Present and Selfful

So this past week, I posted a very short story of what I am going to do. I am going to share a journey I am about to take, which will look at mindfulness, Selffulness and how these will impact on my walk as I focus on losing weight and getting more self-control. I want to share it, with the hope that it might impact others, or that it will start a conversation about mindfulness in this very fast-paced generation of here and now. 

I have been thinking about mindfulness for a little while now, I am not really a person who meditates or who has long pauses. Normally I am just trying to get by on the energy I have. I have my long list of things I need to get done and try and fit them in around work, like most people. Let me tell you a little about where I have come from in the past few years. In 2015 I got married to the most amazing woman, and we settled our roots down in York, England. At that time I weighed in around 22st 10lb (318lb or 144kg)

 happy and round

I would eat when I was bored, I would eat when I needed a boost or needed comfort, I would eat when I was tired. Basically, my life revolved around food, and it wasn't the good kind of food. It was snacks, chocolate, Biscuits, cake, etc. It wasn't that I didn't like healthy food, I will eat anything, it was just that snack foods were a little more appealing. I tried somewhat to lose some weight, going to the gym, eating some healthier choices, but the snacks were like little sirens calling to me. With some struggling and tiredness, I fought on, losing a stone, until I hit a plateau. I tried and tried and couldn't shift any weight.

We moved out of the city, in an attempt to find a house we could afford, and found a lovely little house in the middle of a quaint conservative English village. This meant moving jobs and getting used to not having a shop around the corner that was always open, it meant getting used to the extreme quiet. (I'll explain extreme quiet later) When going for a wander around the village we came across a notice board that had on it things going on in the village. On this notice board was a sign for the local Slimming World group. I jokingly said to Jayne, "ha, maybe I should join help me shed some more weight." She then replied with perhaps I could. I always thought of Slimming World as a group that mostly had women in it, and never thought I would join something like that. Little did I know I would be joining up with Slimming World. Anyway, up until Christmas, I was doing ok, but those naughty little sirens still called and my weight loss journey was more like traveling on those roads in Norway that look terrifying to drive on as they rise, fall, twist and turn with the Islands they connect. Or as I have already described it, it is like the tree in the picture below.

"treemendously tangled beauty"

I cycle to work five miles each way and started to go to the local leisure centre gym. It gave some structure to my days and gave me a chance to exercise. I was kinda following the Slimming World plan and was getting some results. A year later and I lost 2st, gained a bit more and then lost again. Anyway, my motivation has been dwindling, and I have been really struggling to keep on track, my motivation even to cycle was disrupted by the lovely spring snow we had. Jayne has been a great encourager and has helped me keep on track with some bits she can. On Valentine's day, we decided to go to a body balance class, where I learned how not in touch with how my body moves I was. I struggled to bend and flex as far as they would have liked me to. It made me aware of how, a lot of the time I am not fully present in daily situations, and how I don't listen to my body,(except when my belly brain says feed me). In the class, we do some meditation at the end, which helps us to let the muscles just be. It helps us to settle after stretching our body like someone playing with blu-tack On the journey home, we discussed what mindfulness and meditation were all about, and how it looked for us Christians. This is one of the things my blog will explore. 

 "sunrise on new beginnings"

Christmas 2017 

A few weeks later, I was having a very low week, feeling quite down and feeling very detached from myself. I went to see a counselor who told me that I was not being very selfful. I told her I thought that it was more to do with not wanting to be selfish, but she said it was a good thing to be selfful.Selfful is being aware of yourself so that you can be you. So often I forget about how I am or who I am and focus on others,(which isn't a bad thing) but in neglecting myself I had lost a bit of who I was/am. So I am going to do some exploring of selffulness. 

Anyway, in four days time, it will be my 32nd birthday and I want to finally, if not a bit late in the game, rediscover who I am, and how I am, and where I feel I am while reconnecting fully with my walk with God, and gaining some self-control. I want to learn how to get the most out of mindfulness and take you all on a journey as I go. Blab over. 

