Saying no to #FOMO

We make thousands of choices everyday, and some can be downright hard: Apple crumble or cheesecake? Custard or cream?! For those of us prone to minor FOMO, 'What ifs' can be hard to live with. When I'm faced with a crossroads (we're talking bigger than pudding choices now!) I can often see the risks and the potential in either choice. And then I struggle to choose, an internal battle ensues... I can develop a case of major FOMO.

But when you think about it, who doesn't. Under control, it can actually be a drive to try new things, push the boat out. If it controls you, it can be paralysing. FOMO says whatever you choose, you will miss out on something else. And the imagined loss of whatever you feel like you may miss out on, if it's attached to a deep value, can create a sense of hopelessness. Things can seem really bleak, even though the reality is, nothing bad has actually yet happened. That's the power of fear, and it's deceptive nature reeks of its master. Because in the muddle of fear, we lose sight of hope.

A dear friend reminded me that HOPE grows out of soaking in who God is, and in experiences of His kindness. And FAITH is "confidence in the kindness of God despite the circumstances" (Ann Voskamp). Faith building, then, is looking for His kindness. And if we can just lift our eyes off our feelings and look, really look for His fingerprints, we find we have an infinitely good, kind Father.

In time, and it often does take time, I make my choice in faith. I walk through the door it seems God is opening, resisting the temptation of pushing another one open. I'm tentative at first; courage is not the absence of fear but taking action despite it. I know the costs well at this stage, the risks are real, whatever I choose. There has been soul-searching, wrestling prayer.

Continually choosing to surrender my tangle of thoughts, I determine in my heart that God is God, and I am not. (Why are the simplest truths usually the most profound and the hardest to live out?) That He is in control, and He is going to use my choice to work out his good purposes.

And in this 'simple' acknowledgement, quietly, the battle against FOMO is won today. I know I will have to say it again tomorrow, but I'm celebrating each step.

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life
~ By Dawna Markova (2008)

I will not die an unlived life 
I will not live in fear 
of falling or catching fire. 
I choose to inhabit my days, 
to allow my living to open me, 
to make me less afraid, 
more accessible, 
to loosen my heart 
until it becomes a wing, 
a torch, a promise. 
I choose to risk my significance; 
to live so that which came to me as seed 
goes to the next as blossom 
and that which came to me as blossom, 
goes on as fruit.

This stunning poem is such a gift to me, reminding me to live and make my choices with passion and on purpose, not out of fear. I am sure I'm not on my own here with my FOMO issues. If you relate, and have a story of how you overcame it, do share it in the comments.

What feeds your soul?

A walk in the hills fed mine.

We walked and talked, Dad and I
Breathing freedom, my melody rose.

Meeting a friend for a party of praise
Inhibitions dropped off
Along with the weights.  

A wedding boogie, games with the fam
When laughing tears flow often
My soul's watered.

Work, designed in perfect Eden
Catalyses, enlivens
Calls forth my best Nam.

I get lost in the story,
His Kingdom does come!
Despite how I feel, it's bigger than me.

My soul's well fed
I'm remembering Love ~
I'm joyfully His, and He's got this. 

One of the things that I have been chewing on this month is a fantastic book called Dirty Glory, by Pete Greig. No he is not paying me to say this, but it is a book that will make you fall in love with Jesus again, inspire prayer to bubble out of your spirit and spur you out into living the gospel on the streets. Book plug done... Just wanted to share the feast. ;)

 

An oasis of connection

One of the unique challenges of living and working in a country and culture not your own is a distinct lack of connection. As soon as you step out of your house you are immersed in a language and worldview, ways of thinking and questioning and conversing that are not your own. What I often get is a friendly 'getting-to-know-you' interrogation, just a casual series of friendly questions like

What are you doing here?
  Who do you live with?
    How much do you pay for rent?
      Why do you live alone, that's terrible.
         By the way what is your street and house number?
          What, you don't have kids yet?
             How old are you?
              Why haven't you married?
                You really should hurry up with that.
                  Would you like me to hook you up?

