I was reading this article recently, and it got me thinking.

First of all, it got me thinking that the guy in the photo at the top of the article looks as though his face has been ‘photoshopped’ on, but I don’t know why that would be the case. Perhaps he’s a really effective special forces type, and needs to disguise his identity so that terrorists don’t come and assassinate him. That would be a bit of a bummer for the guy whose face they used to cover him up though. The poor bloke would be wandering around the shops one day, and BANG… they’d have got him. Before that though, it might be kind of cool. People (who had seen the article) would always be coming up to him and asking him what it was like being a soldier and things like that, and he’d have to just say “oh, it’s nothing, really”, so that he didn’t give away any secret information, like the fact that he’s actually not a soldier at all.

Anyway, once I’d finished thinking about that (it took a while, actually), I got thinking about a conversation I’d had recently about whether war was ever justified, and if so, how ‘much’.

I know that there are loads of wars in the Old Testament, and that God seems to be quite pleased when His people fight various other nations that aren’t doing what He wants them to. I’m never quite certain whether He’d told them specifically that He wasn’t happy with their actions, or whether they were just supposed to get the message when all those Jewish people started chucking spears at them. If someone threw a spear at me, I think that I’d deduce fairly quickly that they weren’t too fond of me.

Then in the New Testament, Jesus says that he’s fulfilled the law (that the Old Testament revolves around), and then most of the things he teaches about are to do with being peaceful, and gentle, and things like that. I’d say that it’s fairly hard to be gentle when you’re shoving a sword into someone, but perhaps if you’re aiming at them with a rifle from a distance, you could say nice things about them while you pull the trigger.

In any case, there are fairly horrible things happening around the world most of the time, often involving people who are fairly determined to kill, maim, or otherwise negatively affect the people around them. As 21st century Western Christians we’re usually told to pray for the situation, and we (I?) tend to just offer up a couple of mumbled phrases which usually involve asking God to ‘intervene’ or ‘let His will be done’. Once I’ve ‘discharged my responsibility’ in this way, I move on to the really important things happening, like working out what I want for dinner, or finding a certain song on iTunes.

Obviously if I’m not actually in the same area as the horrible violence I can’t do anything about it, other than to pray that God would stop it somehow. But what if I was?

What if I saw a person beating a helpless child, and couldn’t restrain them, so had to punch them, and they ended up badly hurt?

Would that be Christlike?

What if I was standing around, and suddenly a whole group of people started attacking another group of people right in front of me? And what if I had a weapon of some sort, and (after yelling, and trying to verbally convince them, but failing) was actually able to use it to injure the ‘aggressors’, so that they would have to stop their attack?

Would that be Christlike?

If we pray that genocide in Africa would end, what if the way that God answered that prayer was to send in an army of ‘peacekeepers’, who ended up fighting with, and killing many of the people who had committed the genocide? Would we prefer that none of the peacekeepers were Christians, so that they wouldn’t have to break any of Jesus’ commands, but that the result would be the same anyway?

Should a Christian person join the military, knowing that (either directly, or indirectly) they might potentially be involved in the deaths of other people?

If a person in the military needs to find out information from a person on the opposing side, and that the information might potentially save hundreds of lives, would it justified to harm the prisoner in any way to find that information out? Would it be worse for one person to be harmed to save a much larger group, or to sit back and pretend it wasn’t happening?

Basically, I haven’t made my mind up about all of this. I tend to drift from one end of the ‘pacifism spectrum’ to the other, often propelled by events that have occurred around me. I know that Jesus told Peter to put his sword away when he tried stopping his arrest in Gethsemene, but that was specifically related to Jesus’ mission and the cross. What if saving your own life isn’t your motivation, but saving the life of an innocent? Or (because of ‘original sin’, or anything else) is no one ever innocent, and therefore, no one is ever worth fighting to save?

I support Everton in the English Premier League, and this week we sold a player who never really got going for us in the few years we had him in the team. He struggled to get regular game time, and just never really seemed to fit into the side.

Despite all that, he had moments of real brilliance, and he seemed to be a really likeable guy. So in ‘memory’ of James McFadden, here are a couple of highlights, courtesy of my friend and yours - YouTube:

Goal vs Charlton in the last (?) minute of the game:

Goal vs France (for Scotland):

I hope he does well at Birmingham. They’re a low level side, who will be able to give him a good amount of playing time, which is what he wants. He could have easily just sat on the sidelines getting paid serious money to be a professional reserve, but he decided he’d rather go and get a regular game.

This happened last week, I started it, didn’t finish it, but will give it a go now…

So it’s been a big 24 hours for me, last night at about 6:30 I had to go to hospital, well I went to the medical centre first, but we’ll skip that bit.

So I got there at the right time as there wasn’t anyone in the waiting room and was ushered straight through. After the administration of a few drugs, some bloods being taken and them trying to rule out some things I finally got out of there at about 1am.

But alas it wasn’t over I was right back there about 9:30am.

More drugs, more doing nothing for hours etc. etc. Then got to go home about 6pm!

So what was the problem you ask?? Nat had a massive migraine, she had to stay in over night, wasn’t that fun at all.

A psalm of kingship.

This psalm particularly connects with me in how it describes God’s determination. What I mean by that is God’s certainty in what he plans he will do (”when I act who can reverse it?” Isa. 43:13). God installs his king in Zion. And he laughs at those who try to undermine what he has done (v4). He breaks them like iron, dashes them to pieces like pottery (v9). It is clear that God is in control and his plans cannot be thwarted.

