Metaphorically Speaking
This article first appeared in Premier Christianity Magazine, with copyright attributed to Liz Jennings.
If ‘The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,’ does that include your cutlery drawer, your shoes, and your birthday cake? Liz Jennings found that, yes, indeed, it can…
You may, by now, be sick of the sight of your home and all that it contains. After months indoors, the things around you have even, perhaps, become invisible through over-familiarity.
But what if God could use the everyday stuff around you to draw you deeper into relationship with him?
This idea was introduced to me twenty five years ago, in an Alpha discussion group. One of the leaders encouraged us to ask God to reveal something of himself to us through a picture.
As she prayed, I sat there with my eyes open, seriously concerned. I’d grown up in an Anglican vicarage. My father, the vicar, had been utterly and completely devoted to God. I had no doubt as to the authenticity of his faith – and yet I had never done anything like this at any stage of my church-filled life until this moment. I was afraid to close my eyes in that prayer because I was in the midst of a new approach, and my first reactions were suspicion and some measure of fear.
Eyes defiantly open, I stared at the floor. In doing so, I focussed on the rag rug beneath my feet in the rather scruffy South London church hall we were sitting in. As I stared, I began to look at all the rags woven into the rug. Different colours, lengths, thicknesses – all held together by one consistent thread to bring it into a united form that was uniquely beautiful.
The thought struck me: this rug was a picture of how God had made the church in all its diversity!
I remember shaking my head in a sort of mental double-take at the idea. Had I just understood something of God and the church through a cheap rug? Was that even allowed?
“Did anyone have a picture they’d like to share or talk about?” the leader asked us. Hesitantly, self-conscious and certain I was a fool, I shared the thoughts that had come as I’d stared at the rug. To my great relief I wasn’t ridiculed. In fact, this raggedy metaphor opened a door that enabled me to begin to reflect on my childhood in church, and to examine the bump in the road I’d hit in my faith at that point: that of finding my own place within the body of Christ, rather than the obligatory attendance of the vicar’s daughter.
The rag rug picture helped me begin to understand that there was room for me to be me, because God loves to weave all us raggedy odd-bods together, with all our different colours and shapes and histories, to create his uniquely beautiful church.
It was a moment of saying, “Lord, I’m listening: speak in whatever way you want, I’m looking for you, everywhere!” This new habit became instantly natural, as if I was meant to do it.
I still heard God through reading the bible, listening to sermons, and singing worship songs. I still drew close to him through times of prayer. But here was a whole new line of communication and the revelation that God really was all around me.
Giving God access to all areas of my life means that he is free to use my view of a rag rug, or anything else at all, to communicate with me if and as he chooses. The earth and everything in it suddenly really does belong to him. How much more exciting life becomes when even boring stuff is an opportunity for God to break through: it essentially means there is no boring stuff!
Instead, each activity of my day becomes God’s opportunity to shape me, from washing my hands to wrapping a gift, to putting the bins out.
Nothing New Under the Sun
Of course, my Alpha-leading friend didn’t invent this approach, rather, she generously directed me towards it. To my tremendous Evangelical relief, I began to see that this is an approach used throughout the bible.
In 1 Samuel, 2:2, God is described as a rock, an image which is echoed in 2 Samuel 22:32, and then again in Psalm 18:31.
Many Psalms shows us this same quest to acknowledge and understand God in and through the world around us, and, of course, Psalm 23 famously gives us the metaphor of the Lord as our shepherd: what light this image sheds on our heavenly father – and upon us as his sheep!
Isaiah 64:8 likens us to clay, with God as the potter. What a beautiful image of how lovingly he shapes us.
When Jesus used metaphors, he used both mighty nature and everyday objects to show us that God is bigger than us, but also that he is not distant from us. From “I am the light of the world” (John 8:2), to “I am the gate…” (John 10:9) to “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), all these and many more images given by Jesus help us to draw close to a holy God who is far beyond our human comprehension yet enters into our world. Jesus’ understanding of our human nature and his humility in walking amongst us, at once God and man, meet perfectly in these expressions of earthy revelation.
The biblical writers understood that metaphors breathe life into concepts that might be otherwise tricky to explain or communicate. How utterly characteristic of our God it is to have created a world full of metaphors that work in order that we may grasp his truths and his love over our lives.
