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A life of no compromise

Brett Fish
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A life of no compromise

Have you ever read the book ‘No Compromise – the life story of Keith Green’? That is my absolute favourite book.

Keith Green grew up pretty much as a child musical prodigy having learned the ukulele at age 3, guitar at 5, and piano at 7 years of age.

His life was one of passionately pursuing life to the full in whatever he put his hands on. So from music, to relationships, to drug use, and philosophy, whatever Keith got involved in, he really went all out for it.

The book ‘No Compromise’ describes how Keith looked in so many different places for meaning and Jesus is one of the last places he turns to. But as with everything else he decided that if he was going to follow Jesus he would have to do it 100%

Life followed passion

He met and married his wife Melody when he was 19. She was another seeker and musician and so they really connected on so many levels. The story of ‘No Compromise‘ is told from her perspective, describing events as she sees them and tends to paint herself as far more of a skeptic than Keith and so gravitated a lot slower towards the things that he did.

But within their first 6 months of marriage they had opened their house to a single pregnant woman who was living on the streets. The Greens had a small home in the suburbs in Los Angeles and before long they had filled their house with people needing a place to stay.

They would go on to rent five other houses and be part of a community of more than seventy, mostly college-aged, young adults who were in various stages of finding Jesus and getting off drugs, as well as a lot of single pregnant women. As you can imagine they were not the most popular community in the streets.

Eventually they moved out to a farm because they just had too many people and Keith Green continued to be a musician and release albums but at the same time sent out a newsletter called Last Days Newsletter which would eventually grow to a 500,000 readership all around the world.

A Visible Passion

Many would call Keith a prophet as his songs and words would often call the church out for not living out what they said they believed. I think this is why I really enjoyed him so much. At times during concerts he would be so moved by his passion for people to come to know Jesus that he would end up at times preaching to the crowds and at other times lying under his piano on the ground weeping.

Keith really caused a lot of controversy among the Christian music world in particular when he started offering his albums for free. Keith and Melody mortgaged their house to pay for his first solo album and then they offered the concerts and the album for whatever people wanted to pay for it. By May 1982 Keith had shipped out over two hundred thousand copies of that album of which 61,000 copies went for free.

This really caused a stir among other artists who felt it was unfair or even judgemental sometimes on them charging for their concerts and albums. But Keith had discovered Jesus and really wanted to see that impact every area of his life.

Gone too soon

Sadly Keith was killed at the age of 28 along with two of his children when a small plane he was flying in crashed as he was showing some guests around the Last Days Ministries property. It definitely feels like a case of someone snatched away much too soon. Yet if you read the book it feels like in such a short time Keith and his family and community had achieved so much.

I try to revisit ‘No Compromise’ every ten years at least and it continues to inspire and fire me up and charge my commitment to Jesus. I often wonder how Keith would have dealt with social media arguments (as someone who did not back down easily and said what was on his heart) or some of the Megachurch traditions and styles we have today. I think he definitely would have struggled with some of that stuff. Still he remains an inspiration and someone who in some strange way I feel somewhat connected to.

Whatever space of faith you are in, I would highly encourage you to grab yourself a copy of ‘No Compromise’ and give it a read. The fact that Keith had looked in so many different places before finding God and then the way he completely went all in with his life after that is an inspiring and challenging story I would love everyone to read.

The dangerous path worth treading

Brett Fish
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The dangerous path worth treading

Who do you choose to follow in life?

In a world where some of the most influential country leaders seem highly suspect at the moment, it becomes fairly easy to not adopt a ‘Do what I see’ mentality from that regard.

High profile actors and music giants often seem to have a regular tendency to fall from grace in the most dramatic of ways; Or exhibit behaviours or lifestyles that don’t cry out for us to follow suit.

And even when it comes to leaders who have done amazing things – Martin Luther King Jnr, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi, if you look closely enough you will hear stories of character failings and flaws that seem out of sync with the good people we think they are.

Who do I follow?

So when it comes to following people, it doesn’t seem like there is a perfect candidate. Until we land at the person and example of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was a man who taught some amazing things and did some phenomenal miracles that completely wowed the crowds of His day. But He also spoke a bold message to accompany the words and the works that He lives out. He called people to “follow Me”.

Not just to try to be like Him or try to hold to the teachings He was expounding, but to literally follow Him. And then He walked to His death.