Where is Your Heart?

This past few months I had been considering what the next few months would entail. I had many thoughts running around in my head. These thoughts even blocked access to the box of nothing. That place where every man can go and not have to think about anything. (Men reading this don’t deny this truth, you know we have that box in our heads) I had thoughts about where I am going to live, what the week ahead is going to look like, whether I got that job or not. I had thoughts about my devotional I had read that day. I had thoughts about what to eat that night. And money thoughts, the list could go on, in fact in my head it did.

I was really struggling to put these thoughts into any sort of order and it was driving me mad. So I prayed that God would give me some peace in my head. He did but when He did He also put this thought into my head.

“Where is your heart?”

“What?” I said

“Where is your heart?”

Where is my heart? Hmm, that is a good question? My heart is…..

My heart is all about my fiancé Jayne, my heart is all about…

Huh! I haven’t really thought about it. I had just assumed I knew where my heart was. I thought I knew what the control of my heart was. I thought it was God, well I knew that I wanted God to be the master of my heart. But then it dawned on me that I had other things that often got in the way of my desire to have God in my heart. It was the sinful nature of my heart that has crowded my heart with many meisms. I was focusing on me and what was best for me, how these things affected me. My treasure was in the world, my treasure was in the things that moth and rust eat away at and that thieves come and steal as Jesus puts it in Matthew 6. I thought I had my mind set on things of the eternal nature. I thought I was looking to “thy Kingdom come”, but I guess I had fooled myself.

In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon tells us that we are hardwired for Eternity,

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV)

Solomon had everything; wealth, women and more than enough stuff. He also had wisdom, and this wisdom meant that he realised that everything he had strived for was meaningless. He realised that eternity was were his focus should have been. He realised that even trying to have figure out what God was doing, or had done was silly. He realised his heart was not in the right place. He reaised the need for God’s grace.

Yes, we have sinful hearts and are surrounded by the many meistic things which make it easy for us to slip into the meistic mind-set. The good news is, that God’s grace is sufficient, it is by grace we have been saved. It is by grace that we are humbled to and reminded about the true hardwiring we have been designed to look to. Paul Tripp a pastor and author wrote this about grace and I still reread it every-so-often to make me think and be thankful about. So let me share it with you:

“So grace is a story and grace is a gift. It is God's character and it is your only hope. Grace is a transforming tool and a state of relationship. Grace is a beautiful theology and a wonderful invitation. Grace is a life-long experience and a life-changing calling. Grace will turn your life upside down while giving you a rest you have never known. Grace will require you to face your unworthiness without ever making you feel unloved.

Grace will make you finally acknowledge that you cannot earn God's favour, and it will once and for all remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will humble you with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. You can be sure that grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.

Grace will enable you to face shocking truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses, and at the same time bless you with new-found strength. Grace will tell you again and again what you aren't, while welcoming you again and again to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you a more lasting comfort than you have never before known .

Grace will work to drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your ill-founded hopes, but never walk away and leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your little kingdom of one as it introduces you to a much, much better King. Grace will expose to you the extent of your blindness as it gives you eyes to see what you so desperately need to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known.

Grace enters your life in a moment and will occupy you for eternity. You simply cannot live a productive life in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of the grace you have been given.”( http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/grace-right-here-right-now)

So let us remember that we are hardwired to look to the things eternal, and through this gift of grace we can be guided back to looking to eternity when the world blinds us and misdirects us. Thanks be to God for his sufficient grace. 

Don't Worry, In God Be Happy...

This week, I was watching my weekly TED talks, I watched a talk called The Surprise Science of Happiness, as I watched this I thought about all the different things that make people happy. In the Talk Dan Gilbert, a psychologist from Harvard who has researched this topic for a while, said that we had a chance to “control” happiness, as our brain evolved and we received the frontal lobe we gained the capacity to simulate ideas and concepts based on previous background. He said however that these simulations are not always correct. He said that due to something called “impact bias” we tend to overestimate the impact or duration of future events.

