Be Still And Know

Proverbs 1:8-9 My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honour around your neck. I would be fascinated to know what you remember your parents teaching you. Their words shape the whole of our lives. I clearly remember my father insisting that we show “instant obedience”, presumably because we so often failed to do it! I remember my mother giving us great encouragement when we were kind to others. My parents are no longer with us, but their influence lives on. I can still hear their words of guidance, encouragement and warning. When we became foster parents a few years ago, we were encouraged to spend a lot of time reflecting on parenting skills. Bringing up our own three children we didn’t reflect much on the process – we just did it! Parents are never perfect, and I’ve heard it said that what we need to be is “good enough parents”. I like that expression. We won’t always get it right, but be

Proverbs 1:7 Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. You need to be careful with the book of Proverbs. It’s very easy to read too much of it and get indigestion! It’s a book which needs lots of time for careful reflection, and this is the wisest and most crucial verse of all. True knowledge begins with knowing God personally. It’s our relationship with the creator of the universe that enables us to gain access to real knowledge which will help us to live our lives to the full. I wonder what you understand by the expression “fear of the Lord”. I have been brought up to think of God as my friend and my companion, the one who is always looking out for me. Fear might seem to clash with that sort of understanding of God, but it doesn’t have to. We need to remember that the God who offers us his friendship is not like other friends. None of my other friends has created the universe. None of them has all wisdom, power and authority. Our Friend God is awesome

Mark 8:36-37 What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? Our cynical, materialistic society was well summed up by Oscar Wilde as knowing “the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Like many one-liners, that’s a bit harsh, but he was making an important point. It’s very easy for our money-mad society to overlook the most important things because of its obsession with the temporary things that have a price tag. Jesus pours scorn on this way of thinking. Forget owning a really large house or becoming the exclusive owner of every property in your town – Jesus encourages you to imagine what it would be like to own the whole world. That, he suggests, would be completely pointless if you lost your soul, your very reason for living. Jesus is encouraging us to think about our priorities. What matters most to us? Whether we are conscious of it or not, the answer to that question will shape every day of our lives. It’s an issue to which Jesu

Mark 8:34-35 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, [Jesus] said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.” Jesus’ breathtaking honesty is very striking. Day by day, we are constantly being encouraged to sign up to organisations which can improve our health, wealth or general wellbeing. Their marketing is slick and highly polished and calculated to get us to subscribe to their products or services. They help us to dream of a happier and more successful life and cram in every attractive and glossy image to lure us into signing up. Jesus took a completely different approach. He spoke straight to people about the costs of following him. It reminds me of Winston Churchill, who during the second world war offered people “blood, toil, tears and sweat.” I am firmly convinced that living for Christ is the most amazing and wonderful life. I would recommend it to anyone. However, that doesn’

Mark 8:33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” I have a soft spot for Peter. When Jesus informed his disciples that he was going to suffer at the hands of the Jewish authorities and then be killed, Peter did what any friend would do. He told Jesus off for saying such terrible things. He loved Jesus and hated the thought of him going through such suffering, but Jesus would have none of it. “Get away from me, Satan!” was as complete a reprimand as he could have uttered, and then he explained that Peter was just thinking things through from a human point of view. He needed to start thinking from God’s point of view. This is an important challenge for us all. It is easy for us to become so immersed in the busyness of daily life and the demands of our world that we struggle to think of anything from God’s point of view. Like Peter, it’s very easy for us to respond to

Mark 8:27,29 Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi…He asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” As you look back through your life, you may be able to spot turning points. At the time, the day was just like any other, but with hindsight you realise that nothing was quite the same afterwards. Jesus’ visit to Caesarea Philippi with his disciples was undoubtedly a major turning point in his ministry. Up until this moment, Jesus had been preaching and healing with the rumble of threats from the teachers of the law in the background. From this point on, he was heading to the cross. These verses, in which Jesus asked his disciples about his identity, are followed by his first prediction of his death. From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, people had tried to work out who he was. They were amazed by his authoritative teaching and his powerful miracles. They also knew that he was from Nazareth, a town which had no reputation for

Mark 7:14-15 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.” The Pharisees had got really worked up by the disciples not washing their hands properly before eating. Elaborate rules had been developed over the years, and the Pharisees were meticulous in their adherence to them. They were sure that in order to be acceptable to God, they needed to keep these rules, but Jesus turned their thinking upside down. He pointed out that having really clean hands and following endless religious rules did nothing to change the person that you were. What mattered was what was in your heart. If you were seething with bitterness and anger, no amount of washing or other clever rituals could help. Jesus wanted to get to the heart of the matter. I honestly haven’t spent much of my life thinking about my heart. However, nine years ago, that all changed. I had cellulitis and

