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The Last Two Years: On Being Broken and Being Blessed

December 10, 2019 By Jimmy Young Leave a Comment

It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply – A.W. Tozer.

This has been my lived experience of the past two years. Two long, hard, years of being broken and being rebuilt, being bruised and being cared for, being humbled and relearning what it means to be truly human.

As a young Christian leader, I had a clear picture of how God would use me in His service and what a Jesus-shaped life would look like. Naturally, he would use the same traits and giftings that others so readily encouraged in me. What brought ‘success’ and glorifying God went hand-in-hand.

This picture of the Christian life served me adequately for nigh-on eighteen years until the moment that Sarah was diagnosed with cancer. Then it started fraying at the edges. Then I started fraying at the edges.

Fraying at the edges seems to be a good description of my interior life these last two years. Unravelled, picked and pulled apart at the seams. Sarah was the one with cancer and yet in the two years since her diagnosis, in the midst of her healing, I have often felt like the one still broken.

More than anything, this has led to an absence of writing. What do you write about on a site dedicated to stirring your affections for God when in fact your affections feel stagnant, slowed, profoundly unstirred?

I still love Jesus. It’s still Jesus. I’m still a consistent, faithful member and pastor of my church. It’s just that my faith looks less cocksure bravado and more like a concerted clinging onto Jesus, more like a deep-rooted and deeply-planted faith than one easily swayed by day-to-day emotions.

Jesus starts the Beatitudes with one of the most confronting lines imaginable to the lift-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps style faith I had crafted for myself as a young Christian:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven‘. (Matt 5:2)

Blessed are the poor in Spirit.
Blessed are the broken.
Blessed are the weak.
Blessed are those who do not rely on their own strength.

Being frank, prior to breaking, I had no real need of being poor in Spirit. How terrible does that sound? How frankly un-Christian?

Thank God that God desired far more for me than I desired for myself. The mercy of God is that He would lead me down the path of brokenness in order to secure something I did not desire for myself.

The opening poem in the Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers has become somewhat of a guiding light for me in these past two years:

‘Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
That to be low is to be high,
That the broken heart is the healed heart,
That the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
That to have nothing is to possess all,
That to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
That to give is to receive,
That the valley is the place of vision.

This is the rambling, lengthy story of how I was broken and how God has made me new.


In the months after chemotherapy ended lots of people started asking a revealing question: ‘So, like, Sarah’s healed now isn’t she?‘

It’s a question with an expectant one-word answer, ‘yes’.

Life is rarely that simple.

Has the tumour and cancer gone? Yes.
Has the unnatural feeling that chaos is normal left? No.
Has the chemotherapy and frequent hospital visits slowed? Yes.
Has the emotional scars from having your life turned upside down healed? No.
Has the ambient sadness and anxiety that intermittently invades your day left? No.
Has the stress built up over months and months left our bodies? No.

What does healing look like when the sickness is gone but there is still so much to process and work through?

I remember attending the Single Minded Conference in Sydney with a friend and listening to a recently-divorced woman in her late thirties lamenting that she would never have children. I cried, and cried, and cried, not yet knowing whether we would ever be able to have children.

I remember burying myself into my work until the natural consequence of burnout took hold. Taking a test with a counsellor, he informed me that I scored highly on something called ‘depersonalisation’.

Depersonalisation is what happens when you stop seeing people as people, but rather as objects. Sounds rather horrid for a pastor, right? ‘No, I don’t think you see other people as objects. I think you see yourself that way’ says the counsellor. Excellent.

I remember the moments texting friends bailing on events or rides or class last minute because I couldn’t bring myself out of bed, racked with anxiety and sadness.

I remember bailing out of haircuts because I couldn’t stand being in the barber, alone.

I remember the many, many times I said to Sarah, ‘I don’t feel like myself anymore’.

I remember being afraid to tell anyone.


In March 2019, I participated in one of the hardest one-day cycling events in the world: 3 Peaks Falls Creek Challenge.

Starting at the top of Falls Creek, it follows a 240km circuit around Alpine Victoria, taking in the (three) peaks of Tawonga Gap, Mt. Hotham and the back end of Falls Creek in an excruciating route. It was also the moment where the carefully curated inner life I spent the last 18 months holding together fell apart.

Climbing up Mt. Hotham was close to the worst experience of my life. In the midst of a close-to three-hour ascent, I had near to a mental breakdown. The physical exhaustion of my body broke down the mental walls that had allowed my mind to focus on other things.

If you ask any real cyclist what the best part of cycling, they’ll tell you honestly, it’s the suffering. There is a clear space in the midst of pain that is free of distraction, where the only company is the rhythm of your (rapid) heartbeat and breath.

This was the opposite of that.

There was no pure space, no distillation of thought but rather a constant experience of imagining every single significant person in my life describing what an utter, abject, complete failure I was.

That was when the defences finally came down. Not only was I physically broken, but emotionally, I was done.

It was time to listen.


I started to open up to people. I invited a coach into my ‘stuff’. I started seeing a psychologist. I felt naked a lot. Seen for the first time, really.

John Calvin starts the Institutes of Christian Religion with an opening sentence I contemplated a lot: ‘Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.’

I had to come to terms with the fact I didn’t know myself very well at all and perhaps I did not know God as well as I would like. Suffering tends to reveal not only what you worship and treasure but who you really are beneath the surface.

Calvin goes on to write that knowing ourselves is vital because from of the feelings of ‘ignorance, vanity, poverty and infirmity’ we can recognise that the ‘full abundance of every good and purity of righteousness rests in the Lord alone’.

Knowing ourselves is important because we only begin to seek after God when we ‘begin to become displeased with ourselves’.

I had spent so many years being ‘pleased’ with myself that this was a rather horrid experience.


When I was nineteen years, a mentor instructed me that it would be helpful for my walk with Jesus if I could learn as much as I could about one faithful Christian from history. I chose Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

There are many reasons to fill my life with much of Spurgeon, many of them to do with his success. He possessed a spirit-filled zeal, endlessly quotable, a successful pastor at a young age where hundreds became faithful Christians under his preaching and leadership.

What I discovered along the way was that Spurgeon was a man who knew what it was to be brought low, to be broken. One of the most helpful things he wrote, ‘The Ministers Fainting Fits‘, he wrote about spiritual sadness. He writes:

I thought it might be consolatory to some of my brethren if I gave my thoughts thereon, that younger men might not fancy that some strange thing had happened to them when they became for a season possessed by melancholy; and that sadder men might know that one upon whom the sun has shone right joyously did not always walk in the light.

Spurgeon came to the conclusion that those who never have to push through waves of difficulty never grow in strength and maturity like those who do. He writes again:

The scouring of the vessel has fitted it for the Master’s use.. The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory. The raven is sent forth before the dove. The darkest hour of the night precedes the day-dawn.

The scouring of this vessel has fitted it for the Master’s use.

These words have been of immeasurable comfort.


The last two years have changed me, but if I was being honest, it was needed change.

The most devastating revelation that I’ve had to come to terms with is that in part this has occurred because there are significant ways that I have tried to progress without the presence of God.

I was content moving forward without a spiritual hunger, content moving forward with a lack of prayerfulness, content moving forward with a lack of meditation, content moving forward with addiction to social media, content with a lifestyle where Jesus was important but not the only thing of importance and content moving forward without being poor in spirit.

What cancer and the subsequent two years has done was shine a light onto all the ways that I am content to progress without God himself. These years have been more evidence of grace to me that even in pain and difficulty and brokenness that he will not let me progress without his presence.

It has made me appreciate God’s grace, that much more.
It made me lean less on my own strength, that much more
It killed off the pride in my performance, that much more.
It created less of a desire to perform for others and instead be with others, that much more.
It built a desire to be honest rather than liked, that much more.
It called me to take off the masks I had made for myself, that much more.

I’ve become slower to speak, quicker to listen. Starting to slow down rather than view out-of-control pace as the only option. Seeing that God broke me apart only to bring me more in line with his Kingdom.

I’ve reflected a lot on some words that Stephen McAlpine wrote upon finishing up as a senior pastor last year:

‘The opposite of a broken leader is not a whole leader, but a brittle leader.  Broken leaders are broken down by God and built back up again, first in order to be humbled from their pride, but second, to make them safe people for the flock of Christ to be around.  A brittle leader is a nightmare.  Having never been broken, a brittle leader works the angles, avoids the self-examination, gets chippy with opposition, either fears what others think, or steamrollers over the top of what others think.  Why?  Because they fear being broken.  Hence they remain brittle.

And again, this week

‘It’s good to be a broken leader. It means you won’t break other people. Jesus came for the sick, not the well, and perhaps I was sicker than I had ever thought, even before I became ill’.

This has been true for me. Although Sarah was the one with cancer, I too, was sick. God cared enough for me that he not only broke me but cared for me in my breaking.

