Foretaste

I read and hear people often talk about heaven and what it would like to be in heaven and how they would like to experience heaven on earth. I’ve found these musings intriguing from a background that always left heaven for where God is and where we’ll never go as I’ve read me bible. In any case the paradise picture that they all endeavour to paint is very much one based on what our imagination can put together from current experiences and the level to which it is liberated to explore all possibilities. For some heaven is about having all your pleasures given to you and sensual overload of that which is pleasing to you. I don’t have a problem with utopian thinking indeed I reckon its only limitation is that it doesn’t quite match the vision of eternity with God. That’s the only problem.

Still, I was doing a reading onto tape for my dear friend, Ray. First one I’ve done and I really enjoyed it, I’d want to do more of those if the opportunity arose. The book was Alex Robertson’s Manifesto for a Revolution: The Kingdom of God on Earth. The nature of the recording challenged me to at least retain some of the points made by the author as I summarised what was going on from tape to tape. That beat the way I usually read and also helped me to grapple with some of the issues better. Among other things mentioned in the book is how things like healings that we see in our day are actually foretastes of that great kingdom to come when Jesus’ millennial reign ends and He passes it onto His Father who wipes all tears from our eyes and removes sickness, suffering, pain, etc.

I like the concept of foretastes. I see them in scripture, littered in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles. They are identified in church history and for those privileged enough they even pop up in our lives. Those glimpses of the glory ahead when Dad says enough is enough to this decaying, rusty old world and ushers in a new heaven and new earth so He can be with His people and His people can eternally be in Him.

At this difficult time in my life it is often a source of great encouragement to get triggers to those foretastes that I’ve read, heard, seen and especially experienced in my brief time on the planet. Those triggers and those foretastes have not happened in the stereotypical places of church services, but often in the quite amazing places – one happened whilst shopping in Tescos, can you believe it? God even shows a glimpse of His glory in Tescos!

Like last night watching Law Abiding Citizen and the consciousness of the three major forces that opposes the disciple of Christ – Satan, the World and the Flesh (aka me). How the world’s system is so inherently corrupt that the only option is to actually subscribe to a kingdom that is not of this world and which will one day completely overwhelm all worldly kingdoms. It makes sense not to try and oppose the system or even spend too much time investing it, but to actually focus on living for the kingdom come that One before ushered into our hearts by Calvary, the empty tomb and Pentecost.

The whole point though is of foretaste and the triggers thereof, and as you know I have to slum it using the wife’s laptop, which sucks for me who cannot be doing with all this cutey-cute small keys and small keyboard business. Anyhow it’s been a while since I’ve been able to watch YouTube stuff, and I had the song Golden Lady in me head and looked for covers of it especially looking for Frank McComb’s version, which is out of sight.

Then I came across this cover. I never heard the guy before in my life. Never heard of him, etc. I listened to the version and was suitably impressed by the quality and their own arrangement of the song which put another stamp on a beautiful song, adding another dimension of brilliance on a Wonder creation that Stevie must be really chuffed about. Then after listening to the song I took the time to watch the video itself and saw musical harmony interspersed with genuine enjoyment of the musically act and the unity involved in both and the mutual submission of sax to vocalist and vice-versa before trying a riff together.

That gave me a foretaste of a time without bickering, division, antagonism, but mutual submission, harmony in praise of our glorious Father and peoples of all ethnicities gathered round to sing those songs in a way that reminds me of this musical effort. One day. One day. And until then God grants me the privilege of being a member of the Body of Christ and in the small ways and relationships with brothers and sisters of Christ I get to play a part in reflecting that quality to a world watching on to see what the alternative looks like.

Foretastes – I love them. I would love to experience more and get others too share in it as well. This is not all there is to life, but there is something that we get glorious glimpses of now even now whilst we wait and work until the Master comes. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd

All You Need To Know About Everything In Seven Minutes

It’s worth providing a personal update before getting into the beef of the thought that inspired a return to this type of blogging for the better part of a month. Well since last I blogged I’ve had to deal with a number of traumatic issues in settling into the new place that we’re in. I had expected it to take a while to settle, but did not take into consideration the extent of the overhaul that would be necessary in the change.

