Sentience

Body, mind and emotions… Is that all that we are? We possess the ability to think and to feel. We experience a range of emotions while responding to our environment; and with each experience, we are able to develop a level of subjectivity, to inform our judgements. The decisions we make about ourselves, help us to determine our feelings and the expectations we have of life; helping us to control our perceptions of what matters to us.

Our emotions can change with our moods. The positivity we feel about the situations we face, can determine our attitudes towards the decisions we need to make. Some people can endure hardship because they recognise and are accepting of the fact that life, isn't always going to be like a box of chocolates. Life perhaps, is something that has to be borne on our shoulders; a burden that we must somehow bear; in some kind of cosmological struggle for identity and purpose.

Others can see life as one opportunity after another, where there are endless possibilities available to those willing to take risks. Our sentience determines our ability to respond to the many different aspects of life, perhaps guided by the characteristics of our psychological make-up such as our creativity, intelligence, sapience, self-awareness or intentionality. Our ability to reason, is indicative of our desire to find within ourselves and our surroundings, a sense of purpose and place within our communities and indeed, the universe itself. Is the human race and the earth, the centre of life as we know it? Or... are we simply, small insignificant beings on an inconspicuous planet, particularly when we compare ourselves to the vastness of the cosmos?

And where does our consciousness fit in? Do we indeed, have one? How do we determine whether a course of action is good for us or indeed, bad for us? Perhaps there is an internal memory bank from our ancestors to which we can measure our responses to. Do we learn to make responses to certain causes, behaviourally, or is there something bigger at work? We know that some actions are bad for us and some are beneficial to us... perhaps we are aware of the inherent dangers associated with risky ventures? Maybe there is after all, an inner ethical or moral centre, which is prevalent to humanity, determining our actions for good, or for bad?

Perhaps we have become so intelligent, that we are able to determine within our own sense of well-being, an implicit trust in our ability to comprehend life. Some might argue that we certainly don't need some external source, such as God, to help us determine our course. Is our ability to reason who we are, understand what we are, or even explain why we exist at all, enough for us to have a sense of purpose? Are we so certain of our intellectual centeredness as a species, that we can comprehend that we stand alone in the universe, except for potential extra terrestrials; living out this ‘one-life’ on a planet that is hurtling at great speed through the fabric of space and time.

Perhaps we can circumvent the subjectivity of life, with all of its mixed feelings and volatile emotions, in favour of an objective truth about the nature of our existence? When we live objectively, we can hold to things which we know are true, despite how we might feel about them. This type of living would be unbiased because truth cannot be ignored on a whim of metaphysical emotion, when we hold to a true pragmatic or naturalistic view of the observed world. If the action or behaviour is observable and repeatable, it can be measured… the information gathered can be analysed and a model for acting or behaving can be formulated from the data. This model then becomes our basis for a hypothesis for how mankind could interact with each other.

What would happen however, if our ability to perceive what is true, had become corrupted in some way? What happens then? If you look at life objectively but when you do, you are filled with uncontrollable emotions that you cannot process rationally... what can you do? If you can rationally determine that certain actions or behaviours are going to cause you problems, yet you cannot break the cycle you find yourself in, how do you cope? In all of us, there are certain thoughts and actions which we need to control whilst there are others which we cannot control, becoming almost compulsive in nature, like driving a steam roller, over everything we have tried to build-up as good in our lives.

Some of our thoughts and actions are learned or are indeed, behavioural in nature and nurture. While other thoughts, emotions and reactions, can be the result of a chemical imbalance or a random, chaotic, brain function; occurring when certain feelings such as anxiety or paranoia arise to trigger them. When either of these conditions do exist, and we are unable to process our emotions or our thoughts, we are led into making impulsive, unexplained or irrational behaviours, where we can often feel out of control, 'like a run-away car with no brakes'.

Indeed, if I was sheltering from a separatist militia group in Ukraine, Africa or Iraq right now, I would have a restless night’s sleep, waking to every sound, and fearful for my very life. With the bombs landing ever closer to where we slept, I would wake each day slightly more frazzled than the day before, until I could take no more and succumb to whatever paranoia best suited my emotional coping mechanism.

We don’t have to be in a war zone to experience such anxiety, as we can be fearful of many things, particularly those areas of our lives where we think we are unsafe, or that the situation is out of our control. Indeed, as we try to hold onto some sense of normality, we can easily feed our own paranoia, seeing threat when there is none. Anxiety disorders are one of many debilitating conditions that we can face within the sanctity of our mind. No matter how many times we might tell ourselves ‘it’s just our nerves,’ the churning in your stomach never seems to leave, causing you to disregard any notion of nobility or intelligence.

It is in moments like these, that your identity is stolen with each anxious thought, as each pang of adrenaline that your body serves up, puts you into a fresh state of ‘flight’. Overwhelming emotions and physical manifestation’s, distort our rational self, by feeding our primeval impulses to run from the perceived danger. We can be so preoccupied by what we think and feel, that we react uncharacteristically to what is going on around us. But what if the perceived danger is not physical but in your mind, shaping your worldview, reinforcing your fears?

There is a classic analogy of this dichotomy of emotions, in the image of the swan swimming on a still lake. This is the image that we want others to have of ourselves, hiding the effort it takes for us to maintain our perception of self, mirrored not by the effortless grace of the swan on the surface of the waters but rather, what goes on underneath. In order to swim serenely across the lake, the feet of the swan are moving furiously under the water. Yet to our eye at least, the swan moves serenely through the water, without any apparent effort. Like the swan, we all carry some hidden pain or possess some kind of inner unease, which demands some degree of emotional expenditure. We might look perfectly at ease on the outside, but behind the façade, our fears remain.

I tend to prefer the idea that one day, all of my inner emotional unrest will be resolved but, for the moment, I push it down below the surface and learn to adapt. There will be a time however, like the explosion of the ‘Ghostbusters’ containment unit, where our emotional capacity is filled-to-bursting and we cannot process any more heartache; we are simply going to blow-up emotionally. Unfortunately, the mess from this fall-out, can leave us in a worse place than when we began. To naïvely push away our irreconcilable emotions and not deal with the cause, is a story we can all add our colours to.

"Developing a spiritual life, perhaps even in God, but most certainly in something bigger than ourselves, increases our psychological awareness of the struggle that goes on deep within us. For the Christian, faith in God is relational in that it is a measure of how we integrate our understanding and experience of God, into our everyday routines."

When we get up in the morning, feeling groggy and sleepy; waking up from our slumber with the shock of the morning and the dawning realisation of the day’s activities beginning to weigh heavily on our minds, we can think of any number or things we must do, rather than focus our attention on what God might want to do with us today. All we can do is groan inwardly at what we may have to endure. Unless of course we know that the day has a special emphasis or that you will be going to an event that lifts our spirits and transforms the mundane day-to-day activity, into an obstacle that has to be endured, in order to attain that special something.

