Sow What - investing for the future

“The truth is, a kernel of wheat must be planted in the soil. Unless it dies it will be alone--a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who despise their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24,25 NLT


Last night I was chatting over Facebook with my good friend Tong in Thailand. We were working through some of the finer details in preparation for an upcoming ministry exposure and equipping trip to Australia for Tong and a team of emerging Thai leaders this October. Looking forward to that!

We also chatted about some of the ongoing challenges that are associated with investing into an emerging generation of young people as we seek to develop healthy disciple-making teams, processes and programs; agreeing that it can be difficult, and as this is a spiritual endeavour then it seems that whenever God opens a door for effective ministry this somehow invites various degrees of opposition, confusion and even persecution.

As I think about my recent dialogue with Tong I’m reminded of the incredible sacrifices he (and others on his team) make to stand up for Jesus, to support and shepherd the local youth, to liaise with church leaders and parents, to visit local high schools, to build into young lives – doing whatever it takes to invest personally into a generation of young Thai’s in order that they may come to know and follow Jesus.

This also reminds me of the words and example of Jesus, especially in terms of personal sacrifice. Not long before making the ultimate sacrifice Jesus said; “The truth is, a kernel of wheat must be planted in the soil. Unless it dies it will be alone--a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives.” (John 12:24)

The point Jesus seems to be making is this; as the germ of life in a grain of wheat can only pass into other grains by departing from the original grain and leaving it dead, so too, the life which was in Jesus could only pass into his disciples by his death.

In vs 25 Jesus goes on to say; “Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who despise their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

The point…the principle here…? It has to do with what we might call the law of growth. That is, if a grain of wheat were to saves itself, it would remain but one grain until it rots; but if it is sown into the ground, and yields up its life-germ as a sacrifice to the law of growth, it then multiplies itself thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold and continues its multiplication through succeeding generations…

The implications for the true believer here are huge.

If we want to get serious about impacting our local community landscape for Jesus, then we’ve simply got to be prepared to die to self; to sacrifice self; being willing to yield our self, our personal agendas, personal comforts, even our own preferences and traditions we might be used to, to invest ourselves into the soil, to effect the law of growth and so produce a harvest of new lives.

If we want our lives to count for something beyond the moment and beyond ourselves (I tick the 'yes' box here) then may God motivate us to get serious about sowing into PEOPLE...sowing deep into people’s lives, whatever the cost.

I’ll continue to be praying for Tong and his team in this regard…

Being present in the moment

I recently finished reading Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. I was kindly given this book by a friend in the USA a few years ago and it has been sitting on a shelf since then. I found it a timely read. I particularly warmed to the thoughts contained in Chapter 11, The Geography of Nowhere (read “Nowhere” to mean now/here.)

Manning writes; “To be fully present to whoever or whatever is immediately before us is to pitch a tent in the wilderness of Nowhere. It is an act of radical trust – trust that God can be encountered at no other time and in no other place than the present moment. Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life.”

He goes on to say; “Real living is not about words, concepts and abstractions but about experience of who or what is immediately before us.”

Manning contends that being preoccupied with the past and future at the expense of the present (being “immersed in the ordinary”) means that we’re not living at all.

I’m doing what I can to be a little more intentionally present in the moments of daily life; asking God to help me hone my skills in becoming a more active listener to what is happening in and around me, especially in those more mundane, ordinary and routine experiences.

Lord, please help me to pay attention to what is happening around me and to respond appropriately…today.

Signs & Wonders

Another memorable experience from my recent time away with the Huddleston lads in Buchan...

One afternoon we decided to go for a drive to explore the region beyond the park where we were staying. We had a local map and agreed to head towards the Basin Creek Falls, situated alongside the Snowy River.

The map indicated that in order to get to the Falls car park and walking trail we’d need to travel along an unsealed road for a few km’s (road was suitable for tourist sightseeing and no 4WD’s necessary).

As we wound our way towards the Falls we enjoyed spectacular views of the Snowy River from a distance. We soon came to a place where a “blank” wooden sign was located on the side of the road. There were no other vehicles in the vicinity and the unsealed road continued on ahead, down a hill with a reasonable slope.

What to do..? We agreed not to stop at the sign and to proceed cautiously ahead down the road, hopeful of arriving at the Basin Creek Falls car park and walking track shortly. As we proceeded beyond the sign I could see from my rearview mirror some wording on the reverse side of the sign. You can probably guess what it said. It said; Basin Creek falls. Go figure?!

