I'm going on a bear hunt

I was at a service (at Holy Trinity Twydall) when the Vicar Ali, said she had a modern, outrageously controversial, ground breaking story about God. Well you can imagine I was on the edge of my seat! At which point, she pulled out "I'm going on a bear hunt" by Michael Rosen. I knew this story well, after years of working with children, but if you don't know it I've copied it below.

We're going on a bear hunt!

We're gonna catch a big one!

I'm not afraid!

Are you?

Not me!

Here comes the gate
Now we're on a bear hunt
We're gonna catch a big one

I'm not afraid
Are you?

Not me!

We're coming to a tall mountain
It sure is high
It sure is wide
Let's climb up it
Well, there's nothing over there
Nothing over there
Nothing back there
Hey! Wait! I think I see something
Quick! Everybody run down!

We're going on a bear hunt!
We're gonna catch a big one!

I'm not afraid!
Are you?
Not me!

We're going thru the tall grass
We're going thru the short grass
Hey! Look! There's a little tree
Well, let's shinny on up it
Whoa! It gets a little skinny up here at the top
See anything over that way?
Anything over that way?, Uh, oh!,
Oh, no! Whoa! Agh! let's get down!

We're going on a bear hunt!
We're gonna catch a big one!

I'm not afraid!
Are you?
Not me!

Oh, no!
It's a big puddle of mud
Can't go around it
Gotta go right thru it
Yeuk!
Well, let's go.
Squish, Sqwish, Blaaahh.

We're going on a bear hunt!
We're gonna catch a big one!

I'm not afraid!
Are you?
Not me!

We're coming to a wide river

And there's no bridge going over it
No tunnel going under it

It's just plain old water
And we're gonna have to swim
All right, dive in!
Start swimming
Do the back stroke
Do the side stroke
Do the doggie paddle
Try the little cat paddle
OK Jump out, shake yourself off

We're going on a bear hunt!
We're gonna catch a big one!

I'm not afraid!
Are you?
Not me!

Shhh, it's a cave
Looks like the kind of cave that B-bears live in
I don't know if I want to go in there
You think we oughta go in?
Are you nuts?

There's probably a bear in there
All right I'll go in, You stay here,
And if I find a bear, I'll come out and get you
And we'll all go in and grab him together
Now, quiet, don't make a sound while I'm in that cave,
Cuz if you wake him up, I'll be in trouble
Bears are awful ornery when they first wake up, you know
OK, I'm going on in
Oooo, It's dark in here
It's really dark in here
I can't see a thing
Agh, there's spiders webs
Ooo, what was that???
What's this??.... it's soft, uh oh,it's kind of fuzzy

Ahg!!!!!!!!! Run! Everybody run!!
I saw a bear!!!!
Jump in the water! Swim fast!!
Do the backstroke!
The sidestroke, the doggie paddle
Jump out of the water
Run through the mud!
Forget the tree!!
Go through the tall grass
The short grass
Quick! Go up the mountain
Down the other side
Go through the gate
Into the house, under the bed
Under the pillow
Hide!!!!!
Uh, it's awful quiet around here
I'm not afraid
Are you?

 A lovely story for children, but what does it have to do with me, or even God?

Ali then proceeded with a very brief talk; so brief it only lasted a few sentences but got me thinking for hours.

In our life, and our path to find God, are we not all taken by the obstacles? High mountains to climb, long and short grass to wade through, wide rivers and even dark caves to with which to persevere? It is our choice if we go around them, over them, under them or through them. We even have the choice to stand still.

Do we all, as the children have in the story, find the path behind us far easier when looking back (Or in their case when they are running back, with apparent ease given the difficulty the obstacles gave them to first get past)?

And finally, when you are at the end of the path, when you find your bear, will you be confident enough to stand there without looking back, without fear, without wanting to hide, without wanting to run back from where you came? Will you run back into your past?

Or, will you be able to face Him?

A shoe box full of trust and forgiveness

God has been showing me the same verse all week. Matthew 18 21 - 35:

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

 ²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
 ²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^[a]
   23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold^[b] was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
   ²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
   ²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.^[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
   ²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
   ³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
   ³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
   ³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

I have seen this talk presented three different ways, and still struggle so much with this concept.

Forgiveness
Forgiveness is such a difficult thing for me. Sometimes things can be said or done and I don't realise the hurt or offence and it just goes over my head (which to be honest am very grateful for), but then at other times, the tiniest thing cuts through me, and find it so difficult to let go. I just "can't" seem to get over it and forgive.

In the above passage Peter does one of his wonderful, human mistakes by trying to be more like Jesus in his approach, but still completely missing the point.

Oh how I relate to Peter a times! As I said, have been shown this verse so much this week but I still don't quite get it and can't do what must be done.

