Consistency seems to be a bit of a buzz word at the moment (at least amongst the circles I move in). Football managers talk about needing it to get results, at school we need to teach at a consistent level in order to make children progress (and to tick a few boxes for ‘The Management’), and we often bemoan the lack of it when we are looking to apportion blame for what we see as injustices (for example – why do some dual carriageways have a 30mph limit and a speed camera every seven yards?) Not to mention the fact that it is a topic of some controversy when applied to custard.

Generally, consistency is considered a good thing, as I alluded to above. We get results by being consistent; desirable outcomes are achieved by maintaining certain standards. There are obviously going to be exceptions, but when we see someone with a good job, we assume they worked hard consistently at school and/or university. When our team is riding high in the table, we know that they have been consistent in not losing, or conning referees into awarding dubious penalties. It’s rare that to consider consistency a negative attribute; at worst, we might consider a consistent person to be dull or predictable, but these qualities aren’t inherently detrimental. In fact, we could consider consistency to be an essential quality. I can’t think of any jobs or roles in which at least some degree of consistency is required.

The problem is that being consistent is often – in fact, usually – hard work. Just turning up for work day in, day out is a tiring process after a while, particularly when you leave and return in total darkness. I’m struggling to be consistently enthusiastic about my kids’ eight o’clock Saturday swimming lessons for that very reason. To be consistent in some areas is relatively easy – we get into routines after a while – but to be consistent when the goalposts are constantly shifting is much more difficult. This requires a mental toughness and resilience, and the ability to adapt, often at short notice. I find that this is the most draining aspect of trying to maintain consistency – much more draining than physically doing the same actions again and again. Writing on this blog is one example; having set myself the informal precedent of writing something at least every 2 weeks, it can often be difficult to see that through. Last night I stared at the screen for half an hour or so, trying to formulate what I’m saying now, but failing, as I hadn’t thought it through much.

But as we’ve been so often told, in order to achieve something you have to work at it. And if we’ve worked hard at something, we can rightly assume that there will be benefits at the end of the journey. In terms of our jobs, the amount of respect we gain, our relationships – it’s clear that being consistently positive, consistently doing what’s right, brings us success. In the Bible, we’re told to be consistent in talking to God in prayer, and in living out our relationship with Jesus. This gives us inner strength and builds us up. We’re told to speak always in a graceful way to other people, in order to convey the fact that Christ lives in us. And we’re told to meet together regularly, to share our stuff and to praise God. This leads to the outpouring of God’s joy, both amongst us as believers and amongst those who don’t yet know him.

The Bible also says that one of the benefits of being consistent in our thinking as Christians is that there will be no division amongst us – and therefore no conflict (I’ll just put the can of worms back on the shelf…. there we go……) I’ve just started reading the book of Exodus as part of the E100 challenge that our church is doing at the moment. At the moment it’s the story of Moses (you’ll know it if you’ve seen Prince of Egypt). A couple of verses in the story spoke to me of God’s consistency. In chapter 3 v6, God says to Moses, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ (God is saying that he’s been knocking around for a long time). He repeats that phrase a couple more times in chapter 3, and adds, ‘This is my name (I AM) for ever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.’ God intends to be around for the whole of known time, and is himself outside of it (his name is always I AM…..). A few hundred years later, David cottoned on to this idea of God’s consistency when he wrote the Psalms, with lines like, ‘The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day the pour forth speech…… God is…an ever-present help in trouble……. The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him……. The Lord remembers us and will bless us….. The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever…..’ What should our response be to God’s consistency, and our own frailty in that area? More advice from the Bible: ‘Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always….. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forever more……’

31 January 2012

Consistency seems to be a bit of a buzz word at the moment (at least amongst the circles I move in). Football managers talk about needing it to get results, at school we need to teach at a consistent level in order to make children progress (and to tick a few boxes for ‘The Management’), and we often bemoan the lack of it when we are looking to apportion blame for what we see as injustices (for example – why do some dual carriageways have a 30mph limit and a speed camera every seven yards?) Not to mention the fact that it is a topic of some controversy when applied to custard.

