Category: Christian Living

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My Tanager Tragedy

It was over a month ago when I first noticed her… A rich copper coloured bird, flitting from tree to tree in my garden. Always with a black companion which seemed to have white markings under its wing. With the help of Merlin (credit for the photo as well), I soon discovered that they were a white-lined tanager couple. The males are black and the females are rufous-coloured. (Who knew rufous was a colour? Derived, apparently, from the Latin rufus, which means red.) They are often seen in pairs.

I was over the moon to have this ‘exotic’ couple in my backyard. Over the weeks that followed, they became my companions as I did my devotions each morning. The female, especially, would perch in the railing on the porch as if to say, “Hello friend!” while looking at me with one eye and then turning her head to inspect me with the other one. The male was much less friendly. He would keep an eye on his mate from a nearby tree. Soon, I realized that they had a nest in the palm trees right next to my porch and probably a baby or two. (I never looked for fear of scaring them off.)

Then one morning, as I was meditating, caught up in my love affair with Jesus, my friend flew right over to me and landed on my arm. Immediately, I was in tears. She landed on me! I felt like the recipient of a heavenly kiss, a feathered friendship undeserved. “What are you saying to me God?”

Soon her husband became at ease enough to also visit me in the porch, and I sooo looked forward to spending time with Jesus and my avian friends every morning. To me, they were more than just birds. They were a message from heaven. A ray of hope in a valley season.

For many years, my Christian community was informal. My wife and I had online groups (which we still do) as well as a group of seven of us that met in our home at first and then at a community centre in East Trinidad. These small, informal groups have been a place of tremendous growth and support. We have been blessed to have been able to host spaces where people feel safe, free to question and to struggle, and where there is a tangible experience of God’s presence.

A couple of years ago, I felt led to re-enter formal church. I have a lot of trauma associated with formal Christian organizations, so this was not a venture that I embarked on lightly. In the past, church has not been, at times, a safe space for me to bring my questions, unique perspectives, or failures. Nevertheless, I was optimistic. However, the challenges of institutional church have not changed, and the process has been more painful than I expected.

So, my birds… my birds were symbols of hope. Hope that fragile, beautiful creatures could find safe places to land and be met with welcome… with love… with celebration… with safety.

Then today happened…

I went out onto my porch, and there, next to my chair, was a dead baby bird. No tanagers. No “Hello friend.” Only emptiness and death.

The culprit? No doubt my cat Billee.

 It felt like the final death sentence over my dream. There is no safety on this side of heaven. Not in the world. Not in the church. Only predators and prey.

“Why Lord?” “Why would you allow this to happen?”

“Why Billee?” “Why did you have to kill her?”

But I could not even summon anger toward the cat as he rubbed against my feet. All I had was sadness. He didn’t know what he did anyway. I found myself stroking his back.

Isn’t that like church? People you love hurting people you love. Not because they are cruel (most of the time). In fact, often they think they are doing what is right and good.

So, this is it then. Pain, loss, death.

I sat with my communion cup and wafer, forlorn… and as I looked at it, these words entered my consciousness. “Predators eat prey. For one to live, another must die. And then Christ says:

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life…””

(John 6:53b NLT)

Jesus changes the script by becoming the voluntary prey – voluntarily offering up His flesh and blood that we may live.

There must be something powerful in that. I can feel it, but I don’t have words strong enough to communicate it.

The only way out of this vicious cycle is voluntary sacrifice. The willing sacrifice resets everything.

Isaiah 11:6-9 (NLT)

6 In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together;

    the leopard will lie down with the baby goat.

The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion,

    and a little child will lead them all.

7 The cow will graze near the bear.

    The cub and the calf will lie down together.

    The lion will eat hay like a cow.

8 The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra.

    Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm.

9 Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,

    for as the waters fill the sea,

    so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord.

Maybe the baby bird will be safe with the cat as well.

I think that maybe Jesus is saying something to me through this tanager tragedy. The religious institution wasn’t a safe space for Jesus either. They killed Him, and He offered up His life willingly so that one day nothing would hurt or destroy. Perhaps this season is an invitation for me to join Christ’s sacrificial mission of transformation from violence to non-violence.

There is much violence everywhere I turn these days. In my country. In the world. Isaiah 11 seems far off. But it’s not just drones, missiles and machine guns, it’s the daily micro-aggressions of not seeing, not listening, not valuing the people around us. We may think that we can’t make a difference in Iran or Palestine, but we can. By treating the human being in front of us with compassion and kindness, we can be a part of a rising tide that lifts humanity upward. Especially in the church. Yes, I hold the church to a higher standard. Because we are the people of the sacrificial lamb. As we eat the flesh and drink the blood, let us remember who we are – the body of Christ. Through us, Christ offers life to the world – through our sacrificial love. His blood flows not through dogma and doctrine and self-righteous proclamations, but through love that stubbornly reaches out to the ones who behave like our enemies.