‘Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
That to be low is to be high,
That the broken heart is the healed heart,
That the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
That to have nothing is to possess all,
That to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
That to give is to receive,
That the valley is the place of vision.

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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com

Five Simple Lessons Learnt from Reading 63 Books in 2017

December 26, 2017 By Jimmy Young 1 Comment

The earliest memories I have of my parents involve my mum reading over me through illness or my dad making up hilarious stories on the fly, filled with so many memorable characters that even as teenagers, my friends begged him for a retelling. Either way, since the very beginning I was given a love for reading and a love for stories that has only grown over the years.

It was late this year when I read a paragraph that explained the exact reason why my love for reading has flourished as much as it has. This is an excerpt from William D. Mounce’s essay on ‘The Pastor and his Study:’

At the 1998 national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Orlando, Florida, John Piper was invited to speak on the topic “Preparing the Next Generation of Preachers and Missionaries’. At that point in time, many in the audience – about fourteen hundred college and seminary professors, graduate school students, and some pastors – did not know who John was.

John’s opening message was this: ‘The greatest need of every pastor and every missionary is to know God better than they know anything and to enjoy God more than they enjoy anything. 

This is the fuel behind a love for reading: that my greatest need and your greatest need is to know God more than we know anything and to enjoy God more than we enjoy anything.  More than intellectual curiosity or a drive for self-improvement, the impetus behind reading deeply and widely is to harvest insights from men and women far wiser and experienced than I may ever be in order that I may know God more than I know anything and to enjoy God more than I enjoy anything.

The list below of assorted advice and titles have been important lessons that have both aided my reading and stirred my affections for God.  I hope that the lessons learnt and re-learnt are helpful tools in driving you to know and enjoy God more and more, to His glory.

Avail Yourself of History

One of the greatest gifts I was ever given is the challenge to read outside my own time period.  It is absurd how often the struggles we most readily identify are experiences our friends from centuries earlier not only knew extensively about but wrote from deep wells of experience and wisdom on.

From the Catholic G. K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy, 1908), Puritans John Owen (Mortification of Sin, 1656), Richard Sibbes (The Bruised Reed, 1630), John Bunyan (The Pilgrims Progress, 1678) and Jonathan Edwards (Religious Affections) to the founder of the China Inland Mission Society, Hudson Taylor (The Spiritual Secrets of Hudson Taylor, 1937), 2017 has been about being filled up with the spiritual insights of those who have gone before me.

Learn the lessons from those who have taken the same journey as ourselves and gleaned insights from their experiences, even when it is difficult and uncomfortable to be diagnosed from someone outside your own century. Don’t fall into the trap that we know more than those who went before us – it’s nothing more than chronological snobbery. 

Read What You Enjoy – But Finish What You Don’t

In the month of August, the only thing I read was Matt Reilly or Jeffrey Archer – action adventure and political drama – neither of which are particularly heavy or difficult reads. They aren’t intellectual juggernauts, they’re just fun to read.

There’s an unwritten mental rule for many of us that the only kinds of books we can read are heavy theological tomes or literary classics that other people determine worth reading. Find what you enjoy reading and enjoy it more and more to the glory of God.

But let me add one caveat. If you begin a book that you do not enjoy, please try to finish it.

That is not to defend every book – some are not very good – or to encourage you to read something obscene.  But, if you give up on a book the moment you don’t like a plot development, the unpacking of an idea or the path where the story is headed, you are simply going to miss out.  The highest calibre of writing is an immersive experience, demanding of time and patience.  Let us respect those who write well by finishing bad books in the hope that we discover they are goods books with bad beginnings.

Read Widely and Outside Your Comfort Zone

The list below is littered with theological titles (37 of them, to be exact) but a focus this year has been not only to read those whose work I have already come to appreciate but those who fall outside my own tribe.  From the works of Orthodox Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on confronting religious violence, Attractional Church experts in Bobby Harington and Jim Putman to Mark Greenwood and his advancement of Wesleyan Perfectionism theology, 2017 has been a journey in reading books outside what I would consider my own tribe.

Read books that fall outside your favourite theological and cultural palate even if only to be challenged in blind spots you never knew you had. The only thing to be feared from a good thought is the loss of our own bad thoughts.

Read, Re-Read, Repeat

The essence of quality writing is that the words have not only been written from a place of deep thought but experienced to an extent worth writing on the page.  There is simply not enough time in one reading to absorb everything a writer pours out onto the canvas and therefore it is important to re-read and deep dive into quality books.

A well-written book will age with us as we learn more and more about the world and bounce new ideas off old thoughts until the create something far greater than the sum of their individual line of thinking.  From re-reading Desiring God (John Piper) to the Weight of Glory (C.S. Lewis), Radical (David Platt) to Orthodoxy (G.K. Chesterton) there is great worth in re-reading the fondest of books.

Make Reading an Enjoyable Habit

Reading has been a favourite habit of mine from the time I was young and I’ve been lucky enough to have that passed one by my parents. I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t have a book in my hand – from Harry Potter to J.R. Tolkien to John Piper – they have all been faithful companions.  That’s part of what makes reading so enjoyable though, it has been not a task from the beginning but a sort of lived history, in which the writers have become a part of what makes me, me.

It was never a dreary task or book report that led me to read widely but for the love of reading. That’s what I wish I could pass on to people – that the secret to reading more and more is simply to enjoy reading more and more. Don’t chase novels because you want to keep up with the latest intellectual fad but to enjoy them and in turn, enjoy the God who made them. Find whatever helps you most enjoy reading and dive in.

Top Five Reads of 2017

Hudson Taylors Spiritual Secrets – Frederick Taylor (1937)

“His love is unfailing, His Word unchangeable, His power ever the same; therefore the heart that trusts Him is kept in “perfect peace.” … I know He tries me only to increase my faith, and that it is all in love. Well, if He is glorified, I am content.”

“It doesn’t matter, really, how great the pressure is,” he used to say; “it only matters where the pressure lies. See that it never comes between you and the Lord—then, the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to His breast.”

Old Paths, New Powers: Awakening Your Church through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word – Daniel Henderson (2016)

“He is worthy. I am needy.” I have concluded that the more we seek the Lord, with a passion for His worthiness, the more we are gripped with our neediness. Adoration cultivates desperation.”

“In an awakening, the Spirit of God does not typically do a ‘new’ thing: he simply pours greater power upon the ‘normal’ things faithful Christians are already doing. Prayers become more intense; worship becomes more joyous; repentence becoems more sorrowful; and the preached word yields greater effect. The Spirit of God multiplies the effectiveness of our ‘normal work’ of seed-planting, bringing a bountiful harvest. And he does more in a moment then we can in a lifetime. 

You Are What You Love – James K. Smith (2016)

“Thus Scripture counsels, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4:23). Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love. So discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than of knowing and believing. Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all—a vision encapsulated by the shorthand “the kingdom of God.”

Mortification of Sin – John Owen (1656)

“The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.”

“Try yourself by this also: when you are by sin driven to make a stand so that you must either serve it and rush at the command of it into folly, like the horse into battle, or make head against it to suppress it, what do you say to your soul? Is this all – “Hell will be the end of this course; vengeance will meet with me and find me out”? It is time for you to look about you; evil lies at the door (Genesis 4:7).

Paul’s main argument to convince that sin shall not have dominion over believers is that they are ‘not under the law, but under grace’ (Romans 6:14). If your contendings against sin are all on legal accounts from legal principles and motives, what assurance can you attain to that sin shall not have dominion over you, which will be your ruin.

Yea, know that this reserve will not hold long. If your lust has driven you from gospel forts, it will speedily prevail against this also. Do not suppose that such considerations will deliver you when you have voluntarily given up to your enemy those means of preservation which have a thousand times their strength. Rest assuredly in this, that unless you recover yourself with speed from this condition, the thing that you fear most will come upon you. What gospel principles do not, legal motives cannot do!”

The Rider – Tim Krabbe (1978)

“In interviews with riders that I’ve read and in conversations that I’ve had with them, the same thing always comes up: the best part was the suffering. In Amsterdam, I once trained with a Canadian rider who was living in Holland. A notorious creampuff: in the sterile art of track racing he was Canadian champion in at least six disciplines, but when it came to toughing it out on the road he didn’t have the character.
The sky turned black, the water in the ditch rippled, a heavy storm broke loose. The Canadian sat up straight, raised his arms to heaven and shouted: ‘Rain! Soak me! Ooh, rain, soak me, make me wet!’
How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn’t it?
In 1910, Milan—San Remo was won by a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer!
In 1919, Brussels—Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last forty kilometres with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! He arrived at 11.30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. The day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away, and riders had to climb onto one another’s shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs.
Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns into memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you.’ Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lay with few suitors these days and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately. 
That’s why there are riders.
Suffering you need; literature is baloney.” 

