Walk in the shadow of a friendly giant

How many live with regrets that, if left unresolved, will go with us to the grave? How many have longed to take the plunge in life, to live an enviable life, to rise to the moment, to be more than we are instead of remaining trapped in a vicious cycle of doubts and fears?

The moment when Israel reached the River Jordan and spied out the land ahead, to decide whether they would push on into their inheritance, reflects the choices facing us all.

They turned back thanks to the negative perceptions of ten not so spiritual, faithless spies, whose influence swayed the vote against the two tried and proven witnesses who only saw possibilities ahead. Let’s face it, for every two voices of faith in you, there will inevitably be six voices telling you to turn back, to doubt, to question or to see giants where others see milk and honey.

That my will may be done ...

Psalm 139: 5 says, "You hem me in behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me." Its a familiar feeling for many who have times of contradiction and frustration in their lives.

The lifecycle of organisations predicts that uncertainty will precede progress

In business logic we refer to "the lifecycle of organisations". It describes how a firm goes through a startup, restart or revival phase, followed by growth, then maturity or stability, before finally going into decline or a contraction phase.

A light in the darkness of trouble

David spent a lot of his early life darting from cave to cave, and living in the caves of the Shefelah, where he tried to interpret his life struggles. It was at times like those that he wrote some of his most haunting Psalms.

There is always a way

Andy Drufesne, in Shawshank Redemption, spent years making no sounds, nor drawing the slightest attention to his inch-by-inch drive through his prison wall with a small rock chisel.

Turn your problems into opportunities

In my regular work I do a lot of training and provide other services to my customers. However, the trickiest moment in any customer relationship is always the startup phase.

Recently, after a lot of marketing I did a trial course for a customer, alongside a more experienced facilitator. Unfortunately, the content I was asked to cover, besides being new and of an unfamiliar style, was also particularly technical. I underestimated how difficult it would be for the delegates to grasp the material. As a result, it all went pear-shaped and my ratings fell below my normal standard.

I tried to work through the issues with the customer, but I instinctively opted to not invoice for the work done. In sharing that with my brother, he suggested that I turn the problem into an opportunity, by selling the virtues of not invoicing. Thus by saying, “In line with my work ethic, I will not charge for the trial course or for redoing it”.

Then I asked, is this God’s way – and it is. In Genesis 50:20, the setback that Joseph faced when unfairly cast into an Egyptian jail, was turned to good, when God used that to position Joseph for a far greater future. That is because He always redeems His own and always turned setbacks into opportunities.


(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.groundwon.blogspot.com

The world is changing radicly and quickly - the church must respond

Over the last few days I passed a monster, four times. It was the biggest machine I have ever seen. It stood at least five stories high, but the boom rose a further ten stories, to give the machine a reach of over 300 feet. It is a factory in its own right, except that it walks.

I was traveling through extensive coal fields watching these fantastic monsters rip up earth to expose the coal face. Around them I saw mountains of black coal awaiting export or transfer to nearby power stations. As I drove along the way I also saw a dragline dumping overburden on a mound, which raised billows of dust that, from a distance, looked more like the plume of a volcano.

I felt I was watching the death-throws of a great industrial marvel.

Beyond the last blow, the final push ... is the redemption of breakthrough

Tim Robbins plays the lead role in Shawshank Redemption, a Stephen King best seller now ranked 1st in a recent top 100 movies survey. It is a surprisingly redemptive work and as such the movie is also a personal favorite.

Andy Dufresne, having been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank, for a murder he never committed, employs his urbane charm and sharp intellect to become a significant influence in the jail. His influence provides the personal stimulation needed to keep his hopes alive, but also helps to improve the lot of his fellow inmates as they resist the contradictions of an evil warder and his corruptions of the bible.

Behind a poster in his small cell, Andy begins the arduous, twenty-year project of chiseling his way to freedom, using a hand chisel he got from his friend Red Ellis. He eventually breaks through to a narrow alley, which gives him access to the main sewerage channel and the thrall of freedom, which also redeems the many hard years of injustice and thankless toil.

Time only time, if we only had time, only time

Have you ever mixed up your dates so badly that you arrived a day late for a meeting? I did today and yes I know it could only happen to me.

It is supposed to be the 19th today and maybe it still is, somewhere on the planet, or maybe it still was when I headed off, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, for an important meeting - only to arrive at the security window and find that today ... is the 20th. Look I did what I could to correct them, but it was tough to persuade several hundred workers to reset their calendars, so I had to capitulate and realign my own system.