Copyright 2026, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Is The church Hindering The Church?

The capital ‘C’ Church is a dynamic, multi-facted, global, mosaic of people whose hearts are truly devoted to Jesus. These people are sprinkled across the globe. They are in all denominations and in no denominations. Some may be Muslims or Hindus, but secretly their hearts are set on Jesus. This is the mystery of the Church. It is a living organism, led and orchestrated by Jesus, not by human hands, and it is growing and maturing daily. This is the rock that King Nebuchadnezzar saw.

Daniel 2:31-35 (NLT)

31 “In your vision, Your Majesty, you saw standing before you a huge, shining statue of a man. It was a frightening sight. 32 The head of the statue was made of fine gold. Its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, 33 its legs were iron, and its feet were a combination of iron and baked clay. 34 As you watched, a rock was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. It struck the feet of iron and clay, smashing them to bits. 35 The whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold. Then the wind blew them away without a trace, like chaff on a threshing floor. But the rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth.

The common ‘c’ church comprises the Christian organizations across the globe. Within many of these organizations, there are true disciples of Christ who are part of the Church, but there are also the crowds (those that are only there for the blessings) and the Scribes and Pharisees (those who get their power and relevance from the organization but whose hearts are far from God).

I have a vision in my heart of a community where there is a pervasive mutuality, where there exists a mystical wonder of everyone being so personally submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit that there is a sacred unity and accord, where there is a genuine, deep, unconditional love and acceptance of every son and daughter of God, where the presence of God is palpable.

My favorite revival – the Welsh revival of 1904 – had meetings described by Evan Roberts like this:

“There was no programme. There was no printed order of service. There was no choir director, no song-leader, no master of ceremonies. There was not even a sermon in the traditional sense. I did speak sometimes briefly. Sometimes at length. But I never prepared my words in advance. I left all of that to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I would stand and say a few sentences. Sometimes I would sit in silence for long stretches while the Spirit moved through the congregation that needed no human guidance. And sometimes I would simply pray or weep or sing. The meetings belonged to the people. Anyone might stand up and pray at any moment. Anyone might begin singing a hymn. Anyone might confess a sin, share a testimony, or cry out for mercy and these things happened not in an orderly one at a time fashion but often all at once. A great chorus of prayer and praise, and weeping, and singing, that rose to heaven like incense from 100 altars.”

This is what I long for! This revival emptied the jails and courthouses and transformed the entire society.

Sadly, what I have experienced in church is that instead of mutuality there is hierarchy, instead of submission to the Holy Spirit there is submission to a personality, instead of love and acceptance there is evaluation and classification.

The church, by very nature, is not compatible with the Church. There will always be friction between the two. An organization is, by definition, a man-made construct. It must be defined by rules and controlled by human systems. We like church because it is predictable and manageable. We can control the outcomes and measure the performance. Predictability and manageability allow us to keep our idol of control intact. We don’t want a rock; we prefer bricks. We can build our kingdom for God with bricks – people conformed to a mold by systems, structures, and domination. We cannot build with a rock, far less an ever-expanding rock which is not under our control! Therefore, the church system will always demand we be a brick, and those who are part of the Rock will always be perceived as a threat.

The truth is that, like the statue in Daniel, the Rock will destroy all of our man-made systems and structures.  

Daniel 2:44-45 (NLT)

44 “During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever. 45 That is the meaning of the rock cut from the mountain, though not by human hands, that crushed to pieces the statue of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God was showing the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its meaning is certain.”

To all those who are disenchanted by the church, here’s my advice:

Do not lose heart. Do not look upon the natural. Stay in the secret place with God, with your eyes set on Jesus. That is your strength. Find the Church within the church. Be a subversive force of quiet rebellion within the system, not through force but through humble sacrificial love. Stay pure. You may be ostracized and persecuted like Christ was… love still… serve still. Do not separate from your sisters and brothers, and do not become an antagonist or a critic, but also do not compromise on who God called you to be and what He has called you to do. Do not let them force you into the brick mold! Obey God rather than man – in your family, in your workplace, on the streets. Do not let man prescribe your boundaries – no man can limit what you can do for God. Respect the boundaries set in your church organization, but God is bigger than the organization.

