The Entity

 

10 years ago today, I began on a journey. In some ways, this was a journey that I had been on for a long time, but it was nonetheless one that led to one of the most significant decisions - and commitments - of my entire life. That journey was The Exoskeleton Story.

If you are among the many, many people who I have been privileged enough to meet and now call friend in the years since, chances are you have no idea what that journey even was, or is, but essentially, "The Exoskeleton" was a semi regular blog post type thing telling the story of a young man who became so afraid of the world that he built up impenetrable barriers (The Exoskeleton) to hide and protect himself; barriers which would eventually go on to become his prison. It is also the story of how that same young man came to faith, and by God's grace was able to break down every single one of those barriers by the power of the Holy Spirit and eventually make a commitment to get baptised and declare that faith to the world in ways "so big and obvious that he couldn't hide it even if he tried."

That young man was me, and that commitment is one I have been living by ever since. It seems kinda crazy to me to think that I began on this journey so long ago, and that life has changed so much in that time, but this one thing has been a constant throughout, a light in the darkness and a hope in the struggle (and there has been much of both).

All this brings me onto the thing I actually wanted to talk about today: Why "The Entity"?

The answer here is actually fairly simple, "The Entity" is the being inside the suit, the truest version of myself. To quote the dictionary definition: "a thing with a distinct and independent existence". Something that would not have been possible without the freedom won for us on the cross, two thousand years ago, by the one who gave everything he had to win it.

As we enter into Holy week this week I am once again struck by just how significant that sacrifice - and the freedom that comes with it - truly is. This isn't just some small scale thing that can easily be brushed aside. It's seismic. It's world shaking, and it changes everything. 

That's who I worship.

That's who I praise.

_______________________________________________

Anyone who has been around for a while will know that I usually end these posts with a link to a song, and this is no exception. I'm not going to share the entire exoskeleton story again here, but I will instead share with you some of the music that inspired me to write it at the time in the hope it might inspire some of you as well:

1. Till it's over - Tristam - Strength in the face of adversity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usXhiWE2Uc0

2. Growing up - Mr FijiWiji - Feeling lost/desire for something more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfkXT1BGJnk

3. Beyond The Veil - Lindsey Stirling - Self discovery/going deeper/light in the darkness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg7L0OQiN78

4. Shatter Me - Lindsey Stirling - Breaking free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tpIMDy9BE

5. Nothing Stopping Me - Vicetone - Living free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFuR8WJTkGM

6. Once Again - Tristam - Rebuilding what was lost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59M5z0c8YtE

Scattered and Lost - A Tale of 2021

Well what a year this has been... If you'd told me back in January that this year would end up somehow being an even crazier year than 2020 I probably wouldn't have believed you, yet here we are. To be honest I'm not even really sure where to begin with this, so instead let me tell you a story...

Celeste Chapter 3: "Celestial Resort" Complete Screen

There once was a man named Mr Oshiro. He was relatively happy and successful and he was the manager of a hotel on Celeste Mountain known as the Celestial Resort. Buisiness was booming as the hotel was world renowned for its hospitality and its views of the snow capped peaks around it, but over time people stopped coming, either because they had seen all that there was to see, or just because they simply weren't willing to brave the long and arduous climb up any more. Whatever the reason, over the years the hotel fell into disrepair and eventually (though he didn't realise it as his ghost continues to welcome "guests") Oshiro passed away as well.

Fast forward several years, and a young woman called Madeline would eventually rediscover the Celestial Resort on her quest to reach the summit, however the hotel now is in a very different state. There are leaking pipes, towels and bedding all over the floor and boxes and books strewn everywhere. To make matters worse, Oshiro's ghost has become so overwhelmed by all the mess that his anxieties have manifested as physical "dust bunnies" which clutter up the place even more and make traversing it as a corporeal being nigh on impossible. Oshiro however is completely oblivious to this and insists that Madeline stay which she politely declines, though in an attempt to not end up forever stuck she offers to help him clean up. This ends up being a much simpler process than it initially appears, however as more and more things are put away, Oshiro becomes more and more agitated, as despite the fact she's helping him, he can't help but think she is a guest who is clearing up his mess that he wasn't able to clear up himself and as a result he ends up feeling worse and worse. Eventually, Oshiro becomes so agitated that he fills the entire hotel with "dust bunnies" and chases Madeline out across the roof, before coming to his senses and realising that she's just trying to help him, but that this is something he needs to deal with himself. Madeline continues up the mountain, and Oshiro, feeling somewhat numb, returns to the hotel, scattered and lost.

