Wearily upward

I attended an online leadership conference recently. It was a fairly intense day. I watched the keynote speakers passionately share their inspirational messages and research and insights while I casually gnawed on carrot sticks and freely got up for bathroom breaks at will. An introvert's dream conference. But the thing that really struck me was the speakers' credentials. Before every talk a female voice fit for radio would run through a list of things the orator accomplished, a couple of the multitude of books the person has written, the awards he/she has won and the nearly unbelievable influence and reach the person has. The credentials gave a sense of security and trust that whatever is about to come out of this person's mouth will be worth listening to. Especially the one-liner phrases that was conveniently and trendily jotted down in the downloadable e-resources pack. And it got me thinking about how we measure the value in people. The thought occurred to me that if I ...

I've learnt a lot about myself and the way I think in the last couple of months. Stressful, strange, uncomfortable circumstances have a tendency to do that. One of the things I've noticed about myself is how I approach days and weeks; how I go about stepping into the future. I've started thinking through my day in the morning and finding something to look forward to in that day. Sometimes I look forward to catching up with a friend. Sometimes it's a nice meal I have planned for dinner. Sometimes it's as simple as looking forward to a bad day ending. It varies, but I've found it helps me stay positive(-ish) in the kind of times we're dealing with, because sometimes what I look forward to is on the other side of something difficult. Sometimes it's a tough conversation to be had. Sometimes it's a life-draining meeting in the diary. Sometimes it's just my turn to get up with the kids in the morning. In Romans 5:3-5 (NIV) we read: "Not only so, b...

The other day I was in the bathroom for my morning routine of washing my face, brushing my teeth, etc. Ruben (my son) was already dressed with teeth cleaned, so he was in the living room getting out his toys to start a day of carefree playing and potty training. Life is so much simpler when you're nearly 3 years old. Just as I started brushing my teeth I heard Ruben calling from the living room: "Pappa, can you weed me a tohwy!?" (Translation: Daddy, can you read me a story?) I was caught with a toothbrush gently carressing my molars and a mouth full of minty foam, so I couldn't answer him straight away. He obviously repeated the question... in exactly the same way... with exactly the same intonation. "Pappa, can you weed me a tohwy!?" "Pappa, can you weed me a tohwy!?" "Pappa, can you weed me a tohwy!?" "Pappa, can you weed me a tohwy!?" "Pappa, can you weed me a tohwy!?" This continued at a steady tempo, almost metro...

A while ago I worked on a set of devotions looking at different people Jesus met during His time on earth. A fascinating exercise. Jesus interacting with different people in varying contexts, as told by His friends and followers. It is very revealing. It shows us not only the immense power of God in human form, but also His humanity and his intricate and intimate knowledge of those He deals with. All done in love. One of the more famous episodes takes place just after dawn in the sandy temple courts in a crowd of onlookers. The role players: Jesus, the Pharisees and teachers of the law (the religious elite), and a woman caught in adultery. You can read the account in John 8:1-11.  Most of the time we focus on the interaction between Jesus and the woman. It's a beautiful story of grace, redemption, safety and transformation. But recently I started wondering what the religious elite (let's call them The Squad) must have been going through. They were right to bring the adulterous ...

I've been praying a lot more lately. That's always a good thing, I think. And, for me, my prayer time seems to increase the closer I get to my wits' end. I have found myself praying in the middle of the night, unable to sleep; at my desk while working, unable to concentrate; out walking with my family, unable to enjoy the significance of a moment. Most of the time I pray for various people and situations - whoever comes to mind at those times - but those prayers will always include a line that goes something like this: "Lord, I don't know what to do. Please show me what to do," but only in Afrikaans, because I commune with the Lord in my mother tongue... or the Language Of Heaven as many may know it. Anyway. C.S. Lewis wrote: "We must lay before him [God] what is in us; not what ought to be in us."  And so many of my prayers changed a tiny bit. Instead of asking God to show or tell me what to do , I just straight-up asked Him for a miracle . Instead ...

Spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for almost 9 weeks now with a 5 year-old teenager teaches one a lot of things. It teaches lessons on staying calm in the chaos, being positive in the pain, effective teaching methods, what really annoys one about members in one's home, and so on. The most recent lesson I have learnt is that I am an annoyingly hypocritical parent. Let me explain. My daughter and son share my almost outdated iPad Mini, although it's hardly fair to call it mine anymore. While Madeleine does math homeschooling assignments, Ruben watches and plays Number Blocks (thank you BBC!) on the iPad. When it's snack time, Madeleine gets a go on the iPad while Ruben eats his apple slices. It's like a well oiled machine most of the time. It does, however, mean that the iPad is always around. As it was today during lunch. Madeleine was, naturally, drawn to the iPad while eating her sandwich. She gets distracted like that easily, and I prefer for her to finish on...

For the last two years I've been keeping a tiny, wild, impossible dream in the back of my head. You know the kind: it makes one's heart beat faster with great excitement and a bit of dread, but one leaves it there because it just seems impossible, impractical, silly, unattainable. But every now and then the thought pops up again as one strays down that winding road of disappointment where reality and fantasy meet - no, collide - and the process of picking up and hiding away the pieces of one's shattered dream(s) commences. And then, as if to really nail down the coffin's lid on one's aspirations, the world falls into a seemingly bottomless pit of chaos. COVID-19, the effects of Climate Change, global violence and war, and neighbours who do not appreciate one's children playing in the communal garden (that's a personal one which is completely unrelated to the above-mentioned...). Anyway. It seems that now would be the absolute worst time to dream about ...

I sometimes lose hope. Most of those times it's not because of overwhelming circumstances, or surreal challenges. Most of the time it's because of the general stupidity of human beings (including my own, very obvious stupidity). Like following lockdown rules... or not. Many people, it seems, stupidly think that these rules, there to protect them and those around them, don't apply to them. So what's the use of me keeping to the rules if someone else just keeps on breaking them, regardless? What is the use? And the scary thing is that this will most likely be repeated in the future (assuming most of us survive the current apocalypse). It's not a new thing either. The Israelites in the desert/wilderness started to grumble when they missed their captivity. At least they had meat to eat... The Israelites after God gave them their own country, not sticking to the rules He gave them. Again. And again. And (predictively, sadly, annoyingly) again. Even the apostle Paul w...

There are a couple of phrases in English (and other languages, I'm sure), that just outright contradicts what the words actually mean. Things like "I'm not racist, but..." or "I don't mean to interfere, but..." or even "I'm fine, thanks," when asked how one is doing. This, for me, is the worst one: "I shouldn't say this, but..." I hate it because there's a sense that using this phrase makes whatever follows okay to say. It's like using a tea towel to lessen a hammer blow. And then justifying hurtful and unnecessary words by adding "I'm just being honest" adds fuel to the fire of frustration slowly burning around the edges of my patience. In a couple of sentences the speaker has gone from "I should remain silent," to "I'm not even sorry I didn't remain silent." There's a lot in the Bible about the tongue, our words and how we use them. They have great power (Proverbs 1...

My daughter is very generous. Mostly with other people's stuff... and by 'other people' I mean me. My daughter is very generous with my stuff. I think she takes after her mother... I'M JUST KIDDING! Anyway... It's one thing to be generous with our own property. It's something else to be generous with things that belong to other people. I think the latter is called fraud or stealing... or plagiarism (don't quote me on that...). And though one of those are wrong, we often do it when it comes to owning up to mistakes. It's much easier - convenient - to ignore our own mistakes and move on, rather than owning up and taking responsibility for our actions. It's far more comfortable to accept mercy before confessing than it is to acknowledge our own frailty and failure. I've done it. I still do at times. And it is wrong. As R.M. Harrington put it: "I once thought myself a good man, a man of high standards, and a man of strong moral fiber but...

A while ago the fire alarm in the hall next to my office started beeping. At first it was just the occasional beep throughout the day. Then it started beeping once every five minutes or so. It was clearly time to change the battery. However, it was one of those situations where no-one really knew whose responsibility it was to change the battery. I suppose that's one of the challenges when lots of people, organisations and charities use the church building as a base of operation, subsequently hot-desking it (where no one really has their own desk or workspace, but just uses whatever desk/space is available at any given time): no one takes ownership of what's around them, because they're not there all the time. I see a resemblance between this situation and my personal walk with Jesus. I sometimes run out of battery for various reasons. It may be that I'm not consistently intentional about spending time in God's Word. It may be that, at times, I get a bit slack i...

