health update…

I promise not to be posting updates on my health every couple of days – which would be too boring for words! Just wanted to let you know that I saw the doctor yesterday and he has signed me off work for a further two weeks. (I'm currently due to return on June 16^th – no promises though!)

I can't pretend this isn't anything but frustrating, discouraging and yet necessary for recovery. The doctor has limited my computer time (15 minutes ever few hours) and the time I can be watching TV (no more than 60 minutes at a time). Reading still isn't possible for more than 5 minutes at a time and I can't follow audio talks or radio stuff at the moment. Conversations and visitors are limited too – no more than 30mins in length.

I'd really appreciate your continued prayers for my recovery. Do be praying too that in the midst of this I would be drawing closer to Christ and more ever more confident of His presence and the Hope of Heaven. Pray too for Ines and all those in TSCF and at church who have to pick up extra stuff while I'm out of action.

I'll be in touch in a couple of weeks to let you know how things are going. Thanks so much for your friendship, love and prayers.

changing season

Last Friday when I posted the prayer request I was pretty down. The doctor had said that at worst things could take 6 weeks to 6 months to get better and I'd felt no improvement at all in the symptoms around the concussion.

Since asking people to pray there has been a gradual and steady 'getting better'. If you prayed thank you! Thanks though, rightly and truly, goes to God.

I'm thankful for:

REST - I've slept huge amounts over this last two weeks. I feel like I've done little more than sleep. Tiredness is part of the deal with concussion - sleep doesn't always accompany it; disturbed sleep is also often a feature. These last two weeks I've slept better than I normally do and I am HUGELY grateful for that.

INES AND THE KIDS - my family have been amazing, especially as Ines has done a lot of the stuff that I'd normally help out with and then had a heap of extra things to make sure I'm OK too. Last Wednesday was especially tiring as I was in the hospital, the dog was at the vets, there was after-school sports and the regular Bible Study meeting in our home on Wed nights. The kids have also had to put up with me not being well, having to be a bit quieter than usual and they've done it brilliantly.

FRIENDS - people have been concerned and kind from afar as well as close by. I didn't make it to church on Sunday morning but Ines took an extra 45 minutes to get out of the church doors due to people asking about how things were going. Friendship has been shown in texts, phone messages, people popping around briefly and not being offended when I've fallen asleep on them.

THE MANY HOURS OF DVD EXTRAS ON 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS' - as I've been bored out of my head and unable to read, listen to radio or concentrate on anything much I've had the LOTRs DVD extra's playing in the background as I've snoozed and rested. Fascinating stuff and not at all intense!

THE TREE OUTSIDE THE LIVING ROOM WINDOW - I've stared at it a lot and with changing light and the slow move of the season heading into winter it is an constant source of change and shift and also of great beauty.

I'm slowly getting back into a normal pattern, I've still to see go back to the concussion clinic and still have a way to go before I'm back to normal (my normal anyway). Please do continue to pray and know that your prayers have and are making a real difference.

prayer request...

This is a brief prayer request. A week ago Tue I came off my bicycle. At the time it was sore but didn’t really have any big consequences – I was even able to blog about it here.

Since then things have progressed and I spent most of Wednesday in hospital waiting for a CT brain scan to see what’s been happening. The scan has detected a small bruise on the brain and I’ve been signed off work until Monday.

Things aren’t improving very quickly – please pray that I will recover speedily and well, that the medics who are looking after me will have wisdom, for Ines as she runs home and family life without any help (and a considerable amount of extra work because of me), and for the ongoing exciting student work that I’d much rather be telling you about!

Can I be really bold and ask you not to ring to get updates? I’m not up to phone calls and Ines is too busy to take them. Sorry, this sounds really ungrateful – it’s the opposite of that, we appreciate the concern and love and will keep you up to date via the blog.

All the leaves are brown?

A stunning sunny afternoon. A restful Sunday afternoon. Friends turn up with a great apple crumble for a suprise afternoon tea. Autumn at its best.

It takes a while to get the fact that seasons are the polar opposite (literally) from where I grew up. But now, I LOVE the seasonal pace of NZ life. May is feijoas, falling leaves, the smell of wood fires in the evenings and the warmth of the sun in the midafternoon offsetting the cold awakenings and breakfasts huddled at the table (drawing heat as well as caffeen from the morning coffee).

