Wednesday 20 January 2010
Frustrated
I currently have all the materials and research that i need to write a 3000 words of a research proposal about the political shift from Thomas Hobbes to John Locke. Yet I can't.... this does not constitute a blog- just a cry of frustration at my lack of productivity!
Thursday 14 January 2010
Worshipful hearts
As anyone who attends Canterbury Vineyard will know, Jim likes to mention why we use music to worship God, and how it "reaches into the deep". I just want to explore why that is. I am not a technically brilliant musician, in truth, I am very poor technically. I can only play one instrument and I can't read music. But God still chooses to use those of us less musically talented by giving us HEARTS FOR WORSHIP. Worship can happen in so many ways, and this blog isn't designed to belittle those methods of worship, but the focus of this blog is to explore the use of music in worship.
Music has always been a very prominent element of my life from a young age, and I suppose that has a lot to do with how important music has been to my parents. My taste has changed greatly over the years, including everything from the Spice Girls, to Led Zeppelin, to Audioslave, to the Fray, to Tiesto, to Sufjan Stevens and Mat Kearney. I can't say why I necessarily found connections with such differing types of music at different stages in my life, but what i can say is that I am SO glad that I did!! I am able to appreciate everything now, and to see how music not just speaks into the deep places, but comes from those deep places in its origin! I love Hip Hop and rap for its lyrical beauty, the rhythm and rhyme of Jay-Z and Eminem is something that I can respect greatly, and is something that I just don't have the skill to do! Granted, an english white girl might look a little silly singing "without me" but it can't be undermined, the sheer skill it takes to write those songs. Trance, techno and electro have a tendency to just be passed off as cheap dance music with bad connatations of what goes with the music, but I think people are missing the appreciation of the music. True, it is synthetic sound, and not from musical instruments, but the pace and the rhythm are what the music is about, it is about the pulse that you feel running through your body when you hear it. It makes you want to dance and move! I have left Rock, blues, Jazz and Singer songwriter music last because it is my favourite collection of genres, and they all share one common element- they arise from the heart.
Blues is completely emotion driven music, and i love it! The beauty of it can only be found in the melodic and lyrical synthesis, the combination of how melancholia and sadness can be combined with a combination of guitar riffs and lumbering beats to portray this whole mood in the music alone. Jazz follows this to an extent but my response with jazz is that it is almost more natural- I cannot say that it COMES naturally, there needs to be a large amount of skill in being able to play jazz, but the fact that it creates its own art with no need for a pattern or set of rules to govern it gives the listener a sense of real freedom to take their own interpretation out of the music!
As for rock and singer songwriter music, these both intertwine with different levels of emotion i think. Anything from "ain't no sunshine when she's gone" to "Syndicate". The stories behind this music are what make so much of it for me, knowing where in the heart it came from, tragedy, frustration or surreal happiness.
The desire that burns in my heart, is that the walls around worship and what worship has to sound like would just be so severely transformed. There are signs that we are beginning to move towards that with bands like Kutless which cover the heavy metal christian influence and Reliant K with the Pop-Rock genre, but I so desire to see all of these genres of music exploding with christian musicians exploding into their styles with worshipful hearts. Worship music is designed to be accessible for praising God, but I think that more hearts will be able to worship when the accessibility is wider than what is in the US christian charts, when people feel like they can create music that won't be frowned upon because it didn't come from Graham Kendrick (I love him by the way, but you catch my drift).
Everyone has a worshipful element of their hearts, and for some people that doesn't mean it coming out through music, but for some it does, and for those people, I would just encourage you, put it all down on paper! Get playing your instruments, begin to play out what God is putting on your heart- a rhythm of worship is going to take place in this nation, we need to be listening out for our part in that!
