Holidays, a time to relax and just do stuff. I like holidays. I enjoy spending time with my family, taking time to explore and discover places with my wife, maybe getting away for a couple of days to 'distance' from how cluttered life can easily become, and to read.
I love reading. Fortunately - or intentionally - my vocation in life requires me to read extensively. Usually holidays begin with reading half a dozen fiction novels, usually thrillers or science fiction, nothing too heavy. These holidays, however, I've managed to finish some books that I needed to and, thanks to my new kindle, get some books that have caught my attention as well as blogs and articles that interest me. I've been reading Tom Wright, Scot McKnight, Roger Olson, John Piper, Michael Horton, Tony Jones, Frank Viola, Rob Bell ('Love Wins,' not as controversial as expected), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (so I sound smart), Dan Brown (for non-thinking diversion, and comic relief in his use of scripture), and Jeremy Clarkson (who really doesn't have much to say about scripture at all).
Reading is important. Reading helps us discover who we are and how we see the world. Reading, rather than listening or viewing, gives us time to consider what is being presented to us, to reflect on it and determine how we understand it's validity and applicability to our lives. I know that to a degree, reading has fallen out of favour in our contemporary society (probably not with you, if you're reading this), and that even many higher education students attempt to complete their course with as little in depth reading as possible. I don't think I'm just being 'old fashioned' about this, I am genuinely concerned about what this says about us as a culture and how it will affect our future.
We are shaped by media. Music, television, movies, advertising, celeb gossip, fashion etc. More than any other time these influences are framing our identity. If these elements of popular culture are added to the reflective writings of of contemporary thinkers and the perspective offered by an understanding of the philosophical and historical influences that have shaped our world, then we have a broad-based framework with which to construct and continually critique our personal world-view. When we don't, our life is built on something that is perhaps far too shallow and narrow to adequately prepare us for the challenges of life.
As followers of Jesus Christ I believe it is vital that we read and study to grow in our faith and as reflectors of the presence of God's kingdom on the Earth. First and foremost, those who are disciples of Jesus read the Bible. If we think the Bible is God's instruction book for life, or that it holds 'magic' promises to be claimed for our personal benefit, we have missed (tragically and disturbingly) the purpose and power of God's Word. The Bible is neither (or barely either) of those two popular caricatures. The Bible is primarily God's story of his interaction with his creation, and of those who, under the inspiration of the Spirit, recorded that interaction. From careful reading and study we can then, with confidence and inexhaustible depth of reflection, frame an understanding of how best to live as his image bearers in his creation. And, rather than this being a one-off event, it is a process of being 'reformed and always reforming' to quote the slogan of the Reformation.
The Bible, however, is an easy book and a difficult book to understand; it is a simple and complicated book. I also believe that if we are serious about our desire to follow Jesus, we will avail ourselves of every resource, modern and ancient, that helps us in our journey. God has provided many gifted scholars to assist us in knowing Jesus and his Word. The Bible is an ancient book, it speaks in ancient words to an ancient culture. To truly engage with its message and challenge we have to understand what it was saying then and how that translates to now. To do this I need help.
We also make a mistake if we only read or listen (the tyranny of podcasts) to a very narrow spectrum of teaching. If God is continually speaking through his Word to his people then the development of understanding him didn't conclude with Augustine or Aquinas or Edwards or Calvin or Wesley or any of the other great preachers and teachers of the past. The resources and understanding of ancient writings and culture that we have today help us to better comprehend what was meant in God's word and how that might apply to our time and culture. We would be foolish to consider what has gone before as the culmination of Christian thought and that all that is left is application. Rather, the onus is on our generation to stand on the shoulders of giants and, with the resources God has provided for us, to continue in the quest to know him. Obviously I'm not referring to some of the wild and wacky ideas that pass themselves off as Christian teaching today, but rather to the thoughtful, prayerful and scholarly consideration of what God's Word is teaching us and how that might work in the world and time in which we live.
So read. Read thoughtfully. Read widely. Read people you know you will disagree with. Read stuff by dead people and those still breathing. But please, don't read for information or to simply be smarter, read to grow and to become more like Jesus.
