Let us have a baby and move to Aberdeen!

In the last few weeks and months God has spoken very clearly to my husband about moving to Aberdeen. With much wisdom and sensitivity he has been considering it (reluctantly at first!) and weighing up the options.This has been accompanied by the opening up of almost unbelievable opportunities for us in Aberdeen in terms of financial provision, academic opportunities for Aaron, housing, church connections, and just about everything else! Although there is lots to be finalised, it has become obvious that God wants us to be there, and we will be leaving in less than 2 months ready for the start of the academic year. By then our baby will be born, and I will be leaving Chester as a full-time mum. In all of this, from my perspective, God has been noticably quiet. I have heard no voice from heaven announcing that we should move to Aberdeen, only an overwhelming sense of peace, yet I am very thankful for this opportunity to follow Aaron's leadership. Although it is challenging not to be in control of my location, it gives me great joy to trust Aaron because I know he is trusting God and being obedient to God's calling for us as a family.

It seems like God's provision for me that at the Newfrontiers Leadership International Conference this year, Wendy Virgo led an excellent series of seminars on the home called Home Truths, particularly in regards to those who are relocating to plant churches (I would highly recommend checking these out,download for free at www.newfrontierstogether.org). The range of practical wisdom and insight given by women who have been repeatedly uprooted to be involved in churches all around the world provided me with such inspiration, and got me thinking about the concept of home.

There is something profound and vital about establishing a home. As human beings we need a place where we belong, and we often have a natural urge to create this (pregnant women in particular are famous for their 'nesting instinct'!). As you will know by now I often go to the book of Proverbs on practical matters, and there we find in Chapter 31 a wife who is putting a lot of time and energy into her home, to the joy and satisfaction of her husband and children. It also says in Proverbs 14:1: "The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down". This saying could be applied to many different situations, but in a literal sense it is saying that it is good to devote ourselves to building a home (including all the different aspects of a home, such as decor and comfort, prayer and worship, kindness and hospitality).

We know that homes have a very useful place in church life and in sharing our faith. In the book of Acts a wealthy woman called Lydia becomes a Christian and the author writes: "And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay" (Acts 16:15). So Paul and the group he was travelling with are welcomed into her home. There are many other mentions in the New Testament of homes being used for God's purposes, for example, in Colossians 4:15 Paul sends greetings to a woman called Nympha and the church that was meeting in her house. It is a wonderful thing to establish a home that can be used to welcome others, and where people can meet together. But our physical home is not the end of the story, and we must not live and work for the purpose of getting our house looking like something from an interior design magazine. I long for that kind of house sometimes, but to make that our goal is to seriously miss the point!

Jesus says lots about our home and our priorities, some of which might sound a bit harsh. He wants people to be willing to give up everything to follow him, and sometimes this means being physically uprooted from our place of comfort. Luke records Jesus having a conversation with someone who says "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home" (Luke 9:61), and Jesus replies "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). Jesus didn't have a physical home when he lived in the world, he travelled around, and we must always be willing to pack up and go when He says 'Go'. Just after I became a Christian someone had a prophecy for my life from John 3:8: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit". This came with a sense of needing to be ready to be moved around as God directed, even if it didn't make any sense to other people or even much sense to me! The Aberdeen situation is just one example of this.

Finally, I must mention 2 Corinthians 5 in relation to our long-term perspective. Paul writes: "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling" (2 Cor 5:1-2). Here he is talking about the body as a temporary home, and heaven as our eternal home. This reality shapes everything about the way we think about homes in the world. We are never going to be finally at home here, no matter how nice we make our house, because we are travelling towards a far better home. We can be available to live anywhere because it is all part of the journey, and I am excited to be on this journey with God, there is no better place to be :) Love,x

A sword through the heart: How we undermine the men in our lives

"There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." (Proverbs 12:18 ESV)

The Bible has lots to say about words. It even has lots to say about women and their words. Proverbs 31 says of a godly woman: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue" (v 26 ESV). In the context this is being applied to a wife and mother, but it is just as relevant for those of us who are single or wanting to prepare ourselves for marriage. Words are very powerful. Either we leave stab wounds or we are a gracious antiseptic bandage!That's the choice. So the way we talk to and about men is a big deal even though it might seem like a small thing, or you might think I'm blowing it out of proportion. We believe the Bible is true on all matters of human nature, so it is a big deal.

So, why am I going on about words? Well, we use a lot of words for a lot of different purposes, but I particularly want to think about how we use our words to undermine men. I believe this is a major problem in our culture, in the church, and sadly in many Christian marriages. I see it all the time, and I recognise the tendency in myself. We have been freed to be disrespectful about men and to speak belittlingly of those close to us because this is so normal in our culture. Not that guys are perfect, there are equally big issues with the way men behave towards women, but here we are talking about women and their words.