The List of 2017

  • Erasing Hell (Francis Chan, 2011)
  • Honour Amongst Thieves (Jeffrey Archer, 1993)
  • The Weight of Glory (C.S Lewis, 1943)
  • Brothers, We Are Not Professionals (John Piper, 2002)
  • Orthodoxy (G. K Chesterton, 1908)
  • 7 Ancient Wonders (Matt Reilly, 2005)
  • People To Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue (Preston Sprinkle, 2015)
  • Hudson Taylors Spiritual Secret (Frederick Howard Taylor, 1937)
  • Discipleshift: Five Steps to Help Your Church Make Disciples (Bobby Harrington, Jim Putman, 2013)
  • Reformation Thought: An Introduction (Alastair McGrath, 1988)
  • Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition (James K. Smith, 2010)
  • Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem (Kevin DeYoung, 2013)
  • Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (Matthew Reilly, 2011)
  • Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (David Platt, 2010)
  • Life on Life: 15 Principles To Get Started as a Disciplemaker (Harold Harper, Luke Harper, 2014)
  • The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy (Bill Simmons, 2010)
  • Old Paths, New Power: Awakening Your Church through Prayer and the Ministry of the Word (Daniel Henderson, 2016)
  • Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership (John Dickson, 2011)
  • The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Sinclair Ferguson, 2016)
  • Is God Anti‑Gay? And Other Questions about Homosexuality and the Bible (Sam Alberry, 2013)
  • The Plausibility Problem: The Church and Same-Sex Attraction (Ed Shaw, 2015)
  • The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith  (Rosario Butterfield, 2012)
  • A Lamp Unto My Feet (Elisabeth Elliot, 2004)
  • You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (James K. Smith, 2016)
  • Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections (Sam Storms, 2013)
  • Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Chip Heath, Dan Heath, 2006)
  • Scarecrow (Matthew Reilly, 2003)
  • A Prisoner of Birth (Jeffrey Archer, 2008)
  • Prayers for the Assassin (Robert Ferrigno, 2006)
  • The Four Legendary Kingdoms (Matthew Reilly, 2016)
  • Ice Station (Matthew Reilly, 1998)
  • Mindhunter: Inside the FBI Elite Serial Crime Unit (John E. Douglas, 1995)
  • Ask a Pro: Deep Thoughts and Unreliable Advice from America’s Foremost Cycling Sage (Phil Gaimon, 2017)
  • The Rap Year Book (Shea Serrano, 2015)
  • Pro Cycling on $10 a Day: From Fat Kid to Euro Pro (Phil Gaimon, 2014)
  • The Rider (Tim Krabbe, 1978)
  • Humpty Dumpty: The Fate of Regime Change (William R. Polk, 2013)
  • The Pilgrims Progress (John Bunyan, 1678)
  • When I Don’t Desire God: How To Fight For Joy (John Piper, 2004)
  • The Mortification of Sin (John Owen, 1656)
  • In the Heart of the Sea (Nathaniel Philbrick, 2000)
  • When Santa Learned the Gospel (Simon Camalieri, 2017)
  • Not In God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence (Jonathan Sacks, 2015)
  • The Bruised Reed (Richard Sibbes, 1630)
  • Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus Into the Everyday Stuff of Life (Jeff Vandersteldt, 2017)
  • Contest (Matthew Reilly, 1996)
  • None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us and Why That’s a Good Thing (Jen Wilkin, 2016)
  • Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry (Paul Tripp, 2012)
  • For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper (Sam Storms and Justin Taylor, 2010)
  • Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever (Michael Horton, 2014)
  • Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do (Paul Tripp, 2015)
  • Perfect Sinners (Matt Fuller, 2017)
  • Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck, 2006)
  • The European Reformations (Carter Lindberg, 1996)
  • Extreme You: Step Up. Stand Out. Kick Ass. Repeat (Sarah Robb O’Haggen, 2017)
  • The Glue: Relationship As The Connection For Effective Youth Ministry (Mike Stevens, 2017)
  • Martyn Lloyd-Jones: His Life and Relevance for the 21st Century (Christopher Cartwood, 2015)
  • Loving Jesus More (Phillip Ryken, 2015)
  • A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918 
  • Awake to Righteousness (Mark Greenwood, 2017)
  • Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (John Piper, 1986)
  • Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus Through the Spiritual Disciplines (David Mathis, 2016)
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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com

The Importance of Being Faithful

November 16, 2017 By Jimmy Young 1 Comment

This November, I have been able to celebrate four years of loving and serving the community of Caroline Springs and Red Door Church. 

The last four years have been some of the most grace-immersed, God-glorifying, spirit-filled experiences of our young lives. God has been stretching and conforming us to the image of Christ and blessing us abundantly in ways we would not have thought possible.

It’s only natural that I take the time to look over the last four years and reminisce about what God has done. And God has done monumental things.

When we moved to Caroline Springs to start a youth ministry, we had five youth in the church. We now have relationships with around forty young people and have baptised nine of them in the last year. The rattiest kid in the first year of our ministry has now been faithfully serving Jesus as a youth leader for the past three years.

I’ve been able to witness young people come to faith, grow in faith and encourage others in faith. On Friday, four of them are going to preach their very first sermons. I have the joy of encouraging, investing into and leading 18 mature leaders across our youth, childrens and young adults ministry. I somehow have four interns, two of whom are either already at or headed to bible college to pursue vocational ministry.

It’s easy to rest on these encouraging images.  Yet, the journey of the last five and a half years has often broken me in pieces and at times, led to an overwhelming desire to quit, run away from everything we had felt like God had called us to and move to somewhere easier.

The Unseen Side of Ministry

Despite feeling a deep love, compassion and calling towards Caroline Springs and the church there, it took over a year and a half between the calling that I felt and the reality to line up. 18 months of trusting God when it seemed like I had been mistaken.

In our first year of ministry, there was a private disagreement between members of the church board that almost overnight removed more than half of the young people I’d been building relationships with and left a mark of spiritual sadness upon our church that took over six months to ease. It was also the first year of Sarah and my marriage, and in October, I was diagnosed with chronic gastritis, dropped out of bible college for a year and spent every waking moment that I was not working in bed recovering. Sarah once remarked to me that it felt like ‘I had lost the man I had married overnight‘.

In our second year of ministry, our lead pastor and one of my closest friends went through a debilitating season of depression that left an indelible mark on our church and our leadership together. All of the plans that we had made together had to be curtailed and left for another time as we supported one another.  We had moved more an hour away from everyone we knew and loved to learn under and serve with someone who was not capable of leading us in the way that he had hoped in this season. He is still one of the most faithful pastors I know and it has been, is, and will be a great personal joy to serve with and under Him for as long as God will allow us.

In our third year of ministry, we were involved in a private year-long matter that exhausted us physically, emotionally and spiritually. There was probably enormous swathes of the year spent on the brink of burnout.

Then, in our fourth year, Sarah was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer that required immediate treatment. Everything we had planned was immediately thrown out the window and the future had become numbed to us.  We still await final results that the aggressive treatment has worked, despite good initial results. We still don’t know whether this will come back.  We pray endlessly for healing and God’s hand over this but it has often seemed overwhelming.

Throughout the entire four years, I have never known such an intensified spiritual attack on leaders within a church. Satan has roared around like a lion, looking for someone to devour. There have been numerous things happen for unseen reasons that I can only put down to the influence of the enemy in opposition to a faithful church.

The Importance of God’s Faithfulness

God’s sovereignty is often seen as one of the more colder doctrines.

The idea that God organizes and orders everything in this world according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11) may give the false impression that God is a detached puppet-master, playing with his creation.  Yet, for me, over the past four years, it has been a sure anchor to hold onto in the middle of the storm. Without knowing that God is sovereign, I fear that I would have drowned in my own fearfulness.

God’s providence is not just a lofty doctrine to be affirmed but a precious lifeline we can cling to in adversity. It is precisely because God organises and ordains everything according to his will that I can cling onto and trust the promises of God will come true because His sovereignty ensures that he will keep every single promise he makes.

  • God promised Israel to be their God and make them His people (Leviticus 26:12–13). Old Testament history is teeming with examples of God fulfilling this promise.
  • God promised that if we search for Him we will find Him (Deuteronomy 4:29). He is not playing hard-to-get. “Our God is near us whenever we pray to him” (Deuteronomy 4:7).
  • God promised that His love will never fail (1 Chronicles 16:34). He is faithful in every way.
  • God promised salvation to all who believe in His Son (Romans 1:16–17). There is no greater blessing than the free gift of God’s salvation.
  • God promised that all things will work out for good for His children (Romans 8:28). This is the broader picture that keeps us from being dismayed by present circumstances.
  • God promised comfort in our trials (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). He has a plan, and one day we will be able to share the comfort we receive.
  • God promised to finish the work He started in us (Philippians 1:6). God does nothing in half measures. He started the work in us, and He will be sure to complete it.

