I've just heard too many people say this. And it gets my goat everytime. Like God doesn't have anything better to do than organise the universe around your own personal convenience.

God gave me a Parking Place Today (to the tune of Love Divine, or Hyfydrol)

God gave me a parking place to-day
Right outside the Tesco store
I was tired, and it was raining
But God opened heaven's door
What care I for the homeless and helpless?
What care I about the poor?
God gave me a parking place to-day
Right outside the Tesco store.

'I know that this is vitriol
No-solution spleen-venting
But I feel better having screamed on you.'

Good worship songs or hymns are not easy things to write. I know. I try. The very best have good theology which is given a fresh perspective by thoughtful lyrics, a tune which lifts up the soul and a deep emotional resonance. The vast majority don’t come close to this.

Another problem is that worship songs are really vehicles, not songs. They are designed to get us to a place where we can communicate with God. If it’s a congregational worship song, that means that you have to design a coach, not a Ferrari. So the music will never be thrilling, as it has to be sung by people who aren’t musicians; the words will rarely be poetic, as they have to appeal to the sentiments of the majority, not the individual.

And I haven’t even got to the theology yet. This is particularly problematic for me, as I have a relatively liberal theology, yet go to a conservative evangelical church. So when I write songs for the church to sing, they’ve got to have a theological content which expresses something I’m excited about (because what’s the point in writing the song otherwise?), and can inspire – not irritate – everyone else.

Tempting as it may be to get my own back for when we’ve been made to sing bloody Hillsongs.

So, it’s not very often that I manage to write one which actually overcomes the above problems, and when I do, I feel good about it. I've even got a fairly interesting tune for it, though whether it's singable may be another matter. Here are the words anyway.

The Crucified God

I gaze up at the cross, and what do I see?
I see the Lord of all the earth looking back at me
His body broken, bleeding bruised and torn.
And for this king a crown of thorns as the crowd cries scorn

What do I see…

The powerless God
The naked God
The helpless God
The outcast God
The suffering God
The dying God
The crucified God
The crucified God

I gaze up at the cross, and what do I see?
I see the Lord of all the earth’s great humility
He gave up riches, glory, love and praise
To reconcile the hateful hearts of the ones he made

What do I see…

The powerless God
The naked God
The helpless God
The outcast God
The suffering God
The dying God
The crucified God
The crucified God

(Middle eight)

What does it mean for me?
What does it mean for me,
That God should love me so?

What does it mean for me?
How do I live my life,
To worship the crucified God?
The crucified God?
The crucified God?

(Chorus, repeat middle 8)

(Coda)
To find my life I must lose it
To worship the crucified God

Anyway, a combination of the break and some reflecting over Lent has made me decide that I will make some resolutions about how I will behave when I'm back at work. They are as follows:

1. No bitching about other people, even when they've really got my goat.
2. Do what you've said you'll do, and if you don't, don't make excuses
3. Don't try to hide unpalatable truths under nice sounding words
4. No bitching even when everyone else is doing it
5. Don't feel the need to say yes to everything
6. Try to be organised
7. No bitching.

I just find bitching is rather easy, but it's very corrosive - it strips away respect, people's reputations, and leads to others feeling unable to trust you. So I really am going to try to stop.

I've had a verse going round in my head for days now:
'From that time, the kingdom of God is forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.'
I suppose it's saying that the road to God is bloody hard, and you have to work hard at it. I feel God saying strongly that it's high time I showed some strength of character.

More old fashioned concepts. This Lent blog has been full of them.

Just think for one moment about the things you did today - from the minor acts to the major decisions (such as they were).

Bet you that vanity had a role in many of them. Sorry to depress you. They certainly did for me, and whilst I'm happy to bet that my inner thought process is less sanctified than yours is, I'd also bet that you're not immune to the same need to have others think you charming/intelligent/witty/professional/attractive.

And I guess we're vain because we don't feel that good about ourselves and we need the affirmation that others bring. But we want that affirmation about surface level things. The result? - we act in a way that will appeal to others on a surface level.

But doing that doesn't actually win long-term respect or a good name. So by trying to get ourselves well thought of, we do precisely the things that will make us look like a prat. At least I do. And it may win quick friends or a good laugh, but that crumbles very quickly.

I know that this is all very obvious stuff, but I need to hear it played loud in my head on a daily basis. Because I do very silly things from moment to moment due to vanity. So I'm sure that these wafflings are more or less unreadable, but it's me speaking to myself.

The remedy is simple and impossible - being humble, considering others better than yourself, being secure in God's love so you don't need man's fleeting praise. All wisdom writers have acknowledged this. I'd just love to start getting it right moment by moment.

(p.s. This isn't self flaggelation or self-loathing, it's simply frustration!)

p.s. 2 Thanks to all and sundry for their kind comments on the entry below. And do check out the comments section for Dith's reworking of He Who Would Valiant Be.

This being a Lenten blog at the moment, here follows a brief summary of why growing a beard is like being a Christian. It's in parable form, you may recognise the original.

