This analysis is for all activities, not just those you deem lightweight. It also includes any you do as part of your walk with Jesus.

In September 2010 I was on holidays and took the down time to reflect on something that had been on my mind for some time. Starting a Christian blog. The catalyst was the situation my husband and I found ourselves in with the church we were attending and the impact it was having on our children. 

We had realised our children were being turned away from God by the unChristlike behaviour of people within that church. There were cliques that, despite our best efforts, had proved impenetrable. My daughters diligently attended all youth activities for more than a year. They were still ignored and excluded by the young people in the church. My sons went to the Sunday School and couldn’t connect to anyone there. They saw little evidence of God in the church, only at home. So we made the difficult decision to discuss with our children our future with that church and any other church. 

This church was one in a long line of churches we had attended throughout their lives that had been more invested in unChristlike behaviour and exclusion than on God. 

When we held our family meeting our children were unanimous in their desire to not attend church any more. That church or any other church. 

It was a scary decision, but we stuck to it. I spent the holidays that September reading the bible and writing down my thoughts about whether we needed to attend church. I drew a lot of inspiration from Chip Brogden and The School of Christ. I also read a lot of John O’Donohue’s writing and researched Christian leaders from the past such as Hildegard of Bingen. What I learned from all these people was that the churches we had been attending were not following God. 

Some people I deeply respected reacted badly to our decision, but ultimately it was our decision. I had learned through the research and time in prayer with God that I needed to focus on my relationship with God and teaching my children the same thing. They had been taught that, but I saw that the churches we attended had taught them other things that were pulling them away from God. 

My first blog was posted on October 10, 2010. I have now been posting it for just over 13 years. I have explored what the Bible says about attending church (which it doesn’t). I have explored how to worship God. I have gone down some strange rabbit holes and learned how wrong I was (I am thinking in particular of a post I wrote about Elijah from Kings 1:19 and commented he had been wrong by running from God – I have realised with further prayer and study that was wrong).

I have explored Revelation and come up with the only message it gives. God is in control. It will all work out in the end.

I have explored attitudes expressed by extremists in churches. I have explored Social Justice. I have explored many more things.

I have spent the past few years studying the impact the Western church had on the First Nations People of Australia. I have been horrified at the attitude that the measure of one’s faith in God was living a Western Lifestyle! Jesus didn’t live a western lifestyle so why should anyone else? I have explored my own learning through life and realised this attitude impacted anywhere the Western church went. Those missionaries left a trail of destruction in their wake. 

I have realised this Western church that fails to represent God is not something I want to be part of. As a result I have been studying the spirituality of other cultural groups and found more evidence of God there that is in line with my own experience of God. The God that is also found in the writings of John O’Donohue, Hildegard of Bingen and others I have studied.

I am on a journey of great learning and transformation and I don’t know when it will end.

As I have contemplated over the past few weeks what my blog was to be today I realised it wasn’t.

One church I attended long ago had a review of all the activities in the church. I remember the minister saying that just because an activity had been running for years didn’t mean it still should be running. Sometimes something has run its course and God has other ideas of what He wants instead.

At the moment I am pausing my blog and having a break from it. I don’t know if I will continue after a break, or if I will stop. That is not my decision and that decision will, at the right time, be communicated to me.

Thank you for reading my blog. It is still there on my website and I will keep the Facebook page for the time being. 

I may be back. If the decision is to not come back there will be another blog to communicate that decision.

May God guide your steps. 

May God be your constant companion.

May you learn to trust Him, even when it looks like He has abandoned you.

May your life be blessed and may you be able to see and acknowledge those blessings.

May you know the true God who created the heavens and the earth and all that is within them who is above all culture and ideas of difference. The one who is first and foremost Love.

There has been so much going on in my life in the last few days and I am just taking this time, late in the day, to pause. Tomorrow some of my family celebrate Christmas so for me it all starts tomorrow.

What is important to think about today?

It is a message repeated most Christmases by other bloggers and one I have mentioned already this Christmas.

It is about having that still time. 