What is meant as a friendly chat, as you can imagine feels to the Western mind like my own very personal Spanish inquisition.  In that sense, coming home to the UK has been a relief. It is an oasis of connection. People converse in ways that feel normal and comfortable to me and in a language I don't have to put a lot of energy into using. That in itself feels like a good long drink to my soul - an oasis.

But there is also a challenge to being home. In a way, the connection itself is a challenge. Because friends here have no real idea of my world in Thailand with its unique oddities and joys and challenges, I paint elaborate word pictures to help you get a small glimpse. But whether I am at my UK 'home' or my Thai one, there is no one who has stepped into everything and every place that makes me who I am.

And then I realise that what I really long for is a level of connection where I am fully known and understood. Where my heart is heard without needing explanation because the experiences have been shared. The loss of being fully known is one of the things I grieve most in this path of life I have chosen.

At times it feels a bit overwhelming to have so many pieces of me scattered across the world, and communicating enough to make myself understood to those around me whichever context I find myself in. Yet that loss comes with a deep blessing. It gives me the unique advantage that my Father God is the only One who can really be my Oasis. He has been water to my soul wherever I am. In Thailand and here, He has shared every story I have lived. He doesn't need me to be a great communicator, He can just hold me with all of my complexity and scattered-ness and say to me, "I know". Because He has been there first, and He has been there with me.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Heb 4:15,16)

What wonderful comfort to realise then that I can go to my Oasis every day, because He is always with me. If you are feeling and grieving a lack of connection, let me encourage you to visit the Oasis. 

You'd never guess from the smiles

Thailand is the 'Land of Smiles'. But today God was showing me the brokenness just under the surface, His desperation for the lost ones around me. My heart grieved as one after another, I saw brokenness unfold through my day.
A woman whose Facebook profile is more important to her than real life. It is built on lies, she is broken about her reality of poverty and lack.
A girl who sheds crocodile tears and weaves stories to get her own way. Her father has a mistress his daughter's age.
A young boy of 10 whose broken heart burned with anger against his mother. She didn't have time to make sure he showered for the past 4 days. He felt he should be beaten for his behaviour.
You'd never guess from the smiles.

First, a wedding. What could possibly be sad at a wedding? The bride was a nominal Christian, the groom a folk Buddhist. The teenage couple already had a child. Yesterday the wedding party spent all day with a spirit medium, asking what demands the evil spirits would make, doing all that they could to appease them. Today the wedding ceremony was to take place. The Pastor had spent the past 3 nights sleepless, wondering how to conduct such a ceremony in good conscience before God, where evil spirits were being openly worshipped by one party while the other wanted to do 'the right thing'. If he didn't conduct a Christian ceremony, they would bow down only to demons on their wedding day.

The ceremony began at the bride's home. Outside, she had to serve whiskey to the groomsmen, which was downed in one, to loud cheering and applause. The father of the bride (not a believer) was already quite drunk at 9 am, the groom's party not far off. The Christian wedding ceremony then took place inside the house, the groom's mother in floods of tears, heart broken over her teenage son rushing into marriage and fatherhood. The ceremony was touching. The groom's friends and villagers ate and drank outside. "What's taking so long?!" someone shouted mid-way through.
55 000 Baht was given as the customary gift from the groom's parents to the bride's. They wanted it to be 80 000 but hadn't had time to save up for it. The ceremony complete, blaring loudspeakers signalled the drunken street party had resumed. I asked myself, what union does the kingdom of light have with the kingdom of darkness? I was reminded of the kings of Judah and Israel, compromising the worship of the Most High God by worshipping other gods, and us likewise worshipping our own thoughts on what is right or wrong, or permissible. And I felt Father weep over His children.

As soon as we returned from the wedding, my friend Mot called - her sister had been killed in a car accident. She was my age, I had just met her yesterday. Shock and tears were all my friend had, while trying frantically to juggle all the phonecalls, demands, decisions to organise the funeral and get paperwork in order. Her sister had not been a believer, and neither was the wider family. Mot, the only believer in the family grieved hard. She knew her sister was gone and the funeral would do nothing to change her fate now. I stayed with her a few hours, as people drifted in and out. Just yesterday we had been sharing with her aged grandparents, thinking Grandad didn't have long to live. Today we were confronted with the brevity of life itself, no matter how old we are. "All I can say is, I need to love people more. I need to love people while I can, because you never know when time will run out", she said.

