Deeper Words From The Heart

“They say actions speak louder than words but sometimes we have to hear the voice behind the gesture”

Social media reminded me it’s been about a year since I wrote these words. The challenge from ‘A few words from the heart’ was to speak more love, how’s that been going? Have we been more intentional, is it getting less weird, is it making a difference?

As I've been asking myself these questions I've been thinking about the words from others that have mean the most to me…. A couple of weeks ago my grandma died, and for a while there I wasn't doing so great, in the midst of that and being nine and a half thousand miles from home one of my friends turned around to me and said “I'm glad you’re here, you might not be, but I am.” Those words weren't appreciating me for my bubbly personality or my terrible British sense of humour, I certainly wasn't filling the room with joy. These words simply said I appreciate your existence, not for what you do (because I wasn't capable of doing anything) but just for who you are.

For me that is the perfect example of how we can love better. Yes complimenting someone on their cute shirt, beautiful voice or the fact they just gave you the last malteser is great. But just turning around to someone and saying ‘I like you?’ It can be a hard thing to say and an even harder thing to hear. Society might say love is conditional , heaven says otherwise. Jesus said it all the time “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9) A father loves a baby from the moment they are born, before that tiny human does, acts, speaks or loves they have received love. Existing is enough to gain the fathers love and if it’s good enough for God then its good enough for me.

Appreciating someone from the heart to the heart is so game changing it's got to be difficult right? Not everyone has a nice little situation going on for you to easily speak into and make them feel better, what about if I'm glad for the existence of someone who isn't sad, lonely or depressed? Well here's a little secret, 3 words that work every time, "I like you." If you want to go crazy you could even try "I really like you" or "I just think you are great" fun fact: these words are unlikely to result in someone smacking you in the face.

So as spring (or autumn in the southern hemisphere) rolls around, ask yourself, who am I grateful for today? And do something daring.
Tell them!

“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7

P.S. I like you x

How did I get here?

As the warm breeze blows through my hair my question is "Who am I to deserve this?" Never in my wildest dreams did sitting here in Australia feature. I didn't even know Townsville was a place. Yet here I am learning about health care surrounded by internal and external beauty.

I guess this became my life and my future the moment I spoke "Here I am Lord send me" although I never expected that to look like well, this. But Lord you did, you knew what would be in my future. Although I can't answer why me, you can. You know, you designed me for a purpose and a function, to live a specific life. If I had never asked, listened, or accepted I for sure would not be here. This was not part of my plan. Yet your plans are SO much greater. Because you care for me and plan for me better than I do myself. You never once asked me to be in something you are not, you've never take me to a place outside of your control, never called me to do something you didn't equip me for.

I guess that's the beauty of life with Jesus, it's bigger, better and way beyond anything I could do myself, and when you think of it that way, why ever hesitate to say yes?

"My dear brothers and sisters be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain" 1 Corinthians 15:58

Why the FOMO?

So you might remember a while back (September 2014) I wrote a blog “what the FOMO” and I said the conversation wasn't over? Well over a year later I can tell you for sure it isn’t. In fact after writing my dissertation on Personality and Fear of Missing Out I could probably tell you more about it than you would ever want or need to know. But for now let’s not go there.

I have found my FOMO has crept back in having moved back in to living in a crazy busy community. When I was working I didn’t experience FOMO, what I did wasn’t up for discussion, if I chose to hang out with my friends instead of going to work I would be fired. But when the decision is between going to the beach or the mall, FOMO is rife. FOMO seems to be a lot related to freewill. It’s made me question WHY? As a psychology student I’ve seen how all our emotions and feelings have a purpose, as a Christian I’ve wondered how can we harness this purpose for the gospel?

FOMO makes us engage, we see people having supposedly a ‘better time’ than us and we want in. We worry about missing out on the best opportunities, making the best friends and not having the experiences we need for the best future. Now in my book the best opportunity, the best friend and the best hope for the future is Jesus. He is the answer to all that we are looking for. As Christians shouldn’t people look at us, at the lives we have in Jesus and ask “what am I missing out on?”

Now I am not saying we should go around trying to induce FOMO, people rarely get FOMO because they are told to experience it, like I said it comes from a place of freewill not force. People just see life happening around them and they want to be part of it, all of it. Many people think Christian life is boring, but I can tell you when following Jesus mean you end up on a plane to Australia and have beaches you could never have dreamed of visiting on your doorstep following Jesus is beyond exciting. The problem is we are often afraid to live out the dreams and passions God has put inside us, we live a quiet life because we don’t want to scare people away from the gospel. Well sorry to tell you this but it just ain’t working. Jesus didn’t live a boring life. He calmed storms, walked on water and partied at weddings. His disciples probably experienced more adrenaline from one day with Jesus than you and I do on a yearly basis.

If we want to see people coming to Jesus we need to be living out crazy lives that he has for us. The Christian life is SO attractive but we don’t let people see it. If we did, I think we’d see quite a lot of Jesus FOMO going on. After all he is the answer.