I teach mindfulness and taking the time to be aware of what you are feeling, of fears and joys, frustrations and disappointments. I encourage people to take the time to be present.

That is what I am reminding you of today.

Earlier I went out and collected my Christmas Meat Order. There were numerous people scurrying about. They were collecting massive boxes of meat, then they were off to collect massive boxes of snack foods, chocolates, cakes, bread, and the bottle shop with numerous boxes of alcohol.

Then I visited a friend in her shop and the shop was full of people buying last minute gifts for their relatives. 

They will all relax at Christmas and the focus will be on food and drink. And presents.

But that is not what the focus should be on. 

I have visited a lot of friends over the past few weeks. All the questions are around “what are you doing for Christmas”. There are those who are alone, who have estrangements in their family, who are nursing hurts over lost relationships, who are frightened of being alone at Christmas.

Christmas has become so associated with family and friends, with food, presents and alcohol that people have forgotten that Christmas is about a tiny baby born in poverty, hunted and persecuted who would eventually die for us in a horrific way.

As I said last week, the focus is on being still and acknowledging God. 

Yes it is nice to see people at Christmas. The food is lovely to be part of. Catching up with family is very pleasant. But that is not what Christmas is about.

So in all the busyness over the next few days do stop for a while and acknowledge that baby who humbled Himself to come to earth to live as one of us.

A baby whose family didn’t believe who he was and chased him to bring him back to Nazareth. A baby who endured snide comments about his paternity and legitimacy. A baby who was disbelieved. A baby who was accused of heresy despite being God. A baby who submitted to the horror of His last hours to fulfil His Father’s wishes for us.

Do stop and remember that baby at Christmas.

May God bless you richly in whatever way He knows you need at Christmas and in 2024.

My blog will take a break until 13 January. May you be still and know God throughout the coming weeks.

It has happened every year lately. 

Life gets so busy towards the end of November and by the second week of December I am exhausted and usually get some sort of cold or other illness to lay me low. 

This year is no different. 

So many people I know. So many Christmas celebrations. So much reflecting on the year as it comes to an end. So many clients needing to see me before Christmas. I end up burning the candle at both ends.

I know every year it will be busy. And I go to the celebrations that I want to attend. But I am a stay at home, in bed by 9 person and an introvert. I love catching up with my friends, but 
I end up getting to bed late, exhausted. 

And I still wake up around 4 as the first light creeps into the sky and the birds burst forth in song.

I love that early time of morning. Before the earth wakes up. Before everyone is out of bed and rushing around. I get to sit quietly and reflect on God.

It is my “be still” time.

But that all ends when the rest of the house wakes up. And I am rushing again.

But this is Christmas and we are in Advent. This is the time to remember and reflect on the promised birth of the Messiah. This is the time to stop amidst the rush to celebrate and finish up at work to allow a few weeks summer break.

It would be a shame to arrive at Christmas Day and never have stopped long enough to remember what this season is all about.

It doesn’t matter when Jesus was actually born. It is the day that has been selected to remember that He was born. 

It is a time to remember that God keeps His promises. That God planned a solution to humankind’s fall from grace from the moment it happened. That God does keep promises, even when they may take millennia to be fulfilled.

It is time to stop and remember the joy of a tiny baby born impossibly in poverty to parents far from home, and for that night, homeless. A tiny baby whose family became refugees in Egypt, hiding from Herod’s desire to kill the tiny baby. A boy whose paternity was the subject of snide comments and innuendo. A boy who took on human form but was actually God the Son.

So this is a call to me and to you. “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10a)

May you find time to be still and remember Jesus’s birth and all it has meant to all humankind.

Advent is all about waiting. Waiting in hope.

From the moment God instructed Abraham to leave his father’s household. To leave everything familiar to him. To go to a place he didn’t know. To rely completely on God’s instructions.

From that moment Abrahm was waiting in hope. Hope that God had a plan for him. Curiosity about what that was. Hope because the end of that instruction was that God would make him into a mighty nation. 

A childless man would be made into a mighty nation. Wow, that is some promise. A lot of hope, and sometimes disillusionment went into that time of waiting.

