Pauseforamoment

The weather pulled out every stop, and we had a scorcher of a Christmas. The mercury didn’t fall below about 35 celsius until about 11pm, and I think during the day we topped 40. We went to my husband’s aunt and uncle’s for lunch. Let me just say, that if you live in Perth, beg, borrow or steal and airconditioner. I’m just saying.

Today, the temperature is 43 degrees. That is 110 for you Northern Hemisphere dwellers. It’s hot enough to kill all the seedlings I ran out of time to plant, in the space of one day, though they were watered in the morning. I can feel the heat radiating in through the glass, and our a/c is running constantly. There is no relief in sight, apart from the humid change this afternoon. Don’t you love 43 degrees, added with a heavy blanket of water? Yeah, me too.

Welcome to summer in Perth.

I love the lead-up to Christmas, but only if I don’t have that sense of having twice as many things to do as there is time. We don’t actually regard Christmas as a day more ‘holy’ than any other, so for us in a spiritual sense it is more about ‘doing’ church, like spending time with friends and family, thinking about others, and making it a time of enjoyment and gladness. I personally adore buying presents, but I like to be creative, and I love thinking about each person and what they would like. We don’t spend a lot – in fact we have a ten dollar limit for each person. (that doesn’t apply for hubs and me!) I feel so bad for the people who have this completely stressed look on their faces, whacking great big gifts onto their credit cards and living with debt for the first few months of the year. We never go crazy – I like to buy a mixture of things we need, and a couple of fun things. Just like when we were growing up, there is always a piece of fruit in the toe of the stocking, and some sort of sweet item. I like silly little things in there, too. Next year our family is talking about having a giftless Christmas, and perhaps donating overseas, which I’m excited about too. I just enjoy whatever comes up in this season.

The sheets are billowing on the line, and I’m about to go out there and rake up the leaves. The house is clean, and I just have a bit more food shopping to do. My family is coming for a bbq tonight. I also want to make some shortbread and mince pies. I’ve never attempted the latter – my mother is the mince pie queen – but I’ll give it a go!

This weekend we have my brother’s engagement party in the afternoon tomorrow (need to prepare a platter for that), the children’s Christmas songs for church on Sunday, and then a lovely, relaxing Christmas eve day. I’d like to go to the beach in the morning, prepare the food for the two functions we are going to on Christmas Day, and just relax with my husband. I think we are spending the evening with friends.

On Christmas Day, we have set little traditions. We always go to the beach for a swim and a quick walk. I take fresh cherries to munch on in the car. We come home, shower, and then have breakfast. We plan a different breakfast each year. This year, we are having vanilla french toast – I’ll use some real vanilla in the eggs. I bought fresh blueberries, a real treat, and we’ll also have some poached nectarines. It sounds a lot, but I do very small portions, and we are always starving when we come back from the beach! Christmas Day is going to be 38 degrees (celsius) so won’t that be fun. We’ll open gifts somewhere in there, then I’ll throw together a salad and head up to my husband’s aunt and uncle’s, where all his family congregate. We usually sit outside, so I’m preparing to be hot. We come home after lunch, and crash on the sofa for half an hour, then head to my parents’ place at 5.30pm. They have a pool, so we’ll plan a nice swim on arrival. Dinner (more food!) is usally seafood, then turkey, pork and salads, and Christmas pudding.

Boxing Day – probably a morning swim, the Boxing Day test match (husband) and lots of lounging about. Nice.

Warning: If you are not into girly stuff, stop reading right now!!

 So, we have six weddings before the end of April next year, not to mention my parents’ Ruby Wedding anniversary on the 30th December. What does this mean? A new outfit! I wanted something that could go from day to evening, and didn’t look like an extra-long t-shirt or a floor-sweeping number. I just can’t carry those looks off. Yesterday, I ducked into this shop which has a great series of clothing called Review. Their stuff is pretty expensive, but I thought I’d get something really nice seeing as I would be getting value for money out of it (six occasions!). I tried on a couple of things, had my eye on a few others, but decided I was running out of time and would pop back today.

Today – the magical four letter word! SALE! I tried on about six things, then put on this yellow (yellow!) and charcoal dress that is way cute. I had saved it until last, because I was thinking there is no way I could wear a yellow dress. It was awesome! It is knee-length, a very soft chiffon-y crepe-y fabric, lined, with charcoal satin straps and a charcoal bow-type thing underneath the bust. It is so pretty! And yellow! I don’t think I’ve ever bought a yellow piece of clothing before. The absolute blessing is that it was $250.00 yesterday but marked down to $99.00 today. I am SO GLAD I was in a rush yesterday!

I then went to the shoe department, thinking I would possibly splash out on a pair of yellow shoes – how cute would that look! As I passed the handbags, there was this dinky yellow bag with a black bow around it. I know! It just jumped into my hands! I am going to forgo the shoes and just wear some black heels, I think. I am SO excited about this outfit!

