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Tag: #love

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What I learned in 2023

I turned 50 in 2023! That brought a mixed bag of goodies and booby prizes.

Emotionally and mentally 2023 felt like my healthiest year ever! No exaggeration. A decade of steady self-work coupled with 4 years of work that my wife and I put into our marriage began to bear massive fruit last year. Covid was an accelerator in that it afforded me unforeseen levels of quality time with God that boosted my relationship with Him 10fold. It also accelerated (forced) the bonding between me, wifey, and our children as we spent months together working and learning from home. While I am saying that Covid helped and we put in the work, I cannot overstate the fact that God was the heavy-lifter here. Only He could do the amazing things in the hearts of our family members that caused us to knit together and only He could use a pandemic for our good! Mind you, it did not feel so rosy when these two families from St. Joseph and Paramin first moved in together! It was pressure but in 2023 the diamonds began to emerge.

Added to that, after being in one department for the past 18 years, a switch to a new area in late 2022, brought a breath of fresh air into my career as well. So with my wife and I being in a good place, the children excelling, the career taking on renewed life, and being involved in the fulfilling work with my wife of creating communities of love and belonging for Christians to grow, 2023 just felt like I was thriving.

While it’s nice to share celebratory reports, that’s not the main purpose of today’s blog. There were two key lessons that I learned in 2023 that I felt led to share with you.

Physical Health

2023 was my worst year ever for my physical health! Here the pandemic was not helpful at all! In 2023 I felt feeble (there I said it). Weight gained during the lockdown seemed to refuse to come off. In fact, I gained more! Injuries seemed to be taking forever to heal and for the first time, I considered that I may never be able to play football (soccer) or surf again. I had a fatty liver, high cholesterol, some kind of mystery dizziness, and shortness of breath. Things just seemed to be going from bad to worse. “Is this 50?” I asked myself.

BUT I discovered something coming down to the end…. I will never lose weight or stay fit doing activities that I do not like to do. I tried for the whole of 2023 to stay fit by walking and home workouts. I can get more out of group workouts but inevitably people workout to music that I don’t want in my head. So that’s a no-go. But last month I played football for the second time since before Covid and while I almost died, by the next day I literally felt my whole body become stronger. Overnight! Then I played again twice last week and the dizziness and shortness of breath are gone. So what I realized is that I need to do intense cardio activities and that’s only going to happen by doing things I love to do.

So in 2024, I will be making time for football and mountain biking. I realize that it is imperative that I have intense cardio workouts. Walking and home workouts are not enough for me to stay fit. I will be prioritizing this over work and ministry.

Folks, I know we always talk about prioritizing our health but I’m encouraging you again, especially my fellow pastors and professionals, the work is not more important… the seminar, church service, or feeding the poor programme is not more important. Also, take the time to know your own body and what works for you. Do what you love, it’s far more sustainable!

Relationships

God had me focusing on relationship-building for all of 2023. Mainly with my close and extended family and I learned something invaluable: God’s grace flows through our connections with people. The word that was the icon of what God was after in my life was CONNECTION.

It involved me having discussions with my mother about things that happened in the family when I was a child and not dismissing her perspectives so quickly. It involved me apologizing to my boss about the way I gave him some feedback, taking the time to explain my heart’s motive, and assuring him that I was for him not against him. It involved me building bridges with coworkers by genuinely finding and celebrating their strengths and offering tangible assistance in achieving their goals. It involved trying to understand my sister better and building bridges instead of taking offense. It involved being quicker to remove any distance between my wife and me. It involved taking a softer tone with my ex-wife. It involved walking in my children’s shoes a little more.

The result was that I saw God’s grace at work in my family and workplace more than ever. It crystallized something very clearly for me. God is not doing something over here and we are doing relationships over there. The vehicle for God’s grace to flow is the love connections between each other. The stronger the connection, the more of God’s grace can flow in our lives. If I want to see revival in my family, I have to build stronger bonds with my family members. If I want to see revival in my workplace, I have to build deeper relationships with my coworkers.

There is a depth of relationship with each other, a purity of love and affection, that God has intended for us that I do not think we fully grasp as Christians. I don’t think we have any grid for just how amazing and glorious it will look to live in unity. Nor do we understand just how much work it will take to get there. I am fully convinced that God is not interested in our programmes, seminars, conferences, and meetings apart from a foundation of building deeper relationships. So this year less is more. I’m cutting back even further on the ‘conversations’ that are just empty intellectual foreplay without any heart communion. I’m ditching even more of the online groups and social media where people share a whole lot of opinions and so little of themselves. I’m going deeper with fewer.