Christ set up the kingdom, and He showed us what it looks like. He continued healing when His ‘church leaders’ said not to. He continued to ‘break’ the Sabbath when they said to stop. He continued declaring that He was the Son of God when they said it was blasphemy. But when they attacked Him, He did not retaliate. He suffered. He took up His cross. He died. He was never swayed from His calling – neither by submitting to their dictates nor by getting suckered into fighting at their level. It is a hard road to walk. Often, you might look like the rebellious one. Often it will be painful. Ensure that it is for following Christ and not for anything that misrepresents Him, and ensure that you do not fight back.

The Kingdom will, in the end, destroy all the man-made kingdoms and become a big mountain and cover the whole earth! The dream is true, and its meaning is certain!

Copyright 2026, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

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Your Discipleship Devotional

Hello Disciples!

I am pleased to share a new development at Authentic Joy. But first, a back story:

Eight months ago, we started something new – online discipleship small groups. We have two groups that meet every other week, and the experience has been nothing short of transformational. I am not exaggerating when I say that these meetings are the most life-giving get-togethers in my life. I look forward to every session and leave our time together feeling refreshed, encouraged, and revitalized in my walk with God. And I’m not alone. Many have said that these groups are a tremendous source of life, learning and community that they cannot find anywhere else.

The format we follow is simple: I send out a short reading with a few questions for reflection a week ahead of our meeting. So, when we meet, there is no teaching, just conversation. We share deeply about how the material intersects with our lives and the down-to-earth (sometimes messy) ways in which we are being transformed and challenged to become like Jesus. There are no experts. We all share from the heart. We all listen deeply. We all hold each other before God and encourage each other to pursue Him.

So, we at Authentic Joy thought, “Why not take these reflections and share them with our online community as a bi-weekly devotional?” So, from today, that is just what we will be doing! We hope that it will be of great value to you on your discipleship journey! Here is installment #1:

1. Discipleship Introduction

What is the formula for spiritual growth?

Many of us may have grown up in faith traditions where the formula or model for spiritual growth was something like this:

TRUTH + CHOICE = TRANSFORMATION

This model emphasizes learning truth and then choosing behaviour that aligns with what we have learned.

Question: Is it working?

I propose that our traditional model for transformation is not working. There are two reasons why this model cannot work:

  1. It emphasizes external behaviour modification rather than internal transformation.
  2. It emphasizes truth rather than love as the most important factor in our spiritual growth.

If we look at the anatomy of the human soul, we can see why this is a problem.

If we focus solely on truth (which is important for transforming our thoughts and beliefs) and external behaviour (which addresses our words and actions), without addressing the emotions, values and desires of the heart, then we have omitted a critical part of the human being!

Jesus’ model is quite different. Have a look at what He says in these 3 scriptures:

Matthew 5:27-28 (NLT)

Matthew 23:25-26 (NLT)

John 13:34-35 (NLT)

Jesus’ model focuses on the heart and only one thing transforms the heart – love. You can’t teach love. Jesus came to earth give us an experience of love that is transformative. Something the law was powerless to do.

Jesus’ model is called discipleship. John Mark Comer states it this way: “Be with Jesus. Become like Him. Do what He does.” The disciples didn’t just follow Jesus’ teachings; they literally followed Jesus wherever He went. Jesus’ invitation to “follow me” was never anything less than an invitation to do life with Him from that point forward.

Interestingly, it seemed that Jesus also thought that a group of disciples worked better than walking with Him alone. Companionship was also an integral part of Jesus’ model.

REFLECTION

  • What does the distinction between learning truth about Jesus versus experiencing love through being with Jesus bring up for you? Process with Holy Spirit.
  • What does the distinction between managing our behaviour to be in line with Biblical principles through force of will versus words and actions that naturally flow from having the same thoughts, beliefs, emotions, values and desires as Jesus bring up for you? Process with Holy Spirit.
Copyright 2026, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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The Path Of Eros

I love carnival. I love the pulsating rhythms of soca music. I love the creative wonder of hundreds of steel drums chanting a melody while the whole stage vibrates with joy. I love to dance. I love to be a part of the sea of masqueraders moving their bodies with celebratory abandon. I love that moment when everyone’s favorite song starts, and we jump, put our hands in the air, or throw our arms across a padna’s shoulder. I would even go so far as to say I love the human form. I love the curvaceous feminine allure that my grandfather would call ‘feminine pulchritude’. I even appreciate (with some jealousy) the gym buffs with their chiseled abs and gladiatorial lats.

The problem is that my flesh also loves lust, licentiousness, and lasciviousness (it sounds less immoral if you use big words). I envy my friends who can partake in the beauty and celebration of carnival and remain untouched by this darker side of it. As the prophet Voice would say, “Ah cyah behave mehself”.