Generally, consistency is considered a good thing, as I alluded to above. We get results by being consistent; desirable outcomes are achieved by maintaining certain standards. There are obviously going to be exceptions, but when we see someone with a good job, we assume they worked hard consistently at school and/or university. When our team is riding high in the table, we know that they have been consistent in not losing, or conning referees into awarding dubious penalties. It’s rare that to consider consistency a negative attribute; at worst, we might consider a consistent person to be dull or predictable, but these qualities aren’t inherently detrimental. In fact, we could consider consistency to be an essential quality. I can’t think of any jobs or roles in which at least some degree of consistency is required.

The problem is that being consistent is often – in fact, usually – hard work. Just turning up for work day in, day out is a tiring process after a while, particularly when you leave and return in total darkness. I’m struggling to be consistently enthusiastic about my kids’ eight o’clock Saturday swimming lessons for that very reason. To be consistent in some areas is relatively easy – we get into routines after a while – but to be consistent when the goalposts are constantly shifting is much more difficult. This requires a mental toughness and resilience, and the ability to adapt, often at short notice. I find that this is the most draining aspect of trying to maintain consistency – much more draining than physically doing the same actions again and again. Writing on this blog is one example; having set myself the informal precedent of writing something at least every 2 weeks, it can often be difficult to see that through. Last night I stared at the screen for half an hour or so, trying to formulate what I’m saying now, but failing, as I hadn’t thought it through much.

But as we’ve been so often told, in order to achieve something you have to work at it. And if we’ve worked hard at something, we can rightly assume that there will be benefits at the end of the journey. In terms of our jobs, the amount of respect we gain, our relationships – it’s clear that being consistently positive, consistently doing what’s right, brings us success. In the Bible, we’re told to be consistent in talking to God in prayer, and in living out our relationship with Jesus. This gives us inner strength and builds us up. We’re told to speak always in a graceful way to other people, in order to convey the fact that Christ lives in us. And we’re told to meet together regularly, to share our stuff and to praise God. This leads to the outpouring of God’s joy, both amongst us as believers and amongst those who don’t yet know him. The Bible also says that one of the benefits of being consistent in our thinking as Christians is that there will be no division amongst us – and therefore no conflict (I’ll just put the can of worms back on the shelf…. there we go……)

I’ve just started reading the book of Exodus as part of the E100 challenge that our church is doing at the moment. At the moment it’s the story of Moses (you’ll know it if you’ve seen Prince of Egypt). A couple of verses in the story spoke to me of God’s consistency. In chapter 3 v6, God says to Moses, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ (God is saying that he’s been knocking around for a long time). He repeats that phrase a couple more times in chapter 3, and adds, ‘This is my name (I AM) for ever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.’ God intends to be around for the whole of known time, and is himself outside of it (his name is always I AM…..). A few hundred years later, David cottoned on to this idea of God’s consistency when he wrote the Psalms, with lines like, ‘The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day the pour forth speech…… God is…an ever-present help in trouble……. The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him……. The Lord remembers us and will bless us….. The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever…..’

What should our response be to God’s consistency, and our own frailty in that area? More advice from the Bible: ‘Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always….. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forever more……’

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The fact is that gifts that you can touch are more fun. When I was a boy I liked my presents to be large, colourful and to have been well marketed since October (although clearly I wasn’t aware of this at the time). As a teenager I just wanted money or vouchers, as I felt (with good reason) that no-one really understood my tastes. During both phases, I used to pity my Dad, who always seemed so happy with a jumper, socks, new tie, etc. How can he not want some lego/latest Sega game/new Pearl Jam album, I used to wonder. And jumpers are just something you get as and when they’re needed, I wondered, confused. So I was not a little horrified when I heard the answer, ‘A new jumper, perhaps?’ leave my mouth when asked what I would like for Christmas this year by Mrs C. I have become, it seems, a true Dad……

Clearly, as we get older we let slip some of the materialism that plagued us as children (and I realise that there are varying degrees of ‘some’ here…..). As well as this, the delight we feel as we witness the joy on the faces of others is often heightened – we discover that actually, it really is better to give than to receive. Having reached this zen-like state of seasonal being, surely I can sit back and rest on my spiritual laurels, smug at having successfully managed to pull myself free of the commercial mire that everyone else seems to be wading through as soon as Halloween’s over. Can’t I?