Exercise is potentially lethal

This morning Ruben left the house for school but left his backpack behind. I'm not sure how, it's large and weighty – he must have felt very free cycling without it. Ines suggested that I take the bag up to the school (with all of his books, lunch and sports gear in it). The school isn't far and I was going to drive up but my wife in her commitment to increasing my physical activity reminded me that someone has just given me a bike to ride and I should break it in on a glorious autumnal morning.

It is a glorious day. I realised very quickly that I hadn't noticed that we live toward the bottom of a steady incline and my decrepit self was going to struggle. I was right. The school is about 2.5k at the top of the incline. I made it to the school, handed the bag in, trying not to pant like a dog on a hot summers day and looked forward to cycling (fee wheeling) back down the steady incline all the way home.

About half way home I picked up some speed, the cars were pretty close and I was feeling a bit hassled but I was trying to enjoy the sun and autumn colours when disaster struck. The front wheel of the bike went into a drain hole, the bike stopped suddenly. I stopped less suddenly and gained 'air time'. I stopped suddenly when my face acted as my landing gear on the road, my specs landed a little further off and the thought went through my head "I'm about to be run over and I wonder if the house insurance will cover my glasses if they are broken". No one ran me over and no one stopped and my specs are fine. I picked myself up; thankful for life, that I wasn't run over and the leather jacket I had on to protect me from the autumn wind had taken the worst of the scrapes.

The front tyre was flat and I was in no state to ride anyway. I hobbled home: in shock and shaken but still under the anaesthetic of adrenalin. Life is fragile – things could have been very different this morning. But here, on a glorious day, with a body just beginning to let me know how jarred and battered it was and a great start of an impressive black eye, I'm refreshed in my thankfulness for life and life more importantly in Jesus Christ.

Over the next few days I hope to be meeting with church leaders in the surrounding area. The black eye will no doubt give a good opener to conversations and won't leave a bad first impression! Over the next few days I'm determined to be thankful – even for the aches and pains of getting over the accident. Over the next few days I'll probably make the most of Ines feeling awful at suggesting the bike ride and Ruben feeling terrible about me getting injured in the pursuit of being his father. Over the next few days I will do no more exercise and will undoubtedly be healthier for it!

A wedding and a funeral: Loving Jesus

I observed a wedding reception last night. This morning I was at a memorial service for those killed in the mangetepopo river disaster. Both made me love Jesus more.

The wedding reception was a Biblical one. John 2. The party at Cana. Somethings I noted for the first time. The wedding party must have already worked their way through the best wine on offer and emptied the supply of the lesser quality stuff on offer - given when the guests are least aware of issues taste as their senses have been pre-dulled. The mother of Jesus (who goes unnamed in the passage) draws Jesus attention to it. He asks the question what it has to do with him as this was not his 'hour'. This was not why he came. But the answer to what connected him to the incident was that when God's promised one comes he would bring the feast to end all feasts - the best of foods and the finest of wines. Jesus' mother instructs the servants to do as Jesus tells them and disappears from the story.

Jesus does indeed have instructions for the servants. Fill the (now empty) jars that had held the water used to make the guests ceremonially clean for the celebrating of the feast. That's about 450 litres. That would have taken some time. They are servants. They do it because they have been told to. They do it because, I guess, they are not busy serving wine to the slightly snozzled guests.

They come to Jesus. He tells them to serve the master of the feast with the water they have just drawn. The master of the feast is maybe the one other guest, apart from Jesus and his mother, who hasn't helped to empty the supplies. He is astounded. The wine (all 450 litres of it - 600 bottles by todays' standard) is the VERY best quality.

The first of Jesus' signs - in the midst of the ordinary and everyday. It's like a glimpse, a hint, a peek of his brilliance. John says 'his glory'. In the Bible study at AUT last night someone asked 'what does Glory mean'. Someone else, straining to capture all she knew of Jesus and of God's self revelation inthe Bible said - 'it's God's righteous shining-ness'. I laughed - it is a brilliant way of describing God's glory.