Finally, I went to the market to buy some things and walk around to relax a little. I met two ladies while looking at some Thai silk. In a few minutes, one of them revealed she was worried about her 15 year old daughter who had got lost. She ran away from home 3 days ago after being beaten by her father. They've heard nothing from her and have no idea where she is. Her mother is a battered wife - all 6 children suffer at the hands of the father. I prayed with her, we wept. So did Father God.

On days like this, the world seems to cave in. There is just too much brokenness. Much of it is within the church. Those outside are even worse off. I know Jesus is the healer, and He lives in me. But the darkness can sometimes be deafening.

Soil season

26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29 

It is one of life's mysteries. New life springs up seemingly by itself, from a miniscule seed. I listened to a sermon on these verses (see link below), and it seemed to sum up this season I find myself in. As I near the end of one year here in Surin, it seems like so much has happened, my processing machine is still catching up... yet there are almost no visible results. Maybe that is what the seed feels like when it has been buried in the ground. 

"It takes faith to sow, and faith to reap, but what takes most faith is to stay buried in the soil of uncertainty, and keep growing - to believe that the purpose is still working out, even when the process is invisible". (Steven Furtick) I can certainly attest to this truth. I have had much experience in scattering, and in harvesting. Those stages are fun, exciting, there is a lot to write home about. But what about when you're in the soil stage? To the seed, it feels like death. All is dark, nothing seems to be happening, nothing can be done to speed it up. For the more 'driven' seeds like me, this is unbearable! You mean you want me to do nothing? Pray and rest and wait? God's time? WHAT?! Can I sign on to a different program? 

Yet, there can be no harvest without the soil stage. In this stage, the seed discovers the beauty of divine design. Turns out, the seed is well provided for and well protected. The seed consists of 3 parts - an embryonic plant, stored food and a protective seed coat. All it needs has been given already. It still needs water, but it is helpless to provide this itself. This need is met from above. The seed coat protects it from all kinds of damage - physical, temperature related and water. In fact what looks like nothing and feels like death is actually a bulletproof bunker. It is a densely packed nutrient bomb, exploding with life. 

For a driven seed like me, my biggest challenge in the soil stage is my involvement. When divine design means a wait,  He has His reasons and I must learn to respect them. I know I am not alone in wanting to speed things up, take back control. 

Waiting however, doesn't mean we stop scattering seed. Satan doesn't take days off, and neither does the Holy Spirit. I love how James Fraser put it, "As long as it is day, the people of God need to be up and doing to the limit of the strength which God supplies. On the other hand, we cannot fret souls into the Kingdom of Heaven. The seedlings God had planted would grow better under His open sky than under our feverish effort."

Our challenge as people of faith is to synchronise our faith with God's schedule. Indeed, the seed is still on schedule! 

(For the full sermon by Steven Furtick, from which most of these thoughts are taken, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GMK4fVnUUQ ) 

More than food

Are you hungry for more of God?   ...Have you ever tried fasting?
This week I ate manna.  Okay, not literally, but I did experience that it is possible to live, in fact thrive on spiritual food alone. Contrary to how we feel when we sit in front of a Sunday roast, the body is more than food! Fasting means giving up a craving of the body for a deeper need of the spirit.

After some nudges from the Lord, I decided to try an extended fast for the first time.  No, I am not a Christian superhero, I am actually a pretty pathetic faster. I have done it usually for one day at a time, and felt so hungry I counted down to midnight and raided the fridge when the clock struck 12. And that is if I made it to midnight at all... If I was breaking the fast at dinner time, I even found it hard to stick to a time - everything is negotiable when hunger pangs strike! 

