The Art of Sensible Living

Sensible people, I salute you (or something a little less...military. Rephrase: Sensible people, I raise a slice of cake to you) because it’s not always easy, being sensible. 

A lot of people would disagree, confusing the sensible with the safe, easy or boring option. But there is a big difference between safe, easy, boring and sensible:

Not jumping off a cliff if all your friends were doing the same, just like your mother questioned you about – safe.

Getting a takeaway instead of cooking actual food – easy/lazy.

Not skydiving from a plane into the ocean – boring to the max.

Choosing not to be one of those crazy people that runs 12 marathons in a day - sensible

You see, there's a difference. Make the wrong decision and you could end up being scraped off the side of a road three quarters of the way into your sixth marathon of the day (5 points for making it that far though).

I am sensible (most of the time - ignore anything my family might like to tell you)*. I can’t help it. It’s part of who I am. When it comes to those pivotal moments in life I seem to always take the sensible option, quite often without even realising it was one. 

But sometimes being sensible requires you to look at the choices at hand, weigh the possible consequences and then make a decision. 

Sometimes being sensible requires you to look temptation in the face and walk away. 

It's not always easy being sensible.  

And we are an unsatisfied people. Choosing to look at life through the rosy glasses of hindsight and sigh over 'If only I hadn't...' or 'What if I had...'

I think C.S.Lewis (what a ledge) got it spot on:

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all...you find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”

On the days in which sensible prevails, I thank the God who makes us stronger than we think we are. 

On the days in which temptation wins, I am thankful for a God who understands temptation and accepts pleas for forgiveness.

*Sensible is right up there next to 'nice' in my list of least favourite character descriptions. nice is so bland - its like frozen yoghurt without the fun toppings or flavours. 

Personality Freckles

Small Child 1: Rachel?

Me: Yes?

Small Child: What are those dots on your face?

Me: Dots? What dots?

Small Child 2: He means your freckles. You’ve got millions!

I honestly had a few seconds when I didn’t know what they were talking about. What dots on my face? What freckles? Do I have random dots on my face?! Where is a mirror when I need one?! And then once the initial I-must-look-like-a-crazy-with-dots-on-my-face panic subsided I realised – those dots, those ‘freckles.’ Something so obvious to the kids, but so normal to me that I’m almost blind to them. There’s nothing like the honesty of small children (and the very elderly) to remind you of things you don’t see.

I also had a similar conversation a couple of months ago -  note to guys, when talking to a girl you’ve only just met while at a mutual friends’ wedding don’t tell her she has freckles. She won’t take well to it. Especially if she doesn’t even notice them 98% of the time. You will not get extra points for this, no matter how well cut your suit is.

Anyways, all this talk about things you don’t see that are obvious to others got me athinking – what aspects of personality are glaringly obvious to other people but not to me?

One thing I do know, apparently I need to work on being less sarcastic. The following conversation happened last friday:

Small Child: Rachel?

Me: Yes?

Small Child: I’ve finished my writing.

Me: Excellent! Well done!

Small Child: Why are you always so sarcastic?!

A couple of years ago this would have been true, but sarcasm is so 2010. But maybe sarcasm is a freckle of my personality - obvious even to seven year olds. Don't you just hate it when people misjudge or misunderstand you? Isn't that the root of most communication problems?

And for that matter, how have I misjudged people for things that I think are glaringly obvious but they just don’t see. 

What are the freckles of your personality? Have you misjudged someone for something that was obvious to you but not to them?

Jeremy Kyle

Lord help me. (Yep, it’s so bad that I’m calling on the Lord in my blog but this is serious).

Brace yourself, this could be the end of our friendship...

But I must confess - I’m turning in to Jeremy Kyle.

And I don’t know how to stop it. Forget Quarter Century Crisis. This is much much worse. Let me explain...

This past week has been half term and so I retreated back to the suburbs for a couple of days of quiet. Arriving at my parents’ house tired, cold and hungry I decided to indulge in a bit of mindless TV watching (a real treat as I have no TV out East). Flicking through the channels I saw that Jeremy Kyle USA was on, “Hmm” thinks I “let me see if this is just as bad as the Uk version.” (I don’t know why I thought it would be any different).

The setup: Two sisters arguing. One thinks the other is an unfit mother and on drugs. Jeremy chats to one of them and stirs up some trouble asking leading questions and questioning motives.  Enter other sister stage right, cue screaming in each other’s faces for 5 minutes while Jez looks on all condescending. After an appropriate amount of time to garner ‘good tv’ Jez proceeds to break up the argument:

“You, go over there. And we are going to talk about this in a calm adult way.” To the other “I am going to go and talk to your sister and you need to go over to the sofa and calm down”

Upon hearing these words I was struck to the core. I couldn’t move. I wanted to throw up, cry, laugh hysterically and flee the country.

“What?” I hear you ask was the problem? Jez calmly and sternly told the screaming sisters what to do so that he could restore some order. Surely that is the logical option and one of his few good choices?

The problem, is that he used the exact same tone I (attempt) to use with the kids at school. In that same tone I calmly yet sternly tell them what they need to do so that we can restore some order.

So there you have it - I’m turning into Jeremy Kyle. 

I think its time for a new job.

So What's Next?

So you’re wondering what’s next, what do to with your life. Join the club. This has been my most FAQ for the past couple of years. When I was in New Zealand we had many many conversations about calling and identity. We had one speaker tell us that we should pray like crazy and not do anything unless God tells us to do it. Another said that we’re not idiots and God knows this so we should figure it out ourselves. I was totally (to use an old skool phrase) confused-dot-com.

