Do you ever realise you’ve needed to go to the bathroom for several hours, but you’ve been too busy to stop, just so you could go? Ever feel like you’re running at a ridiculous pace, and wonder when the race is going to stop?
Join me at Signposts today, where I’m sharing about a maxim that is helping me slow down, and make some quality life decisions.
But, ya know, maybe you should take a break and go to the bathroom first.
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The fifth chapter of John starts with a story about Jesus healing a man who’d been sick with an infirmity for thirty-eight years. The man was waiting by the pool at Bethesda, where people with different types of diseases would wait for healing. When the waters were stirred, the first one to step into them would be healed, but this man, being unable to get in on his own, and having no one to help him in, was still waiting and hoping to be healed.
Jesus came along and asked the man, “Do you want to be made well?” {a ponderable question} and the man replied by explaining why he hadn’t been healed already: he can’t jump in himself, and someone else always gets there first.
Jesus responds by telling him to rise, take up his bed, and walk. The man was immediately made well, and I imagine, with a hop and skip, picked up his bed and was on his merry way.
The Jews took offense at this man carrying his bed on the Sabbath, and confronted him about it. He explained that the one who’d made him well had told him to take up his bed and walk. He just didn’t know who it was that had healed him.
Jesus came and found the man again later — I think this might be the only time its recorded that Jesus went back and found someone he’d healed — and encouraged him: “See, you’ve been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
Following along from Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman in the previous chapter {John 4}, through these stories John is introducing Jesus as a man with a greater authority than the law. He had a long theological conversation with a Samaritan woman, which was just not kosher in those days, and now here he is, directing someone to contradict the tradition of not carrying one’s bed on the Sabbath.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why? Like, why didn’t Jesus just wait a day or two, and then heal this dude on Tuesday and save him from getting hassled by the Jews? Why let his disciples pluck grain on the Sabbath? Why defend an adulterous woman? Why does it seem like he’s quite prepared to regularly offend the Jews in ways that could’ve been avoided?
I imagine He has more in mind than I could possibly think of, His ways being so much higher than mine, but certainly part of His intention is to challenge the Jews in their certainty about their knowledge of God’s will.
If the Jews had been busy about the things that Jesus wanted to teach, things on the heart of God, like mercy and kindness and justice, then they could’ve helped this man get healed. They could’ve been the ones to lift him down into the pool.
But here he is, healed without their help, and rather than rejoice at a miracle of God, they take offense that he is carrying his mat on the Sabbath.
But the Jews aren’t the only ones offended by Jesus. I find in my own life that God offends my ideas about Him and His will. Like the time I felt led to call the Hubs — not long before we started dating — even though the Lord had previously instructed me not to pursue him.
I made a law. God overruled, to lead by the Spirit.
Or like the time I had a drink with an old friend, though to my own mind at first the thought of having a beer with him was offensive, yet I couldn’t deny it was the leading of the Holy Spirit.
I made a law. But God, with greater authority than the law, led by the Spirit again.
God wants to put His Spirit in us, that we might follow Him more nearly, and understand His heart, but I think we would rather have a formula. Seven steps to a new you. Three easy ways to discern God’s will. But even chapter and verse, without the Spirit, are words on a page.
I wonder, if you are a follower of Jesus, if God might have shown up in ways You didn’t expect, to challenge the “laws” You’ve created. Or if He might want to.
Humbling ourselves and taking up our cross — it’s an offensive idea to our natural minds. Asking for forgiveness from God and from others — it’s an offensive request in the face of our own pride.
But perhaps in His infinite wisdom, God recognises that we need to be offended sometimes — in order to see the wrong beliefs in our souls. The wrong attitudes in our hearts.
Rather than set up camp on our own created rules, He urges us: keep travelling on this journey. Keep chasing after Me.
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Lil’ Note: I wrote this post while we were still in our place in Gordon’s Bay.
I‘m constantly taking snapshots with my mind these days, savouring these last few moments in this special place…this home where three became four, where words became sentences, where diapers became potty-trained just in time for more diapers.
He wakes up later these days, warm and cozy and sometimes grumpy. He still cries for us to come get him, even though he’s in a big-boy bed. Occasionally all we hear is a loud, “Hey! I wake!” He’s never quite sure about breakfast…no Pwo-Nutwo … no yoghurt … yes Pwo-Nutwo. Yes Yoghurt. I want deez, deez deez!!
{First week in Gordon’s Bay}
Something clicked funny in the “May I please…” training, so when he is prompted to ask for something properly, he quickly rattles out:
May I please get down, yes, may, youuuuuuuu.