Mark 6:37 Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” The feeding of the 5,000 was a spectacular miracle, but Jesus didn’t rush into performing it. First of all, he challenged the disciples with a blunt command: “You feed them.” Just imagine how they would’ve felt! Suddenly, they had to come up with an answer. They started thinking through the implications and quickly worked out that they would need to work for a long time to earn enough to feed such a huge crowd. They were firmly convinced that Jesus’ challenge was completely impossible. The problem with the disciples was that they were thinking in purely human terms. Jesus was trying to help them think beyond the normal limitations of life. Their response was entirely reasonable, but the snag with it was that it didn’t take account of God. It left no room for miracles. As disciples of Jesus, they needed to stop thinking in purely practical terms and start seei

Mark 6:31 Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. The disciples had just returned from their first mission trip, and they were full of it. They couldn’t wait to update Jesus and he, in turn, was keen to hear what had been going on. He invited them to head off with him to a quiet place where they could have quality time together and catch up on all the news. It was a great plan, but it failed spectacularly. As they headed off in their boat, the crowd spotted them and reached their destination before they did! I draw two conclusions from this fascinating account. Firstly, Jesus valued the opportunity for taking time out. He cared for his disciples and was aware of the pressure that they were under. Mark records that there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have enough time to eat. They desperately needed to

Mark 6:3 Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. This was an agonising moment. Jesus was rudely dismissed by the people of Nazareth. They couldn’t work out how someone they’d known for nearly 30 years had such an amazing ministry. Some of the people may have gone to school with Jesus and others would probably have known him and Joseph through their business. Through the centuries, it has been believed that Joseph, and presumably Jesus, were carpenters, although we can’t sure. The word in Greek describes people who worked with stone and metal as well as wood. However, whatever their precise line of work, they would have had customers. Jesus was being rejected by people who knew him well, and their rejection was brutal – they wanted nothing to do with him. The problem that the people of Nazareth had was that they could only see Jesus in hum

Mark 5:18-19 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. But Jesus said, “No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.” This healing took place on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. It was a very different area from the other side of the lake, where Jesus spent most of his time living and ministering. Most of the people on the east side were Gentiles. Jesus was confronted with a man who lived in the burial caves and who couldn’t be restrained. He was known as Legion because there were so many evil spirits in him. No doubt the local population lived in great fear of him. Whenever he was put in chains and shackles, he just snapped the chains with his wrists and smashed the shackles. Jesus healed the man and ordered the evil spirits to enter a local herd of pigs. Two thousand of them hurtled down the hillside and drowned in the lake. Inevitably, the owners of the pigs were outraged by this, an

Mark 4:38-39 Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. The account of Jesus stilling the storm is well known, but only Mark records the rather rude question of the disciples. To imply that Jesus didn’t care that they were about to drown suggests that they didn’t know him very well. They were still trying to work out who he was, and when he had brought calm to the situation, the disciples were absolutely terrified, asking with shock and surprise: “Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (v41). When things go wrong, it is easy to lash out at God. In the heat of the moment, it is easy to suggest that God doesn’t care when we face rejection, or an illness, failure or accident, but it’s a question that we never need to ask. God always cares f

Mark 4:26-27 Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens.” This wonderful little parable tells us why it is so exciting to work for God. As I sit down at my laptop to write these reflections, I haven’t any idea how God will use them. I have no way of knowing who you are or what your needs are at the moment, but God knows and uses what I am putting in his hands. When we care for another person, offer a word of encouragement or write a thoughtful email, people will be blessed by God, but in a way that is totally beyond our knowledge. It’s just the same for the farmer who may not have any understanding of botany but who simply knows that once he has put seeds in the ground, growth takes place, and it happens whether he’s working hard or sleeping in his bed. Let this be an encouragement to you: nothing that you ever do for God is a waste of time. I am more

Mark 4:21 Then Jesus asked them, “Would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed? Of course not! A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light will shine.” Jesus often spoke using parables. On the surface, they were just simple stories, but they all had a very deep spiritual meaning. Like me, you may well have been listening to the parables since you were young, and I’m sure you’d agree that they keep challenging and encouraging us in new ways. We are not always in a position to understand what God is saying to us, but he is always in the business of shining his light on our lives. He wants us to understand what his will is, and the Bible is one of the main ways in which he chooses to speak with us. So the question we all need to ask is this: “How are we going to make sure that God’s light shines in our lives?” First of all, we need to set aside time to receive God’s truth. However busy your life is, you need to make sure you have time to reflect on what God is saying to you. These