Throughout the Bible we see promises that God would send His seed to restore us to the relationship we once had with God. The one Adam and Eve broke in the garden of Eden. 

We were waiting to see a precious hope. And it was millennia in the making.

The entire history of humankind with God is one of waiting in hope. 

From Abraham waiting in hope for the promised child who would provide the nation of descendants. From David waiting for the fulfilment of the promise he would be king of Israel. From people waiting for the promised Messiah. From waiting for the end when Jesus will return.

We are always waiting in hope.

Abraham grew impatient and allowed himself to be talked into having a child with Hagar. But still God’s plan came about in God’s time and not through Hagar’s child.

People grew impatient and drew elaborate pictures of what they imagined the Messiah would be like and what He would do. And many missed His coming.

Today, people grow impatient and try to interpret the book of Revelation and adopt dangerous beliefs and behaviours based on this misinterpretation. People have even been murdered because of this misinterpretation. And still people are taken in by these lies.

Christmas is first and foremost about waiting.

Waiting for God to fulfil the promise He intends to keep IN HIS TIME.

In. His. Time.

We may think that it is logical for Jesus’ return to be now. But people have thought that since He ascended to heaven the first time.

At Christmas we remember that people waited for Jesus’ birth. They didn’t know when it would happen. It must have been hard for many to take in when He came during their lifetimes. 

For Anna and Simeon, who had waited on God’s promise that they would meet the Messiah when He came, it was a fulfilment of their lives of waiting. It was the culmination of their lives of faith.

Maybe Jesus wasn’t born on 25 December. Maybe this date is one chosen to replace a pagan festival. It doesn’t actually matter.

What matters is that we remember that Jesus was born. That His birth was the fulfilment of promises made by God over millennia. 

What matters is that we prepare our hearts to remember His birth. We prepare to rejoice at His birth. Rejoice at God’s promise fulfilled. Take heart from the fact that God did fulfil His promise. Draw strength from the fact that God’s promise of Jesus was fulfilled, and His promise of Jesus’ return will be fulfilled in His time.

Just as the early kings of Israel were instructed to read the covenant yearly to help all remember, we need to remind ourselves of Jesus’s life. We need to remember to rejoice at His birth, be saddened by His Death and rejoice at His resurrection.

This season we are in is the time to rejoice at His birth. 

Let us remind ourselves of the time of waiting in faith for the promised Messiah to be born.
 

This is the last of this blog series. In this series we have followed Abraham from the time God instructed him to leave his father’s country and go to Canaan.

We have followed him as he learned to rely on God and follow him faithfully.

We have seen his loyalty and faith in God when he was prepared to sacrifice Isaac at God’s instruction.

He has withstood much testing. But now he is very old. Genesis notes that God had blessed him in every way. But Isaac was not married yet. Abraham was concerned that his son make the right marriage. He didn’t want him to marry a Canaanite woman. He considered them to be ungodly and not suitable for God’s purposes. 

Abraham calls his trusted servant and asks him to place his hand under his thigh.

In Genesis this practice is mentioned twice. First here when Abraham directs his servant to do this, and again in Jacob’s life as he approaches death. 

In the ancient world the thigh was considered to be a source of posterity. It is suggested in some texts that the thigh is a euphemism for testicles.

It is considered likely that Abraham used this method of swearing an oath because it was his seed, in other words Isaac, who would carry the blessing of God’s covenant with Abraham. It is also likely that this form of swearing was tied to Abraham having being circumcised to mark the covenant with God. One source I found said that the English word testify is directly related to the word testicles. More evidence that this was an accepted form of swearing an oath at that time.

Abraham asked his servant to swear an oath that he would go back to his own country in Ur and find Isaac a wife from his own family. The servant was worried the girl would not come with him but Abraham instructed him to never take Isaac away from Canaan. God brought Abraham out of his own country and his son was to stay in the land of Canaan.

So the servant went as Abraham had instructed him. 