Here’s an added epiphany that I had: God does not need my help to fix people. I saw two people in my life begin to change and address things that I saw they needed to address for years. I dropped hints, I gave gentle advice, I shared relevant information and I obsessed about whether I was doing enough. But in His own timing, God showed them what they needed to see. Neither said that I had any role in their epiphanies. God was doing something in their lives. I laughed at myself. God doesn’t need my help. Well, I’m sure He uses my love and my prayers but beyond that…

So my second encouragement to you is to prioritize a few significant relationships this year and really work on them. Don’t try to be a better person in a general sense. Try to be a better mother to a specific child, a better friend to X, a better husband to your wife… But most importantly, do it from the point of view of just trying to build a stronger connection between you and them. Seek to understand them better and help them to understand you. Seek to provide any support you can to their growth and success (as they define it, not you) without expecting anything in return. Petition God for blessings on their life in your private prayer time. Love them.

Happy New Year!

Copyright 2024, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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The Spiral of Growth

I liken the pathway of our walk with Christ to a spiral because we often revisit places we have been but from a higher perspective. If we do not recognize our upward growth we may feel like we are going around in circles but we usually aren’t (unless we are not growing of course).

An easy illustration from my life is secular music. I love music. In my teen years, I had a collection of over 100 cassettes. (I know some of you may not know what this is and even fewer have ever seen one but it was how we stored music back in the day. A cassette held 60-90min of music.) I had a song for every mood and listened to everything from heavy metal to reggae. Music comforted me through romantic breakups. Music helped me study in college. Music formed the soundtrack of my life to such a degree that to this day particular songs bring back the emotions of particular seasons like it was yesterday. Then, at 21, I got saved and one day God showed me that my music was an idol in my life and I packed up all my cassettes and threw them out.

Fast-forward a decade and I am struggling in my faith. It has become clear that I may have thrown the cassettes out of my room but not out of my heart. Internally, I still crave secular songs especially since (at this time) gospel music SUCKS in variety and quality. Eventually, I left the church and re-united with many of my old secular habits including music.

Fast-forward another decade more or less, and I’m making my way back to God but this time it’s from a place of heartfelt repentance. I’m falling in love with a God so merciful that He would still accept me, forgive me, and welcome me into His arms. Now I realize that the genre of music is not important, it’s about my heart. I love Jesus and I don’t care about all that religious external stuff. Once it’s good clean lyrics, it’s all good.

Here I am today and what’s my position on music? You guessed it, I only listen to worship music. Not just Christian music but only music that leads me to worship God more. But this time, it’s what I delight to do. I can listen to anything but I only want to worship God.

This is what the upward spiral of growth looks like (at least in my experience). This will happen in many areas of our lives. Take past traumas for example. We may at one point be in a season where God is healing us from childhood trauma. Then we may think we are all good only to revisit the same trauma again years later and receive a deeper healing. Then we may revisit again but this time God may call us to become a facilitator of healing for others. And so the spiral goes. In fact, don’t be surprised if while helping others to heal you are again faced with open wounds that are still festering in your soul and have to lay on God’s doctor’s table again, all the while battling feelings of being unqualified to help others.

Paul dealt with this in 1 Co 8 when addressing the issue of foods sacrificed to idols. He recognized that some people lower on the spiral would be convinced that it would be a sin against God if they ate foods sacrificed to idols. while others higher on the spiral would understand that the idol is nothing and they can eat freely. This clash of Christians at different levels of growth with different perspectives on the same issue is very common in our social media landscape today. In fact, I would say if you ever look at one of the many videos ‘calling out’ leaders on blasphemous or heretic behaviour, 9 out of 10 times it’s just a matter of people being on different levels of the spiral.

Paul gives us the way to handle it. The person higher on the spiral actually has the responsibility to meet the other person where they are at. It’s the only possible way. Those looking at their brothers and sisters up above cannot possibly understand their perspective but those above can understand and accommodate those below. When I was in my ‘listening to secular music’ phase I remember a brother suggesting that I only listen to worship music and I was like, “This guy is religious.” Yet, look at me now! lol I’ve learned not to be so fully convinced that I have THE true perspective. If I am growing my perspective will change over time, and the more open I am to seeing things differently, the faster I will grow. I’ve also learned that my perspectives will sound like heresy to some and that argument as a means to influence is usually futile. Some things you have to experience for yourself.

