Tag: god

It’s worth doing badly

I don’t know how you are with housework. I’m not very good at it. My gifts lie elsewhere. (Don’t worry, I still do it.)

One issue I have is that I’m (internally) a bit of a perfectionist. This is a paradox. I feel like if I’m going to clean, it needs to be done properly. It needs to be done well. And frankly I don’t have time for that right now. So I don’t do it.

It’s not just me. I’ve definitely read that this is an issue for other people (maybe Dana White for one?). Some people live in mountains of clutter because they feel like 10 mins of decluttering just won’t be enough. So they never do any.

If I’m going to clean my bathroom, I can’t just wipe around everything with an antibacterial wipe. No. I need to empty the room, sweep and mop, get the Cif out and give everything a scrub. So if I don’t have time for that, it can go weeks without any TLC. Whereas, rationally speaking, an antibacterial wipe down would be better than nothing.

This is why I believe that, very often, if a job’s worth doing then it’s worth doing badly. That’s if for some reason you can’t do it well. Maybe you’ve just had a baby, or you’re unwell, or it’s June and things are getting crazy. (If you’re in the USA, I think May is your equivalent of our June/July mayhem. Sadly Junehem isn’t a word.)

But I’m not here to tell you how to clean. We’ve got more important things to discuss.

Sometimes that same feeling of perfectionism stops us from reading our Bible or praying. It’s not just perfectionism, but there’s also a voice whispering to us that anything less than perfect will not be enough.

You can’t pray on your walk back from the school drop-off. That’s not good enough. You’ll be distracted.
You can’t read the Bible for three minutes on your phone will you’re waiting for the bath to fill up. You need to devote much longer to it, and do it in a peaceful, calm space.
You can’t just listen to a sermon while you’re ironing. You have to focus.

These thoughts that come to us, that stop us from praying, reading or listening, are not from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the accuser. That’s what Satan’s name means. He’s the one who accuses. And he really does not want us to read our Bibles.

Speaking to and hearing from our God is the best thing we can do today. And if we can’t do it well, we should do it badly. Ideally we would do it well, but for now we could at least just do something. If my Bible time today is the equivalent of an antibac wipe around the basin, it’s better than the nothing I might have done yesterday. And (like the wipe) it will do enough good so that my family will benefit from it.

So when things are getting a little hot under the collar this month, let’s defy Satan and lock ourselves in the toilet and pray.

I’m grateful to Paul and Penny Dawson for their wise counsel, which led me to write this post.

Just Be Honest

“How’s your week been?”

This is a question we get asked at church. It’s a good question! I wonder how you feel about answering it? It might depend on who is asking and whether they seem genuinely interested.

Sometimes your week has been so terrible that you’re not sure if you can talk about it, or whether the person innocently asking the question is ready to hear it.

I recently asked someone how their week had been and he said, “It’s been a really hard week.” Then he told me something really upsetting that had happened. I felt really sorry for him but I was so glad he actually gave me an honest answer!

Depending on what kind of church you go to, you may or may not feel comfortable expressing deep emotions in church. It might be that you can be totally honest with your church family, especially those closest to you. You might not feel that you have to put on a brave face for church and tell people “God is good” even when you’re feeling crushed. But sadly many Christians do. And if believers are not prepared for the reality of suffering, they may even walk away when things get really tough.

That’s why I love this book.

‘Just Be Honest’ is written for Christians who are hurting and for those who know someone who is.

Clint Watkins is very honest about his own experience of losing a child and how he struggled with God and with the weight of the grief. He gives us, from Scripture, permission to wrestle with the Lord, and to struggle. Many years ago my pastor said to me, ‘struggle is a sign of life.’ Dead things don’t struggle. Struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. It’s a normal part of the Christian life:

God welcomes his people to worship through tears and pray without pretending. Aches, questions, and tears are a heritage of faith handed down to us through the generations. We belong to a legacy of lament. p.18

God’s people have always suffered. This book helps us to be honest about it and take our pain to the One who can heal us.

As well as being honest with God, this book is also about being honest with each other. He addresses those who need support and how they should let others in, as well as those who want to help but don’t know what to say and don’t want to say the wrong thing. He gives practical advice as well as spiritual encouragement, drawing on his own experiences:

This is the simple power of Christlike compassion. Show up. Shed tears. Lament, listen and love. p.143

Even while I was reading this book, I had several conversations with people where the words of the book came to mind. I suppose one reason for this is that, when you really stop to look around, there are people struggling and suffering everywhere. Yes, this is a wonderful, beautiful world. Yes, we have the victory in Jesus! Hallelujah!

But we’re also in the world that’s blighted by sin and Satan. We’re in the world where hopes are dashed, sickness thwarts and death separates. So we need books like this to help us shed God’s grace and light onto the path when grief or trauma is blocking the view and our loved ones can’t see a way forward. And when we’re the ones struggling, we need to go to the One with whom we can and must be truly honest.

Our grief was not ours alone to bear. Through lament, our friends and family took hold of our heartache. They made our sorrows their own. Our questions became their questions. Our groans became their groans. Their cries on our behalf resounded: we were not alone. p.113