But I heard that after day 3 you stop feeling hungry, and the rewards Isaiah 58 describes are so much greater than the sacrifice of food. Besides, I have wanted so long to really mean what I say to God, that I want more of Him, to have Him working on my behalf, to hear His voice and see through His eyes. So I committed to a longer fast. It was a significant week, important decisions had to be made and I wanted God's heart on it. 

Day 1 was not too bad. I knew I had a lot more days in front of me and so I didn't think about food. 

By day 2, my housemate had joined me! She had never fasted in her life, but now she felt God was leading her to a 3 day fast. This made things much easier! 

Day 3 was a struggle. I felt tired and lethargic. We had to take things easy in terms of activity level this week, to make sure we could sustain the fast. Incredibly, after day 3, I really did stop feeling hungry. I drank a lot of water and sometimes diluted fruit juice, and I felt almost completely normal!

For my housemate, the motivation was spiritual refreshment. She got more than she bargained for! During her fast, God gave a word of knowledge to a pastor at church about some inner healing issues in my friend's heart. She was able to receive freedom from years of pain, and newness of life in place of wounds and scars.

As for me, not only did 3 others start fasting as a result of my decision (and got blessed beyond their wildest expectations), but I saw God move on my behalf in a miraculous way. He orchestrated events around me to lead me in ways I had not known. Just as in Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." 

And so as I draw to the end of my fast, I wonder why this incredible gift is so ignored in most of our lives. Even secular wisdom says fasting does miracles for the body. Not to mention fasting being a theme throughout the Bible and Jesus teaching us what do when we fast, not if (Matthew 6). Given the physical benefits of fasting and the spiritual breakthroughs it can bring accompanied by prayer (Matthew 17:21 ~ some kinds of deliverance only come through prayer and fasting), why has fasting become an optional extra in Christian circles? 

I challenge you to try it. Be wise in how you fast, how long and what purpose you choose to fast for. Read up on how you prepare for it and come out of it, and try it. You will not be disappointed. As of now, I want to make fasting a regular discipline in my life. I'm impatient - and it gets me wonderful results in a short time! If you try it, let me know in the comments. And may God blow the roof off your spiritual life. 

Standing my ground

Though times it seems like I'm coming undone
This walk can often feel lonely
No matter what until this race is won
I will stand my ground where hope can be found 
~ Lyrics from Lauren Daigle's song, 'O Lord'. 

There has been a battle for hope here this month. What does it mean for you to stand your ground where hope can be found? For me it has meant clinging to God's Word as TRUTH.  I once read these 5 points of what it means to believe God:

God is who He says He is. 
God can do what He says He can do. 
I am who He says I am. 
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 
I believe God. *

Numbering them off on my fingers, this month more than most, I have had to put these to work.
Although Satan's mind games are (literally) the oldest tricks in the book, he still uses them because they work. It takes discernment and an exercise of the will towards faith to combat them. Because often what we see, hear or feel is not the truth. I have found myself caught up in floods of thoughts that are not my own, but in fact from the pit. It has pushed me back to the Word, to stand my ground on the Truth, so I don't drown in the false accusations, condemnation and discouragement that come as insidious little thoughts but snowball in minutes. My answers have come from Isaiah 49:
 He said to me, ‘You are my servant,    Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.’

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.Yet what is due to me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’ (Isa 49:3,4)


Being the month of the Thai New Year (Water festival), it was a month of more sacred rituals and ceremonies than the rest of the year. From all outward appearances, this is enemy territory. He seems to have a tight grip on the hearts and minds of Thai people. Yet we trust the Word of God because that is the TRUTH: 

This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

‘See, I will beckon to the nations, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms
    and carry your daughters on their hips...

Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    those who hope in me will not be disappointed.’

 Can plunder be taken from warriors,
    or captives be rescued from the fierce?

But this is what the Lord says:

‘Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,
    and plunder retrieved from the fierce;
I will contend with those who contend with you,
    and your children I will save.

(Isa 49:22-25)

This is His people, He is sovereign, He is building His kingdom here and the gates of hell will not stand against it. Holding on to this, believing it despite everything, means standing my ground where hope can be found.

What has 'standing your ground' meant for you? Leave a comment to share the encouragement! 

* From Believing God, by Beth Moore