So my exhortation to you my beloved sisters and brothers is to keep this concept of the spiral in mind as you grow in your faith. Do not be dismayed when old issues come back around, instead see it as an opportunity to face it from a higher perspective and learn something new. And let’s not be so quick to call our brothers and sisters heretics and blasphemers ok? We all see the world differently based on where we are on our journey. Let’s support and encourage each other and leave the Holy Spirit to do his work in each other’s lives as only he can.

Love and blessings,

Copyright 2023, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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We Only Have One Heart

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

1 John 4:20 (NLT)

I want to draw your attention to one little word in this verse. The word can. Can is not about the will or the choice to do something. Can is about the ability to do something. The word in Greek means to be able to or to have the power or capability to. And if this is the case then what this verse is saying is that if we do not practice loving our fellow believers then we will not have the capability to love God and that is profound!

Often we think, and I have thought at one point, that we can live in isolation in a ‘just me and God’ sort of reality. And by isolation, I don’t mean that we necessarily become a hermit but just that we withhold our hearts from everyone or at least most people. We think we can hold everyone at a distance but be intimate with God. This verse is saying that that is a delusion. The same relational muscles that we must build to be vulnerable with others and to connect across the things that divide us (race, theology, personality, class, education) are the same muscles needed to connect to an invisible God.

I did not come about this understanding by studying 1 John. That is rarely how God teaches me. It was revealed to me in my daily struggles as I processed life with God. Since I married the one and only Tricia Celestin-Nicholls I have been working on trying to remain relational and connected with her through life’s ups and downs. As with all of us, I have suffered my fair share of trauma and I have learned coping mechanisms to keep myself safe. My go-to is shutting down, meaning that I become emotionally numb and withdraw into my own inner world. There are any number of triggers that can cause me to shut down but any form of criticism or vexation pointed in my direction is top of the list. I can also shut down if I am under a lot of emotional stress. And when I shut down it’s with everybody not just the person who may have triggered it. So you see how my poor wife may suffer the brunt of my disconnection even if she didn’t cause it.

So, I’ve been working on remaining open and relational even when I am stressed or feel hurt or threatened. To tell you the truth, it seems like every time I heal one layer there’s a deeper layer that God reveals that needs a deeper healing. The word trauma means soul-wound according to Gabor Mate. In order for me to love my wife better, Jesus needs to heal my soul. This doesn’t just affect my wife of course. It means that I can love everyone better. My kids. My parents. My sister. My friends. My co-workers. My church group. My neighbours. Everyone.

But back to the opening verse, do you see that it also means that I can love God better? What I discovered that led me to this verse is that as I healed, I was able to stay connected to Holy Spirit better. I hid less when I sinned. I was able to hear Holy Spirit better even when I was stressed. I was better able to leave my heart open to receive the love that I so desperately needed and God so desperately wanted to pour on me.

God showed me that I only have one heart. The same heart that loves my wife is the same heart that loves Him. Wholeheartedness is not an option. Healing is not an option. If we are to obey the greatest commandment to love God with all our hearts then we must work on our relationships. It is in that pursuit that traumas are unearthed, wounds healed and hearts made whole.

Working on loving others is working on loving God because you’ve only got one heart!

Copyright 2023, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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The Role of Spiritual Grandparents

I would not be who I am today without my grandparents. My parents were not rich and had to prioritize how they spent their finite income. When I needed braces my Grampa stepped in to assist. When I wanted to go to university, he stepped in again to pay tuition for my first year.

My grandparents also provided a different kind of input… At a time in their lives when my parents were busy trying to make ends meet and dealing with their own personal struggles, my grandparents were at a stage in their lives to just be present with us. My sister and I went by them every weekend and every school vacation.

On some vacations, we went to camp and stayed with our great aunt. We would wake up every morning to Aunty Lu making us breakfast while singing hymns. We loved it when she made us cake because we got to lick the bowl. Yum! And when I was learning to make breakfast for myself, she never made a fuss when I repeatedly made a mess trying to figure out how to crack open eggs.