I can cling to God in the middle of horrible trials because I know He is both a promise-making and a promise-keeping God. He has no restrains on his ability to finish what he started.  It’s this that leads Charles Spurgeon to remark that:

“Cheer up, Christian!  Things are not left to chance: no blind fate rules the world.  God has purposes, and those purposes are fulfilled.  God has plans, and those plans are wise, and never can be dislocated.”

The Importance of Being Faithful

When the church board splits, when your ministry is cut in half, when your leader is cut down by depression, when you’re diagnosed with cancer, you need to know and believe that God is faithful to finish what he started. 

In those moments when I have considered leaving everything behind, it is God’s faithfulness towards me that has encouraged me to persevere in my own faithfulness towards Him. When I consider the weight of the challenge, the inadequacy of my skill-set and the seeming lack of apparent hope on the horizon, like Peter walking towards Jesus when his eye was on the storm around him, I sunk.

In these moments, if I had been persuaded by my own lack of faithfulness to forego trusting God, I would have missed out on the incredible blessings that God has bestowed upon our church and the growth in character and Christlikeness in myself. I would have missed out seeing young people believe in God. I would have missed out on the joy of serving alongside and beneath my pastor. I would have missed on the deep work that God was doing in me. I would have missed out on bringing God glory.

Therefore, here is my encouragement after four years of difficult but fruitful ministry:

It’s when we remember God’s abundant faithfulness to us through life, death, resurrection and eternity that our hearts can be stilled despite the roaring waves of adversity around us. God has promised to see us through this (Philippians 1:6). God has promised that this will turn out for our good and conform us to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:28-29). God has promised us that he will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6)

God has promised these things and therefore, let us run the race set out for us with great endurance, remembering to finish the race and eagerly awaiting the day when an ever-faithful God looks upon our face and says:

‘Well done, good and faithful servant’. (Matthew 25:23) 

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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com

Praying Big Prayers and Singing Big Songs

November 8, 2017 By Sarah Young 4 Comments

I can’t count on my two hands the number of times I’ve sung these words.

“Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” by Hillsong United is a beautifully written song about asking God to stretch our faith and trust in him in uncharted waters, knowing that we belong to him and that he is always with us. We sing it at our church on Sundays and I’ve noted that even our teenagers love singing this powerful song in worship to God.

However, I’ve stopped singing this song of late with the same kind of abandon I once did. I’ve stopped singing these lines in favour of listening to the words that our churches are singing and pondering the implications of these huge statements. As a singer and worship leader, I often get wrapped up in the stunning melody and crescendo of this bridge that I lose track of what I’m actually singing.

Since being diagnosed with cancer four months ago, I’ve felt convicted to consider how I got to where I am today. Looking at my reflection in the window of my hospital room, I never expected to be here with no hair, a frail body and next-to-no energy. What is God doing? Where is he? Why have I got cancer? What is his purpose in this?

Here’s something that dawned on me.

I looked back at my journals and thought about the songs that I’d sung and the prayers that I’d prayed over the past year and found line after line laced with themes of surrender, sacrifice, trust and faith. In taking stock of the statements that come out of my mouth and those scribbled on paper, it was starkly clear that I had been asking God to stretch my faith and use me for his glory no matter the cost.

The last six months of chemotherapy have shown me that he answered my prayers, just not in the way that I had expected. After reflecting on the songs I had been singing, I noticed I had been making huge requests like, “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders..” This request is huge. Have you ever stopped to consider what this means?

“Where My Trust Is Without Borders..”

I’ve heard this line sung a million times and yet I hear it now and worry that we don’t know what we’re asking for when these words roll off our tongues. Often we would much prefer to live as comfortable Christians with fences marking off how far God can stretch us. We love Jesus and want to follow him, but we also like to have a handle on things. So if our hearts could sing of what’s really underneath, we’d be saying, “Spirit lead me not too far from all my comforts. Let me worship at a distance from whatever might actually stretch me..”

If we really want the Holy Spirit to lead us “where our trust is without borders”, we are asking him to take us to places – physically, emotionally and spiritually – where we are empty, vulnerable and have no other choice but to depend on him completely. Strong saints have often remarked that ‘every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with Him has come through suffering”.

This kind of trust takes deep faith because God’s plans are different than ours and he does things differently than we would choose (Proverbs 16:9).  His thoughts are higher than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9) and when we pray these prayers and sing these songs, we are asking God to do things in means and ways that are different to our own.

“Take Me Deeper Than My Feet Could Ever Wander..”

I’ve been a youth leader for over 10 years now and I also can’t count on my two hands the number of people who have walked away from God after singing songs like this one. There is nothing that saddens my heart more than this. Yet it is precisely for this reason that I suggest we consider what we sing and what we pray and teach congregations – especially young people – accordingly.

‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange was happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed’.  1 Peter 4:12-13

If we remember that God’s thoughts are higher than ours and his ways are higher than ours, then it makes sense that by singing songs like “Oceans” we’re asking God to stretch us using whatever means he knows will produce that kind of faith in us: a faith without borders. Suffering is a means of grace that God allows for our good and for his glory (1 Cor 1:10, Romans 8:28).

I have seen young people cry out to God in prayer and then encounter seasons of persecution, dryness, sickness and family trouble, only to lose sight of what they had been asking for in the preceding months: deeper trust in him. “Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander..”

This line itself suggests that God’s way of doing things is not what we would plan or choose, but it is always the best plan for our good and God’s glory. I can say with great conviction that this is true even as chemotherapy is being pumped into my veins.

Do not buy into the thought that God’s methods are pointless or cruel. Suffering is one of his means of grace, for our good and His glory, producing in us the fruits of the Spirit.  God uses situations where it is more comfortable to be impatient to grow us in patience.  He sends us situations where we lose control to move deeper in self-control.  Seasons of suffering help us become those who suffer well.

“My Faith Will Be Made Stronger in the Presence Of My Saviour”

Rather than twiddling our thumbs waiting for God to use us or grow us he has supplied us with rhythms of grace to prepare us well for seasons of great hardship and stretching. The extent that we delve into the depths of His truths and the embrace of His community will shape the extent of our growth in seasons of suffering.  Do you know His truths? Do you rely on His ear? Do you belong to a community of Jesus-shaped others who can spur you on?

Without the word of God in my own heart over the last 12 months specifically regarding suffering and God’s heart, I would have had my firm foundation ripped from under my feet. It is so important to use our time wisely. 

Truth becomes so important in the context of suffering. Seasons of darkness make it harder to trust that God is who he says he is. Lies creep in and it is here that we start to believe that either God doesn’t really love us or that he isn’t even there. One of the key ingredients to surviving seasons “wherever he would call us” is hearing God’s truth.

The truth is that we need Jesus to persevere through suffering. No matter what the trial, He graciously promises that he will always be with us. “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Aren’t you glad we don’t have to do it alone? I’m so glad this song recognizes the preciousness of this promise: “..and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Saviour.”

Pray Big Prayers and Sing Big Songs

The aim is not to stop singing songs and praying prayers that cry out to God to stretch us, but to understand what we are asking. If our churches sing songs like this and pray prayers like this and fail to teach about the heart of God in keeping his promises we leave people in a precarious position.  If you call yourself a Christian, I urge you to consider the songs you sing and the prayers you pray. When you shake your fist at God and ask why, consider whether he’s simply answering your prayers using his methods, promised to be for your good and His glory.

These songs are great to sing, and we should sing them. However, we would do well to consider and genuinely express what we sing if we want to persevere when our faith is being stretched.

Next time you hear a song with huge declarations of faith and trust in Jesus, consider what you’re asking. Remember the truths about God that you’ve sung and read about. More importantly, write down your prayers as evidence for trust in Jesus when the fire comes.

Remember that you’ve asked for what will strengthen your faith and bring him glory. If you’re praying in the will of God, you can be sure he’ll answer you. Love him through the fire. Worship him in the flames, knowing that your suffering is producing in you a peculiar weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). 

Sarah Young
Sarah Young

Daughter of the King | Married to Jimmy | Psychologist

An Unhurried Life: Reflections on Rest and Sabbath

September 7, 2017 By Jimmy Young Leave a Comment

Prominent theologian and pastor Dallas Willard once asked a friend this question:

“If you had one word to describe Jesus, what would it be?” 

Many fit well.  Courageous and loving, patient and kind. He did the miraculous, loved the unlovable, stood up to the powerful and spoke truth to the influential. He was courageous and strong-willed, yet had a heart for those others moved past quickly. He died on a cross and conquered death. He rose again and reigns in glory.

Willard offers his own word though:

Jesus was relaxed.

There is a part of me that doesn’t like the word relaxed. It sounds far too much like lazy and selfish. Relaxed sounds inadequate and unhelpful to describe who Jesus was, yet others such as Alan Fadling describe Jesus as the unhurried saviour. The more that I think about it though, the more it rings true.

