Intro to "At the well"

This morning I finished the first draft of a piece of which the message has been on my heart for many years. It was great to get the chance to finish this draft over the last week. Here's the first part:

Prologue - Yusuke
I met with Yusuke just a few times, I knew him for only a few months. But one of the times I got the chance to sit down with him and study the Bible together has become a resounding and defining memory of my time in Tokyo, and I believe I gained some insight into this young man’s and a nation’s future.

My wife and I lived in Tokyo for two years. We moved there from Kyoto where we had worked with a Japanese Christian Church to work with a pioneering, bilingual church, started by Australians. We had the chance to meet many great young people and make many friends. And we had the privilege of sharing with many of our new friends about the love and acceptance that Jesus has for them.

Yusuke is one such young man whom I call a friend. He started to come to the church and for a time was part of a group of guys who would meet together on Wednesday nights in Starbucks in Takadanobaba. In the few weeks I knew Yusuke before he joined us I had already observed his shyness but also a desperate social neediness that would draw others towards him but then would soon push them away.

He was looking for help but would quickly and angrily cut the helper off before they could let him down. Yusuke had suffered terrible rejection from his father and his family before moving far from his hometown in the north of Japan to the big, anonymous city.

One particular Wednesday evening, Yusuke and I sat together and I realised that I would have a chance to bring up this issue of rejection and to share with him Jesus’ loving acceptance of him. We looked together at a passage from Chapter 4 of the Gospel of John. In this story we see how a lonely woman’s life is changed when she meets Jesus. She comes to a well and receives eternal, living, healing water from God’s own Son.

It was at this time talking with Yusuke that I realised the depth of pain that he felt because of rejection. This wound shaped his life – the way he thought and they way he would act. His life was now full of shame and confusion. Every plan he had, every relationship would be destroyed by this disease in his heart.

For a time Yusuke came near the well. He came near to the source living water which could heal his wounds and sustain him eternally. Jesus is there. Jesus is offering acceptance, wholeness, a life to spend with Him, a future filled with love and significance.

That night God showed me things that I will never forget. The woman at the well was not only made whole by the acceptance of Jesus, but she also came from this place of rejection to becoming a great influence, a leader among her people. The truth of His Word became alive to me as He showed me what He could do with a young person and what He could do with a nation to change the world. I became overwhelmed with hope when God spoke to me through this passage about His loving heart towards Japan and His intention to use this nation to bless others.

This is a story about a woman who met Jesus and it’s also a story about a young broken man. This is a story about me and about you. It’s a story about what Jesus can do in broken person and even a nation. It’s about the hope and the healing that Jesus wants to bring to you and the world even through you.

Enough said (Mark)

I probably don’t pray enough, read the Bible enough, give enough, love enough, know enough, do enough, listen enough, earn enough, believe enough.

I don’t seem to have enough time, enough energy, enough patience.

I’m not good enough, selfless enough, wise enough.

I think I’ve had enough.

But Your grace is enough - even in my weakness Your strength shines.

4/1/10

Following my boy's heart - Mark

Some mystery pains in Sarah’s belly last night led us to a visit to the hospital for a late-night check-up, but I got to have one of my first intimate moments with my son who will be born next April.
It was my job to keep two fingers on the baby heart-rate monitor in order to accurately monitor his beautiful little heart. (I can use the description “beautiful” with some authority as the nurse in the last ultrasound said described his heart as beautiful.) He was moving and rolling and kicking and it was quite a challenge to keep the monitor focussed on his heart.
From time to time the sound would drop out and I would have to make subtle movements with my fingers to find it again. I fixed my eyes on the lights on the machine that showed his heart rate, flashing numbers between 140 and 160, with the occasional disappearance. It became easy to think of it as a game – my boy cheekily avoiding the monitor and daddy tenaciously tracking his movements.
I really enjoyed it. I love his heart. I love the nature that God has put in him. God has blessed me with a father’s privilege to know my children’s hearts and to track them – to keep looking when it’s hidden, to find it and nurture it.
I am thankful for the way that my Heavenly Father gracefully pursues and gently holds my heart, considering it a treasure.
8/1/10

God loves - by Sarah

God loves
He just loves
He is love and He is light. In Him is no darkness. He doesn't condemn
He just loves me
pours on love
blankets on love
soaks us in His love

And He calls us
He calls us to Him
to be loved
to love Him
to embrace
to be filled with love
to be love

And He calls us to His people
He shows us each person
and the same never-ending, satisfying, fulfilling, over-powering love He has for me,
He has for that person
& that person
& that person

Will you love them?
Will you give them my love?
Will you tell them?
Fill the world with my love