Granny lived for every single detail of what was happening in our lives. She was my steadfast cheerleader. She let me know that I was valued and cherished at some of the lowest points in my life. I have never spoken of this but in her last days here on earth I went to visit her and, as she struggled through waves of pain, she said, “Thank you Matik.”

I was taken aback. “For what?” I asked.

“For being you.”

That was my Granny.

I believe that when one reaches a certain age, the experiences of life bring a certain clarity – an appreciation of what is important. And, if one has been a good student of life, it also brings the relational and emotional tools to become a better agent of love. I have often heard people say that the grandparents that their children experience are nothing like how they experienced the same people as parents. There is some truth to this and in a sense, that’s how it should be. That’s why we need grandparents. I see my parents being these agents of love to my sister and me and our children.

This is also true of spiritual grandparents. The older generation in our church communities is a vital component. I firmly believe that little old ladies are the pillars of the church. I love to spend time with them! Spiritual grandparents teach us how to love steadfastly, how to pray without ceasing, how to live in perpetual hope, and how to rise above the pettiness that sometimes consumes the younger generations.

Sadly, many of us do not understand the role of spiritual grandparents and their gift is left unopened, languishing on the pews and stranded on the pulpit.

There are two main deceptions that cause this. The first is that we tend to value people based on gifting instead of maturity. We want to receive from those who seem great – the charismatic preacher, the prophet who unveils great mysteries, the evangelist who draws thousands to Christ, the teacher who knows all the Hebrew and Greek words, the reverend bishop apostle who has millions of followers and hundreds of books… These are our heroes – the ones we seek – the ones we emulate. What we fail to realize is that a greatly gifted person is not necessarily a very mature person. A mature person is full of the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, gentleness, faith, goodness, and self-control.

Mature people – spiritual grandparents – are indispensable for the health of the Body of Christ. Spending one hour with a mature person who is full of the fruit of the Spirit is far more profitable than spending months with a noisy gong (1 Co 13:1-3). When we don’t value our spiritual grandparents, they become mere ornaments in our community, and we are robbed of their treasure. New believers should always be part of smaller groups that do life with older mature Christians so that the generations build upon one another instead of starting over from scratch again and again.

The second deception is when the grandparents themselves don’t understand their role and still try to be parents. Spiritual grandparents function the same as natural grandparents; they are agents of love that come alongside parents in a supportive role to fill in missing gaps and to lovingly show their grandchildren (immature Christians) how to live like Christ. Their love is quiet and behind the scenes, but it is powerfully transformative. It is tragic when a leader doesn’t know when to transition from frontstage to backstage. All leaders need to know when it is time to let the next generation take the reins and move into a supportive role. To move from parent to grandparent requires a switch from the busyness of pioneering the move of God to a slower more relational way of being with others. Grandparents are the heart of the community. Grandparents understand that an intimate heart-to-heart with one person over a cup of coffee is just as important as a sermon to thousands.

Sending my love to all the natural and spiritual grandparents in my life.

Copyright 2022, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

Spiritual Formation 201 is starting in January!

If you are hungry for a deeper walk with God and like-minded believers to walk alongside you in loving community for a season then why not join us?!

For more information and to register click here: https://authenticjoy.org/online-workshop-spiritual-formation-201/

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The Mourning – A Valentine’s Day Poem

Somewhere back there,

I lost You.

I don’t know when it happened.

All I know is loss, grief, anguish consume my soul.

Once we laughed and played.

Once my eyes were full of love,

For You only.

For You only.

When did I look away?

When did I become distracted?

Too busy to notice the creeping darkness;

The joy oozing from my soul.

When did doing good,

Replace being in love?

When did I start,

Taking Your Presence for granted?

Oh how I am overcome with remorse!

This isn’t the first time,

I’ve strayed so many times.

So many times…

One small step, one small step,

‘I will return to Your embrace later’

‘After this meeting’

‘As soon as I finish working on…’

Oh! I hear Your voice on the Wind!

My love, my love,

I am coming!

The basket of baubles,

That consumed me so,

Spills from my lap.

I must run to His voice!

I hear You my love.

Now I see You!

I see You leaping over the mountains to me!

To me! You have found me!

You have awakened my heart

Your breath hot on my lips.

The deadlines I was chasing, now forgotten.

The great deeds and heavy duties,

So much paler in the shadow of Your love.

Captivate me Jesus!