We can see this message most powerfully in the statement He makes which we can read in Luke 9.23:

If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me.

You can wear it, but can you walk towards it?

The cross has become a strong symbol for many people, both inside and outside of the Christian faith. To a lot of Christians I think it’s become a bit of a clichéd symbol. Can you imagine what a Roman soldier might have thought if he saw someone wearing the symbol of something they used to torture their enemies around their necks or on their arms? 

But the point is that Jesus was not putting out an easy call to follow. He was suggesting that if you honestly chose to follow Him and did so wholeheartedly, that it very much could lead to you needing to give up your life. But He called people anyway. And many followed.

For the early Christians this call literally ran true as they were burnt and sawn in half and fed to animals, often as entertainment to the Romans and their friends. A display of the emperor’s power. Yet they continued to follow the call.

Embrace the whole call

Despite it being essentially a call to death, both inwardly (deny yourself and follow Me) and outwardly (take up your cross daily) many people continue to take it. It’s a call I have responded to and I see it as something worth giving my whole life to.

The problem is that a lot of people like the idea of following Jesus, but the idea of taking up their cross doesn’t sit as well and so they end up doing a bit of a half-hearted, one-foot-in-one-foot-out try, which never really works. Jesus wants all of you and that really is the call to respond to.

But what happens if you do decide to follow Him down that dangerous path? Well He promises to never leave you nor forsake you. He promises to be close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in spirit. He even suggests that we might do greater things than He ever did. The cost is high, but the benefits are out of this world.

Do you give of your best?

Brett Fish
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Do you give of your best?

The very first murder that is recorded in the Bible takes place as a result of jealousy. But jealousy was not the starting problem.

You can read the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Basically the farmer (Cain) and the shepherd (Abel) make offerings to God and God looks with favour on Abel’s offering but is less impressed with Cain.

We can see the root cause of this in how their gifts are described. Cain, we read, brought ‘some of the fruits of the soil’, while Abel’s gift is described as ‘fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock’. 

Cover up or Repent?

We see this in the Bible a number of times (the story of King David when he has an affair with a married woman, Bathsheba, comes to mind) and if I am honest, also in my own life. An action is taken that is called into question and instead of facing the music and working hard to tun things around, the person responds with greater evil – excuses, trying to cover it up and in Cain’s case he responds with anger which leads to murder.

Abel did nothing wrong to invite his brother’s anger. Rather it was seeing his own wrong reflected in the righteous actions of his brother that made Cain want to take it out on him.

Why do we find it so hard to admit that we got it wrong? I think of my own relationship with my wife and how I would rather choose to try and blame something on her than take responsibility when I have messed up.

Start by doing right

Let’s go back to the title question – how do you give gifts? Because all of the trouble could have been avoided completely had Cain thought through this aspect of his life.

Often when someone comes to our door begging for some food, we (if we do anything at all) will look for a piece of dry bread or old fruit – typically something we don’t want ourselves – and toss it to them, probably without even finding out their name. When it comes to clothes we don’t reach for our favourite top to bless someone with, but rather grab those items that were one wear away from the charity shop anyway.

I read a really challenging quote this morning that speaks to this:

‘Charity is simply giving someone crumbs off your table. Justice is giving someone a seat at your table.’ – Jenny Yang

Wow Jwnny Yang, challenge us why don’t you? But that is exactly the kind of thinking and values that my wife Valerie and I are trying to both encompass and then challenge in people around us. How do we move beyond charity (which is okay sometimes – often it’s the band aid that allows someone to crawl to the table) towards Justice in our giving and even beyond that, in our living?

How do we give well?

One way Val and I are able to give well is by working hard at living simply in many aspects of our lives, but especially in terms of how we eat and drink.  By living well within our means it frees up some of our money to be used to generously support others.

A second way we look to give well is by being intentional in our giving. So at the moment, there is an individual, a family or actually two families, and an organisation that we are giving to. That is not a strict list we feel everyone should have, but as needs have presented themselves we have decided what we think we should give to and stuck with that.

But beyond those two lies the challenge that Jenny brings. Who am I inviting to my table?

Who is someone or perhaps a family of someones who might need to be invited to yours?

Plan your way to a cheaper healthier lifestyle

Brett Fish
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Plan your way to a cheaper healthier lifestyle

My wife Valerie is a legend. Yes, I know we’re meant to say that but this time it’s true.