He calls us to love

Better Man

Saul, Israel’s first king, was a great man, he had every kind of success a man could imagine. But God said that David, still in his teens and in his father’s pastures, was a “better” man. We invest so much of our time, our energy and our lives to become great men, when becoming a better man is a simpler and more significant pursuit. And it’s all about your heart.
Saul had all kinds of worldly success and even Godly success. He was favoured by God and chosen to be the very first king over Israel. Samuel anointed Saul and God empowered him for this great position. Saul was filled with passion and purpose for God’s people and achieved significant military victories. Saul became the ultimate power in Israel, leading a strong army and all of God’s people.
Under pressure, and in spite of all of this success and respect as a great man, Saul’s heart failed him. Even though God had set him as ruler over the people he desperately wanted to please the people around him. God’s favour wasn’t enough, he was hungry for the favour of man. He was afraid of losing his position and his power and this fear led him to do foolish things. He couldn’t wait long enough and trust in God to bring the victory so he took things into his own hands. He made vows that sounded strong and tough but bound him to kill his son. He thought it would be enough just to partly obey what God had told him to do. He made excuses and went through the motions of repentance but didn’t have the heart to follow through. God rejected Saul as king and took it all away.
Samuel said to him, "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you. 1 Samuel 15:28
This “one better” was still a boy, his own father didn’t rate him when Samuel came looking for the one anointed to be the next king. Even Samuel was more impressed with his older brothers. “But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).
David was chosen and commended for his heart after God. He had spent time – time after time, in God’s presence and meditating on him. His Psalms show the depth of his intimate relationship with Father God. David was heart-strong and his whole identity was found in his sonship of his Heavenly Father.
His passion for God and absolute trust in Him meant he could take out the giant Goliath. His bravery and skill led to many achievements in battle. He never gave up his destiny or gave in to short cuts when Saul spent years trying to kill him. In everything David honoured Father God and acted according to His truth and justice, even when it was difficult, even it when it cost him. David was a “better” man because his heart was set after God.
Most of our modern successful males are something like Saul. They have great achievements in their skill areas, mostly good intentions and favour with the people around them. The fault lines are always along stress fractures of the heart. We accept these guys, and so we should, as troubled-heroes or diamonds-in-the-rough but it is often the heart issues that hurt the people around them or lead them to destroy themselves.
David made mistakes too. His were perhaps greater than Saul’s. But David’s repentance was always deep and true – and from the heart. Either way God’s assessment of us isn’t on a success vs. failure scale as we imagine. God considers our hearts, as David sang as he repented in Psalm 51, “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts”.
In the end and in their ends, these two men are remembered very differently. Saul had so much success but after an empty death there was nothing left. David’s line continued through to Jesus Himself. Throughout God’s Word he is commended as the greatest. Not for his achievements, or perfection – but for his heart.
Neither Saul nor David were superhuman. We can relate to their humanity, although perhaps more with their mistakes than their achievements. We are not likely to be anointed to be kings of Israel but God has called us to certain positions and given us power for His purpose. We must choose what we will go after and what kind of men we want to be. Do you want to be a great man or a better man?
As we start the New Year let’s consider the health of our hearts. I am praying for my family that we would have strong hearts in 2010. I pray that God would continue to apply his grace and power to the weaknesses of our hearts, and that we would have the courage to keep our hearts fresh, open and honest.
Mark

the first day of the first year

On the first day of the first year
God moved above the emptiness, the nothingness, the formless void, the inky blackness
dreaming of creation
dreaming of you

today, he moves over your emptiness, the formless dark things in your heart
he dreams of life, dreams of creating something new

With a word he brings light.
No longer only darkness, but light and shade,
clarity, vision, hope
you can see
you can see the horizon
further, deeper

shape is brought to things that were meaningless and void
understanding

Where there was no hope, you can see a way
Where it was cold, there's warmth
In the empty dark places of discouragement, despair, perverseness -
now there is light, truth and cleanness.

And God sees that the light is good.

But there is light and darkness,
shadows are formed,
pools of confusion that the light glimmers across and reveals.
Thoughts are unclear.
Voices of hope and voices of anger mingle and collide in a chaos of confusion.

The light teases the darkness with hope, brings warmth to hurts, awakening the pain.
Brittle hearts of hardness splintering and cracking in the warmth of his light.

And God reaches into the whirlpool of light and darkness, gently lifting the light, separating it from the dark,
taking the pain, the emptiness, confusion, despair, darkness and discouragement out of the empty hearts
and places his love, light, hope, joy, inside.
The truth is made complete, whole and pure.

A new creation.
A new heart.
The old has gone.
The new has come.