This one is a quote on my mirror. It’s been helpful. The pleasure of a baby in my arms comes by the way of sleepless nights, the pleasure of watching a child learn to read has come by the way of daily practice, the pleasure of a deepening friendship with my husband has come by the way of humility (even when I know I’m right!) and similarly getting to know God – the delight of my heart – is not always easy or fun.
Like a perfect Father he is totally able to guide my childlike attempts to ‘help’ in the things he is busy with in the earth. The picture of a solid farmer about his work while his little girl watering-can-in-hand is toddling along behind, tripping over her own feet in her attempts to work for Daddy scattering seed everywhere in the meantime. “Keep on, my girl! Let’s give it a go together.” Father encourages. That’s me! For me this is what happiness looks like.
Community Kids Club in the Park
Christmas Carols event put on by the Council & An Elvis Tribute Show in an RSL Club singing ‘Gospel’
A Christianity consumed with perfectionism must be one of the saddest most joy-absent things I’ve ever seen. Do I look right? Sound right? Move right? Fitting in is really not on the agenda that Jesus came to release on the earth. It’s all about the Kingdom with Jesus. Our nation and the nations of the earth are hungry for authentic expressions of Christian faith. This kind of living is however messy. This counter-cultural pursuit of Jesus (in and through my failure, pain and struggle) over a ‘pursuit-of-happiness’ definitely does produce an incomparable pleasure. That isn’t to say being more aware of those things that generate well-being in a human sense are wrong, but preoccupation or obsession with happiness for the sake of happiness can be a bit depressing. (I enjoyed these resources on happiness and the comment this documentary made on society https://www.happinesscentral.com).
There is pleasure to be had for followers of the way of faith that doesn’t simply ‘look’ right but lives radical…radically honest, radically patient, radically generous, radically disciplined, radically sacrificial with the example of Jesus at the centre. For each of these has an associated pain: those who are honest may be misunderstood, those who are patient may be mistreated, those who are generous may be taken for granted, those who are disciplined may be repressed, those who are sacrificial may never self-actualise. Yet for the sake of Christ we may consider our right to these things a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ!
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
borgiesfamily 