Where will you find joy?

Ever had one of those moments when no matter how hard you try the pieces of the puzzle you are doing, or a project that you are working on, or a task that your trying to complete at work or even at home just isn’t coming together?

I’m sure we can all relate! 😃

Well, I’ve been experiencing that for a while now with a jigsaw puzzle that I’ve had on the go for over a month.

Maybe it’s my eyesight, or my condition, or just the fact that I’m a bit older than I used to be, but this puzzle has certainly tried my patience at times and I have grown frustrated with myself.

I’m finding that the light coming through the windows into the dining room has to be just right so that I can make out the subtle colour variations and irregularities with shading. I’ve also been finding that even when the colouring on the pieces do match their may be slight variations with the puzzle piece itself that leads me having to undo things a number of times just so that it matches up right.

So, for the past week I’ve had to set it aside and concentrate on doing some other stuff for a while. In many regards the weather has certainly helped as it’s been blowing a gale and raining, which means that the light hasn’t been right anyway.

Sitting down over the weekend to finally complete the puzzle has given me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. I even messaged some of my family who’ve seen this work in progress so that I could share my joy and sense of fulfillment 🥳

But it got me thinking; Where will you find joy?

In this moment I found joy in completing a puzzle – a trivial thing for some maybe, but it goes much deeper than that.

Over the past few months I’ve been sharing some of my morning devotions looking at the Book of Psalms from the YouVersion Bible App. As I’ve been journeying through them I’ve been drawing inspiration and encouragement for my own life from the many poems, prayers, hymns and meditations contained within these writings.

I’m constantly being reminded to rejoice in the small things of life, to sing psalms of praise and thanks, to shout aloud to our Creator God for not only the big things that we see all around us, but also all the small things as well – I wonder though how often do we do this? Really!!!

We are blessed in so many ways that maybe we have become binded to the things that we should be grateful for.

When we look around at all of the issues that threaten the world in which we live in at present, we can often feel quite perplexed. The pieces of the puzzle are not coming together in the way that we would have imagined. Successive governments, systems, policies and procedures have been trying for decades to ‘fix‘ the many issues that appear to plague the many puzzle pieces of our lives. In fact it’s almost as if the closer we get to achieving some part of the puzzle, the next part becomes even more complex and we may even need to unravel some of the pieces that we had put together not that long ago.

This was the case for me and the puzzle that I finally completed, did I mention that it was the biggest puzzle I’ve done in a long time, a total of 2,000 pieces! Now that its complete to looks quite impressive but it did take numerous attempts to get the right pieces in the right place, every now and again I’d have to take a piece or two out all together to redo an area to get it right. 

I recently read a couple of quotes the first says; “Life is like a giant puzzle. Everyday we struggle to find all its pieces to make it into a complete picture.“

The second also seems to relate to life stating that; “It all depends on you to put the pieces of the puzzle together in order to see the big picture. And when you get to the end of it, and all the pieces are in the right place, then you are happy. And if they’re not in the right place, then you have to rearrange them until you are happy.“

The many psalmists that wrote the Book of Psalms can relate to these sentiments and it would appear that the prophet Habakkuk can also identify with us on them. Habakkuk takes his concerns to God and it’s almost as if Habakkuk is having an argument with God over the way things appear, which to him at least seem unfathomable. He is having doubts that he’ll be able to see whatever it is that he deems the completed picture of the puzzle of life.

Interestingly God responds to his exhortations and Habakkuk’s response is to write a prayer using a psalm-like format, complete with musical and/or literary notations.

He commences by writing that he has heard all about the Lord and that he is filled with awe by God’s amazing works. He asks that “in this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by. And in your anger, remember your mercy.”
Habakkuk 3:2 (New Living Translation) 

The International Children’s Bible puts it this way “Lord, I have heard the news about you. Lord, I am amazed at the powerful things you have done. Do great things once again in our time. Make those things happen again in our own days. Even when you are angry, remember to be gentle with us.” Habakkuk 3:2

Maybe that is our prayer also, especially when the storms of life head our way; in our time of deep need Lord, help us again as you did in years gone by to make sense of the pieces of the puzzle – this thing called life – and help us put the pieces of our fragile lives in the right place for Your glory to shine through.  

Habakkuk concludes this prayer, this psalm by saying “as for me, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will find my joy in the God who delivers me. The Lord God is my strength…“

Throughout the Scriptures we are reminded again and again to put our faith, our trust, our hope, our lives – in God! We are to trust in Him and believe that He will do what only He can do in and through our everyday lives as Paul alludes to in Romans 12:1-2 from the Message;

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.“

And, we are to find joy in all things; the big things and the small things. As for me, I’ll choose to find joy in the journey that God has set before me.  

