Rachel Starr Thomson

If you live a daily walk of faith, as I do, you probably read the Bible often. You may even study it. (If you don’t, why not?) Since this blog centers on reading and writing and faith, I figure it’s fair game to give some Bible reading advice.

Remember Tuesday’s post on entering the moment in your writing?

Have you ever tried that with a Bible story?

I challenge you to try it. Pick a character in a story (any character except God — this won’t work as well from His POV, although I suppose you can try it if you must). Now, put yourself as thoroughly in that character’s shoes as you possibly can. Draw on everything you know (or can learn) about the biblical and cultural setting, the character’s past life experiences or personality, and other factors in the story’s context. Try to get inside that character’s brain. Get as comfortable there as you can. Do your best to forget things you know that this character doesn’t.

(For example, when Peter first goes to meet Jesus, he doesn’t know that he’ll become one of the chief disciples, witness miracles, see Jesus transfigured, betray his lord, be filled with the Holy Spirit, convert 2,000 people at once with his preaching, and lead the Jerusalem church. At the moment you’re entering, he’s just a fisherman who’s heard some rumours about a local carpenter’s son.)

Once you’ve done that, read on — because most often, in Bible stories, characters get their boats upset. God comes in and does something to turn that character’s world upside down. And the great thing is that the more you’ve identified with that character, the more your world can be turned upside down, too.

This method of Bible study is somewhat subjective, and of course it has its limits. But it works surprisingly well for me. It gives me new insights into what was happening in many biblical stories, and into the surprising ways God enters people’s lives and bends their expectations. So today I challenge you to try it.

(If you need a starting place, I recommend trying this with Matthew or Acts. I’ve read both books doing my best to be characters in the story, and I can tell you, it’s an enriching experience!)

Holidays. I think about the word as I mouth the lyrics to “O Come Emmanuel,” a 900-year-old Christmas carol I’m listening to today because I’m already scripting a Christmas program for the performing arts group I co-direct.

Holidays. High points. Holy days. Life swirls around them like a river around jutting pinnacles of rock. They direct the ebb and flow of our lives. They are collectives of memories and teachings; they are an intensity of significance that defines spirituality and semester alike.

Christmas gets most of the attention, at least if your background is secular or Protestant. Easter, it could be argued, has the greater significance. God could have been born into the world and then just left, and we’d not be any better off. It’s the drama of the Passion Week that has really changed things. So it’s good that we note these days. That we celebrate them. That we decorate our homes, change our diets, and attend special church services to remember the high points that promise to transform our lives.

But what about life between the holidays?

Can the everyday, the Monday afternoon or Wednesday morning or Friday dusk that does not mark the incarnation of God or the death of sin or the resurrection of the King of Kings — can that day be significant too?

I wonder about this as the familiar strains of the carol fill the warm spring air. Holidays are inspiring, like the high points in my own life — weddings and births and even, in a strange way, funerals. But what about life between the holidays, between the high points? What about everyday, run-of-the-mill, uninspiring work days in which we just raise children or clack keyboards or dig fence posts or fight off the flu? Where’s the sacrament, the holiness, in that life?

Read “Life Between the Holidays” on Boundless here.

It’s mid-April, and the Easter season has once again passed. I love Easter. I wish that as a church (the Protestant arm of it, anyway) we would make a bigger deal out of this season. I mean, Christmas takes over our lives for about a month, in our faces and our mouths and our hearts all season long. Easter always seems to come and then go almost before we’ve had time to think about it, just a blip in the calendar. And yet it marks something so incredibly significant.

Our Soli team performed “Glorious Day” for the last time on April 11, so the Easter season has JUST ended for me. But all that time backstage, praying that the Risen Lord would really manifest His presence and change lives during our performances, has challenged me anew to remember the resurrection and live as though it’s true each and every day. One of my “Glorious Day” lines says of the first Easter morning that “on the glorious morning of a glorious day, everything will change.”

Everything will change. Everything did change. What difference is that making in my life, or your life, today? What difference is it making in our relationships, in our writing, in our work, in our play, in our priorities?

I leave you with that thought today .

P.S. You may notice a change in the blog schedule around here — I’m now posting Tuesdays and Thursdays (except during blog tours). Sometimes I will miss it, because, like last week, I travel or get sick or lose my Internet connection. But for the most part I should be pretty consistent!

