Why Man Flu is Great (and why I don't need to prove myself)

I haven’t written a blog for a very long time – in fact as my brother pointed out today, this last few weeks has been the longest gap since I started it in Malawi. I would love to say that I’ve just been too busy, but looking back, I was always too busy to do this really this but I did it anyway – because I love it. Honestly, I think the reason I haven’t written anything for a while is because I haven’t had anything much to say! Not that nothing exciting has happened – lots of exciting things have happened. Since I last posted on here I’ve had one of the most epic experiences of my life: seeing one of my friends come to believe in Jesus, and getting to be there as he starts to enjoy Him. That has been an utter delight, and a ridiculous privilege – and it makes me grin and get excited just to think about it. I’ve also received a surprise visit from my girlfriend, started spending a unusual  amount of time on the roof of a bike shed, and become an expert in the manipulation of sock puppets. So plenty was going on, I just didn’t really have anything profound to say about any of it – but I’ve decided that it’s time to break through and write something anyway.

I want to write about something that I’ve known for a long time, but seems to be one of my favourite things to forget. It’s about proving myself.

It is exam term at the moment, so I have a lot of friends who are, shall we say, not feeling as zen as they might like. I am also not very popular this term, because us marvellous English students don’t actually have exams in first year. So what should be the case is that everyone around me is going mental and getting exhausted, and I’m just strolling around feeling chilled and peaceful, sipping on a can of Lilt. Sadly, what’s actually happened is that I’ve found myself with quite a lot of Shakespeare to think about, tonnes of rehearsals to be rehearsing in (that’s where the sock puppets come in), and many and various God-based activities to be doing. So much so, that by last Sunday night, I was genuinely really exhausted, and stressed, and I was definitely considering throwing a temper tantrum until someone brought me a time-turner. I also, ironically, felt guilty because I was supposed to be the one with no exam.

And then on Monday, I got man flu. And this man flu turned out to be surprisingly helpful. (Just to clarify, I don’t think that God mystically gave me a cold, but I think that He is exactly the sort of legend that will take anything, if we’ll let him, even annoying things, and turn them into something good. Like those people who make flip-flops out of old tyres.) The metaphorical flip-flop which God made out of my cold was basically this: it forced me to admit to myself and to Him that I was not actually capable of writing a brilliant essay, running several prayer meetings, having a spontaneous DMC with every single one of my friends, being funny with sock puppets for several hours, saving the world and getting some more milk from Sainsbury’s all in one day. I was obliged to abandon my semi-well-intentioned plan to do every single thing that God likes us to do all at once all by myself. Instead I switched to Plan B: do everything you actually have to do, and spend some proper, good time alone with God – then see what else you feel up to. And you know what? Plan B turns out to be pretty good.

The funny thing is though, that I’m still on Plan B, but I’m feeling quite a lot better now, and I’m actually back to doing pretty much exactly the same amount of stuff as I was before. But I don’t feel like I’m dying so much anymore. In fact, to extend the metaphor (as I love to do) I feel like I’m coming alive. And the differences are two things…

Thing One is that I’ve gone back to carving out time to enjoy God. That might sound a little bit silly if you don’t believe in him, but it is what I mean. Because the whole thing is pretty epic really – and by the whole thing I mean my current state of existence – in that God – as in ‘I AM’, the Creator and Holder-Together of the universe, the Epic Poet who spoke the stars into existence, the Author who invented us, the Craftsman who created us, the One True King, from of old, the Rightful Heir to the Throne of Everything – in that that God knows my name, and he smiles when he hears it. And even though I broke his heart but he actually likes me, he loves me to death. And I get to call him Dad, and he listens when I talk to him, and he does incredible things just to show me that he loves me, and the list goes on and on really. And since the man flu, I’ve been putting a bit more time and effort into enjoying that. Into reading about him, writing about him, talking to him, singing songs and doing silly little dances for him. Sometimes just being still and knowing that he’s right there with me.

And in that time, He’s started to remind me about Thing Two – and, as promised, it’s about proving myself. There’s a lyric in a song we were singing at church recently that starts to express it:

Jesus, you’ve nothing more to prove,
So what could separate me from your love?