As he approached the town of Nahor, where Abraham’s descendants lived, he prayed to God, asking for success in his mission. He asked God to show him the young woman. He asked that if he asked the young woman God had chosen for Isaac to get him water she would offer it to him and to his camels. He saw this as a sign of God’s blessing on this.

Immediately Rebekah came out to the well. She was of Abraham’s family and was unmarried.

As she collected water from the well, Abraham’s servant asked her for water. She gave it to him and then offered to give his camels water too.

He then took out a gold nose ring and two gold bracelets and put them on her. He tasked her who her father was and if he could stay the night. She confirmed in her answer that she was of Abraham’s family and offered him and his camels lodging and food.

The servant fell to his knees in gratitude and prayed aloud to God, thanking Him for blessing his quest.

Rebekah came and collected her brother Laban. He met the man at the house and the servant told him that he had come from Abraham. He detailed how much God had blessed Abraham with wealth and how Sarah had given him a son in his old age. He related how Abraham had sent him back to get a wife for Isaac from Abraham’s own family. He then related how Rebekah had done exactly what he had requested God to have Isaac’s wife do.

Laban and his father gave permission for the servant to take Rebekah. But the next morning Laban and Milkah (Rebekah’s mother) asked if she could stay ten days then go. 

The servant replied that he should not be detained and needed to go now. Rebekah was called and agreed to go immediately.

So Rebekah travelled to Canaan to become Isaac’s wife. 

After Sarah died Abraham took another wife who bore him 6 sons who became the fathers of many tribes who would later come into contact with the descendants of Isaac upon their return to Canaan. 

To ensure these sons were never a problem for Isaac he gave them gifts and sent them far away from Isaac.

At the age of 175 years Abraham died. Isaac and Ishmael buried in in the cave in the field Abraham had bought. He was buried next to Sarah.

Isaac was blessed by God and continued to live in the area of Canaan

The rest is another story for another time. That of Isaac’s descendants.

Now we end the story of the man God credited as righteous.

Now we come to the summing up of the story of Abraham and Sarah and the continuation of the story of Isaac.

Sarah lived to be 127 years old.

After she died Abraham mourned for her. Then he asked the Hittites living there to sell him some property so that he could bury Sarah. 

The Hittites considered Abraham a mighty prince and offered him the use of one of their choicest tombs to bury Sarah.

But Abraham refused. He asked them to encourage Ephron to sell him the cave of Machpelah at the full price as a burial site. But Ephron wanted to give Abraham the field with the cave in it. But Abraham did not want the land to be gifted to him. He wanted to buy it so that Sarah, and later Abraham, was not buried in a foreign land, but in land Abraham owned.

So he bought the land and Sarah was buried there.

It was important for Abraham to own the land he and Sarah were buried in. He had lived as a foreigner for most of his life. He wandered the land, never owning anywhere. Yet God had promised him and his descendants this land. As a mark of God’s covenant with him, he wanted to bury Sarah and later also him, in land that they owned. They were the parents of the mighty nation of Israel and they needed to be buried in land they owned that their descendants would later own.

It was several hundred years before God would fulfil His promise to Abraham. But that field near Mamre remained as a possession of Abraham’s.

God makes promises. We don’t always see those promises fulfilled in our lifetimes. But that doesn’t mean they won’t ever be fulfilled. It does mean we may not see them fulfilled. We have to have faith in God that His promises are sound and will be fulfilled in His time.

As we approach our reminder of God’s greatest promise, the birth of Jesus as a human baby to save us as God promised, it is helpful for us to remember that God’s timing is not always ours. But we shouldn’t lose hope, or believe He won’t fulfil his promises. 

This story of Abraham is one of the proofs we find in the Bible of God’s promises being fulfilled.

This section of Genesis is well known. But it is still worth discussing.

This is where Abraham, having experienced difficulty in the past trusting and obeying God, is tested by God.

He is told to take his son, the only son of Sarah, the son promised as his descendant, and sacrifice him.
What a challenge! 