My parents have organised a fabby anniversary party – drinks on the 28th December with their friends (possible the first airing of said outfit), then a chartered boat cruise on 30th (just for their guests), and following that, we will go back to their house, change and so on, then be picked up by a limousine and taken to a revolving restaurant in the city (second airing).

We have a wedding on 1st January, highly casual, so I won’t wear it then. The next one is on January 17th, formal, so third airing. Then, three in April. I am pretty sure there won’t be that many people at each wedding who are going to the others, so no one will see me in yellow six times over, lol!

Now that you all think I am completely frivolous and flighty and shallow, I’ll end this entry.

I like things how I like them. If you come to my home, it will usually be pretty clean, with a fairly minimal amount of mess in the main rooms. The bathroom will always be sparkly and the toilet fresh and clean. I am a bit oc about those areas.

Yesterday, I gave the house a really good clean. I swept and mopped the wooden floors, cleaned the bathroom and toilet, washed the shower curtain and rug, and generally got it ready for Christmas. All it needed was a maintenance wipe-over in the days to come. I like to walk around bare-feet, so I make sure the floor is always clean. I hate that sticky or gritty feeling under my feet.

This morning, the electricians came to install a smoke alarm, powerpoint in the bathroom and new powerpoint in the laundry. They marched in with their big boots (after making sure they were nice and damp from the dewy grass outside) and their drills and so on. They were thirty minutes early, so I wasn’t dressed and I really needed the loo. I knew it would be impossible to go while they were working. The toilet is right there. I asked them if I should move anything, and they assured me that all would be fine.

Five minutes later, the guy comes in, apologising. There is red brick dust everywhere. On the towels, shower curtain, floor, toothbrushes, clean towels on the stand and through the laundry. They assure me they will clean it all up. They finished the work, using the house as a thoroughfare to get to and from the truck. (iIm thinking, if it were me, I’d be going around the outside, in order to avoid tracking dirt through the house. I think like a girl, however.)  Then, one guy uses our loo and let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. He didn’t wash his hands, either. (writhing with revulsion, here.) When they left, I surveyed the rooms. Floors with tracked in mud, grass, leaves and dust. Freshly-washed white shower curtain with red stains and black marks. Towels, gritty with dust. The toilet. The bathroom floors. They did clean up, but it was a male clean-up. (apologies to my husband who is the best male cleaner-upper I know!)

As I was cleaning up, I got to see the funny side of it all. Story of my life that I’d only done the cleaning the day before. It occurred to me how much we like to control our world. We like to have it how we like it, and we like our plans to remain constant. We don’t like things messed up. I could feel the Lord smiling with me as I thought this all through. Life is messy. It never follows anyone’s plan except God’s. Mess and dirt and sickness and death come and mess things up. God doesn’t send these things to us, they just happen. He uses them to turn our hearts to Him. We lay down our own agendas, our control, and say, ‘Whatever, Lord. I’ll keep loving you whatever.’ It is more about our hearts becoming His than about our lives working out the way we desire. We can’t control what happens, but we can control our attitudes and our hearts.  These circumstances remind me that my life is not my own. The upshot of this morning’s little upset is that we have powerpoints in the bathroom and a double one in the laundry. It was ultimately to our benefit. The minor pain will have an ongoing reward in the weeks to come. Sometimes, we don’t know why we go through rubbish. I’m learning that the key is to keep trusting, keep hoping, and know that ultimately, a greater good will come out of the pain.

Romans 13

 But the government is corrupt! They make decisions I don’t agree with! I don’t like the new prime minister!

Romans 13 tells me that every person needs to be subject to the governing authorities. It tells us that authority is from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Kinda leaves me no room to move!

Just a couple of weeks ago, our nation had an election. I was relatively happy with the current prime minister, but just ‘knew’ that we would get the new guy. Sure enough, we had a landslide victory. That evening, I was on a picnic with a group of friends, making some dumb jokes about the new guy ( who hadn’t quite been elected yet, they were still counting the votes). One of my friends laughingly said, “You’re going to have to respect him now; he is going to be your new prime minister!” It was a throw-away comment, but it rang true in my heart. I don’t have to agree with or support what the guy does or believes, but I do need to honour him. I still need to submit to the laws and precepts of the land. I still need to pray for him and uphold what he is doing.

I live in a nation of whingers. We are a suspicious bunch; we don’t trust anyone, and if someone does something good for us, we grudgingly accept it, wonder about their motive, and are glad when we can find something else to complain about. It is rare to hear anyone say a good word about an authority figure, such as the prime minister. I have even heard a few negative comments already about New Guy. Why do we do that?!

We don’t realise that power that words have. The bible tells us there is life and death in the power of the tongue. If I speak negativity over an authority figure, my words have power. Apart from bringing judgement on myself, I am building negativity towards that person. It is so easy to be drawn into complaining and negative comments about our leaders. It is much harder to be the one who brings honour to them in words and actions.