Last week I was on a residential in North Wales with the bright young sparks of the YMCA where I work (under Danny Flynn pictured, tee-hee). It was an eye-opening time away and I learnt lots from it, which I’d love to share … but perhaps not for the time being. I came back from that on the ill side and although I attended a brilliant conference hosted by Jim Ford on Saturday the whole physical and mental exertion of the last week in particular caught up with me and hammered me body down especially with the breathing. So I’ve had to take these first three days of the week off in a bid to get the medical experts to offer their diagnosis of my plight as well as to recuperate somewhat.

There are still outstanding big picture issues to be resolved in the short term for the health and safety of those concerned, especially me, but it would be good if I was healthy to be able to deal with these issues, so I have to relax a bit more, take things a bit easier and pace myself. One of the things that’s obviously suffered in all this has been the blogging which is a pity as it’s one of the things that I’ve enjoyed the most, so being able to blog now has been a huge relief and over at Among Friends (AF), I’ve been picking things up slowly but surely. I expect it to take a few more weeks before I can really get a settled rhythm of life going in the new order and that’s not taking into account the impending family changes as exams, holidays, moves and other changes loom large on the horizon! Oh the fun of being Christopher Dryden – to be fair I wouldn’t have it that different, only thing I would change is … well I’ll leave that for another blog entry.

So although I’ve not been able to blog as often as I’d like – and I never appreciated what effort is really required for this type of blogging until recently – I have been able to keep up a steady pace of reading which has been a saving grace for me in these tricky times. I hope to be able to post some of the reviews of that over on AF in the weeks and months to come.

Right onward with the topic at hand. Once again I’m struck by something whilst watching CBeebies. Come Outside features Aunt Mabel as played by Lynda Baron who I’m sure was also famous for being somewhat of hot crumpet from some leering middle aged guys back in the 1980’s. Indeed thanks to the power of the InterWeb I can confirm that yes she was that bit of crumpet in the ever ‘funny’ Open All Hours. (She was in Eastenders as well, apparently, but who cares about that?)

Of course in this programme she does not play any crumpet of any kind, but bizarrely a middle aged upwards lady with a dog who goes on adventures by plane, because obviously just because you’re middle aged upwards and have a dog doesn’t mean you cannot fly a plane … or own it … or live in a place that requires you to make the majority of your journeys by plane. I sometimes wonder what the inspiration behind these children’s programmes is.

Oh and as a quick side note, as a secular reference to a spiritually deep issue I just want to give a shout out to Prodigal Jon’s ace blog entry on this issue. Read it here to find the best excuses to watch funny programmes and keep your halo on!

Anyway, Come Outside doesn’t have the place in my heart that Thomas the Tank Engine or Balamory have because basically it is boring most of the time. (If I have just committed sacrilege with such an outrageous statement, by all means join the Facebook Appreciation Society and start the petition against me.) Indeed I only turned it on as a set up for Deborah once she got changed, as CBeebies is their channel of choice.

In any case, as I turned it on Aunt Mabel was concluding her explanation of the marmalade making process. She finished with something along the lines of ‘that’s all there is to know about making marmalade’. I’m not being super-critical, after all this is a programme aimed at people around Deborah’s age and it is of some educational value for children to appreciate what goes behind the things they may take for granted.

Yet I was there thinking to myself that here is a programme that can be no more than 15 minutes, some of which is spent on introduction, closing, a story and the routine shots of Barron and dog being clipped into their plane for the ride. So let’s generously give them 7 minutes and in those 7 minutes they’ve been able to explain everything there is to know about the process of making marmalade. I got the impression, however, that there might be more to it than the time given and if it did only take seven minutes to explain everything there is to know about making marmalade then maybe it’s not worth the hassle of consuming the product.

That got me thinking then about the way we read the Bible especially in terms of things like creation. Now I’ve read Genesis 1 with a group of people before and I reckon it took less than 7 minutes, maybe a bit more, but it’s not that long a chapter to read at all. In there I’m led to believe is all there is to know about Creation, yet I look outside my window up the road where there’s greenery and in the sky with the various cloud formations and the promise of more rain (this is England, after all). I then think to myself that even if I were to indeed spend six days and six nights gazing at what forms creation I still wouldn’t be able to give all there is to know about creation.

