God has a Dream

Holidays are usually a time for me to catch up on some reading or finish some of the books that I have been working through for a while. My Facebook virtual bookshelf currently only has 8 books listed as 'I want to read' so things seem currently to be under control.

This past week I have finished a great little book, 'God has a dream: A vision of hope for our time' by Desmond Tutu.

With just over 100 pages making up the main text of the book, there are some who could read this through in one sitting. And the language is certainly accessible enough for most people to be able to make sense of what Desmond Tutu is saying . You won't need a dictionary and a theology degree to access this work.

Others may take many days or weeks to read this book, as there is much, almost on every page to merit further reflection. Whether it is digging around a point you don't agree with, or meditating on topics like the love of God for you, or your part in God's dream you certainly benefit from not reading it through in one sitting.

Last year the best book I read was Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. This year I think this book by Desmond Tutu takes the title of my book of the year. Get a copy and dig in.

What really happened at Jericho

Not many military commanders would come up with the campaign strategy that we read of in Joshua 6. The approach to taking the city of Jericho was: 1) circumcise the whole army, 2) march around the city blowing trumpets and 3) after doing this for a week everyone was to shout. We are told that parts of the city wall were 20 feet thick and 25 feet high. Trumpets and shouting don't sound the best approach.

We thought we'd try it at church this morning on a smaller scale.



As you can see - nothing happened. Maybe we didn't march long enough or shout loud enough. Or maybe that was the whole point. God told Joshua in verse 2 that He was going to give them the city - they just had to be obedient to all of God's instructions. For this battle belonged to God.

What battles are you in at the moment? Are these battles that you should be in? 5:13-15 reminds us that God is not the sort of god who can be summoned on demand to give us success. Instead we should be getting involved in the struggles He is already involved in. And then we need to check that we're fighting our battles with God's weapons rather than the world's weapons. Ephesians 6:12 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 remind us that we are in a spiritual battle. And as disciples of Jesus we use the weapons of love rather than hatred and revenge, we look to be last rather than first, we seek first His kingdom rather than our own agenda... It might seem crazy at the time, but no more crazy than shouting at a wall and expecting it to fall down.

Past, Present and Future

One of the reasons people flocked to hear Jesus speak was because he gave them the hope and the dream that their future did not have to be defined by their past. Even the present need not define the future. Things don't need to go on being the way they are now.

In Joshua 5 God is preparing the people of Israel to go in and take the Promised Land. And in doing so He deals with their past, 'Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you'. It wasn't that they were to forget their past - for they were about to go on and celebrate the Passover, the annual reminder that they were slaves in Egypt and that God has rescued them. But because of what God had done they were no longer to allow themselves to be held back by the past. God had dealt with that past, and now they were on the brink of moving into something new.

God can deal with our past so that it no longer defines our future. Sometimes we get into destructive cycles of behaviour that are driven by past experiences and it seems that we are just unable to escape. We keep on making the same bad choices. We get into patterns of repeated failure. But it doesn't need to be that way.

How were the people of Israel about to leave their past behind and embrace a new future?

1. They re-dedicated themselves to God, so that He was reflected in their lives.
2. They remembered what God had done for them in the past, without allowing their past to hold them back.
3. They got on board with what God was doing rather than imagining that God was at their beck and call.

Remember, Remember

Have you ever forgotten anything important - like a birthday or other anniversary, or an important meeting or appointment? If I don't write things down in my diary as soon as they are fixed there is always the chance that I will forget. Then a few weeks down the road I will have the vague feeling that I should probably be somewhere - but no idea where I should be or what I should be doing. Thankfully with modern technology, between my PDA, my computer and my mobile phone along with a wall calendar most things get remembered - even if sometimes it isn't until the last minute.

So if we need to write things down in order to remember why is it that we often assume we will remember God's deeds in our lives with no written or other form of physical and visible reminder? In Joshua 4 the people were instructed by God to build a stone memorial which would act as a permanent reminder to them and their children, and to all other people, that God had dried up the Jordan allowing them to cross over on dry ground. So the stones would either act as a reminder to those who had forgotten the story, or would be a prompt for a quick history lesson for those who had never heard it in the first place.

As Christians we have the communion service (eucharist, mass, breaking of bread...) which acts as a physical and visible and regular reminder of Jesus' death on the cross for us and of his love for us. But are there things we could be doing to help us remember God's goodness in our lives?

We could keep a prayer diary - where we record our prayers and God's answers. As we look back through the pages, the weeks, and months we will see how God has answered our prayers.

We could keep photographs and combine them with verses of Scripture that remind us of significant events in our lives, where God has done something for us.

I have a small cross next to my bed, made out of a spent bullet cartridge, a reminder that the sacrificial love of Jesus conquers all, that love is greater than hate.

Maybe you have other creative, physical and visible reminders of God's love for you that you would like to share with us here.