Give me neither Poverty nor Riches

I have been thinking about wealth lately.

Maybe because I am in the throes of deciding whether or not I will return to some capacity of paid work once the boys are both in school in a couple of years time - and at this point returning to work seems unlikely as there is plenty to do in an unpaid capacity around here. So I have been thinking about family finances a lot.

And maybe wealth has been in my thoughts as I reflect on (and start to observe in others) the effects of the economic downturn.

And maybe I just can't get this news item out of my head - the announcement that Sol Trujillo was finishing up as CEO of Telstra and then it said, "He's a person whose current wage increase is something like $13.4 million, a 14 per cent increase over last year..." Well, I just can't fathom someone earning so much that their 14% pay increase amounts to $13.4 million!!! What can anyone do with all that money?

On the weekend I was reading Psalm 49. It is a hard Psalm about the ultimate cost of storing up treasures on earth. It finishes like this:

Do not be overawed when a man grows rich,

when the splendor of his house increases;

for he will take nothing with him when he dies,

his splendor will not descend with him.

Though while he lived he counted himself blessed-

and men praise you when you prosper-

he will join the generation of his fathers,

who will never see the light of life.

A man who has riches without understanding

is like the beasts that perish.

Even though I can hardly get my head around Sol Trujillo's salary, I felt a desperate sadness for him and for people like him all over the globe, building their personal empires here on earth, empires which will ultimately amount to nothing. It is desperately sad.

But then my thoughts turned to a scripture lesson I taught last year. The lesson book said,

"Do you think you are a rich person in this world? Answer these questions in your head to see if you are one of the rich people that Jesus talks about:

• Do you attend a school for your education?
• Do you have more than one tap in the house you live in?
• Do you live in a home with two or more rooms?

If you answered 'yes' to these three questions then you are richer than 90% of the people in this world."

Now I don't know where they got their 90% statistic from, but even if 60% is more accurate, it is a reminder that even if I don't go back to paid employment some time in the future, my family and I are rich. Which is making me take another look at Psalm 49, because compared with much of the world I am wealthy. And the nicely feathered nest that I call my home is my own little empire. Is my attitude towards my own wealth right?

Proverbs 30:7-9

Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die;
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty or riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise I may have too much and disown you
And say, "Who is the LORD?"
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonour the name of my God.

Navigating around Kings and Chronicles - Tip Three

The third tip for navigating around 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles, and this applies particularly to Chronicles, is to be patient with the genealogies and other such lists. Genealogies are lists of family lines and they can be quite challenging (tedious actually –but did I say that?) to read, especially with all those unfamiliar names and 1 Chronicles in particular is full of them. Indeed the first twelve chapters is almost wall to wall genealogy.

I have been encouraged to be patient and persevere with the genealogies here and in other parts of the Bible by various ministers for three reasons…

1. As you keep reading the genealogies over the years you start to recognise the names. The family lines fall into place and you begin to see how things fit together. The jigsaw comes together in a very satisfying manner.

2. There are occasional little nuggets embedded within the lists as the author unexpectedly breaks the pattern of narration and if you were to skip over the genealogies, you would miss out on them - and they are often very illuminating.

3. And the third reason? Well, I remember making some flippant comment once, wondering how our minister at the time was going to extract any devotional juice for his sermon from the main reading that Sunday which was pure genealogy. And I was sweetly but rightly rebuked (by his wife) that God put it in the Bible so actually it must be important. God has a purpose.

I recently finished reading 1 Chronicles in my quiet time and as previously said, I found the first twelve chapters tough going. (If you look here you will see that even Dr John Piper finds certain parts of the Bible tough to read!!) But after taking four days to get through this section, I had to stop and think, "What can I say thankyou to God for in all of this?"

And it came to me that all these names are lists of people through whom God has been at work in history – some people with God-honouring intent and some with evil intent – as He worked out His purposes, culminating in the birth of Jesus. And that pattern of God's purposes prevailing despite the vagaries of humanity has continued on through all of church history since Christ's 33 years on earth. How patient God is with us.

So I was able to thank God for His patience and also for the baton of truth that has been handed down from generation to generation over a very, very long time. When we have cause to wonder where God might be in the details of our individual lives, it is so good to be reminded of God at work in the bigger picture. This is the benefit of persevering with genealogies and indeed with complicated histories – and I hope it is an encouragement to persevere with navigating through this particular part of the Bible.

Hope

I have been reading through Hebrews this week. Yesterday I read,

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. (Hebrews 6:19a)

An anchor for the soul. That is deeply comforting.

