Bible talk to do individual reflection. The passage we'd heard about was in Colossians 1, but I went searching further into the book for answers about the above question.

I pondered if, when we do things in God's strength we are dwelling in God's word (4:16) and working as if for the Lord, not for human masters (3:23). I wonder if we're working in God's strength if we're doing it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and always giving thanks to God. (3:17). Whether, when we're using the gifts God gives us (1 Tim. 4:10-11), we're serving in God's strength, not our own.


I also wondered if we're doing things in God's strength, our actions will look more like those in Colossians 3:12-15: compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, and loving.

I did a lot of pondering in that half an hour.

I looked briefly at Paul's prayer for the Ephesians (3:14-21), where he talks about strength quite a lot: asking that God would strengthen the Christians through his Holy Spirit. That they would have the strength to comprehend the entirety of Christ's love for them. He mentions the "power at work within us". I wonder if we're keeping our eyes on Jesus, whether we'll be more aware of the power at work in us, God's power?

Now back to those verses in Joshua, Here's what God said to Joshua after Moses died and Joshua was about to take the whole of Israel across a raging Jordan River (it was in flood) and into the promised land:

"No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5-9 NIV)

In one way it looks like God's telling him to be strong in his own strength, but read in context I think it says, "Be strong because you know who's backing you. I'm there with you and if you do it my way, then you will be successful." "Successful" of course being God's definition of it, not ours!

And I think that's where we often get caught, we think up a definition of success and aim at that: like number of baptisms in a church or number of people attending the church on a Sunday. We count the number of missionaries who are on the field or how much money's been given towards their needs. We even look at how many people "like" our social media pages and how many posts get shared. All these are good things, but I wonder how God measures success, because sometimes I think we're doing the best we can to judge if we're "on target" but in actual fact we don't know quite what God deems "success".

But, there it is, I've gone off topic. 

When you hear "I was doing it in my strength, not God's", what do you think of? How do you know when that is true of you?

One boy thinking about home assignment

I found one of our younger two boys making this table the other day. He's processing what home assignment this year means in his life. I asked his permission to share and he asked me to block out the items he'd listed.

It is, actually, not too different to how we decided if going on home assignment in July for six months was going to work for our family. Following on from my post yesterday about making it up as we go, this is part of it: weighing up the pros and cons of any decision according to the information you have. The key difference, I think, to parenting in your home country is that you often have a lot less information to work with and a lot more unknown variables.

What's interesting about this list that you can't see is that some items appear on both the pros and cons list, for example "food". Yep, there are things about both Japan and Australia that my boys enjoy and food is one. But when we're in one country they do miss the other!

This year's phrase to ponder

On New Year's Day I pondered here about selecting a Scripture passage to ponder for this year (and especially committed to writing about it here monthly), like I did the last time we went back to Australia (2014). Last time I pondered the first three verses of Hebrews 12. Really, those are verses that I never don't want to ponder, like a life "verse", except it is longer than one verse.

So I wondered if there was a different verse/verses that would be good for this year of transition, thinking perhaps there wouldn't be. But on Monday I went to our monthly regional OMF prayer and fellowship day and the short devotional was on Joshua 1. These words especially impacted me:

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9 NIV).

Great words that struck me as very appropriate. God said these to Joshua after Moses died and before he led Israel into the Promised Land (after they'd left slavery in Egypt and wandered in the dessert for 40 years). Imagine how much impact that would have had!

It turns out that these phrases are often repeated in various forms in Scripture and thus aren't just good for meditating on, but allow scope for studying a bit more over the year (or at least some of the year) in blog posts.

This isn't a new year's resolution, just a theme that I want to keep coming back to as we go through a big year of transition.

I find it easy to be fearful in the face of transition, as I encounter big changes and challenges. And that's obviously where Joshua stood when he heard these words. What we're doing isn't nearly so big (leading a nation of more than one million people into an occupied land to live!) So these words were obviously well chosen by God.

Yesterday I was riding home with a bike-full of groceries and feeling tight around the chest with all the things on my mental to-do list as well as some relationship issues that I'd been reminded of during the previous couple of days. Maybe you could sense that anxiety in my blog post yesterday. As I sat at a set of traffic lights I repeated to myself: "Be strong and courageous. Don't be afraid or discouraged. God is with you." I could feel the tension releasing, even as I rode off.

It was excellent self-talk and timely.