In many ways, I can relate to Mr Oshiro.

As I close the door on what has honestly been a pretty insane year, I can't help but feeling like despite everything, and all the positive things that have happened, I haven't really made any progress. More than that, rather than simply being back where I started, it seems like my life has actually gone backwards. That isn't to say that I haven't grown from the experiences of 2021, because I have, in very significant ways that should by no means be discounted, but rather, any sense of direction I once had seems to be accelerating away at an ever increasing rate in the expanding universe that is my life. In trying to grab hold of too many of those directions at once I have somehow managed to miss every single one, and in the process let things get out of control to a point where it is very difficult to see how I can reorient myself. I have never really been very good at letting go of things, and 2021 has been a year defined by letting go, probably more so than any other year of my life so far, and in particular finding my place as an "Extern" or ex-intern has been incredibly challenging, though I have been incredibly blessed to be able to continue to be a part of the community there in some way through the postgrads ministry, a community that though I have never actually been a postgrad has welcomed me with open arms.

I guess it's just been one of those years...   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was going to include a little reflection-y type thing here kinda like I did last year but it's taking a little too long to put words to so instead I leave you, as I often do these days, with the words of a song, which I hope will resonate with you as we move into all the coming year has for us.

Song of Ascent - Hillsong United: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZFkFZAabfw

Oh how high would I climb mountains
If the mountains were where you hide
Oh how far I'd scale the valleys
If you'd grace the other side
Oh how long have I chased rivers
From lowly seas to where they rise
Against the rush of grace descending
From the source of its supply
'Cause in the highlands and the heartace
You're neither more or less inclined
I would search and stop at nothing
You're just not that hard to find

I will praise you on the mountain
And I will praise you when the mountain's in my way
You're the summit where my feet are
So I will praise you in the valleys all the same
No less God within the shadows
No less faithful when the night leads me astray
You're the heaven where my heart is
In the highlands and the heartache all the same.

...

Whatever I walk through, wherever I am
Your name can move mountains wherever I stand
And if ever I walk through the valley of death
I'll sing through the shadows my song of ascent

Whatever I walk through, wherever I am
Your name can move mountains wherever I stand
And if ever I walk through the valley of death
I'll sing through the shadows my song of ascent

...

From the gravest of all valleys
Come the pastures we call grace
A mighty river flowing upwards
From a deep but empty grave.

Happy New Year everybody!

(PS. The title for this post was inspired by the song "Scattered and Lost" which is track 8 on the Celeste OST and plays and evolves during your encounters with Oshiro in the game. If you're curious you can listen to it here, though it is hopefully in no way required to understand the story, which in turn is hopefully in no way required to understand the bit of this post I actually wrote about me...)

Aldates No. 9 - Hope in the waiting

I don’t know about you, but when I think about waiting at the moment my mind straight away heads right towards a topic we’ve become all too familiar with over the past 18 months. The Coronavirus pandemic has for many of us shown us just how fragile the world we build for ourselves truly is. Our supposedly well laid plans becoming little more than a distant memory in the face of such crushing darkness. In the words of Margo Roth Spiegelman “From here you can tell just how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It’s a paper town... Paper people in paper houses living paper lives, burning the future to stay warm.” 

Of course this quote is really more about how society as a whole has become little more than a slave to keeping itself going, a fact which has been exposed in excruciating detail by the pandemic and lockdown, but I think that there is a real wisdom in those words. It is a pretty widely accepted truth that this world and everything in it will not be around forever. Science today has all sorts of theories as to how the world as we know it might end, from climate change, to asteroid impact, to the sun expanding, all the way to the inevitable heat death of the universe, and even ignoring all that, we all at some point will have to come to terms with the fact that our life on this green planet is but a fleeting moment when compared to the sheer scale of the cosmos.

In Mark 13:2 Jesus himself says of our great buildings that “not one stone here will be left on another.” In Matthew 6:19-21 he tells us not to store up for ourselves treasures on earth, as they are temporary and will be destroyed. In other words, when we rely simply on our own strength or abilities or knowledge to make our way in life, we are ultimately destined to fail.