(I love the attempt to make ‘prove’ and ‘love’ rhyme – tis pleasantly Shakespearean.) Anyway, I love the lyric, and it keeps on moving me every time I sing it. So then I was thinking about why, and this is my best guess…

I don’t just get exhausted because I do a lot of stuff. That’s why I get tired, but then there’s another type of exhaustion, something a bit deeper. And that deeper kind of exhaustion happens when I’m doing all this stuff that I do in an attempt to prove myself. When I’m doing it to try and demonstrate – mostly just to myself – that I really am a good Christian. That I really am ‘committed’. That I really do care about all the things I’m supposed to care about. That I really am following Jesus with my whole life. That I really am a good student. That I really am a good friend. A good boyfriend. A good person. To prove that I am who I think I am, that I am who I want to be. And that is exhausting. Like I say, not the things themselves – the things themselves I really love doing, they just get tiring if you do too many of them in one go without sleeping – it’s just this need to prove myself that eats me up.

And then I remember. I remember that Jesus didn’t say, “I’ll teach you the way to be as good as you need to be, if you’ll try hard enough, and then I’ll be pleased with you.” He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I remember that he can give us rest because he has done all of the work that we needed to do. He has put in all of the effort, and he nailed it. And the pun there was unintentional, but actually quite relevant – because instead of taking all the glory, all the praise that he had earned for himself, he let people spit on him, and kill him – because he was saving that glory. He was saving that glory so he could share it with us. So that we can boast, we can glory – I love that verb so much – we can glory in how much he loves us, the what he thinks of us, in the names that he calls us. He calls us friends. He calls us brothers and sisters. He calls us children of the living God, and he tells us that he’s proud of us. Not because of all the impressive things we did today, but because we’re his kids now. I remember that he loves us because he loves us, and there’s nothing we can ever do to stop him. I remember the prodigal son wandering home, literally covered in crap, and the Father running out and down the street and wrapping his arms around him and beaming at him and saying, “This is my son!”

I remember all of that and I realise that I have got absolutely nothing left to prove. I know who I am, and it’s never going to change. He’s proved it to me. So I’m still tired, but I’m not so exhausted any more. And it’s really good.

the lifetime of a party.

Charlie always liked house parties. He liked a good casual gathering, a few mates, the right sort of people, a few drinks, and a good chat. He liked to talk, to laugh, to make some jokes and have some ideas and generally just, you know, all that stuff. Most of all he liked being funny. Charlie loved the moment when the laughter died away and everyone looked at him – any more where that came from Charlie? That was the look in their eyes – and there’s always more where that came from. They loved it, he loved it, good time was had by all. It was a shame though, he almost felt guilty whenever he wanted to go and get another drink, or if he needed a piss, because conversation was going to slow down without him and he knew it. That’s a big burden to bear in a way. Once, he came back in and it was genuinely silent. To be fair though, he quite liked that feeling. Charlie always liked a good gathering. It was just a shame really that the others couldn’t be – you know – that they weren’t quite as – whatever. But it was all right. Good fun. Until Charlie went to the ball.

It was the big one, the one with years in the making, decades on the waiting list. And out of nowhere he’d got this invite. Gilt-edged. Hand-written – by the man himself – too good even for eBay this one. And he got the suit, he even borrowed cufflinks, and his dad taught him how to shine his shoes. He hadn’t had butterflies in his stomach since he was twelve years old. And as he walked up to the gate he looked at the invite again and thought it had to be fake, surely. But they let him through. He was plunged into clear water with his eyes open – everything glittered, everything swum. There were jugglers and dancers. It was beautiful. It was huge – it was almost ridiculous how huge the whole thing was. And there was room after room - dining halls with mountains of things he didn’t recognise that tasted strange and sweet, fountains of edible things, and men with little stalls, frying things that smelt so richly savoury that it made your mouth water. And music. Horns, and tuxedos, and saxophones, and a woman playing a double-bass like it was alive. And he danced. And there were people dancing all around him, and they looked and smiled, and danced together. And he felt so small he could almost disappear and so happy he could almost melt.