Music has always been a very prominent element of my life from a young age, and I suppose that has a lot to do with how important music has been to my parents. My taste has changed greatly over the years, including everything from the Spice Girls, to Led Zeppelin, to Audioslave, to the Fray, to Tiesto, to Sufjan Stevens and Mat Kearney. I can't say why I necessarily found connections with such differing types of music at different stages in my life, but what i can say is that I am SO glad that I did!! I am able to appreciate everything now, and to see how music not just speaks into the deep places, but comes from those deep places in its origin! I love Hip Hop and rap for its lyrical beauty, the rhythm and rhyme of Jay-Z and Eminem is something that I can respect greatly, and is something that I just don't have the skill to do! Granted, an english white girl might look a little silly singing "without me" but it can't be undermined, the sheer skill it takes to write those songs. Trance, techno and electro have a tendency to just be passed off as cheap dance music with bad connatations of what goes with the music, but I think people are missing the appreciation of the music. True, it is synthetic sound, and not from musical instruments, but the pace and the rhythm are what the music is about, it is about the pulse that you feel running through your body when you hear it. It makes you want to dance and move! I have left Rock, blues, Jazz and Singer songwriter music last because it is my favourite collection of genres, and they all share one common element- they arise from the heart.
Blues is completely emotion driven music, and i love it! The beauty of it can only be found in the melodic and lyrical synthesis, the combination of how melancholia and sadness can be combined with a combination of guitar riffs and lumbering beats to portray this whole mood in the music alone. Jazz follows this to an extent but my response with jazz is that it is almost more natural- I cannot say that it COMES naturally, there needs to be a large amount of skill in being able to play jazz, but the fact that it creates its own art with no need for a pattern or set of rules to govern it gives the listener a sense of real freedom to take their own interpretation out of the music!
As for rock and singer songwriter music, these both intertwine with different levels of emotion i think. Anything from "ain't no sunshine when she's gone" to "Syndicate". The stories behind this music are what make so much of it for me, knowing where in the heart it came from, tragedy, frustration or surreal happiness.
The desire that burns in my heart, is that the walls around worship and what worship has to sound like would just be so severely transformed. There are signs that we are beginning to move towards that with bands like Kutless which cover the heavy metal christian influence and Reliant K with the Pop-Rock genre, but I so desire to see all of these genres of music exploding with christian musicians exploding into their styles with worshipful hearts. Worship music is designed to be accessible for praising God, but I think that more hearts will be able to worship when the accessibility is wider than what is in the US christian charts, when people feel like they can create music that won't be frowned upon because it didn't come from Graham Kendrick (I love him by the way, but you catch my drift).
Everyone has a worshipful element of their hearts, and for some people that doesn't mean it coming out through music, but for some it does, and for those people, I would just encourage you, put it all down on paper! Get playing your instruments, begin to play out what God is putting on your heart- a rhythm of worship is going to take place in this nation, we need to be listening out for our part in that!
Thursday 7 January 2010
The importance for a woman's mirror to be God's eyes
This topic has been something that naturally as a woman, is something that I have been trying to learn and understand from my own perspective and experiences; but the more I look around, the more I see how the broken women in this world, the ones feeling crushed emotionally, perhaps physically, and certainly spiritually, are suffering from the same cause- a broken mirror. This may apply to men as well, although I would not be so brash as to apply it directly to men as I cannot speak from experience! Now this blog isn't a feel-good piece, aimed at making women feel better should they come across it; but I aim more to help women to perhaps explore the reasons as to how they've broken their mirrors and the ways in which we can feel freedom like never before if we will allow God to give us a new mirror entirely.
There are any number of reasons that a woman may feel broken, and it may be anything from a bad relationship to abuse in childhood, but regardless of the reasons, once the damage is there, there is a tendency to bury it. Granted some women deal with it in a much more effective way than others, but I can't say that I have ever dealt with it effectively, at least not until I realised where I was slipping up.
I was never a particularly emotional child, I saw myself as the ultimate tomboy. But as I grew older, I noticed an emotional development, not simply to the extent that I felt things on a more personal basis, but that I became rather reflective about why I am the way that I am. I don't consider that this was ever a bad thing, as it meant that I felt things in a stronger way, a sense of empathy became a part of my emotional response to things and I have learnt to become so grateful for that gift. But the downside of it was that I did begin to feel things a little too much. Constructive criticism became insulting rather than helpful, I became an emotional sponge.
Everything that was getting absorbed became a part of me and distorted what I could see of me. It distorted the vision that God had so delicately put together. I began to dislike the reflection that I could see because I had put expectations on myself, that I should be more physically beautiful, that I should be better at sport, better musically, life had effectively become a sport and everything was a competition. There is a very thin line between these expectations and regret, and regret is not a path worth the effort. It causes more damage and pain over things that we cannot control, and the worst part is, that we think we have some sort of power over this, but we truly don't.
