What makes your Heart come alive?

What makes your heart come alive? Then go and do that. Not everyone can answer that question though. Why? It depends largely, if not totally on the story we have lived in and are still living in.

A Poet once wrote:

'Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die,

life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go,

life is a barren field frozen with snow'

When i first read this short but penetrating poem, it was like a laser beam had cut right to the essence of my heart and of my story.

For I knew well that i had to have integrity to admit that I was like a broken winged bird that had tried to fly into a bigger story many times but was not able to.

I could relate so deeply to looking over the landscape of facing the pain that my life had been a barren field frozen with snow.

I was in a long season of disorientation. My whole being felt like I had fallen into a hole in the ground after nearly a year in Nepal working with a grassroots mission.

The hole was very dark, very silent, and suffocatingly small and I had no idea of how to climb out of this deep hole of lacerating disorientation.

A disturbing cacophony of voices churned and shouted within my inner being all claiming to be the voice of reality. It actually felt in my core that I was collapsing from within.

After a true shepherd and spiritual father climbed into the hole to help me climb out after about three years, I emerged. Standing on what felt shaky shifting ground I felt summoned to an inner transformation, to cross over from one identity to another.

When the cold winds of crisis blow into our lives, these winds often call us to a new pathway in our spiritual journey to confront the false self or selves in order to find and live out of our authentic self.

In other words, the cold winds of crisis we realise is the voice of God calling us home to our true authentic identity in Christ. It is nothing external like family, or cultural norms or education or occupation or money, or status that transform us.

We have to take an inner journey to face the false self that has been shaped, even by those external 'norms' including the church.

What makes my heart come alive? I finally allowed that question to be like a surgeons scalpel in the hand's of the One who made me for Himself. I knew somewhere deep that I had to live the question.

I began a journey to go and find my truest self which was hidden in my deepest wounds, but there was a Wounded Healer who walked with me. Jesus.

For that is often where our deepest calling for others lays, hidden in our deepest pain. It is a fierce challenge, but worth the journey. I knew that I must not compromise the person being born, I had to take the Quest...A Life-Quest

The 345 Series: WORLDVIEW

The root problem of humanity is #4 and the answer is #3

So what exactly does number 4 mean and how on earth does it relate to the 'root problem of humanity'? Moreover, what do I mean that the answer to this root problem is number 3? If I left it there, some guys in white coats might need to pay me a visit. Stay with me. Whether you agree with this or not will depend on your worldview, your belief and interpretation of all reality.

The problem #4......

Firstly, Alienation from the Creator God (Genesis 3v1-9) led to three other kinds of alienation.

Secondly, Internal alienation within each person-alienation from oneself, for to know ourselves truly, we have to know God (Genesis 3v7-12, 16-19).

Thirdly, alienation between Humans (relational and national conflict) as well as the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman (Genesis 3v15-16)

Fourthly, alienation from and within nature or creation (Genesis 3v17-19).

These are the spiritual, psychological, social and environmental alienations that afflict the whole human family and have done ever since Eden. All these divisions result from sin and all of them distort God's good purpose in creation.

We need to be able to grasp the complex and profound ramifications of this 4 fold alienation. Moreover, these 4 alienations interweave, interconnect and mutually reinforce each other. If we treat these 4 alienations separately, we miss God's comprehensive way of healing His entire Creation.

Therefore they all cry out for healing and reconciliation. Understanding the scope of the Fall of man in its cosmic scope will in turn clarify the true Church, the Ekklesia's mission. Faithful Christian Mission focuses on healing these 4 alienations or divisions as a result of the Fall.

It becomes crucial then to work on healing this profound alienation based on the provision of the Gospel which is fundamental to authentic mission.

This is the Good News that the Body of Christ have to offer a broken fallen and deeply alienated world. This 4 fold alienation in Genesis 3v7-24 reveals themes that remarkably interweave throughout the whole Bible in both Testaments and throughout human history.

But what does #3 mean? And how is this the solution to this profound 4 fold alienation?

What we believe we are does not happen in a vacuum independent of relationship

What we believe we are does not happen in a vacuum independent of the relationship. For we are all shaped by people, experiences, core beliefs, and values, especially our 'non-negotiables.

I was sitting on a comfortable chair in a corner of a large lounge, it was so quiet it could have been a retreat. I drank from this well of peace. The corner chair sat by the window and the sun poured in. I 'stumbled' across a statement almost by 'accident'.

...'How you picture God in your heart of hearts matters, really matters'.

Whoa. Words have the power to stop you in your tracks, grab you by the throat and force you to stop and think, really think of their message. The question then becomes 'Do I have ears to hear'? The alluring, captivating statement enticed and wooed me into asking God the question. 'How do I really picture you in my heart of hearts Father' I asked adding the word 'really' for emphasis.

'How you picture Me in your heart of hearts is what will determine HOW you walk through the unknown and the uncertain'. The trapeze artist has a moment when he is suspended in mid air and he must surrender, be still and trust that he will be caught, for if he flaps about anxiously it will be messy and painful. You are in that moment Nigel and feeling stretched by the unknown and the uncertain'.

Then He said 'I use the man who has nothing else to cling to but Me....what are you clinging to Nigel'? Finally, the Spirit of God said 'you can only fly by stepping out into the unknown'. Flying into the unknown is me starting a niche ministry that I have felt summoned to from the depths of my being. It has taken many years because I had to learn to live a 'dying life' and embrace brokenness and to realize that my life is meant to reflect the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

Questions: How do you picture God in your heart of hearts? Can you be still in your heart, deeply surrender and trust? Can I? What are you clinging to apart from God?

'Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures'. Han Suyin