The deeper I go in my faith, the more I realize that the path up is also the path through our dark side. I spent almost a decade as a young Christian trying to repress, ignore, and side-step my darker side. I threw scriptures at it. I covered it under layers of church activities. Until one day, like the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings, it erupted as though shouting, “I will not be ignored!” I gave up the fight. I did not have anything in me that was more powerful than this powerful force. This force propelled me in an endless search for beauty and pleasure. I said to myself, “You can’t fight this. This is who you are. You are a hedonist.”

Deeper and deeper I went, until one day, after many years of fleshly indulgence, I hit the bottom. At rock bottom, I realized the answer wasn’t there either—the answer I needed – the thing my soul longed desperately for… it wasn’t in sex and parties either. I was still empty. I cried out in desperation to the God I never stopped believing in and who never left me, despite my rebellion.

Then…. He answered. Jesus walked into the room. Divine Liquid Love washed over me and through me in waves. The God of Scripture became a deeper, more tangible reality in my life. My heart was apprehended instantly, and all its desires and longings knew that this… this!… this is where all satisfaction was to be found.

Looking back, I realize that it was only then that I was ready to receive the Answer. I needed to go down to go up. I needed to know that I was poor.

Matthew 5:3 (NLT

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,
for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

Thus began a fiery, passionate love affair with the Lover of my soul. Thus began a real relationship with a Higher Power (as quoted in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 steps). Only then did I experience any hope of becoming truly holy. Because the Spirit in me was more powerful than the darkness. And only His Presence was more attractive than sex and revelry.

John Piper’s Christian hedonism philosophy interpreted this revelation for me in those days: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” The drive inside of me for pleasure was not something wrong with me. It was something put there by God that drives us to search and search until we find Him. Some call this drive eros. It is powerful. Try to ignore it, numb it, or kill it, and your soul will die from starvation. Try to fulfill it with earthly pleasures, and your soul will die from junk food.

Unfortunately, my taste for debauchery did not just disappear when I encountered God. I often wish it did as it has for some people. My process of sanctification has been slow and long. It has been more like a steady change of diet. I used to love soft drinks and hamburgers. My taste buds still love them, but the way my body feels without them is so much better. It is a deeper pleasure – a wholeness. That’s kind of how I feel about carnival. I started this blog with a confession of my love for many aspects of carnival, but I am on a search to find a truer, deeper pleasure. I’m not trying to deny this deep desire in me for pleasure. Up to last year, I felt frustration and disappointment that I still struggle with the same old temptations after so many years.

But not this year. I’ve come to realize that in this eros is pointing me toward God. I’ve come to realize that with Jesus and in Jesus, I can find a truer me and a deeper experience of God that my eros is pointing to. Rather than beating myself up for the fact that I still feel for a Coke, I’m asking myself, “What experience am I yet to discover that will surpass and make irrelevant what a Coke has to offer me?” Three books have served as voices of interpretation for this season:

  • The Journey of Desire – John Eldredge
  • Spiritual Wanderlust – Kelly Deutsch
  • The Holy Longing – Ronald Rolheiser

As I type this, I can hear the music from last lap in the distance, but there is a peace in me that is different. A peace that echoes with the Psalmist (Psalm 16:9-11 ESV):

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

What I’ve discovered is that there is a joy that is fuller than the most orgasmic sexual encounter. There are pleasures that continue forevermore – long after the carnival is over. Ive discovered that only this reality in the Presence is more powerful than the pleasures of this world. But I can’t get there by trying to deny or kill the eros. It is that very desire that will take me to the Holy Place, if I do not settle for the cheap thrills along the way. In the struggle, as I bring it to Jesus over and over again in our daily heart-to-heart conversations, I emerge, a truer version of myself.

Copyright 2026, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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There Is A Bigger Story

Have you ever seen a leaf caught in an eddy current at the side of a river? It doesn’t matter how fast and powerful the main river current is flowing down the centre; the leaf circles close to the bank. Sometimes the leaf even floats backwards!

Meditating on the miracle of Christ this season has been a powerful awakening for my soul to the bigger story. Too often, in 2025, I have been living out of my small story. My financial challenges, my work trials, my unused gifts, my struggles with sin… small, small, small. It feels like I have been that leaf floating in circles, when I should have been plumb in the centre of the eternal current, hurtling downstream in the unfolding glorious eternal story that God is writing across the cosmos.

Christ is with us! Emmanuel is with me!! He has invaded my small existence and drawn me into His eternal plot. It is no longer about me. It is about Him and His reconciliation of all time and space to Himself. All is being reconciled to Christ. And I get to be a part of that!

But oh Lord, my eyes so often drift from His greatness to my smallness… From His infinitude to my lack. Oh Lord, I drift to the edges and get stuck in a little circling current… round and round but going nowhere.

