Author: Michelle

Michelle lives in New Zealand. She is a mother, a writer, and a doctor.

Who is to Blame?

When tragedy strikes, who is to blame?
If a car crash snatches a loved one,
or corruption swallows up good intent?

Surely it is God? God, who is in control of all things?
God, who takes away the Light?

But what if it isn’t God? What if it is us?
What if God is innocent, but has allowed us to be?
What if it is we who have darkened the Light?
What if it is we who are to blame?

Do we cut ourselves off, in our misery?
Do we cast ourselves away?
Do we clothe ourselves with a greater darkness?
Do we hide from the Light?

The Light came to illuminate the darkness.
The Light came for us.

When tragedy strikes, who is to blame?
God. Surely it is God.
It can’t be us, it can’t be, because that would hurt too deeply.

We will darken the Light, instead: we will darken it.
We will smother it with ourselves.
Lest God come, and affront our hearts;
Lest he make himself truly known to us, in his Light.
Lest he uncover us, in our hiding, and change us with the full intensity of his Light.

God is a surgeon of the heart.
All that remains is to know who we truly are.

The Price of Love

What is love?
An easy walk in the park?
A warm fuzzy feeling on a cold winter’s night?
Bathing in the afterglow of moments of absolute bliss?

What of the other side of love?
What of pain? What of loss?
What of the price, when it all hits the fan?
What of the cost, when a choice is demanded?

Is love really the easy path?
Is God’s Love seriously easy?
Jesus, hanging on a cross, tortured and bleeding, to save us.
Pouring himself out, to carry our wrongs: easy? No.

There are many kinds of loves, just as there are many kinds of people.
There are many walks in life.
But Love beckons us beyond our human love.
Love calls us beyond our natural selves.

What is Love?
An easy walk? A warm feeling? An afterglow of bliss?
Love is cost: Love is pain.
Love is commitment, even to death.

Love is choice.

The greatest Love laughs at the greatest price.
Death beckons, and Love smiles.
For what is death, next to Love? Only a temporary thing.
Love passes through death to forge a new way of life.

Justice

What is justice?
The Old Testament of the Bible calls for self control, ‘An eye for an eye’. If someone takes your eye, you take theirs, and that’s the end of it. No more. No escalation. It is finished. One shot for one shot. One missile for one missile. That is all.

The New Testament takes the challenge further: ‘Turn the other cheek.’ ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ‘Forgive others as God has forgiven you.’ Take the hit, and don’t react. Take the hit, and stop it passing on. Don’t become the same as your enemy: be better than your enemy. Overcome evil with good.

In Christ there is an even greater challenge again: ‘It is finished.’ Jesus offers to carry the crimes of the world that we might be changed back into innocence: that humanity might live. ‘Take up your cross and follow me!’ Be willing to die, not only to save your friends and family: be willing to die, even to save your enemy.

Don’t become the same as evil: overcome evil with good.

In a nuclear age, how should we respond to a nuclear threat?
If a bully is shaking their fist, how should we respond?
Do we shake our fist back again with the same strength? (Old Testament.)
Do we shake a much bigger fist back again? (?Justice)
Do will build up a huge arsenal of self defence, and claim the moral higher ground?

In an age when a nuclear holocaust could kill us all, we can’t indulge in the luxury of believing our choices are only about ourselves.
Our choices are not only about ourselves: our choices, where they impact a multitude of others, must also be about all the others.
‘Love your neighbours as yourselves.’
‘Love your enemy.’

If humanity is to survive, we must move beyond our own self-defence into a desire to preserve peace for all. And to do this, we must learn that our enemies are human too.
Our responses to our enemies matter too.

We must not exercise self-defence at any cost: to do so in a nuclear age is suicide.

‘Love your neighbour.’
‘Love your enemy.’
‘Turn the other cheek.’

In the day of evil, stand.
Don’t be assimilated into being the same:
transcend the evil, transcend the violence, with a greater good.

The Light must be willing to pay the price to outshine the Darkness.
Love must transcend corruption.

Faith

What does faith mean in practice?
A growing trust in God; a growing love of Christ.
A cost; a choice.
To do what is right, or what is wrong?
To do what is easy, or what is hard?
To lay down one’s life, or cling to it at all costs?

What does faith mean in practice?
To trust, beyond pain;
To trust, beyond loss.
To trust, beyond corruption, or fear.
To trust, beyond death.

The Sacrifice of Love

What is the meaning of the cross?
Agony, embraced.
Murder, embraced.
Death, embraced.

The crimes of our enemy, of our friend, of our brother…
Of our father, mother, sister, uncle, teacher, preacher…
All of them, embraced by this man.
All of them, taken on by this courageous man.

Some crimes can’t be repaired:
Some boundaries must never be crossed.
But even the unthinkable can be overcome.
Even the most tarnished silver can be restored back again, good as new.

Beating, to the point of near death,
Crucifixion, in agony.
His spirit broken.
Death.