As I read this I reflected again on the plight of many Victorian communities dealing with the bushfires and their aftermath, on others in Queensland dealing with the floods, on many around the globe dealing with uncertain economic times, on people I know who are having a hard time at the moment for all sorts of different reasons.

But we have an anchor for our souls – something to hold us sure and steady through the storms. It is hope - the hope we have of eternal life with God through Jesus Christ, amidst the fleeting things of this life both good and bad.

This morning I read,

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (Hebrews 10:35,36)

The will of God is to hold onto the hope of eternal life found in Christ.

This morning as I dropped R off at school I heard a dad talking to the class teacher about how he lost his job last week – another casualty of the economic downturn. He sounded upbeat but I know his family will be doing it tough. How I longed to tell him about the anchor for the soul and about persevering in having confidence in that hope.

Tomorrow, God willing, I will be into that famous chapter of Hebrews – chapter 11 – which commences,

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1,2)

My life is good at the moment. I am keenly aware that in some of the bad times I have travelled through, I did not persevere through them in peace, with my soul anchored by the hope we have in eternal life. I did badly. But I pray that the next time things get tough I will do better at persevering in the hope we have.

 For today I am thankful to be reminded of this beautiful truth and pray that I will be like a squirrel collecting nuts for the winter, storing this truth up against the tough times that will come.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

Navigating around Kings and Chronicles - Tip Two

The second tip for navigating around 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles is to know the difference between Kings and Chronicles. On first appearances, they seem to be pretty similar and one might wonder about the repetition.

The author of 1 & 2 Kings is unknown, but it has probably been penned by a prophet in Babylon around about 550BC during the exile. It is written from the perspective that God is the Lord of history. So when nations and their leaders look to Him and obey His laws, peace and prosperity follow however political and economic disaster overtakes Israel and Judah as a direct consequence of turning away from God. 1 & 2 Kings is a warts and all account of history. It does not shy away from describing the kings and their actions as wicked and documents some pretty dreadful moments in each nation's history.

The author of 1 & 2 Chronicles is also unknown, but it seems it was written for the party who returned under Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem. This party needed a link to the past, needed to re-establish right patterns of worship and needed to be reminded of the past - lest history repeat itself. Chronicles is written from the perspective of true worship and true kingship – and so after the division the kingdoms, the author has chosen only to document the line of David (the Southern Kingdom or Judah), which is the line of rule sanctioned by God.

So although both are historical and pastoral, reading Kings through an historical lens and Chronicles through slightly more pastoral glasses (even though it too is history) adds an extra layer of understanding as you navigate through these books of the Bible.

(Thanks to "The Lion Handbook to the Bible", Lion Publishing 1983, for input with this post! It is a trusty little reference book to have on your shelf so if you don't have one, put it on your birthday list.)

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Here is a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving taken from the 1978 edition of An Australian Prayer Book.  Enjoy…and if you like, pray.

Most merciful Father,
we humbly thank you
for all your gifts so freely bestowed on us.
For life and health and safety,
for power to work and leisure to rest
and for all that is beautiful in creation and in the lives of humanity,
we praise and glorify your holy name.
But, above all, we thank you
for your spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord,
for the means of grace,
and for the hope of glory.
Fill our hearts with all joy and peace in believing;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

Navigating around Kings and Chronicles - Tip One

The first tip for navigating around 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles is to know the basic outline of this material. So what exactly is going on?

Well, in short, the twelve tribes who were descended from the sons of Jacob had settled in the Promised Land as the nation of Israel. And one day they decided they wanted a king to rule over them, just like the surrounding nations who all had kings, instead of having God rule over them. So God gave them a king in Saul from the tribe of Benjamin (which didn't really work out) followed by King David from the tribe of Judah (which did work out) followed by his son King Solomon (who experience mixed fortunes.) Here we have three famous heroes of the Bible.

After Solomon things got a bit sticky. His son Rehoboam succeeded him as king however Jereboam, an enemy of Solomon, muscled in and made life difficult. So the nation of Israel split. What was once one Israel split into two smaller nations.

Rehoboam ruled over two tribes – Judah and Benjamin – because God had promised to preserve the family line of David from Judah. Rehoboam's much reduced kingdom is here after referred to as the Southern Kingdom or Judah. (So from Rehoboam onwards, "Judah" includes Judah PLUS Benjamin, not just the single tribe of Judah! You can see why I got confused 15 years ago!!) And throughout 1 & 2 Kings we read of the rule of 20 leaders from Rehoboam in 931BC to Zedekiah's reign, which ended in 586BC. Each of the rulers came from the same family line, descended from David.