My heart’s prayer for 2026 is to live out of the bigger story.

After the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, the mundane events of life must have taken on a new significance for the family… A new sacredness. Feeding and cleaning their baby boy… sacred. Teaching him to talk and watching him explore the world… sacred. And what about the normal challenges of life? Feeding a family. Finances. Paying taxes. I imagine there must have been a deep sense of God-with-them, that everything would work out because God had His hand on their lives. I imagine that the things that might have seemed like big things before were now trivial in the shadow of stewarding the arrival of the Messiah. They knew they were a part of something eternally monumental.

That’s what I mean by living out of the bigger story. The things that are big things for those who do not walk with God should be trivialities for those of us who do. Otherwise, who is Christ to us? Job security? Trivial. Mortgage payments? Trivial. Political upheaval? Trivial. We are stewarding the Presence of God in this world. We are stewarding the second coming of Christ! Are our eyes on Him? Are we attending to His plans? Are we tending to Him? I know I am guilty of living out of my small story way more than the Eternal Current.

Oh Jesus, keep me in the centre of the river! Hold my face in Your hands that my eyes may ne’er drift from Your face. Let me be aware of your Presence in the marrow of my bones that all the affairs and challenges of this temporality may grow dim in comparison to Thee. Smite me with Your love. Aflame my heart for You only. Burn to dust every distraction and rogue desire that tempts my eyes from Thy Beauty. Oh, unmake me until my soul is a song of worship to You only; an eternal haunting ballad written in flesh, primal and pure.

Let my song be a drop in the river; one of a billion drops, making playful melody over smooth pebbles, interludes building suspense in shadowy pools, and pore-raising crescendos of glorious cascading waterfalls. Until we all empty our lives into the Sea of Eternity.

There is a bigger story, my friend.

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

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How Is Waiting Changing You?

This Advent, I am stirring my heart up for Jesus with the aid of a series of Advent meditations from John Mark Comer and the Practicing The Way community. Their first meditation is by Gemma Ryan and comes from Luke 2, where Simeon encounters the baby Jesus in the temple.

As I meditated on this man Simeon, I wondered what made him different from his peers.
Between Malachi and Jesus’ arrival is the 400-year period known as the ‘silent years’ because God did not speak to His people during that period. It is this 400-year wait in silence from which the Scribes and Pharisees emerged. Four hundred years without a word from God. Four hundred years waiting for the Messiah to deliver them from oppression. So, what did they do? They doubled down on what they did have – the Torah. They dissected it, memorized it, debated it, and built culture around it. All the while, drifting further and further from God. To the extent that when the Messiah finally arrived, for all their knowledge of and dedication to the laws of God, they had no ability to recognize Him when He stood right in front of them.

But Simeon was different.

Whereas the Pharisees pressed into practices that relied on their cognition, reasoning, and intellectual ability, Simeon was a man of the Spirit. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon, and he was led by the Spirit. In a time before the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh! Somehow, Simeon has stepped into a dimension of relationship with God that was uncommon among his peers.

While the Scribes and Pharisees depended on knowing the Law, Simeon depended on knowing the Spirit. The Bible says that he was righteous and devout. I believe these words are significant. I believe the word righteous suggests that Simeon was probably as dedicated as the Scribes and Pharisees were to observing the Law. However, I believe the word devout indicates that he also had a commitment to and holy reverence for God Himself. Simeon was not just devoted to knowing the Law; he was devoted to knowing God. He engaged not only in cognitive practices but spiritual practices that honed his ability to host, be led by, and know the Holy Spirit.

Without a live connection with God, knowledge makes us puffed up, self-righteous, overly confident in our knowledge, and ultimately unable to recognize God because He isn’t recognized through intellectual reasoning but through spiritual discernment. That’s why the Scribes and Pharisees couldn’t recognize Jesus. They were using all the wrong senses and looking at all the wrong measures. They were concerned with whether He healed on the Sabbath, or which town He came from, or His outrageous claims to be the Son of God. We too have our boxes just as they had theirs, and if it doesn’t fit in the box, then it cannot be an authentic move/person/word of God.

However, Simeon was led by the Spirit. All Simeon desperately wanted was to see Jesus, and He was utterly dependent on God to orchestrate and define that encounter. There was nothing Simeon could do to achieve it; he just had to wait and be open to receiving Jesus, however He chose to show up.

