The Wait

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I looked at doing an entry. Things have fallen into a routine of look for stuff to put in the new place. Learn a little more about the area and try and have some fun at the same time. I’ve applied for a job in the wastewater industry (that’s right Simon is back in the poo) and I should hear today if it is a goer or not. Our stuff should have arrived up in Portland today. So after a couple of weeks of waiting, it looks like it starting to rev up again. I can’t wait. The uncertainty of not knowing even which town you are going to live in has been driving me nuts and therefore Linnet as well. We did have a short respite from the wait when we went camping over the weekend with Linnets brother Lance and his kids. I was nice to be able to walk in the bush in summer without having to think about snakes. We went to Sharps creek which has a great swimming hole and lots to look at. Well I hope to update this soon with the news of the job, where we are going to live and what the area is like.

Platitude Man

A little known secret about Linnet and myself. Quite often, when the need arises, we drop the spirit-filled silence, don our cape of self-righteousness and summon our super powers of “Christianees” to become Platitude Man (copyright and patent pending) and his faithful side-kick Cliché Girl (no copyright as Linnet wants nothing to do with this spiel). Yes, that’s right. When salt is needed in a wound, there is only one man to call. More dangerous than 10 normal superheroes to any wounded heart within earshot, Platitude Man’s “super Plat’s” can destroy any form of healing with impossible-to-live-up-to Christian one-liners. And once his job is done it’s: Up, Up and away with a shout of “Just pray about it” to the mere mortals still stuck without answers...
You probably know that the first rule of humour is that you must exaggerate the silly things in life that we take so seriously until they are shown for the foolish things that they really are. So I hope that I made you laugh with my little superhero tale. The sad fact, however, is sometimes I am stuck without answers to something God has done in His love and wisdom, something that causes pain or anguish. So I bring Platitude Man out of retirement, reach for my cape and superhero gloves (that’s so I don’t get too close and actually have to touch someone) and spit out something that sounds good and “Christian” but in all reality is, at best, legalistic, or at worst, just plain wrong (but dresses nicely in sheep’s clothing). Cliché allows me to look spiritual when I’m just as lost on what God is doing as everybody else. What I should do is remember that we serve a wild, passionate, unpredictable (would you have guessed the cross as the answer to man’s sinfulness?) and loving God whose ways are sometimes just plain frustrating. But rather than having us sit and ponder them, He calls us to reach out to a hurting world with a truth that we don’t fully understand.
I confess—I don’t have all of the answers, but I know this: when I tell someone to “just pray about it” because I don’t want to be caught out, it grieves both them and the Holy Spirit. Why? Because what they really needed was for me to say, “I don’t have an answer. Let’s pray about it together.”

July 4th

It’s Saturday and that means that I survived the July 4th celebrations this week. For my friends back in Oz, you would be surprised how even the most delicate wall flower turns into a chest-thumping, we-kicked-the-Brits, “we are the greatest and don’t mess with us” patriot on the Fourth. It’s all slightly surreal - and I loved every minute of it! For one day all Americans seem to put aside political, theological and ideological differences to remind themselves that their way of life isn’t that bad and that it was bought at a price. My Fourth actually started a couple of days before. With the strains of “Born in the USA” blaring from the speakers of the fireworks store, Simon got loaded for bear. It was “kid in a candy store” time for Simon as I went around grabbing anything that looked like it might go bang. Thinking that I had done pretty well in the boomba stakes, I turned around to see a giant firework with arms. Then I realized that it was my sister in-law, Shuree. I got the distinct impression that everyone in the place just looked at me and thought, “Amateur!”
The Fourth consisted of family and friends coming around to Gordon’s, having a BBQ, and six hours of fireworks. But it was more than that. The whole day is about hope. The Fourth is about freedom gained and dreams both for the future and those fulfilled. I think this is the bit that those who haven’t lived in the USA don’t understand. Every year Americans remind themselves and others that on the Fourth of July a country was born - a country with boundless opportunity if only they would grasp at it. Not only that, but because there is so much to go around, they encourage one another to chase after it as well. The Fourth builds the Nation’s self-esteem, so to speak. They see that, though the Fourth gave them freedom to do bad, the majority of them choose to use their freedom to do good. If you don’t understand it, that sort of collective hope can come across as a confident arrogance, but once experienced, it is liberating.

New Year's Resolutions

For the record my New Year’s resolution lasted about 12 hours. I believe my best was about 6 days but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. Resolutions are funny things. We all make them even if it isn’t at this time of year. I resolved to quit smoking in my younger days about 15 times (and that was just the first day) but the problem is we always seem to fail. We can’t help it , it’s our very nature. We seem to take some perverse joy in asking everyone around us about their New Year’s resolutions. Hearing from them what they think their bad points are and knowing in the back of our mind that their failure at achieving the goal they set puts them on an equal footing with us. New Year’s resolutions are the great equalizer. They go to show that we, on our own, and as a bunch of people can’t even fix one fault in ourselves. What amazes me even more is that as a Christian I know this before I even make a resolution but I still go ahead and make one anyway. So why don’t they work? Well I’ve put my finger on two reasons. One is that as a human I have no chance of changing my nature. Can a dog wake up and say it now wants to be a cat? (Tessa the wonder-cat would have torn my leg off if I would have suggested that a cat would ever even consider being a dog.) Shake our fist as we may, we come out of the womb fallen people. Only the Maker can remodel what is His to begin with and that raises the second point. What you and I consider our bad points and hence make the top of our New Year’s resolutions list may not be what God wants to work on at that point. It’s like me taking the car to a mechanic, and saying “it’s too slow.” My mechanic in his wisdom says “ first lets make it stop.” Or as in my case, “I gotta quit smoking,” when God said, “first lets look at your tongue, you’re hurting far more people with it than the smoking is hurting you.” (And yes, I eventually did give up smoking.)
This year I would encourage you to abandon your resolutions especially the ones that effect your personal growth. Let God show you what
areas need the work and don’t get discouraged if what you consider major is not the top of God’s list. Instead of creating a reading or study list this year, browse by title and let the right book jump off the shelf at you. Finally might I suggest that this year only one resolution is worth our effort and that is: To trust God with our lives more and ourselves with it less.