After waiting thirty years for his ministry to begin, his first act was to follow the Spirit into the wilderness. He seems frustratingly unhurried on his way to heal the synagogue officials daughter (Mk 5:22-43) and to visit his sick friend Lazarus, who died during Jesus two-day delay (John 11:1-43). On several occasions, Jesus retreated from the crowds and the attention to spend time one on one with His Father, to the point that the disciples even left him behind one day (John 6:16-21).  His sense of timing often seems strange by our standards.

CULTURAL ADDICTION TO HURRY

“Our grandchildren”, wrote John Maynard Keynes in 1930, would work around “three hours a day” – and probably only by choice. Economic progress and technological advances had already shrunk working hours considerably by his day, and there was no reason to believe that this trend would not continue.  Social psychologists began to fret: whatever would people do with all their free time?

That sounds like a dream compared to what most of us experience in every life. Ours is a culture that values the hustle, the overzealous achiever and the omnipresent email. We boast about how busy we have been, how fast our pace of life is and how little free time we have now that we are all grown up.  We dream about long holidays and winning the lottery to escape the sapping drudgery of our hurried lives yet we rarely stop to ask if what we are getting is even what we most deeply desire. 

Many of us have been so conditioned to be efficient that times of slowing down and relenting seem unproductive, irresponsible, lazy and even selfish.  We know that we need rest but can no longer see the value of it as an end in itself. It is only worthwhile if it helps us recharge our batteries so that we can be even more efficient in the next period of productivity.

There are many times where hurry is the best response, such as an emergency. People get injured or sick and need to be hurried to the hospital. Urgent issues arise that need immediate attention and quick action. The problem is that when we find ourselves living with a constant sense of urgency, we get stuck here. Every situation feels like an emergency, whether it is or not.  Our bodies weren’t designed to live with the constant adrenaline shot that hurry brings, and our souls don’t function well when we live there.

Overwork is heart-hardening, literally. People who are driven and work long hours are more prone to developing atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Thomas Merton, a Trappist prophet in the early twentieth century had this to say about the effects of overwork:

“The fact that our works are done in the service of God, is not, by itself, enough to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and necessary, but too much of it renders the soul insensitive to spiritual values, hardens the heart against prayer and divine things. It requires serious effort and courageous sacrifice to resist this hardening of the heart.”

Many of us are permanently stuck in deadline mode, hurrying and hustling ourselves to the next task and leaving little time to ease off and recharge. The things that need slowness – friendship, laughter, creative thought, loving and planning – get lost in the mad dash to keep up with the crowd.

HEART ISSUE

At the heart of our busyness is our heart. We are busy because we are working hard to meet the desires of our hearts. 

Tim Chester wrote one of the most helpful polemics on busyness, The Busy Christians Guide to Busyness.   Chester believes that a life of over-busyness is rooted in a false belief that God does not meet the desires of our heart, so we must meet them ourselves.  We believe the lies of the world such as “I need money” or “I need to prove myself”.  The great news for every Christian is that, in God, we have liberating truths that set us free from the slavery to our schedules.

Chester looks specifically at six lies that have captured our culture.

  • I’m busy because I need to prove myself
  • I’m busy because of other people’s expectations
  • I’m busy because otherwise, things get out of control
  • I’m busy because I prefer being under pressure
  • I’m busy because I need money
  • I’m busy because I want to make the most of life

These lies have become so all-encompassing that they have worked their way into almost every area of our lives.

SHABAT

Jesus laid out a radically different vision for his people. He says:

“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt 11:29-30)

There is something deeply appealing about those words.  God’s intention isn’t for us to be perpetually burnt out, rushing from one activity to the next in the hope that our next action will be so glorious it will complete us. God instead invites us to rest in Him, because he knows that is where we will find our satisfaction, our joy and true contentment.

He knows that our hearts are most satisfied when they are resting in Him, for it is there that we can discover how deeply God loves us and desires us for who we are, who He has created and who He has redeemed, and not for what we can bring Him. We can easily convince ourselves that God loves us because of what we do and what we can bring him in the middle of a busy season. Yet when we rest, we acknowledge that we have nothing to give God and He is what we truly, deeply need.

Rest has been important from the beginning of creation. God uses the example of His own resting on the seventh day of creation to establish the principle of Shabat,  which simply means ‘to cease, to end, to rest’. We call this Sabbath. One day out of every seven, Israel was to rest from their labour and remember the Sabbath.

The rest has become deeper and more satisfying now that Jesus has come.  Whilst Israel kept the Sabbath as a means to being made right with God (as part of the Law), Christians can trust in Jesus for their rest. They can rest in the knowledge that he has satisfied every need that we will ever have.

  • We can rest because we are accepted by God, and don’t need to prove ourselves.
  • We can rest because Jesus has met God’s expectations for us.
  • We can rest because Jesus is in full control.
  • We can rest because Jesus is our safe refuge in all circumstances.
  • We can rest because through Jesus, God has gifted us everything we need.
  • We can rest because through Jesus, we can have life and life to the full.

Every emotion and urging that fuels our over-busyness has been dealt with on the cross and the resurrection, through Jesus. Every fear that we have about ourselves before God has been matched by Jesus.  God now invites us to stop the busyness, to cease, to rest, to end, and to draw closer to Him and be filled with satisfaction and contentment.

PILLARS OF SABBATH

Having a weekly time of Sabbath has not been easy for me, and when I do so, I often felt more tired than before. Most of the time, I slept in and watched movies all day.  This is the image I had of a day of rest.  However, I was challenged when I heard Tony Miller speak on abiding in Jesus; when he said that ‘Sabbath is not about doing nothing, but about doing the right things with great intentions’. 

Miller suggested four ideas that we can use to guide us into Sabbath rest: relent, rest, rejoice and reflect.

1. Relent

Stop thinking about the workload you have to go back to. Stop working on the proposal that is due later this week. Stop reading endless articles on Facebook. Stop thinking about the people you need to call. Stop checking your emails on your phone. Stop, cease, relent.

Turn off your mobile phone for the day. Leave your work at work. Don’t check your emails. Whatever you need to do to let your mind free from the daily cycle, do it. Stop, cease, relent.

2. Rest

Everyone has activities that give them back more than they take. For some, it might be cycling or crocheting. For others it might be watching movies, sleeping in, enjoying a good coffee, surfing on the coast or going for a hike in the wilderness. Whatever it is that allows you to loosen your tense shoulders, and take a deep breathe out, go and do it.

3. Rejoice

Christians can rejoice in the Sabbath because we have a saviour who has accomplished everything we need.  Every desire that propels us towards perpetual hustle has been met and matched in Jesus and in this time, it can be so important to let that wash over us. If resting is a deep breath out, rejoicing is a deep breath in. It’s a filling of the spirit, of being reminded who Jesus is and how deeply he loves us. It’s a meditation on the grace that has saved us and a feasting on the word.

4. Reflect

One of my personal struggles is simply to stop long enough to consider where I am at personally with God. It’s all well and good doing work for God, but unless that work is with God, it will never be fruitful.  Doing noble things for God is not the same as spending time with Him.  Thinking great thoughts about Jesus is not the same as vital communion with Him. Helping others understand the gospel is not the same thing as drinking deeply from the wellspring of grace for myself.

I pray that this will help you treasure Jesus more as you trust Him in your rest. 

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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com

Still Jesus: Honest Reflections on Suffering and Cancer

August 15, 2017 By Jimmy Young 5 Comments

‘You guys are so brave and courageous’. 

My shoes shift uncomfortably from side to side as a mumbled thank you fumbles out. One more person lovingly telling us how brave we are.  I don’t feel brave anymore.

I feel afraid. I feel unsure. I feel like going back to bed.

From the outside looking in, it seems like we have spent a lifetime crafting deep wells of courage and fortitude to be drawn upon in times of trial and sorrow. The reality is that the well has become dry. Attempts to find a hidden vault of valour hardwired into our nature have only found it emptied months ago.

Yet, we still have hope. 

In the weeks before Sarah’s diagnosis of cancer, I stood in front of thirty teenagers that we have spent the last four years of our lives investing everything we have into.  We challenged them with a familiar refrain of treasuring Christ above all other things. We boast that everything compared to knowing Christ and being known by Christ is worthless. Then we opened up Philippians 3:8:

‘Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ’ 

Now, as I sit poring over my Bible with tears rolling down my face, I’m reminded of the years of searching and suffering that lead to boasting in the supremacy of Christ in all things.  Jesus has continually been a sweet release in torrid times before, but Lord, even in this?

Are you enough? If my deepest fears are realized, will you be sufficient? 

I know what I believe about these questions. I’ve had my intellectual appetite satiated in the weightiness of the scriptures, and I know what I would say to someone who came to me with similar questions.  Yet, when you are in the belly of the beast the nature of the fight becomes far messier. Sure footing becomes slippery in the bloodshed that follows from convictions facing off with reality.

If Sarah’s health spirals downward, and she never recovers, will God continue to be enough for me? If we never see the purposes of God’s hand in all of this, will Jesus be enough? If this extends past four months of treatment, will we still be able to trust in your plans?