What challenged me the most in this meditation was the idea that waiting changes you. There are many promises that I feel that I have been waiting on for some time in my life, and particularly in this season. And I’m wondering… am I becoming a Pharisee or a Simeon?
Am I engaging in practices that are making me puffed up and self-righteous? Or am I engaging in practices that are attuning me to the Spirit and what He is doing now while I wait? Am I waiting on God or on an outcome? Is my hope in Jesus or in the thing that I’m waiting for? Will I even recognize Him when He turns up in a way I didn’t expect or prefer? Will I still be happy to see Him if He doesn’t come the way I think He should? If He doesn’t deliver me from my ‘Roman oppressors’, will I still rejoice? Can I wait on God as an act of surrender that acknowledges everything will happen in His time and on His terms? And can I be joyful in that? Can I be full of joy and hope while I wait?

I think that that is the purpose of waiting – to change us. To shift the locus of our hope from something to Someone. To shift our dependence from self to God. To shift us from natural discernment to spiritual discernment.

If our hope and trust is in Jesus, we will never be disappointed. Because He always turns up, just not always how and when we want Him to. And that’s OK. In fact, it’s better!

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Living Horizontally

I have been on the receiving end of leaders abusing their power a few times in my life. I came away from these experiences with serious questions about whether the models that I saw in the church were Biblical kingdom models. How would Christ lead a local church? In fact, He is building His church right now, so a better question is – How is He leading His church right now? A cursory look at the church leads me to the undeniable conclusion that Jesus is not demanding our obedience. Jesus has an unwavering commitment to respecting our free will, to non-punitive leadership, and to leading with love instead of fear.

This path of sacred respect for people’s free will is not a popular way to live in the business world and especially not in the church world, ironically. And it is not just the clergy; it is not popular with the laity either. In fact, most times I find the members of a local church are very much part of protecting the authoritarian leadership culture in the church. It seems that people do not want the shared responsibility or ambiguity of more distributed power systems. We like the simplicity and clarity of being able to put all the responsibility (and blame) for what happens in our community on someone else in exchange for our unquestioning obedience.

The doctrine of ‘divine rights of kings’ asserts that a monarch is not accountable to any man because their right to rule is derived from divine authority. While this governance model is rightly a relic of the past, the same value system very much informs our church leadership models today.

In the church, our frames of reference for understanding power in interpersonal relationships are all hierarchical, based on a very Old Testament model of judges, prophets and kings where there is one man assigned by God at the top of the pyramid. We seem to interpret our New Testament texts through this lens. We interpret ‘wives should submit to their husbands’ to mean that the wife is accountable to her husband, and the husband is only accountable to God. We interpret ‘obey your leaders and submit to them’ to mean that the congregation is accountable to the pastor and the pastor is only accountable to God. Any checks and balances we institute involve adding more layers to the hierarchy. The husband submits to a pastor. The pastor submits to an apostle. And so on.

However, I do not see this hierarchical model in the Trinity or in Christ. What I see is mutuality. I don’t see pyramids. I see circles. I see a power model that is less vertical and more horizontal. Where the husband and wife are mutually accountable to each other and to God, and likewise the pastor and the congregation.

Despite the unlimited power at Jesus’ disposal and the legitimate and divine right to rule over us, He gave up His divine privileges and took on the humble position of a human being (a baby at that). Consider that Jesus (God) was subject to His earthly parents.

I rather think that this is the mark of a mature Christian – that he or she is able to submit to those in a lower position. Really, it is submitting to the Christ in people, regardless of rank.

Ephesians 5:21 (ESV)
submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

What would it look like if husbands could also defer their will to the will of their wives or children in reverence for Christ? What would it look like if church leaders could also submit their will to congregation members in reverence for Christ? I think it will look like true love, humility and leadership.

I believe mutuality is the way forward for true followers of Christ. What virtue is there in following orders because someone has a position? The heathens do that. But can we perceive Christ in the suggestions, counsel or correction of a peer or a junior and receive it? That is true virtue.

Of late, I have had my fill of spaces where the conversation is all vertical and one-way. I have had my fill of conferences, services, and webinars. Instead, I have been pressing more into the mutuality of groups and meet-ups where everyone has a voice, and it has been so refreshing! Whether it is a date with my wife, a moment of connection with my children, a meet-up with a friend, a family visit or an online discussion group, it has been like a balm to my soul. It feels like health. It feels like really living in connection with others. The steady stream of invites to attend this or that keep coming, but saying, “No thank you,” has become easier and easier (at this point it is a joy to say no frankly) and I have been becoming more and more enjoyable to be with.

Recently, my wife has remarked on the transformation she has been seeing in my life. I could not name what was happening until now. I am enjoying people more. She has been experiencing me as a more pleasant servant to our family. I have just been enjoying my family more. The two go together, apparently.