Mark 3:34-35 [Jesus] looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” The Gospels tell us remarkably little about Jesus’ family. We would so love to know about all his family members and his relationships with them, but the Gospels are largely silent. However, we meet them on this occasion because they had clearly got the impression that Jesus wasn’t looking after himself. Earlier in this chapter, we are informed that Jesus and his disciples were so busy that they couldn’t even find time to eat. Mark records that they had formed the view that Jesus was out of his mind. When Jesus was told that his mother and brothers had come to see him, his response was to identify who his true family was: people who did God’s will. I don’t believe for a moment that Jesus was abandoning his birth family or seeking to insult them. He always sought to uphold the law, which affirmed the God-given responsibility for caring for one’s

Mark 3:13 Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. The calling of the twelve disciples is a fascinating moment in Jesus’ ministry. It’s greatly significant that he chose to work with a group of people and not operate alone. In this, he affirmed the importance of fellowship. However gifted we may be, we need one another and our very different outlooks and abilities. Going it alone is never Jesus’ way. I remember as a teenager meeting a very enthusiastic Christian who was determined that my home town should all follow Jesus. It was a wonderful vision to have, but he was quite clear that he was going to do this by himself. He had a large leather bag full of Christian tracts and he was confident that he would be able to get the job done. His enthusiasm was commendable, but his method was sadly wrong. We are never called to go off on heroic solo adventures but to work closely with our Christian brothers and sisters. Jesus’ disciples were a fas

Mark 2:27-28 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!” Some years ago, I spent a couple of months living in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, which is home to a very large number of ultra-orthodox Jews. I very soon learned, to my surprise, that the Sabbath begins late afternoon on Friday, when the first star is seen in the sky. From that moment, the shops shut and people go home to begin their rituals to mark the start of the Sabbath. There is something incredibly special about setting aside one day in seven as a day of rest. This was the example that God set when he created the world, and the law of Moses protected the day with a penalty of death for anyone who worked on the Sabbath. Over the centuries, the laws of the Sabbath were developed extensively, and by the time of Jesus, there were scores of laws regulating people’s activities on the day. There were, essentially, 39 for

Mark 2:22 [Jesus said:] “No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.” We all know what happens to leather after a few years: it becomes hard and brittle. Just imagine what happens when you put wine into an old leather wineskin – the wine inevitably leaks away. In Jesus’ day, wine was largely stored in wineskins, so everyone got the point. If you want to keep your wine, you need to make sure that you only put it into new wineskins. Jesus’ teaching was radical and new. He was telling people about the new wine of the kingdom of God. This wonderful new wine was so precious that there was no point in trying to put it into the old wineskins of Judaism. There needed to be a complete revolution. It was vital for them to be born again. A new life needed to begin. Many people hear the teaching of Jesus and conclude that they need to turn over a new leaf. They need to start being more loving, and s

Mark 2:17 [Jesus] told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Jesus’ way of life was a shock to the respectable religious leaders of his day. So far as they were concerned, the priority was to ensure they were ritually pure so they could participate in the temple worship. Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan powerfully describes the situation. The first two people who walked past the wounded man were a priest and a Levite. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that they didn’t care – their priority was to remain ritually clean so they could perform their duties. Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be bothered about staying ritually clean according to the Jewish law. He gladly associated with dodgy people, even though he must have known that this would offend the religious leaders. Here, Jesus explained the reason why he did this: he had come for the sake of people who knew that they were sick, and

Mark 2:5 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralysed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” I love this story. Four men had decided that, however difficult it might be, they were going to get their paralysed friend to Jesus. They knew it would be a challenge because Jesus was already very popular and large crowds were following him. On this particular day, Jesus was preaching in a house in Capernaum where he had been staying. The house was already crammed with people, so there was no possibility of the men getting their friend to Jesus through the door. They needed to use their initiative, and for them the obvious answer was to break through the roof. The owner of the house probably wasn’t quite so thrilled with their conclusion but it was, nonetheless, effective, and the paralysed man was brought to the feet of Jesus. Everybody could see what the need was. The man was paralysed and needed healing, so surely Jesus, who had already acquired a reputation as a miraculous healer, would reach out his hand