truth – Page 2

This Pilgrim’s progress

October 25, 2018October 26, 2018 Kelley HuntLeave a comment

There is one thing I know I am doing right.

That’s what the Apostle Paul tells the believers in Philippians 3.13.

I like Paul. He wasn’t afraid to use dramatic language when it was appropriate. Having spent the previous verses sharing how he was wrong for much of his life, how he had completely misunderstood who God was and what He was doing in the earth, he then boldly makes this statement:

‘I don’t mean to say I am perfect. I haven’t learned all I should even yet, but I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers, I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing’ Phil. 3.12-13a (NLT)

And what is this one thing?

‘Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us.’ Phil. 3.13b-14

Paul always shows us how to keep the main thing the main thing. And he says here that if we are Christians, this is a top priority.

It is interesting that he calls it ‘one thing‘ although it has two parts. There is forgetting what is behind us and then straining towards what is ahead. I wonder if Paul calls them ‘one thing’ because you can’t have one without the other.

Think about it. You can’t really strain forward if you are looking back, can you? It is pretty hard to focus on something you aren’t looking at. You can’t win a race facing the wrong way.

I should know, I have tried.

So often in my life I have attempted to follow Jesus with all my attention on the baggage I was dragging behind me. And so often my run has become a crawl. It was tiring and needlessly hard, frustrating and disheartening. Because it is hard to follow Jesus well with old thinking, old habits and old perspectives.

There are things I have to take off if I am serious about this race.

If you are a fan of elite sport, you will know how minute the margins are between winning and losing, often only fractions of a second. Olympic teams will have many experts working for them, looking for any tiny adjustment that can be made in technique or diet or equipment.

Paul describes it as, ‘bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing.’

That’s the only way to run this race well.

In Hebrews 12.1 we see the picture of a runner who is free and unencumbered. He is focused, lean and mean. Anything surplus to requirement has been discarded. He is single minded and he is ready for the start line.

But often in my life regrets, disappointment, hurt, brokenness and destructive ways of thinking and behaving have been like bungee cords that hampered my forward progress and eventually pinged me back into defeat. When I am not walking in repentance, forgiveness, mercy and grace I am not free to run well.

To move forward, I have to leave things behind.

And the reverse is also true. I cannot leave the past behind unless I am intentionally moving forward.

In my favourite passage in the Bible, Psalm 84, David says that ‘blessed are those whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. They go from strength to strength. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.’

When we decide that our identity is that of pilgrims or travellers who are heading towards our home, then we will leave behind what we don’t need. There is a strength that comes when we focus on our destination and believe it to be all that really matters. There is a forward momentum that kicks in and propels us into all God has planned for us. He promises to withhold no freedom, no deliverance, no victory from those kind of followers.

In other words, if we keep going we will get there.

2 Corinthians 5.17 describes the very essence of the Christian life. ‘Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.’

Every day His mercies are new. New things are always coming, old things are passing away. This is the normal Christian life. We are constantly letting go and reaching forward at the same time. Sometimes the Holy Spirit shows us something that we have to leave behind. It can be painful but it always makes room for new blessings and revelation. Other times God encourages us to walk in a new way of thinking or living and in the process some old stuff just gets crowded out.

I want that heart, that outlook, every day of my life. I want the grace to keep straining, pulling, moving forward. I want to let go of anything that is holding me back or slowing me down. I want to shed my baggage, maybe close a door or two and I want to make space for God to do something new.

I want to make space for His will and His presence in my life.

I want to listen and obey. I want to know what really matters. I want to be facing the right way and I want to finish my race with joy. I want to make progress.

I want to be a pilgrim.

Stairs that lead to miracles

September 12, 2018 Kelley HuntLeave a comment

Sunday’s sermon was about Daniel and I can’t stop thinking about him.

You know the story. King Darius has been tricked into making a law that would hand down a death sentence to any man or woman who prays to anyone or anything other than the King. Daniel hears the news. His response is simple.

He goes upstairs, opens the window towards Jerusalem and prays like he has done three times a day, every day of his life.

What an understated moment in Bible history!

Daniel is faced with a horrible execution of unthinkable violence and he just does what he always does. It sounds so unspectacular, so uneventful.

But it really isn’t.

It is a glimpse into the secret life of a man of God, just before he receives his deliverance. We are made privy to the backstory, to the secrets behind the miracle so when the miracle comes we understand.

My youngest is learning to drive. He will be safe on the road when the mechanics of driving a car are automatic to him so that he can handle unexpected situations without having to think too much.