Love your neighbour (and your landlord)

I want a bigger kitchen and a better shower, I want to live closer to town and further from my mother in - law, I want to live with more than 6 people but less than 4, I want, I want I want....
It appears to be that time of year where housing is a hot topic, people getting married searching for a first house, new jobs in new cities in the new year, students looking for houses for next year. It can be exciting, adventurous and stressful and it can definitely bring out the worst in people.

Such important decisions make us more fussy than normal. After all, your house is the place you spend so much time, it's where you relax, it's a place you feel safe. Why wouldn't you want it to be perfect. But what about it gives us the right to be self - centred and consumerist? Settling for nothing but our ideal and then complaining that it's too expensive!
We strive for what we want and don't think about others along the way.

Last time I checked Jesus told us to "love your neighbour" Not "love your neighbour unless you are homeless, then forget everyone else and be a selfish as you like!"

You buy a house and squeeze everything you can out of the previous owner. You scream at your landlord until they've bought you a new TV and you cry about your housemates until they're doing your washing up everyday. Where in the gospel in that?
Shouldn't we be looking out for the homeless and the vulnerable? Reaching out to those with no one to live with even if that wasn't our first choice? Taking the focus of I want to what Jesus wants?

I always thought living in a small 4 person house full of girls would be my worst nightmare. I imagined it being quiet, boring and bitchy. So when I felt God leading my to live with my housemates I panicked. But it was for from what I imagined. It was fun, loving, loud but peaceful and the biggest blessing. God knew what I needed.

It turns out what I want isn't always what he wants from me.

I Just Can't Say No.

Maybe your schedule looks something like this: get up, miss breakfast, drink half your cup of tea, check e-mails on the way to work, attempt to do your job whilst mentally planning your evening, do 10 million jobs for your colleagues, sweet talk your boss, stress on the way home about how you double booked post work drinks, dinner with friends and grannys birthday, arrive late for hockey training spend half-time creating a Facebook event for that charity gig you agreed to organise, get home and realise you have no clean clothes and then set the machine to the wrong setting and shrink all your clothes because you were trying to learn an action song for Sunday school at the same time.

Or maybe it’s more like this: Sleep through your alarm because you were out too late at multiple social events, run to lectures, send-emails in class, spend the afternoon in the library trying to write an essay but actually doing that group power point you agreed to make, give up to run to a coffee date which you cut short to go an shoot a society promo video, eat? Go to football training and turn up to house-dinner with mud in your hair, skip out early to see your course mates but sit in the pub designing flyers for the bowling social you agreed to run. Go home get into bed and don’t sleep because you still haven’t eaten or written that essay, and then do it all again tomorrow…

Sound familiar? Maybe you’re a BNOC (Big name: on campus/ on committee/ on your course/ obout the city/ oround the church/ of the company) or maybe you are just trying to be one. You might have status and recognition or maybe you are trying to get a few more people to notice you. I mean doing loads of stuff means you have ‘made it’ right? Even if you suck at it all as long as people see you as someone who is always there and up for helping out they are going to believe you have your life sorted, so you must be good right?

But here’s the deal, the more stuff we say yes to, the more we are saying no to. Before you notice it you can’t remember the last time you ate a meal without drying your hair at the same time, peace and a good nights sleep are a distance memory, acquaintances and friends blur into one and don’t even get me started on hanging out with Jesus.

Eventually, you break down and drop the ball on 10 things all at once, but not until you’ve spent a couple of weeks in denial about the fact you’re doing far too much. Wouldn't it be better it we accepted our human limitations and boundaries, said no to being part of that spice girls tribute band before we end up passed out in the middle of a meeting because we forgot about breakfast one to many times. What if we thought about what we were signing up to before we jumped at every chance to prove ourselves. What if instead of trying to please 110% of people I actually looked after me? We don't have to do nothing, but we don't have to do everything. There is no weakness in saying enough, actually it tends to get you quite a bit of respect. People see you making wise decisions and know that they can trust that when you say yes it's because you have the time to do the job well, everybody loves Mr reliable. After all its quality not quantity right?

Fun fact: business doesn't equal success or popularity and in the long term it won’t make you feel better about yourself. Culture might tell you if you run the world you’ll be happy, satisfied and appreciated. That achievement solves everything. But at the end of the day being a compulsive ‘yes’ person will not fulfil or sustain you, that comes solely from Jesus and his directions are simple: “Be still and know that I am God.”

You Have No Obligation

So it was my birthday a couple of days ago. I was slightly overwhelmed about the extent of love and well-wishing that I received. But what struck me the most was the love I received from people who simply didn't have too. Now the last thing I want this to be is a look at me and how much people love me post, that is not what I am trying to achieve here, and not at all what I believe. What I want to get at is, that other people achieved something so special by stepping out in love.

There are some people who we might feel ‘have’ to love us. That doesn't make their love any less meaningful or their generosity and less significant. But it does mean we can question the reason behind their gesture. Probably because we have all done that last minute dash to the shops to, grab-a-card-so-we-don’t-feel-guilty-about-seeing-someone-on-their-birthday-without-a-box-of-chocolates thing! (I have definitely been there). But when a gift comes through the door from a far off land, you know that person has gone to the extra effort when the day could have passed them by with no acknowledgement what so ever.