77 times.
Peter was trying to be really clever with his statement here, he was also trying to show his willingness to be better. In Jewish terms, scholars would have advised you to seek forgiveness 3 times. If by that point you couldn't forgive someone for their actions towards you, you would have then been asked to see a senior member of the community; a senior scholar, Rabbi or even a community health advisor. So, Peter knowing this, tries to be better at his level of forgiving by saying that he won't give up at trying to forgive after 3 attempts before he seeks help, he will try 7 times! Bless him, he meant well in his attempt, but, as usual, Jesus corrects him and says 77 times!

Jesus' point here was not that we should try and forgive 77 times, but that the number of times is irrelevent. We should be looking at the act of forgiveness, not the number of times we try.

Three lessons (some of which are in story form) I have learnt this week about forgiveness have all the same overall meaning.

Mercy

1: Actions that hurt us, actions that we are upset about, are often not in our control. They are usually in the control and therefore a result of others' actions. That doesn't mean that because it wasn't us, that we should forgive. It shows us the concept of control, we cannot control who hurts us but we can control who we forgive. And most of all we can realise we can control our mercy.

God shows us this example:

Micah 7:18-19
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

Don't we all want to be more like Him?

Let go! Let God.
2: I always struggle with the "Letting Go" part. Often the hurt I'm letting go of is never let go of at all, despite what I convince myself at the time. And then I get hit with the pain of it again, and I struggle then forgiving something I thought I'd already forgiven, when in actual fact I never had, and the hurt is still being clutched next to my heart with all my might, often even stronger than before, because I'm now in denial about it.

In a George Foreman machine it cooks the food, draining off the unwanted juice and fat, with an ideally placed tray to catch it. When cooking food another way, there is always remains of the juice and fat on your food. I see God's hand as the tray that catches our unwanted crap, and we can choose to be grilled and have the hurt drained away, or we can just let ourselves stew in it.

In many sports they talk about using the D (defensive positioning) like to use the d at the end.....Letting go isn't just about letting go; add the defensive D and let GoD.

Simplicity
3. (And my final point):
A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared
everything and talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each
other, except that the little old woman had a shoebox on the top of her closet that
she had cautioned her husband never to open it or ask her about it.
For all those years, he had never thought about the box, but one
day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she
would not recover.
In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the
shoebox and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed it was time
he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found
two crocheted dolls and a stack of money, totaling £25,000.

He asked her about the contents.
"When we were married," she said, "my grandmother told me the
secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me If I
ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll."
The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only
two precious dolls were in the box, She had only ever been
angry with him in all those years of living and loving. He almost
burst with happiness.
"Honey," he said, "that explains the dolls, but what about all of this
money? Where did it come from
"Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the dolls.."


The husband trusted his wife, and respected her. She trusted him too. She got rid of all her hurt, and prevented it too from coming to the foreground and damaging the peace and simplicity of their wonderful life.

This concept helped her marriage; rather than stewing in hurt, carrying her resentment around and taking revenge out on her husband with sharp words, unkind acts etc., she let it go, because it made life simple, easy and happier for her as well as the man she loved.

We all have that simple choice. Make the person who hurt us suffer too, ultimately making both parties miserable, or let go, show mercy, and walk away with both parties happy.

Sometimes we forget the simplicity in the things we are asked to do.

The carrot and the stick of it.

So l'll end with two points very quickly. The first is this from John 20:22-23
And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

That alone is the a lot of responsibility to consider.
And taking from the story, sometimes giving away and giving up the things we need to forgive, and giving them to God, will cost us nothing, and sometimes we may be rewarded in ways we didn't expect.

So for me, God's clearly been showing me this: I need to give bits to Him-there's a lot of proverbial fat to be drained into my George Foreman grill tray. I know even after all of the above, somethings are easier said than done, but l'll definitely try!

Now, just to find a crotchet kit.........

For more than Laish

I often hear many talks from Christian leaders about keeping focus on God and that your eyes should be firmly fixed on Him and Him alone. I have often also heard the talks that "we" as a society spend to much time looking behind us "looking in our rear view mirror", focusing on our mistakes, problems and faults, so much that we don't pay attention to where we are going and end up walking into trouble time and time again. Both these points are often true to all of us and often true when combined.


The Highway Code

But what people don't always realise is that there can be a little more to this direct looking at God route and ignoring the things from behind you.

I would disagree with some of the above statement though.

Continuing with the car metaphor, I honestly believe that sometimes you need to look into the rear view mirror, as a driver you need to, even if it is at a glance.

According to the highway code, it states that " Drivers are advised to check their rear view mirror every seven seconds to monitor what is happening on the road behind them and should check both their rear view mirror and wing mirrors before making a manoeuvre, as well as their blind spot."

This I find really interesting, it tells you to check every seven seconds in your rear view mirror, this therefore is clearly telling you not to become fixed on what is behind you, but it also mentions using your wing (side) mirrors to help in the avoidance of any incidents by checking all around ou, including any blind spots.

