Mike Oliver's Messages

The following parable fits with the stream we are in at present and some have said it's the most profound thing I have ever written. I spoke no sermon yesterday so lets share this instead... Someone was standing on a rock by the sea tending something unseen. There was purpose about his action with arms stretching out and drawing in, reaching out and pulling in. He seemed to be getting closer. His face and body now easily discernible as a native. He looked my way as if something caught his attention but returned to his work, as a man would do having seen nothing. I stood and watched and as I did a fish magically floated towards his hands. Another followed in the same manner. I noticed he had quite a pile flipping in the crevices behind him. The net was so fine I could not see it. Then I knew that somehow I must help him. I had little experience with nets though I had fished with rod and line all my life. I wondered what sort of joy could be had from spreading a net and gathering...

I have owned a bow and arrows now for many years, which has sat in the cupboard for most of last year gathering dust. I took it out for some practice last spring but found I couldn’t hit the target. This week I turned to the Internet to learn how to tune the bow. Before long I had measured and adjusted the bow string tiller, arrow rest, centre shot and nocking point before relearning to relax my grip and hey presto my arrows hit the target. Following this great feeling of success with the bow I found myself in the office struggling with this year’s planning. I often turn to my guitar when I need divine help but the instrument was so out of tune and I couldn’t correct it with the usual fifth fret string comparison. I turned to my computer again to tune it with an Internet program and my guitar was soon playing sweet vibrations once again. This all led me to think about this year’s planning and us as instruments in God’s hands. Scripture talks about children as arrows, how happy the man...

I felt God was saying that I had made my life too comfortable and that He would lead me out into some sort of discomfort. What transpired was a walk in the Great Out Doors (GOD). This would also be a new way of preaching as it would turn out. I set out to walk about 6.30am in the Hakatere Conservation area in Mid Canterbury, NZ. I took my fly rod and expected to do some fishing but as I walked the Spirit was saying that wasn't what He had in mind but God saw this as an "acceptable sacrifice to Him." I had no idea what that meant at the time but instead of catching fish I caught an amazing video on my cell phone through a pair of binoculars. I was so enjoying the walk  singing spiritual songs from the heart (6kms in) praising and praying with God. Then above me I heard the unmistakable cries of our only truly native example of the eagle family. The video shows my close encounter with a Kaahu or Falcon as follows...  ...

The ability to recognise how you see things can enable you to glimpse the treasures your life secretly holds says John O’Donohue in Anam Cara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World, Bantam, 1997. He says that depending on what is behind it the eye can be fearful or greedy, judgmental or resentful, indifferent or inferior, or loving. These are defined as follows:  The fearful eye concentrates on those things that can hurt or damage you and is continually besieged by threats in the world around us.  The greedy eye concentrates on those things it can possess and is therefore never satisfied but haunted by that which it does not yet have.  The judgmental eye see its world divided by lines and circles, a world of black and white, excluding and separating, and is equally harsh on itself.  The resentful eye lives out of its poverty and can never enjoy what it has, forgetting its own inner wealth and begrudging others theirs.  The indifferent eye seeks only its own ability to contro...

In my days as a farmer I ventured from dairy husbandry of that of deer. Now red deer are quite different to handle in fact, and if you deal with them like cows or bulls you will suffer some damage. The first time I handled my deer I asked an experienced neighbour to help me but prepared to yard the animals before his arrival. They yarded well but for a gate which they pushed around to limit their space so that one hind shot back out and met me centre lane at speed. Being proficient with dairy cattle I raised my arms to shoo her back into the pen but to my total bewilderment she crouched at speed and launched herself, I can only guess, to jump me. However she did not gain the required altitude necessary and consequently kissed me on the lips, dropped me to the ground in this moment of passion, and I spent the next few minutes picking deer hair out of my front teeth while she disappeared somewhere over the hill behind me. From that day on tension filled the pit of my stomach each time I ...

Wisdom seems to be the theme given us for this season in the church. God is looking for fruit from us. A farmer produces fruit as crops, like barley and wheat, meat and wool. But God is looking for spiritual fruit from us. The fruit that He desires is of the Spirit of God in us rather than that of other spirits. God is looking for the sweet easily plucked fruit rather than sour and prickly fruits hard to consume such as love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5). This reading is helping us with a choice we must make of how we can achieve the best outcome for ourselves by using the parable of a suitably positioned planting of fruiting tree. Jesus similarly referred to himself in John 15:1-7 as the vine desirable to be grafted onto, a vine in origin from the rootstock of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The two locations mentioned in the reading relate to surviving testing times through the availability of water to nourish the roots of the ...