 He gave the example, he offered two people a lottery winner and a paraplegic and asked who we thought was happier. He then surprised us by saying that both categories were equally satisfied with their lives. He said that those who look to their loss as a new chance of happiness have synthesised their happiness. He concluded that the human’s capacity to adapt generates happiness because it helps one be content with what he/she has.

This made me think about my own happiness. I know naturally I am not really a happy person, I tend to look at the negative aspects of the environment around me. I am a dreamer, but when it comes to real life around me I see the many aspects from the happy things to the tristesse. However I only ever focus on the negative things.  I thought about when things don't go to plan how I react to them. I realised how much I look at the loss or the damage instead of seeing the chance to have happiness.

The Bible talks about joy and happiness a lot, it tells us that this joy and happiness is a gift from God: Solomon said,

“I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.” Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

Solomon was a wise man, he was given wisdom from the Lord, he said that everything was meaningless yet he discovered that there was nothing better for us than to be joyful and to do good as long as we live, as it is a gift from God. He also said, “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.” So we have been given joy or the feeling of happiness as a gift from God. In this gift we have been given the choice to be joyful, this is why the scripture tells us to rejoice. The bible tells us that when we look to scripture and to God we will find this joy.

So why is it that I find it difficult to always be happy, I guess, it is because I am a very forgetful person and I keep forgetting that, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 it is by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain… though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. God is working in me and I need to remember that but on top of that I need to remember to be grateful for what God has done and continues to do.

 Funnily enough this is what psychologists will help make me a happier person; being grateful. Paul knew this all too well as did the psalmist as they many times over remind us to give thanks. Let me end on this note, on this verse from 2 Corinthians 9:15.

I don’t know if any of this made sense as I was kind of spilling my thoughts onto a page.

Let is consider this and remember this:

THANKS BE TO GOD FOR HIS INEXPRESSIBLE GIFT!

AMEN!

I Need Thee, Lord I Need Thee!

In recent weeks I have been learning to trust in the Lord for the where, how and what for of my life, I have been praying for weeks as to some insight into what reasons the Lord has timed and arranged certain things. I started doing a great deal of study into what it means to be under the banner of Christ. What it means to carry my cross and follow him, and how that looks on a daily basis. It was while doing this study that I pulled out my great aunts journal from the early 1920’s. This great aunt of mine was a very godly woman who was always in the word. It was then that I fell upon the page of her notes from Spurgeons last sermon in the Tabernacle in London, although I had read these words before, I read them again with a sense of eye opening awe, of who Christ is and of the magnitude of how awesome it is that I get to, no, have the privileged to, wear the livery of Christ. I know that anyone who reads these words will see it too.

“If you wear the livery of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was his like the choicest of princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold he always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his shoulders. If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, yea lavish and superabundant in love, you always find it in him. His service is life, peace, and joy. Oh, that you would enter on it at once! God help you to enlist under the banner of JESUS CHRIST!” Spurgeon

It was from these words that I started out of nowhere singing an old hymn written by Mrs Annie Hawks in 1872. She too had been filled with the sense of nearness to the Master. She said that while thinking this she wondered how one could live without Him, either in joy or pain. These words, “I Need Thee Every Hour,” were ushered into her mind, and she wrote that “the thought at once took full possession of her” it was not until her husband died that she really appreciated the words the Lord permitted her to write. The lines yet simple are so true and so powerfully beautiful. Here they are:

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;

Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;

Come quickly and abide, or life is in vain.

I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;

And Thy rich promises in me fulfil.

I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;

O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessèd Son.

All of these words are so beautiful, but the refrain is so beautiful and it is my prayer;

I need Thee, O I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

O bless me now, my Saviour,

I come to Thee.

As I closed the journal, a piece of paper fell out on it were the words of a simple poem about prayer. Here is the poem, it is by anon, but I really like it and it links in nicely with the topic above. It is about the nearness that bot I and Mrs Hawk felt.

