The Mood Hoover

One of the most memorable characters J K Rowling has left us with are the dementors.  Creatures that suck all joy out of the world as they feast on your soul.  These creatures are mood hoovers, everything feels bleak, everything joyful and happy is hoovered away.  Tragically we sometimes meet people like that, even more tragically sometimes we meet professing Christians who are like that.

As you talk to them the world is only full of problems, when you try to suggest a positive in a situation you are met by a "yes, but..." and the conversation continues on its mood hoovering way.  This simple should not be.  Joy, we are continually told in the scriptures is a mark of the believer.  Thankfulness and gratefulness similarly are to mark out the believer.  That's not to say we aren't realistic, we do not live with our head in the clouds pretending everything is great.  Christians know the broken reality of our cursed and fallen world better than anyone, we lament over it, we pray for Christ to come.  But Christians are not to be the real world's dementors.

Rather we live full of the deep rooted settled joy that comes from being a loved child of God, loved, redeemed, reconciled at the cost of Jesus death for us.  We live life in the world secure in our Father's care and love, grateful for the good things he has given us.  We need to learn to practice this gratefulness.  How?  Let me ask a question; can you instantly name 5 things you are thankful for this morning?  What were 5 things you were grateful for from the day as you lay your head down to go to sleep.  Looking at our days like this helps us see how much we have been given every day, how good God is, how there are scattered beams of his glory and goodness shot through our world.

Its a small beginning in learning to live every day grateful to God.  It's something that we can do even as we face suffering, because brokenness never totally defines us nor must we let it.  We are children of a God good who is generous and gracious.  And when you find yourself being a dementor, look for those 5 things in your day for which you can and should give God thanks.

I am so grateful to God that I didn't only wake up today with the things I thanked him for yesterday.

Back in the saddle

So after two weeks holiday today sees the first day back in the saddle as it were, though also curiously not in the saddle.  After spending quite a chunk of the first week of holiday in bed (post viral fatigue syndrome is the doctors best guess) after starting on some health supplements the second week saw an improvement and I was able to be up and about all day, going to the beach, rock pooling etc with the boys and Lucy though at a reduced (frustratingly restful) pace.  Thus I have come back to Donny feeling much more rested than I went, though still needing to carefully structure my days so as not to exhaust myself, which seems to happen quite easily still.

I am very gratefully to God for the two weeks rest which have a made a massive difference and enabled me to take time to talk through some longer term decisions which need to be made after some serious overwork last year.  Looking back on it it is hard to know exactly when it all started and why, but basically I said yes to too many things in too many areas too much of the time which led into a cycle of unhealthy work and rest patterns.  There were lots of people around me warning me about it, and who very graciously haven't said 'I told you so', in the two months since the problems started.  But God having warned me through others has now enforced a rethink of my time in his love.  It is something I can say I am thankful to God for.

This next month I am on sabbatical.  I'm going to spend lots of time reading the Bible, possibly writing the Proverbs 1-9 material we've been studying up in to a series of bible studies to do as dad with my boys when they become teens (less that two years away - gulp!), and catching up on all the reading and study that has been neglected this year.  Again I am thankful to God for his love shown to me in a church that has given me this time to recharge.

Less cyncial more thankful

I've been quite challenged over recent weeks on a number of levels to be less cynical and more thankful. Both in terms of God and how I think about prayer and answers but also about people.

We live in a world which is very cynical in its outlook and response to anything, partly as a defence mechanism partly because it is viewed as being cool. But cynicism is simply unbelief and unbelief has been what Hebrews has been warning us against repeatedly over the last few weeks.

The antidote to cynicism is thankfulness for who Christ is and what he has done in us and in others.

What to be thankful for

I am aware of a certain danger in myself that I also see in others around me and its this, we tend to judge ourselves and ministry success by numbers. So the question 'How is church?' is interpretted to really be 'What growth have you seen?' and it is always answered with either the number of people who have joined the church or home group or whatever else it may be.

Strikingly I think the Bible would call us to answer that question in terms of the increasing maturity we see. Here's Paul writing to the Thessalonians: “We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3) What was it they were always thankful for? Notice what it isn't; it is not that the Thessalonians are a numerically bigger congregation than they were last year, it is that they have grown in the faith. Grace has gripped and transformed them and its seen in their work, labour and endurance. If that is what Paul is thankful for then I think it is something I am to be thankful for.

And curiously my hunch is that from such maturing, transforming, changing lives others with be attracted to come and hear the message of the gospel and will themselves encounter the risen Saviour for themselves, and thus the growing church continues to grow.

How will you answer that question next time it is put to you?