10 centimetres

For that is what separated Mavis the 205 and a rather sturdy stone wall on Saturday night.

It was very dark, incredibly rainy, stormy and scary driving conditions as I dropped down the Wye valley on my way home from a mate's wedding.

There's music on quite loud, worship stuff so maybe I wasn't giving the road my full attention. The wipers are on full speed, just about giving you enough to see the road.

Im doing 50 mph. I see a left bend, I engine brake down to fourth and turn. I go round the first bit of the bend, and am confronted by a semi flooded stream running over the left hand side of the road.

The left hand side of Mavis runs into this mini lake at 40mph. the right hand side doesn't.

Problems.

Massive skid. There's a car coming the other way. Heart in mouth. Water everywhere, massive splash over front windscreen means light from on-coming car is reflected everywhere, leading to disorientation. Where is that car, where is the road??

Skid, skid skid, steer into skid , control skid, lurch onto wrong side of raod, miss wall , recover onto road and realise what just happened.

Kinda lucky to be here Guys

Matt

I'm not blogging , but ...

... I actually am.

 

I say i'm not doing I shouldn't and then do it.

 

E.g. "I'm not gossiping but did you hear that ..."

 

"I'm not on the rebound, but..."

 

"I'm not criticising, but..."

 

I think the worst, which thankfully I don't do is when people say "No offence, but your head resembles that of a plagued walrus in the height of summer"

 

We need a term for this. Self delusional innapropriate behaviour approval?

 

Matt

My hair: You decide

Gravity appears to be exerting itself in a rather more sustained and concerted manner around the top of my head these days.

I think the time has come to abandon all hopes of having a haircut, 'cut' my losses and go buzzed all over.

What thinkyou, o interchangeable readership of 5 people? Serious suggestions only as this is a deep personal crisis.

M

Was there ever a moment ...

.. when His love failed? When He didn't long for peace, restorations, fulness, life and love to flow in through and to the earth?

Sometimes we describe the nature of God as characteristics. Characteristics can change - a man has a characterisitcs. I was more cynical when I was 15 than I am now. I was much more naive and free-er with affection when I was 19 then I am now. I was more trusting than I am now.

When we look at the world and its problems (poverty, climate change, human rights abuses, social exclusion to name a few), we might ask if God has changed.

Actually, He hasn't (top marks to me for the most obvious theological point blogged to date). we can trust that when God wills and longs for something, he wills and longs for it always, as we see in Jesus who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

God has attributes. Not characteristics. Do we sometimes reduce God to less than He is by making Him more human?

M

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com

 

Whatever people say about me ...

... the truth is much worse

OpTiOn the last

All goes to show that Roy Castle was right - dedication is what you need. Two minutes practice at darts and we bang a one forty!

Cynics

Seems like people only comment when I spill my emotional guts all over the blogosphere or make tantalising personal revelations.

And that's just really sad.

So, break up week three is upon us. I miss week one alot, and don't wish to see the like of week two again in a hurry. Week three is traditionally the week of running away. Which to some extent I'm doing in being in London all weekend, though coming back from 3rd sunday.

Current "This is too hard and it's murder to even see her" contingency plans are, in increasing order of likelihood:

1. Visit Shon in that states, stopping of to spend Easter with Joy's family in Chicago. This became less likely when new glasses bill reared its head.

2. Have 3 month placement in Edinburgh office

3. Take some unpaid leave and go to Prague

4. Visit Ben Herman in Southampton

5. Visit the 'rents in Sherborne

6. Visit the Sportsman pu two doors down and play the locals at darts. I've been winning recently. Come to think of it I'm as much of a local, sharing the same postcode ...

 

Matt Crossman

Yokes and burdens

I just had a feeling that last night was going to be significant, and I was right. Maybe it was just that your expectations get raised when you just know you have to meet with God.

A bunch of us had been asked to lead some quite free / unplanned worship as part of a prayer night at church. A few people had to drop out, leaving me, close and Nigel.

Well, the night itself was very moving. There weren�t many there � say 50, tops, but 50 people who were desperately longing to meet with God, and ask Him to continue to move as He has been in our church recently.