I Am Personally Inadequate

I’ve never been a natural athlete.  That seems like a strange confession.  Yet, it is true.

Whenever athletic carnivals would roll around there was always someone who was quicker and stronger for the task, who possessed more endurance and trained harder than me. My body was too stout to be much use in feats of athleticism, too slow to be of use in races and too small to lift heavy things.  It was always too something.

I could have trained harder and paid more attention to what I ate, but the gap that existed between me and the best athletes at our school was so great that it led to a lack of confidence.  How often that has been the case.  Even now, it seems like what is required for the task at hand is so far beyond me.

The kind of person required to remain optimistic and buoyant in the belly of the beast feels so far removed from the powers I still possess. Cancer has shone a torch onto my character and found a chink in the armour that was really a chasm all along. It is a terrible task to discover your own inadequacies when you need them the least.

Although I deeply appreciate the words of encouragement, often what it does is remind me that it was never really true. It wasn’t true before cancer, and it isn’t true now. Cancer has highlighted the poverty of my own courage in the most horrible of ways.

This is not to say that we have not been brave. Sarah has been brave beyond measure. She is an Amazonian warrior born from the pits of adversity who inspires me daily to be more.  The issue is that the kind of bravery that really matters in matters like this is a very different kind of courage than that found in resolute inner steadfastness and stoicism in the face of great distress.

This is the kind of courage that finds its power in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). It’s not a bravery that we possess in our bones, it’s a bravery that has been given to us.

Still Jesus

One of my all time favourite lines comes from the pen of John Owen, a 17th-century Puritan. He writes:

‘The duties that God, in an ordinary way, requires at our hands are not proportioned to what strength we have in ourselves, but to what help and relief is laid up for us in Christ; and we are to address ourselves to the greatest performances with a settled persuasion that we have not ability in the least’.

This describes perfectly how I feel. When I consider the strength and vigour that I possess when faced with the enormousness of the task at hand, it is easy to become discouraged and despondent. There is simply not enough strength left within me to continually muster more courage up from out of thin air.

I am wholly and completely inadequate for the task at hand. I hold no encouragement left in myself and there is no hope left to hold in my hands outside of the help and relief laid up for me in Christ.

What then allows us to face tomorrow? What then possesses us to push forward in hope?

It’s still Jesus.

It’s always been Jesus.

It’s only when I consider the supremacy of Christ in all things and the abundant treasures laid up in Him, I find my courage not only restored but bolstered for the battle ahead.  He doesn’t cure my lack of courage but instead, gives me his very own.

It’s when I am reminded of a sovereign God who brings the dead back to life that I find my feet upon solid ground once more. He will not forfeit his hold on his promises. He will see us through this.

It’s when I dwell on the grace that has saved me, and the goodness of a God who dies for his enemies that I can rest at night knowing that he will never leave me or forsake me.  He hasn’t yet.

It’s when I contemplate that he knows what it is like to bear these burdens, that suffering is not foreign to Him that I can trust that he not only knows my fears and anxieties but that he will take care of me, even in this.

So please, continue to encourage us. 

But know that the most comforting words are those that speak of Jesus and in Him, we continue to be courageous and comforted beyond measure.

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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com

There Is No Greater Aim

July 24, 2017 By Sarah Young 1 Comment

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8)



It began.

My passport had just arrived in the mail.  We had booked our flights to Europe and on Christmas night, we would be off on a romantic adventure somewhere over the Swiss Alps; my first time outside of Australia.  Then it started.

First came the overwhelming chest pain. Next thing I knew, the doctors had found a shadow on a CT scan. More tests. Results seemed to take forever. We’ve found a mass the size of a mandarin in your thymus gland.  I had managed to convince myself that this wouldn’t be a major issue. More tests. Scary tests.  Well-meaning cliches didn’t seem enough anymore. 

“You’ve got something called Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma.”

Cancer.  Rare cancer. Aggressive cancer.

No more words. No more plans. Just a big scary diagnosis and a lack of control.

Moments like these remind me that we are at the mercy of a God who both loves us, and has planned all things for our good and for His glory (Romans 8:28).  His plan always prevails, even when mine does not. The tight grasp I held on work, ministry, marriage, having children, finances, health and my fitness suddenly lost its firm foundation.

Yet the firm foundation of Jesus stayed secure.

Jesus Is My Foundation

Christianity might mean many things for you. It’s certainly not a religion for those who have it all together, or for that matter, all that easy to follow Jesus.  It’s impossible to come to God having it all together. Jesus himself described those who follow Him like this:

‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Mark 2:17)

I’m not a Christian because I am a good person, or because I lead worship on a Sunday, although many of you may think that I am a good person. In fact, the opposite is true. I am a Christian because despite how hard I have tried, I cannot be good. I am spiritually sick, in need of a physician.

I’m stuck in a selfish rut, neglecting the truth, walking without hope, damned to my own devices and holding no answer to my lifelong search for lasting joy.  I cannot please a Holy God when I find myself not only unholy but dirty, and ashamed of my filthy rags. I need the perfect, blameless, sacrifice of Jesus on the cross where my brokenness was exchanged for his perfection before God. I need Jesus. 

One of my favourite songs, No Greater Aim, by Austin Stone Worship says it like this:

Once my heart was lost, tangled deep in sin
Wandering far from grace, and veiled in shame
Yet with boundless love, you have brought me home
Now my greatest prize is to know your name

Still,  sometimes, I feel like my faith leaves me with more questions than answers. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I do know this, and ‘call to mind, therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never end. They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:19-20)

A Treasure Greater Than My Questions

Whilst cancer diagnoses raise deep, serious, faith-piercing questions for me, it doesn’t have to lead to the suggestion that God is not good. In Him, I have found a treasure worth selling everything for.

Cancer is devastating. It’s painful and confusing, and scary. Yet cancer has never been my biggest problem – my biggest problem, always was that my sin kept me from God.  The treasure I hold onto is that because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, I can be reunited with God, called a daughter of the King, a part of his family, and have my stains of sin removed. Washed white as snow.

In the bible, Paul explains it like this:

‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword… For I am sure that neither death nor life, now angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:35, 38-39)

Christians have a view that our lives on earth are only a portion of the eternity we will spend making life about Jesus. Whilst life is for living, it is also a gift from God, to be used for Him. We were created for His glory.  Therefore I can experience joy even in cancer because even if the worst thing happens in the here and now – my cancer is not cured and my life ends here – I know I’ll still have the greatest treasure: union with Jesus.

Again, No Greater Aim: 

Knowing you Jesus, only you
There is no greater aim
In your presence here, my joy is found
There is no higher gain

Oh my soul cries out just to know you more,
To be tethered by unfailing love
Though the fires may flash, mighty thunders roar
Still, my hope’s secure in Christ above

Your love is higher, your glories brighter
And my hope is set on you
My greatest longing is found in knowing
That my hope is set on you

Our sense of control in life must be flexible, grounded in the subtle yet firm truth that God is the one who holds not only us but indeed our tomorrows.  James and I both enjoy reading about missionaries who have given up their all for Jesus and found the greatest of treasures in knowing him.

John Paton was one such missionary, who travelled to Vanuatu to spread the gospel. He wrote of his trust in God’s sovereignty over all things, including various tribes who competed over how to kill both him and his native friend like this:

I realised that I was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done. The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken, that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leaves the bow, or a killing stone the fingers, without the permission of Jesus Christ, whose is all power in Heaven and on Earth.

More Than Merely Knowing

The danger for me comes in knowing that God is good and hearing it in his word, yet struggling to believe it in moments where my whole body longs to be well. I don’t just want to know about Jesus, I want to love and treasure him.  

I know that God is good. I know that he is working all things for my good and for His glory.  Yet, there are moments where my heart betrays me.  There are days where I find it hard to trust in faith.  There are days where I have to let Jesus cling onto me.  

Yet even these moments are yet another reminder of what is to come:

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only creation but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:22-25)

Hope becomes essential in these moments of struggle and groaning. We hope in what God has promised in his word, and ultimately we hope even in death because of what God has prepared for those who love him. This hope may be rocked by suffering, but will not yield its firm foundation even when cancer or death arrive at your doorstep unannounced. 

May my life be steeped in unceasing praise
Til in death we’ll meet on heaven’s shore
Oh that glorious day, ’tis your face I’ll see
And in your arms, I’ll sing forevermore

Sarah Young
Sarah Young

Daughter of the King | Married to Jimmy | Psychologist

A Joy Deeper Than Cancer

July 6, 2017 By Jimmy Young Leave a Comment

Hospitals are draining places. The endless beeping from a myriad of machines, room-upon-room of middling grey paint and the never-ending hours spent waiting in hard and uncomfortable furniture for answers which are far more uncomfortable and hard. The truth is that we have spent a lot of time in the hospital since last Thursday, when my wife, Sarah, was diagnosed with Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer.