The problem is that I don’t fully understand just how significant a present Jesus is. I can’t. I have a comfortable life, and as such my chances of grasping what it would be like to not have Jesus are dealt a major blow. I judge the success of a gift by how much I enjoy it, or how much I wanted it in the first place – not by how much it cost to give, or how much I might need it. The impact of Jesus as a gift has been deadened by years of tradition, false cheer, who’s-going-to-who’s-house family politics and an ever-expanding buffer zone of ‘I deserve this’, which separates us not only from the true joy of receiving Jesus but also from those to whom it really does mean everything. In Simon Guillebaud’s book More Than Conquerors, he tells of a man he encounters in a refugee camp in Africa. The man’s family have been murdered, all his possessions destroyed, and he has walked hundreds of miles to reach the relative safety of the camp. He owns only the clothes he stands in. And because of his circumstances, he knows just how vital a gift Jesus is. He is completely thankful for what he does have; completely trusting of God to provide for him.

We lack the kind of lifestyle that demands total engagement with what the Jesus-gift really means. God probably isn’t calling you to go and be utterly destitute in a third world country (if He is, then great….) – so that means we have to try and work out how this intangible, unconventional and misunderstood present actually fits into the way we do life. Unless we do that, Jesus will never be the best Christmas gift we’ve ever received, and there’ll be no point saying otherwise, because you will sound like a liar, if only to yourself and God.

So now here’s the bit where I tell you how to do it – how we untie the bow and rip the paper from the greatest gift the world’s ever heard of.

Um….. Now I’m stuck – but I’m pretty sure the answer involves prayer and reading the Bible. A lot, and with purpose. And then acting on what we hear, read or have revealed to us in any other way. Maybe we could try stepping out of our comfort zone, as opposed to just talking about doing so, or talking about other people who’ve done so. I volunteered to give out chocolates and invites to our carol service the other day. I was nervous and apprehensive, even to the point of getting angry with no-one in particular beforehand. Yet when it came to the end of my stint, I found that I wanted to continue. I found the experience of making people smile (mainly due to the chocolate) really uplifting. I exercised just a scrap of faith in stepping out – only a few crumbs, really. What would happen if I exercised a sandwich of faith, or perhaps a mince pie? Can we imagine putting into practise a Christmas dinner of faith, complete with all the trimmings?

It’s only when we’re dependent on Jesus to get us through life that the genius of His gift kicks truly kicks in; it’s only then that we get the organically reared, Nigella-approved, full-flavour version of Jesus. In our faith-free comfort, we can only access the frozen ready-meal-for-one version of Jesus. It ticks certain boxes, and to the casual observer seems legitimate, but under scrutiny is found to be second-rate…..

However, I am conscious of the fact that I’m approaching this book with an attitude similar to the ‘fundamentalists’ that Dawkins criticises in the book. If I set out in the mindset that this book will only serve to help me argue with atheists, and refute the possibility of an alternative viewpoint before I’ve begun, then I’m doing the very thing that he finds so objectionable. Am I right to take this stance? Or should I actually be prepared to be converted to atheism, unlikely though this is? I guess it all comes back to the fact that we cannot have true faith without doubt……

I’ll be interested to see what he has to say about the value of ‘religious experience’ ie: how people of faith have interacted personally with God. My guess is that he has no experience of God’s presence, and his encounters with Christians are limited to those focused on the ‘religious’ aspects and on militantly defending their viewpoint on some issue or other (Dawkins seems particularly keen to argue against Creationism – I suppose that’s natural for a scientist….). I find myself agreeing with him to some extent – rigorously defending something like creationism seems to me to be a waste of energy on the part of the Christian. Why aren’t we focusing on the commands of Jesus? The Bible says that we can’t fathom God, so why are we worrying about producing tons of evidence to fly in the face of evolutionary theory? And more importantly, why are people so angrily defending their stance on ‘issues’? There’s no wonder people are put off religion (for want of a better phrase).