And so it is with me.

The enemy of my soul dreads the day prayer becomes my automatic response to difficulty.

He knows there is a place of victory available to me when God’s presence and His Word become non-negotiables. He knows that when I no longer believe the lie that discipline is legalism, I am on the way to a powerful, overcoming life.

And it can start today.

When I feel too busy, I can pray. When life is good and I have nothing to worry about I can pray. When I don’t feel like it, I can open my Bible. I can slowly, daily wear out the carpet that leads to my prayer spot. I can keep going until prayer is like breathing and God’s Word has become the place I go for my answers, without exception.

You see, disciplines are slowly grown. There are no shortcuts or microwaved entrees when it comes to habits and character. Eugene Peterson calls it a ‘long obedience in the same direction’. What a beautiful description of following Jesus every minute of every day.

Because most of the time following Jesus looks somewhat ordinary. It isn’t, of course, but its miraculousness can be hidden within our daily grind. We get up, meet with Him, worship and commune with Him and then we cook or type or iron or change diapers or draw buildings or run companies. And we do the same thing the next day and the next.

When small problems and troubles show up, we remind ourselves to do what we always do. When disappointment arrives, or fear or betrayal, we just do what we always do. If something happens that we don’t understand, nothing changes.

We climb those stairs and open that window and tell God He is all we need. We listen for His voice. We turn our eyes away from circumstances and towards the God of promises and faithful, loving care. We decide to believe He is good. We allow His Word to comfort and redirect and change us. We raise our expectations of the miraculous and flex our faith muscles.

We remind our hearts that God is very, very big and lions and kings are very small.

And then when a big crisis hits, there is no big decision to make. It has already been made.

I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.

Tethered to goodness

Thinking today about escaping puppies and wandering souls.

September 5, 2018 Kelley Hunt2 Comments

2014-05-20 06.42.11 We didn’t know there was a gap in our hedge.

Our previous labrador, Rudi, have never discovered it. But three days after we took ownership of a six-month-old puppy named Buddy, he found it.

It was an unusually warm spring morning and having let Buddy out into the garden, we were enjoying coffee in our pyjamas.

The doorbell rang and it was our lovely next door neighbour with Buddy in her arms. While we had been relaxing, Buddy had escaped next door, gone in through her back door that was open, up the stairs and right into our neighbour’s bed! I was absolutely mortified! I still blush when I think about it.

Unfortunately, it was so much fun that Buddy decided he would regularly visit his new friend and because our boundary is a hedge instead of a fence, every time we fixed one gap, he would find another.

In the end, there was only one solution, a very strong tether. Every time Buddy was playing unaccompanied, we would tie him to a tree so he couldn’t escape.

Tethering is a very effective solution for wandering.

In one of my favourite hymns, we find these words,

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let that goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

Every time I sing that song, I think how painfully true it is of me. Like a natural reflex, I suffer from an innate predisposition to wandering.

My thoughts wander. My desires wander. My schedule and my plans wander.

My minutes and hours and days wander regularly from my Heavenly Father to pretty much anything else.

It frustrates and embarrasses me.

Why can I remember movies and magazine articles but not Sunday’s sermon?

How on earth do I get to the end of the day without making time for Jesus but I have never, ever forgotten to eat or get dressed or check Facebook?

Why is it so hard to focus when I am reading God’s Word or praying?

These lyrics make an interesting suggestion, though. They suggest that God’s goodness is our fetter. A fetter is a chain that was used to bind prisoners around the ankle. It prevented escape, just like Buddy’s tether.

What a beautiful picture.

God’s goodness is the ultimate antidote to wandering.

Not rules or responsibility or religion but only the goodness of God keeps us content enough to stay close.

So, one answer to our propensity to wander off is to constantly, in every way possible, remind ourselves of the unmatched, unrivalled goodness of God.

Every time, in the midst of busyness and distractions, we take a moment to remember how good our God is, we are tethering our heart to His. We are ensuring that there is only so far we can drift away from His presence and His will.

With less than five weeks to go to my daughter’s wedding, I have to put this into practice daily. Otherwise, my thoughts will be consumed with ribbons and glue and Pinterest pins and to-do lists and I will begin to believe that small, earthly things are really important and big, eternal things are unimportant, just as long as I find my wedding shoes and the florist gets the right shade of roses.

It is a battle we fight every day. It is the battle for our hearts.

And our secret weapon is the knowledge of how good God really is.

