Life is gaining some sanity

It’s Saturday morning and rather than mowing the lawn I thought that I better update the blog. Well we have finally arrived. We are renting a lovely house in Winchester Oregon that overlooks the Umpqua river. It has a deck that allows us to just sit out the back and take in the views. Last week I watched an Osprey take a large steelhead salmon just down at the little swimming hole. The house has a fair bit of lawn so I had to go and get a ride on mower. And before you call me a wimp it still took 4 hours to do the whole lot. We are at the end of a 4 mile dead end road and I have learnt to dodge the deer and the turkeys on my way to work. Deer make Roo’s look intelligent when it comes to getting out of the way. Speaking of work I’ve been at it now two weeks. It’s a bit of a shock to the system to have to put in 40 hours after all this time off. All our stuff arrived safely from Australia. Most of it still smells like bug bombs but at least it all arrived intact. Linnet I think has had enough of washing everything. We’ve had to go and buy all new electrical stuff. We now need an engineering degree to work out all the manuals. Nothing is simple anymore. Even the washing machine came with a 20 minute DVD. I here that Freo are doing well but I can’t get AFL on the 174 channels that we have. A part from people I am missing a few little things like being able to get good bacon. The beach. Being able to say my name without spelling it. Flat. Variety in food. Margaret River wines.
Anyway that’s it for now. I will try and update a little more frequently now that things are kind of normalizing. I’ll also try and get around to writing a new spiel but until then I’ve included yet another old one below.

How to Spar (reprint)

There are three things that a sane person should not touch in polite conversation - Sports, Politics and Religion (SPAR for short). Lucky for me I’ve never been accused of being sane. Sport– well the grand final is being played about now and since the Dockers didn’t make it, who cares? Religion– well you are reading a newsletter put out by a Christian Bookshop owner. If my side in the argument surprises you then… that leaves politics. Now there are two reactions you would be having about now. Either, “Whoo-hoo! Let’s watch him give (insert political party here) a beating.” Or, “Oh no, I don’t want to hear about politics.” Stick with me because this is much bigger than who will win the election. I’m going to let you in on something both sides of politics don’t want you to know. I’m going to give you a three word biblical principle that I think will have far-reaching consequences in your life. Are you ready for it? “SWAY OR STAY”.

Let me explain. When you first gave your heart to the Lord (if you haven’t yet, test your belief with what I am about to say and see if it stacks up), He gave you the freedom to walk the narrow path that is the best path in the world for you to walk on. Your path may have a different scenic view from mine but all of our paths have one destination and only one way to walk on them - we are to walk to and in the light of God’s grace and mercy shown by the cross. Here is the basis for my (upcoming) argument (and if what I am saying is true it should pass Simon’s truth test. That is, it must work for all people throughout all time). Truth: I have a narrow road to walk. Truth: It must be walked in the spirit. Truth: My flesh and a very real external enemy do not want me walking it. Truth: They will do what they can to sway me from it. How do I know this as truth? God in His mercy gave me a guide to truth called the Bible. It is the measure and plumb line of all that is true. To the atheist or skeptic who may be reading this I ask the same question Jesus did of the Pharisees. “If my words are not true show me where I fail and if you can’t then why do you not believe me” (my paraphrase). So I now have two major things in my life to work with. Through Christ, I have the freedom to choose to STAY on the path and I have a barometer in the Bible to allow me to see when I am being SWAYed from it.

So what does “sway or stay” have to do with the election? The first sway is that your vote does not matter. Yes, it does. How do we salt society if we don’t vote? The radical green vote is 3- 5 % yet both major parties pander to them. Imagine if we, as a 10% voting group, stood up and asked to have reflective representation? The second sway is not to pray. God tells us to pray for those in authority. I don’t know about you but I want God involved in the election. The final sway is the one that gets most of us - failure to vote on the real issues. The enemy will try and sway you through the hip pocket, making the budget the important thing. Use the plumb line to see if what you are being told matches what God says is best. Proverbs says: there is a way in man’s eye that looks right but leads to death. Don’t vote for what buys you a new 4WD (or even a better toaster). Vote for what gives your children the best chance of growing up in a country that will encourage and protect their freedom to stand in God. Our future generations need godly wisdom from their parent’s voting, not a handout from the government when man’s way fails.