My question is, how can we achieve more of that? I want people to be left with that ‘WOW she really cares’ feeling every time they stand in a room with me. I LOVE peoples birthdays because I am a sucker for making a big deal out of people. But I seem so incapable of doing it without showering them in glitter, candles and cake. It might be slightly inappropriate to quote Katy Perry but she did want to “make it like your birthday every day”. My question is, how to we achieve that? In a busy world where I am eternally grateful for the day of the week on the corner of the white board and Facebook to remind me it’s someone’s birthday, how to I stay ahead of the game in spreading love?
Going back to the birthday card analogy, the biggest impact came from those people, who had no obligation; they didn't have to face you sheepishly without a card. Yet they chose to make an effort. People going out of their way to be kind, just because they “really really really really really really like you”

One of my favourite books of the Bible is James, mainly because I think it is a bit like “Christianity for dummies” in just 5 chapters we get so much advice in how to live a life dedicated to Jesus. Here’s 3 (of many) points I think he suggests in living a life of love, not obligation. “Be doers of the word" (1:22) if we are living out lives of love, acting on what we believe, people see it. They come into contact with this God of love, they get to experience a bit of this heaven we Christians rave about. They experience something extraordinary. How do we do that? We act, we clothe the homeless and feed the hungry, and we speak: “from the same mouth comes blessings and cursing” (3:10). I was in a reception class last week and we talked about using ‘our good hands and our nice words’. You might be surprised to hear that these kids didn't all go and take a new set of fingers out of their bags! Just as we can all be mean, all have that ability to be nice, I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in doing what we always do, that we forget we have the ability to make conscious decisions to bless people just by opening our mouths!

Finally “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” (4:6-8) We are not called to love others on our own, it is through the eyes of Jesus, by asking him to show us his heart and give us his grace for his children. Plain and simply it is not about us. Trying to live a glamorous and servant hearted life just doesn't work. Sometimes we have to sacrifice putting make up on before running to the post box to make sure that card arrives on time. You might chose to give up an hours sleep to get into the office early to put the kettle on, you might give your lunch to someone who is hungry, giving them your KitKat as well as your cheese sandwich!!!!

I'm a blue sky thinker but wouldn't it be awesome if we belonged to a world full of people who acted selflessly, affirmed each other daily and loved outrageously. I might have just made some ridiculous suggestions, but I honestly believe that as we press into the Lord he will change our hearts to make all these things possible.

The Mark of Something Beautiful.

It’s like staring an empty photo frame, or not having that last puzzle piece, you can be so close and yet so far, complete but not. It can creep up on you, a growing pain or ache, or it can be quick and obvious like breaking a bone or losing a limb. But once it’s there its blatant and un-dismissible, a longing sensation nothing else can disguise. Missing something. It can be a person, a place, an event. It can be hard to think of a life going on you are not part of, a place existing when you can’t see it, a world spinning you are not aware of. No matter how hard you try there is a feeling of absence that cannot be replaced.

It can leave you feeling sad, angry or upset, faced with a world of what ifs and what could have beens. But that feeling, that deep groan in your soul is the mark of something beautiful. It is the type of hole that is only left by experiencing something magical, something life changing, something irreplaceable. To miss something is to remember that you have loved. It is a perfect privilege to have experienced something so wonderful you feel lost without it. It is a reason to be thankful, to know you have known joy, a reminder of the sweetness of life.

Most days you can always be missing something, whether its friends, family, a place or an occasion. No person can be in 2 places at once. You can be at home missing sunny holiday beaches or away wishing you were here. It seems like a lose lose situation, as they say, the grass is always greener. But what an honor it is to have known something worth missing.

In an age of facebook memories, timehop and #throwbackthursday its all to easy to try and live in the past. Being caught up in what was is one way to be missing out on what is. Rather than bringing an extra ray of sunshine too often memories cast a shadow on a sunny day. Don’t get me wrong here I don't have a problem with reminiscing, I am such a sucker for a cheeky timehop repost. But it shouldn't stop you being in the present; if you aren't in the here and now how do you make new memories to be thankful for and new friends to be missing? Everyday life may not full of instagramable moments but it is full of life changing encounters, everyday blessings and indefinite opportunity.

We are where we are because we have a purpose. Because we have the chance to be someone's everyday blessing or gift them with a life changing moment. In living in the past how much are we not trusting in Gods plan for us today? How much do we question God wants to use us where we are? Because we have been blessed is that not a reason to be reaching others, to be spreading hope and love, if you are living in the past what does that say to the people you are with in the present? How often do we stand up and say "here I am send me" in our own town or workplace and with our current friends. God can use you in every moment and he wants to, he is there, he is waiting, the question is are you?

At the end of the day you will always be able to muster up a sense of missing something, let that reminder of being blessed be your motivation to be a blessing to others.

They say the grass is always greener, I say buy yourself a watering can and watch the flowers grow.