What we have a tendency to do, is to get better at hiding our disappointments, at hiding the shame we have in ourselves, and we just begin to create an internal black hole. It seems perhaps like a nice idea that these disappointments go somewhere that they can no longer be found, but in fact, the black hole only expands to accommodate the increasing disappointments in ourselves. And this black hole is visible, not in itself, but in the way that the enemy uses it. Jealousy, resentment and pride begin to take shape in our identities and it is like throwing car oil over a beautiful painting, it is absorbed and we cannot remember how the painting looked before the damage.
It was exhausting and the only way I can think to explain it is like running a marathon without the training. You can't handle it, you're not equipped to deal with that kind of pressure, because the only thing you are equipped to deal with is what God has given you, and He has designed you so that you CAN handle that without burning out. What I have seen in myself and many other women, is that we are so busy focusing on what we don't have that we don't stop to think about what we do.
The first stepping stone has to be forgiveness. Of ourselves. Forgiving others for hurt and disappointment can only be done if we can forgive ourselves the way that God has forgiven us. Chances are, most of us are the ones in our own way to finding His forgiveness and grace. It is not something to feel ashamed of, it is something to embrace that God's grace makes it worth it all. His eyes burn with flames of love for us, we just need to look Him in the eye.
Then only can we begin to show appreciation at the beauty God has given us, our hearts will soften and the beauty that others see in us we will begin to see in ourselves, and as this process continues, we may be able to focus so little on ourselves that we can help others to show them God's vision of their beauty. That is the ultimate aim i believe, is to find our beauty and understand our beauty in Jesus so much that we don't think about ourselves at all and not out of worry that we won't like what we see, but in understanding that God has made us the way He has for amazing reasons. What blocks this is that we cannot possibly understand what these are. Quite simply, the way to find our beauty in Him is to ask Him! He so desperately wants us to see and understand ourselves through His eyes. The more beautiful we find ourselves in Jesus, the quicker that we can get out of our own way and God's, to see the beauty in others and to help them find that too. Our relationships will take shape in a new way because we will have been completely transformed.
Women are a beautiful creation by God, made not just to follow, but to lead; God has not made us as an after thought, He made us as a joint one. I feel that although Eve was created after Adam, it is a crucial point to notice that she was made FROM him, she was already one with him before her creation. Man was not designed to be alone, and neither was woman. But finding the beauty in ourselves mean that we can understand that oneness better, that our relationships flourish and that we do not feel that our identity is found in mislaid expectations, and disappointments, but in forgiving ourselves we may find the beauty in ourselves that God intended for us. This freedom cannot be taken for granted, 'it's not a sprint, it's a marathon', but this time, we will be trained, and God will keep topping us up if we will just seek His eyes and His heart for us, to become His true daughters and powerful women of God.
This is not a quick fix scheme, it's somewhere to start.
There are any number of reasons that a woman may feel broken, and it may be anything from a bad relationship to abuse in childhood, but regardless of the reasons, once the damage is there, there is a tendency to bury it. Granted some women deal with it in a much more effective way than others, but I can't say that I have ever dealt with it effectively, at least not until I realised where I was slipping up.
I was never a particularly emotional child, I saw myself as the ultimate tomboy. But as I grew older, I noticed an emotional development, not simply to the extent that I felt things on a more personal basis, but that I became rather reflective about why I am the way that I am. I don't consider that this was ever a bad thing, as it meant that I felt things in a stronger way, a sense of empathy became a part of my emotional response to things and I have learnt to become so grateful for that gift. But the downside of it was that I did begin to feel things a little too much. Constructive criticism became insulting rather than helpful, I became an emotional sponge.
Everything that was getting absorbed became a part of me and distorted what I could see of me. It distorted the vision that God had so delicately put together. I began to dislike the reflection that I could see because I had put expectations on myself, that I should be more physically beautiful, that I should be better at sport, better musically, life had effectively become a sport and everything was a competition. There is a very thin line between these expectations and regret, and regret is not a path worth the effort. It causes more damage and pain over things that we cannot control, and the worst part is, that we think we have some sort of power over this, but we truly don't.
