The Journey From Death to Life

“Real life requires death. Death involves the experience of suffering. Suffering is required for growth.”

— DAN ALLENDER

Life is an upside-down reality. What appears to give us life sends us to either a rapid or a slow spiritual death. But what is death to the flesh is life to the spirit. The journey from death to life is the relinquishment of those tantalising features of the world that hold us back from the full experience of life.

When we can give up what we cannot keep in order to gain what we cannot lose we win an eternal prize – now and to come. But much faith is required. We must believe that suffering for truth – by sacrifice – is worth it. But if we don’t believe we don’t get anywhere spiritually. No investment means no return.

This means we need to be prepared to lose in order to win. We need to be prepared to go against the grain of sense so we can ensure there is room for God’s grace to permeate our situations.

When we are able to give away our needs, and live the death of Jesus so others can have life, we are surprised as to what comes back to us in the way of blessing. We have taken on the journey through death to ourselves in order to redeem life – the long way around, but the only true and sustainable way.

If we can endure pain, and grapple with the reality of our situations, God will reward us here in this life. But importantly, that is not our aim or objective.

We want to be done with notions of blessing, so we can be focused only on matters of trusting and obeying God by ordering the realities of truth into our psyches – to such a ‘heart’ level that we can do them. We let matters of blessing come of their own accord, without us influencing them one way or the other.

Death Is a Precursor to Life

There is no life in this existence called life until there is death. We must die to ourselves in order to redeem this life that God has, that replaces the veneer of life we have come to accept as life – a life trapped in the mortal body.

Accepting that there is no life without having procured the matter of death, we can see that everything we want to achieve is dependent on surrender. We need to get back to the start before we can start again.

This applies to the many things we cannot do without the fullest of surrenders.

***

Change depends on the necessary surrender of those things that have held us back; the things associated with death regarding the new place we want to get to. This is the journey from death to life – that is, from death of the old self to life in the new self. New life is possible only when the old life is dealt with.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Embarking On the Sweetest Loneliness

Sweetest loneliness with the Lonely Shepherd,

Comes the time... now,

Together, alone, we walk gently by the stream.

Jesus, my Saviour, for Whom I do so esteem,

You bring my soul to completion this moment,

Even as if it were the surest dream.

***

Sadness within the purest loneliness invites us to enter the Presence of God... and there can be no better experience... paradox of paradoxes... ironies sweeping past ironies... the worst brings the best into view.

How do we get our heads around this fact, that there is a lonely place that really is never better? We have to experience it to believe that, surely.

Embarking on the sweetest loneliness is willingly entering in on the heart of God – to receive the invitation that exists and persists eternally – to come home within the communion moment.

Journeying with the Lonely Shepherd

We may not be used to thinking in terms of God as a lonely shepherd, but in such a case as seeking our souls he can be seen to be just that – forever lonely in seeking us out, to commune with us.

This is not about a lonely emotion within the heart of God, but it does resonate with the sense of desire God has that we would come home.

God has journeyed with us since before our birth and he journeys with us after our death. But we do not always journey with God; like the proverbial footprints in the sand, God walks most of the journey alone, carrying us – when we would be doing our own thing.

Journeying with the Lonely Shepherd, therefore, is our opportunity to not only return to God what rightfully belongs to him – us, of ourselves – but to be blessed, also, by knowing the richness of God-felt Presence in our loneliness moments.

At the end of ourselves is the power of God, and we redeem this power in the foreclosure of our insistence to run the other way. When we are willingly lonely with the Lord, we are graced by his Presence.

***

Sadness within the purest loneliness invites us to enter the Presence of God... and there can be no better experience... paradox of paradoxes... ironies sweeping past ironies... the worst brings the best into view.

Loneliness can be like a gateway into the heart of God, where we present as we are, with nothing added; where we do not hide from our loneliness. We let it be. In such a place we are safe; it’s a sanctuary where God heals us for that moment.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

 

Treating Mental Illness With Compassion

“If your mental illness makes you feel guilty, review the definition of ‘illness’ and try to treat yourself with the same respect and concern you would show to a cancer patient or a person with pneumonia.”

— Mental Health Awareness Australia

There is too much humanity in human beings for our own good. In our unique and innate brokenness, we take any example of maladjustment that clings to us as persons and we berate ourselves for it. If our ears poke out too much, or we speak with a lisp, or our hips appear too disproportionate to the rest of our bodies, or we are no good at math, we feel ashamed. There is an ancient form of guilt imposed from deep within and there seems nothing we can do about it.