I have a t-shirt I like very much, I got it for when I taught a class on eschatology (end times) last year, it shows an explosion and the caption, 'It's the end of the world as we know it.' A few weeks ago I was shopping and as I went through the checkout the lady asked me about my t-shirt and expressed her concern that the Incas might be right and 2012 will see the end of the world. I made some flip comment about them just getting to the end of their calendar and probably figuring they'd continue it when they got there.
The lady serving me was horrified! Didn't I think they were right? How could I be so nonchalant about the end of the world? Since I didn't think the checkout at a supermarket was the right time and place for an exposition of Christian eschatology I simply replied that as long as my son got his birthday in on the 20th of December the Incas could work it out from there....and left...quickly.....
So here, on the last day of 2011 is probably a good time to suggest that I really do hope that 2012 is the end of the world as we know it. Let me explain.
I don't mean in a 'second coming' kind of way, although if Jesus wants to come back next year that's ok with me. I mean in the I'd-like-to-see-things-change-for-the-better-and-followers-of-Jesus-represent-the-presence-of-the-kingdom-of-God-more-effectively kind of way. I don't want this post to be a criticism of the way we do things (although there's a part of me that would like to, but hey, I'm the first to put up my hand when it comes to falling short of whom I could be), I just want to express my hope and desire that we, the body of Christ, could do better in living up to the call and example of our glorious Lord to show there is a new way of being human and it's the way of Jesus.
Just a couple of things to clear up before I present my wish list for the 'end of the world.' I don't think Jesus is coming back to take us all away from this horrid world to live forever in heaven. I don't believe that kind of gnostic dualism is representative of the biblical narrative and certainly doesn't look anything like what Paul describes in Romans 8 or John saw in Revelation 21. Neither do I believe that the world is going to get better and become 'christianised' before the second coming. That certainly doesn't look anything like how Jesus depicted the time before his return (and no, I don't think Matthew 24 has anything to do with the second coming or else Jesus was being particularly deceptive in answering the questions his disciples asked and we haven't done our homework on Israel in the first century). I think that there will be injustice, suffering, hurt, violence, poverty, sin, unrighteousness, and all the other ills that creation is subjected to and has been since Adam's fall. But I also think, and this is the point of my post, that the church has the mandate to shine brighter and express expansively the truth that Jesus is the Lord of the world and is in the process of making things right, a process that will see its culmination at his return.
So I'd like to see the end of the world as I know it and see a few things change. I'd like to see us love more - be more accepting and welcoming and gracious in a way that truly reflects the community of a loving God. I'd like to see us less concerned with our buildings and technology and 'profile' and more concerned with the poor and marginalised who really need good news. I'd like to see us embrace the entire gospel - where good news isn't a personal relationship with Jesus (or, at least, isn't just that), but is a more biblical announcement that Jesus is king of this world and calls all people to join him in demonstrating what it looks like when God is in charge. I'd like to see us reject a mythical 'health and wealth and Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life' message (and if that was what Jesus was teaching why was everyone so upset?) and embrace a truly authentic message that life can be difficult and messy but Jesus offers strength and hope and healing no matter what we might encounter. A message that has less to with what we have and he can give us, and more to do with who we are becoming and who he is to us. I'd like to see a church that encounters all the various challenges that were the subjects of the epistles, but learns from them to be a community of love and equality and grace and generosity and justice. The kingdom Jesus offers is virally subversive to all the other stories of power and success that culture offers and shakes and threatens the powers that control this world. At the same time it offers a new life and hope to all who change allegiance (repent) and trust in Jesus and forms a community that welcomes everyone to be a part living differently.
I'd like to see a church that isn't concerned with size and wealth and marketing and assets and all the other things that culture defines as success and re-discovers the sacrificial call of Christ to faithfully represent him where we live, work and play. I'd like to see a world where Christian service isn't something we do for the church but for our community, and Christian leadership isn't defined by privilege but by being a servant.