In keeping with the more intimate atmosphere, the language of the songs were more intimate � lots of song of songs imagery and really being swept along by the depth of God�s Love shown in the cross. I really felt songs of love, devotion, service and honour coming out of me.

It was not insignificant that I had Colse beside me. Whatever I have been through recently, painful as it has been and is, I can�t really compare my situation with His. But Dave called us both out, saying that he wanted to pray for and bless us both, as we had such a hard time with human love, but had made the decision to love God in response on that night.

Well, it was just what was required. Several people prayed for me, and said words which echo and resonate exactly what God has been saying to me recently. Namely, that thought the desert place is very real, there is a beauty in the closeness of God in it, as he finds it very easy to dwell in a broken heart.

Then Dave prayed over me one of the most precious truths about God � my favourite verse of late , �a bruised reed he will not crush�, and then he had a picture of this reed being taken and used an instrument for His glory, bringing songs of love to birth which move and challenge those that hear. To experience that was enough for me, but then God really moved me to go and pray for others in room, which was really exciting, just to bless what God was doing.

Then we finished with some songs of joy and declaration.

"It breaks the heavy the yoke, breaks the heavy yoke when you shout , you shout to the Lord"

Others also had pictures of weights which had been chained to my feet being loosed, and me running where once had stumbled and stuttered.

My mood prior to last night was not a good one. Lets not deny what God has gifted us when we feel down and crushed in spirit.

"Whenever we are in need we should come bravely before the throne of our merciful God. There we will be treated with unreserved kindness, and we will find help".

M

Matt Crossman
derwent_massive@hotmail.com

Why I love ...

Cricket

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1729392,00.html

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/rsavaus/content/current/story/240507.html

Imagine you're Chelsea and you scored 14 in the first half. Then lost 15-14. Crazy. How does it feel ricky?

M

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com

 

Inertia (or 'Bitterness Revisited)

Getting nowhere and at a rate not incomparable with that which could be said to exceed standard velocities.

Actually I�m not sure I�m getting nowhere. I think its more a case of revisiting the same 4 moods with monotonous regularity. In summary these four moods are:

1. A sense of relief that a hard and uncertain time is over

2. A sense of futility, wasted effort and hurt.

3. A sense of apprehension about my ability to attract members of the opposite sex with a rapidly retreating hairline and increasing levels of geekiness

4. Conversely, a sense of excitement that there may be girls out there who like cricket, and see it as a titanic struggle with nuanced and subtle changes in mood, atmosphere, the balance of the context swaying to and fro with every effort, of being attacked, having ones attacks repelled, being attacked, defending, counterattacking, re consolidating, charging forward with abandon and the ultimately calling the whole thing off as a draw. To me, a slowly unravelling denouement of power and glory, to some people, dull as paint dry. Go figure.

Like I said to Bob, when I�m forty I�ll care less about being cool and being with a cool lady, and hopefully care more about really getting to know someone, about sharing the ups and downs rather than fearing the worst when things are good and running away when they aren�t.

See you in ten years.

M

Matt Crossman
derwent_massive@hotmail.com

 

Some glimmer of hope

In summary: Girls are weird. So are boys. We are both equally beguiling and enigmatic to the other. If I were simple to understand, then why does my mood have a direct correlation with how Man City played last weekend? Why do I think it OK to take my tiramasu into the pub 2 doors away, not buy a pint and watch TV like it's my front room? I am NOT easy to understand.

Two quotes from the 'Break up week two ' phase are these:

1. Just as it is inadviseable to go shopping for food when you're hungry, don't cast your eyes round the metaphorical supermarket of eligibility when you are a bit needy.

2. "When God decided to make a companion for Adam, I think he also had the idea of a living, walking cryptic crossword. "

This is the glimmer of hope - i used to suck at cryptic crosswords. Those of you who remember my Student assistant days will no doubt recall a sudden urge to be taken seriously which worked itself out through a desire to move from the quick to the cryptic.

Now, two years later, i still haven't finished one, but I make a damn good stab, having come very close a couple fo times. The trick is to learn the tricks and clues.