'The kingdom of God is like growing a beard. Four men grew their beards. The first man grew it for a week, and quite liked it. But then people told him it was starting to look silly: 'Look,' they say, 'at the animal on your face. And that's not very much hair yet so you're not very virile, are you? Go shave the damn thing off.' And he did, and went back to being clean shaven.

'The second man grew it for a week. But then it got really itchy. No matter what he did - be it tea tree oil, face soap or shampoo, it was unbearably itchy by about 8pm. And lo did he shave his beard off too.

'The third man got through the initial abuse and the terrible itch. But the winds of fashion caught him, and he sacrificed his full beard for a rather effete goatee with pencil line sidies.

'The fourth man however weathered the abuse, the itch and the changing winds of fashion. He grew a noble beard, and gained a mild inner satisfaction thereby. And he did come to fellowship with others who had good beards, such as folk musicians, ramblers and birdwatchers (not engineers and role playing gamers - so wrong). He is contented with appearance: The new face has come, the old is gone.'

Humility is neglected today. It's a long time since I heard a preacher really talk about it. We think that positive self-image is all important, and our preaching actually focuses more on encouraging this than on encouraging humility. We're told lots about how Jesus died for us, how we are the beloved of God, chosen by him. Wonderful – it’s all true. We can have the esteem of knowing this to be true. But because we’ve seen so many people damaged by a lack of self-esteem, or who never use their gifts because they think they’re worth nothing, we don’t talk about humility.

This is a real problem. To me, the core of the Christian life is the quote: ‘He who seeks his life will lose it, but he who loses his life will find it.’ Humility is considering others above ourselves, in thought, word and deed. It’s the basis for love. Humility means we take our eyes off ourselves. We lose our life and find it by loving God and others and all the good that comes from that.

Humility enables us to deal with the slings and arrows thrown at us with grace. It’s understanding that we’re not always in the right, and we do things to hurt others too. We take the log out of our own eye before taking the speck out of our brother’s. So humility is the starting place for forgiveness.

So if it’s the starting place for love and forgiveness, then it’s the key. It’s the key to a life free of bitterness; a life of love and service, and a life – ultimately – of joy, because we’re free of the need to constantly meet our own needs, and we trust that God will look after us.

Lofty ideals. Whenever I think about the spiritual life, I feel like I’m at the foot of a mountain – but I do want to climb.

So after doing nothing remotely Lenten for several days I've tried to do some devotional reading, in the beloved venues of Morriston Hospital waiting rooms and garage waiting rooms. And I've read Thomas a Kempis 'Counsels on the Spiritual Life', which I believe is an expurgated version of his On the Imitation of Christ. Reading it was a tonic and felt relevant to many situations I'm facing at the moment. But I felt something that I often feel when reading it - we don't much go in for discipleship nowadays.

The book is full of meditations about how to grow as a Christian. They're stated in very plain, unadorned language - the simple words of a saint who doesn't need gimmicks to communicate God. But what he is always returning to are the necessity of humility and watching your 'inner dialogue' - keeping an eye open so you don't get drawn away from God.

What struck me was the wisdom of everything he said, its timeless truth, and yet how out of step with the times it was. If anyone preached the things he said now, he would be regarded as eccentric. Our world is so full of clutter, and the simplicity of these writings seems not to speak to it at all. But maybe if we dimmed our noise it would be a roaring whisper.

p.s. Last line reminds me of cute quote from daughter, whilst looking through a farm book and making noises for the animals:
Me: Oh look *daughter's name*, what that? It's a squirrel.
Daughter: 'Roar
Me (laughing and rather taken aback) No, squirrels say, well, they don't say, they sort of (puts hands to his mouth and makes nibbling sounds).
Pause.

Me: What do squirrels say?
Daughter: Roar

'...Part of both the burden and the privilege of being the Church we are in the nation we're in is that we are often looked to for some coherent voice on behalf of all the faith communities living here. And that is a considerable privilege, and I hope we can use it well - however clumsily it may have been deployed in this instance. If we can attempt to speak for the liberties and consciences of others in this country as well as our own, we shall I believe be doing something we as a Church are called to do in Christ's name, witnessing to his Lordship and not compromising it.'

Thanks to Richard for the link.

I must confess, that does resonate with me. I did this post called unconstipated ethics a while back, where I was saying that Christians ought to just loosen up a bit sometimes.

And I do think that. But is Lent maybe a bit different? Is this the time when the bridegroom's away, and we need to mourn? The whole concept of spiritual discipline as a path to growth has seemingly gone out of the window in much modern day Christianity.

I kind of like the idea of 'Love Life Live Lent', in trying to make Lent contemporary, but just find it lacking in substance. The purpose of Lent it seems to me is to grow through focussing on God. Love Life Live Lent encourages a rather 'back to front' works-related approach which I'm not keen on.

I think Lent is about doing the 'hard yards', the trek up the lonely mountain, the desert withdrawl. And maybe that involves crying with the saints for a season. But we don't stay in the desert for that long really, and then it's time for laughter again.

Anyone with any similar experiences?

p.s. Yes, I do know the line that when we talk to God it's called prayer, and when God talks to us it's called schizophrenia.