What if we viewed our relationship with God as that special something, rather than the groggy, sleepy relationship we think we have with God? Transforming our mundane life, into an ever broadening sense of opportunity by seeking out more of God’s grace and favour, is something that grows in every Christian as we experience more of his love in our lives. If we lived our lives with an awareness that we possess the power and authority to set people free from sin, heal sickness and free people from spiritual oppression, we may approach life and each other differently. To have faith in God means to believe, to rely on and to trust in his favour towards us so that with confidence, we can accept the things that may at first glance, be insurmountable.

The only problem with this, is that people are unreliable or are untrustworthy in how they deal with their emotions, whereas God isn't. So within ourselves, knowing our own nature, we can learn to distrust our own instincts to do what our emotions are telling us to do, in favour of what we have learned. What we have learned about ourselves and how we think of God, skews our perspectives of the world we exist in, for good or for bad. We can become sceptical of what could happen, even when God has already revealed his plan to prosper us and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11).

We can read in the Bible, all that God has achieved for the salvation of humanity through the death of his Son, Jesus, believing he died on the cross for someone else rather than for us. We read of how Jesus healed the sick, made the lame walk, helped the blind see, the deaf hear and those possessed by evil spirits are set free. Yet somehow, we think this was all for another time or season and that we are undeserving of this favour today? But we would be wrong to think that.

We may believe that God heals and may even have experienced healing ourselves. We may also have confidence when praying for others but often we do not always feel sanctioned to see fruit from our efforts. We may find ourselves making excuses for any absence of healing or make suggestions as to why in the natural sense, the healing didn't take place. When we do witness healing, we almost assign the success to some magical power that is unexpected and surprising but this isn't any real kind of real faith.

Faith is expressed in our weakness, rather than our strength. “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. (2 Corinthians 12: 9, NLT). 


When we think that it is our own prayers or even our own faith in God that heals, we can start to think that we are somehow involved in the healing process and possess some special power ourselves. Perhaps it is the faith of the one being prayed for, that determines the level of success in healing rather than anything that we can do? 

That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10, NLT)

The hardest part of praying for someone is when there is no apparent change in the person’s condition. When you ask the question, ‘Is there any change?’ or when you use the Robby Dawkins technique of getting the person to number the pain before and after, with little or no change, it is too easy to get trapped in the question of why? Sure, the person came forward for prayer and you were emboldened by the spirit to pray. Yet, when no apparent healing occurs, it is awkward. We understand that it is not about their faith or indeed, our faith rather, it has more to do with God’s timing and purposes.

Somehow, praying for a friends bad back or aching knee, seems less risky than some of the more serious illnesses we know about, yet I have friends who have experienced healing from severe medical conditions, often in combination with medical treatment. In my own life, I came through a skin cancer scare with corrective surgery and no other complications. Similarly, I have experienced Gods intervention when I suffered from an infected mastoid cavity in my right ear. I was due to have a third piece of corrective surgery, where the surgeon would cut my right ear off and stick it to my cheek. He would then remove the infected mastoid bone, clean it and apply a skin graft, before stitching it all back together. When I awoke from surgery, the consultant gleefully declared that he hadn't needed to carry out the scheduled surgery, due to all signs of the infection seemingly gone.

My small group had been praying about my condition for a month or so before the operation, laying-on-hands to my infected ear and asking for Gods help in bringing healing but more importantly, to save me from having to endure this procedure. The cynic will always demand specific proof of these medical transformations, even discounting them in favour of accepting that the conditions were not quite what was described. When we look at Mental health issues, healing is perhaps not so easy to quantify or that the process of healing is not seemingly as instantaneous. A friend of mine has been taking medication for paranoid schizophrenia for many years, developing a tick with his neck from the side effects of the drug. The tick/twitch was being treated with Botox. The medical staff were effectively trying to kill the twitching muscle in order to maintain steady head movements.

After a while, the Botox treatment didn't work either. Praying for his condition, I discerned that there was more going on in his character than the physical conditions that caused the tick. Through my friendship with him, I became aware of some of the psychological and emotional strains that he endured. These insights informed my prayer and developed my understanding of what I thought God was doing. It became obvious that these deeper issues were the cause of his tick, rather than the defective neck muscles that were caused by the side effect to his medication. It was also apparent that my friend was not in a position to be able to move beyond the physical condition, casting out of hand, any idea that there may be a psychological connection to his problem and so, he hasn't been healed...yet!

How might you feel if you had become physically and emotionally exhausted from the exertion of battling the demons in your own head? What if you grew to realise that the happiness you derived from life, was somehow related to the way you feel about yourself and yet, there seemed to be nothing that you can do about the negativity you feel? In this emotional state, reason and logic are totally overridden by irrational thoughts and seemingly uncontrollable emotions? Locked into a cycle of never being good enough or worthy enough to expect happiness, we prefer instead to feel as though you must always be trying harder, being better organised, being better at meeting people’s needs… life becomes a must try harder ‘to-do list’, which can never truly be accomplished.

This can suck the joy right out of living our lives to the full, when we become so blinkered by our to-do lists that we forget to live. Time too… where does that go? I am so busy with work, family and church that social time can be a little awkward as I don’t have time for it. Out of the house at 7.15am for a 50min commute, stuck inside all day, eating lunch on the go and finally getting in the car at 5.45pm for the 12 mile journey home that takes 70 minutes to commute. Saturday morning is football with my son before chores around the house, Mum and Dad’s taxi service in the evening, church on Sunday from 9.00am to 1.30pm, before preparation for work in the afternoon, tea and bed. Gosh, life can be so routine, so grey. It’s no wonder people develop the blues or sadly, slip into depression when life gets on-top-of-us. I am not trying to sound flippant here. Life can be hard, with little reward.

Without God as a reference to our lives, alone in our own sense of self, feeling as though we are fighting a battle by ourselves, it is up to us to find within ourselves, the source of our inner turmoil. Counsellors can help us talk through our emotions in order for us to learn to understand who we are and why we act as we do. Medication can be used to balance the neural pathways which cause a variety of conditions that affect our sense of peace… diazepam, venlafaxine and pregabalin, being some of the drugs that I am familiar with, given to treat the effects of depression and anxiety.

It is thought that antidepressants work by increasing the levels of a group of chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. Certain neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and noradrenaline, can improve mood and emotion, although this process is not fully understood. Increasing levels of neurotransmitters can also disrupt pain signals sent by nerves, which may explain why some antidepressants can help relieve long-term pain. While antidepressants can help treat the symptoms of depression, they do not always address its causes. This is why they are usually used in combination with therapy to treat more severe depression or other mental health conditions caused by emotional distress.

The UK now has the seventh highest prescribing rate for antidepressants in the Western world, with around four million Britons taking them each year - twice as many as a decade ago.The new statistics from the Health and Social Care Information Center, show NHS spending on the drugs rose by 33.6 per cent last year, to £282 million. Mental health charities said they were concerned that people suffering from depression were being given drugs because other help – such as counselling, which was sometimes more appropriate – was not available. (The Telegraph, 9th July, 2014)

For our emotional well-being, it is important to understand the things that drive our ambition, the inhibitions we experience, and the journey that we have walked, all contribute to how we feel. The naturalist would make the claim that our response to life is governed by our genetic heritage, which promotes its own survival and replication. In other words, genes that do well, spread through a population because they, in a sense, want to further their own chances of survival. 