So are girls like cryptic crosswords? There are similarities - complex anagrams wheere you are expected to see the answer from what's given, weird and obscure references which you are expected to get,

and, of course, the GOLDEN rule of a cryptic crossword: Never, ever believe the literal meaning you are given:  Case in point: Girl answers in response to enquiry after her mental state and general wellbeing -  "I'm fine" (1,2,3,4) or  I'm fine (3,4,10,2,7,2,4,3,3,2,3,5,2,4,3,4)

Possible solutions to this clue, apart from the very obvious, "I am not fine"  could be "you have displeased me greatly in some way, but Im not going to tell you what", or "I've told all my best friends why i'm not fine, I don;t need to tell you, you need to work it out", or , crucially, it could be a double bluff, and she may well, actually be fine.

Side point to any sisters out there - when a bloke says he's fine, read "I havent had time to think about anything serious, what with all the toys and distractions in my life. Say, did you see Thierry Henry last night?"

This is, all of course, nonsense. girls are great, and so are boys. We need each other.

 

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com

 

Perspectives on forgiveness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1725371,00.html


A local Bristol Vicar has steeped down from her post, feeling unable to preach forgiveness and love while she hurts over the death of her daughter in the July 7th bombings last year.

I just want to say at the start of this potentially contentious blog that I completely sympathise with the situation. I myself have taken steps back from doing public church work when I have felt in the wrong place. I have absolutely no idea the depths of the pain that this woman is struggling, and so I am not commenting on this case directly.

It does, however, raise questions on the question of forgiveness. I’m in the position of needing to forgive and be forgiven. This is very hard to do, especially when you need to forgive someone in your heart when that person doesn’t feel the need to be forgiven. This is not to say I'm right and everyone else is wrong, just that where two poeple's wills are involved, there'll hardly ever be agreement on complex issues.

I’m studying Ephesians just now. The first three chapters have really rammed home the depth of grace, the sheer gift of being called into God’s family. Building on this, we are to ‘rooted and established in love’, the self-giving, self sacrificing love of our messiah, Jesus. This is our ‘root’ - not only a source of nourishment, but something that lends stability and firmness to our lives.

Based on this foundation of free grace and lavish self giving love, we are called to ‘get rid of ..’ many things in chapter four, while putting on the stuff of God. ‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, Just as In Christ, God forgave you.

As always, God is the prime mover. While I was dead in my sin, Christ died for me. Sheer grace, pure gift. There was nothing to compel God to rescue me, nothing in me that would make God do such a thing against His will. No, love runs so deep in the heart of God that we are constantly challenged to wonder at its height, length, breadth and depth. His love rescued me, because he values me as His. It’s got a lovely wholeness to it.

If I want to test the depths of this love, I need to put my roots down into it. This means forgiving as Christ forgave me. There is nothing in me that wants to forgive right now, and the world insists that I use my rights and be upset and cynical for a while.

No. Forgiveness is not something we withhold at our discretion. Its something, crucially, we do as worship to God. Anything that lives as a response to God’s movements and action in Love is worship. Freely I’ve received forgiveness. Now freely to give, knowing that I can’t, and He can. Even in the hardest times we can show the world a deeper way of being human, showing signposts to the Good news of the Kingdom.

Let it flow.

Peace,

M

Coming Back

When I've struggled in my own strength
I laboured in vain
Chose to trust in what my hands could do
Instead of looking to you.

With all of my heart I'm coming back to you
Bearing all the scars of failing to trust you
In all of your grace you stoop down to rescue
seeing all the burdens you longed to share

Nothing to be gained by stayling silent
denying all the hopes and fears I keep within
Nothing to be gained by staying silent
God show's His love for me in discipline

To be sung with tears in eyes, like last night on the way home. Nothing like a fresh revelation of God's heart for me....

M

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com

 

Oh... my...goodness

I was just doing a search through some of my diaires and lyrics books for a spark of inspiration. Here is an entry from August last year.

"I see you on your wedding day -

I'm not there"

Oh dear.

M><>

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com

 

A gift

My Nana died three months ago.

Just this weekend I was given a gift by my grandad who survives her, of her
everyday bible.

I have been turning the pages, and all her little notes fell out - well, it
was astounding. The best way I can describe my current situation is summed
by her words at the top of this entry - my winter is a mild one.