Prayer is so simple,

It is like quietly opening a door

And slipping into the very presence of God.

There in the stillness

To listen for is voice

Perhaps to petition,

Or only to listen;

It matters not;

Just to be there

In his presence

Is prayer!  - anon

walking in faith

“Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led.” – Oswald Chambers

There is a Scandinavian saying, “Faith is like a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.” This saying talks about how the bird knows that dawn is breaking through and the darkness is coming to end. This morning I was finding it difficult to sleep I lay in my bed and watched as civil twilight welcomed in the dawn. As the dawn was approaching I could hear the small birds singing their chorus to welcome the dawn. The birds knew that the dawn was breaking through the darkness and the cold density of night.

However, as much as the saying talks about the birds feeling the dawn, I believe that the birds have it in built in them. The natural chronology of the day is for the sun to rise and set and has not changed over millennia. Their belief in the certainty of this chronology is what allows them to sing their chorus. Sometimes we look at the dark and trying times in our lives and we see only the darkness. We are engulfed by the now deepening darkness of the situations we are in. There are so many times we have been in these trying times, and the Lord has brought us through them to show us the light again. Yet we only see the darkness. Scripture has many an example of the Lord bringing people out of their dark and trying times and yet we still seem to fail at having faith in the light that is coming. 

In 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18 we see that the darkness and the affliction is only momentary it is outweighed by the eternal weight of glory. This weighty eternal glory is unseen as it is the reward we receive from God, we are to strive for and be convicted by that which is unseen as Hebrews 11 tells us. Oswald Chambers says it is like not knowing where you are being led, when we walk in the dark we walk with our arms in front of us and fear is in our hearts as we try to walk.

This reminds me of when I was younger, I was sitting in the living room watching a movie when the power went out, I remember the fear that I felt, it was not until I heard my mother’s voice that I knew it was safe. Although I knew that my mother was in the other room, I was still afraid. It was not until I heard her voice and was reminded of how close she was that I realised it was OK. The same can be said for us when we are going through trials, through those dark times, we often forget that the Lord is with us. It is not until we hear from the Lord or are reminded of what the Lord has done for us that we feel fine.

Psalm 139 reminds us that even in the pits of the darkest parts of the earth God is there, even in the darkest recesses of our mind He is there, there is nowhere that God is not. This is a reassuring thing for us when we think that we are alone in the dark and trying times. Next time we feel like we are going through a hard time remember that God is with us through it all and he will direct us through the darkness, where we will receive the weighty eternal glory. Praise be to God for his ever present help.

humilité dans la simplicité

Michel Roux Sr Simply enjoying food

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life: In himself, nothing; In God, everything. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.-- A.W. Tozer

I am as some who are reading this know, have a dangerous passion for food and cooking. And one of my food hero’s is Michel Roux Sr. for those who do not know who Michel Roux Sr. is, here is the sort and sweet about him: he is one of the “Godfathers of modern restaurant cuisine” in the UK. He and his brother are two of the greatest Chefs in the UK. His Scholarship is one of the most prestigious awards to receive outside of the Michelin Stars. Anyway, I was watching his new challenge where chefs are competing to get this scholarship, and he teaches them little tips along the way. Every week they are given a different challenge, and each time the guys who get through are those who simply cook understanding the food before him/her.

One of the things that he is always telling the chefs is that once you realise that there is a natural order for how the food compliments each other and humbly let them do as they are meant to, once you simply let the food do as it is meant to then you will produce the best food the “piece de résistance”. And surprisingly yet not so surprisingly the meals that won were always made when the food complemented each part and no forceful change was made to the taste, or consistency.

While I was watching this, the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear, “this is just like the covenant that God made with you….” I nodded in the yeah I already know way, and then he said it again “the covenant with God is simple, all you gotta do is humbly let God work in you to do as the covenant said it would. Let God change you out of love.”