Meetings, surgeries and days seem to fly by until they fold into each other with disarming regularity.

In that time, every kind of emotion has come upon us alongside a deep foreboding sense that it wasn’t meant to be like this.  Tears upon tears have made their home with us.  We oscillate between a complete trust in God as the Sovereign Creator of all things, who is in control of every single one of Sarah’s cells and devastation at the loss before us.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? (Ps 22:1-2)

Psalm 22 and 23 running back-to-back has always intrigued me, even though I know the psalms are arranged thematically rather than in historical order. In one, David cries out to God in fear that God has abandoned him in his time of need, and yet, seemingly in the next breath, he declares that he shall not want, nor fear any evil for God is with him.

In the moments of his darkest anguish, the Psalmist reminds us that God accepts our rawest lament and cries, whilst also being the only one who can satisfy every longing of our soul.

‘My God, my God’. 

When he feels abandoned, the Psalmist brings his burden before God.  Only those who know they belong to God can present this kind of searching and longing line of questioning to God 1J. Todd Billings, God is Bigger than My Cancer. God promises he will not abandon or forsake his people (Ps 94:14). It’s an act of the deepest kind of trust and hope to lament in this way – to remind God of this promise when things seem desolate, and when God’s promises seem to ring hollow to our ears 2J. Todd Billings, God is Bigger than My Cancer.

This seems right.  Even in our longing, God has been so gracious to us throughout this entire process. He has surrounded us with family and community who have stocked our fridge, cleaned our house and sent wave after wave of deep spiritual encouragement and truths, rather than mere platitudes.  He has supplied us with shoulders to cry upon and food to eat when we feel weary.

More than even this, more than family and food, he has continued to give us hope beyond all comprehension in the person of Jesus.

The Kind of Truth You Need When Cancer Hits

Missionaries have always astounded me.

I often wonder where they discovered the kind of courage needed to face the spears of those they have loved and sacrificed greatly to reach, and not to use the firearms in their hands, but rather die. What drove missionaries like John G. Paton and Hudson Taylor who seemed, in opposition to the circumstances facing them, having lost wives, children and homes to be so deeply and abundantly satisfied in Christ.

John G. Paton

Paton, writing after the death of his wife and children: 

“Feeling immovably assured that my God and father was too wise and loving to err in anything that he does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help, and struggled on in His work”

Paton, when surrounded by raging natives intent on killing him, and his native friend Abraham:

I realised that I was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done. The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken, that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leaves the bow, or a killing stone the fingers, without the permission of Jesus Christ, whose is all power in Heaven and on Earth.

Hudson Taylor

Hudson, on pain and affliction:

It doesn’t matter, really, how great the pressure is; it only matters where the pressure lies. See that it never comes between you and the Lord—then, the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to His breast.

The foreword to Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret: 

Hudson Taylor had many secrets, for he was always going on with God, yet they were but one—the simple, profound secret of drawing for every need, temporal or spiritual, upon “the fathomless wealth of Christ.”

This is the kind of confident trust in God that you need when cancer comes to your door. The kind of trust that when the Apostle Paul states, ‘He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things’ (Rom. 8:32),  he really meant it. That through the cross God has purchased and secured every possible blessing that could ever be needed to make us deeply and satisfied in him, forever. Everything we need to be satisfied in God, the cross has made certain.

Old Testament writer, Habbukuk writes:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

We do not put our trust in the blossoming trees, the fruit of the vines, the produce of the fields or the herds in the stalls.  We continue to rejoice and take joy in the God of our salvation.

Let me be clear: this situation has floored us. Never in a million years did we think that we would spend the last three weeks rushing to the hospital, or sitting in doctors wards, or contemplating the reality that cancer may spread or the seemingly endless loss before us. Yet in this, our theology has been tattooed onto our souls. We will continue to rejoice in the Lord, for He is good. 

A Joy Deeper Than Cancer

At the centre of God’s revelation is not a secret about how to live a lengthy, self-sufficient and secure life3J. Todd Billings, God is Bigger than My Cancer.  The scriptures reveal to us the cross-shaped life of a Christian who abides in Jesus, trusts him above all things, worships him above all things, desires him above all things and rejoices in him through all things.  On this path, we do not seek out suffering for the sake of suffering, but we do expect Jesus to be active in the most unexpected of places.  This includes a cancer diagnosis.

Rather than soaking in self-satisfaction and pity in this season of sorrow, we find that our affections are being reshaped by God – our former delight in inferior satisfactions have been put in their proper place and God has been found to be an anchor for our soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19). This is a joy that is deeper than cancer.

This is the kind of battle-soaked, cross-won, Spirit-secured kind of joy that leads us to sing worship songs in our pain, wear out our knee-joints in prayer and searching the scriptures daily to access the infinite mercies and comfort found in Jesus.  He is the source and security of our joy, even in this.

Charles Spurgeon, when preaching on the Immutability of God 4 Charles Spurgeon, The Immutability of God, delivered one of my favourite lines:

Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound! In musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief and in the influence of the Holy Spirit, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea—be lost in His immensity. And you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul, so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow—so speak peace to the winds of trial—as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead.

Lord, let this be true.

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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com

Working For God Through Our Work

June 8, 2017 By Kara Martin Leave a Comment

In my last blog for Stirring Our Affections, ‘Working With God Through Our Work‘, I talked about the need to see ourselves as Christ’s ambassadors in the workplace (2 Corinthians 5:16–20), working with God to accomplish the tasks he has set for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

However, it is also important that we see ourselves as working for God primarily.

In biblical times, most people were engaged in agricultural, trade or cottage industries. The concept of a 9–5 job is something that only became the norm after the industrial revolution.

It is actually the master–slave relationship in the Bible that most closely aligns with our present employer–employee relationships. Colossians 3:23–25 is instructive for us:

Servants, do what you’re told by your earthly masters. And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work.
(The Message)

Let’s pause for a moment to realise the significance of this teaching for a slave. Slaves had little or no choice in who they worked for or what work they did. Their lives were dictated by the whims of their Master. Here Paul tells them to work for their human masters as if they are working for God, to do excellent work.

It is teaching that is aimed at the heart.

We have a lot more autonomy and responsibility than slaves. We can choose who we work for and what work we do. We are not bound to organisations. Yet, many would still see a great challenge in these verses.

Paul doesn’t say: “If your Master is a Christian and asking you to do things you enjoy doing.”

We are to work for our employers as if we are working for God.

This is also an empowering verse. If your employer is not acting in a very Christlike manner, then envisioning that you are working for God will give you an energy, creativity and freedom that might otherwise be lacking. 

We know that working for God has an eternal dimension, that the work we do for God is “not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). In fact, it is an opportunity to give people a foretaste of the Kingdom.

The household codes that Paul is describing in Colossians (as he does in Ephesians 5–6), are a new way of envisioning our earthly relationships in light of the new kingdom that Jesus has established. In our working for God, we can show people a new way of working that is pregnant with possibility.

In Surprised by Hope, NT Wright says, “As a saved people, we are meant to be a foretaste of what life will look like on New Earth; so salvation is about what God is doing through us, not just in and for us.”

One of the most helpful books considering an eschatological dimension of work is Darrell Cosden’s The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work. He provides the image of our working as lying in the period between the resurrection and the glorious return of Christ. We have been given the Spirit to help us in our working to anticipate the New Creation, and we can live out these possibilities in our working and our relationships, our conversations and our recreation. In these activities, we can glorify God and live according to his purposes.

Cosden says this means, “For ordinary Christians, it is largely through our work that we reflect God’s image and cooperate with him in bringing humanity and creation to their ultimate maturity and future.”

  • What difference would it make for you to see yourself working for the Lord, rather than your human employer?
  • How can you work for God in a way that gives people a glimpse of what the Kingdom looks like?

This idea of the Kingdom of God breaking into our present world gives us tremendous vitality in our faith and working right now. We are to pray for God’s will to be done on earth NOW, that we might be a light to others, and God’s stewards over all creation.

Kara Martin is Project Leader with Seed (seed.org.au), lecturer with Mary Andrews College (mac.edu.au) and author of the book Workship: How to use your work to worship God.

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Kara Martin

Visual Theology Reading Challenge: May, 2017

May 17, 2017 By Jimmy Young Leave a Comment

Christians throughout history have been avid readers and writers, and we should avail ourselves often of the best that God has on offer for us. This year I will be undertaking Tim Challies 2017 Reading Challenge. Below is the May update, which encompasses the previous four months worth of reading.

What follows are the books I have completed in January 2017, and in parentheses, the reading challenge categories that they fulfill. They are listed in the order in which I have completed them. Below that is the complete list of categories I need to cover.