This way of being of vulnerability and openness to the gift of each person in front of you and real meaningful connection with real people is revolutionary. Make no mistake about it. It is counter-cultural both to the media onslaught of disembodied voices clamoring for our attention and to the value system that gives more weight to positions and titles than hearty souls. But it is BETTER. There is a richness of life in it that your soul needs. It is slower, less contentious, more restful, less frenzied, deeper, fuller, richer.

I highly recommend this way of horizontal living. I think you will enjoy it. BTW, I hope you also enjoyed these smiling faces of beautiful humans as much as I did 🙂

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Will We Choose Love Or Hate?

In Matthew 5:21-22 (NLT), Jesus says this:

21 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ 22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.

In Jesus’ eyes, hate is as heinous a sin as murder. So, I’m asking myself and I’m asking you, my brothers and sisters: Are we who call ourselves followers of Christ guilty of murder?

On September 10th, 2025, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at an event in Utah. On the same day, there was another school shooting in Colorado, where 2 students were shot. In the same week, Israeli military operations in Gaza, Yemen, and Qatar killed over 110 people, including some civilians. Also, in the same week, a Russian airstrike killed 24 elderly Ukrainians collecting pensions, and Tommy Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally, attended by over 110,000 people, saw 26 police officers injured. (Sources: CPR News, Al Jazeera, MSN, Democracy Now, The Telegraph)

In the face of all of this death, I find myself becoming alarmingly numb to the loss of life. I’m also observing the surge of emotions going through my heart as I see the comments on social media in response to Charlie Kirk’s death, and I’m asking myself: Am I guilty of murder? I may not have killed anyone, but am I just as guilty of contributing to the violence in this world?

In the same sermon in Matthew 5, Jesus said (NLT):

9 God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.

And:

43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.

Our very identity as children of God is not that of a warrior fighting for Christian values through political power or social media influence. The image of the Christian hero battling a human enemy is absent from Jesus’ teachings and example. Jesus taught and modelled not an earthly power struggle but a love that sacrificially persists in the face of hatred, persecution, and even violence.

We have become embroiled in an unholy battle. Whether we fight through social media tirades, in-person debates, political rallies, or online watch lists, we must disentangle ourselves, repent, and get back to the foundation of Christianity – love.

The very first step in loving one another is listening. We need to really listen with our hearts to those with whom we disagree and put ourselves in their shoes. We don’t have to agree with them, but if we are to be peacemakers, we must be willing to empathize with them.

It doesn’t matter where we most naturally lean toward on the political spectrum; the people on the other side are human just like us. They are human beings looking for love, acceptance, and respect.

I firmly believe that the key to de-escalating most of the social conflict in the world today is the eradication of shaming. Nobody likes to be told that they are bad people. Nobody. The activism of the LGBTQ+ community and pro-choice activists is, I believe, at the root, a response to decades of shame. They have been told repeatedly in many different ways that they are bad. That is not how God sees them, and as Christians, it was our job to love them, and in the main, we failed. We failed, and Satan stepped into the void to create bitterness, resentment, anger, and hatred.

It is the same with people of colour in America. We have been told for decades that we are less than the white man. Again, the Christians of European heritage who were supposed to love their brothers and sisters of African heritage have largely failed.  Sometimes their silence in the face of our suffering has been deafening. Again, Satan has stepped into the void to the point that there is now a pervasive layer of anger in the heart of much of the black community toward white people.

However, more recently, the pendulum has swung the other way. The shame finger has been pointed at males, particularly the white male, and those who hold to conservative values. I wonder if, at the heart of white nationalism, is a desperate cry to stop being told that everything about the Western white man is bad. Maybe the whitewashing of the museums and educational system is just a cry to be told something good and noble about their heritage. We, the black Christian community, have also failed to love the white man. And again, Satan is stepping into the void as we speak.

‘You are bad’ is not a message anyone of any race, gender, or sexual orientation wants to hear pounded into them over and over again. And more importantly, it is not a Godly message. It is, however, exactly what the evil one wants to pound into our hearts. It is a tactic with one goal in mind – death and destruction.

But THIS is the battle, my brothers and sisters, that we must fight – the battle to love every person no matter who they are, what they believe, the values they have, or the background that they come from, with unconditional love. Can we tell people about their goodness? I’m not saying to hide the truth, but can we also remind people of the best of themselves?

Can we arise with such radical love as this for our enemies? We are the only ones who can! Jesus Christ – Love – lives in us! We can say to the women and men, blacks and whites, immigrants and nationals, straight and gay, cisgender and transgender, conservatives and liberals that maybe we don’t see eye to eye on some issues, but we want to understand your perspective… and even if we have to agree to disagree, we still LOVE YOU unconditionally as a precious human being made in God’s image!