And the night wore on. Excitement mellowed into peace, a gentle awe-struck pleasure. He lay on the balcony, looked at the stars. A voice was singing beneath him, and it was jazz. No one had noticed that he’d gone outside. He’d barely noticed. Laughter swirled, up and around him, and he breathed it in, and out, and he propped himself up on his elbows, and looked out across the sea of sparkling lights, traced it with his eyes until it kissed the dark of the horizon. He lost his thoughts in the swell of the saxophones beneath him. He closed his eyes, slowly.

A hand touches his shoulder, his eyes open quickly and he sees that it’s him, it’s the man himself. He’s sitting next to him, looking out. Charlie looks around and sees two drinks of incredible sparkling liquid sitting between them on the ground.

“One’s for you” he says. Charlie picks it up, tries to drink it without taking his eyes of the man that’s sitting right next to him. Right next to him.

“I saw you leave, I thought I’d come say hello.” The drink is magic, it’s cold, refreshing, but his throat is tingling like it’s on fire, but not like he’s thirsty, like it’s warming his blood, he can feel every inch of the veins in his chest. He breathes. “Thank you” he says.

And then the man turns his head, looks straight at him, and his eyes are even better than everyone says. A grin starts to creep across his lips. Across Charlie’s too. He reaches out an arm and lays a hand on his shoulder once again.

“Charlie, I’m so glad that you came.”

***

I hope you like the story, I liked writing it. And all I really wanted to get at was, which party are you living at? Because the invitations to the ball are free, all you’ve got to do is ask. And I can’t tell you how good it is to hear the man himself, the Master of Ceremonies, Founder of the Feast, the Inventor of Delight, sit down next to you and say, “I’m so glad that you came.”

PS. If you still don’t get what I’m going on about, or if you want an invitation yourself, just drop me a message!

Rotten Teeth Soft Voice

Another one. Should I? he thinks.

He should, he thinks.

Again though?

Yeah. Again.

If it weren’t for the eyes it would just be the hat. It’s not even a particularly weird hat to be honest, although any hat is pretty weird on a man in spring. Is this a man, or just an old boy?

The black coat is ambiguous. Not a scary coat, but it has the potential.

To be honest it’s the posture. Actually, it’s the face. That aching, asking, awkward half-smile grimace on this tall boy with long hair and the black coat and the hat, with the eyes somehow slightly wider than is socially acceptable, and his shoulders say ‘I don’t want to bother you’. His lips say, “I’m sorry to bother you” and some people walk through in between them as the rich boy tries to stop and turn back to the tall boy with the long hair, and he sees his lips making more sounds but he can’t hear them.

That’s something unusual about him. He’s too quiet. Softly spoken so the rich boy is only gently awoken from the conversation that he had been having with his girlfriend. And he keeps on speaking and his face says ‘Look, this is as uncomfortable for me as it is for you’. His mouth says “I’m just so grateful that you’ve stopped, I’ve been out her all day.” And there’s a blackened rotten problem on his two front top teeth and its speaking volumes he doesn’t want to say. He’s talking about a hostel. A job, just in factory assembly or process, just factory. And he’s looking straight into the rich boy’s eyes and maybe its pretentious but it seems like the eyes are saying ‘Why does no one trust me?’ He gets the crumpled fiver and some pennies out of his pocket to show him, and he tells him that the woman who gave him the fiver asked him for four pounds change. He doesn’t laugh. The rich boy doesn’t either because he’s too busy being sincere but when you think about it that is pretty funny. She asked for change. Marx would have liked that one. Jesus would probably have flipped and started turning tables. Still, it’s pretty funny.