A few months ago she started sharing her shopping and eating plans on Facebook so that other people could see how cheaply and healthy we were able to eat.

We don’t tend to eat out and we avoid Fast Food as much as possible both for the expense and health factors. Fast food is actually not the cheaper alternative we have in our minds any more.

Also the danger of just buying a bunch of food you like is that you are likely to eat more expensively and also possibly have food that goes to waste.

So planning a menu in advance has really helped us to do both of those things really well. I have written before about how we have chosen to do one week with meat and then one week meat free so this fits well into that. Here is an example of her latest one:

Here’s this week’s edition of the weekly meal menu. Despite it being a veg week, the total ran higher than I would have liked BUT I finally included a veg lasagne I’ve been wanting to try, and I have a suspicion it’s going to go far. This week’s total: R394

Sunday: Sweet potato falafel bowl
(sweet potato, chickpeas, lemon, quinoa, spinach, avo, seeds, carrots)

Monday: Curried butternut and broccoli couscous
(couscous, butternut, broccoli, feta, mixed seeds, spices)

Tuesday: Fry’s creamy ‘chicken’ and mushroom pies with salad
(Fry’s pies, mixed salad leaves, baby tomatoes, feta, corn)

Wednesday: Black bean bunless burgers and corn
(black beans, corn, spring onion, breadcrumbs, baby tomatoes, spinach, mozzarella, onions)

Thursday: Veg lasagne
(lasagna, aubergine, baby marrows, tinned tomato, red onions, mushrooms, white sauce, mozzarella, garlic, spices)

Lunches ~ Each of these meals are enough for two for dinner and lunch the next day.

Breakfast ~ spinach and egg stuffed Portobello mushrooms; oats; yogurt and honey

Snacks ~ Apples, naartjies, banana bread

Plan Ahead

One of the big factors is being intentional in advance. So what Val tends to do on the weekend is plan the week ahead’s menu and then go shopping for it so that we are ready as we hit the new week.

This is obviously just an example to give you an idea of how possible it is. Change up things you don’t like as much with things you do. Try to come up with a balanced menu across the week (as opposed to planning individual meals – it will make eating more fun as well) and experiment with some new dishes you have never tried before.

What are some of the things you do to help keep costs down in the kitchen? Do you have any special go to meals you’d be willing to share with us? Give us some love in the comments below.

When God says no

Brett Fish
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When God says no

Does God answer prayer? For those people who believe there is a God that question feels like an easy given – Of course God answers prayer – but for many of us who have believed in God for a long, long time our experience may suggest something different.

What do others think?

This morning as I was catching up on Facebook I was directed to two very different articles that dealt with the same thing in very different ways.

One was this piece by Ivo Vegter, which was a response to the loss of life in the recent fires that swept through an area of South Africa. Ivo is not a Christian and actually writes quite an antagonistic piece (with some really good questions to think about) saying that a lot of things Christians said during the crisis about God and how He works were super unhelpful.

The second piece is this one from my good friend Dalene Reyburn titled ‘When God doesn’t answer your prayers for healing’ which as the parent of a young boy with sight problems hits hard but also brings hope. Despite not seeing the answers she has desperately cried out for, Dalene still believes in a loving God who calls us to pray and continues to be obedient to that.

The missing disciple

There is an incredible story in the Bible that tells of how the disciple Peter was miraculously broken out of jail by God. Angels and bright lights and breaking chains all add to the dramatic effect of this story.

Peter arrives at a prayer meeting where the people were praying for his release and are so surprised when he shows up that the door is slammed in his face. But they welcome him in and he tells them the story and finished with these words:

“Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place. – Acts 12.17

Fun story, right? You can imagine all the celebrating that took place. Except for one thing it seems Peter didn’t yet know about. That chapter in Acts starts with this paragraph:

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them.  He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. – Acts 12.1-3

James, who with his brother John and Peter, had been the inner three of Jesus’ close friends, had already been executed.

So one disciple is brutally murdered while another is miraculously released. How, as James’ mother or maybe John’s friend, do you reconcile those two things? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

How God answers prayer

The thing we learn when it comes to prayer is that the answers don’t always come the way we want them to. And they don’t always make sense.

Because sometimes God does say “Yes!” and often quite dramatically. I can share some stories of blind eyes being healed, paralysed limbs restored and insane amounts of money being donated at just the right time.