Jeroboam ruled over the other ten tribes. His kingdom is referred to as the Northern Kingdom or Israel. (So from Jeroboam onwards, "Israel" is now the ten tribes, not the whole lot! Trickier and trickier!!) And so throughout 1 & 2 Kings we read again of 20 more leaders, this time in the Northern Kingdom from Jeroboam in 931BC to Hoshea whose reign finished in 722BC. These 20 kings came not from one family line but from four different dynasties.

So 1 & 2 Kings then traces the history of the newly formed Judah (Southern Kingdom) until it fell to Babylon and Israel (Northern Kingdom) until it fell to Assyria. The final blow for trickiness is that the story keeps swapping from Judah to Israel and back again, over and over. And if you didn't understand that you were reading about two different nations (as I didn't 15 years ago) it is next to incomprehensible. But that little key of understanding is the first stage to unlocking this section of the Bible.

Navigating around Kings and Chronicles

Back here I wrote about finishing up 2 Kings in my morning quiet time. Right now I am working my way through its companion books, 1 & 2 Chronicles. And I have to say that even though I love history, it has been pretty hard work. It is not an easy part of the Bible to read and trying to tackle it, bleary eyed at 6:30am after too many late nights is probably not helping my cause. But I am gradually getting through it.

I have a funny memory of an earlier struggle with this section of the Bible. About fifteen years ago I was studying an Introduction to the Bible course by correspondence through Moore College. At one point it was required that you read through 1 & 2 Kings – and preferably understand what was going on.

I remember spending an entire weekend – early Saturday morning until late Sunday afternoon when it was time to go to church – going through these two books trying to get my head around what was going on. At the time I was just learning how the Bible hangs together and I certainly didn't have the resources (in my head or on my bookshelf) that I now have at my disposal for Bible study, so I just went through it over and over again and gradually got a sense of what was going on.

Ironically I recall going to church that evening and even though we weren't doing this particular bit of the Bible at the time, our minister felt that whatever it was we were covering that evening (sorry Andrew – I don’t remember the exact detail of this particular sermon) necessitated a quick tour of the history of Israel in Biblical times, including a potted history of what took place in 1 & 2 Kings! I remember thinking with a degree of despair that I could have saved myself a lot of blood, sweat and tears if had just waited until 5pm on Sunday to sort it all out!! But of course there is always a benefit for putting in the hard yards.

1 & 2 Kings is tricky, as is 1 & 2 Chronicles! But it is such an important part of the Bible as it provides a significant chunk of Biblical history. It IS tricky. But it is also fascinating and well worth the effort. I have learned a few tricks to help navigate my way round these important but difficult books of the Bible. I'd like to share my four best tips with you over the next four posts.

Gratitude in the Cheese Aisle

Yesterday while I was doing the grocery shopping I found myself inspecting blocks of cheese before choosing one to put in my trolley. If the block wasn't perfect – a bit knocked about or evidence of an air bubble in the vacuum packaging that could show itself as a patch of mould down the track – I returned it to the fridge and picked up another until I found the right one to purchase.

As I was checking the cheese I caught myself wondering why I was doing it. We go through a kilo block of cheese a week (more or less) in our house and so if I see it on sale for less that $10 a block I tend to stockpile it. But cheese hasn't been on sale for a while and there is none stockpiled away. The cheese I bought yesterday will be gone by next weekend. And hey, if it happened to get a little spot of mould on it, I could just cut it off. Right?

But as I was acting out this absurd little charade in the cheese aisle it did cross my mind how wonderful it is that we have the possibility to purchase the perfect block of cheese. And the perfect piece of meat. And the perfect peach. And the freshest of milk and bread. We are certainly blessed with the abundance available to us in our supermarkets. There are a lot of cranky people in supermarkets. And occasionally I am one of them. But really, walking into a supermarket should inspire praise to God for the blessing of abundant good food there at our fingertips.

It was good to be thankful to God in the cheese aisle yesterday.

May the Mind of Christ my Saviour

This is one of my favourite hymns. There are so many wonderful themes running through it but I especially love the middle verse because it reminds me to be diligent in "filling up" during the good times so that I am ready and prepared to weather the storms, be they mine or others. But I have sung this one on my own and in church in all seasons - and it is always an encouragement. Enjoy.

May the mind of Christ my Saviour
live in me from day to day,
by His love and power and controlling
all I do and say.

May the Word of God dwell richly
in my heart from hour to hour
so that all may see I triumph
only through His power.

May the peace of God my Father
rule my life in everything,
that I may be calm to comfort
sick and sorrowing.

May the love of Jesus fill me
as the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self-abasing,
this is victory.