Covid-19 has produced a catastrophe the likes of which few of us have ever seen or ever likely will see again in our lifetimes, and has seriously shaken up what we thought we knew about how we as a people connect with one another, but if there is one positive thing which has come out of this time, it is that in many ways, it has forced us to take a step back from the chaos of modern life and refocus on the things that really matter: Our friends, our families, and perhaps most importantly, our faith. In a world where everything we’ve ever known is breaking we have a simple choice: Hold onto God and His promises and ride the wave, or break with it.

Periods of transition are often painful, and nowhere in my life has this been more apparent than at the end of my time in Cardiff. I won’t go into too much detail right now, as we would likely be here all day, but in short, of the three years I was there, the second was a complete disaster, and the repeat year I had to take as a result was really no better. Just when I finally felt like I might be on top of things and have a chance to get somewhere, a combination of a pretty nasty stomach bug and a particularly intense weekend doing puppetry knocked me completely out of action for two weeks, and just like that, that which had come together commenced to fall apart.

I started falling further and further behind academically and for reasons I won’t go into became pretty disillusioned with the church I had been attending at university. To make matters worse, around the same time my relationship of nearly a year and a half collapsed and I fell into a pretty dark downward spiral of loneliness and depression.

Despite all this though, I can genuinely say that it was in these moments, when it seemed like all hope was lost, that I felt God moving most powerfully in my life. It was through leading a hall group in my repeat year in Cardiff that I met some of my closest friends from that time - a few of whom I’m still in contact with – who came alongside me when it just seemed like everything was destined to crash and burn. It sounds like such a small thing but it was this little reminder, this hope, the hope of an as yet unseen, distant light at the end of the tunnel that kept me going in the waiting. The knowledge that this was not the end, that something far greater awaited on the other side, even if in the moment such a hope seemed impossible. 

As you can hopefully tell, that story does ultimately have a happy ending, as it kick started a chain of events that led to my writing this today, but at the end of the day I am not doing this for my sake, or to elevate myself, but because I genuinely believe that God has a plan for us that is bigger and better than anything we can possibly know or imagine. We need not fear suffering, or hardship, or even death, because through Jesus we are to be set free from those things by the power of the Holy Spirit, as adopted sons and daughters of the living God. We need never be hopeless because with Jesus we can never be irreparably broken. As Paul writes in verse 24: It is in this hope we were saved. More than that though, he also writes that hope that is seen is no hope at all. We do not just hope for things that we already have, but more than that we hope for things yet to come, for newness of life in the new creation, and that, in my opinion, is a hope worth waiting for.

I want to leave you, as I often do, with the words of a song, "Sovereign Over Us" by Michael W. Smith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lay-r2g52SQ), which I think pretty well sums up this passage:

There is strength within our sorrow
There is beauty in our tears
And you meet us in our mourning
With a love that casts out fear
You are working in our waiting
Sanctifying us
When beyond our understanding
You're teaching us to trust

Your plans are still to prosper
You have not forgotten us
You're with us in the fire and the flood
You're faithful forever
Perfect in love
You are Sovereign over us

You are wisdom unimangined
Who could understand Your ways
Reigning high above the heavens
Reaching down in endless grace
You're the lifter of the lowly
Compassionate and kind
You surround and you uphold me
Your promises are my delight

Your plans are still to prosper
You have not forgotten us
You're with us in the fire and the flood
You're faithful forever
Perfect in love
You are Sovereign over us

Even what the enemy means for evil
You turn it for our good
You turn it for our good
And for Your glory
Even in the valley You are faithful
You're working for our good
You're working for our good
And for Your glory

Your plans are still to prosper
You have not forgotten us
You're with us in the fire and the flood
You're faithful forever
Perfect in love
You are Sovereign over us

Aldates No. 9 - I am... Afraid?