But sometimes God says no. My best mate Rob dies of cancer. Dalene’s son is not healed. The list goes on.

And it is difficult sometimes to make sense of it all, and Ivo Vegter challenges us to ask better questions and not throw off glib statements that mean nothing. And as people who have also been called to love both God and our neighbour with our minds, we need to take these things seriously.

This is partly how I understand it though. If God answered every single prayer the way we wanted with a yes, He would be less God and more ‘One-Armed-Bandit’ Jackpot Miracle machine in the sky – pull the lever and win the answer.

God does say “Yes!” and we have stories of that. But He also sometimes says “No!” and we have many stories of that. Sometimes I think God just says “Wait a bit” as well and often the life that is happening while we pray and continue to seek Him helps shape the answer we were looking for.

The other thing God says loudly is that although He never promises to make life easy or comfortable or pain-free (and maybe more the opposite if you read carefully enough) He does say He will always be with us in our dark moments and give us the strength to get through.

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. – Psalm 34.18

God invites us to pray, I think maybe more for the relationship aspect than any kind of answer either way. So I encourage you to speak the thoughts and questions and fears you have on your mind to God and give Him space to reveal Himself to you through them.

Success: are you known by your love?

Brett Fish
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Success: are you known by your love?
How do we measure success? What kinds of things do we celebrate in successful people?

Those who make a lot of money or who are able to retire at a fairly young age. Athletes who do well at sport and movie stars, singers and musicians whose gifts inspire us. We might look at the ability a politician has to stir a crowd, or how much property or fancy things someone can accumulate, or even the inventiveness of a designer of a cutting edge technology.

There are various different things we might see in someone, that makes us stand up and applaud, and offer a declaration of greatness to.

But I want to invite you to consider something else.

A New Commandment

When Jesus sensed that His time on earth was short, He held a dinner with His closest followers to share some time and inspiration with them.

One of the things He did at that dinner was get down on to His knees and wash His disciples feet as a sign of His deep affection for them. That was a very humbling action for a teacher to do and they initially did not want Him to do it, but Jesus told them it needed to happen and so they relented.

Jesus followed that up with a meal in which He introduced what many of us know as communion – the idea of His body being broken and His blood being spilled for them. The ultimate sacrifice which He would later go to live out for them, and us.

But Jesus also took some time to speak to them, and one of the things He said feels like such a revolutionary piece from the perspective of what we tend to recognise in people:

 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

What if we all live that way?

We all know that religion has been linked to some of the most terrible atrocities through the ages from the Crusades to Apartheid. People calling themselves ‘Christian’ have not always lived out this primary message that Jesus called us to.

He told us that we will be known by the love that is evidenced in our lives and being lavished on other people.

Not personal achievement or success, or significance or stature, or position… but by how well do you love your fellow person.

Imagine how different the world might look if we took that on.

How different might it look if you took it on? Is that something you would consider as a decent way to live your life? And if this was the legacy that Jesus left with His disciples, don’t you think it makes sense to spend a little time getting to know Him better?

The dual nature of YOLO

Brett Fish
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The dual nature of YOLO
Remember YOLO: You Only Live Once? Is that still a thing?

I was thinking about it today and how there are actually two ways of experiencing YOLO and both have some validity.

YOLO, so take that risk!

When YOLO came out as a popular acronym I think this is the one people gravitated to the most. Because you only live once, you should seize the day, grab that opportunity that might only come around once and take that risk.

Take a chance because you never know and so you might as well find out, could be the YOLO tagline.

This is also the more dangerous of the two interpretations and might have been responsible for some people taking some unnecessary and life-threatening actions, spurred on by their peer group chanting, “YOLO!”

YOLO, so make the most of it!

The other meaning I thought of today was the idea that we only get to live once. We don’t get a do-over or a rematch or second shot. This really is it. And so the tune of YOLO in our ears can remind us to genuinely make the most of it.

To do that effectively, one first has to be able to define what “making the most of life” means.

To some it will be accumulating money or achieving fame or doing whatever your heart dreams of. While to others it might look a lot more like being significant, in terms of serving others or making a difference. Being a key part of transformation or change for another person, family, community or even country.

What if we all held to this as a motivation when we climbed out of bed every morning? 

