Greener Pastures?

Initial Thoughts on Migration

I would love to live somewhere else: somewhere cooler, with vast lands, a more child-friendly educational system, less of a city.

 

so this is WHY they crossed the road -- greener pastures !?!

Many of us harbor such desires.

What does God think of us moving to ‘greener pastures’?

Most people who start planning usually go through these steps:

Research feasibility

Plan/apply

Go if doors open

This seem a pretty reasonable approach once you can sever the pangs of guilt for leaving the motherland, kith and kin behind.

I am inclined to think that God is actually alright with us living anywhere in His great world. He loves his children to be free!

But the greatest freedom we have is the freedom to trust.

We have been freed from the grip of fear, the tyranny of the urgent, the choke-chains of marching to a common whip.

This freedom is tasted, renewed and relished only out of a reinstated relationship with our Maker.

In fact,  if in the end, having a growing, vital relationship with God that oozes life is what it’s all about; most of the difficulties we have are not about the landscape; but about our soulscape ! 

Why would we find it easier to trust God just because we changed our address?

Living out of this freedom, perhaps God wants us to add in a few more steps to our decision-making process:

Check heart for areas of struggle to trust

Check heart for areas of ungodly expectations

Ready heart to yield and rest

See if the need to move still surfaces

Ask for a sense of direction & purpose

So we turn our admission of loss, frustration and lack into a fresh adventure of trust! 

I highly suspect that God simply loves this: He being who He is, will lead, provide and prove Himself true. But alas, we being who we are, prefer He quickly endorses our plans! 

The former way works better always though, doesn't it?

note: this post is prompted by a common conversation thread among my peers; we with the struggling with-school-going kids.

Single Shot or Double Expresso? To marry or not..

We all long for that wonderful fruit called HAPPINESS.

And there comes a time when that is all tied up with the Q: should I marry?

Today, this question is also asked with shades of 'why bother with marriage at all?'

I read a 'letter' by John Piper that gives a great and high view of both being single and married. Here it is:

" You ask: "What is at all compelling about marriage? Why would we even want to be married?"

The "compelling" comes only from the right combination of internal realities and objective truths about God's design for marriage. When the right combination is not there, marriage is not compelling and should not be. I would say the same thing about singleness.

The objective truths about marriage are primarily God's design:

1. To display his covenant keeping love between Christ and the church, 

2. To sanctify the couple with the peculiar pains and pleasures of marriage,

3. To beget and rear a generation of white-hot worshippers, and

4. And to channel good sexual desire into holy paths and transpose it into worshipful foretastes of heaven's pleasures.

That is a high calling, but it is only compelling if it meets with internal longings for God that lean strongly into these designs.

 The objective truths about singleness are also primarily God's design:

1.     To display the spiritual nature of God's family that grows from regeneration and faith, not procreation and sex,

2. To sanctify the single with the peculiar pains and pleasures of singleness,

3. To capture more of the single's life for non-domestic ministry that is so desperately needed in the world,

4. And to magnify the all-satisfying worth of Christ that sustains life-long chastity.

 That is a high calling, but it is only compelling if it meets with internal longings for God that lean strongly into these designs.

 There is more to marriage and singleness than I have mentioned. But the point is to show that neither I nor the Bible means to say that either is compelling in and of themselves. That is why Paul says, "One has one gift and one another" (1 Corinthians 7:7). I think he means: The internal reality of one person finds one of these powerfully compelling and the internal reality of another finds another powerfully compelling. And I would add: This can change from one season to another.

I don't know which holds out more joys and more hardships. There is no way to know ahead of time, it seems to me. We Christians don't make our choices that way anyway. This would be clear if all singles not only heard the wedding vows, "For better or for worse," but also heard the same words written over singleness: "For better or for worse." Marriage may prove to be gloriously happy, or painfully disappointing. Singleness may prove to be gloriously satisfying or painfully disappointing. Only God knows which it will be for you.

So in the end, your heart really matters. Objectively, we cannot know ahead of time whether marriage or singleness will sanctify us more or honor God more. Does the internal reality of our heart lean us into the designs of marriage or the designs of singleness? That is a huge question and one that only the heart can answer. But it should be a heart well-formed with much Bible and much prayer and much maturity through life and counsel of friends and family.

 That's my best effort. Thanks for caring about being devoted to Christ above all.

Pastor John

He has certainly taken us further down the road than the short-sighted 'will I be happy?' approach we are so familiar with. 

In the end, when we quieten down, we must admit happiness is a state deep within us than a state we find ourselves in. 

And here's a poster for those whose hearts lean towards union:

PS. if you have a poster about Singleness, please share it with us!

Hope Again!

I recently had one of those moments.

Everything seemed bleak and too much. I felt stuck, trapped, foolish, and small. But I stepped away from myself.

 

I ran to the Royal Bosom of Hope - and the Word, and words... helped me see clearly, and although all is not as I wish, courage and hope arise within me... and as this well-written piece about Peter, Paul and all of us reminds us...

Don't Lose Hope for your hope points to Something Larger {click here}

Won't you run to the Royal Bosom of Hope too?

and cling, cling, cling... and... climb!