And since then it hasn’t gotten that much better. Over the past couple of years I have received a lot of advice on future plans and what I should be focusing on. Some of it has been really helpful and some of it not so much – one friend told me that I should “do something irrational. Have a family.” Thanks. Good Plan. That would solve all my problems right now. And I've even had that awkward conversation of “God told me you should train to be a missionary and then come and join me on the mission field in Asia. Just kidding. But not really. Just kidding. Hahahaha.” Excellent. Ha. Ha. Ha. I just threw up from laughing so much at the hilariousness of that comment, you should really consider becoming a stand up comedian.

Talk about first world problem – too many options and don’t know what to do.

Here is a collection of advice and thoughts and bits of conversations I've has over the past couple of years on how to figure out what's next:

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind...Love your neighbour as yourself. Matthew 22 v 37-39

0 to 25 - Try everything but sin (rock climb, play sport, study arts, study science, write a book).

25 to 30 - Focus on ten things.

30 to 40 - Do two things really well.

40 onwards - Mentor and invest.

So do not worry about having enough food or drink or clothing...Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and He will give you all you need from day to day if you live for Him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. Matthew 6 v 31-33

God’s will is all over scripture, we know what He wants so why do we keep asking what His will is? Why don’t we instead try and figure out how we, in the fullness of how we've been made, play a part in it? 

How do you want to be living? What are the values and rhythms you want to be living out?

I think we assume that everyone knows what they want to do. It’s much closer to the truth to say that most of us somehow fall into the jobs we have. And only half of those people end up doing something that they like, and only half of those people do something that they love.

We’re not really given space to wander. Some people try out a number of different career paths before they find one they’re comfortable with. But we frown on this and say that they’re flaky. When maybe they’re the ones brave enough to try new things in search of what they enjoy. 

We’ll probs be working till we drop dead on the job, so do something you enjoy. If it takes ten years of wandering to get there then don’t sweat it, you still have another million years until retirement/dropping dead. So don’t be afraid of wandering, but do be intentional. 

God-given gifts + acquired skills + developed passions = vocation because of and for the sake of community.

Who do you know? Who do you enjoy working with? Who inspires you? What work environment suits you best?

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Maybe there’s not one perfect career for you. There could be several different things that you could really enjoy doing and that you could thrive in. So there’s not necessarily one right option. So don’t worry about making the wrong wrong choice.

Go to New Zealand.

Maybe God cares about who we are becoming more than what we are specifically doing 

Don’t forget to b r e a t h e.

  

I have been all over the place with this. I’ve had days when I’ve been super excited about the future, days when I’ve been so stressed I couldn’t do anything but try to run from my own thoughts (well, more kind of like baking than actually running) and then there’s been the days when I’ve not thought about it so it’s been fine.

The most important thing I have learned about this is that God is there no matter what. Whether I come up with a five year plan in the next week, or whether it takes one/two/five/ten years, God will be there no matter what I end up doing. He does not change. I can count on His character and His promises no matter where I am or what I am doing. And at the end of the day, I’m only visiting this planet.

"And be sure of this: I am with you always, even until the end of the age" 

Matthew 28 v 20

Prosperity Brownies

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend in Hove and as we wandered into Brighton we happened up a few stalls taking part in the Food Festival. For some reason unknown/bad planning, all the stalls were selling food and 8 out the 10 stalls were selling cake, of which there were many free samples! So I put aside all my concerns of people touching what I was about to eat with their filthy filthy hands and embraced the free samples. Of which there were many brownies. 

And so in typical browser style we tried all the samples, didn’t buy anything and went about our business. But on the way back I couldn't resist the temptation to get something. I could hear the brownies calling my name, and it would have been rude to ignore them.

But then I faced the ultimate question – which brownie was best?!

We decided (obviously this was too important a decision to make by myself) that rather than re-try all the brownies we would just go with whatever one we remembered as being the best. Fortunately we both decided that the first stall we had gone to was the proud owner of the Rachel & Fabienne 2012 Best Brownie Award (I don’t know what we would have done if we had disagreed, probs hold a street bake-off or something – highly illegal I know but do you have a better idea?!).

So we wondered over to the first stall where all the brownies were neatly packaged in cute little cardboard boxes. To be honest the quest almost failed at this point – “brownies packaged in boxes?!” I thought, “they must be made in a factory and pumped full of more preservatives than the Duke of Edinburgh.” But I was wrong (for a change), the stall proudly held a sign proclaiming that all the ingredients were kitchen cupboard ingredients (you never know what people keep in their kitchen cupboards though).

“Prosperity Brownies”. Bit of an odd name I thought, must be some kind of play on prosperity gospel. It wasn’t until later when about to partake of said brownie that I read the cute little box and the explanation on it:

“Whilst prosperity brownies is about baking beautiful brownies, our chocolate heart is committed to the prosperity of underprivileged kids. 10% of all our peofits are donated to children’s charities, Viva and global compassion. These two wonderful organisations are dedicated to helping children at risk around the world.”

A quick read of the website reveals that Prosperity Brownies was started by a woman who had a great recipe for brownies and a desire to make a difference to others. Prosperity Brownies was born. 

Not only a great brownie but also committed to helping others! Cake with a conscience. LOVE IT!

Check www.propseritybrownies.com for more info.