Millions of words and images have been dedicated to the cause of explaining it. Billions of pounds have been invested in scientific exploration to eek out the secrets that lie within and without this curious star in space as to how on earth it came about. Entire lives have been consecrated to finding out and sharing with others what exactly it took to get to where we are. In all of that we still haven’t been to explain all there is to know about creation. We are still very much at the tip of the iceberg and all us believers are left with is seven minutes worth of reading to get us started in wonder and amazement as to how God put it all together.

Keith Green shares a wonderful sentiment in I Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven that if God took six days and six nights to put this universe into being imagine what it will be like to experience the new heaven and earth that he’s been working on to date over 2000 years! Or better yet, don’t bother trying to imagine something that is so mind-bogglingly beyond human comprehension and rest in the contentment of the hope of something even more wondrous than this fascinatingly complex ecological structure that provides our habitation.

All of this to say faith doesn’t stop us from fact finding, neither does it offer something simplistic to explain everything, what it does give us though is an extended hand from the Creator to begin exploring how amazing our planet is and how it reflects His creative heart and even in its fallen state there lies within it the keys to its eventual redemption. That should take considerably more than seven minutes or even seven days.

For His Name's Sake
Shalom
dmcd

To Hell With Hell

Don’t know if I’ve talked about hell before, and this is not going to be an explanation of what it is and it isn’t. This entry comes about though, as I am reliably informed that people seem to think that their existence here on earth is hell. I can sympathise to a degree with their plight. A lot of people around the world are living in varying degrees of hardship, persecution, torture, suffering and torment that few would be able to cope with. For all that though, I still think this is a cheap view of hell, even as we have a pretty cheap view of heaven as our mortal finite concepts and imaginations only give brief glimpses and hints as to what beauty awaits us should we be found in Christ on His return.

In any case, for all the misery that people are enduring to different extents in different contexts I get the impression that the role of a peacemaker (part of the deal of those who follow Christ) is to bridge the gap between the perception of their hellish existence and a path of seeing it from a godly perspective which doesn’t always alleviate the physical circumstances necessarily but allows the spirit of love, joy, peace and righteousness to inform the view of that circumstance. In this way it’s the chance to see the answer to the prayer of the heavenly kingdom seen on earth as we replace the person’s sense of hell with our best Spirit-driven efforts to announce and reveal heaven on earth. So to hell with the hell that people endure and let the righteousness, beauty and joy of the presence of Christ pervade the lives of those to whom we come in contact through our word and witness. That means it’s as much a glass of water, a listening ear and relief of pain as it is the proclamation of God’s love expressed in Christ’s sacrifice.

Now let me get this clear. My heart does break at hearing the kind of things people have to go through and the lack of love, respect and basic necessities people endure through, but it’s very true to me that while there’s life there is a glimmer of hope in that situation. That is why it’s not hell to me. Also when I note how some cultures and communities rise above their plight and are able to carry on and persevere through the trials – check those who went through slavery – then there’s no reason to accept the status quo. Real hell would be not even having that opportunity or glimmer to see things from God’s perspective. Real hell would be never having a chance to see that brighter future in Christ. Real hell would be eternity without God.

This though also runs into the issue about what heaven is like and the arguments that people put to me as to why it would be boring ig everything was perfect and how we need the evil to appreciate the good. I’ve never found these arguments to be particularly convincing. Sure if I never had a problem I wouldn’t know God could solve them, but that’s only because I wouldn’t need God to solve them and presumably our relationship would revert to how it was with Adam and God pre-Fall and what Jesus indicates in His time on earth. I so want to open up people to the fact that we were not meant to be this way, and this way is not going to stay with us forever. There’s got to be something in a perspective on perfection that helps us realise ourselves and just how hard the discrepancy is. I believe that is available in and only through Christ.

I also think this informs us as to the whole issue of living this life to see the kingdom come but also living in the light of the fact that this is not our resting place, this is not our abiding home, but there is one to come and we so want to see it and invite others to live today in the light of that eternity.

For His Name's Sake
Shalom
da man cd