Knowing more than is written

I grew up inland, but am spending time on an island where rain sweeps across the ocean, a thick white line on the horizon, smudging the distant islands, bearing down on the coast. These are sudden, summer storms that catch out tourists in their pleasure boats so that they need rescuing, despite their tide tables and navigation charts.

Local fishermen shake their heads. They also have tide tables and navigation charts, but they don’t rely only on them. They have a relationship with the sea;  they know its nature. They know where each current will take them, how the tide will work with them or against them, when they should sail out and when they need to head for home. It’s an understanding that has nothing to do with what they have read. It comes from experience, maybe while being taught by someone older, certainly from spending time out there on the water. If I’m leaving safe harbour, I know who I want on board.

Knowing God is like that. It’s not the same as knowing about Him. It means knowing his nature, knowing what you can trust Him to do, where He might take you, how He will support you, when you can step out in faith and when I should not. It’s a knowledge that will enable you to move confidently, trusting Him, not what you have learned.

I love the sea, but will never know it like the local fishermen. God, on the other hand – God the almighty creator of the universe – has an open invitation for us, for you, to spend time with Him, so He can help you to get to know Him. Theology is fine and useful. So are tide tables. But it’s knowing the sea that counts on the ocean. And it’s knowing Him is what will enable you to navigate life.

It’s there, an invitation to wisdom, just waiting for you to ask.

1 John 4:8                            The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Ephesians 1:17                  I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Psalm 138:3                        On the day I called, You answered me; You made me bold with strength in my soul.

Proverbs 3:5                       Trust in the Lord with all your heart and  lean not on your own understanding

What do you have in your house?

In the Bible, there’s a story where Elisha is asked for help by a widow who has been left destitute and in debt. Creditors are coming to take away her sons as slaves. She asks him for help, and his reply is not to give money, or to miraculously provide money. Instead he says “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” And she replies that she has nothing at all, but then as an afterthought mentions a small jar of olive oil. And it is this small and insignificant resource that Elisa uses to make supernatural provision for her.

This is interesting in two ways. First, he doesn’t just miraculously make something out of nothing. Instead he uses the little she has, although it doesn’t seem nearly enough. Jesus wants to use what we have to do amazing and wonderful things that are beyond our imagination. When He fed five thousand  people, he didn’t start with an empty basket. He used the small amount of loaves and fishes that were there. He starts with the inadequate, does miracles with that.

The second thing, though, is that he didn’t just pick up the olive oil and increase it; he asked the widow to tell him what she had. He said “Tell me”. He asked her to find something in the middle of all her lack that was hers. He asked her to name it, and to offer it up as part of the miracle to come.

When I’m under pressure, the easiest thing to see is all that I don’t have, all the reasons why what I want is impossible. I don’t have enough of this or that. That’s objectively true. But there’s also some small thing I have that is less obvious  – a word, a pen, a book, a phone, a talent – that one thing I have that seems insignificant, that tiny jar of olive oil that is obviously not enough. That’s where I need to start, to find it, name it out loud, offer it into the mix, and let Him do miracles with it.

What do you have in your house?

 

2 Kings 4:2           Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”

John 6:9               “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

Proverbs 3:5-6   Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Living below the water line

There’s a beach I love, a storm beach, long and wide and great for walking. I must have walked it hundreds of times now, and so have tens of thousands of others over the years. And yet it shows no trace of our walking. The tides wash in and out, cleaning off our footprints, leaving the beach perfect, smooth and damp, a clean canvas every day.

We live our lives imperfectly, and mess up in big or small ways all the time. I used to believe that God maintained a record of all of that, preserving the tracks of my imperfection. I thought I’d started with a beautiful clean canvas and gradually filled it with indelible marks that would be one day forgiven, of course, but for now were clear and visible to God.  I thought it must be disappointing for Him. I believed I must be a disappointment.

But it’s not like that. God forgives and forgets constantly, not occasionally, renewing our lives through Grace. The tracks of our imperfection are wiped as soon as they are made. This forgiveness of sins – it’s not something that will happen eventually. It’s already done.

Here’s the thing: we are not leaving footprints on a beach that will be erased when the tide finally comes in. We are walking below the water line. His forgiving, living water pours out to forgive and renew us all the time.  No matter how crowded and cluttered the world is, He sees us in the pure and perfected work that Grace is doing in our lives. He loves us, pure and simple. Our sins leave no trace in his memory, because of where He has placed us, because of our position in His love.

We are living below the water line. We can live bravely, not afraid of messing up. We don’t have to worry about the tracks of our past, or even of our future. God’s forgiveness isn’t something that might happen. It already has happened. We can follow where He leads us in the freedom of Grace, the beauty of His forgiving love.

Hebrews 10:17-18            Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Hebrews 4:16                    Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Luke 15:24                           ‘For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

2 Corinthians 3:17           Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.