  1. Life on Life: 15 Principles to Get Started as a Disciple Maker, by Harold & Luke Harper (A book about Christian living). Discipleship is one of the most important tasks that Christians can engage in, and this book by Harold and Luke Harper is filled with practical advice on how to encourage one another to treasure Christ in life on life ministry.  Helpful read.
  2. Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards “Religious Affections”, by Sam Storms (A book about theology).  One of my favourite books of the last two years.  If you are the sort that happily moans about our feelings-laden services, then you should immerse yourself into Edwards and Storms book.  This interpretation of Edwards original work has shaped my thoughts and ministry on this to no end.
  3. Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition, by James K. Smith (A book about theology). Most Calvinists have not read Calvin, let alone anyone else.  James K. Smith’s book is a highly engaging read to anyone exploring Reformed theology for the first time and wanting to understand more than merely TULIP.
  4. The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy, by Bill Simmons (A book of your choice).  Mammoth read, enormously enjoyable.  Bill Simmons is one of my favourite sports authors and this is his magnum opus.  Anyone with a passing interest in basketball should do everything in their power to invest significant time into Simmons read.
  5. The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professors Journey into the Christian Faith, by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (A memoir or autobiography).  There are good books, and there are good writers. Rosaria is both.  A highly engaging read from a former feminist, queer theory, lesbian tenured professor and her conversion to faith in Christ.
  6. The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism and the Gospel, by Sinclair B. Ferguson (A book by Sinclair B. Ferguson).  This came highly recommended but I never felt like I truly grasped the entirety of what Ferguson was talking about.  Perhaps the kind of book that requires more time to be pondered over.
  7. Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book About a (Really) Big Problem, by Kevin DeYoung (A book of 100 pages or less).  Having started a new role this year which involves more tasks to be achieved in less time, this was helpful.  I don’t think I will ever be one of those naturally inclined organised individuals but even I can put some of these practices into place.
  8. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, by Dave Platt (A book that won a prize).  I have a penchant for re-reading books. This gets a read every year, as one of the books that have continually pushed me towards faithfully pursuing Christ in all areas of my life.
  9. Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton (A book more than 100 years old).  Lewis and Tolkein are fondly remembered by many Christian, however, Chesterton is oft forgotten.  Full of wit and a master of words, Orthodoxy is a gem from years past.
  10. You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, by James K. Smith (A book of your choice).  If you have talked to me in the last year, you would have heard me recommend this book or heard me repeat lines verbatim from it.  Please read this book.
  11. People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue, by Preston Sprinkle (A book about a current issue).  Helpful perspective.  Researching for a sermon on same-sex attraction, Sprinkle proved to be a helpful and challenging companion in articulating a helpful and loving response for those in our church who experience same-sex attraction and those within the church who need to have their perspective challenged.
  12. Is God Anti-Gay?, by Sam Alberry (A book by someone you have never read before).  Sam is a Church of England pastor from Maidenhead, England.  From as far back as he can remember, he has been same-sex attracted.  Many people want to shift their opinions on same-sex marriage because it conflicts with their opinion of a loving God.  Sam challenges that in gentle ways in this short, yet important book.
  13. Humilitas, by John Dickson (A book with a one-word title). Every single leader should read this book by John Dickson. Conventional wisdom has it that humility is the virtue of the beaten, but according to recent research, nothing could be further from the truth.  This book is a gem.
  14. The Plausibility Problem: The Church and Same-Sex Attraction, by Ed Shaw (A book about Christian living). The book that the church desperately needed about same-sex attraction. Ed Shaw delves into the question that most people are asking, ‘Is what the bible have to say about sex and marriage and attraction still good news’? Must-read.
  15. Reformation Thought: An Introduction, by Alastair McGrath (A book about history).  For any history aficionados, I thoroughly enjoyed this read about not only the incidents and issues that led to the Protestant Reformation throughout Germany, France and Switzerland but the thought as well behind Calvin, Luther, Zwingli and the Anabaptists.
  16. 7 Ancient Wonders, by Matt Reilly (A book of your choice). On the odd occasion that I pick up a fiction book, it’s inevitably one by Matthew Reilly. Fast-paced and read like an action thriller, I cannot wait to get my hand on the next couple of instalments.
  17. The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis (A book your pastor recommends).  No other book has been recommended more to me by other people than C.S. Lewis’ address ‘The Weight of Glory’ and the other assorted essays and addresses in this collection.  Does not disappoint.
  18. Scarecrow, by Matt Reilly (A book of your choice). My favourite fiction book of all time. Dog-eared, and now read over 15 times, never disappoints.
  19. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Die, Chip & Dan Heath (A self-improvement book). If part of your job involves persuasively talking in front of other people or convincing them that your idea is worthwhile, this book is a gem.  Well worth the read.

The Light Reader

_ 1. A biography
_ 2. A classic novel
_ 3. A book about history
_ 4. A book targeted at your gender
✔ 5. A book about theology – Erasing Hell
✔ 6. A book with at least 400 pages – Honour Amongst Thieves
✔ 7. A book your pastor recommends – The Weight of Glory
✔ 8. A book about Christian living – Brothers, We Are Not Professionals
✔ 9. A book more than 100 years old – Orthodoxy
_ 10. A book published in 2017
_ 11. A book for children or teens
✔ 12. A book of your choice – 7 Ancient Wonders
✔ 13. A book about a current issue – People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue

The Avid Reader

_ 14. A book written by a Puritan
✔ 15. A book by or about a missionary – Hudson Taylors Spiritual Secret
✔ 16. A book about Christian living – Discipleshift
_ 17. A commentary on a book of the Bible
✔ 18. A book about the Reformation – Reformation Thought: An Introduction
✔ 19. A book about theology – Letters to a Young Calvinist
_ 20. A book recommended by a family member
_ 21. A book with a great cover
_ 22. A book on the current New York Times list of bestsellers
_ 23. A book about church history
✔ 24. A book of 100 pages or less – Crazy Busy
✔ 25. A book of your choice – Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves
✔ 26. A book that won a prize – Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream

The Committed Reader

_ 27. A book from a theological viewpoint you disagree with
✔ 28. A book about Christian living – Life on Life
_ 29. A book about apologetics
✔ 30. A book of your choice – The Book of Basketball
_ 31. A humorous book
_ 32. A book based on a true story
✔ 33. A book about prayer – Old Paths, New Powers
_ 34. A book of poetry
✔ 35. A book with a one-word title – Humilitas
✔ 36. A book by Sinclair Ferguson – The Whole Christ
✔ 37. A novel by an author you have never read before – Is God Anti-Gay?
✔ 38. A book about Christian living – The Plausibility Problem: The Church and Same-Sex Attraction
✔ 39. A memoir or autobiography – The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert
_ 40. A play by William Shakespeare
✔ 41. A book of your choice – You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
_42. A book written by an author with initials in their name –
_ 43. A book by a female author
✔ 44. A book about theology – Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards “Religious Affections
_ 45. A book published by Crossway
✔ 46. A self-improvement book – Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Die
_ 47. A graphic novel
_ 48. A book you own but have never read
_ 49. A book targeted at the other gender
_ 50. A book about Christian living
✔ 51. A book of your choice – Scarecrow
_ 52. A book about race or racial issues

The Obsessed Reader

_ 53. A book you have started but never finished
_ 54. A book about church history
_ 55. A book about holiness or sanctification
_ 56. A book about science
_ 57. A book used as a seminary textbook
_ 58. A book on the ECPA bestseller list
_ 59. A book about productivity or time management
_ 60. A book of your choice
_ 61. A book about spiritual disciplines
_ 62. A book about parenting
_ 63. A book about Christian living
_ 64. A book by Iain Murray
_ 65. A book about business
_ 66. A book about theology
_ 67. A book about marriage
_ 68. A photo essay book
_ 69. A book of comics
_ 70. A book about the Second World War
_ 71. A book by a Puritan
_ 72. A book about preaching or public speaking
_ 73. A book of your choice
_ 74. A book about suffering
_ 75. A book about evangelism
_ 76. A book by your favorite author
_ 77. A book you have read before
_ 78. A Christian novel
_ 79. A biography of a Christian
_ 80. A book about the natural world
_ 81. A novel for young adults
_ 82. A novel longer than 400 pages
_ 83. A book about history
_ 84. A book about the Bible
_ 85. A book recommended by a friend
_ 86. A book published by P&R Publications
_ 87. A book with an ugly cover
_ 88. A book by or about a martyr
_ 89. A book of your choice
_ 90. A book about Christian living
_ 91. A book about church history
_ 92. A book about money or finance
_ 93. A book about leadership
_ 94. A book by John Piper
_ 95. A book about theology
_ 96. A book for children or teens
_ 97. A book about sexuality
_ 98. A book about writing
_ 99. A book about current events
_ 100. A biography of a world leader
_ 101. A book about the church
_ 102. A book of your choice
_ 103. A book about a hobby
_ 104. A book written in the twentieth century

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Jimmy Young

Jimmy founded Stirring our Affections in 2016 | Married to Sarah, Pastor in Melbourne and eternally loved and satisfied by Christ

stirringouraffections.com
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