By now we had pretty much gone past the point of no return. The road was narrow, winding, unstable and uneven – not exactly ideal for our trusty Mitsubishi Starwagon!

Slowly moving forward (and downhill) I looked for a suitable place to turn around our van. This was getting more challenging and after another 50 meters or so we could see water flowing steadily across the road. Beyond the water (how deep was it?), was a rather steep embankment. I knew it would be foolish to attempt to drive over this in our van.

It was at this point that the boys worked it out (I thought it best to wait and see if they would discover for themselves what I had realised only a few minutes earlier). This track was clearly not the way to the Falls. Someone must have thought they’d play a prank and had chosen to remove the sign at top of the hill and turn it around – not really funny and potentially dangerous for other unsuspecting drivers.

Thankfully I was able to turn the van around and make the return journey slowly back up and along the road we had been driving along. We arrived safely at the sign and parked on the side of the road. As we walked over to the sign I asked Scott to give me hand to see if we could lift it out, turn it around and place it back in the ground – the right way around. It fitted perfectly!

As we looked further beyond the sign we could see a small walking track that headed down the side of the hill towards the Snowy River. We agreed to follow the track. The initial few minutes of our hike made for some fascinating discussion about what we had just experienced. A number of major insights surfaced as we walked and talked together.

1) It was wrong of someone to have turned the sign around and it could have put other people and their vehicles at risk of injury and damage. We concluded that there are people in this world who choose to do the wrong thing, even if it means placing others in danger.
2) We chose to do something that was right. We simply turned the sign around and positioned it in it’s correct place.
3) Life has it’s fair share of signs and paths to follow. Some paths are safer than others. There will be times when we will be confronted with choices that can lead us in different directions. Hopefully we will make the right choices.

We eventually arrived at the Basin Creek Falls. It was worth the journey. We also enjoyed standing at the edge of the Snowy River and looking out across some truly majestic scenery.

It was soon time to head back along the path, up the hill to our van. About half way up we came across two people who were coming our way, down the hill towards the Falls. We greeted them and proceeded along the path to our van. Meeting this couple served to remind us of our earlier encounter with the sign. The boys were able to reflect a few more in-the-moment insights…”It’s good that we turned that sign around…it helped those people find the right path…just imagine what might have happened to anyone else out here if the sign hadn’t been turned the right way around.”

Outdoor education...way to go!

Darkness and Light

I’ve been enjoying a two week break which has included a few fun days away with our three boys Scott, Tim and Liam. We stayed in a small cabin in Buchan Caves Reserve,360km East of Melbourne. The weather was fine and chilly and we had a great time exploring the region together – our senses were treated to some incredibly diverse expressions of God’s creation.

One of our goals for the trip was to experience the (underground) adventure of touring the Royal and Fairy caves in Buchan. These two caves are open to the public and are situated amongst a honeycomb of different caves featuring some spectacular limestone formations formed by underground rivers cutting through limestone rock. We really enjoyed both tours and appreciated gaining insights into the history of these caves and their discovery over 100 hundred years ago.

Towards the end of our Royal cave tour our guide said something that captured my attention, big time. She said that if she was to turn off the cave lighting we would find ourselves surrounded by complete darkness, and that in only 15 minutes, with no reference point to focus on, we would each lose our balance and most likely fall over, as we stumbled around in the dark.

To help us gain a greater understanding of this point the guide then flicked off the switch and we along with around 25 other tourists could not see a thing; it was completely dark – there was no light source anywhere – pretty confronting! Thankfully, after another 30 seconds or so (it seemed longer) the LED cave lights were switched back on – quite a relief to one and all.

Since that experience I have been thinking about those words from our guide; “Left in total darkness, with no reference point to focus on, within 15 minutes we would each lose our balance.”

Several spiritual insights come to mind;

1) Jesus is the Light of the world – whoever follows Him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (John 8:12)

2) There is a whole world of people out there who are stumbling around in the darkness, living un-balanced lives because they have no true reference point (Jesus) to focus on.

3) God calls His people to be light-bearers; allowing our lives to shine before others. (Matthew 5:14-16)

4) The Bible makes it clear that Jesus is our Perfect reference point – we’re called to fix our eyes on Him. (Hebrews 12:2)

5) As children of light, Christians are urged to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather to expose them. (Ephesians 5:8-11) I’m wondering what this looks like in reality…

The boys and I gained some really valuable insights during our time away in Buchan.

I hope to share a few more of these in the days ahead.