Cup my chin and turn my head,

Whenever my eyes wander.

Hold my hand tight,

Whenever I angle to turn away.

My heart is utterly in Your hands Jesus,

Only Your love holds me up.

Only Your love keeps me from utter ruin.

Enthrall me now and forever Jesus.

Amen.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. ~ Matthew 4:4 (ESV)
Copyright 2022, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Rated XOX

It’s 2022! Happy New Year! And what better way to start the year than with some steamy, passionate sex! Yes, this is still a Christian blog 😊.

Christian mystics throughout the ages have used sexual union as a powerful metaphor for spiritual union with God.  It was Saint Paul (a chaste man, ironically) who said, ““A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.”

In my journey toward wholeness and holiness, I have been wrestling with my sexual brokenness. Years of distorted sexual messages and experiences have configured my mind in such a way that seeing the divine intent in sexual intimacy is a challenge.

To explain let me share a quote from one of the many books I’m currently reading (I may have mentioned before that I’m a book junkie).

“…desire is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another. It is the gift of receptivity. Being received by someone in love, whether in a physical or spiritual way, is one of the most life-affirming experiences we can have. When a wife opens herself to receive a husband in sexual intimacy, or when a trusted friend allows you to share your deepest hurts or hopes with them, you feel seen. These are healing, expansive encounters. And they mirror the inner life of the divine.”

Kelly Deutsch – Spiritual Wanderlust: The Field Guide To Deep Desire

This truth-speaking from Kelly Deutsch caused my soul to leap. I knew it held some truth that I needed to hear although I did not quite get it at first. As often happens, my mind railroaded me with distractions. The provocative phrase ‘when a wife opens to receive a husband’ filled my mind with a flood of images that seemed much too dirty to be associated with God. I struggled with these seemingly opposing forces in my being. Should I go deeper or turn away? Should I be thinking of God this way? Curiosity and shame locked horns.

Only God Himself could help me sort through this entanglement and see what was true. So, I took my thoughts to Him in my usual morning devotions, and this was what I heard Him say:

“Matik, We want you to know that We see your confusion. We see your struggle to untangle your thoughts and desires. We see your heart and mind straining to see purely; to see Us clearly. We see the condemnation that tries to infect as you struggle with your sexuality; your sexual desires entangled with the deepest desires of your heart, and your thoughts toward and about Us. Know this Matik, We are never ashamed. And We are not ashamed of you or shamed by your thoughts. Bring them all to be reconciled at the cross. We can handle it.”

He always knows what to say 😊. My Saviour accepts me; receives me; as I am; unconditionally. He is not waivered or put off by the immature and incompetent bumbling thoughts of a child struggling to comprehend concepts much bigger than himself.

Soothed by the reassuring love of my Papa I was able to push past the surface and lean into the mystery that He wanted to reveal to me… Sexual intimacy is not just the heated sating of physical appetites but two hearts longing to be seen completely, known fully and in the context of that full disclosure to still be desired, wanted and cherished. To have all our flaws and imperfections exposed and still be found desirable. We want to be wanted for who we are without having to pretend or perform. We want to be affirmed that we are beautiful after all. This is what we truly seek, and this is what only God can truly provide in full measure.

God wants to be with you, with no barriers and pretenses (naked), know you fully (inside and out) and have you look into His eyes and see only hot desire and unconditional love for you. Not only that, but He wants to be known by you too, and wanted by you (if you can accept the thought). God is constantly revealing Himself to us for the explicit purpose of captivating us with His incomparable beauty and eternal love in the hopes that we would set our hearts rapturously upon Him and open ourselves to receive Him.

As I said, there is no better way to start this new year than with a passionate love encounter with the Lover of your soul! May He satisfy you all the days of your life and into the blessed union of eternal bliss!

Copyright 2022, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

If you haven’t yet, check out our FREE Spiritual Growth Foundation Course in which we cover the four foundational principles for spiritual growth and much more! In addition to on-demand videos which you can watch at your leisure, there are downloadable handouts for those who prefer written content.

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Father’s Day Musings

Father’s Day has been a bit surreal for me this year. I do not normally pay any heed to Father’s Day. I don’t expect much. But God has been focusing my attention very keenly on my family of late and so I found myself really thinking about my fatherhood and my father a lot today.

