The Battle in my Mind

We were given a Land Rover Discovery by some very kind friends nearly two years ago and I love it every time I use it. It is comfortable, I can listen to music and sing, I can lock the doors and windows when I go into town and feel safe, it’s automatic so my left leg no longer aches when I am in a traffic jam, which is EVERY time I go into town, and if I’m really honest, it’s a little bit of ‘home’.

Today the pick up was misbehaving and the old bush Land Rover can no longer be trusted for long journeys so we went to Maasai in the Discovery...............

We arrived in the boma and immediately a conversation started in my head between Lisa from the UK and Lisa in Tanzania and it went something like this:

L-uk : Oh no look at those kids all over the car, I’d better get someone to guard it while we’re here.

L-tz : Don’t be silly, if you fuss about your lovely shiny green car, it only widens the gap between you and them.

L-uk : But look at that one, he’s investigating how the light guards are fixed and I bet he’ll pull them off next...........

L-tz : Yes but you can’t expect to show them how to trust God when you ask one of them to guard your car against the rest of them.

L-uk: But it’s my lovely car.................

L-tz – Stop being stupid, relax and go and enjoy yourself...............................which I did and off we went to drink tea, chat, sing, pray and talk about John 3 – all with the car in view I have to admit.

Time to go home and what do we find? Names, and plenty of them, meticulously carved with a rusty old nail all along my lovely car. It seems that small people, not much higher than the bonnet, so well hidden from our view, wanted to show off their writing skills and we had provided a lovely green shiny board for them to do so. One side was clearly for Primary and the other for infants – and the prize in Primary goes to whoever carved ‘malaria’ so beautifully over the front wheel arch. On the infants’ side, the prize goes to whoever did that very imaginative extended swirly pattern above the sill.



The next conversation in my head cannot be recorded – psychologists call them hot thoughts for a reason and they are the ones that are best filtered before we open our mouths. Suffice to say that L-uk took the floor in that conversation!

I forgave the parents because they were equally outraged. They had seen my face and their consequent care and concern was pure kindness. It was when one woman, desperately searching for a remedy for me, suggested that I could fill the writing in with a green crayon or a small pot of paint that I let the hot thoughts go.

L-tz took over the conversation in my head and I wondered why I would expect people to behave according to my own principles – why should they? If I was in the UK, it might have been vandals smashing the windows, stealing the music machine or simply scratching the sides as they walked past. At least, I have a car that has been carefully crafted with the names of the people I was with today.

Is this Sanctification?

Whilst studying some aspects of psychology used in counselling I was struck by this idea - a person is a Christian to the degree that he or she has come to terms with themselves. It sounds faintly odd and the idea needs fleshing out I know.
First of all I use the term Christian to mean someone in whom the characteristics of the person of Jesus Christ are being manifested - not as a replicated clone but rather as a distinctive family member.
Secondly by the expression ‘come to terms with one’s self’ I mean the process of accepting oneself for who we are in the reality of today, warts and all. This often has to be an objective acceptance from which the subjective journey can be made into the reasons why we are the way we are.
One of my favourite verses is the one that states that ‘the truth sets you free’. For most of us that might conjure up some idea of a court room drama where the truth is expressed, the prosecution’s case collapses and the accused walks away free. Many people have experienced an immense sense of personal freedom when the understanding that their sins have been forgiven bursts upon their minds. This is the freedom from the guilt of all past wrongdoings. It is also freedom from future accusation - the amazing idea that no one can ultimately raise an accusing finger against me in the final analysis of my life.
However I think that there is a more profound experience of freedom than the revelation that our sins have been forgiven. This is the lightness of soul that comes gently and steadily upon a person as they settle mentally and emotionally into the fact that they are personally accepted by God in the here and now, and that He is working everything towards their ultimate good. This eliminates any effort at self improvement - what is the point if one is already accepted? It also means that whatever has been stacked against us in life can be used by God - there is no such label as ‘disadvantaged.’ In fact the more ‘disadvantaged’ you are the more potential you have to be ‘advantaged’ - with God your absolute best will always surpass your absolute worst.
How can all this be? In the end it is because the truth, or Truth, is a person. It is not some abstract concept existing in human consciousness. This person, who is Truth, is Jesus Christ and His personality and character can only be expressed through another human personality and character - you and me. This isn’t about upholding the truth as if we were championing a cause. Nor is it knowing about the truth as in Bible knowledge or theology. There may be many Christians who do great things for the truth and others who are deeply in the knowledge of the truth who have very little expression of the Truth in their own characters and lives.
This Truth is in fact the life....... of Jesus Christ. We come into the Truth as we make room for Him by coming to terms with the present state of our being - something He has already done. Then, as we work with Him, in being healed from wounds, forgiving other’s trespasses upon our lives, and our own upon theirs we thereby give Him the raw material that He needs in order to change us into His likeness and make us whole.
Come to think of it, being in the image and likeness of God was what He actually intended right from the beginning!