"Genes of course, do not have any thoughts, feelings or desires, conscious or unconscious, so we should rephrase this: successful genes operate as if they are self-interested entities, but even this term suggests that genes in and of themselves, have a sense of purpose outside of the control of the mind. We could in fact characterize people as organic machines, created to enhance the chances of the genes’ successful transfer to the next generation."

But how does the gene mutate in the human body? How does our brain remember a beneficial action before using a protein marker to dope our genes? How does the new gene filter into the genetic material of the sperm or egg within a person’s reproductive cycle? How do the proteins encode the DNA of our genetic material as we live and breathe in the now, in order to influence our offspring? Would my children be somehow different, if I had waited for my genome mutation to be at its peak; to have them later in life? Perhaps this line of questioning reveals my lack of education when it comes to understanding the science? Probably it does, I don’t know.

What my questions do reveal, is that I feel a bit incredulous when we assign rational, emotive, human traits to genetic material. Similar to the psychiatrist who tries to treat mental health illness with antidepressants which alter the neurotransmitters in the brain, the naturalist believes that our bodies condition themselves for a more successful person in the next generation. But what about my life now? What went wrong…? I mean surely, we would all be the equivalent of Hollywood A-Lister’s with great teeth by now, if our genes were mutating in order to improve our life chances? Sadly, our genes tend to mutate for the worst of reasons… like a cancer reminding us of our own mortality.

None of these questions bring comfort to those riddled with infection, battling disease, battling cancer, living in conflict zones, or enslaved into prostitution. Are the less fortunate inclined to become victims of consequence due to their genetic ancestry? I don’t think so... men do these things. Do we really suffer life’s fate as some believe, from some obscure sense of the survival of the fittest, fought via social engineering, poverty or genocide? There is however, only one true cause of our misfortune… the human condition itself.

Why would a Holy God full of goodness, allow so much evil and suffering in the world? Surely in a moment, he can put all things right? 

God exist out of time, living beyond our reality. He knows our future and our past as though it is only one moment in our understanding of time, so why doesn't he step in and help? Perhaps this is because there is a human quality within each of us that God honours, our freewill. Humanity is Gods’ creation but unlike the angels and the heavenly host, we possess the quality of self-determination, which they do not. The angels obediently do God’s will… they are compelled to serve God because they were created to do so. Humans were created for a whole different purpose because we were birthed within the relationship between the Father and the Son.

Humanity was created to honour God in his creation, as it's crowning glory; to worship God as creator while crediting him with that accolade by the way we choose to live out our lives as caretakers of the planet. With the planet in our custody, we were led astray by a corrupt angel, whom we refer to as Satan or the devil. His purpose was to attempt to tear down God and his creation. So, if in the holiest place we know to exist, heaven, God’s sovereignty and grace could be challenged by a fallen angel, how much more so here on the earth... humanity with his ability to self determine his choices, can oppose God? The disease of rebellion that Satan birthed in Adam and Eve, leads to death; for us to question God himself, reveals the nature of man. Through the Holy Spirit, God is alive within each one of us, until he completes his rescue plan when Jesus returns to the earth. He will come not as a child, but as a Redeemer King.

"So we are left with a choice. Do we go the way of the world in its corruption, disease, warfare, inequality, religion..? We could completely reject God as sovereign because of our emotional pain and the suffering we directly or indirectly experience. However, these are not God’s ways; this is the way of humanity, corrupted by Satan’s ways. It is humanity that choses to go to war; inequality and persecution can even incite war from the most peaceful of people hoping for a better life – for freedom; the protection of our homes and the need for peaceful co-existence can either stoke-up war by reinforcing our artificial national borders or we can use the threat of war to create an uneasy calm."

You may right now, be in the middle of immense emotional pain through the death of a loved one or through the trauma of battling a life ‘robbing’ illness, whether it be your physical or your mental health. You may be saying to yourself, ‘I don’t care that God has a plan for me and might be trying to teach me something about life...' You may be dis-interested in God revealing himself to you, through some fresh insight about his nature because 'life right now sucks…’ let me tell you, GOD KNOWS. He is right in there, letting you choose to either cling on by your fingertips for some glimmer of hope or to lose all hope. You might not feel him right now in the midst of your pain but he is routing for you. The Psalms are full of men and women of God, lamenting in their hearts, the situations that they were facing, grief stricken and broken, calling out: ‘Where are you God?’ 

If you believe that this one life really is it… then what can console you? Can comfort be found when we exercise faith by placing our trust in him? Of course it can. Jesus was flogged to the brink of death… carried his own cross to his own crucifixion, and was nailed through his hands and feet, whilst being publicly humiliated and spat upon. Whatever it is that you are going through right now, God has been there… LOVE WINS. Jesus is the only hope we have for release from our current condition because he was raised from the dead. Our bodies may be ravished by cancer, ME, or Alzheimer’s but GOD WINS. We are born again through our belief in the Son, Jesus.

At the beginning of our civilisation, our bodies would have been genetically pure and free from disease yet today, genetic defects, infertility and the threat of disease, dominate modern lives. Let us stop using the rather tired argument that it is God’s fault that these things happen. Let’s try to explore this sentiment by using a less emotive topic as an illustration. It was reported in the UK, that up to 8 in 10 supermarket chickens contain bugs prevalent to the causes of food poisoning (the Guardian, 27^th Nov 14). Our observation of this fact would reveal that we as a people, elect a government to control farming methods and protect public health, yet we fail to bring them to account when malpractice arises in their role of monitoring the sale of goods for human consumption.

If we are disinterested in this problem or don’t care either way, you display apathy where diligence is required. We depend on food hygiene standards for the quality of our food, our health and well-being, as well as our mortality. Many die each year from food poisoning. Similarly, we can have the same attitude towards God. We know that there is a benchmark by which we should live, just as the supermarkets know what their responsibilities are to the consumer. Yet like the procedures the supermarkets have forgotten to enforce, we too have become corrupted in some way. We choose to ignore that knowing feeling, deep down inside, which warns us of danger, hoping it might sort itself out. We must, therefore, be careful when we try to blame God for his apparent inaction during the major traumas occurring around the world and in our own lives, if we posses this kind of attitude. So tell me, why is that?

We could agree with the independent scientists, that the government should be doing more by conducting more regular and more robust procedures to reduce the number of people who fall ill after handling and/or consuming the contaminated chicken. Just as we might ask God to do more. When the church tells society that changing the law of the land would lead to further complications later, it is ignored or rebuffed as prejudiced or intolerant at best, so how do we expect supermarkets to work by the rules? 


We all want to do our own thing. We may take the position that as we had not become ill, we do not really care about this issue; you might say, "I’m vegetarian, serves you right for mistreating animals!" Or we may be resigned to the fact these ‘kind-of-things’ will happen, feeling powerless to do anything about it. Some may be compelled to campaign against the industry for better standards, while others will feel empowered to gain the necessary skills needed to work in the food safety sector for the benefit of all, as a public servant.