I have been realizing how much I need to do with my children to help them to heal from wounds that I have caused. This is the first time that all my children are living with me. They have all experienced at some point in their childhood what it is like to live without their father being in the same house with them. Although in my heart and mind I have never abandoned them (and in fact have always been very present emotionally, financially, and as much as possible physically) I am realizing that their experience is quite different. I am realizing how much just being there for a child every day makes a huge difference. A difference that is difficult to make up with weekend visits.

I am also realizing that they have all been told stories about me abandoning them by their mothers. (If you are a single mom or a single dad, I’m begging you for your children’s sake, don’t tell them that their father/mother left them because they didn’t want them or didn’t love them. The only person you are hurting with that narrative is your child.) Anyway, what’s done is done. My job is to change the narrative. Every day is a new opportunity to change the ending of the story for my family. With God’s guidance and amazing grace, that’s what I’m doing.

As I pondered all of this today, I realized afresh how much my dad did for my sister and I by just staying. My parents were not married when my sister and I were born and neither of us were planned. But, he stayed. We called him Baba and for the first five years of our lives, he was the one at home while mom worked. I cannot remember a single night when either of them went out. They were home every night. They both sacrificed a lot for us to have a home.

I learned a lot from Baba but not from what he said (he is not a talker) but from just being around him. I learned to be myself no matter what and I learned how to navigate the world. I remember when one of my friends got boxing gloves as a present. Every boxing ‘game’ would end up with me beat up and crying. Baba said, “When he’s swinging wide you just punch straight”. I tried it out next time and all it took was one punch to end that game once and for all. I also remember the first time I was allowed to go to cinema by myself. Palladium was walking distance from my house, so off I went to the midday show with Baba’s advice in my head. “Always be alert. Know what is happening in your surroundings.” It was an adventure! Exciting and a bit scary at the same time. As I reached back home, I saw Baba coming up behind me… He had been with me the whole way home but out of sight, making sure I was safe.

Thank you Baba, for always being there for me. (Even up to last week fixing my kitchen sink 😊).

My wife has been a beautiful instrument in God’s hands to help me to learn to receive love. She is the one who insisted that I must be made a big deal of today. She doted over me and got me a wonderful present that I was not expecting. This year I decided to allow myself to be celebrated. It felt good. Thanks hun! Love you!

But what really made today extra special was my daughter. The joy she gave me today is indescribable. First of all, she made macaroons from scratch for me. Then she sent me a Father’s Day video that perfectly captured our relationship. I’ve watched it at least 5 times already and teared up every time. Aaaand she is working on some surprise present that she has not finished yet. But most of all, she just came looking for me throughout the day to spend time with me. I can’t believe that she did so much to show me that she loves me (sniff, sniff).  

It’s been a good day. I’m thankful. I’m thinking that I might just extend Father’s Day into Monday 😊.

Copyright 2021, Matik Nicholls.
All rights reserved.

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The Death of Ego Births Love

Two weeks ago, I took two of my sons to the beach. Having checked the swell height online, I felt the conditions might be right for them to tackle waves a bit bigger than they were used to. As soon as we arrived and I saw that beautiful sight of wave after wave breaking left and right over the reef, I was stoked. It had been a long time since I had seen such lovely peeling waves at this spot. I was immediately taken back to my younger years of days spent taking wave after wave until my arms felt like spaghetti and the sun went down. Those were good days.

I think it would be fair to say that while I was excited for the boys to experience the same thrills as I had experienced many times at this spot, I was probably more excited to finally surf some real waves. This was rare for me because our surf sessions were usually planned around the skill level of the boys.

As we paddled out, I took the lead, showing them the best route through the reef. However, they struggled to make it through the white water, and I had to go back for them and coach/assist them until we made it past the breakers. My elder boy quickly came to the conclusion that he was just going to watch us as there was no way that he was going to be taking any waves if it meant battling through those waves every time. There were about seven guys and one gal out, so I let us drift down a bit with the current that ran parallel to the shore until we were out of their way.

By this time, my youngest was looking at the waves reeling in apprehensively, but I kept encouraging him. I knew that he could do it. A smaller wave came, and I pushed him into it. He got it! My hopes for the day increased exponentially. But one hour, a few big sets, and a few wipe-outs later I was far less hopeful.  No matter how much encouragement I gave him, he was not ready mentally. He would paddle for the wave but back down every time. Eventually, I gave up and we went back inside.