Find some time this week to sit down and carefully consider your life at the moment through this lens of YOLO. Are there any changes you would make if you seriously believed that you only had one shot at this?

When Justice was served

Brett Fish
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When Justice was served

Yesterday I spent the day with a diverse group of incredible people who largely had one thing in common. We had all been a part of the first ever Justice Conference in South Africa.

(I realise now that while I wrote a few things leading up to the Justice Conference that happened back in March, I have not written anything about the actual event. Let’s just sum it up by saying it was amazing and as I looked around that room a lot of the success of the conference lay in the quality of people who had gathered together. )

A day set aside to share stories, relive moments and above all to ask where we got it right and where we could have done better and to pose the question about whether or not we dare to do it again.

What had we achieved?

The best way to figure out whether or not the conference had been successful seemed to be to look back at what we were hoping to achieve. This is from the Justice Conference website on the ‘About’ page:

We stand at a critical juncture in our history: teetering between hope and desperation, restoration and destruction, faith and fear. It’s time for us to put Jesus and Justice back together – first in our theology and then in our lives.

Connecting with a global movement like the Justice Conference, with a vigorous commitment to local expression and context, has the potential to make a strong contribution to this journey. The work of following Jesus in the pursuit of justice is not simply a local one, it is global. Our hope is that the Justice Conference will,

  1. Help young leaders root their struggle for a just world in their faith and following of Jesus
  2. Build connections globally to people who share the same passion and struggle
  3. Build strong theological and practical foundations for the ongoing work of justice in South Africa

The Justice Conference South Africa seeks to,

Spark a conversation about the ways our faith influences our being just and our doing of justice

Fan the work of justice personally, locally, nationally and globally

Feed a robust theological and social justice dialogue in South Africa

The answer lay partly in the room.

As someone who was more on the periphery of the main organising team, for me, one of the biggest areas of success was in the how of the conference. The various processes and procedures that were put in place to create a conference that wasn’t a bunch of white middle-aged men on a stage (which most conferences around the world somehow still tend to be).

Diversity of age, of gender, of race, of denominational background, meant that the people designing and crafting the conference were as mixed as the people they hoped to entice to come and check it out. And entice they did, as tickets were sold out with days to go and more than 1000 people attended the conference over the two-day period.

Mission achieved. There is a verse in Galatians 3 that sums it up:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Sadly church is often seen as one of the most segregated times in the week. People tend to hang around in homogenous groups where it’s more easy or comfortable, and less change is required or expected. The Justice Conference in South Africa cut right through that and said that if Jesus is concerned with Justice (with an overwhelming agreement that He is) then we have to start moving towards each other in all sorts of ways. Gender, age, denomination and background were able to be moved to the side as we took a solid look at Jesus and how He would love us to be so much better at this Justice thing.

Sparked, Fanned and Fed

In addition to all the diversity and coming together, I think we were all in agreement that although there was definitely work to be done in terms of doing it even better next time, that we really did achieve to different extents the things we set out to.

Conversations were sparked, the work of Justice was fanned and a dialogue was fed, that a month or two later continues on.

All of this illustrating maybe one of the biggest points of all – that we cannot just talk about Justice, but we always have to move to doing it.

The Us vs Them in marriage conflict

Brett Fish
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The Us vs Them in marriage conflict

Conflict in marriage can be hard.

It can be super great too. And typically people will tend to paint a picture of just one of those extremes for you, when talking about it.

Some marriages I imagine are more great than hard. Others are more hard than great. Ours definitely has a generous smattering of both.

Fight well 

One thing many people will say about marriage is that a good marriage is one where you don’t fight at all. But that is nonsense. I would strongly suggest that a good marriage is one where you fight well.

And sometimes to do that you need outside help or referees (in the form of friends or family, an older mentoring couple you both trust, or even someone professional who is happy to ding the bell for you) just to keep you both honest and focused and remembering what the heart of sorting out your conflict is.

But most of all, you need to hold on to the ‘us’.

One of the most powerful (in a negative way) forces in the world must be our capacity to ‘other’. We do it a lot in race conversations where we say things like ‘those people’ when collectively referring to a group we don’t see ourselves as part of. As long as someone remains ‘other’ it is easy to judge them, to belittle them, to act superior to them, and most importantly to dismiss them – ‘they are less important than me.’ Or more simply: ‘They are less than.’