I am… Afraid? – An attempt at finding peace in the quiet place

- The Entity -

When we were choosing our spiritual disciplines for the assignment in term one, I initially took one look at the discipline of solitude and decided then and there to avoid it like the plague. Why, you might ask? Put simply, I know myself. (Or so I thought…) I knew that if I as an introvert gave myself even the tiniest excuse to not be present, I never would, especially at the start of the year when so much of what we were doing was going and meeting new people (something I have and probably always will struggle with, at least outside of specific circumstances). Past experiences of life lived away at home have taught me a lot about how not to do life with other people, and in particular highlighted the need for me to be able to put myself out there and make connections, lest I fall into another deep dark pit of loneliness and depression. Fun times… Anyway, the Christmas break this year brought up a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t even realise I was struggling with, in particular around why I do some of the things I do or don’t do (To anyone reading this who also read my term one report on simplicity, honestly just disregard most of what I said in that, it turns out I had completely the wrong idea... To anyone who didn’t, don’t worry about it, you didn’t miss much). To summarise, what I discovered is that I am really bad at being alone, and even worse at being alone “well”. While simplicity was good in the sense that it allowed me to be more present, it also masked what was arguably the much bigger issue in that I really struggle with being absent. More to the point, I discovered I have some pretty deep rooted insecurities around being by myself, but to go into those in any kind of depth would take a whole other report, and to be honest I would rather not deal with that right now. In short though, I’ve realised that in order to better be in community, I first need to be able to be away from community.

Enter the discipline of solitude. At first glance, an introvert’s dream. Post university (though I’ve only recently realised this), my worst nightmare. I initially set about trying to practice this discipline with some pretty clear goals in mind. Find a space, for a set time, alone, with no distractions other than the ones in my own head. Just me, my thoughts, and God. All of me. All to God. Nothing more. Nothing less.

This presented a problem however: At what point does “finding the quiet place” start becoming legalistic? Or, even worse, at what point does it become about chasing a feeling rather than chasing God? John Mark Comer’s book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” suggests starting small with this, and so I did. On day one, I set a timer for 5 minutes, found a quiet place, and sat there for a bit. This was - perhaps unsurprisingly - a pretty underwhelming experience, both in the sense that nothing of note really happened and also in that it wasn’t even particularly “challenging”. Before I had even begun to really settle into anything, my timer was beeping at me telling me I was done. The next couple of days were rather similar, and though I upped the timer to 10 minutes it didn’t really feel as if anything had changed. Quiet times were over before they even really felt like they had begun, and to be honest I was beginning to feel a little bit demotivated. What was the point in me doing this if nothing was going to come of it? Instead of giving up however, I did pretty much the only thing I could think of at the time, and upped the timer again.

It was at this point everything shifted. It turns out that past about the 10 minute mark, being left alone by yourself in a quiet place with nothing for company but your own thoughts gets really rather uncomfortable. I have always, even at the best of times, been a bit of an overthinker, and recently discovered loneliness related anxiety kinda just puts the icing on the proverbial cake in that regard. Seemingly little things end up getting blown up way out of proportion and even though logically you know you should be fine, you can’t help but think about how much longer you have to endure before you’re done and can escape back to some form of “normality”. Maybe this kind of reaction is reasonable initially, maybe it isn’t, I’m not really sure. More likely it is simply a product of my having spent most of the past 13 years of my life in a constant state of doing things (read escapism in the form of video games) in an attempt to not have to deal with the real world more than I absolutely have to, which is one of the biggest barriers I was hoping to be able to break through this year. On balance, I think I’m going to call the fact I’ve finally confronted that a positive.

It might seem a little strange, especially given how challenged I felt to attempt this in the first place, but day five was the first day I actually thought to pray into these quiet times. My prayer was a pretty simple one: "God, I give this time to you" which made it all more personally frustrating when I managed to get distracted by things going on outside my window three minutes in. I did manage a full 15 minutes after that point, but it wasn’t quite what I hoped it might be. Day six on the other hand, although similar, was significantly more prayerful, and much more positive. There is something incredibly freeing about coming to God with *everything* in your head, no matter how crazy, or weird, or just plain unhelpful it might seem, and just giving it all to Him. He knows it all anyway, but in our vulnerability He redeems that which we give him to redeem. Whenever my thoughts wandered, I would just pray “All for you” to refocus and return to the quiet place, and for the first time since I started I began to feel at peace there.

That peace was shattered on day 8, when I was forced to confront the possibility of being *alone* alone for the first time. I won’t go into too much detail here, but suffice to say my quiet time was in a place other than the house, and my anxiety went off on one about 10 minutes in. It was so bad that the only thing I could think to do was pray “protect me” which might seem strange as I was never in any real danger, but the moment I did I was just filled with a supernatural sense of peace. I wish I could say that that sense lasted, but the truth is it was only in praying that prayer continually on the way back to the house I was able to remain in that place. Walking through that door felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I still don’t entirely know what to make of what happened on that day, but I am thankful that God was with me through it, because I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t been. Despite all this though, I felt challenged to go further, and so I upped the timer again, to 30 minutes this time.