What we have a tendency to do, is to get better at hiding our disappointments, at hiding the shame we have in ourselves, and we just begin to create an internal black hole. It seems perhaps like a nice idea that these disappointments go somewhere that they can no longer be found, but in fact, the black hole only expands to accommodate the increasing disappointments in ourselves. And this black hole is visible, not in itself, but in the way that the enemy uses it. Jealousy, resentment and pride begin to take shape in our identities and it is like throwing car oil over a beautiful painting, it is absorbed and we cannot remember how the painting looked before the damage.
It was exhausting and the only way I can think to explain it is like running a marathon without the training. You can't handle it, you're not equipped to deal with that kind of pressure, because the only thing you are equipped to deal with is what God has given you, and He has designed you so that you CAN handle that without burning out. What I have seen in myself and many other women, is that we are so busy focusing on what we don't have that we don't stop to think about what we do.
The first stepping stone has to be forgiveness. Of ourselves. Forgiving others for hurt and disappointment can only be done if we can forgive ourselves the way that God has forgiven us. Chances are, most of us are the ones in our own way to finding His forgiveness and grace. It is not something to feel ashamed of, it is something to embrace that God's grace makes it worth it all. His eyes burn with flames of love for us, we just need to look Him in the eye.
Then only can we begin to show appreciation at the beauty God has given us, our hearts will soften and the beauty that others see in us we will begin to see in ourselves, and as this process continues, we may be able to focus so little on ourselves that we can help others to show them God's vision of their beauty. That is the ultimate aim i believe, is to find our beauty and understand our beauty in Jesus so much that we don't think about ourselves at all and not out of worry that we won't like what we see, but in understanding that God has made us the way He has for amazing reasons. What blocks this is that we cannot possibly understand what these are. Quite simply, the way to find our beauty in Him is to ask Him! He so desperately wants us to see and understand ourselves through His eyes. The more beautiful we find ourselves in Jesus, the quicker that we can get out of our own way and God's, to see the beauty in others and to help them find that too. Our relationships will take shape in a new way because we will have been completely transformed.
Women are a beautiful creation by God, made not just to follow, but to lead; God has not made us as an after thought, He made us as a joint one. I feel that although Eve was created after Adam, it is a crucial point to notice that she was made FROM him, she was already one with him before her creation. Man was not designed to be alone, and neither was woman. But finding the beauty in ourselves mean that we can understand that oneness better, that our relationships flourish and that we do not feel that our identity is found in mislaid expectations, and disappointments, but in forgiving ourselves we may find the beauty in ourselves that God intended for us. This freedom cannot be taken for granted, 'it's not a sprint, it's a marathon', but this time, we will be trained, and God will keep topping us up if we will just seek His eyes and His heart for us, to become His true daughters and powerful women of God.
This is not a quick fix scheme, it's somewhere to start.
Monday 4 January 2010
Hope vs Optimism
The secularization of our society has incurred an ever increasing rise in our tendency to view hope as mere optimism. Hope defined in the Cambridge online dictionary defines it as "something good that you want to happen in the future, or a confident feeling about what will happen in the future" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=37879&dict=CALD).
Now, note the same dictionary's definition for optimism: "being hopeful and emphasizing the good part of a situation rather than the bad part; the belief that good things will happen in the future" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=55769&dict=CALD). Now, please understand that the purpose of this blog is not to undermine positive thinking and optimism, I am very much a glass-half-full person; however, the purpose of this blog is to illustrate that hope and optimism are not one in the same thing.
Consider the definition of hope, as this is where I find the flaw causing our confusion. Naturally, on the basis of an individual learning english, this is an accurate definition, but consider this from a spiritual angle. Notice how it is something you want to happen. This has become an unfortunate default for us as Christians living in a secular society.
Our hope has become a desire for God to fulfill a promise that He never made, and when we perceive that God has failed by not fulfilling our "hopes", we become caught up in disappointment and self-pity. We lose sight of what God IS doing, and set our eyes and hearts instead upon what He hasn't done, and what (in our increasingly cynical ways we perceive) He "probably won't do".