This morning I read John 15:9-12

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept the Father’s commandments, and abide in his love . . . This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

This isn’t works-based favour with God. It’s about living within a relationship instead of running away from it. The Prodigal Son didn’t lose his father’s love when he left home, but he certainly didn’t abide (dwell) in it. In the same way, if we want to dwell in Jesus’ love, living in close communion with Him and experiencing daily relationship with all its benefits, we need to keep His commandments.

What commandments, specifically? He pinpoints one: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Elsewhere Jesus calls this commandment a “new commandment.” And it is, because it is not quite the old commandment from the law that we remember — “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” No, this is different. This is a call to love each other as, in the same way, with the same passion Jesus does.  Self-love is no longer our reference point; Jesus is.

In the very next verse He defines this kind of love in a way that leaves no room for watering down:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus’ call to relationship goes two ways. He calls us to abiding relationship with Him by way of relationship with each other — and to relationship with each other by way of His love.

I think it’s also significant that the verse doesn’t say “a man lay down his life for his wife,” or his children, or his parents, his nation, his cause, his master or king. In all of those relationships there’s a sense of duty and obligation, and in some cases of instinctive devotion (like that of a mother for a child). A secret service agent may lay down his life for the president, but love isn’t necessarily the driving force. But friendship is completely voluntary. There is no obligation in it — it’s love we freely choose. To lay down one’s life for a friend shows real love. And that’s the love Jesus is calling us to live by.

Remember my post about how God made Jesus perfect?

Yesterday in Hebrews 13:20-21 (yes, I just finished the book), I read this:

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Now, Hebrews is very clear that Jesus’ sacrifice has already perfected us in the sense of wiping away our sins and giving us the right to enter God’s presence, both now (through prayer and a life of faith) and in eternity.

So why, the perverse mind asks, do we need to be made perfect in good works? Why would we want to? Why undergo chastening, difficulty, doubt, challenges? Why bother becoming mature and pleasing to God if He’s accepted us already anyway?

There are so many ways to answer that question. But here’s what jumps out to me:

The result of Jesus’ being “made perfect” even though He was already God’s Son was salvation offered to the entire world, the conquering of death and hell, the robbing of the devil’s power. It was my life. It was your life. It was all that is good and glorious.

If God wants to also put us through a perfection process, teaching us to obey and please Him in practical everyday life, you can bet there’s glory on the other side. You can bet that God’s purposes are bigger than we see now. Why bother becoming perfect? Because perfection in good works is what God made us for. It’s what makes us fully human, fully alive. It’s glory, power, pleasing, joy, and incredible relationship.

The perverse human mind asks such silly questions.

I’ve been thinking about songwriting lately for two major reasons: annoyance and joy.

Annoyance with a trend in worship music these days to be formless and void (what do some of those words mean, anyway?) and joy in music that does worship and that does teach and exhort, as well as having musical excellence to it.

One of my favourite links these days is Nathan Partain’s music blog. He’s a worship leader at a Reformed church who writes folk-rock melodies for old hymns. The music is fairly rough and raw, which is how I like it, and you can download lots of it. My favourite songs are “Be Reconciled” and “Come, Jesus, Come.”

Nathan is involved with a group of worship leaders who post music, art, and liturgical thoughts under the name Cardiphonia. Check them out here.

So my question the other day about songwriting wasn’t entirely rhetorical; I was leading up to something . Does music — specifically music with words, songs — have a God-given purpose? Is there something we’re supposed to do with it? Obviously, song is an incredible form of expression. But is self-expression all there is to it? In my opinion, if you’re only about expressing yourself, you’re going to become self-indulgent very quickly, and self-indulgence is a sinkhole for artists of any kind.

Paul talks about song in his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, with an interesting double emphasis:

… be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 5:18-19)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Col 3:16-17)

There are three purposes listed for Christian song here (and by “Christian song” here I mean songs that are specifically related to our faith). One is obvious: to sing to God and express gratitude to Him. The others are maybe not so obvious: we’re supposed to use songs to “speak to ourselves” and to “teach and admonish one another.” In other words, we should sing songs of worship and praise, but we should also sing songs of doctrine and truth and exhortation. At least, that’s how I take those verses.

Looking at most of the music in the church these days, what do you think? Are we fulfilling those purposes?