Considering what a massive step up this promised to be (from 15 minutes to 30) quiet time on days 9 and 10 was surprisingly easy, nothing of note really happened. This turned out to be a bit of a double edged sword however, as I hit a bit of a brick wall after this point. I had been so sure that increasing my time in the quiet place would result in significant changes, that when it didn’t it kind of killed my motivation to be alone in that way. Day 10 was the last day silence and solitude looked anything like my original plan, but thankfully it is far from the end of the story. From day 11 onwards, quiet times were a lot less structured, and consisted mostly either of prayer walking around Christ Church Meadow, or of reading and praying through whatever passages of scripture I felt drawn to on that particular day. (The “Saints Alive!” weekly chunk readings and daily bible passages helped quite a bit with this, as to begin with I wasn’t really following any sort of reading plan). This actually marked a pretty significant step forward for me, as motivating myself to leave the house without a specific reason has been a real struggle for me at times, so the fact I’ve been able to motivate myself to go on prayer walks alone is probably a bigger deal for me than it might seem. More recently I have been working through the new testament in chronological order as a personal challenge for the season of lent, using an app called “A Lamp Unto” which has been pretty interesting, as it has highlighted all the ways the gospels are both incredibly similar (looking at you Matthew Mark and Luke) and incredibly different (John) but still carry the same message. This app has actually been incredibly helpful, as you can set it to put a notification on your phone at a set time each day to remind you to do the reading, which has made it really easy to build into my morning routine, and significantly cut down on the amount of time I am spending on social media, which is a bonus (turning off all notifications from Facebook and Instagram probably helped quite a bit with that as well – another recommendation from JMC’s book). These times in my mornings have been for the most part fairly positive, and are something I think I will probably continue even at the end of lent, but they don’t really achieve what I initially set out to do by taking on this challenge. Through this experience I am coming to realise that solitude and simplicity aren’t actually so different. While simplicity is about setting aside your desire for worldly things in order to hear from God better, solitude is about setting aside *yourself* for the same reason.

The question on my mind is this: Is God not present if I don’t “feel” something? In view of not wanting to sound heretical here, clearly God is always present, it is in his nature, but I think it’s probably fair of me to say that sometimes his presence is more obvious than at other times. My goal starting out was to get to a place where I could feel comfortable searching for Him in the quiet place, and to a certain extent you could argue that I have succeeded in this goal, but looking back, it’s a little bit difficult to see how exactly. It certainly doesn’t feel like anything has changed. Quiet times as they are right now are positive, but not really something new. God has absolutely shown up at times, but at other times it has felt a bit like trying to chase the wind, a pointless exercise. In the end though, as it says in 1 Kings 19: The LORD was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in the gentle whisper. My worry is that in chasing the dramatic, I might have inadvertently missed the whole point of the discipline, to find and be found by God in the simplicity of the still small voice.

To end, I just want to leave you with the words of a song which has been very significant for me over the past few weeks. The song is “God Help Me” by Plumb, and it is my prayer over myself both right now and going forward, that I would continue to seek God in the quiet place, and go (or stay) wherever He is calling me, whatever the cost.

 

 

God Help Me: Plumb - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wRpTySE_8A

There’s a wrestling in my heart and my mind
A disturbance and a tension I cannot seem to drive
And if I’m honest there’s quite a bit of fear
To sit here in this silence and really hear you
What will you ask of me?
Will I listen to your voice when you speak?

Help me to move
Help me to see
Help me to do whatever you would ask of me
Help me to go
God help me to stay
I’m feeling so alone here and I know that You’re faithful
But I can barely breathe
God help me

Sometimes things, they are black and white
Sometimes they are not and that leaves us torn inside
And in the middle we are left to wonder
Who we are, what you want, and where we’re going
Oh such a mystery
I don’t always understand
But I believe

Help me to move
Help me to see
Help me to do whatever you   would ask of me
Help me to go
God help me to stay
I’m feeling so alone here and I know that You’re faithful
But I can barely breathe
God help me

I don’t know the future
It’s one day at a time
But I know I’ll be OK with your hand holding mine
So take all my resistance
Oh God I need your grace
One step and then the other
Show me the way