Sneaker Gospel and Door Knockers.

Ephesians 6:15 (NLT)

For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News, so that you will be fully prepared.

A couple of days ago I was helping my father-in-law install a couple of garden taps just outside his shed. Well, they have to do things a little different over here. You just can’t put a tap on the wall and attach a hose to it. That works alright in summer, however in winter you have freezing problems and you will not get any water out if you don’t bury the valve part of the tap into the ground. It’s a special valve too. It has a little drain in it to remove all the water from any part that may be subject to freezing. Then there’s the clay. I never thought I would say this, but after digging a 3 meter trench, I miss sand.

So what does this have to do with the foot protection provided by the armor of God? Well, my young nephew Alex wanted to help dig the trench. Alex only had sandals on and so, while he could help by moving the clay that I had already dug out, when he went to use the pick-axe or the garden fork, I had to jump in and say no. He really wanted to help and it crushed him a bit when I said no, but the vision of a tool hitting unprotected skin… If I had known the job we were going to do that day, I’m sure we could have had him come properly shod. Then, although I didn’t need his help digging the trench, I wouldn’t have missed having the youngest bloke in my family involved.

Now, just before we left for the states we had some people knock on the door trying to help God install a few ‘Christ’ taps (you knew I was going to use that didn’t you?) so that living water would flow from them. Only one problem - when they prepared to walk door-to-door, for shoes they put on an open-toe type of Gospel. I mean, these people were really wanting to help God in the trenches, but the truth of the Gospel was not there to protect them. They were trying to show me how they swung the pick-axe, but all I could see was naked flesh about to get dissected to the bone and marrow. My question to you who read this is, what sort of shoes do you have on? As a disciple of Christ, it isn’t an option. You know when you jump out of bed in the morning you have to get dressed and put something on your feet. So what shoes do you prepare with? Do you have a peace in your heart that if you have to jump or stand on rocky ground your feet won’t get torn to bits? If something struck your toes, would they get broken or just bruised? Will your shoes stop miry clay from getting between your toes, stopping you dead in your tracks?

So what is the Sneaker Gospel, the full shoes of the Good News that provides peace?

Simply that Christ died on the cross for all sin for all time. He was buried for three days to prove that he truly was dead. He rose to prove that the payment met the demands of God’s law and justice. And He ascended to the right hand of the Father to assure us that those who have placed their trust in him are seated permanently with him and they can not be removed. If you wrap your feet in this Gospel before you take one step out of the house, then you are ready. You see, Jesus doesn’t need our help to dig the trench, but He wouldn’t miss having us involved.

ADD EIGHT HOURS AND TAKE A DAY!

Hi Everybody!

Not the greatest opening line ever used to start a new blog, but hey, this is me. I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and put together a couple of thoughts on the past month and boy, what a month it has been. It seems like only yesterday that we were still in the process of handing over the shop, packing up our house and heading over to the USA. And for the past three weeks I’ve felt like I’ve been dropped into the set of the movie “Drop Dead Gorgeous.” If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it for getting a feel for small town USA and a giggle at the same time (although it is adult content). Everybody is so nice to us over here, but there is definitely a different mentality when it comes to doing things and on how people see life.

So what have we been up to in the last three weeks? In short, acclimatizing. For the first week, every time I thought we were heading south we were going north. This makes it real fun when you are trying to find your way around a new city, drive on the wrong side of the road, remember new road rules and convert from imperial to metric at the same time (next exit 1500 feet?). I’m slowly getting the hang of it but there are still times Linnet has to reach for the dash or cover her eyes. On the up side, I get to drive and I am still in awe from the road trips we have been doing. We’ve been to the coast (about 80km from where we currently are staying) three times now to check out what we hope will be our new home in Florence. It’s very tough to keep your eye on the road when every corner is a postcard picture of mountains and streams with big pine forests enveloping you on every side. It’s also been an experience with the wild life around the area. I now know what skunk smells like (see the photos), I’ve seen deer in the paddocks when we’ve gone for walks and I’m currently looking out a window at Gordon’s (Linnet’s dad) and there is a pheasant strolling by. Lance’s dog, Rolly, got into a fight with a raccoon

the other day, and they announced the bear and cougar culling quotas on the news. All very new.

Things I’m missing. Family, friends, gum trees, magpies singing, football (even when the Dockers are loosing), having a job (sad I know), coffee (Dean if you are reading this, help!), knowing which shop to go to if you need something and the smell and noise of the ocean.

Well, that’s all for now (I want to keep the blogs short). I plan to do another shortly after the fourth of July celebrations. I’ve got into the spirit of it by getting enough fireworks to make the sky show jealous, but more on that next week. I’m also doing a small spiel on the next page for those who care to read it. Oh, and if you want to contact us, just remember - add eight hours and take a day.