Mental ills are perhaps the biggest scourge of all, or it least among the biggest of them. We feel ashamed to admit we have been depressed or that we cannot handle the anxieties that flood our lives. But if most of the population will be impacted at some point in their lives by these things – even minimally – why do we feel so bad?

It is time to smash the stigma. Thankfully more and more countries and agencies around the world are using things like social media to propagate the message: mental health is about wellness and illness – and no judgment between them.

Contrasting Wellness and Illness

There are billions of dollars spent on wellness programs every year around the world. There is much more spent on illness, and poignantly mental illness commands its share of that purse. Still, the world cannot keep up.

These facts don’t help the person shut in to their mental illness, but they go a long way towards proving how tremendous this nemesis is. It is beyond humanity to solve it. And many issues around wellness and illness defy our understanding. Why are some people well and some ill? Child development theories may help to explain some of it, but there are always the confounding exceptions – and so many of them.

Our inherent mental health or ill-health is neither about our glory nor our fault.

And what is not our fault we should not feel guilty for or ashamed about, but inevitably we will because we are human.

We need to be able to forgive ourselves, or better, receive God’s forgiveness, for the times when we struggle to accept ourselves as we are; to treat ourselves with the same respect and show ourselves the same concern as someone physically ill.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Healing Experiences of Emotional Trauma

“We don’t heal in isolation, but in community.”

— S. Kelley Harrell

With certain obvious exceptions, this article is pointed at the everyday experiences of family trauma and how we heal them. Sexual and physical abuse is beyond the scope of this article. What is directly in view is the power struggle known to emotional abuse—which, in my view, can be traumatic to the point of producing conniptions where normally steady souls can become mentally compromised for a time.

Family, despite what we might believe, is often a great source of emotional trauma. When we have suffered how are we to heal what we have suffered?

The Destructiveness of Isolation

The opposite of empowerment, so far as family trauma is concerned, is isolation. The more we try to isolate or deny the issues, the more problematic they become.

Take an industrial pipeline. When pressure in pipelines builds beyond the design of the pipe-work, there needs to be a relief valve to allow the excess pressure to be relieved to protect the whole pipeline from bursting open. Likewise, anybody who insists on remaining in their isolation is condemning themselves to a potential implosion of soul; it’s a cesspool devoid of logic. The pressure will build and build, and anger (which comes from a deep soul sadness) threatens to spew over the edges into violence.

In so many ways the devil is engaged in pushing people further into their isolation. This enemy of God knows the destructive power of silence, where purging the pressure is truly the only way to go when it comes to emotional trauma.

The Problem Shared Is a Problem Halved

Issues propagating emotional trauma in the family system can be healed when we share them with trusted loved ones and friends who have the emotional capacity to hold what we share, without getting angry.

The importance of having somebody who listens to us seems obvious. All we need do is reach out.

Because we find ourselves in situations where family sometimes hurts us, we need family or friends who can listen without judging too much. And as we share, we are encouraged to be ourselves, without denigrating or condemning ourselves. The trusted person who can listen wants us healed, and they will do whatever they can to support this.

***

Healing is secured by sharing. Only in healing is there hope for forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation.

***

Healing’s a thing all of us need,

Intermittently, for our well-being,

Only in healing is there the seed,

Sown in a way to restore our seeing.

Much of our well-being comes out of how we see our world. If we keep journeying with our hurt, sharing our burdens with people who just listen and don't advise too much, healing comes into the frame. And our perspective is renewed.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Hope Having Lost Everything Meaningful

Recalling times past, nearly 10 years ago now, times when I truly felt I had lost everything, I thank God for the sense of hope that was instilled into me, even as I floundered to re-establish my identity as a man healed enough to turn 180°.

Thinking back to those times and the desperation, the loneliness, the fear, and the intrepid sense of wonder that God was with me through all these, helping me step, proves to me, looking back how faithful God is.

I screamed out to God to save me and he did just that, but in ways I could never have imagined; as I wandered the earth having prayed that bitter prayer, God sought me out in such unpredictable ways. When exercising, worshipping, or simply driving the car I was swept aside myself by the Presence of God – a giant goose bump wasn’t even half of it.

But no matter how much I was touched by the hand of God I still had to grapple with the consequences of losing everything that was meaningful to me.

I was desperate to make amends and I did so, but these amends often probably meant more to God than they did to the person is making amends to. Still, I remained convinced that I was on the right path; I had faith in God and in God’s faithfulness to restore me and vindicate me. And he did.