I'd like to see church, a body of Christ, a representation of the kingdom of God that takes seriously 'love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and love your neighbour as yourself' and 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' If I saw all, most, some of these things (and a whole bunch more, but this is already too long and preachy), then we would see the end of the world as we know it and the possibility of a world as it one day will be.
And yet, to see any of these things, I must wrestle with the sinfulness and selfishness of my own heart. There's a log in my eye much bigger than the splinter in yours. So perhaps, what I need to see in order to bring about the end of the world as I know it, is more of Jesus and less of me.
How about you?
'Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel' (Is. 7:14) This famous prophetic scripture is repeated in Matt. 1:23 where Matthew gives us the meaning of Immanuel - God with us. However this verse is viewed in Isaiah, the first gospel indicates it is fulfilled in the person of Jesus.
My desire in this post isn't to focus solely on the birth of Jesus as the point of God's dwelling with his people, but rather to see that as the culmination of the presence of God with us. Israel's God, the God of the Old Testament, was a God who dwelt in the presence of his people and was intimately involved in their lives. The OT carries stories of God walking with his people (sometimes physically), talking with his people, and intimately present with them as they journeyed through life.
Probably the best passage concerning the 'with us' of God is Psalm 139. In it we have revealed a God who not only knows all, but is everywhere present, 'Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the dark will shine like the day, for the darkness is as light to you.' (Ps. 139:7-12)
This is Old Testament! This is the God of Israel who always has been and always will be Immanuel! This is the God who provides food for his creation (Ps. 104:21), who is in the pillar of fire and cloud, who is present in the Temple and on Mount Sinai, who finally and completely reveals himself most intimately in Jesus, God in the flesh, the physical representation of Immanuel - God with us. And then, beyond all expectation, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells with us and in us, uniting all who have faith in Christ into one body of which Jesus is the head. From Old Testament to New we have a God who has always been Immanuel, God who is with his people.
The god's of the Ancient Near East were localised gods whose worshipers sought their favour by manipulating their gods to become involved in their lives; the gods of Greece and Rome were capricious, petty deities who observed humanity from their lofty homes and occasionally ventured into the world of human beings for good or for ill. To a degree this 'cosmology' has influenced Christianity. When we consider God to be sitting in heaven, watching the activities of the world and deigning to involve himself when invited to or when he chooses, we are engaging in a modern deistic form of Greco/Roman religious philosophy. The god of deism isn't the God of the Bible. The god of deism is removed from his creation, but the God of the Bible, the God who walked the roads of Israel as Jesus the Messiah and now continues his intimate involvement in the person of the Spirit, this God is involved, present and engaged with his creation.
The Christian faith grew out of and continues the faith of Judaism. Christians haven't replaced Israel, but have seen God's people expanded from being centred on a particular nation to being centred on a person: Jesus. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the God of Jesus and his followers. The God who is present with his people is the God who feeds the young lions, who knows every hair on our heads, who cares for the sparrows, clothes the flowers of the field with beauty and whose Spirit groans with creation as it waits for the day of redemption.
I understand that the localised presence of God is in the control room of Earth (heaven), and that Stephen saw Jesus in the throne room waiting to receive him. I understand that Daniel prophesied the enthronement of Jesus as the world's true Lord, and that Luke describes it in the ascension and vindication of Christ. But this God is still the omnipresent, everywhere present, immanent God who loves and cares and walks the dusty roads of my life with me.
This is my comfort, that every day when I wake and every night as I sleep my God is present with me. He is involved in my life in ways I don't even perceive, and is 'with' me, on my side, for me and eternally engaged with me, never leaving or forsaking me.
This, then, is Immanuel, the announced Messiah of Israel and Saviour of the world. The birth of Jesus wasn't a new idea in the story of God, that God was now present with his people, but rather a new development in that truth - that God had fulfilled all his promises to Israel and was physically present for a time to deliver them and to welcome all who have faith in him. The birth of Jesus, Immanuel, heralded a new chapter in the story of God and his people, and though we remember it in this particular season, we can confidently embrace every day with the knowledge that God is with us!