I’ve been reading the Epistle to the Hebrews for the last few days, and yesterday was struck by the way God chose to perfect Jesus. If the Bible didn’t say that Jesus had to be made perfect, I wouldn’t believe it; I would believe that He was already totally perfect when He got here. But look at what Hebrews 2 says:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:9-10)

I’ve often run into the idea that suffering makes us perfect by burning out our impurities and sanctifying us; that by going through pain, we become holier. But that can’t be what this passage means when it talks about Jesus. He didn’t have any impurities to burn out; He couldn’t have been holier than He was. Instead, the perfection in question is that of suitedness to a certain role — in this case, to the role of “captain of our salvation.”

This got me thinking, and I realized something: the crucifixion was excessive. Jesus did not have to suffer like that in order to pay for our sins. Think about it. The animal sacrifices that foreshadowed Christ were not tortured to death; they were killed quickly and cleanly by practiced hands. The blood of Christ takes away our sins, and it would do so without the scourgings, the mockery, the crown of thorns, the betrayal, the nails, the insanity that is suffering inflicted on a man by other men.

So why do it? Why voluntarily die like that?

Because, as Hebrews 2:17-18 goes on to say,

In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18)

Jesus was made perfect in His role as our advocate and priest because He chose to suffer like us. Because He chose to identify that deeply with who we are. Suffering has been part of human experience since the world fell in Adam. Suffering is often senseless and confusing. It tempts us to abandon faith or lash out at others. Suffering is often brought on by others, deliberately, compounding the pain. And Jesus chose to experience all of that so He could perfectly identify with us.

I’ve always known the cross was proof of God’s love, but this takes that to a whole new level.

Mist slips all around
Wisping haze, signs pointing the way
To an ancient town –
A place I almost remember
A place I think I’ve been

- from Dream, our Vancouver work-in-progress

What do we need?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. When you write a book, you’re supposed to give the Protagonist a Central Need — something that drives him or her through the story. And books do mirror life to a certain degree; we all have a Need, whether we know it or not. Devastating events like the earthquake in Haiti bring these questions to the fore. When everything is stripped away, can we see our primary need more clearly? If I lost everything, would I discover that none of it meant as much I thought it did — that my real need is something much deeper?

Of course, as  Christian I believe that would be the case. That if I lost everything — as someday I will, we all will; you can’t take anything beyond the grave — I would see my need starkly. Because I do believe in Christ, I will see that Need fulfilled. Others may only see it too late and be left with it still gnawing into eternity.

We can call it “salvation” or “grace.” Whatever we call it, the Need is to get back to Eden. To the place we all almost remember. We need to get back to a world and a self that is without sin, without the curse, and most of all, in right relationship with God. Because it’s God, more than anything else, that we’ve been missing all these thousands of years. It’s His friendship, His presence, that we’ll all desperate for.

“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” Colossians 1:12-13

Like most people, I went into the new year with plans.

God came into the new year with surprises .

Years ago, I committed my life to God. I meant that in a practical sense: whatever He wanted me to do, I would do. And it’s been fascinating, ever since, to see how He leads. I’m really looking forward to this year, because if the nearly two weeks of 2010 are indicative of what’s to come, it’s going to be the Year of the Unexpected!

I planned to teach the usual group of students. God changed that and provided new courses, workshops, editing clients, and writing opportunities to make up for the lost income.

I planned to go to Niagara on a Friday and return Wednesday morning. Circumstances forced a change in plans, sending me home Tuesday morning instead. Just before I left, I got a phone call from a friend (in a my-plans-meet-God’s-surprises situation of her own) asking if I could pick her up at the airport in Detroit on, guess when? Tuesday morning. God had already gone ahead of me to make that possible.

I planned to fly to Florida in February. My friend there e-mailed to say things were up in the air, so could I hold off on booking a flight? In the meantime, our last-minute application for Soli Deo Gloria Ballet to perform with an artists’ initiative in Vancouver during the Olympics was accepted. If I had already booked a flight for Florida, I wouldn’t be able to go. Once again, God prepared the way.

Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) says “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” As an author, I know when my characters are planning things that won’t go the way they expect — but I also know how I’m directing them without their knowledge. As a human being, one in relationship to God, I do my best to plan my course in a godly and productive way. But I can rest (and delight) in knowing that God is already determining my steps. He knows where I’m really going and how I’m going to get there.

All that’s really left to me is to live the adventure .