Now you have a two-part equation. Know the truth AND the truth will set you free (information AND application). So get equipped. This is our 5th Birthday, and from day one our job has been to equip you to not be swayed. If you have a question, there is an answer out there for you. You have an enemy that will either rob you through apathy or feed you untruth in order to sway you. You need the right information to start with. Also, you have a path to walk. If you call Jesus Lord, you cannot be knocked off it - salvation is sure. Don’t be swayed from it. And it is easy to be swayed into thinking that you deserve a rest. Walk the path that God has laid before you and don’t let yourself be conned into doing nothing.

We have a house.

It’s Sunday and I thought it was about time that I updated the space again. For those who didn’t know I now have a job and it’s only a week until I start work. Linnet & I will finally be getting our own place on Tuesday. We’re going to be in Winchester which is about half way between Roseburg and Sutherlin. We were getting to the point of giving up on finding a place and then this one popped up just as we were going to call the whole thing off. It’s a nice house on a quiet block. I’ll post a photo from the back deck next blog. Tomorrow Gordon (Linnet’s dad) and I are off to Portland to pick up our personal stuff that has finally made it to Oregon. It’s had a lovely time going to Singapore and then LA. (It’s sad when your gear has been to more places than you.) I’ve played golf a couple of more times this past two weeks (gotta get it in while I can). Also we are now proud Subaru owners again as I needed a car to get me to and fro. I’ll try and do a larger blog once we are settled in and have had some time to work out which way is up.

FEAR!

This is a repeat from Jan 2004. I thought with what is happening in Israel at the the moment it might help to remember this.
It’s 6:30 at night and Linnet is on a plane somewhere between LA and Melbourne. I have just watched the nightly news and now I am at the computer putting together a new spiel for the newsletter. The one I had written earlier this week was good, but it wasn’t what I believe that God would have me start the New Year off on. As I watched the news on the grounding of all British airways flights to and from America, I was filled with one thought. That thought was fear. I have to admit my thoughts went to the aircraft that my wife is on and would I see her tomorrow or would somebody do something that would make my wife another statistic for the news I was watching? I then went to another thought. At what point would I say, “Sorry Linnet the risk is to great for you to go home and see your family?” Thirty percent, 50% perhaps 80% chance of attack, I just couldn’t tell. Which brings me to the point of this whole spiel. At what point do we stop trusting God and at what point do we say, “No the risk of dying or getting hurt outweighs the risk of being alive”? Now I ask another question that has been going around in my head. “When are we, the church, going to put our fear on hold long enough to actually see the Lord as a warrior for us and in action close up?” Fear that if we don’t make our services so benign and non-offensive seekers might not come? Fear that if we commit to our pastors and give them the right to lead that they may actually do something that we don’t like? Fear that if we press into God, He just might ask us to something heroic that might involve us losing our nice little world that we have created? As Linnet would say, “Here’s the scoop folks.” Our nice little safe world, where terrorists would be asked to take their shoes off before treading on the new carpet, doesn’t exist. It never has. We have tried so hard as a society to safeguard against anything that would shorten our lives that we have forgotten that the larger the wall to keep them out, the larger the tank required to roll right through it. All we are doing is putting off the inevitable instead of meeting the threat the way God intended. He didn’t set us free for us to hide behind a piece of super-six and a security door. No he set us free so we might shine to the world, as an example of how great this God is that we serve. That involves risk, but hey, the risk is the same as it was before you were God’s child as it is today. Only difference is that you have the Lion of Judah with you now, not as an enemy, but as your warrior King. God’s way is that you make him the priority in your life with every ounce of your being. To do what is right no matter what the price might be, trusting that He will take care of you. That’s easy for you to say, Simon. Well, no. I am taking the first big risk this year by laying down the gauntlet to all who read this, knowing that it may cost us the support of some. Here is my challenge to you. When was the last time you took God seriously enough to do what He asked of you even when you knew it was going to cost you? When was the last time you supported a local outreach program? When was the last time you shared the gospel? When was the last time you supported a different denomination’s effort to reach the hurting in our community, even it meant that your own might not grow? When was the last time you bought something, not based on selfishness, but on sowing generosity into our community (when was the last time you tipped the pizza delivery guy)? When was the last time you risked it all for the sake of Christ? If I have to answer honestly, and I do, it has been a while since I’ve done some of these things. I have made my own little wall. Fear drives us to hold onto our lives and our possessions so tightly that we become the white washed tombs that Jesus has so much disdain for. This year I challenge you to choose. If God is God, then follow him with everything that you have, knowing that at times the risks look great indeed. If, in your mind, God isn’t who He claims to be then make sure before you walk away, but don’t sit on a wall you might have constructed thinking that you are doing well. The tank that is coming, sooner rather than later, is a doosie.