So how often do you look around?

Do you know who you have beside you?

Who do you trust to walk and stand beside you? To look after you? In Rugby and American football terms, to block and tackle the attacker or even to cover you with support when you need to pass the ball.

This is a lesson that I have recently learnt, I have managed to realise that I need to look around me, to see my team mates, the people who still after all this time are still standing strong. But when I was listening to the speaker Dary Northrope he made me rethink this whole concept.

Has everyone heard of Laish? I hadn't, never heard of it. But then it is very breifly mentioned in the Bible, but the lesson in it is very important.

(If you get a chance Read Judges 18)

In the beginning you hear about the Dan(ites) they were power hungry and wanted to be recognised for their authority, power and strength.

"1 In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking a place of their own where they might settle, because they had not yet come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 2 So the Danites sent five of their leading men from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land and explore it. These men represented all the Danites. They told them, "Go, explore the land." "

These 5 men go forth and come across Laish, in their discovery of Laish we see that the people living there were living very happily.

"7 So the five men left and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living in safety, like the Sidonians, at peace and secure. And since their land lacked nothing, they were prosperous. Also, they lived a long way from the Sidonians and had no relationship with anyone else."

They were living carefree, wealthy, quiet, secure and very happy lives.
Who wouldn't want to be part of that? Isn't that what we all ask of God?

But did you see their weakness?

"they lived a long way from the Sidonians and had no relationship with anyone else."

They had no allies, they had no other relationship with anyone else, they were standing by themselves.

When you continue to read, you see that the Danites were coming to attack the land, to take it from them. Who is going to stand and help them defend their homes and town, to help defend Laish?

A small explosion

We continue to see in the story that the people of Laish, were so kind that they asked the 5 soliders to stay. These 5 stayed, settled, spyed and continued to feed information to the remaining 600 soliders, who at this point were camped to the neighbouring hill. The 5 men continued to cause trouble, whilst the 600 stayed waiting:

"16 The six hundred Danites, armed for battle, stood at the entrance of the gate. 17 The five men who had spied out the land went inside and took the idol, the ephod and the household gods while the priest and the six hundred armed men stood at the entrance of the gate. "

Where was the instance defense? Quite often when something is closely happening to you, you cant see the danger, you may at times need someone to say to you what is wrong. Some may argue and say that it is best to stay out of others business, but there is a distinct difference between being nosey and interfering and lifting your voice and clearly stating that some things are NOT OK.

But what you quickly see in the story is that what starts with 5 turns to 600. We should all recognise this point. How many times have we done something so small, so insignificant (to us) that then "BANG" it turns into this big problem. Once the 5 settled they allowed so many more in.

House hunting

When someone goes looking for a new house, how many people get a second opinion?

I know that I would. When looking to buy my own place, I spent time, carefull consideration into where I would buy, how much I would spend. And then once purchased, I changed it to how i wanted it and then put effort into keep it the way I would like it.

When renting a property I found that it was different, not so much care, not so much money and realistically not so much love in the property as it had been when I could put more time on making it a home that I wanted to be in.

Friendships and relationships should be like the home you own, it may take you more effort but in the long run you will value the property and the relationship more.

Jesus taught us all about the importance of relationships. (Matthew 22 love your neighbour as yourself)

In a previous blog I asked you who truly knows you, this truth, this is the truth of trusting in a good relationship. I mentioned at the beginning about passing a ball in Rugby or American football. When you pass the ball, you have to make that split decision to pass it to the person that you trust, that you truly trust to take that ball forward whilst you deal with what is around you.

In the end of the story Laish is destroyed:
"27 Then they took what Micah had made, and his priest, and went on to Laish, against a people at peace and secure. They attacked them with the sword and burned down their city. 28 There was no one to rescue them because they lived a long way from Sidon and had no relationship with anyone else. The city was in a valley near Beth Rehob.
The Danites rebuilt the city and settled there. 29 They named it Dan after their ancestor Dan, who was born to Israel—though the city used to be called Laish."

Make sure you have a good side view of your life. See who your allies are, who you would pass the ball to. I have a good team, some very good friends, one of which would be happy that I used the rugby terms in this blog. To all of them I am grateful for their support.

Church isn't always a place to hide yourself, it is a place to be open and to have open trusting relationships.
We were designed for more. We were designed for relationships. Laish didn't realise this, they didn't realise that there is more.

This is a quotation from John Donne (1572-1631). It appears in Devotions upon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes - Meditation XVII, 1624:

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

No man is an island, entire of itself.

As I mentioned before, Laish had everything right in what we (the majority of society) would deem as things we would like our lives to resemble, but we too must look around and want for more, more than Liash, See who is standing next to you, see who is holding your hand.

For more than Liash!