Steve Parsons Blog...

Everything Has Changed

A baby boy was born in a stable 2,000 or so years ago.

And at that moment everything changed.

With the birth of Jesus, an eternal light entered the world that darkness has never been able to extinguish, and never will. Hope arrived, wrapped in blankets and laid in a feeding trough.

No matter how hard we try with our nativity scenes and Christmas decorations, that birth can seem a long way removed from our lives here and now. We sing 'silent night' and dream of that holy moment and yet we still have to deal with today's bills, today's problems, today's heartaches. Part of the danger of Christmas is that if we're not careful, we can trade a present knowledge of Christ for an historical remembrance of him.

What we need; what we desperately need, is to know Jesus now. We need to know him today. And Christ's birth brings us that 'today' kind of hope, because his birth demonstrates that God cares. God cares enough about us that He gives us his own Son. He has met our greatest need. No need that we ever face could be greater than our need of a Saviour. Lost in our sin and drowning in a sea of despair, Christ comes to throw us a lifeline. 

Everything has changed.

Of course there are still huge problems in this world, but everything has changed. 

There are still wars, still evil people, still poverty and disease, still loneliness, still economic uncertainties and still injustice. You and I still face our own present challenges. But everything has changed.  

Christ has come. The light of the world is shining. The world will never be the same. His coming doesn't just offer the believer some tinsel wrapped sentiments about everything being better 'one day'. No. His coming launched a revolution that hasn't stopped. The Saviour is at work in people's lives, changing everything.

And this is truly incredible. If God cares enough about us to meet our greatest need, and to do it so spectacularly, then every other need in life is well within the bounds of his love and care. Or as Romans 8:32 puts it, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 

May you enjoy this Christmas season. May you celebrate well, eat delicious food and be with those you love. May you not only look at the birth of Jesus with sentimentality, but with new-found faith. May you experience his present power at work in your life.

And may you remember that everything has changed.

 

 

Stop Striving

It can be relentless, can't it?

The daily grind, paying the bills, moving forward, keeping your 'chin up'. 

The joy and wonder of life can disolve into a murky puddle of unending effort; the kind of effort that leaves you drained and running on empty. I've discovered in others and in myself a curious thing; the harder life becomes, the harder I strain to make it all work. In other words, I strive. 

We strive when we fall for the idea that it is all up to us. If life is going to work, if my children are going to behave, if my finances are going to last long enough, if my ministry is going to be fruitful, then it's up to me to make it so. The world (as I experience it) is depending on me to be super-human and to keep it spinning. 

When that happens we become like a person running on a treadmill. We exert more and more effort, only to wonder why we are not getting anywhere. "I'm trying super-hard here! Why is life not working properly?!"  The problem with the person on the treadmill, is that they have forgotten what the treadmill is for. It is for stationary exercise. It is not for travel. If they would simply hit the stop button, step off the relentless machine, stand back and take a fresh look at things, they would soon figure out the soloution. They might even wonder why they got on the treadmill in the first place, seeing as their real desire was to experience the fresh air of a jog in the park.

Stop.

Stop striving.

The world will be perfectly fine if you just stop for a second or ten. Your family will still love you. The church won't fall apart. Your business can survive.

One of my favourite verses of scripture in recent years has been Isaiah 30 v 15 "For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength...

Returning, rest, quietness, confidence. These are not striving words; these are saving words. It is not my job to hold the universe together, that's God's job. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't work, or indeed work hard. But working from a place of quiet confidence and restful returning, will help us to see where and how we should be expelling our energy, and might just save us from a break-down. Stopping and assessing our aims before simply jumping on the nearest treadmill, might just be life altering.