Hope Inside of Hopelessness

Hope requires faith to work, just as faith has to be fuelled by hope.

These two run in tandem, and they are helped by love – love for ourselves through a loving God.

It may seem a contradiction in terms to be able to access hope inside our hopelessness, but through faith enough to keep stepping, honestly and courageously, we are gifted blessings for our faith. We have power we never had before. We see things as we never saw them before, honestly. We take full ownership of our lives and how it impacted others.

Somehow, in the depths of our sorrows, as we grimly go on, there is a presence inside us, helping, assisting, when it would be otherwise impossible to go on.

***

Holding on, having lost everything meaningful sounds impossible, but with hope even in hopelessness we can go on. Honesty, courage and companionship all go a long way. We have to believe the best is yet to come, and the interesting thing about belief (faith) is most of the time it comes true.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Melting the Spiritual Frost

Spiritual dryness is like a frost,

Like when a sword blade sticks in its sheath,

It disables and corrupts, making us lost,

Our eyes are called from heaven, somehow underneath.

The key, of course, is to solemnly stick,

To the facts of knowledge we already know,

We trust and obey, that’s what we pick,

And out of our trials we cannot but grow.

The agency for spiritual growth is hardship, and there may be no more confounding an experience as hardship and spiritual dryness. Frost has this thing about it that it renders things immovable. The agency for spiritual growth is hardship, and there is nothing worse by experience, and nothing better by potential for growth, than the hardship of spiritual dryness.

It bears repeating that much of the Bible deals with real-life scenarios, where biblical characters underwent severe hardships, yet, through their faith, they were able to overcome.

Spiritual dryness is no different. When we are caught in the midst of a frosty morning – spiritually speaking – we should have but one aim: to get out and amongst it and explore the frost. Such a contemplation is a good idea but it requires courage.

Courage is what powers our tenacity to plumb the depths of our dryness and to survive the frost as it gradually melts upon the rising of the sun from the east.

Enduring by Courage

There is no good holding God to ransom when we are feeling dry and alone and bereft of the presence of God. The Lord of Glory cannot be held to ransom. God Almighty makes the rules and is not subject to them. It harms only us to turn our backs on God. Turning our backs is pitiful. It’s also such a waste. The best of growth is occurring now, somehow.

At this point we accept life as it is – hard as that seems – and to do this requires courage. We are not in control, but we can do one thing: trust and obey.

Courage helps us endure.

Courage helps us to ply our faith and it gives us space mentally for wisdom. Courage is not just a physical attribute, but it is the patience that wards off a silly response, or, in this case of spiritual dryness, it helps us not give up.

So we need courage, and just enough of it to get through the tempting minutes.

***

Spiritual dryness is like a frost over a well-cut lawn. It disables us by the sheer coldness of temperature. All we can do is trust and obey. That requires courage to endure. And such courage helps us ply our faith. And such faith will mean we will be patient, guarding our responses in enough wisdom to get through. Be assured, growth comes from dryness; when the spiritual frost melts we see!

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

 

 

Seeing Into Fear, Letting It Go

“Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,

and what I dread befalls me.”

— JOB 3:25 (NRSV)

WHAT MAY WE SAY about fear in order that we may be able to resolve it?

We are all drawn to many types and various forms of anxiousness, notwithstanding the odd time when we venture into anxiety disorders – whether diagnosed or undiagnosed. Being in fear is a state we hate, because, at that time, we cannot seem to help ourselves from feeling anxious. There is an uneasiness that clings from within and affects how we relate with our world and pummels our confidence with people.

Seeing into our fear in order that we may achieve, through God, a state of ease – restoring our peace – even if we know what peace is – is what anyone in fear seeks.

Seeing into our fear is stepping back into a vein of perspective, whereby we become attuned to the broadness of life, again.

Creating Space Within the Mind

Most of our lives are full with both our experience of the present and demanding schedules. We are told to stay in the present, but that doesn’t help much when the present is already so full of things to think about and issues weighing heavily on our hearts.

We almost need to debunk what we have on our plates, to get out into the backyard, to find ourselves a bit of nature, in order to redeem perspective.

Seeing into our fear is very much a visual metaphor about perspective.

Only when we release ourselves from the burdening present will we have any chance of redeeming this present that God can fill. But God can only fill an empty present; a present that is devoid of the practical concerns of life; a present where the world is let go of.