So what about God? Has he done anything? 

Well, somebody ill somewhere in the UK, will have asked for prayer over an upset stomach! Seriously though, God has put his plan in place. He has actively intervened in the affairs of humanity through his son, Jesus. Before you dismiss this completely, Jesus’ actions would have labelled him today as a religious and political activist, even if you do not believe in his divinity. He was a radical. He challenged the fabric of Jewish society and told his disciples to go out into all the world to tell his story to everyone else who would listen. It wasn't a coincidence that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem at the height of the Roman Empire, where his story could be spread to all corners of the globe.

Jesus’ story is one of transformation and renewal. Tired with the religious trickery practised by men, distracting people from God through the inequality and division it created, God personally calls out to each of us, through Jesus, to come home to him. When we align our will to his, whilst recognising our disobedient nature, we willing cast aside our sinful nature, in favour of his great love and mercy. As we are transformed by the renewal of our hearts and minds, we can begin to understand Gods great compassion for his creation, even in its suffering. We become part of Gods plan to rescue the world from itself, and are prepared through the inspiration of the Holt Spirit of God, to stand up and take our place.

So what now? I've been captivated by Paolo Nutini’s song, ‘Lead Sky’ in recent days. It goes like this…

We are proud individuals, living for the city.
But the flames, couldn't go,  much higher
We find God and religions, to paint us with salvation.

But no one, no nobody, can give you the power.

To rise, over love, over hate
Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind
Over fear and into freedom

Oh, that's life, that’s dripping down the walls
Of a dream that cannot breathe, in this harsh reality
Mass confusion. spoon fed to the blind
                                             Serves now to define, our cold society

From which we'll rise, over love, over hate

Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind

Over fear and into freedom

You've just got to hold on

You've just got to hold on 

[Charlie Chaplin's speech from The Great Dictator]

“To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish... Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle..! You are men! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.... let us use that power - let us all unite.” 

And we'll rise, over love, over hate

Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind

Over fear and into freedom

From which we'll rise, over love, over hate

Through this iron sky that's fast becoming our mind

Over fear and into freedom, freedom, freedom

Don’t you just long deep down for the freedom he sings of? We live in a society that has become hardened by the pain of life, broken yet aware in the back of our mind that Gods salvation is at hand. If we could learn to love each other, we would be empowered to rise up over hate, over fear and learn to show more compassion. We might find a glimmer of hope that banishes the inequality we see all around us. When we witness those in power exerting their assumed authority over the will of people, don’t you just cry out? I know God does. That's why Jesus came.

We have that power within us to rise up, to love, to care, to fight for freedom. These are God given qualities that he bestows on the hearts of humanity so it can endure. God proved himself to us, not that he needed to do so, by choosing to be born into our world and to become as vulnerable as we were, as a child in a manger, in a stable in the corner of Bethlehem. Born into the world, Jesus experienced all that we feel and more. He felt the desperation of the widow, the orphan, the poor, the sick… they demanded his attention and sought his compassion, pressing in on him from every side, until he was brutally murdered. 


This is the God of Christianity that I believe in. He was willing to suffer death to save us because it is HUMANITY that is deserving of death, not God. Jesus' sacrifice for my life is the reason why through every trial and every hardship, I know that despite what I might be feeling, GOD IS WITH US. Give your heart to him this Christmas, it will change your life.

Time is the Fire in which we Burn

“We’re all going to die sometime. It’s just a question of how and when… Aren’t you beginning to feel time gaining on you? It’s like a predator. It’s stalking you. Oh, you can try to outrun it with doctors and medicines, new technologies and remedies but in the end, time is going to hunt you down and make the kill.” (Dr. Tolian Soran, Star trek Generations, Paramount Pictures, 1994)  

British Summer Time has come again to an untimely end, to what was a very pleasant autumn of temperatures at 21ºCelsius and beautiful sunshine. However, the last Saturday in October meant that time reversed by 1 hour to create more light in the morning. However, I am at a loss as to why we still use this left over strategy of World War 1 today. I get up at 6.00am and it is usually dark. By 7.15am, as I get in my car, you can see the light of dawn lifting the darkness and by 8.00am we have the full mornings light available to us for this time of year. In the evening, by 5.00pm, dusk has begun to descend on us and by 5.30pm, it is night. 


Overnight, this pattern is disrupted by ‘daylight saving’, which does the opposite of what its name suggests; robbing us of an hour of daylight in the evening when we are going about our business, and adding it to the morning while most of us sleep . With night now arriving at 4.15pm instead of 5.30pm, late afternoon turns into night and our evenings become none existent. We begin the seemingly endless eternal darkness, which those of you who work the hours that I do, particularly if you work in a building where you see very little natural light of the day, seems to last forever. Or until spring at least.

Sure, some of the far reaches of Scotland may be on a similar latitude to Alaska and as such, be subjected to the extremes of sunlight witnessed in the summer but at this time of the year, with only 9hrs of daylight, why place the light in the early hours? It’s not as though we will all end up like Al Pacino in the film Insomnia… Changing the pattern of Daylight Saving would also have economic benefits and transport safety improvements too. 

By adopting European Central time, there is evidence to suggest that we will also feel safer; both physically, psychologically and also emotionally. Time is of course, a man-made concept. There is however, no concept of time to some regions of the world because for them, particularly in the summer, there is no night. Scientific study has proven that when we adjust our body clock to the rhythm of daylight, that we have better quality sleep and feel more attuned to our emotional health.

Time is only important within social structures, where we are dependent on each other for goods and services. The Romans divided the day into two halves so that they could command the legions of soldiers who kept watch over their territories. Indeed, it wasn't really until the development of the railways, that we governed our day in accurately measured segments of time… but why 24 hours? Was time derived from some sense of geometry? Dividing the circle into 12 equal segments by ruling a line trough its centre could have given rise to many different combinations, so why 12? Or was it a reflection of the ebb and flow of the sunrise and the sunset and the arrival of the seasons?

Sundials are the earliest known device for measuring time, except for geological formations used to track the sun’s movement. Using the shadow created by the movement of the sun on a dial, told you how much light remained in a day, rather than how long the day was. Obviously, the sun dial didn't work at night! Perhaps it was the seasons which determined the amount of light and the length of days but I am not sure that this led to the development of time that we know today. 






We are told that the Babylonians developed the 60 second minute and the 60 second hour but it wasn't until the development of a device called a 'foliot' (pictured), which helped to govern the time indicated on a dial, that time was made available for use by the masses. These mechanisms were placed into towers and monasteries around the 14^th century due to their size, to indicate the times that those called to prayers should attend the Priory…

The Greeks and the Romans have helped to shape the months that we have on our calendar but days can be attributed to the creation story in Genesis. The seven days were time periods in which God created the world and everything in it and on the 7^th day, he rested. Since we attempted to wrest control of our destiny from God’s control, we have continued to go our own way, shaping our world with our ingenuity and technological advancement, to reach a point where we feel in command of everything, including time itself.