I like the imagery, but it’s almost cheesy because it’s been done so many times in action films. You know the scene: small tough guy fights big tough guy. small tough guy throws everything he has at big tough guy, but big tough guy just laughs and then smashes little tough guy into a pulp because he was no match…

I find this psalm a great comfort to my faith, because it’s obviously talking about Jesus as God’s annointed king (Messiah), and God has made Jesus our certain hope. Even when the nations conspire against him, when they want to free themselves from his rule, they cannot. And so the application is to fear the Lord - be in a relationship with him, with his son, his annointed. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

I think I would find this psalm a useful prayer in those situations where i feel like my faith is being undermined, or those days when everyone just seems to be attacking the credibility of Jesus or the certainty and strength of God.

A psalm of wisdom and confidence.

What particularly conncts with me is the image that the one who is righteous is like ”a tree planted by streams of water”. The psalm starts with “blessed are those…”, and the tree is truly blessed. It has a close supply of water which enables it to produce it’s fruit in season and keep it’s leaf green. And the righteous - “what ever they do prospers”. But does this mean that the righteous never suffer? If it does than this psalm was obviously written by someone who lived in a bubble… And here is where the image really speaks to me. It’s not that the tree will never be buffetted by bad weather or live through drought, but that the tree planted by a stream has the resources to continue through life’s difficulties, and has been prepared and strengthened for hard times ahead.

The tree reminds me of OT characters like Joseph and Daniel. The Bible records that Joseph prospered in all that he did because the Lord was with him (eg. Gen. 39:3-4) yet Joseph still faced hard times - sold into slavery, falsly accussed of rape, imprisoned etc. Daniel also had similar experiences (Dan. 6), but they each had the resources to continue through the hard times trusting in God.

In my own life I can see the things God has prospered from my hands by his graciousness, and also the hard times that God sustained me through (some hard times were self inflicted…). And I think this psalm will be a useful prayer in those situations where I’m seeking inspiration to live a holy life.

A couple of challenges from this psalm…

• Take more delight in God’s word.
• Soak it up day and night.
• Don’t buy into the ideologies of the wicked or go about life as they do - remeber that the way of the wicked in not lasting.

In order to help my struggling prayer life at the moment, I’ve decided to get back into the habit of reading a psalm a day (which I’ve always enjoyed and found useful, but have recently let slide…).

And as an extra benefit, I’ve decided to blog a little reflection on the psalm I read.

Things like (but not limited to)…

• What type of psalm do I think this is?
• What particularly connects with me in this psalm?
• How does the imagery help me express myself to God?
• In what situations would I find this psalm as a useful prayer?

We’ll see how this goes and you can keep me accountable or do it with me!

So I’m back in town, and back into the swing of things.

The house we stayed in was really nice, just across the road from the beach with very nice views of the ocean and an island (which was pretty much in the ocean). On our first trip to the beach I caught my first ever fish (it was a ‘respectable’ whiting, according to the family fisher-types), which we then cooked and ate. The following evening I caught a crab on my line, which bit Nadia and then scurried off to safety back in the ocean. Jamie caught a flathead around the same time as my crab was making his dash for freedom, but apart from that our rods were barren for the rest of the week (although we did get some abalone which tasted pretty good).

I managed to get in quite a few swims, some kayaking, a decent run (which produced a number of blisters because I ran in shoes without wearing socks), quite a few walks, some board games (I love my new Christmas (no x-mas’ here, Michael, although I do like the look of ‘x-mas’, because it looks like the name of a superhero or something) copy of Risk), quite a bit of guitar playing, and plenty of reading. All in all, a very relaxing time away, with loads of good food and drink, and nice time with the family.

I made the trip home alone so that I could get back to work, and Vanessa has stayed with the family for a couple more days. I expected to be tired after the drive, but instead managed to get the washing done, catch up with a few friends, then ended up getting Thai takeaway (Kee Mao noodles with duck, one of my favourites) and a couple of DVDs (Shooter and 300) with a friend. The downside to this was that we didn’t finish watching 300 until about 1am, and then I had to get up early this morning for work, so I may have undone all that good relaxing… especially seeing as tonight I just got home from seeing Kings of Leon (who were pretty darn good) at the Hordern (which has been significantly tarted up since I last saw a band there).

Ok… Essay question…

From a christian perspective, “Xmas” is a perfectly suitable abreviated substitute for “Christmas”.

Discuss.

I must say, i was quite precious about the whole thing up until recently. I ran with the whole “it’s taking the Christ out of Christmas” line, but then it was pointed out to me that “X” is the letter “Chi” (pronounced kai) in the Greek alphabet, which has been used  as the short hand for Christ by christians for centuries… And then I thought to myself “self, why all the fuss?”.

However, when I used Xmas while writing prayer points on the board at youth group just before christmas, the youth group kids were horrified… I tried to explain the revelation I’d had, but… there just not ready for that one yet.

So I’ve been absent from the blog world for a while now… But I have been doing things.

I’ve managed to build myself a desk/office up in the youth room at church which folds away into a lockable cupboard so I can leave my stuff up there while other people use the room, niiiice!

Not only did I build the desk, but I managed to get wireless internet connected up there through a ’signal booster’ thingy that I bought off the net. I thought I was going to have to get dad up here to help me out, but my cognative problem solving skills came good in the end… even though I was just clicking buttons to try and get things to work…

I’ve also been preaching a bit, did the ‘carols in the park’ talk, played drums in the carols and did a gig at a nursing home (rock ‘n roll!), and went up to Coffs Harbour for a week to hang out with Fi’s sister & husband, which was all good.

All of a sudden it feels like I didn’t get much shutdown time over the new years break, and already things are speeding up again and I can already see next Christmas approaching… I’ve just gotta remember to not be busy, and spend more time relying on God/s grace, which I guess is really saying spend more time in prayer… something I’m not doing enough of lately.