Letting go is a practised thing; we don’t give up because we are not already perfect. The point is we won’t be perfect, ever. We keep trying and we slowly get better. Persistence pays off. What we can achieve is a good enough platform for letting go in order to redeem God’s perspective – true vision for abundant life.

***

Fear comes upon us without invitation; it befalls us against our will. When we can see into our fear, God can heal us of it. What we need to do is empty our minds and hearts of the present concerns – letting them go – in order that God would speak into our situations by the ancient tool of perspective.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

Surviving the Excruciating Pain of Loss

“GRIEF is a dark, lonely, private room with the curtains drawn, where cherished memories of laughter and tears dance with angels in the cathedral of the heart. No one may enter. None are welcome. No words penetrate its walls or ease the pain that fills it. The door remains locked until the will pries it open to allow the helpless, well-meaning, outside world to enter and interrupt its sanctity.”

— BILLY THORPE (1946–2007)

How do we contend with the rocky road of iniquity in the numbness of the grief-held pain? In that moment—and in polarising seasons—of the bitterest complaint of the soul, we reach out as if desperate to touch something, yet the pain is unreachable.

Minutes seem like hours and hours like days. Time slows and every heartbeat is a labour of languishing in boiling sea resembling lava. There may be a brief respite, but then we are plunged into that darkening again, only to see what we hoped for—a true salvation experience—wither into the ether of our time.

Excruciating pain is the patent seal of loss, especially in both the rawness and enduring reality of such a thing. Yes, there is a fading sense of reality cast over us, as we get used to a new experience of personhood that is cut off from the long-cherished notes we perhaps took for granted.

Change has come and this is a time we hate. We may even blame God or lament so much the present struggle that God is despised for a time. Why this? Why now? Why me? And a million other fragments of painful suggestion that are always left unanswered and unanswerable remain.

When Surviving is the Goal

I’m not sure surviving is the goal at all—certainly it is the meta-goal as we stand apart from ourselves. But sometimes the pain is far too great to conjure up a survival contemplation.

Still, we are here; here for a reason. There are those who depend on us. They link us up to the reasons for existing. God pray that there is enough of a reason that we can bear the pain. Hope is distant, but hope is real, or it needs to become real in our moment.

Surviving recalls a quiet symphony of awareness—it won’t always be like this; this hard. That’s a hope we can hold. We hold it and don’t let go. We add to this hope any tangible vision that seems real and hopeful to us—that ushers the sweet words of God into our souls: “I have a hope for you; a future where I will prosper you.”

***

Despicable days that give way to numbing nights where tears and breath become so tiresome; pain so valiant that pain itself is a hero and we are forlorn in hopelessness. Helpless, we are graced by God, with an awareness of hope; a vision or a dream or anything to cling to. Surviving recalls a quiet symphony of awareness—it won’t always be like this; this hard.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

 

Quality Time and Relationships

Quality time equals quality relationships, and, because time is our most precious resource, sacrificing other activities for family and marriage is our statement of love.

We demonstrate what we truly love by how we spend our discretionary time.

***

But first we must interpret time, or, more appropriately, our times.

There are so many temptations regarding using our time unwisely—it’s not about using our time inappropriately, as many appropriate things may be done that are still unwise.

The fact is the spent second never returns to us; it’s gone.

Spend the second well and there is the feeling of joy, prosperity, accomplishment. Spend it not so well and there’s always regret, initially, and then grief.

The sad reality is we all have a multiplicity of regret about how we’ve wasted our time. Still, God in his grace has given the average person much more time than is typically wasted. We get the opportunity to the right the wrong way gone; there are hundreds of them.

Interpreting our times, and making the most of the moments we have—in shrewdness—is vast in its application of truth: that is, wisdom.

Gauging what is best done with the hours in our days, equally, requires much discernment—and the ability to acknowledge truth.

***

We have no excuse, really, in not going after the simple things in life, that present the best of opportunities to live out God’s will: to spend purposeful hours with family, sowing and investing in their lives, just as we allow them to pour their love into ours.

But there are many things that would compete.

Many items of preference will need to be sorted through, as we consider the many different ways we’ve been blessed with. So many of these ‘blessed things’ compete for time with our dear ones. So many of them may prove to be follies.

Watching my son grow up before my eyes is scary for this fact. No longer, soon, will he be little. This is a reminder that my time is passing. And though this life seems long, it’s truly no more than a vapour.

The object of this article is to cause the reader to think—“I haven’t thought this way for a long time; perhaps it’s overdue.”

