Thoughts From Afar.

[laterunner]

It was a glorious summer Saturday with a refreshing breeze keeping the temperature from becoming stiflingly hot. Jane and I had decided to take our children to one of our favourite parks in Kunming. We had just arrived when we noticed several old people also entering the park. They were carrying bulky canvas bags with what looked like big fishing reels sticking out of them. We were curious so we followed them to an expansive grassy area and watched as they settled down on their fold-up seats and took out not fishing rods, but kites, the reels each holding what seemed like miles of kite line.

Helping each other, one-by-one this fraternity of kite fliers soon got their cumbersome kites up into the air, where they took on a whole new personality. On the ground the kites had been sluggish, clumsy and fragile, while in the air they were energetic, graceful and agile. We lay flat on the grass, looked up at the sky and watched them. In the crystal clarity typical of such high altitude locations as Kunming (6500ft above sea level towards the Tibetan plateau) the vibrant colours of the kites contrasted vividly with the backdrop of electric blue sky.

Many of the kites represented animals or birds while others were abstract geometric shapes. They all tended to be large, though flying high on the long lines they still looked fairly small. They danced, soared and swooped, their often amazingly long tails accentuating every movement.

Yet what if a kite suddenly got tired of being held taut in the wind by its owner? What if it took a dislike to being pulled and tugged? If it were to focus more on the tension point where it was attached to the line than on the view it had, the exhilaration of rushing through the wind and the joy it was giving to others like us it would be a miserable kite indeed. Might it want to detach itself from the line to fly more freely? Yet if it did, it would of course tumble out of the sky and quite likely damage itself in a tree or on impact with the ground.

Are we not like that kite sometimes? Do we not on occasion find ourselves focusing more on the restrictions put on us by our heavenly owner and less on the great blessings (and many freedoms) that accepting those few restrictions brings? If we did manage to get free of the line – ‘no strings attached’ - we would soon run into trouble. Without that connection and without that tension caused by the divine interplay between us, God and the wind of His Spirit we would fall like the kite.

Referring to another analogy with a similar meaning…

‘Don’t hurt yourself like an ox kicking against its owner’s stick’. Acts 26.14
(From My Faithfilled Son.)

 

[laterunner]

Adopted

Like any ex-pat working in China, I get to hear of people, inevitably from western countries, who are either in the process of adopting a Chinese baby or who have already successfully adopted one.

You have to admire these people. The adoption process is not easy. Both in China and in the adopting parents’ own country, you have to deal with several official departments which all tend to work only very slowly and carefully. Hopes to adopt have to be held lightly, so as not to be disappointed should you at any stage be unsuccessful. While the physical pain of regular childbirth is avoided, adopting can bring much if not more hassle & worry, and the emotional roller coaster ride tends to be just as intense and even more prolonged. The process is financially costly, too.

Adopting parents are amazingly willing to jump through seemingly endless hoops, some of which are set on fire just before they jump. Should they successfully jump through the final hoop, they then face the unique challenge of parenting a child who will most likely be somewhat traumatized having been rejected and left for some time in an institution.

A young couple in Siberia underlined this unique parenting challenge to me in an e-mail they sent me a few weeks ago. A few months previously they had adopted a Russian boy named Seryozha. In their e-mail they asked for prayer, saying: ‘We see that life without parents, in a children’s home, affected this small boy a lot. Often we don’t know how to react when his past appears. Please pray that God would take away all the unclean things from his heart from his past life.”

When I read this I was struck by the realization that while most of us have probably had a better beginning than children like Seryozha, we didn’t by any means have a perfect start ourselves. From the beginning our hearts had within them the pre-existing condition of sin. They were further tainted by the fallen aspects of the early influences on us, including our parenting. And then, as we grew older, we dirtied our hearts further by the sins we committed. Like Seryozha, we all have ‘unclean things in our hearts from our past life’ and our past still appears all too frequently.
*
And like Seryozha, we too have been adopted – by our Heavenly Father. Our past appears, bare and naked, before Him in such mundane places as our kitchens. Yet He does not regret adopting us. Neither does he plan to throw us out of His home and send us back to where we were before. Think for a minute of some of the ways in which your past appears and you will be freshly amazed at how He still lovingly persists with you.

He seeks to perfect us and mature us through His love. He is rightly confident in how he brings us up as his parenting of us is faultless, for He is faultless. He wants the best for us. The challenge for us is that we have to learn to discern & accept His love if it is to have good effect. May your adoptive heavenly Father show you progressively more of His heart towards you, His adopted child, even as your past appears before Him. And do pray for Seryozha and his adoptive parents.

“He predestined us to be adopted as his sons (and daughters) through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.” Ephesians 1.5
#2
( From My faith filled son.)

 

[laterunner]

Beyond Olympian Stature – The Church

You are probably aware that China has just marked the one-year countdown to the opening of the 2008 Olympics with a lively ceremony in Beijing. Even if you feel quite indifferent or negative towards such sports events, I’m sure you have at some point admired, maybe with an understandable envy, the physique of sports men & women. You will no doubt have noticed their taut smooth skin and well developed muscles. However, we generally don’t go beyond this ‘skin-deep’ admiration. And when we think of the body of Christ and its many parts we tend to gravitate to the limited description in
1 Corinthians 12. It seems that whether we focus on the physique of sports people or on Christ’s body we can easily overlook two parts said in Colossians 2.19 to have a key place – joints & ligaments.

Actually, joints & ligaments do have some classic ways in which they make their presence known. For example, through sports injuries, in which they are as frequently damaged as muscles, bones, flesh & skin. Maybe like me, your knowledge of sports injuries is negligible as you neither follow spectator sports nor play sport much yourself. However, you have probably sprained or twisted an ankle at some time, or known someone who had. I badly twisted an ankle on some stairs a few years ago. While I ‘only’ damaged some ligaments I was stuck at home for 17 days and it was over a month before I could walk without crutches. Chinese neighbours said it would take 6 months for my ankle to fully heal. I learnt the importance of ligaments then.

Many people only discover the vital role of joints when they get old. It’s a gritty fact of life that at some stage our physique will peak and then decline. However much we work to sustain it, ageing will eventually take its toll. Our skin will become less smooth & taut. Our muscle mass will diminish and fat will come nuzzling up next to what remains of it. In addition, arthritis can set into our joints. It’s surely bad enough to lose strength and looks, but worse to decline in posture, dexterity and mobility due to joints seizing up.

Christ understands the importance of joints & ligaments in His spiritual body - the local & global church. We are all connected to others in the body and we all have a responsibility to stay connected and to cooperate with others. However, some people have a special role as joints & ligaments. These people help the local & global body of Christ to build itself up into maturity & full stature - ‘physique’! This seems to be the ultimate goal according to Ephesians 4.12-16. Perhaps the best example of someone with a joint/ligament role in the bible is Barnabus. He linked the newly converted Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem when they couldn’t believe that he was no longer hell-bent on destroying the church. Through making this simple introduction, Barnabus helped open up Paul’s amazing ministry. Barnabus also helped John Mark find his place & role in the body when Paul had no faith in the man.

Are you and is your church linked as God wants it to be to other parts of His body? Does God want you to play more of a joint/ligament role, linking others together? And if you work in a Christian organisation of some kind, are you and is the organisation sufficiently joined to the local church? Whatever the state of your physique, are you playing your part to see Christ’s body grow in moral and physical stature – beyond that of any Olympian?

‘From [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.’ Ephesians 4.16. (See also Acts 9.26-31 & 15.36-39, Colossians 4.10, 2 Timothy 4.11)
(#3 From My Faithfilled Son)