No (wo)man is an island...

Ever read a passage in the Bible that you’ve read a hundred times before, but this time it’s different? This passage took on a new depth of meaning for me this week:

 ^7’ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…’

The passage is from Philippians 3 and is familiar to most Christians, made popular by the worship song ‘All I Once Held Dear’ that many of us have sung in church.  It’s a passage written by Paul, describing how the things he once took pride in now fade away in comparison to knowing Jesus.

When everything is going well for us, the song is a celebratory song, but it’s a lot harder to say the words and mean them when you feel like life is around your ankles!  Its not until you feel the loss of ‘all I once held dear’ that you can say with certainty that Jesus surpasses it all.

Let me explain: its common knowledge that I am expecting our third child any day now, and this pregnancy has been a difficult one. I am unable to move round very much due to the pain caused by pelvic instability, and at this late stage in the pregnancy I’m finding the smallest activity to be draining.  The pelvic trouble started about 18 weeks ago and has been getting gradually worse as the baby grows. That’s 18 weeks of slowly reducing participation in taking the girls to their groups, seeing friends, being able to do basic domestic chores, going shopping, or even getting a decent stretch of sleep.

I’m the kind of person who needs to be active, to have a project on the go, to be out and about.  I like to feel productive.  These past few months have been a killer. My self-esteem has plummeted.  I feel like a haven’t achieved anything for a long time, and its been driving me crazy.  As Joy French recently wrote about in her inspiring blog post, my ‘alphawhoever’ has taken a serious hit.

The symptoms that give away what I hold dear have surprised me a bit - I’ve started to crave the acceptance of others to convince myself I’m still ok, that I haven’t faded from everyone’s memory, that I still have something to offer. Reading of other people’s successes on facebook is encouraging and crushing at the same time. I feel so out of the race.

Reading Philippians 3 made me admit that if I’m really honest, when I’m in the place where everything is stripped away, no, just knowing Jesus is not enough.  Knowing Jesus is priceless, but I have found I need an awful lot of add-ons to keep me going too! 

When I have no personal achievements to feel good about or earn praise from its clear that my relationship with Jesus alone is not enough to sustain me through the dry times.  The person of Jesus should be so amazing, so captivating, so challenging that all the other ‘stuff’ we’re proud of becomes insignificant.  It has become apparent that all the other stuff is actually very important to me!

So what to do about it? I guess it comes down to putting to death the old self, repenting and fixing my eyes on the only One who can truly satisfy – and then receive what He has to say about my condition.  Simple, eh? 

But when I’m stuck at home looking after my newborn and my pre-schooler, its not going to be so easy to keep my eyes fixed on the Perfector of my faith. Its almost impossible for me to stop my eyes turning inward and gazing at my own inadequacies and frustrations when I spend too much time on my own.

That’s when I'm going to need community. That’s why we need ‘the sisterhood’ (from a recent post by Jo Saxton). That’s why we need to be honest about how we’re doing and drop the ‘superwoman’ act (from Joy’s post). That’s why we need to be looking for ways to encourage each other and stop burying our heads in cyberspace (see Anna Robinson’s latest blog post).

You’ve heard the saying – ‘No man is an island’, and the Biblical version of that is, ‘Its not good for man to be alone’. I would suggest the same holds true for women too!  When I am going crazy at home, instead of spiralling, I could call a friend, ask for help, or just have a laugh. It all helps.

Nebuchadnezzar and Me

I've been reading the book of Daniel in the Bible.  Daniel is a great character to study but I have been thinking more about Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man in the world, full of passion with a fiery temper.  His word was law and anyone who crossed him was put to death. He didn’t follow God but God was on his case.

There were plenty of kings who did evil in the sight of the Lord in the Old Testament, and God didn't intervene, but King Nebuchadnezzar is different. God speaks to him in his dreams (though he has no idea what they mean) to show him what is going to happen.

When he has one of his dreams that trouble him, he summons all the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed.  No-one can help. Daniel prays to God for help, then steps forward and shares the meaning of the dream with the king. The king is impressed, and declares: “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”

Now this is significant. Here is a worldly man, having just had his first encounter with the living God. God has reached into his life and revealed himself to Nebuchadnezzar in a powerful, no-denying-it kind of way, and Nebuchadnezzar makes a confession showing he recognises God's power.

However, life goes on, and sometime later, the king erects a massive statue of gold and an announcement is sent out across the land: “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.  Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

Doesn't Nebuchadnezzar get it? He himself proclaimed that Daniel's God was the God of gods, so why is he still worshiping his gods when he has encountered the Lord of all??

Anyhow, this is when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to bow to the statue and they get thrown into the blazing furnace for their 'crime', and God delivers them by sending 'a son of the gods' to stand with them in the fire.

Upon seeing such a wonder, king Nebuchadnezzar says, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.”

For a second time, God has revealed his power to the king, and for the second time, the king makes a bold confession of God's greatness. But does it change anything?

Later on, Nebuchadnezzar has another dream, and this time he remembers to recall the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for him, and he summons Daniel to interpret the dream for him.

The dream is of a great tree that gets cut down, and Daniel explains that God is going to take everything away from the king and make him eat grass like an ox and live with the wild animals. All this is to make Nebuchadnezzar acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.

Despite the dream, and despite God's intervention in his life, the warning of the dream seems to fall on deaf ears, for just one year later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he looked out and said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

Hello?! Unbelievable! Hasn't anything Daniel said made any impression on the king at all?!

Immediately Nebuchadnezzar's authority is taken away and he spends 'seven seasons' with the wild animals. It’s not until he raises his eyes to heaven that his sanity is restored and he finally recognises God’s sovereignty. In His mercy, God restores Nebuchadnezzar to power and gives him even more than he had lost. Nebuchadnezzar does show genuine change this time and says he lives to 'praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.'

Finally! He gets it. I'm so glad it turns out well in the end, but what a journey!

I think the story of Nebuchadnezzar resonates with me because he reminds me of myself (not the rich and powerful side, the fickle side!).  How many of us have had revelations of God and yet life is ‘business as usual’?  There have been countless times when God has intervened in my life to reveal His faithfulness and his sovereignty, and yet I still don't get it and after a while, I forget what has been said and as life goes on I return to old ways of thinking, and old ways of living.

Real change in who I am doesn't happen easily. The revelation God brings often falls on stony ground and it doesn't bear fruit. I look at my circumstances and my past, and draw my own conclusions and I let my own ideas of who I am determine my future.

Like Nebuchadnezzar, do we find ourselves reverting back to the old way of doing things a little while after God has revealed himself to us because we haven’t buried His word deep enough in our hearts to have any effect on our lives? Nebuchadnezzar carried on doing what was expected of him, what was comfortable and familiar to him, because when he saw God, he was impressed for a moment then carried on unchanged.

The good news is that God didn't give up on king Nebuchadnezzar, but pursued him into submission. Sometimes the challenge is to believe that God won't give up on pursuing us either.