We never get a second chance to ‘do’ now’s moment better. Now is quickly gone; replaced by a new now. Making sound decisions regarding what we do and how we spend our time is wisdom; a wisdom available to all.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

From Wilderness to Wonder

IT’S TOO EASY TO FORGET the wilderness path. It wasn’t that long ago that I resented a situation for a position I didn’t have, yet now it is perhaps another person’s turn to resent the fact that I have the position they now covet. For my wife, during the same period, it was facing disappointment after crushing disappointment in not falling pregnant. We tried for over three years. But alas we were successful: wonder! Other couples try even up to ten years! These are all wilderness stories.

Wilderness comes randomly it seems and it’s always unjust. Wilderness is at times lonely, frustrating, demeaning, angering, and it’s always discouraging.

It pays to recall a story, and this is my wife’s recollection of the five years and more of wilderness we, as a couple, endured, as posted on Facebook. It hints at the underlying sense of angst we experienced, in having to wait much longer than we thought we’d need to:

January 27, 2013.

Congratulations to my hubby, Steve Wickham, on being appointed Pastor of Discipleship and Training at Lakeside Baptist Church (our current church).

It has been a long journey for us to get to this point. It started before we were married when we both felt God calling us to Ministry while we were single, and then when we got together, we felt God calling us to Ministry together.

However, since then we have felt like we were in the wilderness wondering when and how that role would come along. I suppose Steve’s International friends would say that he hasn’t been in the wilderness as he was writing a lot providing much encouragement to many, and he has received a lot of feedback over those years to this effect.

There were things that God was doing in us during our time in the wilderness, things that needed to be done before the rigours of full time paid ministry began.

Then in May last year God began to stir in both of us the desire to be in full time ministry, a desire that would not leave us. Around the middle of the year the last things for us fell in place – including me falling pregnant after such a long time of ‘trying’.

It wasn’t until August that we saw the advert in The Advocate (local Baptist monthly newspaper) while we were waiting for the service at church to begin. It was then that we prayed that God would open up a path for Steve to being invited to apply – which he did.

Through all of this we only recently found out that the Pastoral search team had been asking the question – “Can we see God in this?” Well they said, and we say with them, a resounding ‘YES!’

***

Wilderness is like grief, it seems to take much longer than is needed. Enduring the wilderness time, not giving up on our prayers, in the hope of a better day, is the key. The better day does come, somehow. And from wilderness to wonder we do then chart.

© 2013 S. J. & S.J. Wickham.

Diligent Dreamers – Blessed of All

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

— ELEANOR ROOSEVELT (1884–1962)

IT IS ENTIRELY conceivable for the dreamer who has diligence to make of the future an accurate representation of their imaginations. They see no limit and they chase the dream unswervingly, and they chase it with such passion, that, along the way, as the dream changes, they adapt to encapsulate the newer visions.

There is a purity in the heart of the dreamer that we have to admire, as we survey their lives having achieved, having believed beyond a ruling doubt that it could be done.

And although many dreamers are burned for the purity their hearts encase, their dreaming method renders them protected from disillusionment in the complete sense. Sure, they will be discouraged as anyone can be discouraged, but they cannot let go of their dreams or their dreaming modus operandi. They are blessed as much as they are burdened by their dream.

The Perfect Match – Dreaming and Diligence

It’s not much good being a dreamer if we don’t match it with diligence. We can’t make anybody a dreamer, so the dreamer is especially blessed with imagination and inner belief that they can do what God has envisioned them to do.

All the dreamer needs is the diligence with which to ply their craft and calling, to define their goal, to map out a path of milestones to reach their goal, and have the courage and faith to keep stepping.

Diligence is one of those caught personal virtues that is lost on the present generation, and in every present generation, for many people either dream too much and don’t do or they complain that their lives aren’t better.

The diligent person who is given to dreams matches passion with commitment. They will achieve great things; perhaps not great things as defined by the world, but great things as God would define them, for God sets objectives that are valued in the kingdom of heaven.

So, if we are dreamers, we are blessed. All we need to do is check ourselves for diligence. Are we doing enough? Are we planning enough? Are we catering for the changes in our lives enough? Are we open to change? Can we see this dream through?

All these questions are questions of faith employed as the rubber of our tyres of our lives hits the road of life.

***

Dreamers in this life are often ridiculed, but match a dreamer with diligence and there we have someone prepared to implement what their imaginations tell them is possible. Dreams were designed to be put into action, so we should have faith in our dreams and, equally, we should commit to making sure our dreams become reality.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.