Help me to move
Help me to see
Help me to do whatever you would ask of me
Help me to go
God help me to stay
I’m feeling so alone here and I know that You’re faithful
But I can barely breathe
God help me

 

Aldates No. 9 - Reflections

 And just like that, there ends my first term at St Aldates Oxford. To be honest it feels weird being back home, I've gotten pretty used to being around people again having lived in a house with 11 other interns for 3 months. I may not physically be all that far away from number 9, but my life there feels worlds apart from my life back home. Covid-19 has all but destroyed any hope I had of a somewhat normal year, but looking back I think I can honestly say that 2020, at least for me, has in a weird way been a lot better for it. I don't want to downplay the severity of the situation, as of writing this update this virus has killed an unfathomable 1.7 million people worldwide, it's a disaster unlike any most of us have or will see again in our lifetimes. The pandemic has, however, provided the impetus for some pretty dramatic life changes, all of which (at least for me) probably turned out for the better. 

(Covid compliant - we live together) picture of the 2020/21 School of Ministry interns

I'm sorry I haven't been more active in updating you guys how I'm doing, to be honest placement stuff has been pretty quiet ever since lockdown 2 happened, and other stuff has been going really well, but is pretty hard to convey in words. Suffice to say God is present, and He's been shaking things up in a pretty big way.

I was going to write some sort of big thing here about how stuff has been going but it's not really working, so instead I'm gonna share a little year in review type reflection I did about a week ago, it's just a series of questions, and my responses, but I hope it'll help to provide a bit of insight into where I'm at:

What’s been hardest? Probably watching every significant thing I had to look forward to this year get cancelled one after another with no sign of an end to Covid

What surprised you the most? Looking back, I can honestly say I don’t miss any of it. I guess it just goes to show that even in all the crappy situations we’ve been thrown into this year, God is still working, and His plans are far greater and better than any of our human ones

What are you thankful for? So much stuff. Incredible friends, particularly Anna, Ellie, Elise, James, the Academy and every single one of the Aldates interns. I’m thankful for God and His plans for my life, and as backwards as it sounds I’m thankful for Covid, without which, even though it’s completely terrible, there is absolutely no way I would be where I am right now as the cancelling of all my plans for this year provided the impetus for me to do something totally different with my life

Where did you fail? What did you learn? If I failed anywhere this year it was in not getting where I wanted to with the puppet team back in February, and also in trying to invest so much into so many different friendships I ultimately didn’t end up properly investing in any of them as I just simply spread myself too thinly. It’s been a bit of a wake up call for me about intentionality

What’s been disappointing? See “What’s been hardest” but also not really getting a chance to say goodbye to people properly

Where have you been stretched? Where have you grown? Aldates SoM, in many many ways…

What have you learned? People don’t see me how I see myself, I’m actually pretty outgoing in community

What have you been encouraged by? What should you celebrate? God continues to move visibly in my life, which has been pretty incredible, and I’m surrounded by so much support I frankly don’t feel like I really deserve

Where do you see blessings from waiting? From struggle? Covid cancelled all my plans for this year, but put me in a place where I'm able to do School of Ministry, which has been such an incredible blessing

Whom or what have you invested in? Being really intentional with how and who I spend time with at Aldates SoM, and the friendships I have made there, and also not falling into the same pitfalls from my time at university

How have you seen God at work? Literally everywhere in my life this year, but particularly over the last three months He has really shown up and challenged me on some pretty deep stuff

What might be on God’s heart for you this next year? Spiritual growth and character growth

What are your big priorities for the year ahead? Really invest more in the postgrads community and the people there

Is there an area of your character God may want to grow? Proactivity, God seems to have something of a sense of humour putting an intern (me) who in the past has really benefitted from structure in a placement that kind of runs itself if I let it, and I've been very much challenged on that this term

Are there some key people you want/need to spend more time with? My roommate Joel, as well as my postgrads small group and the postgrads group leaders, covid rules permitting

What spiritual and life rhythms do you need to get in place? Spiritual disciplines, particularly prayer, but also solitude and silence, and being comfortable with finding a balance for those things in the context of community

All of this really only scratches the surface of how I've been doing the past three months, God has been working in me in a big way and I really don't know how to put that in writing. I attempted to do it in a 2600 ish word report I wrote on the discipline of simplicity about a month ago, but I still don't really feel like I got anywhere with putting it in writing, so I apologise for that. I'll spare you of that as it's pretty long but suffice to say things are going well, and there is a lot more for God to do yet!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me, even if most of you don't quite know what you're praying for! You're all amazing. 