I'll be circling back to these phrases in the coming months around the start of each month. Stick around and see where it leads me!

Reflecting on two years of life

Yesterday I had a two-year-review with my mission. Seeing as we've been here since December 2000, this must be about my eighth time to do it.

It's not my favourite thing to do, but I understand it is necessary. It can seem like just another form to fill out and another meeting, but it is a significant way that our mission cares for their members. 

Here's an example of some of the questions on the form we have to fill out:

In what ways has the Lord blessed you since your last two year review?

Here is a list of emotions (13 of them). From this list choose the emotions that have characterised your life since your last review. Feel free to add any that aren't listed.

Describe significant friendships in your life since your last review.

This is one part of inner-city Tokyo! I was standing
outside the coffee shop we met in when I took this.
It was later in the day and my phone didn't quite
capture that it was a gorgeous, sparkly day with
no clouds in sight. 

I wrote about it on this blog when I did it four years ago, you'll find a more of the questions we have to answer there  They are good questions, though they can be challenging to answer. They do force you think about your life, and not just your working life. It can feel a bit intrusive, but the intent is, as I've said, to care for us. Hopefully, if people are honest, it is a forum for potential problems or issues that need dealing with to be raised.

If you've read this blog for any length of time you'll know that I like to reflect on life, but reflecting over a whole two years is challenging. Especially when it's guided and quite specific reflection! But it's a good exercise to go through and I think I'm encouraged.

One of the things that came up while I reflected was that a discouragement I often feel is thinking that I'm a second-class missionary (or thinking that other people think I am one) because I don't have great Japanese and because I'm not involved in church-related ministry. My line manager did her best to knock that one on the head. I think it is a way the Enemy likes to attack me and something I need to be vigilant about refuting. I know and heartily defend the need for support missionaries, but somehow I still get personally discouraged. I really need to stop comparing myself to others, to stop envying others. I need to stop being so concerned about what others may or may not think, and just do what God has for me with the abilities he's given me.

On a lighter note, you might like to know where we did this. It was in a way that's not untypical of Japan: we met in a coffee shop. We live a long way apart and the office is a long way from me and I rarely go there. Not quite so long for my manager, but we've met about various things before and our meeting place of choice is a coffee shop at Ochanomizu, a bustling centre in the Tokyo metro area. It's been a while since we met there, so it was good to go back.

A question of ageing

I did it again today: I had to do maths to figure out which number in my 40s belongs to me right now! This is something that younger people find hard to believe, but it does happen. Yes, I'm middle aged now! No denying that.

So young! In my mid-20s.

I was talking to a married friend recently who is also in her 40s, but a couple of years behind me. She told me that she'd been troubled on her birthday this year. She raised a question I hadn't thought specifically about before: 

How should we approach our mid-life in a godly way? What are good thought patterns in the face of the realisation that our bodies are ageing (though by no means old) and that we are no longer young?

There is a grief inherent, even in your 40s, about not being young anymore and the relentlessness of ageing.

Of course I've thought about the fact that I'm not young anymore. But when married women talk about this stage of life, we tend to talk about—grief about not having young children anymore, grief at children moving out of home, learning to cope with couple-dom again, coping with young children even though you are older, menopause, ageing parents, busyness of life, the physical changes that come, mentoring/coaching younger women, childless-ness, mid-life crisis, raising teenagers, etc.

But not about how to think about ageing, or how to approach it in a godly way.

I did some quick online searching and there's stuff about the above topics too, but I struggled to find anything (quickly) on this topic.

I have some half-formed thoughts, but I know that there are quite a few of you out there who read this who are a similar age, or older. And so I'm putting this out there for you to contribute your thoughts. Have you got a good book recommendation? What has helped you as you've moved into your 40s or 50s? What advice can you give?

And please, I know that women who are older than us will be tempted to say, "But you aren't old..." Please don't. We know we aren't as old as you. We're just trying to make sense of where we are and that where you are, we will be some day soon.

Parenting and overdoing it

I'm sitting around at 5pm on a Friday, trying to figure out what to put here on this blank page. All I can think about is how much time parenting still takes, even though my boys are 17, 14, and 11. 

Grocery shopping is one part of my life influenced by how
many kids I have in my family and how much they eat. 

