Thank God for the computer virus...

I know it may sound strange but the title of this post is actually a shout of thanksgiving - not tongue-in-cheek. During my Easter holidays (right at the beginning, actually) my home laptop had a visit from an unwanted guest - the 'Windows' Security Centre virus. This virus is apparently hanging out in search engines and unbeknown to me my virus security had failed...but continued to look like it was working, strangely! So I was ripe for an invasion.

The virus is basically a scam virus which says that you have all sorts of trojans and virus' on your computer and that you need to buy an updated version of something or other in order to fight it. The truth is that the files that appear deleted are simply 'hidden' files and what this scam does is essentially gain access to your credit card details. Simple but very clever as it preys on fear.

Initally I was really worried about the lost files (until I did some research on the virus...knowledge is power!) and then I was just miffed. However, over the course of the two weeks that I did not have access to my computer I found freedom! I suddenly found that I had spare time to read and write and pray. The time that I would usually have spent on Facebook was becoming useful time to devote to more worthwhile enterprises.

This time also gave me cause to reflect on just how much I have come to rely on my laptop for ease and convenience when buying things or finding things out...as excellent as the internet is, I feel I have had my eyes opened as to how lazy I have become in some areas!

The time for reflection that I had now been afforded led me to consider virus' and attacks. I started to think about my life with God and how sometimes it is easy to feel like you have virus protection because you are a Christian - but it doesn't work like that. You can't say I am a Christian and leave it there - God calls us to a relationship with Him - it is ongoing...like my virus protection needs to be. It is easy to be laxidasical but should we be with our spiritual health? I don't want to be attacked spiritually...but I will be if I don't continue to renew myself in God's love, grace and strength.

So all in all, my loss of computer for two weeks has been the most fruitful bereavement I have had in a long time...I must remember the lessons I have learned so that I don't fall into the trap of 'contentent'...or should that read laziness!!

Having a morning of random thoughts...

One of those mornings browsing the internet without any real direction...During these times I waver from thinking that I am wasting my time to finding that I am led to random things that have a message from God in them.

This morning I have felt pushed toward thinking of Christian youth work...I think God is putting a passion in me to work with teenagers (not in my day job, as this would be obvious!) within my church. I am not sure where and how this will be fulfilled but I am alive with ideas and energy for the youth and feel drawn to helping them make sense of Jesus' sacrifice in the confusing world of the adolescent...more on this to follow I guess.

I have also been randomly linking on youtube...where you click on the suggestions and before you know it you are wacthing something really random like skateboarding when you originally started looking at 'how to make bread successfully' or something equally unrelated.

My random linkage led me to some videos by a person called 'some grey bloke'. I have seen some of these videos before and often thought that they are an interesting insight into an atheist who is seeking God...albeit indirectly. These two videos struck me the most:

I feel that they highlight the importance of making God's message accessible to people. We shouldn't use terms and words that are sometimes, lets face it, downright confusing. We also need to address the more simple questions and not ignore people when they ask 'Did Jesus use the toilet?' If the question is asked, we should ask God how we should answer it, not skirt around the issue! I feel like God wants to remind me that we are all children with questions...if we ask, we will find. And just think, by answering and engaging with people you may help someone to find Jesus - to find salvation - a sobering thought.

Betrayal...

This is a new one for me, without going too far into it...I have recently faced up to the fact that people who I loved (and still do) have betrayed me in some way in my life. This has proved most devastating and has become a real area of shutdown in my communication with God.

Towards the end of last week I felt that I was really moving forward to the last stage of preparation in order to begin the first stage of healing (try to keep up if you can...) This week I am stuck and it is all because of the betrayal I feel. It has had a most immobilising effect on me...I am simply existing...which feels like a backward step. So all in all, I feel beleaguered.

Having just read this back, I sound like a woe-is-me sort of person today and I don't really like being that person but I think that I will have to face up to the fact that I am allowed to feel pain and not just brush it off with a 'I'm sure I'll get over it', which I have noticed I am apt to do more and more. I need to stop belittling my feelings because everytime I do, I put a stop on them.

Back to betrayal. Like I said this has had a strange glue effect on me this week. Like a rabbit in headlights I have not really known what to do with it, or where to turn...God would be the obvious answer but I have felt...anger (?)...towards Him for the lastest installment and so have unconciously closed myself off - although still communicated with Him for other people - it seems it is just me that I have the God issue with.

I decided today that as I have noticed that I am distancing myself from God, I need to do something proactive to stop it and to re-engage. So I started to think about betrayal in light of God and how people have betrayed Him, He who gives us grace by His love...

The biggest betrayal I have been reminded of is the betrayal that Jesus must have felt when Judas kissed Him in the Garden of Gethsemene, and more than that, when His disciples denied Him to save themselves.

Jesus, fully God and fully man, did not shy away from His feelings of worry and betrayal that He felt. In fact He spoke with God in the Garden of Gethsemene the night before Judas was to give Him over to the Romans and the Jews (Matt 26:36-44) asking God if He could take this cup (duty) away from Him. Jesus was scared of what He knew He must go through and yet He submitted to His Father. He knew the pain that He was to feel and yet He knew that He must push through it...and all for US - not for even for Himself!
This has had the effect of humbling me a little in my own pain...and at the same time giving me permission to own it...
1) Owning my pain - If Jesus was able to worry and ask God what He knew He could not have and talk with God to understand why He must go through it, then surely I can too. Surely God is big enough to hear my fears, worries and anger - even my accusations against Him. I know more and more in my head that God is not to blame for my pain but as I go into it I have to admit that I feel anger towards God and I can either ignore it and pretend, or be truthful and own it.
2) Humbling - my pain is just that MY pain. It is for actions of the past - Jesus' pain was not for His wrongdoing and it was for all actions -  past, present and future. It puts, what has been rather consuming, in a wider setting so that I can see how small my pain is in reality - that doesn't mean that it is insignificant - to God all pain matters. But it does mean that if Jesus can survive the pain of the cross for us, then with His help I can survive my pain.

Betrayal is a new feeling, a horrible feeling, and I don't know what to do with it...but God does because He felt it most keenly in Jesus, when His own people sent Him to death and denied Him...I suppose, therefore, I should turn to the expert.

How I CHOOSE to feel...

Update - last night I nearly cried. Nearly let some/all of it out at my prayer meeting. But alas, the scared child in me won out again...still progress I think. And it got me considering how I can remain in faith when I am starting to feel emotions that are, well...quite frankly, devastating. 

The last week has felt a little like a crash course in life and how regular people might feel in some situations...almost as if God is showing me how I can rejoin the human race that I have felt so alien from for so long. I must say all of these emotions (and I think that I am only really feeling a shadow of them because I can't will myself to stay in them long enough to grasp them fully) have a consuming quality about them. They actually take over your body physically and mentally as well as emotionally...I was not prepared for that. However, this is most probably what God is using this period for - preparation - for the final push toward emotional release. I can't even say the final push because actually, paradoxically, this final push to the emotional stuff actually BEGINS my healing in the real sense. Everything up to now, I believe, has been preparation. I am so thankful that we have a God who prepares us. God knows what we need and He knew that if he had presented me with the feelings He has this week, even a couple of months ago, I would have run in the opposite direction. God has a time for everything and I am just beginnng to understand what that looks like. If I trust (there's that word again) in Him then everything will be as it should be, and I will not be given more than I can bear. It is when I try to do things under my own steam that I become inundated, and stressed, I guess...

So for that reason I sing this song of praise...