So, as I watch my social media feeds fill with an escalation of hatred in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death… as the keyboard warriors double down on their positions… I want to leave you with this: The choice my brothers and sisters, for us… (not for the world) …but for us as ambassadors of Christ… is not between liberal or conservative but between hatred or love of our enemies. That is the only choice that is important; the only choice that has the power to overcome the real enemy of our souls and change the world.

There is hope, and that Hope resides in us!

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Reflections on Christian Leadership with Henri Nouwen Part 1

I recently picked up one of my favourite books to read AGAIN – In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen. It is one of those books where the impact of the truths contained in it is not diminished with repetition. This time, particular parts of it collided with my current experience with such eye-widening relevance that my impulse to process and memorialize in writing was aroused.

I will start this mini-series with the first quote that struck me from the book:

“But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relavistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.”

“Willing to confront without being offensive”. This phrase aptly describes the crux of my current struggle at work. I’m pretty good at the confront part (and there was a time I did not know how to confront people), but I am not as good at the not being offensive part.

If I’m honest, I have been bad at this for a very long time. But I feel like there comes a time when God says, “OK, you cannot take this malformation any further. You need to work on this now.” Or maybe there comes a time when one has the maturity and tools to deal with the problem. Either way, I know I have to deal with this in this season.

Actually, and this just came to me: Nouwen points to intimacy with God as the enablement to walk this line of confrontation without offense, and it is quite probable that I did not have the level of intimacy with Christ that I now have to be able to cross this hurdle. (Ahh, the therapeutic gift of writing.)

The way I see it, the challenge is to be able to authentically say to someone, “I think what you are doing is bad,” without saying, “I think you are bad.” This is not easy, at least not for me. I never shout or curse or demean people, but my wife says, “Just because you say something in a soft voice doesn’t mean that you are not being harsh.”

Honestly, I thought it did mean that I wasn’t being harsh! I mean, c’mon… I don’t curse… I don’t raise my voice… I’m always polite, even when people are impolite and raise their voice at me. What more do you want? Well… as it turns out, what God wants is nothing less than loving my ‘enemies’ even while confronting them. That goes heart deep, below actions, below words, below tone… deeper.

That kind of love can only come from intimacy with Love. Love must dwell in me. Overflow from me. It must be felt. Holy Spirit, help me. I write today not as one having mastered love but as one in the throes of struggle to become more like Jesus and often getting it wrong. I have no advice to offer.

I offer only the consolation of knowing that if you struggle too, you are not alone. Pray for me as I pray for you: Jesus, for every one of your disciples who reads this, give them the gift of a deeper encounter with your ferocious, unrelenting, cleansing, healing, breathtaking love. As they wrestle in their souls, may all malice, bitterness, envy, and unforgiveness die by the power of the cross! May love win the day! May their hearts burn for you and may your love emanate from their lives, from the very centre of their Jesus-enflamed hearts.

Amen.

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Training Versus Trying Part 5 – Community

Welcome to the last instalment of our Training Versus Trying series! Today we are talking about Community.

A training approach recognizes that as spiritual athletes, we grow fastest when we train with others. However, it is a particular type of community that we need to grow. One that is not very common. When we think of community in a church setting, we normally think of the brothers and sisters with whom we attend church or maybe those who are a part of a ministry that we serve in.

However, the type of community that I am talking about is a training community – a small circle of people with whom we share our inner lives. It is a community committed to walking together in pursuit of God without trying to fix, or save, or advise each other. Often, as Christians, we try to force our training regimen on everyone else without honoring the unique person that they are and the unique work that God is doing in their lives.

This is something I have with very few people. Most Christians, in my experience, do not have deep conversations about the things that matter, or if they do, it is in the context of giving advice or holding each other accountable. Some even think it is their job to condemn and shame. However, what I have found is that what most people need is actually just a safe space to talk about the deep inner things that truly matter without being judged, reproached, corrected, or Bible-verse-slapped. In a supportive and safe environment such as this, there exists the ideal conditions for God to speak. Or to stick with our analogy, for God to coach us as a group.

I’m not saying that God cannot use another person to correct us or to give us feedback where we may have a blind spot. He does use people in our lives like that. I’m saying that in a training community, that is a small part of why we get together, and it is accomplished more indirectly through vulnerable sharing, asking each other probing questions, and discerning God’s voice together.

In a community of Christians-in-training there is safety and freedom to talk about what new training techniques we are trying, what is not working, and what we are working through with our Coach. In that kind of community, we are celebrated, encouraged, inspired, and supported. In that kind of community, we can give a voice to our soul and hear the heart of others in ways that bring redemption, healing, and transformation.

Well, we have come to the end of this little series. I hope it has been helpful to you.

Train well, my fellow disciples of Christ!

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.