So, whatever we are doing today, we can make worship the theme tune. Just turn on some music, sing the words, believe the words, and live the words, even while driving the car or folding the laundry (or 120 orders of service!).

Find scriptures and quotes about our good God, decide they are true and display them where you will regularly see them. Today I have put a little reminder by the kettle because I certainly need that truth as often as I need caffeine today.

If you struggle to believe and trust in the goodness of your heavenly Father, may I suggest Bill Johnson’s book, God is Good. It is a life-changing study of the character of God that will tie you tightly to Him as you understand the depth of His love and the certainty of His goodness.

Try making it a habit every day to write down three things that you are thankful for. Ann Voskamp says in her book, One Thousand Gifts, ‘The real problem in life is never lack of time. The real problem of life – in my life – is lack of thanksgiving.’ That is because when we stop thanking God, we soon forget His goodness. The next step is wandering away, searching for goodness elsewhere.

It is a funny thing but Buddy never tries to run away when we are in the garden with him. When he is enjoying our presence, there is nothing else that can compete. He knows we are good. He knows we are his source of food and play and petting and walks. He just forgets sometimes.

It is the remembering that keeps us.

Today, whatever you are doing, determine to remember how kind and loving and good our God is. Remind yourself, in every way possible of the truth of the unchanging character of Yahweh.

Stop pulling. Stop straying. Stay close.

An abundant, joyful, purpose-filled life is only found in the presence of our good, good God.

Staying close

What my dog teaches me every day.

August 28, 2018August 28, 2018 Kelley HuntLeave a comment

John chapter 15 is a favourite chapter of mine. In this passage, Jesus invites us to move in closer. He invites us to abide. The Greek word used here means living, staying, remaining.

There is nothing frantic here.

My Labrador, Buddy, sleeps all day under my husband’s desk. If Buddy could be on his lap he would be. He gets as close as he can to his master and then he just stays there. However, when Buddy goes for a walk, he does not stay. He runs off, sniffing everything in sight, chasing squirrels and birds. He is with my husband but he is not abiding. If he hears his name he will come back, only to run off again.

I see myself in both these pictures.

But with all my heart I want what John 15 is offering me. I want fruitfulness, not withered branches.

I want the kind of joy that fills me up, gives me strength and blesses those around me.

I want Jesus to call me his friend. I want to know what He is up to. I want to partner with Him in His plans for this earth. I want to be right smack in the middle of everything He is doing.

But first, there is John 15 verse 5 where Jesus lovingly reminds me that without Him I can do nothing.

Perhaps the key to abiding is believing that is true.

When I become convinced that without God’s presence, power and provision I cannot live this life, then I will seek Him. When I am desperate for wisdom I will go to His Word. When I really need answers I will pray. I will seek and knock and remain and there will be no time for chasing squirrels.

When I know that every single thing I need is found in Him I will spend time with Him. I will sit close and listen and love Him and let Him love me.

Opinionated wedding planning

August 15, 2018September 12, 2019 Kelley Hunt1 Comment

In Ephesians 5.15-17 we see that living carefully is equated with wisdom.

No surprises here. The dumbest thing I can do is waste my precious, God-given life on things that don’t matter, right?

Today, as I was thinking about wisdom, I read verse 17 in the Amplified Bible and this phrase jumped out at me, ‘do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish’.

In verse 15 we see the opposite of this when it says, ‘Live purposefully and worthily and accurately’.

If I want real wisdom, the ability to know what is the right thing to do and how to do it, then I have to overcome the barriers to wisdom, one of which is thoughtlessness.

I have written about thoughtlessness before and how a busy and fast-paced life can often cause it. But I think there is another more subtle contributor to my thoughtlessness and it is a strongly held opinion.

The problem is that if I have a strong opinion about something, I don’t feel the need to revisit it. I just re-enforce my idea, occasionally sharing it on Facebook with others who agree with me. There is no room for listening to another point of view or gaining fresh input or even recognizing when I am wrong.

Now, when I talk about opinions, I don’t mean Biblical beliefs. I am not talking about something I have studied in the Bible and wrestled with and prayed about and then made part of my belief system.

I am talking about all the other stuff.

I am talking about the ‘I just really think…..’ stuff.

I am talking about my politics, denominational preferences, parenting style, cultural bias and personal choices.

I am talking about the way I live my life and the way I think everyone else should live theirs.

I don’t think there is anything more humbling than actually doing something that you have theorized about for a long time.

Like for instance, parenting.

Or marriage.

Or church ministry.

Or really anything that is hard.