Here is the boy Abraham and Sarah waited decades for. Here is the boy given to them when Sarah was 90 and Abraham 100. This is the boy who is Abraham’s heir. God promised this boy. God also promised Abraham numerous descendants through this boy. Now God is asking Abraham to kill him!
Abraham must have been devastated to be told to do this. The Bible does not record his reaction and whether he told Sarah what he was doing. All we know is that Abraham did as God requested.

He got up early in the morning and rode out with his son and two young servants. 

Before he left he prepared wood to take with them for the fire. 

He went to where God had told him to go.

They travelled 3 days. On the third day he saw the place where God intended he sacrifice Isaac.

Abraham took the wood, a knife and the fire and left with Isaac to climb the mountain.

Isaac was curious. He knew there was to be a burnt offering, but he couldn’t see the sheep they were supposed to sacrifice. He asked his father about this. Abraham replied that God would provide the burnt offering.

When they arrived at the place for the sacrifice, Abraham built an altar and laid the wood on it. He took Isaac, tied him up, and placed him on the wood. As he reached out with the knife to kill his son, something that must have been a great torment to him, God stopped him.

God instructed him not to touch Isaac. Having seen Abraham’s obedience He could see that Abraham now trusted and feared God. 

God did as Abraham had told Isaac, He provided a sacrifice. 

Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket nearby. He took the ram and sacrificed it on the altar.

After this demonstration of Abraham’s faithfulness to God, the covenant with God was renewed. God promised that his children would flourish and he would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the beach. They would be successful in defeating their enemies. Even more, all nations on earth would be blessed through his descendants because he obeyed God.

After this Abraham returned to Beersheba and remained there.

God doesn’t necessarily ask that much of us to prove our trust in Him, but he does test us on occasion. 

Abraham’s greatness lay in his faith in God. In the way he trusted and obeyed God despite the years that passed when it seemed he was never to have descendants. He spent a long time proving his obedience to God.

We might not be called on to work so hard and for so long. We may not be given such a mighty promise and task. But we are asked to do things by God. And we often have to wait for years to see any promises come to be. 

During that time of waiting, we will often question whether we heard God correctly. Maybe you think you misheard God. Or you put the words in your head yourself. You got it wrong. God didn’t make that promise, or give that instruction.

But He may well have. Sometimes we have to wait and wait. We wait past the point where we feel God is going to fulfil His promise.

We might not be as famous or the leader of a mighty bunch of descendants, but we are still important in God’s eyes. And the tasks He has for us are just as vital as those He gave to Abraham.

Trust is hard to sustain over a long period of time. We have seen evidence of this in the story of Abraham. 

God understands our humanness. He understands that it is difficult to maintain faith for a long time. 

Losing faith in God’s promises does not mean they will not come about. There will be a time when you will see His promises and it will feel so much better.

In the meantime, reflect on how long Abraham waited for God’s promises. Draw comfort from God’s mighty work in your life. It is happening, maybe imperceptibly, but happening all the same. And some day you will see the evidence of His mighty hand in your life.

This last part of chapter 21 records events that happened about the same time as Isaac was born.

It is likely a 90 year old woman having a child was remarkable enough for all in the area to know about it, not just those who lived in the vicinity of Abraham’s camp.

Abimelech has already been mentioned in Genesis 20:1-16. He was the King who took Sarah as his wife because he was told she was Abraham’s sister. He became aware of her being Abraham’s wife when all the women in his household became infertile after that event.

Now he has heard of Isaac being born to 90 year old Sarah and 100 year old Abraham.

Abimelech was already aware of Abraham’s standing with God after the incident with Sarah. Now he has even greater proof. How many 90 year old women have a baby?

So Abimelech and his Military Commander visited Abraham. They recognised that God was on Abraham’s side. Abimelech was frightened that Abraham, with God’s support, may decide to destroy Abimelech. He asked Abraham to swear to him that he would never do that to his family. He asked Abraham to treat Abimelech and his land as well as Abimelech had treated him.

Abraham was prepared to swear this and make a covenant.