That’s been the story for a month and half and he’s sticking with it.
At breakfast one morning, we held hands and I decided to pray with my own special rendition of a Veggie Tales song:
Thank you, God, for this day, for the food in our bowls…
but before I could get to the second line of my special song he interrupted with a loud
NOPE NOPE NOOOOOPE!
And before I could finish saying, “I can pray how I want…” he interrupted again with an assertive
“Pway Ploperly, Mama. Do it ploperly.”
I could only laugh in response.
The baby that learned to walk and to talk, to dance and to run right here, is now a little boy. Full of life, and spunk and personality, and so different from the toothless wonder that arrived in ’09.
I pause listening to him speak as he uses the ‘a’ from ‘Father’ in words like fast and dance. In my American accent I ask “Are you dancing, Bear?” {with the a sound like the word ‘an’} and he replies, “No. I dancing.” with the ‘a’ sound from the word ‘father’ again.
How soon will that bit of South Africa fade? I wonder.
{near the end of our time in Gordon’s Bay}
***
Now here we are in Bloemfontein, those days have passed, and the last two months of calling South Africa home are upon us. I’m reminded to slow down, and to be thankful for this day.
Whichever they are, these days pass by so quickly. Kiss your family. Hug your kids. Slow down and be thankful for today.
You may not pass this way again.
xCC
Perhaps for the last time for a while, I’m spending this fourth of July away from the USA. {My Dad and I were trying to remember last night when last I spent one in the USA!} This is my second Fourth in good ol’ South Africa. (I can’t remember how many I spent in Scotland.)
Now. In case Geography isn’t your strong suit, South Africa is in the southern hemisphere.
And in case Weather and Climate aren’t up there too high on your skills list either, that means it’s winter here.
And in case you just don’t know, just because we’re in Africa doesn’t mean it’s always hot.
The Free State (the province where Bloemfontein proudly presides) is known for its cold winters. It’s on the “high veld” at a high altitude {Goo-Goo says 5-odd-thousand feet}. On a high note, the highs can reach the teens on winter days (50s and 60s Fahrenheit). On a low note, the nights tend to below f-f-f-freezing.
Meaning: It could snow. On the fourth of July. What?
So I’m celebrating this F-F-F-Fourth of July by honouring the memory of the Boston Tea Party. A hot cup of non-British tea (or six) is warming me up today, and mayhaps I’ll switch over to coffee as often as is reasonable.
Next year I’m having an extra hot dog. Blackened on the grill. With ketchup instead of tomato sauce.
In other news, I only briefly braved a glimpse at these here internets last night to let you know we’d safely arrived in Bloem. I want to more thoroughly report that the trip was fantastic. On our first day of travel we took off at about half past ten in the morning and arrived at our first destination around six in the evening, and the boys handled the travelling beautifully.
The Tank snoozed and played in his little car seat and chose very convenient times to be hungry or to need a change. The Bear enjoyed colouring in a specially-chosen-for-this-trip colouring book (about Pirates) and enjoyed stickering in a specially-chosen-for-this-trip sticker book about trains. Arrrrggggh and choo-choo! And he took a lekker nap in the afternoon.
With the presence of road works delays and the fact that we had to get back in the car, day two was a little tougher. We nevertheless persevered, taking off early and arriving comfortably in Bloem in the mid-afternoon. And e’erbody said Amen.
Thank you for your prayers. HH and I marvelled on more than one occasion at how smoothly things have gone this past week. A week ago we were packing suitcases and selling most of our stuff and trying to decide what to send to the States and tying up a dozen other loose ends. Now here we are, safely a thousand kilometres away with the logistical challenges (and some hard goodbyes) behind us, and two months of recovery and peaceful days (and then some transition!) ahead of us.
The Bear has asked a couple more times about going home and sleeping in his own bed, but he is handling things very, very well. We believe in the power of prayer, and during this season, as we were sometimes too exhausted to pray much, we’re so thankful for friends bring requests before the throne of our behalf.
What a good God we have, Who decided at the beginning we’d be able to speak to Him on behalf of one another.
And for the freedom we enjoy to exercise that gift from heaven as and how we choose, with gratefulness I wish my fellow Americans a Happy Fourth of July. And I wish my dear British friends a Happy Rebellion Day. {Call it what you will, I’m pleased with the outcome. 😉 } And to everybody else, Happy Monday!
xCC
Excited to be here.
Pretty wiped from two days of travel.
Enthused and hopeful, based on how well these boys handled a heckuvalotta travel.
Too tired to think of much more to say. But it’s coming. Believe you me.
Can you guess which baby boy this is?
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