This afternoon, with two boys gone on school trips (and my husband too), it is all too quiet around here. It makes me think about how much time I usually spend in my day doing things that I only do because I have children (or, perhaps more of what I would normally do, such as grocery shopping or food preparation which takes longer because there are five of us). 

I guess I should start getting used to it. It won't be too long before we are one boy less, with our eldest son graduating in June and heading back to Australia next February and from then on things just gradually decrease, with my youngest, Lord willing, graduating in just six more years.


Because, as a mum, children take up so much of your time over so many years, it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling that that it is your purpose, your main reason for being on this earth, and that there is nothing else worth doing. Yet, it is not so. I had a life before I had kids. (They're always surprised to hear that.) It's going to take some rediscovering, but I'll have it again—a life without kids in it on a daily basis. After 24 years of parenting it will take some getting used to, but I'm already dreaming about the possibilities.

Now the challenge: can I transition from that train of thought into what I really want to post today?

Here's my transitioning thought: because parenting takes up more time than you think, it's easy to take on too much outside the family. 

This is especially true for cross-cultural workers. I had lunch with four other mums from our mission today. We've got kids across a range of ages: from  twenty-two down to four years old. We talked about this and generally agreed that parenting as a cross-cultural mum takes more time and emotional energy that it would if we were in our home countries. This is especially around times of major transition.

Earlier this week I saw this post that talks about the need for caution when it comes to taking care of ourselves, especially as those in cross-cultural ministry.

I was shocked a few years ago when I read that someone was calling for more accountability of cross-cultural workers, that the writer's experience included many who were lazy, who weren't wise in how they spent their time, and that the churches supporting them needed to call them to account. That is not my experience at all. 

Most cross-cultural workers I see tend to have trouble stopping. At least that is the case in Japan. They need to be urged to take holidays and retreat times. They need articles like the one I've linked to above to remind themselves to take care of themselves.

Here's quote from the article:

I must choose each moment to live above the guilt and rest in the certainty that God loves me more than he needs me. If I disable myself by recklessly overdoing, I do a disservice to Him and to those who love me.

It makes me think of parenting again. If I get into the mode of thinking my purpose is to be a mum, if being needed by them is my main reason for living, that leads to a bad place. And it isn't helpful for the phase of life that I'm standing on the precipice of: when my boys won't "need" me as intensely and daily as they used to.

Someone else who has written about slowing down recently is our Japan Field Director. He's been battling two types of blood cancer for about a year now. He's currently recuperating at home after a particularly rigorous round of chemo and a stem-cell transplant. He's a high achieving fellow, who, by his own words, used to "whizz...around like a hare". These days life for him is more like the famous tortoise. Here are some of the words from a Facebook post of his earlier in the month:

All of this has got me thinking about what it means to slow down. And it has got me thinking about what the Bible has to say about the pace of life. Certainly when you ponder the Bible generally, there are many examples of ‘waiting’ and ‘perseverance’, topics I've explored in earlier musings. The word ‘patience’ or ‘patiently’ comes up not a few times. But when I thought of the word ‘slow’ I couldn't think of many specific examples apart from a few well-known verses. So, the Lord is slow to anger. In the same way, we should be slow to anger and slow to speak (but quick to listen!) Peter speaks about slowness towards the end of his second letter in the context of time - with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. 

As I considered this more, I came across this translation of Jeremiah 2:25. It's from The Message, so a paraphrase but nonetheless it makes the point very graphically - “Slow down. Take a deep breath. What's the hurry? Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway? But you say, 'I can't help it. I'm addicted to alien gods. I can't quit.'” We may not be addicted to ‘alien gods’ but could we simply be addicted to activity and busyness? And all of that could just be a ‘chasing after the wind’ as one of the Bible’s wisdom books puts it. Or as one of the Psalms says - ‘in vain you rise early and stay up late’. There are quite a few ‘ouch’ passages in the Bible when we measure them against what our daily lives are actually like.

Many of us these days seem to live life simply moving from one thing to the next with little time in between to catch our breath, far less having time to reflect, meditate or even spend some unrushed time with God. And that can creep into family life, church life, corporate life, organisational life. There is so much to keep up with. But that begs some questions. Why do we need to keep up with the things we feel we need to keep up with? And are the things that we strive to keep up with the things we really need to be keeping up with at all? One valuable lesson that can be learned in the slow lane is simply to be able to take stock, reassess and consider what the priorities in life really ought to be. 