Yesterday we had a lady from Open Doors preach at our Morning Service. It was really moving to hear about the wonderful work they do with and for the persecuted church all around the world. She quoted a Christian from the persecuted church in Central Asia that really stuck with me: "Persecution teaches you to really know Jesus - not just know of Him." This got me thinking, as quotes usually do. It seems that we, in the free west, have grown a little too familiar with Jesus. Yes, we live in a country where religious persecution (of all faiths) doesn't happen; at least not openly. We have freedom of speech. We've even used that freedom (wrongly) to suppress and subdue those who disagree with us; trying to legislate Christian morality, for example (which can be a whole other series of blogs altogether). And yet it is as if we're missing the core of our faith: Jesus Christ. I am reminded of the events described in Mark 6. Jesus was going round doing amazing mira...

My son loves cuddling. Most of the time. Well... wrestling is probably a better word to describe what he likes to do. And I love that. Looking beyond the odd head-butt here and there, or the occasional knee in uncomfortable places (guys will know what I'm talking about...), I love the fact that he just wants to be with me, if only for a little while. The other day I was lying on the couch watching rugby. He came into the living room, saw me, exclaimed, "Pappa!" then ran up and jumped on me. He just looked into my eyes to make sure he had my attention - our noses almost touching - openly coughed into my face and casually jumped off to go and bother his big sister. That brief interaction was enough for him to know that I'm still there before carrying on with his day. Sometimes I'll have my phone out and he will just climb onto my lap, wedge himself between my face and my phone. I'm convinced he does this just to get some form of acknowledgement that I know ...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me." This is a children's rhyme that was used to encourage victims of name-calling to ignore the teasing, refrain from retaliation and remain calm, dating from the 1800's. The main idea of this advice: have a thick skin when it comes to verbal abuse. (see 1 Peter 3:15-17) And yet there is a significant amount of power that our words hold. The Bible says a lot about the power of the tongue. Proverbs 15:4, 21:23, 26:20, Matthew 15:11, Colossians 4:6, and 1 Peter 3:10 are but a few examples of Biblical instruction about the power of one's words. There are many more verses that teach on this subject. The main idea of this teaching: our words can either harm or heal; break people down or build them up, so use them wisely or not at all. Proverbs 18:20-21 (NIVUK) goes even further: "From the fruit of their mouth a person's stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. ...

I am learning a new skill: I'm teaching myself Java (the software development language, not the coffee, although the two go hand-in-hand). Thus I am reminded that very few things keep us as humble as learning something new. Compare learning computer coding with learning to type. When I was 15 years old my mum encouraged me to take Typing as a school subject for which I am eternally grateful. It took me a whole year to learn to type properly. It took a lot of typing exercises, countless pages of letter patterns, hours sat in front of the typewriter (yes, a typewriter) and a lot of determination. Now, thanks to learning that skill many years ago, typing this blog goes almost as quick as thinking it up. Typing has become second nature to me. Not so with computer coding. Not yet, at least. I'm still learning. I'm still practising to think in a certain way, while trying to remember the correct syntax for declaring variables, and figuring out why the computer is not prin...

My daughter turned 5 just after Christmas. Because most of her school friends were away we had her birthday party on the first Saturday of 2020. She asked for a Frozen themed party, because she absolutely loves Elsa. As part of the themed party, she asked for an Elsa birthday cake, to which my wife agreed. It would be one of those cakes where a doll is in the middle of a round cake and then iced/frosted (mind the pun...) to look like the dress of said doll. How hard could it be? Having seen my mum, a professional, do this pretty much every week while I was growing up, I thought it would be easy enough for my wife to produce this cake. However, we had a little last-minute getaway in Dorset for a couple of days in the week before the party and my wife had very little time to plan, order and get everything done. So I said I'll take the responsibility of baking and decorating the cake on my broad shoulders... How hard could it be? Pretty hard, it turns out. Not only did I manag...