It is so much easier to be an armchair pundit than to actually play in the game.

Honestly, I feel like my forties have been one long journey of replacing my not-so-great ideas with God’s loving wisdom. It has been humbling, embarrassing and very painful.

And it has been so very freeing.

You see the danger is that when I form opinions about what I will never do or what I will always do, I run the risk of thoughtless behaviour.

I risk automatically living life in a certain way, without ever questioning it.

Being thoughtful means lifting my opinions to God and letting God’s Holy Spirit breathe on them. Then the useless, papery chaff just blows away and the wheat remains.

God, in His great mercy and love, if I let Him, gently removes anything that has no value to my life and He leaves what does. He blows away my foolish assumptions so that only truth remains.

And actually, I can’t have both anyway. I can’t hold onto my opinions and also seek God’s way of doing things. That’s why the Bible tells me that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. I can’t ever really be wise unless I value God’s perspective above my own.

I cannot ask for wisdom with a closed hand or a closed heart or a closed mind.

Here is a small example from my real life today. I am planning a wedding for my daughter. It has been exciting, fun, and hard. And as I look back over the last 8 months I can see that my biggest problem has been my strong opinions about how weddings should be done.

I dread to think how many times over the years I have voiced my wedding theories, saying how things should be done, what I like and don’t like, how the day should go, how the service should be, etc.

Those words haunt me now because it just isn’t that simple. Weddings are complicated and there are many people to please as well as budget limitations and practical considerations.

So, one by one, my ‘non-negotiables’ have gone out the window and compromises have been made. And one by one my silly opinions, my judgements, my ideas have been replaced by God’s perfect wisdom for this wedding for this family on October 6, 2018.

And that is so much better, isn’t it?

Because I can’t have both. I can’t have my way and God’s way. I can’t have God’s answers if I worship my own. There is no space for the whispers of the Holy Spirit in life that has it all figured out already.

Living life carefully means even my strongly held opinions must not be off-limits to my loving God who sifts and divides and replaces what is useless for what is true and good.

So I choose to let Him in today. I will let Him walk around my life and touch and restore and replace all that is not of Him. I will let my wonderful God show me how to raise kids, spend my money, love my spouse, plan a wedding and how He has uniquely designed me to change the world. I will learn to let God guide my politics, my doctrines and my decisions.

And then, most powerfully of all, I will learn to give others the freedom to do the same.

Instead of opinions, I want only the voice of the Shepherd saying, ‘Here is the way.’

Wisdom’s value

July 31, 2018July 31, 2018 Kelley Hunt1 Comment

The verses that originally inspired this blog are Ephesians 5.15-17.

‘This causes you to realise that you will have to be very careful about the way you live; to be wise, not foolish. Make use of every opportunity to please God by the way you live, especially as there is so much evil in the world around you. How much better to understand what God wants of you than to live in a sinful, foolish manner.’ (The Truth Bible version.)

I keep a bookmark there in my Bible so I can revisit this passage regularly, gleaning all the goodness from it for my life.

Today my eyes settled on a phrase.

‘Be wise, not foolish.’

So often when I need wisdom, (God’s way of doing things, God’s perspective for a situation), I think of James 1.5 that tells me that if I need wisdom, I should ask God. This is a good thing to do and I can testify to the fact that God always answers that prayer.

But it isn’t the only way to obtain God’s wisdom. In this verse in Ephesians, we are told to be wise, not foolish. The Greek verb used here for ‘be’ means to become or to generate something.

So, it is possible to generate wisdom in my life.

I can ask for wisdom, and God loves that, but I can also live life in a way that is producing wisdom too.

This is a far less passive approach, isn’t it? While daily asking my Heavenly Father for His heavenly wisdom, I can also be busy making the conditions of my day to day life conducive for this wonderful gift.

And the Bible is very clear what these conditions are.

Proverbs 9.10 tells us that, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’

Knowing God’s will for me in every situation starts with an understanding of who God is and who I am. There is a wonderful humility that comes from knowing I have the potential, even the tendency, to be wrong about quite a few things, quite often.

Fearing the Lord means dreading the idea of living one minute of my life outside of God’s loving will. It means loving His ways because I love and trust Him.

I believe that I cannot produce wisdom from a heart that is unteachable or proud or independent. It is like trying to grow a beautiful olive tree in a bucket of cement.

When I really know God and how good He is, I will value every word He has spoken. I will treasure every instruction and command and warning. I will love what He loves.