None of this is to say we should be lazy or live a life of constant leisure. There is plenty the Bible can teach us about that. But for a follower of Jesus, what should mark us out as different, what are the things that day by day should be core to our lives? Certainly we would want to serve him wholeheartedly and live our lives in a way that brings glory to his name. But while we might desire to be ‘about the Lord’s work’ to use an older phrase, that does not seem to me to mean that we should simply be dashing around in a constant blur of activity. As I have this time in the slow lane, I sometimes wonder whether as Christians, as churches, as mission organisations, we can easily get off track because we are so busy and active that we can actually no longer see the wood for the trees. And I know that as I say that, I am gradually needing to remove the plank from my own eye (if a tortoise can have a plank in its eye). Being forced to slow down is teaching me many things. I just hope I can apply these lessons well if I ever reach the point once again when I am healthy, energy-filled and able to be active. Help me God even then to be still and know that you are God.

Hmm, good words to ponder. I've got a quiet weekend coming up. I am not good at being still, I get bored easily, though I am quite tired right now. I'm praying that God will help me to be still a bit this weekend, and not too restless.

Work and faith

I've just finished reading this book about how biblical faith applies to our working lives (that includes non-paid work). I loved it. It says so many of the things that I have thought about but not sat down to apply words to. 

I'm finding myself talking to a lot of people about it. So, despite being bad at writing book reviews, I'll take a shot at writing about the book because this is really something every Christian should read, no matter what kind of work they do. And I want to consolidate my thoughts about it. Like other books by the same author, I got through it and immediately felt like I could read it again, just to give myself time to digest it. Maybe I read too fast?

Work is good 
First Keller frames work as something God has designed us to do. In fact God led the way by working himself and delighting in it (Genesis 1:31; 2:1). He also commissions humans to take care of his creation, and that doesn't just mean environmental protection, it means the work of providing food, of caring for all living things, populating the earth, discovering new things etc. 

Work was in the world before the Fall, meaning it was always God's plan that we should work. "Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our souls. Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness" (p 37). I've seen this again and again in people who have had their lives disrupted by illness, injury, or life's circumstances (like unemployment or transcontinental moves with spouses).

This statement stood out to me:

Work is so foundational to our makeup, in fact, that it is one of the few things we can take in significant doses without harm. (p37)

It makes me think about the culture we have in Australia of worshipping leisure time and whether that is okay if my worldview is to be a Christian. I even wonder about seemingly innocent comments like Garfield makes about the horror of Mondays!

It also makes me less concerned about myself in some ways. I hate boredom, sometimes I fuddle around so that I don't get to the end of a list and run into the issue of not having anything to do. This obsession with having stuff to do concerns me sometimes. I know about the trap of busyness, that we are not the sum total of our schedule and that I shouldn't just fill up my schedule so that I feel meaningful. However, it is as natural as breathing that we should be desiring to do meaningful work. 

However the drive to work is tainted by a broken world. The book comes next to this dilemma about how our drive to work can be a drive to save ourselves.

Problems with work
Keller talks about the problems we have with work. Particularly that work can become fruitless, pointless, selfish and that it reveals our idols. This was not an enjoyable part of the book, I have to say, but important in helping understand why, work become such a problem for us.

Sin has entered the world, so even though work itself is not bad, it gets affected, just like every other part of creation.

"Part of the curse of work in a fallen world is its frequent fruitlessness" (p.90). Keller explains that this fruitlessness includes being able to envisage that we'll achieve far more than we actually manage, that various factors mean that our aspirations will be curtailed. Conflict, pain, illness, envy, fatigue etc. Even satisfaction with the quality of your work but not getting the results you want. For example a talented musician or artist who can't get a job to pay the bills using what they're best at doing. This is all evidence that we're not working in a perfect world.

The idols of work: we can end up working for recognition, choosing a career for wealth, or seeking power over others. "The New Testament reveals that the ultimate source of the tranquility we seek is Jesus Christ" (p112). "When we set our hope on an idol . . . we are saying to ourselves, 'If I had that, it would fix everything; then I'd feel my life really had value.'" That can be anything, from a job with a higher pay rate to one with greater prestige. Even becoming a missionary could be this.

Keller spent some time in Esther and says Esther is a pointer to Jesus. He challenges us to realise how loved we are. "Meditate on these things, and the truth will change your identity. It will convince you of your real, inestimable value. And ironically, when you see how much you are loved, your work will become far less selfish. Suddenly all the other things in your work life—your influence, your resume, and the benefits they bring you—become just things. You can risk them, spend them, and even lose them. You are free" (p127).