What are we talking about practically? The book of Proverbs is full of advice about how to use words (read through it if you get a chance, and highlight everything you find about words). The author talks about "a soft answer" (15:1), "a gentle tongue" (15:4), and "gracious words" (16:24) all having a deep, healthy, life-giving impact on those we communicate with. Yet so often when we talk to men or about men (our husband, boyfriend, dad, church leader, uni friends) we find it is acceptable, and even encouraged by other women, to speak negatively. At times I have caught myself snapping at my husband, or moaning about him to friends, or making a disrespectful joke when we are at a social event. Since becoming aware of this I have noticed other dear friends speaking in a patronising way to their dad, or being constantly critical of their church leaders, or putting down their husbands in front of others. There are endless ways in which we as women can undermine men with our words. Because it is an issue of the heart, not just a matter of what comes out of our mouths, it will look different for different people. Jesus taught about this: "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). So if we stop and think about it, there must be a sinful attitude in our heart that is leading us to speak in an undermining way. For example, if there is an attitude of rebellion against my husband in my heart then I may react disrespectfully and fiercely to his guidance or correction.

Often I don't think we realise what we are doing, or what the full implications are. But the effect, whether intentional or not, is to discourage them, paralyse them in their initiative-taking, and sap their confidence in their leadership ability (in professional situations at work, and in personal situations such as marriage and parenting). Not only that but it causes a lot of pain, as we saw in the sword thrusts of Proverbs 12:18. We are also sneaky sometimes, and we know that we are undermining the men in our lives but because it is often done through lots of small subtle things we can pretend to ourselves and others that we didn't mean it. Sometimes we will cover up the critical or disrespectful nature of what we are saying by turning it into a joke. This is something to be aware of. Even if we think we are getting ourselves off the hook for our use of words, God sees straight through us anyway. Proverbs 15:11 says "Even death and destruction hold no secrets from the Lord. How much more does he know the human heart!" (NLT). He is concerned with the things in our hearts, not just what we say.

So, some questions worth considering...

• Do I use my words to wound or to heal?


• Have I asked God to reveal the attitude of my heart towards men so that I can work through any sin there?


• Why do I speak the way I do about/towards my husband/boyfriend/church leader/friend? Am I negatively influenced by culture or women around me?


• Am I being an example to others in respecting and honouring the men in my life with my words (as well as the women, of course!)?


• Do I also use body language or looks in an undermining way (eg. rolling my eyes, turning away with folded arms)?


• Is there anything I need to ask forgiveness for or anything I need to turn from and change (repent of)?

Love, until next time.x

The spirit of feminism

After spending several months on a journalism training course I had some thoughts about the personal influence of feminism in our culture which I want to share with you. Here is not the place to go into the definition of feminism because it has become so wide-ranging and I would be sure to say something inaccurate, but I do want to raise a couple of points from my own experience.

I worked along side some highly competitive young women who lived and worked out of the general beliefs that you don't need a man in your life (and certainly shouldn't let a man influence your life), that gender is a social construction, and that being single and career-orientated is the path of liberation. This belief system has infiltrated all aspects of the media and entertainment and education in our culture, now being accepted by most girls as their worldview without any connection to the roots of feminism. It's just there, convenient, and culturally acceptable. Therefore, I'm not talking about academic feminism, because very few women know where their views are coming from, I'm just talking about the spirit of feminism that has filtered down into popular culture.

I have observed in many of the young women that I have spent time with that they have a hatred for authority over them in any form. They are particularly defiant of being led by any man in any sphere of life, resulting in a disdainful attitude towards men and often a dislike for chivalry. I have observed an arrogance about their liberated lifestyle, and a disdain for marriage and motherhood. Many girls I worked with never managed to sustain a long-term relationship because they were self-absorbed to the extent of being unwilling to give anything of themselves to the relationship or make any compromise. I can remember being like this myself, but I'm realising that it is both dangerous for our society and for the individuals themselves to buy into this. So, from my experience of the way I used to think and feel, as well as what I've observed around me, here are some thoughts:

The spirit of feminism...

• It stops you needing people, or at least admitting your need for people. This defeats real community/sharing/giving, which are all incredibly important for relationships.




• It makes you proud of your independence, which means that you might tend to bottle up or block out feelings so that you can survive, leading to unhealthy long-term consequences.




• It might make you feel good to say that you don't need a man, but it's not an honourable thing, men and women do need each other deeply.




• If you have accepted the popular feminism you will find the demands of a relationship very difficult - selfless love, compromise, submission, will be impossible.




• The feminist mindset makes you read everything with a defensiveness and indignation which makes it impossible to accept constructive criticism, and makes you paranoid that people are trying to belittle you. Neither are helpful because sometimes you do need to be told to change, and you do need to be humble.




• No matter how much you try to convince yourself that female solidarity makes a relationship with a guy unnecessary, it just doesn't.




• Feminism isn't the answer to all the abuse of women that has occured throughout history.




• Sometimes our views are used as a front or as an excuse because we are scared, lazy, or selfish.




• If it is true that there is no fundamental difference between men and women then this should be accepted entirely, yet there are some situations where it just doesn't make sense (sending women to fight in Iraq?).




• The spirit of feminism makes chivalry unnecessary (even despised), which is tragic because it's a really healthy and good thing for men and women.




• Our beliefs often rise out of bad or painful experiences with men. This is no basis for an ideology.




• If you end up acting like a man, that doesn't prove that women are self-sufficient. You can't copy someone and then say you don't need them.




• We have lost much of our softness. The spirit of feminism makes us disdainful of feminine things, instead of seeing femininity as beautiful and powerful in a different way to masculinity.
  

Whether we see it now or not, there are far-reaching consequences for lives lived out of these values. We need to consider how our culture is shaping us, maybe even without us being aware of it. What values affect your personal life? Who put them there? Why do you believe what you believe? Love,x