Return to the ‘us’

In a marriage, it can quickly become ‘us vs. them’ in the sense of ‘me vs. you’. The moment that happens, the ‘us’ has been pushed to the side and it becomes a clamour for who is right (and by definition, who is wrong, and the answer is always ‘the other person’).

It is crucial at these times that you are both able to return to finding the ‘us’ that has been overlooked. What often gets in the way of this is the heightened emotion that tends to accompany the kinds of arguments or fights that happen when this occurs.

There are various things you can do as a couple to work against this and work towards rediscovering your collective ‘us’.

One simple one is posture – standing facing each other tends to be a lot more volatile than sitting down next to each other.

Moving away from ‘You are’ or ‘You always’ statements and focusing on naming your emotions – ‘I am feeling’ or ‘What are you feeling?’

Doing your best to really hear what the other person is trying to say over what you might be hearing. A place of empathy tends to help de-escalate arguments as you realise that the other person is not out to get you.

Those are just a few examples but in our marriage we have found that it has generally been outside sources who have helped us to figure those things out. Because each of us is different and thus each relationship is vastly different from every other one, what works for me might not work for you. Inviting our safe people who know us well to speak into our relationships might be super helpful in terms of starting to figure out how we can do things better.

Walk towards the other

When we are able to let go of, or maybe hold more loosely to, the ‘need’ for the other person to move towards us and take the loving step of moving towards them (this might be physical or emotional or even practical) we will likely be able to more quickly resolve the conflict that is at hand.

Conflict in marriage is not a bad thing. Avoiding conflict or sweeping it under the mat can be very harmful in the long run. So, as not fun as it may be, I encourage you to embrace the conflict that presents itself and constantly be working together on how you can navigate that conflict in ways which feel more helpful to both of you.

Happy fighting.

Be different in a good way

Brett Fish
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Be different in a good way

The other day I dyed my hair bright blue. Since then I have had some people comment that I did it to be different. While I realise that having  blue hair does make me different from the majority of people, that wasn’t why I did it. But I do want to be different.

Do not conform

Most of us have grown up in a world influenced strongly by western values which have a heavy hedonistic focus:

“This life is all about you and so you must strive to be the best, to have the most, to live comfortably and to chase after every pleasure that you desire. It is all about you!”

The problem with this though, is that if you end up being the best, it means everyone else is not the best. If you end up having it all, it means that someone (or likely many someones) don’t have enough, or perhaps even anything at all. Your ‘win’ comes at someone else’s expense.

This is one of the reasons that attract me so much to the person and character of Jesus. He did not follow the typical norms of the world He grew up in and although His focus often seemed to be not drawing attention to Himself (on many occasions He told people to keep His miracles quiet) He regularly found Himself surrounded by the crowds.

Swim upstream

In a letter to the Roman church, Paul wrote this:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

This echoes a phrase Jesus often used to say to those who would listen to Him preach – “You have heard this, but I tell you this!” – as Jesus spoke about the new kind of kingdom that He had come to announce and demonstrate, it almost always went against the ways people were used to.

What was remarkable about Jesus though was that He was able to live the life He spoke about. He didn’t come and simple preach an amazing message that no one could attain and then disappear. He modelled it every single day.

Where society said it was all about being the center of attention, Jesus called for women and children and lepers and those who were generally pushed to the sides to be brought to the front.

When society said you should feast with kings and princes, Jesus seemed to make it His mission to eat with a hated tax collector (Zacchaeus) as well as one time being accused of hanging out with drunks and prostitutes.

“Do not simply follow the way that the world tries to carve out for you,” Jesus said and demonstrated, “but get your direction from God because His way is so much higher and has something for everyone.”

When I’m feeling blue

So back to me and my blue hair. Do I want to be seen as different in the world today? I do. But not because I have blue hair!

I hope that people will see the reflection of Jesus’ words and ways when they spend time with me. I hope that people will be drawn towards a life that speaks of lifting up and looking out for the marginalised rather than one which pushes to the front and wants to be seen.

I hope that in the way that I spent my money, my time, my resources and my energy, that the kingdom of God will be seen to be being built around me.

As Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “May God’s kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.” We are called to be part of something that is not the norm, that does stand out and that should be noticed. But not in the way that the world typically expects attention to be grabbed.

Is that a difference you would be up to checking out? If you would like to know more, please leave a comment or click on the link.

 

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