Read Proverbs chapter three today. See how beautifully God’s wisdom is described. It is compared to gold and silver and rubies.

I wonder if, in 2018, wisdom is a bit out of fashion perhaps. We live in times where doing things my way and figuring it out for myself are greatly admired. We pride ourselves on not living life like the previous generation did. We can treat their advice and input like family heirlooms we don’t want to inherit, preferring to head down to Ikea instead.

But what about God’s ways? Are we too independent for those too?

I don’t have a lot of valuable jewellery but I have a few pieces that are precious to me. I have a string of pearls my parents gave me for my high school graduation and a gold locket that belonged to my grandmother. And of course, I have my wedding ring. These are precious to me. They are precious because they are made beautifully from valuable materials but mostly they are priceless to me because of who they are from.

God’s ways, His Words of life to me, should be priceless. His wisdom is like expensive gemstones, rubies and diamonds that are set in gold.

And yet, so often I think I know best and I make myself a pasta necklace like the ones my toddlers used to make for Mother’s Day. Instead of the family jewels in my jewellery box, I wear it, admiring my independence and self-reliance.

But the only way to cultivate Godly wisdom in my life is to value it.

When I can see just how beautiful God’s ways are compared to my human logic, I am in a good, safe place. It is the place where I can hear what God is saying and see what His is doing and make choices and decisions that produce life.

Unattended thoughts

July 3, 2018September 12, 2019 Kelley Hunt6 Comments

There is a verse in the Bible I am in the daily habit of disregarding.

It is a very well-known verse. Walk into any Christian bookstore and you will see it on bookmarks, coffee mugs and t-shirts.

Philippians 4.8 says, ‘Whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.’

How lovely and inspiring! What a wonderful verse to write out and put on my fridge.

What an easy verse to completely ignore.

Because so often thoughts are like the mouse in my attic.

A few weeks ago I went up into our loft space to get our summer clothing down and I discovered to my horror that a mouse had been living up there, making a nest and eating my favourite handbag. I didn’t know he was up there until it was too late.

Unattended lofts attract mice like unattended gardens welcome weeds.

Unattended minds are vulnerable to similar intruders.

If I never listen to my own thoughts and question their truthfulness, I am probably making a home for ideas that are contrary to God’s truth and they will be destructive in my life.

I need to decide to set high standards for what I think about because my thoughts become my beliefs and my beliefs become my actions. Like a burly bouncer standing outside a nightclub, I must be discerning about what I let into my mind each and every day.

Because lies always entangle and confuse us. Truth brings freedom and fruitfulness.

Whether we believe it or not our thought life is strongly influencing us. It is affecting who we are and how we see everything and everyone around us.

Psalm 51.6 is a powerful verse. In it, David writes that God wants truth in our innermost being.

One of the commentaries I read described this as being so full of truth we are incapable of self-deception. I don’t know about you but I need a whole lot of this kind of truthfulness in my life. I need God’s truth to reach every part of my soul. I need it to touch my mind, my will and my emotions so that pesky vermin are caught, weeds are eliminated and the good stuff can grow.

Because I know I am capable of believing lies and even lying to myself.

I do it all the time. Sometimes I lie to myself about why I don’t like someone. I justify my feelings in all sorts of ways when the truth is I am offended or envious or just entertaining unforgiveness.

Sometimes when I really want to do something I decide it is God’s will before I have even prayed about it and then I take the happiness I feel as God’s confirming peace.

Sometimes I am dead wrong and I manage to convince myself that I am right.

Sometimes I accommodate doubt, fear, anxiety or judgementalism. They come and go like lodgers with a key to my front door. Before I know it they are sitting at my table and dictating the conversation.

Have you ever really listened to your thoughts? Try it if you dare. Pick a day when you are not working and set your phone alarm to go off every hour. When it does, stop and listen to your thoughts. What are you preoccupied with? What keeps replaying over and over again? What are you dwelling on?

Be honest, what is the soundtrack of your life?

Tune in. Listen with an objective ear. Be honest with yourself.

I tried this a few months ago and it has changed my life. I discovered that my life, that was marked by anxiety, had a soundtrack of untruths. Why was I surprised?

Do you know that anxiety, fear, anger, worry and bitterness all have something in common? They all start with a thought.

Something will happen in your life, something hurtful or scary or difficult and then a thought arrives and we either invite it in or send it packing.

Decide today that when it comes to your thoughts, you are not a pushover. If it isn’t good or true or lovely or honest, it is not coming in.

It is your garden, your mind, your life and you decide what lives there.