I know christians who spend a lot of time trying to minimise their tax payments (in some questionable ways), avoid paying parking or speeding fines, and try to avoid following rules they deem below them. Regardless of how fair or unfair we think rules are, they are there for a reason and we just need to suck it up! My husband is a man of integrity and he keeps me on the straight and narrow. I like to go fast, and he likes me to stick to the rules. This is a good thing. I have saved a lot of money.

It is a good thing and a bad thing that the way the Word presents authority and submission to authority as a choice. It would be a lot easier if it said something like, “You will die if you don’t submit in this way and in these situations.” Instead, we are given the option to submit.

I think a key to remember is that submission is an attitude. It is not so much something we do; it is a condition of the heart. Out of this stems our actions. I think one of the problems with the way we think about submission is that some people like to create a doctrine out of something that relates to a heart issue. A whole camp rises out of someone’s interpretation of what submission means.  A lot of people find this easier, in that they can follow a set of rules. It is the doing that becomes important, not so much what is happening in the heart. This becomes tricky, as it is a lot easier to criticise someone/a group for not doing exactly what you think they should be doing. It is a lot harder to love them and honour them by covering them in prayer, maintaining a honouring attitude and respectfully living by their rules. This does not mean you blindly accept their value system or the rules they implement. It means that your heart attitude always remains honouring, even as you hope for change.

“Valerie, what I’d like you to do is make about fifty copies of the sessions each day, put the labels on them, and bring them each evening so they can be sold at that session. ” I lugged the old tape-to-tape recorder home, and each morning, sat there for about three hours, switching over tapes laboriously. I’d like to say that I did this with joy, but I didn’t. My thoughts ran along the lines of, “Hello! This is my summer holiday! Don’t they know how hard teachers work? I could be at the beach! It’s too hot to stay at home! Can’t they get a decent machine? I want to serve, but I was thinking serving meant doing the fun stuff, like giving the offering message, or maybe serving in the worship team. This is the grunt work!” I did it, though, and dealt with my attitude. Over the following years, I have done a lot more grunt work, including cleaning church loos, taking on jobs that no-one else wants to do, taking initiative to do things which are unseen to everyone else. I say this totally without pride, because believe me, I had/have an attitude at times you’d have to high-jump over. The lesson I am learning? The quickest way to see breakthrough in my life is to lay down my goals and dreams, and serve someone else’s vision. We have grown in leaps and bounds, living by this principle.

I’ve wanted for a while to write a series on authority. My understanding of authority has been worked in my heart over the last four or five years. Understanding and living out the understanding has not come easily to me, as I, like most people, like to do my own thing and march to the beat of my own drum. What I know to be true about biblical authority is that it is an umbrella of safety for the Church and for the world, and it is something that we can choose or not choose to come under. If the bible had a clear list of rules about how authority looks it would be a lot easier. Instead, it comes down to the believer choosing to lay down one’s life and living according to the set of structures the Word has set in place.

I’m sure as I go on I will have to give a number of disclaimers. To start with, though, I must say that I have seen, read and heard of many abuses of authority. As with many things in the Word, there is a fine line between understanding and implementing a principle, and overstepping it and making it become a legalistic bondage. The solution is not to then say that the principle itself is at fault. Please know that I only write of that which I believe, and that which I have experienced to be true. If we preach out of someone’s else’s revelation, it has very little impact. These things I know to be true, as I have seen them work in my life. Please, ask questions or get me to clarify that which is unclear. I am also open to correction. The fault will probably be in my exposition.

Matthew 8: 5-10

Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home dreadfully tormented.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”  (words in bold for emphasis.)

I do not recall any other place in the scriptures where it speaks of Jesus marvelling at someone’s understanding and application of authority. Jesus connects this understanding of authority with ‘great faith’. He also gives the power to heal and deliver to this one who operates under authority. He tells the centurion that as he has believed, so it shall be done. The servant is healed within the hour.

It is interesting that the centurion says, “I also am a man under authority”. He is showing his understanding that Jesus, during His time on earth, was subject to the will of His Father and ‘only did what He saw the Father doing’. This is powerful. It shows us that when we operate under the correct authority structures, amazing things are possible. I love that the Word says, “Jesus marvelled”. This is an awesome principle!

I find it interesting today that our culture operates under the opposite way of thinking. It is all about us. We are told to ‘do it if it feels good.’ Freedom comes from doing what we want, when we want it. Choices are ours to make, and only when we want to make them. If we don’t like the choice, why, change your mind! We even pick and choose what we like to follow in the Word. This doesn’t bring freedom; it brings bondage. God has delegated authority on the earth for our protection and for our freedom.

Some of the authorities that we are to honour are: governments and rulers, employers, church leadership and the family.

Following Jesus hurts sometimes. I can only speak of my experiences, but I have counted the cost. Choosing the narrow path (and it is my choice) causes heartache and pain and suffering, but, paradoxically, it is the path of greatest freedom and the pathway to tremendous strength. I know that Jesus heals. I know he casts out demons. I know He sets the captives free. As I have learnt to walk in God’s delegated authority, I have seen tremendous growth in my life. My husband, too, has grown incredibly. I’m looking forward to sharing some of our experiences.