But what happens when this isn't so? I am at home on holiday from work, sat in a T-shirt in my back garden bathed in glorious sunshine, with temperatures still at 19ºC, which is balmy for Oct 31^st. If anything, the weather should be anything but this type of unseasonal temperature; cold, grey, miserable and wet. The variety and unpredictability of the weather also reflects how the world is. I can be sat here in relative peace and quiet, drinking tea in my garden, when those going to the temple mount in Jerusalem today, will feel the uneasy tension of its re-opening in light of the recent wounding of a Jewish activist and the death of his alleged Palestinian attacker.

Ebola is still rife in West Africa, IS, Ukraine and many other places of conflict, are still attacking each other with the resultant loss of life that ensues. Those who have been marginalised, still experience injustice, starvation, and persecution.

Humanity seems to be at war with itself, while here I sit, sipping my tea and moaning about Daylight Saving while reflecting on some unseasonal weather. Life, in all of its forms of expression, is impressively complex and yet can be refreshingly simple.

Jesus tells us to live our lives by ‘doing to others, what you would like them do to you’ (Luke 6:31, NLT) and to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:31, NLT). This quotation from Jesus’ teaching, is the second part to the response he made to the religious leaders, who asked him which of the commandments of God was the greatest? Jesus first replied, ‘you must love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:30, NLT)

When we use the words of Jesus as our lens for looking at the world, we are able to see how great our need is of God’s grace. Using this as a barometer for our current attitudes towards each other, we can interact as human beings with tolerance and respect for one another. As soon as we ignore this Golden Rule, we become intolerant and lack compassion. It is also true that each of the worlds major religions, contain elements of this Golden Rule:

“...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” (Qur’an - Surah 24, The Light, v.22)

The phrase Jesus uses in his confrontation with the Pharisees, is taken from Mosaic Law found In Leviticus 19:18, written millennia before Jesus uses them in reminding the Pharisees in this Gospel account, of the law given to Moses by God. As the Son of God, Jesus uses those same words to give validity to the claims he makes through his teaching that all people must be born again...

‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.’ (NIV)

If we are to live true to Jesus' teaching, this last command is very hard for us to do alone. We need God's Holy Spirit alive in us, to have any hope of measuring up to this ideal. I have read that elements of the Golden Rule is applied to trader dealing in the stock exchange as well as to the fundamentals of capitalist idealism. It is used in order to promote fairness and provide a moral framework with which they can do business. Indeed, articles within the Bill of Human Rights, also encapsulate what is inferred to in the Golden Rule. The Leviticus text also has the following charge…

‘The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God.’

(Leviticus 19:34, NLT)

There are many who would argue that within the stories of the Old Testament, the God we read of there, is different to the God of the New Testament. However, nothing could be further than the truth, when you read these ancient scriptures. God’s mission has always been one of peace; to draw people to himself. When humanity dishonoured God in the days before Noah, it was to his great remorse that humanity was wiped clean from the earth. And yet, even in God's anger at humanities sinful nature, he was still looking for anyone who would still honour him. God reached out to Noah with the instruction to build the Ark, in order to save humanity from what was to come.

Noah wasn’t perfect; in fact it was probably his self-awareness of his need of God that helped him to stand out from his peers. This made Noah, the only person in whom God knew he could reset humanities social structures with. Noah displayed obedience in the face of his contemporaries and was ridiculed because he believed in the wisdom of God far more than he trusted in the indiscretion of man.

Abraham was another patriarch from history, who was considered by God to honour him. Yet in his own nature, Abraham was not perfect. At times, he trusted in his own solutions to the problems he faced, rather than rely on God's help, in order to protect himself from the world that he existed in. Abraham had to learn about his own nature, particularly in the light of what he knew of God, so that his heart and mind could be transformed by what he saw God doing. The big change that occurs with how God the creator interacted with humanity through Abraham, compared to Noah, is that God had found in Abraham, someone whose descendants would continue to acquiesce to the nature of God; they honoured God with how they chose to live. Abraham's grandson Jacob, became the father of 12 sons, one of whom was Joseph and his coat of many colours, who would be used to realise Gods promise to the Hebrews.

Jacob wasn't considered to be born with the most endearing of personal qualities, being deceptive and manipulative in nature, he fought with God in the desert, just as he fought with his brother Esau in the womb, ultimately stealing his brothers birth right. Jacob also experienced tremendous toil and entrapment at the hands of Laban his uncle over his wives and had to learn to endure through hardship. Whilst toiling in the physical sense, tending to the sheep and goats in his care, Jacob learned to trust in God’s mercy and grace.

As Jacob was a descendant of Abraham, blessed by his father Isaac, God honoured the covenant he made to bless Abraham’s descendants, while Jacob learned a life lesson the hard way… The deception he experienced at the hand of his uncle Laban, led him to firstly recognise his own nature, through the deception that he experienced where he was minded to act; his toil as a shepherd taught him to endure the sands of time, dependent on God’s mercy; yet when the true test of his character came, he put it all together to prove to God, that he was worthy of blessing. For this change of character, God renames him Jacob, meaning the ‘supplanter’, which was an unflattering reference to his quarrel with his brother Esau in the womb, to Israel, which some believe to mean ‘God rules’.

From this beginning, a nation was born out of the slavery the Hebrews suffered, at the hand of the Egyptian Pharaohs… a people who benefited from Jacobs son Joseph's God-given ability to interpret dreams. Joseph’s wisdom protected the Egyptians from famine while being a representative of the people of God to whom the Hebrews could flee to for protection from the same famine. However, the passage of time meant that Joseph’s accomplishments were forgotten by the Pharaohs, who subjugated the Hebrew immigrants into slavery.

Moses rose up as a hybrid of the Egyptian ruling elite and the Hebrew ethnicity he descended from. He was saved from the Nile River by Pharaoh’s daughter and brought up as an Egyptian prince, while being attended to by his natural birth mother, who was employed as a handmaiden to look after him. Moses was provided with the best of both cultures however, he didn't start well. Murdering an Egyptian who was beating a fellow Hebrew slave, Moses flee's to the desert.

His self-righteous anger revealed a passion in him that he probably hadn’t known before because it was the first time that he had had to confront the dualism in his identity. After a period of time in the wilderness, God calls Moses into active service. Despite his initial protestations, Moses becomes an effective leader, demonstrating the power of God, whose authority he operated under.

When the Hebrews left Egypt, taking with them any who were desperate to escape captivity, they were fashioned into a people group for the first time by Moses, eventually finding their identity as the people of God as they took-up their position in the Promised Land under Joshua. Their role as a nation was to demonstrate to the whole world, God’s mercy and grace to those whom they encountered. As the Leviticus 19 verse states, the Israelis should show love to the stranger or the alien among them, demonstrating hospitality and equality within the confines of Mosaic Law. Loving all people as they would want to be loved themselves, the Golden Rule.