Aldates No. 9 - A New Beginning

Well here I am I guess, a week into my new life, though it certainly doesn't feel like it. Maybe it's just because of all the shenanigans going on right now with covid, but despite having only known these guys for a total of 9 days it already feels like we've been friends for a lifetime. The sense of community spirit in this house is unreal. Communitas, as Mark Brickman put it in his induction talk:  "the sense of sharing and intimacy that develops among persons who experience liminality as a group." Growing together as equals in Christ.

This week has been pretty crazy at times, though I haven't really been hugely "busy" as such, going back into a church setting after so long away due to covid has been an incredibly strange - but very very welcome - experience. Things might be completely different, with socially distanced chairs and in particular, no singing, but despite everything God has still been able to move in a big way and it has been a really good reminder that we really don't need big flashy lights or loud music for the Spirit to move. As it says in 1 Kings 19, the Lord is in the whisper. Not the storm, the earthquake, or the fire, but the whisper.

Perhaps the most surprising thing I've realised though is that, for all the anxiety I had coming into this internship about sharing a room and, consequently, not having my computer (my single biggest coping mechanism on bad days) I can honestly say I don't miss it. Not having it there to retreat to has in some ways forced me to be more "me" as weird as that sounds. People here see me as I am, not just the version of me I want to show them, and that has been incredibly freeing in a lot of ways. I might try and write some more on this at some point as it's been a pretty big thing for me this week, but I make no promises.

I really wish I could say more about how things are going right now, but I'm not sure I can really do justice to the experiences I have had these past days in something as simple as a blog post, but because you probably want to know how things are going (or you wouldn't have clicked on this to read it) just know that I'm fine, stuff is going really well so far, and the people here are amazing. I've only been here a week, but it already feels like home.

I just want to end by saying an absolutely massive thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and supporting me through this transition. It's definitely been one of the scarier things I've had to do, but I said even before I started here that I couldn't do it if God wasn't in it, and if there's one thing that has become very clear to me over the course of this week, He absolutely *IS* in it, and he's got my back.

Thanks guys.

A fun but arbitrary list (Part 1)

Do you ever find yourself being asked the question: What's your favourite _____? Only to realise that you don't actually know the answer? It's a conversation starter that comes up all too often, but despite that it's one I've never really been that great at, so I decided it'd be a fun idea to make SomeLists, a spreadsheet with a whole load of completely arbitrary top 25 lists on it. Of course then, being me, I thought, I wonder what would happen if I did this, but for bible books? And so it begins...

Slight disclaimer on this, I'm not meaning to suggest that any bible book is "better" or "worse" or more or less important than any other bible book, the bible in its entirety is God's word, and God's word is good. The criteria I used for ranking these books was entirely based on "how much a particular thing impacted me personally at the particular time I was reading it" and as such I have very little doubt that if I were to do it again, the resulting list would look completely different. The intention is more to be a fun way to look back over the past year at what I've been reading and collect it all together in my mind, and hopefully help someone out in the process. Anyway, without further ado, I present to you, all 66 books of the bible, ranked (kinda...):


Honourable(?) mentions...

66. Job
I don't really know why I put this so low down on the list, Job is an incredible story of persevering through the most horrendous suffering, but the book is 42 chapters long, and for 90% of it I just couldn't follow what was being said, and what I did follow either came across as whiny, or as people trying to lead Job astray, or in a lot of cases both, and as the second old testament book you read in the soul survivor bible in a year, it very nearly killed my motivation to keep on going with it. That said, I'm really glad I did, because like for Job, things got a lot better afterward.

65. Hosea
I don't necessarily have much of a reasoning for the placing of a lot of the minor prophets, but since most of them are essentially saying the same thing they don't tend to rank all that highly on this list.

64. 1 Chronicles
The first 9 chapters consist almost entirely of lists of names, the 10th chapter is a man committing suicide. Later chapters are more interesting, but I'm not really sure what else I can say about this book.

63. Leviticus
"The Book of Law" says it all really.

62. Lamentations
"Everything is terrible"

61. Judges
In summary: Israel does bad stuff, Israel gets conquered by enemies. Israel returns to God, Israel conquers enemies. The cycle repeats. At some point in the book a guy gets killed with a tent peg to the head, but since I couldn't even follow who he was or why he was killed at the time Judges remains at 61.