You would think, in this day and age, that we could all standardise, but alas it is just not to be. Yet, when it suits them, people still want us to adopt their standards. I had the same problem when I was in the army - my mom always noticed that I could keep the pace, whilst the rest of my battalion remained out of step. It reminds me of a time when she phoned my dad to tell him that some idiot was driving the wrong way down a highway, to which he aptly replied, "All the idiots on this highway are doing it".

There will be no more, tears in heaven

In 1991 Connor, Eric's Clapton's 5 year old son, accidently crawled through a 53rd floor apartment window and fell to his death on the streets below. Clapton arrived shortly after his son fell and for a long time his performances were deeply haunted and distracted by the tragedy.

Out of the crisis came the haunting ballad, "Tears in Heaven", which I am trying to master. It presents challenges for voice and for guitar, but it is such a rewardingly beautiful song. Sadly Clapton rarely sings the song anymore, because he has moved on and feels too detached to do the song justice.

He rightfully argues that there will be no more tears in heaven. Sadness sure can tear us apart down on the streets below and it can lead to untold sorrow. But there are still no tears in heaven.

Experience, hope and a reason to overcome, equips our souls for life

Lewis Pugh is a soft spoken, unassuming individual, but he has swum a few hundred meters through arctic waters and across a Norwegian Fjord. His latest swim was across a glacial lake at 5,000m (15,000 ft) below the mighty mount Everest.

It took substantial mental and physical training to prepare him for his swims. His sponsors have enabled him to enjoy the support and company of a small army of medics, supporters and an arctic sports phsychologist. But his mission is not an act of vanity. He is a serious champion of global environmental issues. His swimming stunts give him access to world leaders who make a ready audience for his impassioned pleas. He is also empathetic, giving moral support to leaders in their fight against public resistance.

The great equaliser

I recently read an article, which argued that a lack of positive factors in our lives is worse for us than the presence of negative factors. 

The reality for almost everyone on the planet is a fair share of negatives - such is life. We all bear the brunt of illness or financial misfortune or marital blues or family issues ... the list goes on and on. Yet none of that matters, as long as there is real hope or at least something that gives life a sense of value and meaning.

My wife and I noted that our children have had many advantages in the form of a loving home, caring parents, sound instruction and substantial support. Yet for all that they have the disadvantage of having never had to really fight for their survival as children from embattled or negative homes do.

Where do we stand?

One of the greatest causes for human crisis results from misrepresentations of God. The dark ages marked a significant eon of human crisis, driven by ignorance about God and His heart for humanity. Fear of the unknown reduced all unknowns to the devil’s work, which enslaved humanity to ignorance, suspicion, superstition, fear and all the more obvious consequences of that age: dungeons, death and disease.

Aside from many other obvious social deviations, we each have our own personal misconceptions of God. It all reminds me of a little Church Mouse cartoon, which shows a mouse saying “Lord, just look at what is now available in the Internet”, to which a voice in heaven replies, “I’d rather not”.

Okay, enough of the more patently negative aspects of human attitudes to God. To me it is more tragic that believers are getting into trouble because of their misconceptions.

Experience builds hope

In Romans 5, Paul contends that Hope is a product of experience. His contention brings a very practical angle to an otherwise spiritual debate. Believers are very good at over-spiritualizing life. That alludes to a branch of logic in psychology called paranoid-schizoid defenses that describes how the mind develops internal bulwarks against threats.

Splitting … involves a process of simply dividing the world into two and identifying the more attractive world as friendly, thus reducing everything else to a wrong or a threat. It sadly erodes all sense of hope, because it denies reality and inhibits real experience. There is a third way in all binary debates – good may exist, bad also exists, but it is always better to find out for yourself and then form an opinion or view based on real experience. Such experiences reshape our perspectives and help us to move from a threatening, denialist posture to an engaging, hopeful lifestyle – based on experience.

Is God in the demolition business?

Is God silent to our cries? Does He lead us into the wilderness to die there? Is He watching over our fall from a distance? Is He aloof to the crises of life and the heartbreaks here below? Or are we just seeing Him through our own hardened lenses and have we closed our ears to His voice? Maybe the clamor of life has just distracted us from a greater, albeit almost imperceptible reality, that whispers hope and life into our lost world.
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