" ... for quite a while I felt my prayers weren't flowing truly from the
Spirit, and I've had quite a low time. The Lord has not deserted me, but
I've felt quite isolated and alone. i would wake up and fel a heaviness
which seemed to last all day .... although the Lord was still using me (in
marriage counselling) I felt very lonely, insecure and very sorry for
myself.

"Today I was led to think back over my life and note down the good and bad
things, and I could see that the times I was being used to the greatest
effect were when I was in this isolated position. This made me realise that
i hadn't seen the HOPE in the desert situationm, that in God's creation
winter is always followed by spring.

"So that's the hope from the desert - the winter time may be lonely hard and
unhappy, but we must look ahead in HOPE knowing spring is waiting for us.

God is at work in the winter times; spring will burst soon.

Matt

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Sod it or blog it

Sometimes in life we are just not in control. This should be a permanent mental attitude for the Christian, at least in some senses, in terms of believing that God has and has always had the whole of human history in His hands. Things are on track for the kingdom of God right now.

But in the detail certain situations come where despite your best efforts, a combination of your own failings and another�s lack of interest contrive to make you look like a fool. Or feel like one.

I�m facing a big questions just now � in choosing some things I felt I was somehow doing the right thing by another person. My choices have been taken, then taken for granted, and ultimately the goal for which I made those hard choices has been denied.

How do feel in these situations? Have we wasted our efforts, our energies and time? My naturally inclination is to think "well, sod it. What a waste of time".

The Christian hope pervades all elements of human life and emotion. Jesus� resurrection was on the first day of the week, bringing with it the dawn of a new and better age, which will finally be consummated in His return. We live in between this time. In the �now and not yet�.

By degrees, God is working His purpose out. We need a proper perspective on the past, done and assured victory of the cross and the surely to come return of Jesus. If we place too much inference on the Kingdom yet�to-come, we cut ourselves off from the world. To quote NT Wright, if all we have to look forward to Armageddon is coming, then why bother with third world debt, climate change or acid rain? If, conversely, the cross is our only focus, and God is no longer active in the world, we are bound to trying to make the Kingdom come through our own ineffective efforts.

Yet again, there is a middle path, and it�s to be found in 1 Corinthians, chpt 3. Chapter 15, riding on the crest of a wave of a full and glorious description of the resurrection life, of the final coming of Jesus, finishes not with a fanfare of praise, but an exhortation for us to hold firm, immovable, and the assurance that our labours are not in vain.

Our labours are not in vain.

Whatever you do based on the unique, once and for all foundation of the new and living hope, the new age of God laid down in Christ will last. If you build based on the redemption of mankind back into relationship with God, out of the power of the spirit, with prayer, living a life of worship and sacrifice for the sake of Him, you do not labour in vain. It will last. Store up treasures in heaven, in your character and heart.

We are capable of being Kingdom people in the here and now. The more concerned we are with the state of our character, the more like Jesus we become now, the more at home we will be in the future.

So the hope for me � where I have strived to love as Jesus did, where I allowed God to work in me, to teach me, to refine me, where I looked to model trust and love as a choice, I did not labour in vain. I can only hope that at least some fraction of what I experienced and chose was out of that spirit.

For the rest, sinful as I am, God�s not done with me yet. Mercies new every morning. One degree at a time �

Matt

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com

 

Be Prayin

Going through some craziness just now - God needs me to be strong where I am weak and loving where I am hurt. I know apart from Him I have no good thing, and also that where much is required, much is received.

It's amazing that in this mess that God is faithful - two thoughts have been foremost in my mind.

1. The depth of the mystery and delight of the cross. The cross shows me I was bought at a price, that when God suffered he suffered for me, so I must have worth. Whatever I am facing, becoming more like Christ through the power of His death and resurrection will help me in every situation.

"When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there, who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died / my sinful soul is counted free
For God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me"

2. If we choose to serve God, sometimes we will have to choose to suffer rather than sin. This is the oppsite to how I have been living, choosing to give into sin rather than condiering Jesus and what he endured for me.