He was dejected. He complained and whined as we paddled in and seemed to think that the turn of events was all my fault. I was aggravated and annoyed. The more he complained, the curter and angrier my retorts became. After we made it back to shore and after another hour or so of sulking, he finally asked, “So what are we going to do now?”

“You want to go back out and try again?” I asked.

“Ok,” he said.

As we started wading back out with our boards in hand, both of us upset, he said, “Daddy, you are not very encouraging.”

“What! All I have been doing whole day is encouraging you!” I said, flabbergasted and affronted.

“That’s not what I mean,” he continued. “You don’t encourage me when I’m down.”

As the words landed in my heart, I knew that this was the moment. This was the moment in every disagreement where you can choose love or ego. I could choose to hold on to my right to a different opinion. I could choose to hold on to my offence. I could choose to hold on to my position of parental power. And there have been many times that I have held onto those things. This time, however, I allowed the Spirit to lead and my ego to die. I did not feel particularly moved or compassionate at first. It was just a decision to really hear his point of view.

“OK, I understand what you mean now,” I said.

“So, what now? Are you going to be different?” he pressed further, giving me further opportunities to hold onto offence.

“Yes I am.” I said with a cathartic exhalation and simultaneous release of my view, my right to continue being angry.

And as I reached across to give him a hug that was when I felt the love and compassion flow from God, through me, to my son. Immediately the atmosphere shifted and even though he eventually concluded that the waves were just too big for him, it was not too big for us – our love made it through.

Letting go of ego is not easy. Perhaps, it is easiest with our children. But what about with our spouse? Or with our co-worker? Or with that person who has a different political persuasion?

Perhaps the fight that God is calling us to in this season is not that ‘righteous’ battle out there that we may be caught up with but the internal war to the death of self?

Luke 9:23-24 (ESV)

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

 Perhaps we need less of being right and more of being love?

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

To receive more content like this in your inbox and to receive a free e-copy of my book, The Primacy of The Voice of God – Elevating the Word of God to Its Rightful Position, please subscribe to www.authenticjoy.org.

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Connection vs. Separation

The issue of connection versus separation continues to resonate with me so much that I decided to continue the topic this week. I have repeatedly had to be coached by the Spirit to build bridges that nurture relationship with friends, co-workers and neighbours rather than say things that destroy the relationship simply because I felt I had a just cause.

We will always have points of disagreement with others. That is just a fact of life. Even (especially?) in the church. Different denominations will have different doctrines. Different churches within the same denomination will have variations in interpretation or practice. Even members within the same congregation can have very distinct beliefs.

How does our Father and the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, want us to address this reality? Especially when it comes to disagreement on issues of morality or our faith?

I believe the first thing that God wants is humility. We don’t get to decide who is worthy of our love or our relationship. God does. We also do not get to decide who is part of the Body of Christ and we are not the foremost authority on church doctrine. We have to be able to genuinely admit that we may ourselves believe some things that are not accurate. This should be easier for any Christian who has been walking with Christ for some time. Any Christian with a decade or more of growth under his belt I am sure can look back and say, “Boy did I have a wrong view of that particular issue or of life in general.”

The second step is a determination to choose love over fear. Most people choose separation rather than connection because we are afraid of one or both of two things:

  1. Contamination – the other person/church with the ‘bad’ belief system or lifestyle will cause us or our flock to go astray.
  2. Defamation – if other people see us with this ‘bad’ person or at that ‘bad’ church, they will think we believe or condone what they do.

Both paradigms are based on fear and fear is from the enemy. Perfect love casts out all fear. Jesus modelled God’s love when dealing with people with different beliefs or sinful lifestyles. He ate with sinners and talked with Samaritans. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation and peace-making not division.

I am confident that God wants us to connect with others in humility and love because that is what He did. God could have stayed in heaven, separate from our filth, but He didn’t. Instead he chose to become vulnerable, connecting with us in physical form, in our filth. He came and viewed the world from our viewpoint even though we were sinners and heretics.

As sons of God we must choose love. When I see the amount of content posted online by Christians dedicated to discrediting and pulling down other Christians it makes me smad (sad and mad at the same time 😉). It’s perfectly normal to disagree with others. It’s healthy to have dialogue directly with that person to exchange viewpoints. But to cut off relationship with that person is a step that should not be taken lightly (I don’t mean that you have to become friends or partners. Just relate.) And, it is a whole next level to defame/slander that person to others.