Where Adam represented the unity of mankind through the life of one man, the nation state of Israel demonstrated the relationship that Yahweh wanted to have with all of humanity, as a vassal King, in exchange for complying with Mosaic Law; to have no other Gods but the one true God. While maintaining the law through our observance of the 10 commandments, God promises to protect the nation through all the different facets of human interaction. The Genesis story shows the origin of humanity through the life of one man, Adam, to teach us that anyone who destroys a single man, in this case the scheming of Satan, destroys the future of the whole world and yet, the opposite is also true in that anyone who saves just one man, saves the whole world.

We see God actively involved in the affairs of humanity through honouring the commitment he made to Moses to rescue his people and to set them free. We find that the antidote to Satan’s deception is through God entering into covenant agreements first with Adam and Noah and then with Abraham. We find God setting out the consequences of man’s sin in relation to the fallen world by revealing what would eventually happen, when God redeems mankind. Secondly with Abraham, God rewards his faith in him by promising him descendants that would be as numerous as the stars. This is pretty amazing considering Abraham was 75 years of age and childless, when the covenant was first commissioned.

The covenant that God makes with Abraham is unconditional in that it is up to God alone to honour the agreement. The covenant that God makes with Moses is a conditional covenant, designed to set in motion a mechanism for which God could redeem all of humanity through his observance of God’s commandments. There were obligations that the Israelis had to meet, in order for them to bring honour to God’s Holy law. Their obedience would be rewarded, but there would also be consequences for the Hebrews if they did not honour Gods commands. God could not protect the people, if their actions led them into sinful behaviours that he couldn’t condone. In breaking their side of the covenant, God is released from his responsibilities as Vassal King.

God never interrupts our free will to know our own mind and to choose our own way. It has to be this way with humanity so that as independent human beings, we can be free to choose whether we want to recognise that we are children of God, in need of his companionship, his protection and above all, his enduring grace or whether we choose to reject him. God doesn't make this easy, as the Holy Spirit is also at work in our lives, drawing our attention to himself, in order that we might believe.

If we choose to work it out by ourselves, the consequences for our rebellious nature, is that we may never find peace while trying to honour the Golden Rule because our human nature lives in contradiction of it. The Israelites repeatedly turned away from God and returned to the Pagan gods they saw other nations worshipping and in whose land they now lived.

The Israelites too easily forgot that God had won for them, all that they had. The praises and adoration of the people, should have been given to Yahweh as worship but instead, they chose to pray to motionless idols and golden statues, perhaps comforted by the knowledge that they wouldn’t answer back! It was these behaviours that led to the Israelites becoming vulnerable to persecution and attack from their enemies whom surrounded their borders. The land that God acquired for Israel, was rich in its bounty, being fertile for farming, irrigation and trade. Their land was the envy of those who were marginalised onto the higher ground surrounding Israel’s borders, who were desperately waiting for an opportunity to plunder its riches.

Even though the Israelites chose to worship false gods and idols, as was demonstrated with Noah, God is always seeking out men and women who will continue to honour him, despite their inherent weaknesses and through whom he could reveal his true nature. It wasn’t long  before the Israelites wanted to replace God as Vassal King, in favour of a lesser, human king, which they had observed the other nations as having. Again, God intercedes through the prophet Samuel, a man who held onto what his ancestors had passed on to the Israelites in the Mosaic Law, the worship in the tabernacle and the tradition of honouring the many festivals that celebrated God’s victories over their shared enemy, particularly when taking possession of the Promised Land.

Samuel knew that choosing a human king was a foolish mistake and questioned the people’s motivation for making such a retrograde request. Ultimately however, as Gods people desired this arrangement, even though all of the pitfalls associated with a King were pointed out to them, such as taxation and calling their children to arms, the Israelites still demand it. God concedes to their plea by working through his prophet Samuel, to help the people choose the one who would be king instead of him.

Again, this solution did not last long. King Saul, full of his own self-importance, began to operate under his own mandate rather than God’s, leaving him and the people he served, vulnerable to attack. As with Jacob, God is always looking for just one person who believes in his saving grace enough to endure. God is impressed with the heart of a young shepherd boy, full of faith in Gods ability to bring all who stand before him to justice. Through his own understanding of God’s sovereignty, this shepherd boy, filled with righteous indignation at the audacity of the enemies of Israel to taunt God’s army, he offers to fight. King Saul, the protector of a nation, chooses to place his nation’s sovereignty into the hands of a shepherd boy called David, who appears to have more faith in Gods’ protection, than the whole Israeli army put together.

David did not simply possess a blind faith, nor did he believe he was particularly equipped to battle Goliath. It was his faith and trust in God to vanquish an enemy, built upon his knowledge of what God had done through his people Israel, which gave him the audacity to stand before Goliath. David knew implicitly that God saves. Again like Jacob, David’s youthfulness gives way to the familiar traits of adulthood; to lust over things that we have not got. 



In David’s case, when he should have been in battle protecting the kingdom, he was at home where his idleness caught him out. Standing on the roof of the palace, his lust for a woman he saw bathing was aroused, leading him to forget his senses and miss-use his royal authority. By illicitly requesting an audience with Bathsheba, knowing her husband was away fighting the battle that David himself should have been leading, he dishonours Bathsheba, his nation, and his God. I wonder if he foresaw the irony of his actions before giving into his desire.

Hollywood would probably make this story out to be a romantic encounter of forbidden love, but as with all types of sinfulness, there is often more than one wrong we are prepared to live with, in order to get what we want. David, lied, deceived, cheated and committed murder in order to cover up his infidelity. He had dishonoured Bathsheba’s dignity both as a woman and as a wife, dishonours his loyal friend, whom David instigates an untimely death and ultimately, David dishonours God. This mighty man of God was brought down by the same question which Satan placed into Adam and Eve’s head in the garden... 

‘Did God really say… you shouldn’t covet another man’s wife? Did God really say… You shouldn’t commit adultery? Did God really say… You shouldn’t commit murder?’

I want to rewind a little before coming into land. When Abraham was promised descendants as numerous as the stars, his wife Sarah laughed. It seemed impossible that Abraham was to leave everything he knew, ancestral land, family ties and the prosperity he had grown accustomed to through his associated trade connections, to follow a whim, albeit a pretty large whim, as it was God who was encouraging Abraham to move to Canaan. 


To paraphrase Gods promise, he tells Abraham to ‘honour me by following my instruction, and you will have your own family to cherish.’ It started well but then it all goes a bit awry. Sarah, trying to make the promise happen by herself, after 10 years of living in Canaan, offers Abraham Hagar, her servant, as a concubine. Hagar gives birth to a child whom God encourages to name Ishmael, meaning ‘God hears’.

When God met Hagar in the desert, after running from Sarah's wrath at becoming pregnant. He promises that Abraham’s illegitimate heir, Ishmael, will have the same promises bestowed on him as Abraham’s maternal heir. The same God that spoke to Abraham, also spoke with Hagar. When God made his covenant with Abraham, he changed his name from Abram so that when translated into English, we derive the meaning: 'Father of nations…' note the plural. 