Habakkuk offers us hope by recognizing how dark and chaotic the world is and inviting us to trust that God will one day sort it all out. Our role in life is not necessarily to put all the pieces of the puzzle back in order, for He is the one that has a much better grasp on the bigger picture of life.
Habakkuk reminds us of our part in History and how we too can express our faith in God, even though we may see and experience many trials and tribulations;
we’ll find joy in the God who delivers! 

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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Attitude makes all the difference

I’m sure that we have all heard the saying that ‘our attitude makes all the difference‘.

I for one know this to be true in mission and ministry, having seen successes and growth, as well as a number of disappointments along the way.

I was recently reading an article by Carey Nieuwhof entitled ‘5 Big Attitude Differences That Separate Growing Churches From Declining Churches‘ in which he explores the attitude of its leaders.

Because I would like to think of myself as being relatively optimistic, I will be focussing on the positive aspects and expanding upon them. However, I will also close this blog entry with some concerns that I find myself facing as we in New Zealand slowly come out of lockdown and start to put plans in place to reopen our places of worship.

• Growing churches and their leaders have an attitude that challenges are not insurmountable and that anything is possible; they believe that they can achieve whatever it is that God is revealing to them, regardless of the challenges that they are facing. Growing churches and their leaders make a way when there appears to be no way, which seems to be what God specializes in if you read the Bible. Even if they’re wrong, at least they have tried something. The mission is important enough to take a significant risk.
• Growing churches and their leaders focus on the people they’re trying to reach. They get creative around how they can get their message out and how they can connect with those in their community. Many churches and their leaders have reimagined what church looks like when they can’t meet together in person, utilising technology in some form or another. The future belongs to those who moved into mission.
• Instead of focusing on the preferences of its members, growing churches and their leaders put more of an emphasis on ways that help them reach new people. It’s not that growing churches ignore the needs of their members, it’s that they realize the needs of their members are best fulfilled by making their lives about something bigger than their preferences (i.e. the mission).
• Growing churches and their leaders are proactive. They choose their agenda and immediately take action on issues that can impact their future. They embrace change and start working on ways in which they can continue the momentum that has started. They see what the mission requires and decide to deal with it, freeing up resources to achieve the results that they are anticipating, refusing to yield to the agenda of others that would take them off mission. As a result, they are often far more effective.
• Growing churches and their leaders act, and act now! They don’t get stuck in no man’s land, talking about things and getting consensus. They understand that action produces traction. So they act on the Holy Spirit’s leadings that come their way and trust that God will journey with them as they step out in faith.

The trouble is as church leaders within the denominational church, we are living in an environment where we are often limited by the constraints placed upon us by others (either in our chain of command or by those that have authority over us). It often doesn’t matter what our attitude is towards mission and ministry as we cannot move past where those others ‘over us’ are at.

It is then further compounded when we add in the issues of finance and sustainability, as those that are comfortable with the no-risk, or limited risk environment that they have become accustomed to, tend not to live by faith, as they feel that they are protecting the wider denomination from unknown variables and security that comes from control.

So the biggest concern that I find myself facing as we in New Zealand come out of lockdown and start to put plans in place to reopen our places of worship is that we are limiting God! Will we be paralyzed by our leaderships inactivity to grasp a hold of the mission and ministry opportunities that God is presenting to us in these times? Possibly, maybe, history would show us – yes.

As I was sharing with a colleague the other day it is almost as if we are left cowering in the trenches waiting on those ‘over us’ to tell us what to do on the front lines, for we are no longer allowed to do what God has called us to be – leaders in His church, that take a hold of our Pentecostalism which emphasises the work of the Holy Spirit. We are bound by the worldly forces where money and planning unfortunately often trump God’s blessing from moving us into a new manifestation of His Spirit.

Habakkuk 1:5 says that God is “going to do something in our days that we would not believe, even if He were to tell us.”

We live in a world that needs God more than ever. Therefore we need to reimagine what church is, not what it has become. Maybe going back to what He intended church to be in the first place, not what we have made it.

We need to be reaching out in to our communities with the Life and Hope that only comes from Jesus Christ. Trusting in God and not going back to normal, for I believe God has so much more in store for His church, if only we would allow Him to work in and through us!

Will that come with a blueprint, a 10 point strategy that spells out exactly what we are going to do and how we are going to afford it, let alone do it? I don’t think so! Because God is a living God, developing, moulding, growing and transforming us into what He intended us to be.

So if our attitude makes all the difference, I am still optimistic that God has not finished with us yet and there is so much more in store for us each. For by the measure of our faith He can do amazing things, things that we could never imagine or fully comprehend – because He makes the way!

We are to “give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (New International Version)

So Lord, have your way in me and in Your church.

May the following band piece, composed by Lt. Grant Pitcher be an encouragement to you, as we each embark on a new chapter in our lives, a life that God reveals to us, step by step as we take a journey of faith.

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