We are not in line with God's hopes for us. Some people may argue that God doesn't "hope", He controls everything; but one should be quick to notice how eating from the tree of knowledge was a choice made by Eve. It is not to say that God couldn't have His way if He wanted to, only that He chooses not to be tyrannical, but kind, loving and gracious as a true father. Thus the furthering of His kingdom is an inevitability, but our roles in that is something which God hopes that we will choose to commit our lives to, something that we will intentionally choose into rather than sitting back on the sinful default.
It is an issue of being hopeful of the fulfillment of God's heart for this world, a place where our hearts should also be. This does not mean forcing yourself to desire God's kingdom coming, nor to become hyper-spiritual over something that does not ignite you inside. It is an issue of wanting to desire His kingdom, it is an issue of asking for His grace, so that the hard parts in life have a purpose, and that achieving the purpose is worth its difficulty while in the knowledge that God has put you there and therefore that He will overcome. The desire of our hearts when all else is stripped away is the true painting of our hope in Jesus. The mere act of asking for Him, asking for the hunger and desire, is in itself a hopeful act. Knowing that God HAS fulfilled, and subsequently WILL fulfill is our starting point. Disappointments often (though not always) arise from selfish desire. It's time to start looking out of the body and into HIS heart.
"With vision, comes God's provision" - James Denison 04/01/2010. May we begin to see the vision God has for our lives, that our hope may be in line with His purpose for us. May the sense of God fulfilling His promises ring in our lives, in our relationships, in our homes. But may we also remember that this is a battlefield, there is a spiritual war going on every second of our lives, and God is fighting for us, and He will win, He will overcome our giants, if only we'll get out of His way.
Now, note the same dictionary's definition for optimism: "being hopeful and emphasizing the good part of a situation rather than the bad part; the belief that good things will happen in the future" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=55769&dict=CALD). Now, please understand that the purpose of this blog is not to undermine positive thinking and optimism, I am very much a glass-half-full person; however, the purpose of this blog is to illustrate that hope and optimism are not one in the same thing.
Consider the definition of hope, as this is where I find the flaw causing our confusion. Naturally, on the basis of an individual learning english, this is an accurate definition, but consider this from a spiritual angle. Notice how it is something you want to happen. This has become an unfortunate default for us as Christians living in a secular society.
Our hope has become a desire for God to fulfill a promise that He never made, and when we perceive that God has failed by not fulfilling our "hopes", we become caught up in disappointment and self-pity. We lose sight of what God IS doing, and set our eyes and hearts instead upon what He hasn't done, and what (in our increasingly cynical ways we perceive) He "probably won't do".
We are not in line with God's hopes for us. Some people may argue that God doesn't "hope", He controls everything; but one should be quick to notice how eating from the tree of knowledge was a choice made by Eve. It is not to say that God couldn't have His way if He wanted to, only that He chooses not to be tyrannical, but kind, loving and gracious as a true father. Thus the furthering of His kingdom is an inevitability, but our roles in that is something which God hopes that we will choose to commit our lives to, something that we will intentionally choose into rather than sitting back on the sinful default.
It is an issue of being hopeful of the fulfillment of God's heart for this world, a place where our hearts should also be. This does not mean forcing yourself to desire God's kingdom coming, nor to become hyper-spiritual over something that does not ignite you inside. It is an issue of wanting to desire His kingdom, it is an issue of asking for His grace, so that the hard parts in life have a purpose, and that achieving the purpose is worth its difficulty while in the knowledge that God has put you there and therefore that He will overcome. The desire of our hearts when all else is stripped away is the true painting of our hope in Jesus. The mere act of asking for Him, asking for the hunger and desire, is in itself a hopeful act. Knowing that God HAS fulfilled, and subsequently WILL fulfill is our starting point. Disappointments often (though not always) arise from selfish desire. It's time to start looking out of the body and into HIS heart.
"With vision, comes God's provision" - James Denison 04/01/2010. May we begin to see the vision God has for our lives, that our hope may be in line with His purpose for us. May the sense of God fulfilling His promises ring in our lives, in our relationships, in our homes. But may we also remember that this is a battlefield, there is a spiritual war going on every second of our lives, and God is fighting for us, and He will win, He will overcome our giants, if only we'll get out of His way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)