Lighthouse Keeper

Keeping the lights on to guide you home

recent posts

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

  • Why I’m not singing ‘Oceans’ anymore

    Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me 
    Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) Hillsong United

    I spent five years at Hillsong City in Sydney,  at the peak of Taya’s beautiful “Oceans”. 

    I’ve worshipped and experienced it live with Taya, I’ve blasted it on my Spotify, and sung it in other churches back in New Zealand; even a dreadful Irish Mumford version that would make your ears bleed.  Oceans carried me through some of the most difficult seasons of my life and I’m super grateful for such a beautiful piece of Worship. 

    Oceans was the jewel in the Hillsong Creative crown around 2013. It catapulted the humble and brilliant Taya on to the world stage and has been viewed 69 million times on YouTube. It used to be a joke at Hillsong City that if someone was going through a hard time we would say “uh oh, must have been singing Oceans too hard out”. 

    That’s because of the haunting image in the bridge of Peter being called on to the water to “trust is without borders /walk upon the waters” with Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33).  It’s a wonderful and very biblically sound expression- but I don’t want to sing it anymore. 

    I’ve been to the Oceans. I’ve experienced the storms and the wilderness and the Book of Job and yes, I am familiar with suffering (Isaiah 53). And after years of wailing out my surrender to the movement of the Holy Spirit, He is trying to teach me to trust him- this time with my feet firmly planted on the shore. 

    You see us humans can get addicted to struggle and survival mode and fighting the enemy and taking ground for the Kingdom so much that we forget about the Sabbath and the rest (Hebrews 4:9-11) and the calm and the hedge of protection (Job 1) and the safety and the hundreds of other promises in the Bible that we can experience and enjoy in this present age. 

    The Lord is telling me you are safe, you are home, you are loved, you are protected, you are provided for, and I must admit, I’m finding it very difficult to receive this comfort after so many years of “the struggle is real”. Strive-mode is exhausting. Building on the rock is exhausting. Can I really trust Jesus to give me the rest of Matthew 11? 

    Now I know what you’re going to say. There’s a war in the Middle East and life is always going to have its ups and downs and here comes the mega-church toxic positivity. The still small voice is telling me to turn my swords into ploughshares, to burn my plow and oxen of self-reliance (1 Kings 19:21), and walk humbly with the Lord everyday (Micah 6:8). No more going to sea, no more training for war (Isaiah 2:3, Micah 4:3), and no more Oceans. It’s such spectacular grace I can barely receive it and my hyper-vigilance keeps looking for a trap. Jesus says trust me. So I will forever be grateful to Hillsong Creative and that unique time in history I had with the song but no more. I’m staying on land in my lighthouse.  

  • How the lighthouse keeper got its name

    How the lighthouse keeper got its name

    The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2 NIV

    On my Dad’s 70th birthday, I think that was about six years ago, we went around to a man named Paul’s house to check out his amazing, green and lush, lawn.

    Paul was a retired gent and famous in our small town for his lawn care. He proudly showed me bags and bags of fertilisers and mulches and various potions he used to grow his outstanding lawn.

    I loved Paul’s house. It backed on to a reserve that went down to a small creek. It was wooden and modest and tended with love and his gardens, as well as the carpet-like lawns, were the life’s work of his wife who had developed dementia and was no longer able to tend them.

    Fast forward six years and I’m now sitting in Paul’s house. Yes, I bought the house off him. The financial provision miracles that sit behind this fact I could write 65 posts on but we’ll get to that. His wife eventually passed and he downsized and put the house on the market. There were five offers on the house when it was listed and, by the grace of God, I was able to secure it and make it my forever home.

    My own Dad would sadly too develop Parkinson’s and dementia and we were able to care for him here at home for the last few years before he went into fulltime care- where he is today.

    So back to the lighthouse.

    Dad’s bedroom had a painting left behind on the wall that we just sort of left there. The blue colours went with the curtains and it was a calm scene of a boat and a lighthouse in a safe harbour. In my prayer life, I started seeing pictures of a white lighthouse. Easy, Jesus is the light, Jesus is the lighthouse.

    One evening when I was putting Dad into his bed I looked up at the blue painting on the wall- it’s the lighthouse. For the first time I noticed in the picture that there was only a light on in the keeper’s house at the back of the tower. The Lord spoke to me in my heart “keep the lights on, you’re the lighthouse keeper, you stay here.”

    I have wrestled with God on this one.

    “But surely He is the light and I can’t keep the lights on so you must be the lighthouse keeper not me.” I have toyed with selling the house and moving to a bigger town. I have dated and perhaps thought I would move in with my future spouse -God ordered my steps and that never eventuated (I’m happily single –please don’t @ me).

    At that place of surrender I have agreed with God that I can make my own small attempt to reflect the light of Him who calls us out of darkness :

    But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 NIV

    So here I am–in the lighthouse. Let’s begin.

  • When Grace got saved

    When Grace got saved

    However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.
    Acts 20:24 NIV

    My cat is called Grace. She is a fluffy tabby with no tail (manx) which sounds very fancy but her start in life was not fancy at all.

    Grace comes from an outside colony of stray cats that were dumped when some people left a rental house. The cat colony has grown and today, there are about 30 cats in Grace’s family who live outside in the weather.

    About five years ago, I put an ad on our community noticeboard that I wanted a potty trained cat for our small business office. A lady replied on Messenger and I drove 10 minutes around the corner to an old rental house. She had a lot of cats. She picked up the fluffy tabby and said “this one’s cute” and I instantly fell in love. The cat had no name, had never been to a vet, and bolted when we tried to bundle her into my car. The lady then offered to bring her around the next day and, just like that, the fluffy tabby with no tail and no name was transferred into a life of, well…. grace.

    Grace hid under the bed in my spare room for a week and cried at night as she had never been away from her colony before. I would sit with her on the bedroom floor as she stared wide-eyed at me from under the bed- terrified. I instantly thought “this cat is no office cat, she’s freaking out” and wondered if I’d made a mistake. I fed her treats under the bed which was all very new to her (her former diet was dog roll) and tried to convince her my intentions were good. Day by day, she got used to the treats (and me) until one day she ventured out of the spare bedroom and jumped up on my queen bed. She sat staring at me for a while and then started to purr and then Grace let me pat her.

    Each day I introduced her to new things like being brushed, cat biscuits, coming for walks around the garden with me, and listening to the silly little songs I sung her. Grace wasn’t used to all the attention she was getting and would sometimes retreat to a bush in the garden to decompress by herself.

    I learned all her funny little ways, and she learned mine. As I sit next to her here on a cold winter’s night and she dozes on an electric heated throw, I wonder what her life would have been like if I had never put that ad on Facebook or driven around to see, or the lady had picked up a different cat to show me. I think of her family of cats out in the weather and think- that could have been her life too.

    I think of the great kindness Jesus had extended to me by receiving me into the new creation life and the beautiful mystery of his death and resurrection. And I think how much I want my fluffy Grace just to be with me, to sit with me, to let me look after her and buy her customised pet bowls on Temu. To care for her health and keep her safe. To provide for her physical and emotional needs. For her to have a good life.

    If a thief on a cross like me can think these things. imagine how much more our Lord cares for us.

    God doesn’t want me to build a mega church or save 5000 souls or run 10 soup kitchens if it means that I don’t receive from Him and testify of His grace. The good news of his grace.

    So that’s what I’m going to do here. Next post, how the Lighthouse Keeper got its name.