May I run the race before me
strong and brace to face the foe,
looking only unto Jesus
as I onward go.

Katie Barclay Wilkinson (1859 - 1928)

How Much Should we Tell the Children?

This has been a sad and difficult week for Australians as the horror of the Victorian bushfires has unfolded. It has been a major topic of discussion with nearly everyone I have spoken to during the week and it has certainly been prominent (and rightly so) in all forms of news coverage. This week it has been relatively easy to shield our two young boys from too much of the detail because we don't watch the news or tend to buy newspapers. Next week however I suspect it will be a little harder because this tragedy will reach the front covers of the magazines that you can't help but see at the checkout in the supermarket.

How much to tell our kids in times like this is one of those grey areas. There are no hard and fast, black and white answers. For example a child who grows up on a farm is exposed to life and death at a much earlier age that your average city kid. And in this particular stiuation a child whose aunty or grandma has died in the bushfires needs to know much more than my three and five year old boys who live on the other side of the country with no connections to the crisis at all. And certainly we have chosen not to tell our two very much at all because they saw a FESA poster at our local pool earlier this year with a photo of a car on fire (advertising material that had nothing to do with the current situation) and our youngest at least was traumatised by that. We know because he couldn't stop talking about it.
 

I have been a parent for just under six years but I was primary school teacher for fifteen years before that - so I speak more from my experience as a teacher dealing with children older that our sons. In talking to children about difficult things then I have used two rules of thumb.

The first is to proceed with caution. The bottom line for me is that if the subject matter is something we as adults find difficult and distressing, we can expect that most children will have more trouble coping (even though there may not be immediate, visible signs of this) because they don't have the developmental where-with-all to deal with it. We can see the effects of giving children too much information by observing young children who have had too much unguarded television time and have seen inappropriate movies (and here I could tell you a terrible story about a class I had, half of whom saw "Saving Private Ryan" at the movies when it was on...) or worse still, children who have experienced too much in real life because of dramatic family circumstances.

I have pretty much operated on a "need to know" basis. Obviously someone close to the tragedy needs to know more than our two boys on the other side of the country. If our boys hear about it from other sources (and our son at school did hear about the bushfires in class this week as they prepared for their free dress day yesterday) then more may need to be added. Older children who see the news or newspapers, have internet access and actually take in what they are hearing on the radio will need greater levels of explanation. And certainly talking about such things sensitively for the purposes of being educative is also valid - to teach empathy, generosity, gratitude, reliance upon God and so on.

And my second rule of thumb (which stood me in good stead as a teacher, ensuring I planned to have time for this) is this...the more detail the children receive from us or from other sources about a crisis, the more we need to be available to debrief and to reassure. They will want extra detail, clarification, answers to questions and plenty of reassurance...over and over. My experience has been that this pretty much operates in a directly proportional way. That is, the greater the issue and the greater their knowledge, the more clarification and reassurance will be needed. And this is good because it provides beautiful teaching moments and also beautiful opportunities to love our children.

The Victorian Bushfires

Like many people here in Australia I have been keeping up with the unfolding events of the Victorian bushfires with deep sadness. I haven't actually seen any news footage – we don't watch the news very often in this house but I have made a point to keep the news off our television screen this week in case one of our boys catches a glimpse. I know they would be traumatised. But I have been keeping up with events via radio news and the internet – and every time I hear a news report it seems that this tragedy just gets worse.

As of this evening there are 181 people confirmed dead with more than 50 still missing, the fires have burnt through more than 3000 square kilometres of land, entire towns have been destroyed with 900 homes razed to the ground and fires are still burning with many communities on high alert.

Yesterday the news readers on the radio seemed barely able to read out the news. Their voices were catching and you could tell their hearts were heavy. The content was largely a dreadful catalogue of events.

Today the content changed a little. Still the updates of events but also stories of people offering to help – various groups and agencies around Australia collecting money and supplies, companies offering to transport goods to Victoria free of charge, governments in Australia and abroad offering assistance. And of course the Red Cross has set up an appeal which, as of this evening, has raised $28 000 000. Much more will be raised because Australians dig deep at times like this.

At the local level, my son came home from school today with a note advising us of a free dress day on Thursday (wear civvies to school rather than school uniform for the day for a gold coin donation) to support the bush fire appeal. I am sure that every child will be at school in free dress on Thursday and that more than gold coins will be collected.

Tomorrow the stories on the radio will change again. The updates will be there. The offers of help will be there. And stories of people's personal experiences will be heard. Stories that will be hard to hear but need to be told to help with the healing. And this will continue.