The land in which Abraham now lived, Canaan, would also become his inheritance to pass onto his children. This is the same Promised Land to which the Israelites finally come to rest in after their exodus from Egypt; a resting place after their 40 years of wilderness wanderings, aimed at finally purging their sinful nature from the culture they had adopted while in slavery; to be finally led through the River Jordan, into the land of Canaan, with a new generation of Hebrews, who had been born in the desert.

For Ishmael, he remained Abraham’s first born and heir until Isaac was born. As a half-brother, born illegitimately to a servant girl, Ishmael loses his birth right and with it, his inheritance. Today, we can see how trying to do things our own way instead of Gods, has led to two distinct cultures who virtually oppose one another and yet, both came about through the same blessing that was given to Abraham. With the family ancestry carried on through Isaac, Ishmael’s blessing is somewhat soured by the favour that was bestowed upon Isaac.

It is interesting too, how Ishmael’s descendants figure again in the Hebrew story, when Jacobs’s son Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, to their half-cousins, the Ishmaelite traders that were passing by, who inadvertently became part of God’s plan to protect Abraham and his descendants. Today, the Arabic nations of the Middle East are descended from these Ishmaelite traders, sharing a common ancestry through Abraham with their Hebrew, Jewish, Israeli, half-cousins.

What this does reveal, is that no nationality, race or class, may claim an ancestry that is somehow more privileged than the other, saying, 'Our father was born first.’ Similarly, this story gives testimony to the greatness of God’s plan, because it is he who created the diversity between our cultures. Instead of growing animosity towards our divergent cultures, we should choose to draw alongside each other, particularly as the Arabs and Israeli’s share the same patriarchal ancestry. Perhaps it was Muhammad, writing in the Qur’an, which finally drove a wedge between their shared ancestry. The Qur’an gave expression to the diversity between each culture and their spiritual direction, pitting one against the other.

It is hard not to be sceptical about a book written by one man, albeit one that was allegedly recited to Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel, whom we read about in the Gospel Stories when he appears to Jesus' mother, Mary. Muhammad memorises what he has been told and is then able to perfectly recite the account back to his band of followers, who acted as scribes. In contrast, the Bible is a collection of 66 books covering millennia, having multiple authors and written in a variety of contexts, yet having a clear narrative of the kingdom of God at work, in order to redeem mankind. Yet the Qur’an has just one source.

The apostle Paul’s letters were being circulated in the 1st Century and a full scriptural canon, including Old and New Testaments, were being circulated by AD170. All 27 books of the New Testament were added to the original 39 Hebrew books of the Old Testament, creating a holistic account of God at work within the narrative of humanity. This adds to the authenticity of the word of God contained within its pages because the narrative of the Kingdom of God flows through the whole book as a coherent message. Although their are many authors, they are each inspired by the one Holy Spirit, who compels them to write down their account of what they had seen God do.

The Qur’an does not add to the scriptures held by the Hebrew Jews, or the gentile followers of Jesus, who believed in his teaching, or the work of Jesus’ apostles, who were charged with spreading the Gospel message. What I have read in the Qur’an seems to regurgitate biblical phrases in a paraphrase style, when compared to the original Hebrew text. The rhetoric it uses and the veiled dismissal of Christian and Jewish teaching, suited what Muhammad wanted to achieve as a religious leader to the Arabic world. Indeed, Muhammad would have had access to all the material of the Bible and other associated writing not canonised into the scriptures, by the time ascribed to the writing of the Qur’an in AD630 by Muhammad’s group of scribes.

Of what I have read in the Qur’an, it seems to be a bizarre, unorganized, self-aggrandising piece of literature, mixing their shared ancestry, with the random sayings of Muhammad. More concerning is the suggestion that anyone who is not Muslim, has got it wrong regarding how our civilisation should worship God. Only those who worship Allah will be rewarded. What credibility does a text have, if the narrator/author tells you that his word is the only true source of scripture, particularly when only one man has a hand in writing it? How can it be that one person can vouch for the Qur’an’s integrity, without other witnesses to corroborate the account that Muhammad gives for what happened?

Jesus had twelve disciples to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. The original 12 tribes were made up from the ancestral sons of Jacob, the grandson of Isaac, Abraham's son. It was the disciples who wrote the Gospel accounts and contributed to the validation of what they saw Jesus teach and do. Alongside these twelve men, there were women such as Mary and Martha with their brother Lazarus, whom was raised from the dead, who attend to the domestic needs of Jesus and the disciples. This family were instrumental in waking the disciples from their spiritual stupor in the upper room, after Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden where the tomb that held Jesus' body was. 

Thousands followed Jesus as he went about healing the sick, making the blind see, making the lame walk, the deaf hear and in driving demons out. All of these people became eyewitnesses to what was happening and could vouch for what they saw Jesus do. It was these people who could corroborate the stories being told and validate what people were writing, straight after the events that unfolded at Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

Later, the writings of the apostle Paul, whom we are initially introduced to as a Pharisee who zealously murdered Christians for their beliefs in Jesus, testifies in his many letters that what Jesus’ was teaching and the miracles he performed were all true. Paul does this from a position where he believed that Jesus, was a blasphemous imposter. Rather than Jesus himself telling others to write down what he was saying, it is left to those who heard it and who were convinced by the truth of his teaching, to record it for others to read and believe. For me, this adds weight to the authenticity of the Bible, Jesus’ teaching, his death on the cross, and his resurrection, because the decision to accept this truth for ourselves, is actually ours.

Faith isn’t blind, nor do you have to suspend reason to accept what the Bible says of God and his son Jesus. As mentioned at the beginning, Jesus himself tells us to ‘love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ It is with our whole self that we are to approach our understanding of who God is and who we are in relation to him. This relationship goes beyond our ancestry, race, culture or ethnicity, or even if we happen to live or worship God in a geographical location deemed to be holy. 


Faith or belief in God, first focuses on our own willingness to respond to God’s call on our lives, before commissioning us into a course of action. You do not need to be born Jewish or be born into Islam to find God’s signature on the world. You can either believe that the universe we exist in is simply ‘pot-luck’; that there is no plan or purpose to anything except the certainty that we will die. Or you can engage with the discussion over the existence of God and what he may require of his creation. Or you may sit on the fence.

When Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan, sin corrupted everything. When Abraham was promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, both he and Sarah grew impatient with the time they had waited, trying to resolve God’s apparent inaction by taking things into their own hands. Sin was at work. Sarah should not have coerced Hagar as her servant, forcing her to enter into the surrogacy agreement which resulted in the birth of Ishmael, whom as a child, was also wronged when his world was ultimately pulled from under his feet, at the birth of Isaac. However, as we have already seen, God interceded in the situation, to protect both children, and to encourage them both to prosper within their own situations.

Yet, the way that history has developed over the possession of land and the religious connections made concerning specific geographical areas described in the Bible texts, can skew the meaning and purpose of the covenant God was making with people. We have seen too, that these covenants were conditional in that in order for God to honour the covenant he made with the Israelites, they had to observe the laws that God set for them to honour. Failing to honour God, led to the Israelites being dispossessed from the land and like Sarah, they seem intent on claiming it back from the Palestinians in their own strength, rather than anything that God has sanctioned.