60. Deuteronomy
"The second law" in parts similar to Leviticus, but ranked higher on this list because of the first part of chapter 31, in particular verse 8: "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” 

59. Zechariah

58. Ezekiel
Just plain weird for the most part, I'm not really sure what I can say about this book otherwise.

57. Joel

56. Obadiah

55. Zephaniah

54. 2 Samuel
Not entirely sure why this ended up so much lower than 1 Samuel, but the fact it doesn't really mention Samuel at all was mildly confusing. It's more David's book.

53. Amos

52. Song of Songs
I honestly just found this book kinda weird. I get that it has it's place, but it's not really for me.

51. Exodus
Starts off well, with the escape from Egypt, then turns into a huge drag. Mostly ranked this low because of how it killed my motivation to read the bible in 2017 before I had the structure of BIOY to help me out, but I'm glad I was able to stick with it. My best advice for this is to keep going, because it really is worth it.


"Extended" list:

50. Nehemiah
The last book I read as part of bible in a year covers the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and is a good reminder of how God is faithful, and if he has promised something he will keep his promises regardless of the opposition we might face.

49. Jude
A very short book, Jude encourages perseverance in faith, and warns of the dangers of ungodliness.

48. Proverbs
One of the more varied books in the bible, proverbs is essentially a book of good life advice, and as one of two books stretched out over the entire year of BIOY was fairly hard to place as it wasn't tied to a specific point of the year. I'd probably have placed it higher, but on occasion it seemed like a lot of what it was saying was repeating things that had already been said with a slightly different wording, so it's here instead.

47. Haggai

46. Habakkuk
The best way I could describe this book, is that God works in ways we wouldn't expect, and although we don't often get a response quite so direct, we shouldn't lose hope, because he has a plan that is so much greater than we could ever possibly hope to imagine

45. Revelation
A vision of the end times. There are a lot of different interpretations for this book, and as such I'm probably not really qualified to even begin talking about it, but the writer employs some incredibly powerful and vivid imagery, and as such, it has stuck with me.

44. Genesis
Probably the most well known book of the bible, it seems somewhat backwards perhaps that the beginning of all things should directly follow the end on this list, but I have discovered something of a new found appreciation of Genesis re reading it in 2019, and whatever your opinions of this controversial book might be, there's no doubt it presents a truly incredible origin story.

43. Mark
The first of the four gospels to appear on this list, I don't really know why, but I just didn't "click" with Mark when I first read through it as part of BIOY. (I've since led bible studies on it, what a world...). Mark is the shortest of the four gospels by quite a significant margin, but at the same time arguably contains the most "stuff". It's a pretty good starting point for someone who has never read about Jesus life before, but the book doesn't hang around. It's event after event after event after event. Despite this though, it still somehow manages to capture just how human Jesus is. Far too often we think of Jesus as this superhero type character defiantly walking into every situation without fear, but reading Mark 14, where Jesus literally says "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" sharply jolts us back to reality. He was a human, just like the rest of us, with very human emotions, and it doesn't bear thinking about what he went through for our sakes.

42. Numbers
The Israelites wander the desert, guided by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, they are in the presence of God in a very physical sense. As backwards as it might seem, I was pretty surprised by the number of numbers in this book, quite a lot of it is essentially a census, which I wasn't expecting when I picked it up to read, but in hindsight makes perfect sense...

41. Ezra
The return of the exiles, and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem

40. Psalms
Like proverbs, this was pretty difficult to place, as it's one of two books that were spread out throughout the entire year rather than a bit of it, but I put Psalms here because it's significantly longer, and as such more varied, and definitely has a lot more stand out moments than proverbs did, in particular with respect to foreshadowing other things.

39/38. 2 and 3 John
I couldn't really separate these two, since they're both very short and pretty similar letters.

37. Philemon
Another new testament letter, a lot of these are ranked where they are purely because they are too short to properly compare with other books.

36. Malachi

35/34. 1 Kings and 2 Kings
The story immediately following the death of king David. Covers the reign of Soloman, as well as events with the prophet Elijah and Elisha

33. Nahum
A prophecy against Nineveh

32. Micah

31/30. 1 and 2 Peter

29/28. 1 and 2 Timothy

27. Titus

26. James