Making a Habit of It
On the first day of January this year (back in the olden days when people used to get together without a second thought), I burnt a pan. This was not a new experience for me. There’s often a blackened pan outside my back door, shoved there in an effort to get the acrid smell out of the kitchen.
On this day, as I took the poor pan in for the familiar ritual of restoration, a thought struck me: here was another reminder of the many failures in my life. Another burnt crust saying, There you go, Jennings, you’ve blown it again!
As I soaked the pan, I reflected on how easily I allow my past mistakes to shape my expectations of the future – and how opposite this is to the way God works. Just think of all the failures of those whose stories are recorded in the bible: our God is one who takes failure and breathes hope into broken dreams. Because of God, I can keep ‘cooking’: I may burn many more dinners (alas, it’s guaranteed), but I won’t let past failure define or dictate my future.
Being reminded of God’s hope over me was a great start to the year! I decided to set about listening and looking for God each day in a consciously intentional way, taking photos and writing down ideas as they occurred.
The more I looked, the more I saw. I’ve got a journal bulging with pictures and insights that I would have missed had I not consciously looked and then noted these things down. Here are just a few of the images from daily life that have struck me over the last months.
An Unexpected Moment of Clarity in a Supermarket Car Park
This ugly post is in Canterbury's hairiest carpark, where twin spaces are divided by merciless concrete columns covered with the scars of previous parking misadventures. After five minutes of paranoid inching back and forth, I was tempted to give up and drive home again.
I looked around and saw lots of other drivers despairing as they, like me, attempted to get their cars safely parked. We were all trying to fit in, but the boxes had been designed by someone who didn't know us, our cars or our driving skills: someone who took a one-size-fits-all approach.
The world today is so keen to box us all up according to its own criteria - our age, gender, colour, looks, health, sexual orientation, class, wealth, job and so on - but we're so much more complex than that.
God intended us to be unboxable - defined not by the limitations of this world but by the limitless joy, love and grace of heaven.
The Compost Bucket of Prayer
Here's my little compost bucket, filled with another day's peelings, egg shells and teabags.
If I left this bucket as it is, it would rot and stink. But if I empty it out into the compost, something wonderful will happen over time as it breaks down and becomes useful in a whole new way.
For me, this is a helpful metaphor for prayer.
Just like this bucket, I end each day filled with the remnants of everything that's come my way. As I empty out my remnants into God's great compost bin, not only do I often feel released from the carrying of all that stuff, but I also start to see the ways my experiences shape me in the long run.
I don't find prayer easy, and it's certainly not a simple transaction - but then, composting takes time. Often it is years before I fully break down an experience.
The alternative of holding onto all my 'compost' simply means I will rot and stink, and all that could have given new life is wasted.
A reminder to me to pour out my troubles and struggles in prayer, and to look for new life.
Accidental Pansies
I did not plant these pansies. I did plant some pansies – about three metres away from these, in a pot on a step. I really don’t understand how those potted pansies (which died, entirely in keeping with my gardening skills) somehow rooted themselves over here and took off so well – it makes no sense to me – but these are the same colour pansies that I planted in my pot, so they must have somehow made their way across the garden to this place.
As I look at them, I am reminded that, in my life, I may plant many things that appear to fail, but God can use them to bring life in unexpected places.
These accidental pansies cause me to pray that God will use the things I plant in whatever way he wants to, and to rejoice in his sovereignty over every aspect of life.
God In The Detail
The wonder of this approach to the physical world directly around us is that God, in his majesty and wisdom, may use the same pictures to say something completely different to each of us. He knows exactly what you are facing, and he meets you at your own point of need.
A quarter of a century later I am still learning that the whole world is God’s toolkit, and nothing is off limits to him because he is sovereign, and he may choose to speak to me in any way he sees fit. He is there, in the detail, whispering his love to us, longing to be looked for.
Do it yourself. Ask God to speak to you through the everyday items around you. When a picture comes to you, ask yourself, is this in keeping with what I know of scripture and the character of God? The more you look, the more you’ll see and hear.
Do it with your small group. I’ve done this in a small group and it was terrific fun. We prayed together to open our time, and then we searched the room we were in to look for ways to proclaim truths about God to one another through the things around us. You could do this via Zoom if your small group is meeting that way, or with pictures over WhatsApp, or via a Facebook group or, if you’re meeting in a garden, you could do it there.