So to come into land... I am going to use the analogy of the Matrix movie… Keanu Reeves character Nero, has a skill set and level of interest in computer programming where he has developed an inquisitive sense that there is something more going on in his life. He is searching for something beyond himself to which Morpheus, one of the principle characters, is best placed to answer. So in this relationship there is a seeker and one who is being sought.

This is how we all are in the world. We try to determine a sense of purpose or a reason for why things are as they are. Through our sense of duty to ourselves, our families, our communities and our nation, we interact with our culture, we are educated, and we seek out employment in meaningful occupations. Somehow in all of this, we derive a sense of purpose through our internal motivation, which gathers momentum and keep us ticking along, even when difficulties arise. Nero is at the point where his momentum has stalled and he is looking for something else in life. Morpheus is in a position to respond to his inquiry and offer an alternative direction to his life.

However, the Nero character has a further dimension to his personality. Morpheus has identified that Nero has a set of skills that would enable him to rescue others from their own nightmares. At first, after Nero’s first meeting with the oracle, which is the films interpretation of a prophet, it is not certain whether Nero really believes he is whom they all thought he should be. Despite Nero’s doubts, Morpheus has faith in Nero’s faltering ability, while those around him, who are also aware of Nero’s calling and their own sense of purpose within the prophecy, wait to see what might happen.

What happens next for Nero, is that once he had stopped trying to be something everyone else thought he ought to be and started to be his own person, he was able to find within himself, the answers to the questions that they were all asking: Is he the one? What we then observe in the movie, is that his natural skill as a computer programmer allowed him to see the Matrix in computer code, particularly in the third movie, where he loses his sight in a fight with Mr. Smith, yet can still see. 



This ability puts Nero directly at the centre of the fight for their survival and we find out that freedom is guaranteed for all who actively seek a way out of the Matrix.

There is so much God stuff here, I may struggle to cover it all but here goes. Morpheus’ character is like a messenger of God, a prophet who guides the people along the right path on the journey into life. This is like the patriarchs we find in the Bible and referred to in the Qur’an, such as Abraham and Moses, who guided the people in the ways of God, in upholding the covenant that humanity agreed to abide by. Morpheus gives Nero a choice, just as we each have a choice to make regarding faith in God.

Nero is a Christ like character who as a human, understands the nature of man, but as a computer programmer, understood the machine world that held humanity captive. Jesus too was born as a man, being parented in Nazareth and schooled by his family, his local community and his Jewish culture. We find in Luke's Gospel story of the one account of Jesus’ childhood, that he goes missing on their return home from a pilgrimage to Jersualem, only to be found in the temple, sharing his thoughts with and listening to the rabbi’s. When questioned about his conduct due to his parents anxiety at losing him, the young Jesus answers... 

“But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they didn’t understand what he meant.” (Luke 2:49-50, NLT)

Jesus began to understand who he was and grew in his awareness of his divinity and his humanity, through his reading of the scriptures and in his understanding of his purpose. Like the Nero character, Jesus' faith in his Father and his ability to endure under much suffering and testing of his character, prepares him for his purpose, fully aware of his mission and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Both characters end their journey's by becoming a sacrifice for the cause to which they were compelled, namely to save the lost, the broken hearted, the sick and those enslaved by sin.

Such is the impact of Jesus' teaching and sacrifice, like Nero, Jesus resets time with his actions. His death offers hope to everyone. This hope is not found in the geographical location of land, sacred buildings, ancestry, race or tradition but in the faith of each person who places their trust in God as redeemer and King of our lives. Only when we finally accept that going it alone and doing our own thing, in our own way, has only caused more heartache, will we be in a position to accept that God does have the answers that make sense.

Time can be a great healer giving humanity and human beings, the space to reflect on life as the seasons come and go and we age with grace. However, we don’t want to accept that we are not ultimately in control of our lives. When we leave this earth, we can take nothing with us and our accomplishments are soon forgotten. We can pass on our wealth and give our families a sense of hereditary. Perhaps too in this social media age, our life which we have recorded through our mobiles, tablets and digital cameras, could live on indefinitely on some great server.

On reflection, have we kept to the golden rule? “To do to others, what you would like them do to you and to love your neighbour as yourself.’ Only when we become self-less will we actually find fulfillment in this life. Only in Jesus can we find peace because only he has the power to forgive sin. No matter how well we might keep Torah or the Qur’an, neither of these can bring life. We cannot earn a place in heaven, neither can we buy our way into heaven. There are no prayers we can say or incantations we can make that can secure a place for our souls in the heavenly realm. Only our submission to God's love can do that. When we finally let go of the battles we endure while living out our lives; letting go of our fear of losing control, will we find rest in the arms of Jesus, who loves us more than we will ever know.

Solomon, the son of King David, who established the Kingdom of God for the Israelites in the Promised Land, reached the end of his life believing that everything under the sun was meaningless:

“I observed the oppression that takes place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, with no one to comfort them. The oppressors have great power and the victims are helpless.” 

(Ecclesiastes 4:1, NLT)

Here was a mighty King whose greatness was renowned throughout the ancient near east. He had wealth beyond his wildest expectations, he was under the protection of God through his continuing presence in the temple courts in Jerusalem, and he had no equal. And yet, this scripture appears to show that he felt powerless to stop the corruption he speaks of. Solomon understands that people are not nice to each other and we cannot be certain of their intentions. We often encounter phoney relationships, where people wear masks to cover up their true feelings and we see people taking advantage of others less fortunate than themselves, abusing the trust that we place in each other to do good.

When we became disconnected from God in the Garden of Eden, due to our sinful disobedience, we were given the ability to understand the difference between good and evil. It was also the time when we became disconnected from each other. Even within prehistoric families like Isaac and Ishmael, where we read about God intervening to help bring harmony to the estranged half-brothers, we still find disunity within these ancestral families today. That is why God’s plan moves our search for faith beyond material possessions and territory, towards an eternal inheritance that God gifts to those who choose to believe, through the presence of the Holy Spirit alive in us.

The King of the Universe aligns himself with every human heart that is willing to offer him a home. Jesus offers us a new covenant which he has ordained through his sacrifice on the cross. His blood has bought humanity the greatest gift, redemption and hope. In doing so, the passage of time is no longer a predator, rather, time becomes a companion. God walks with us on our journey into the Promised Land; a heavenly home prepared for us by God himself. Time may be described as ‘the fire in which we burn’, but I prefer to believe that time is a companion given to us by God so that we might make sense of who we are and in finding ourselves, we also find God. When we find God's signature on our hearts, we will also know our name is recorded in the book of life, we can find peace with our soul and know the assurance that the way we choose to live our lives is as important as what we do with it.

(‘Time is the fire in which we burn.’ by Delmore Schwartz, is a line taken from “Calmly we walked through this Aprils Day” a poem  from ‘Summer knowledge and selected poems.)