"I givgen like a beggar and lived like the rich, crafted myself a more comfortable cross
But what I am called to is deeper than this. You can have my whole life, Jesus have it all"

So like I say, be praying. "We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly 'til the end the confidence we had at first". As i've writtenm in this blog b4, sometimes to share in Christ is to share His sufferings (2 Corinthians). Choosing to care about what he cares about will break your heart sometimes.

 

Matt

Matt Crossman

 

Googling your way to Christocentricity

When did Christianity books move into self help? see Joel Osteen and 'you best life now' and any number of life aplicatio teachers who promiuse that by their books you will fufill your potential . You will do this, you can do this.

For me recently, there have been two words written by Paul which have enlivened me, refreshed me and comforted me.

These two words come in Romans 8. they are 'God did'.

"What the Law was powerless to do in that it was weakned by the sinful nature, GOD DID by sending His own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering."

I could go on about the riches of this verse - but my point must come soon. The point is that in this world, God is the initiator, who graciously chooses to use us, to get us involved in His Kingdom work.

"I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

Jesus is the central action in God's redemptive work in creation. Without Jesus, our mediator, Messiah, High Priest and King, we have no more access to God.

You don't pull yourself up to God; He reaches down to save (he stoops - Psalms)

So - without Jesus, and realising that His work is finished on the cross, complete we reduce discipleship to self empowerment.

So - and this is the point - try downloading the google toolbar which enables you to search a sit for a phrase. Search a few websites from different denominations and see teh results. On one Hillsong networ site I found 16 instances of 'God' , about the same for the names of the pastors, in the twenties for 'potential' and 2 results for Jesus .....and they were for the one entry.

My own church - 68 mentions for God, 16 for Jesus ... 10 for the Holy Sprit

Now I know that there are problems of unfair comparison, particualry due to different levels of detail. But doesn't it point to the theology of the Church? especially as websites are almost a marketing tool to the world, a way to be culturally relevant?

So lets find peace in the finished work of Jesus, while still working out our salvation with fear and trembling. What Loius Giglio calls a 'furious rest '....

Matt

Matt Crossman

Being herded

Bloggin is fun, and sometimes the only thing you can do in a bored spot. Right now i'm sat at a station wiring the sweat from my brow after missioning it across london. Man - i'm never eating veal again, after bein trapped in a carriage with a hundred other people. Note to self: remain in cushy bristol life for a bit longer. matt

Incarnation

Not the second hand automobile users magazine but the theological doctrine that binds the Christian faith together.

This facet of Jesus has been fascinating me recently � I been grasping the truth that the incarnation is and trying to get a song out of it.

Jesus is God � Man. What does this mean for Christians? What is the significance to us that Jesus, the Messiah was God and Man, equally and complementarily? What does this teach us about God that we should be expressing in worship? Two thoughts have really taken root in my head

1. Jesus being a man dignifies the human race. Being born of a woman gives a dignity to the species � Jesus was like us, as were and are. Its as if Jesus being incarnated was a sign that the human body isn�t evil and something to be escaped, but that it works with the spirit to give us wholeness as beings. As Dave M often says, we are creatures as well as Spirit. The human body is some thing Jesus took � and whatever else we think about Jesus, he was sinless. So we see a model of humanity that is bodily - not other earthly or nebulous. If he wasn�t fully human, the power of the cross is hugely reduced. I think of Hebrews, a high priest who was tempted as were, and able to sympathise with our weaknesses. If Jesus hadn�t struggled with His vocation as Messiah (see Gethsemane � asking if there was anyway the cup could have been taken form Him) then he couldn�t sympathise with human struggles.

2. That Jesus was a baby (helpless) and a human (limited and, as a race, with fundamental problems) demonstrates to us something of God�s greatness and humility. That God could stoop down to our level shows us that he could not be reduced, weakened or affected by the stooping. His descent proves his everlasting greatness. He is secure in his reign and glory � not needing to trumpet the descent from the rooftops, but coming in humility to poverty. God is not insecure. God�s doing fine today. He�s doing great today.

The working title for the song is "We worship at the manger: / where God displayed his greatness". I think what�s important with this piece is to not reduce the mystery down to manageable terms, but to present some ideas and give space to wonder at God.

Peace y�all

Matt

Matt Crossman

derwent_massive@hotmail.com

matt.crossman@rathbones.com