But there was a problem. Some of Abimelech’s servants had taken a well that Abraham had dug. Abraham gave Abimelech sheep and cattle to seal the covenant he had agreed to make with Abimelech. But Abraham set aside 7 sheep. This puzzled Abimelech and he asked what it meant. Abraham replied that accepting these sheep would be proof that Abraham dug the well and that it was his well. So Abimelech accepted this.

The next thing Abraham did was to plant a tamarisk tree at that place where he worshipped and prayed to God. 

For Abraham, as an itinerant man who owned no land and belonged to now kingdom, there was great danger. He was wealthy and he had many employees, but his lack of land made him vulnerable.

It was in Abraham’s interest to make covenants where he could. The power he held to make these covenants was the evidence that was plain to see of his standing with God. It was God who made these covenants possible and also ensured Abraham continued to be safe in Philistine country. God promised Canaan to Abraham’s descendants and that time was a long way off. Until then Abraham depended on the good will of those around him to be able to safely live and manage his flocks.

This is a great reminder of how long God plans things for. When we become impatient waiting for God to resolve a situation we see things in a very temporal way as they relate to human life and the time it takes for human situations to resolve. But God thinks in far longer time than that. Often in several human lives time. Think of how many generations passed before Jesus walked on this earth?

This story is getting very familiar.

Abraham moved on and came to a new area. Abimelek is the king of that area and Abraham feared for his safety because Sarah was still beautiful, even though she was around the age of 90.

Again Abraham told Sarah to tell people he was her brother. He also told people she was his sister.

So Abimelek took Sarah into his household.

After she arrived all the women in the household failed to conceive. Presumably Sarah was there for some time, for it to be noticeable that there were no pregnancies in the household.

Abimelek was also stopped from ever sleeping with Sarah.

One night he had a dream where God told him he was as good as dead because Sarah was married to Abraham.

Abimelek pleaded with God. He had not slept with her. He understood she was Abraham’s sister and took her with a clear conscience.

God told him that He had stopped Abimelek from sleeping with Sarah.

God also told him to return Sarah to Abraham and ask Abraham to pray for him so that he would live.

So Abimelek summoned Abraham to his household. Abraham told him Sarah was his half sister, so he was correct in saying she was his sister. He also said that there was no fear of God in Abimelek’s kingdom so that he feared that he would be killed so Abimelek could get Sarah. This was why he had lied.

Abraham claimed that when God made him wander from his father’s household he told Sarah to tell people that he was her brother.

Of course the usual happened. Sarah was returned to Abraham along with silver, sheep, cattle and slaves. Abraham prayed for Abimelek and his household and the women started conceiving again.

This story again puzzles me.

Yet again, Abraham tells Sarah to tell people she is his sister. 

Now he is also implying he was “made” to leave his father’s household. It is as if he is blaming God for having to wander.

If that is so, then how is he considered righteous? 

This bit has always puzzled me. Is it that God knew this was Abraham’s weakness. That Abraham desired to obey God and follow Him but didn’t totally trust God?

Having thought about this for a long time, prayed and researched this subject, I think that is what is happening here. Abraham was not “perfect”, but he was being transformed by God into one who followed God closer as each year passed. He still didn’t totally trust God but a day would come when he would be more trusting and obedient.

This story also tells us that God watched over Sarah and kept her safe. 

This is hope for all of us that when things look bad and we are in difficult situations that God does watch over us. 

Sarah must have been in Abimelek’s household a long time for it to be noticeable no women were falling pregnant. It must have seemed hopeless to her at times that she would escape this man. But God did watch over her and in time she was returned, safe, to Abraham’s household.

It is interesting that the Bible focuses on Abraham and his experience but barely mentions Sarah and what she went through. There must have been a strong sense of deja vu by now. I wonder how fed up she was with the way she was being treated? What was her relationship with God like? Did she hold on to hope that God would watch over her as He had in the past? How strong was her faith in God?

We will never know the answers to these questions but we do know that God watched over Sarah and kept her safe. No matter how long she was there and how hopeless things seemed to be, she was kept safe and eventually returned to her own household. 

It is important to remember the instances in the Bible of God fulfilling His promises and watching over us. It can take an agonisingly long time, but it eventually happens.