As we studied. As the students of AUT 'got' what was going on in a study brilliantly led by Sarah Kwok, I felt like I loved Jesus for the first time - all over again.

This morning the memorial service happened at a large arena/stadium a 15 minute drive from where we lived. There was much about it that moved me but overall it was not a sad testimony of loss (though there was that in a compelling and at times overwhelming) rather a proclamation of hope.

The sister of Floyd read a poem she had written which spoke of missing her big brother who, now living somewhere else, is too far away to come and play.

The parents of Natasha speaking of their faith in the midst of loss:
"you may have asked where God was in the midst of all of this: God was Sovereign before the 15th April, he was Sovereign on the 15th April and he is Sovereign today and tomorrow..."

The call to turn to God in Hope. Hope in His promise, not in our selves. Hope in His justice, mercy and in the gift of Jesus. Hope.

I loved Jesus even more - for the power of the resurrection over death. I loved him all the more for the Hope of eternity without loss, death and sin. I loved Him for bringing me and the family to this land at this time.

I loved Him all the more in the Bible study and at the memorial. I love Him all the more right now. I love Him for Himself. What more is there?

Healthy Doctors

The student leaned in, "I'm not sure you did the right thing at the end of the talk this morning." He wasn't angry or rude - he wanted to really engage in this discussion. "I felt like there was an impossible standard - something I couldn't do - being laid before us. You had me up to that point, but then you lost me." We talked long into the night, others joined the conversation - we spoke about God's Sovereignty, surrendering our hopes, plans and dreams before him, the nature of The Trinity, the reality of Heaven and Hell, the justice of God's judgement and many other things.

I'm at the Christian Medical Fellowship conference in Rotorua. I'm here to speak to the Medical Students on mission and also to lead a seminar on Sexuality and Scripture. The first 24 hours of the conference was student doctors only and Fri night the graduate doctors arrived. It is exciting to be here (least of all because some of the talk illustrations have made me feel dizzy and nauseous in their medical detail!). Exciting to see men and women asking questions about how their faith connects with their profession and how their profession might be a means of witness in a dying world.

I apologised to the student if I'd led him to a sense that God could not or would not work in Him but that, he admitted, was not the issue. The issue was that in the face of much privilege it is hard to surrender rights, hoped for freedoms and the prospects of 'self-determination' under the Lordship of Jesus. It wasn't that this young man was disobedient or unchristian: he is facing up to the call to do that which the world sees as impossible, that which is heart and will are struggling to do, to bow the knee to Jesus in every aspect of life. He is facing up to the cost of discipleship. It was a real privilege to talk with him and his friends. We prayed together as we headed to our beds - it was late but I was invigorated - what an amazing thing, true joy, to be given the privilege to be with people in these key intersections of their lives.

I was reminded again of Howard Guiness - the British medical graduate, who forsook the potential of riches and comfort for a life of service and sacrifice. I've posted this quote from his little booklet Sacrifice of 1936 (hence the non-PC language) before, but it is worth repeating almost as often as it comes to mind. Pray that in this generation there will be men and women who answer the call to lives of sacrifice.

Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful even unto death? Where are those who will lose their lives for Christ’s sake – flinging them away for love of Him? Where are those who will live dangerously, and be reckless in His service? Where are his lovers – those who will love Him and the souls of men more than their own reputations or comfort or very life?

Where are the men who say “no” to self, who take up Christ’s Cross to bear it after Him; who are willing to be nailed to it in college or office, home or mission field; who are willing, if need be, to bleed, to suffer and die on it?

Where are the men of vision today? Where are the men of enduring vision? Where are the men who have seen the King in His beauty, by whom from henceforth all else is counted but refuse that they may win Christ? Where are the adventurers, the explorers, the buccaneers for God who count one human soul of far greater value than the rise or fall of an Empire? Where are the men who glory in God-sent loneliness, difficulties, persecutions, misunderstandings, discipline, sacrifice, death?

Where are the men who are willing to pay the price of vision?

Where are the men of prayer? Where are the men who, like the Psalmist of old, count God’s Word of more importance to them than their daily food? Where are the men who, like Moses of old, commune with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend and unmistakably bear with them the fragrance of the meeting though the day?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12.1-2