Jesus poured out his life in obedience to God,
Even to the point of death on a cross.
He did it to save us!
He did it to undo the crimes.

Honesty is to look at this man;
Courage is to come to him naked in heart, and find ourselves tarnished in his pure reflection.
But Light in its very nature must undo Darkness.
God, in his very nature, must change us into becoming more like him.

What is the meaning of the cross?
Agony, embraced.
Murder, embraced.
Death, embraced.

Love has swallowed up our corruption, into the grave.
Love has come back to life, standing over the grave:
Standing over our graves, to call us back to life alongside him.

We can open our hearts, to the man willing to die.
We can allow ourselves to be changed.
Trust can overcome fear.
Light can overcome the Darkness.

Fatherhood

 What’s in a good father?

Safety. Strength. Right boundaries.
Presence.
Does the world need good fathers?
You bet we do!
I should know: I’m a half orphan.
I lost my Dad at ten.
In the absence of a good father, what should a child do?
Can a mother be enough?
A good mother is important, a good mother is strong: I know this too, I am also a mother.
But a woman can never be a man.
Femininity’s had a hard time, over the ages:
She has come under many threats.
There is another kind of threat, equally strong: to have to be all things.
Yet diversity is greater strength.
Masculinity can free femininity to come out of the closet, and let her hair down.
Femininity can free masculinity into a bolder expression.
We, humanity, are male and female,
And so we find our greatest expression together: male and female.
Whether it’s father, mother, brother, sister, colleagues, partners, friends: masculinity and femininity together rock!
We were made for each other.
What’s in a good father?
Safety. Strength. Right boundaries.
Presence.
Does the world need good fathers?
You bet we do.

Step into the Light

What does it take to overcome corruption?
Honesty. Trust.
But, more than anything, it takes courage:
Courage, to step out of the darkness;
Courage, to step into the light.

Light hurts the eyes, when our eyes have adjusted to the dark,
But our eyes can adjust back again to the light.

The greatest courage is found when we face ourselves:
When we set our eyes on God, beyond ourselves, and emerge out of hiding into a new way of life.

Have courage. Have faith. Be loved.

Step into the Light.

What’s the deal with Salvation?

Does the World need a Saviour?
Here in New Zealand, we’re pretty self-sufficient, right?
Independent? Free?
Got it all sorted?
My home is at my left hand, and here at my right hand is Jesus Christ.
He’s stretching out his arms on a cross, saying: ‘Here, I’ll help you.’
He’s offering to die, and that’s a pretty serious thing.
But what’s it mean? What’s it all about?
Why would someone have to die to save us?
On the left hand, ‘She’ll be right.’ On the right hand, ‘I’ll die to save you.’
At this cross-road, a man is standing in front of us, offering to take our bullets:
The bullets that have shot us; the bullets we have used to shoot others.
The bullets being pointed at us now; the bullets we are, right now, tempted to use.
He is standing here, arms stretched out, saying, ‘I’ll carry it:
‘Just put the gun down.’
The offer of Jesus Christ is really very simple, at the end of the day:
‘I’ll take your bullets, but it’s time to stop shooting.’
‘I’ll carry your wrongs, but it’s time to start doing what is right.’
‘I’ll sort out the past, but let me change your future.’
‘God will forgive, and you also can forgive.’
The offer is here, right here, right now:
To accept is as simple as a few breathed words, ‘I’m sorry!’
To begin to change is to say, ‘Help me to be better!’
Jesus is giving us the choice.
Here in New Zealand, we’re pretty self-sufficient, right?
Independent? Free?
Got it all sorted?
You decide.

Light

What is the immense worth and beauty of Light?
Light shines in the Darkness.
Light undoes the Darkness.
A single beam of Light overcomes the threat of utter gloom.

If we move into the Light, the Light can evoke our vision into brilliant clarity.
A violent husband can see himself, and quickly change his ways.
An unfaithful wife can see herself, and change her mind.
A bullying brother can take his sister’s hand.
A gossiping sister can channel her words into goodness.

An absent father can turn back to empower his children.
A dominating mother can step back to allow her children’s voices to rise.

A nation can talk with another nation,
And both nations, together, can choose to disarm.

The Light is shining in the Darkness, but will the Darkness understand it?
Light calls for action; Light calls for change.
Light calls us to be more than we are: to become better than we already are.
Light seeks to illuminate the Darkness, and to utterly undo it.

We, humanity, stand at a cross-roads:
We stand with one foot in light, and one foot in darkness.
The Light, eventually, must have its way.
One way or other, the Light must undo the Darkness.

We ourselves can choose the Light.
We ourselves can seek out the greater Way.
We can make the Light our Ally.
We can enter into the higher Way.

The World lives perched between light and darkness,
But the Light is waiting.

Lift up the Light, for all to see.
Let the Light shine in the Darkness.
There is a higher Way; there is a better Way.

God is the Light of the World.