Hope for work
Keller challenges us to think out the Christian worldview's implications in our work life, and to not just being satisfied with superficial answers like "be honest" or "not sleeping with coworkers" or even "start a prayer meeting with Christian co-workers".

He gives an example about journalists, one that speaks to me as a writer and editor. He says we should be writing stories of redemption and renewal, sacrifice and perseverance rather than stories about neglect and blame. He looks at other areas too, like the arts, medicine, education.

I can look a bit at the missionary world. It's easy to fall into the trap of making idols of sacrificing ourselves, we can set ourselves up as models to be admired, or we can do our jobs at a standard that is less than it could be done. We can neglect our family and our spouses all in the name of "the work". We can even look down on others who aren't working as missionaries.

The point is, just because we are Christians doesn't mean we're living out our faith fully in our work.

Some ways we can bring our Christian worldview into our work
Workers are told in the Bible to be wholehearted (Eph 6:5). Our motive for working is "as if [we] were serving the Lord". Keller assures us that Christians are set free to enjoy working and that work is a way to please God.

Christians are to work with "sincerity of heart" i.e. with focus and integrity (p215). 

Being courteous and respectful as well as humbly confident. I've seen this modelled my whole life by my parents. Until they retired a few years ago they ran a business from our home. These attitudes characterised them. 

"Christians should also be known for being calm and poised in the face of difficulty or failure. This may be the most telling way to judge if a person is drawing on the resources of the gospel on the development of personal character" (p220).

"If we have an integrated and non-dualistic understanding of work, we know that many people who are not believers are, through God's providence and common grace, given gifts to do excellent work. So we will respect and treat those who believe differently as valued equals in the workplace—at the same time we will be unashamed to be identified with Jesus. If a Christian avoids both of these errors, he or she will be striking an unusual and healthy balance" (p221).

There is a great story on p218 of a Christian manager who took the blame for a big mistake an employee made. She asked why and he finally admitted it was because he'd experienced grace from God. Jesus had taken the blame for things he'd done wrong and that gave him the desire and freedom to do the same for others. 

As I've mentioned earlier, don't assume that because someone is in full-time Christian ministry that they are working in a way that glorifies God. We all are deeply sinful. The flip-side of that is that God's love and grace are incredibly vast. I love this prayer of Paul's: 

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph 3:17-19, NIV).

I cringe occasionally when I see people in full-time Christian ministry who act without confidence (cringing or servile) or don't do things to the best of their ability. 

I'm also shocked when a missionary is surprised when I am generous or gentle in my dealings with them as an editor.

There's lots to think about in this book. I do recommend that you get a hold of a copy and mull it over.

Friday's roundup

This is what I've been doing this week. It's been refreshing to get away from my daily grind in chilly Tokyo and think about bigger picture things. 

The course has stimulated my thinking and now I have to go away and see how I can apply this to my not-so-traditional team. 

Today we've been given the task of doing three assignments of our own choosing in the next six months. A really good strategy for getting participants to interact with and reflect on what they've learned during the workshop. Creating your own assignments is interesting!

I'm thinking especially about:

• the special elements in my team: 
• a geographically dispersed team: three countries 
• multicultural team: three nationalities
• almost all communication by email
• many members have never met each other (I've met everyone barring one)
• very task oriented
• all team members barring me have significant other roles
• our team frequently changes
• how to help our team function better, eg. by getting to know one another
• conflict styles, understanding those better.
• different team models. The one we were presented with doesn't fit my team situation really well. I wonder if there is a better model.
• motivational types: this is something a friend mentioned to me over lunch a couple of weeks ago that is related to what we've been learning about this week. I'm thinking it's inevitable that I've got members who are motivated by different things. I want to investigate a little.

But tonight it is flying back to Tokyo. 

I'm leaving my accommodation at 6.45pm in a taxi (that is 8.45 Tokyo time, and 9.45 Queensland time). My flight leaves at 10.30, which is after midnight in Japan and Australia. We get in at 6.15am and then I need to catch a few trains back home (which will take a couple of hours). I may stop at a coffee shop on the way out of the airport to catch my breath and some caffeine before I plunge into the Tokyo train system again!