But the rich boy didn’t notice at the time. At the time he was thinking about the last time. Last night but one this guy comes up to him and says “Please don’t say no, have you got change for a pound?” And he does, and he’s a little bit frightened by the guy but he thinks he’s big and he can sort of see how you might need it so he stops and the guy keeps talking, talking, explaining and it doesn’t quite make sense and he gets his change out of his pocket and the numbers change, the guy wants the two pound coin and he can feel its going wrong but he doesn’t know how to stop it so – the guy says “What? You can give it here I’m not going to stop you and ask for your help and then just rob you am I” and so he hands over the two quid and the guy shakes his hand and just walks off. And rich boy looks at his girlfriend but not for long and they just start walking. And he hears the guy start laughing with a mate behind him. Laughing. And he thinks he shouts something after them but he’s not sure, they’re just walking away and he’s not even angry, he’s not fired up, he has no urge to kick something or scream, he just feels fucking small.

So he looks up at the tall boy and asks him how much the hostel costs. And he says its fifteen pound a week and if he’s there he has an address so he can apply for jobs. Rich boy has had his hand in his pocket since the start of the conversation but there’s only 50p in there. And he’s only got tenners in his wallet. He shows his girlfriend that he only has 50p and she opens up her bag and finds one pound fifty. So they hand him that. And he says, “Thank you”, and it sounds like he means it. Rich boy checks his wallet just to see if he has a fiver in there, he doesn’t. He holds the wallet in front of him, looks at the tenners. He looks at the tall boy with the long hair and the hat and the soft voice. No reasons go through his head just maths. He’s got seven pounds fifty, he needs fifteen. You’ve got a tenner. He hands it to him.

The tall boy is shocked. He takes it. And he smiles, and the rotten teeth come out, and he says, “I’ve got a home.” And he smiles, and he keeps on talking for a bit. They shake hands, he smiles, they say goodbye.

He might have been lying, he might spend it on crack.
But maybe trust is just a choice we have to make.

They might not keep it secret, they might not even understand.
But maybe trust is just a choice we have to make.

He might not mean it when he says it back.
But maybe trust is just a choice we have to make sometimes.

Elly Falls In Love (Weird Story #4)

I came across a funny little thing the other day about signs. Imagine a family you know say that they’re going on a seaside holiday to Scarborough. All very lovely, sounds great, so you wave them off and they go on their way, and then later that day you’re driving along on the country roads, and in the distance, you see their car. And it’s just parked at the side of the road. And as you get closer you can see that their parked just before a junction, next to a sign that says “Scarborough”. And when you get really close you see that they’ve got out of the car, they’ve got a little table and chairs set up and they’re having their dinner, right there by the side of the road.

You pull up wind your window down, and say, “Are you guys alright?”

They smile back and say, “Yeah, we’re loving it!”

“I thought you were going to Scarborough…” you say.

They say, “Yes indeed! And here we are! That’s the sign right there!”

Now obviously that’s quite stupid, but my point is that when Jesus did miracles, he called them “signs”. When he turned water into wine, or when he healed people like he healed Tim and Clare and the woman who came to my Dad, he described those things as “signs”. And he actually got pretty frustrated when people kept getting seeing the signs but not bothering to go where they were pointing.

Which is why I think this is my favourite weird story of all. It’s from Elly, who used to come to my church back here in Leamington, and then I bumped into on a night out in Cambridge a couple of months ago and invited her to come along with me to church in Revs bar that Sunday. And it’s been great because I’ve got to see a lot more of Elly since then, both in a literal and in a sort of deeper sense. So I asked her if she could try and summarise her story – and what I love is that crazy stuff has been happening recently, and she mentions it, but its not the point. My guess is that quite a lot of it is too personal to be particularly bloggable anyway – but mainly it’s that she’s not just excited about the miracles, she’s not getting out at the road sign and having a barbecue – she’s got to the real thing, and she loves it! And I think that’s epic. Anyway, here it is…

***

So this is basically about the past two weeks (with a little bit of before thrown in):

Before the amazing Mike took me to his church I would have said I was good with God. I loved him, he loved me. Simples. But now I realise that was a trickle – what I have now is a waterfall.  