James 4:11-12

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Let us please change this paradigm of separation. Let us mature in our ability to disagree with others while simultaneously remaining committed to relationship and love. You cannot influence anything that you are not connected to. Believers are described by Jesus as the salt of the world. Do you think that we can live this identity by staying separate, keeping our salt nice and clean in our holy saltshakers?

We also cannot influence anything if we are not willing to be ourselves influenced. We must embrace vulnerability because connecting with people who we disagree with means that we must be open to the possibility that we could actually learn something from them that makes us see a different view of life and adjusts our understanding of reality. I believe this is exactly what God intended. The complexity of God cannot be contained in just one person’s viewpoint. And therefore, we will never mature and come to the fullness of Christ unless we are equipped by that which each part of the body supplies. And this is what I believe is ultimately at stake – the maturity of the church. Let us choose to mature. Let us choose to connect.

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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A Love That Fights

A couple of weeks ago I spent an afternoon at the beach bodyboarding with my eldest son. I have not gone bodyboarding since maybe I was in my twenties and it’s been a while since he and I have done something like that together, without the rest of the family. We had so much fun racing down the waves together. Just the two of us, carefree sea-buddies. I will remember that day forever.

Afterward, I dropped him home. We parted with our usual little goodbye ritual and I started the journey home. It was night by this time and as I cruised along the highway with my thoughts for company a strange feeling came over me that started with a sudden epiphany.

“He’s eighteen now! He’s an adult!”

In my mind I saw the little one-and-a-half-year-old baby the last day that I held him before the events that led to his mom and I getting divorced. I had done it. I had stayed alongside him all the way to adulthood and now here we were; father and son and more than that – buddies. I had stayed true to the commitment I made to that little baby boy to be the best father I could be to him even though I lived in a different house.

Tears ran down my face as the streetlights blurred past. But I could not understand why I was crying… Some emotion filled my soul, but I had no idea what its name was. Was it, relief? No. Was it some sort of pride at my paternal accomplishment? No, it wasn’t that either. Even as I was overcome with emotion, I struggled to understand what I was feeling.

Memories flashed through my head. It had not been easy to be the type of father I wanted to be to my son. Many times, I had to fight tooth and nail to be a part of his life while trying not to fracture the tenuous relationship with his mother which would defeat the very purpose of my effort. In truth it has been a constant battle-dance. Without God I would have failed miserably.

When I left the marriage, I became untrustworthy and when I left her church, I became a bad influence. Those two demon-labels were hell to wrestle against while I was trying to be a significant part of my son’s life. But I fought. Sometimes I lost. I did not get much say in the schools he attended. But I fought. I was not allowed to be there for his baptism. But I fought.

It was in his early teens when he had an assessment with a psychologist, and she unearthed that he had a fear of me leaving him. I was heartbroken. How could he not know that I would never leave him?? I had fought so hard to be there for him in every way I knew how. I learned that day just how insidious the enemy is and how fragile the human heart is. The enemy magnifies every event, thought and conversation that would perpetuate his nasty lies and destabilize our lives with fear. Well I was not going to let the enemy win! At the earliest opportunity I let my baby boy know in no uncertain terms that I would NEVER leave him no matter what. I know it made a difference in his heart. My only regret is not knowing sooner that I needed to say it.

As I write this, it is only now that I understand what I was feeling; what I can feel even now. It’s the feeling that you have after years of hard battle when you look back at the sacrifices, the wounds, the scars and you can say that it was worth it. The prize of the fight was worth the years of hardship on the battlefield. The love I share with my son was worth it all. This was what it was all for. There may still be many a skirmish to come and I won’t be backing down, but I can see the victory.

God spoke to me that night. He said, “I feel the same way about you. I will never leave you nor forsake you all the days of your life. My love is steadfast.” My Father knew that I also needed to hear it.

It was as if the fierce love that I felt for my son suddenly flew up out of my chest, multiplied a hundred-fold in the air and returned to encompass me – the warm embrace of my Heavenly Father. My tears also multiplied, as I understood in a new way that perfect love casts out all fear.

To receive more content like this in your inbox and to receive a free e-copy of my book, The Primacy of The Voice of God – Elevating the Word of God to Its Rightful Position, please subscribe to www.authenticjoy.org.

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.