I think it’s vital that anyone who really wants to live as a disciple of Jesus seeks to understand where we’ve gone wrong over the years in portraying out faith, because that is a large part of the reason why people like Richard Dawkins feel like they do (that, and a load of scientific evidence…..). Shutting out other viewpoints makes us narrow-minded and less able to relate to others effectively. One-to-one relationships are, in my view, the way forward in making Jesus known. I love the church (by which I mean the people), but I agree with Dawkins – organised religion is responsible for a lot of crap. I propose to comment more on The God Delusion as I read it, as I think we can gain valuable insight from such books. Obviously I’ll be offsetting all this heathen-ery by reading plenty of the Bible (I’m looking at John at the moment, trying to make more sense of Jesus…..).

In other news, I’m excited about letting everyone hear the newResponding with Tea songs. If you’re on Facebook then there’s a RwT page on which I intend to post the songs for download (some other tracks are there at the moment). There are also plans afoot for some CD artwork to accompany the music. On the writing front, I’m going to put the next part of The Weight of a Voice in a separate post to this one. I had another agent rejection the other day. This summer was supposed to be the time when I made a big push to get an agent, but that hasn’t happened. My efforts have gone into music. And camping…..

The more I think about it, the more it becomes evident that this song was a subconscious acknowledgement on my part of the fact that God’s plan was/is vastly superior to mine, and that it reflects a desire to simply be before Him, saying, ‘God, you are all these things to me. And this is what I offer you in return – a sinful, jealous heart. Please forgive me.’ Not much of a deal from His perspective, at least on paper…. Yet the truth is that His power is made complete in our weakness. All that is required is for us to relinquish our crowns, to lay our agendas down, and to whisper, sing, or cry, ‘Your name is holy.’

Here I am before You
Bound by sinfulness, and broken
Only You restore my soul
And in Your mercy I will find my rest

My comfort and healer
My hope, my defender
My salvation, my father
Let Your glory fall

Your name is holy

Now here’s where I’m going to make a smooth link to my point, and it’s going to be grade-A cheese: Reading the bible is like our own ‘performance management’. We need regular ‘review meetings’ (aka church/cell group). We need people ‘higher up’ to advise us and check we’re on track. Maybe we even need some targets….

I’ve been reading a book (another one…..) called ‘Velvet Elvis’ by Rob Bell. I was initially sceptical given its silly, abstract title, but actually it’s amazing. It’s subtitled ‘Repainting the Christian Faith’, which is exactly what I think we need to do at all levels – individually, in our small groups/churches, communities, etc. He talks about this concept of ‘binding and loosing scripture’ which, at the risk of over-simplifying it, means that we should wrestle with the bits we don’t understand, discussing it in our communities (there’s that theme again….) until we have arrived at what we think is the interpretation most appplicable to us, now. Biblical Rabbis did this all the time.

This doesn’t mean that we can make the bible fit whatever we want to do (history is full of idiots who did that). It means that we allow God to speak to us through his word again and again – even the same passage can hold something new for us every time we read it afresh. The other day I re-read a couple of verses, from 1 and 2 Timothy. Both kind of reiterate the same message; if you’ve received a gift through a prophetic message and/or the laying on of hands then don’t neglect it – fan it into flame. At University a friend gave this prophecy about me – that I would speak and people would listen. In a poor interpretation of binding and loosing, I tried to make the prophecy fit what I though at the time was my ‘calling’, which was to be a Christian rock legend…. I did this for six, maybe seven years, with no success. Finally I gave up – but the prophecy kept returning to me. It is only in the light of re-reading those verses that I have attach meaning and context to it.

So that’s what I’m doing now. Talking – and you’re listening. To what, or why, I’m not sure…. I hope I say some things that are helpful. Maybe not the Postman Pat bit…..