I loved ‘God the Father’ from before I was born. I wouldn’t be on this planet without him. He protected me through everything. I loved ‘God the Holy Spirit’ from thirteen, he was the fire inside of me. He gave me strength, he taught me to forgive and sent me on a mission to protect the people I loved. He saved me again. But in the last few years I had started to hate ‘Jesus the Son’ and I didn’t even realise. In teaching me to forgive, he had become burdened with so much physical and mental pain that I hated him. This was pain that wasn’t his to bare. It was ‘that’ man, or ‘that’ boy’s pain, not Jesus’. Not the man who had died on a cross to forgive my sins. It was completely ridiculous for me to hate him but I did. I hated him to the point I screamed to the sky on our Weekend Away with church, but he just replied with one thing: love.  

From that moment he gave up whispering and started shouting. He gave me instructions so loud they could not be ignored. He answered my prayers for others. He forced me on to my knees with no option of standing. He made me truly smile at the world all the time. He performed miracles in my life. He made me not be scared of death. He provided me with the most amazing friends in Christ. He let me speak in (baby) tongues. He made his words come alive. He has just set my world on fire.

Before God was carrying me, he was protecting me as I tried to protect the people around me. He was my guardian. But now I am free. Now instead of carrying me, he is holding my hand. Holding my hand as I walk with him, wherever that might be.

God is not just my father any more, he is my best friend. He is the constant dialogue in my head: whether it is advice, begging (on my part) or just nattering about the weather, it doesn’t stop and I love it. He is the one who will give me a hug when the day has been hard. He is the man I dance around the house with when the day has been good. He is the one who has me laughing down the street or walking around with a scary smile on my face. Jesus the Man was what was missing in my life, and I didn’t even realise. Thanks be to God. 

Abnormal #unilyf (Weird Story #3)

Have another funny story. This is again actually from the person who the miracle happened to – this time my friend Clare (or, to be more precise, Rachael’s friend Clare, who I know a little bit). When I went to visit last month she had her arm in a sling from dislocating her shoulder on a charity Rock Solid assault course thingumee the weekend before, so it was rather a surprise when Rachael texted to say that this had happened. 

I like this story especially because it all just happened in uni rooms, without mood music or hype, and with two people who I’m not sure had either of them seen a miraculous healing ever before (which, to be fair, is not that surprising!). As always, the sceptic in me starts explaining it away, but on balance I agree with Clare and with Rachael that it was God – your own mind is of course yours to make up. I hope you enjoy it either way!

***

So at 6am one Sunday morning I found myself sat on a cushion, surrounded by emptying paint pots, fairy lights and bibles, in a cosy 24/7 prayer room. However, I could not get comfortable despite the snug surroundings, as I had dislocated my shoulder the previous weekend (for the 3^rd time in my life). But God had placed Emily and Rachael in the room with me, and tentatively he gave Rachael the courage to sit down next to me and ask if she could pray for my shoulder.

Bizarrely, I instantly felt warmth as Rachael placed her hands around the aching areas. My shoulder was still loose in the socket due to the damage to surrounding muscle tissue and tendons, but as she asked God to heal my shoulder and make it feel secure again, we both felt a physical pulse between us. Neither of us could work out, however, who it was that had twitched; it was more of an internal pulse of what I imagine was God’s power flooding through Rachael and down my right arm. The prayer did not ‘fix’ my shoulder, but the permanent dull ache was gone, and perhaps most relieving was the mental change. My fear to use or move my arm in case it dislocated again had vanished, I was no longer permanently holding it at my side.

Following this experience, I felt no need to take the pain killers that I was previously taking every 4 hours, and I didn’t wear my sling for the rest of the day. By the evening, both Rachael and I were simply in awe of what had happened. And so again, cross-legged on her bed, Rachael and I sat down to pray. This time, as Rachael spoke words of thanks for what had happened and prayers for the continuation of such improvement, I felt something like warm water pouring down my arm from her hands and out through my fingertips. Rachael had asked God to use his powers through her, and He did, just so easily. I am still pretty touched that God has placed such an incredible person in front of me just to help me out when I was struggling, and that through Rachael it was something His powers could so easily fix - rather humbling if I’m honest.

 The shoulder specialist is still amazed at how confident I am using my shoulder – and how well, physically, the shoulder has recovered in the short term.