So easily I had been trying to make it harder than it is. I had been trying to work out what I had to do and what I was receiving instead of letting God do the work out of love. I recently watched a sermon by Paul Tripp, who said that the grace that God has given us is a free and beautiful gift, yet we do not know how to accept it or what to do with it. He gave the example of his grandson receiving a gift and playing with the box. We so often do this, we receive the gift of grace and we don’t know what to do with it.

The simplicity of the message of the gospel and the simplicity of the connection that God wants with us, may to us, in our sin filled world of understanding, seem just too easy to receive. We are always trying to make it really difficult for ourselves when the easy way is being handed to us on a silver platter. Jesus did not say come to me and then do this list of things and then you will receive the gift. He was not the game show host of the krypton factor, no He said,” my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Now I am not saying it is a breeze, but if we as Tozer put it, accept God’s estimate of our life, we will stop caring about the world’s view of us, we will stop worrying about the future, we will happily humbly step down from the driver seat and let God lead the way. We will humbly accept the simplicity that God loves us and we are saved by grace and grace alone, not by works. Then we will not boast in ourselves, but like the chef who lets the food do the talking, we will let God do the talking and working in us and through us.

I pray that I will learn this and will not forget it, which I am so capable of doing. I pray I can humbly let the Potter mould the clay. Lord teach me and mould me. Praise be to God for the Holy Spirit’s whispers.

Eph 4:4-6  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you^[a] all.

AMEN

Run Patiently and Intelligibly the Race Set Before Us

Today I was doing my devotional in the morning, and I decided to check my emails, in my emails I receive a runners world quote (as cheesy as that sounds) well the quote that I received today was quite interesting as it was something I was praying about and my devotional talked about.

Here is the quote,

” Running should be a lifelong activity. Approach it patiently and intelligently, and it will reward you for a long, long time.”  Michael Sargent

This quote is about having a life of running, something I wish I could have, my patience is not so strong and I have to say although I know a lot about the Science of running and the importance of running, yet getting my butt off of the couch sometimes to run can be as difficult as climbing a very big mountain. Sometimes I can say that my walk/ run with the Lord is the same. I know a lot of stuff and I know the importance of being in the word and coming before the Lord every morning. I have been at Bible College and have studied the word and absorbed it into my heart, yet sometimes acting on this knowledge can be very difficult.

And believe me I know how amazing it is to run the race looking to Jesus, but it can still be difficult when factors around me can be very weighty and sometimes it can become comfortable, like the couch. In 1 Corinthians 9:24 we read, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” I have often prayed that my lackadaisical attitude would not weigh me down, but that I would be ready every morning to run with the prize in mind.

In the Psalms there is often mention of running and being able to run due to the awesomeness of God. Psalm 18 says for by you I can run against the troop, and Psalm 119 says I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart. I have experienced God enlarge my heart and that is when I feel I could outrun horses and run against troops… In Proverbs we read that if we keep the instructions and adhere to them, “When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. It also says that if we put our trust in the Lord we will run and not grow weary. (Isaiah 40:31 ESV). I should strive to run knowing that God will sustain me through it all. When Michael said we should approach it intelligently, I think about what it says in proverbs, this is the intelligible response adhering to the commandments so that we can run and our reward will be for a long, long time.

Another thing that I thought about was how if we approach running patiently and intelligibly then we know to do the stretches we need to do, and we know the importance of how we run and how we need to hydrate ourselves.  The same is with the word and with our running for God, In 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 Paul talks about this,

“Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

 He says that we need to keep training and patiently do it so that we can say we did not run aimlessly. He again reiterates that in Philippians 2:16 “holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labour in vain.” We need to hold fast to the word and run looking to the lord and Saviour at the finish line.

Finally I thought I would leave us with these verses from Hebrews which basically sums up what I am trying to say in a manner of speaking,

 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

In this passage we see that there is the great Hall of faith, and we see the importance of laying aside those factors that stop us running and we must patiently endure with our eyes fixed on the goal looking to Jesus. If we do this, and I hope and pray we do, we will have the reward for a long, long, long, long time.

Blessings

Richard