Life + Faith – joncoombs.com

Category: On Life

  • Just Put It Down

    I sat there at the table feeding my 8-month-old daughter porridge. Spoonful after spoonful I dutifully delivered to her the breakfast she was seeking to devour. She was enjoying it and I was enjoying feeding her. She sat there in her highchair, smiling away and looking at me intently, waiting for the next spoonful.

    Photo: Anthro Brown Bag

    At that point I naturally went towards my phone. This wasn’t to receive a call or check my messages. No, this was to open up my camera app and start putting those priceless smiles and eyes into digital format. After all, I had to capture the moment.

    After taking about 10 photos, all very similar of course, I began to think something wasn’t quite right.

    Here I was, sitting at the table with my living in-the-flesh daughter directly in front of me, both of us enjoying our time together and the connection we were obviously having in sharing breakfast.

    But instead of simply enjoying the moment, I decided to objectify it.

    I decided to take this precious moment and stick it in digital format, rather than continue to be mesmerised by my lovely girl. I decided to interrupt breakfast, interrupt our smiling and cooing and eating, and inject some foreign device into the middle of our eyesight all for the sake of capturing another moment on camera.

    I don’t think that’s the way I’m meant to be living. I don’t think that’s the way we’re meant to be living.

    The wife and I were travelling in Jordan once and we came upon a fellow-traveller who joined us for a desert safari trip for a few hours. He’d been travelling around the country a while and had decided not to take a camera with him. Instead, he asked us (and others he came across) to email him one photo when we were back home and when we had the chance. He didn’t want to be constantly taking photos of what he was seeing, he wanted to enjoy what was in front of him.

    I’ve been taken by this idea ever since that trip. It’s counter-intuitive, almost counter-cultural.

    Somehow we’ve become OK with interrupting the precious, special, fabulous, emotional (insert your adjective here) moments rather than get taken away with them. We’ve stopped enjoying life because we’re always trying to capture it.

    This realisation won’t stop me from taking photos of my daughter, no, I’ll still want to take 10 photos in one hit. I’ll still want to interrupt great moments to video or digitise her for posterity. But what I will do is begin to think through it a bit more. Learn to live in the moment rather than watch it from the sideline. I want to keep engaged. I want to stay focussed for as long as possible. It seems I need to teach myself to just put the phone down. Just put it down.

    What about you? Do you do a similar thing? Had similar thoughts? It’d be great to hear from you below.

  • Richard Baxter On The Pastor and Recreation

    Richard Baxter on recreation for the minister:

    “Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower – that is, to be used only so far as is necessary for his work. May a physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death, and say : “Go, doth not require me to make myself a drudge to save them?” Is this the voice of ministerial or Christian compassion or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty?”

  • Life As A Witness

    This week I’m spending time preparing two messages to give on Sunday. My text for the weekend is John 15:26-27:

    “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also must bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.”

    This passage is set in the Upper Room, or at least on the way to the Mount of Olives just before Jesus’ death. It is the final time Jesus and his disciples will be together. Between 13:31 and the end of chapter 16 Jesus speaks his final words to them. These two verses are placed in the middle of Jesus talking about the persecution they will face, even by those who think they are offering a service to God (16:3).

    Last night I began pondering what it means to bear witness.

    It is evident from the text that the Spirit gives witness about Jesus.

    In other words, the central point of the Spirit being sent is to testify about Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.

    One must also ponder what that means for us.

    The disciples are given somewhat of a command, they must bear witness.

    Why? Because they have been with him since the beginning of his ministry.

    Not only will the Spirit witness about Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection, but so will his disciples.

    This grounds the gospel and the life of Jesus in its historical context. Suddenly, we see that 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 comes into play and agreement is reached regarding the historical fact of Jesus and the gospel. Here is one part of bearing witness, testifying to the truth of Jesus.

    There also seems to be a distinct link to Jesus’ final command to his disciples in Matthew 28:19-20:

    “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

    The act of bearing witness could be classified as evangelism and teaching. Telling people about Jesus and teaching people about Jesus.

    Bearing witness and being a disciple of Jesus also has lifestyle implications. A disciple of Jesus doesn’t just proclaim the historical gospel with their mouth, or teach others about Jesus, they too pursue a life worthy of the gospel.

    A life of being a disciple is a life of following Jesus, his words and actions.

  • God Hears Our Prayers

    “The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer.” (Psalm 6:9)

    Isn’t great that we can be safe in the knowledge that the Lord hears our prayers?

    While reading Psalm 6 this morning this verse stood out to me. It gives me assurance of a God who listens to me, who hears me, and who accepts me.

    Prayer can be a difficult and weary task at times. Our relationship with him may be rather dry, or it is difficult to speak to God when we are conscious of our own sin. However, the Lord is good and he hears our prayers and cries for help.

    David, the writer of this Psalm, is troubled and knows he has done wrong. It seems he is conscious of his sin and is guilt-ridden because of it. He is crying out to God, desperate for his help.

    It can be easy to resonate with David here.

    How often are we in sin? How often have we done things we don’t want to do? How often have we gone against God and chosen the wrong path, the wrong words, the wrong actions toward others? Sometimes this leads to regret, to a knowledge of guilt, a knowledge of sin.

    There is no worse feeling, I believe, than knowing you have sinned against the Almighty. He is an all-powerful, glorious, and magnificent God who knows all and is in all and is through all.

    Here David rests in the knowledge that the Lord has heard his pleading, his cry for help, and his cry for mercy. What great assurance! To know the Lord has heard our pleas and heard our cries brings an assurance from above.

    Yet, he not only hears them, he also accepts them! He is willing to accept what we say to him, hearing our anguished cry for forgiveness and for help. Through our Mediator, Jesus Christ, our cries are heard and accepted and we are made new once more.

    Through the work of Jesus Christ upon that beautiful cross the Lord hears and accepts our prayers. But even more, he hears and accepts us! Us! With all our sin, foibles, and quirks he takes us into his loving arms and holds us in our time of need.

    O what assurance, O what loving grace!