We grieve and we feel helpless. But we can pray. For those of us who are physically remote from the fires and in no danger, let us make good use of our safety to give time over to praying for those so desperately in need – for those grieving the loss of loved ones, homes (and all that was stored away within their walls), livelihoods and community; for those who have escaped and are numb but will soon start to feel again; for those who are at work tirelessly fighting the fires and tending to the injured and grieving; and for those who will work out how to manage this dreadful situation in the short term and the long term. And let us pray that those deeply affected may turn to the deep comfort found in God who gives real hope when all else is lost. Amen.

A Great Start to Saturday Morning

I have been reading through 1 and 2 Kings lately. This morning I finished off the last few chapters of 2Kings. These chapters describe the final years of the nation of Judah collapsing under the weight of kings who "did evil in the eyes of the LORD" – the repeating description found throughout 1 and 2 Kings of all the kings of Israel and most of the kings of Judah. The nation of Israel had already met its demise, being carried into captivity by the Assyrians back in chapter 17. And today I read about the demise of Judah, taken into captivity by the Babylonians.

Not a great start to Saturday morning? Well, actually, yes!!

As I read these sad, sorry chapters I tried to imagine what it might have been like for the people of Judah during those last years and days living under oppressive rulers, in the midst of war and famine, watching the national treasures being pilfered from Solomon's temple and the palaces and ultimately being dragged from their homes into captivity in a foreign land.

It is easy enough to read over these chapters and take in the narrative without thinking about the detail. But when you stop to imagine what it would have been like for an ordinary citizen to live through those times – well, it is horrible.

And throughout these chapters (and in the preceding chapters as Israel came to a similar end) there are verses such as,

The LORD sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him [Jehoiakim, the king of Judah]. He sent them to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by his servants the prophets. (2 Kings 24:2)

These nations were warned and God caused this to happen because they did not heed the warning. Hard verses like this appear several times in these last chapters. How would those involved have responded, knowing that what was happening was in God's hands and perhaps more pointedly, at His command? I imagine most took no comfort at all. Their eyes were so far from God that they may not even have been cognizant of God's hand in their sufferings.

But we know, as we read further along the Bible, that there was a faithful remnant that travelled into Babylon. There must have been ordinary citizens who still loved and obeyed God in the midst of that mayhem and suffering. I wonder, just as we find comfort in God even in the midst of trials, if they too found comfort in seeing God in all His holiness at work, even though it came at such a great and personal price?

It was helpful for me to step into the story this morning and imagine what it would have been like. But I was also blessed and encouraged as I took a step back. Here in these hard chapters we get a glimpse of the immediate from the perspective of God's bigger picture. We see humanity in one particular time and place and at the same time we see God working out His eternal purposes in very clear view.

A great start to Saturday morning? Well, actually, yes!!

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Sometimes when someone famous is being interviewed or receives an award, they mention a person who has been a positive influence in their life. Very occasionally the person mentioned is a teacher. It is of course every teacher's dream to make a difference in a child's life…to set them on the path to something great. And it is extremely rare for a teacher to actually learn that they have made that kind of difference in the life of a past pupil, as they are generally busy being teachers and not necessarily attending the Academy Awards or the Nobel Prize ceremony.

Well, earlier this week, I experienced this rare and precious moment in a teacher's life. A friend I taught with sent me an article published a couple of weeks ago in the glossy magazine insert of our local Sunday newspaper. Fortunate – because we never read that paper. It was an interview with Sophie Ward – model, writer and (sorry, Sophie) big sister of supermodel Gemma Ward. At one point journalist Claire Davies wrote,

"Ward has been writing stories for most of her life. Google her name and up will pop a reference to her winning a Miss Booker literary prize at the age of eight.

The award came from third grade teacher (Miss Booker) who created her own awards for the books made in her class."

I am that Miss Booker.

Sophie was part of a terrific class and we did many wonderful things in our year together. One activity was to write children's books. It was a big deal. The children worked hard on their stories and then we spent AGES copying them into books and illustrating them. (I did question the amount of class time we ended up devoting to the illustrations!!) When they were all done we invited the parents, the principal and the local newspaper to our book launch, complete with cordial and cheese (given that wine and cheese was completely out of the question!) Lots of the children read out their books and then I awarded the best authors with Booker prizes for literature, drawing from my famous surname at the time. Sophie was a recipient. And Sophie now boasts a publishing company (Paper Castle Press) to her name and has a novel and a children's book both hopefully being released later this year.

It was such a joy to know that Sophie's time in my classroom was special – and the best gift a teacher could ever receive to learn that this was the case. Thank you Sophie and go well with those books.