I love Christmas. I love carols, the tree, decorations, lights, giving gifts, eating too much, fruit mince pies, Christmas cake, plum pudding and the Muppets Christmas Carol!! I think it all stems from when I was little and because I was an only child Christmas was all about me. We didn't have Christmas Day with any other family, there was just my Dad, my Mum, me, a huge tree with lots of presents (mostly mine) and a feast at a local restaurant (Dad didn't think Mum should have to cook on Christmas Day). So for all the right reasons - and all the wrong ones - I love Christmas.
But this year it just doesn't feel like Christmas.
I've tried to work out why, but keep coming up blank. Our tree and decorations are up, we are getting cards and pre-Chrissy gifts, we're shopping for presents, planning the menu, looking forward to carols at church, but it just doesn't feel like it should. I haven't even put my carols cd on in the car!
I expressed my concerns to my wife who suggested that the whole commercial panic and stress that people feel at this time of year, exacerbated by the economic stresses, is dampening my usual enthusiasm for all things Christmassy. Perhaps, but no matter how stressed and 'Grinchy' my local shops may feel, it never effects my 'Joyeux Noel.'
Some of you may feel that Christmas is over-rated anyway. I know that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th and that the church used a pagan holiday (and many pagan symbols) and reinvented them around the birth of Christ. The same way that Easter has nothing to do with bunnies, eggs or chocolate in the biblical narrative. But I don't care, I think that setting aside time to remember and celebrate the birth of the Saviour is a great thing, and to do it generously, thankful for the many blessings we receive with family and friends is important.
The story surrounding the birth of Jesus is dramatic, unexpected, earth-shattering and head-spinning. An angel appears to a virgin and announces she will give birth to Messiah, the Saviour of the world - and she responds with praise to God, despite the shame and ridicule it will bring. Joseph decides to do the extremely honourable thing and put aside his apparently unfaithful fiance (for more on this listen to my wife's message on citylight.org.au), only to have an angel tell him to marry her for she is carrying a child conceived by the Holy Spirit, and he is the Saviour. He responds by ignoring the gossip and the loss of honour and marries his betrothed. The Lord of the world is born in a manger in a stable and welcomed by animals and shepherds. The King of kings and Lord of lords is a helpless and vulnerable child who has to flee for his life from Herod.
This story carries the essence of what I'm missing this year, I think, magic and mystery and a moment of pause in the fabric of life. The symbols of Christmas 'magically' transport us to a place of promised joy, peace and possibility. The story of Christmas reassures us of the mysterious presence and involvement of God in our everyday lives. Christmas Day with our loved ones gives us pause to consider the blessing of having them in our lives, and perhaps reassess our priorities for the coming year.
Ultimately, then, the reason it doesn't feel like Christmas is because of me. The magic hasn't gone, the mystery remains, the time for reflection and celebration is still there. For some reason I have failed to embrace them this year. Why really doesn't matter, what matters is that I do.
So bring on the holly and ivy and wreathes and trees and angels and all the images and symbols that represent Christmas for our culture (even snow and Santa!); sing out carols loud and strong whether they be 'Hark the Herald Angels' or 'It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas'; re-read, re-tell and re-live the culture challenging story of the birth of Jesus; STOP - and give time to what is important in life. I can't make it feel like Christmas for anyone apart from me, but if enough of us do, if enough of us refuse the frantic commercialism that even Christians and churches engage in, then perhaps we can make it feel enough like Christmas that more will stop and notice.
I hope and pray that if I do, if we do, then the magic, the mystery and the message will re-emerge: 'Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord...Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.' (Luke 2:11, 14)
Merry Christmas!
The title needs some explaining, so let me explain. I've been looking forward to the first Cricket Test of the Australian summer (naturally) and anticipating the new breed of Aussie quicks taking on the Kiwis, not to mention our new batting line-up. However, the player who has caught my attention is New Zealand's Daniel Vettori.
I've always liked him, and been frustrated by his ability to hang around with the bat and get vital wickets with his spin bowling. He may not be the most naturally talented cricketer ever to grace my favourite sport, but he is a player of great character, tenacity and longevity. Those characteristics are successful in themselves, and I consider Vettori to be a successful player and captain of New Zealand, and I think that he epitomises the Bible word for success - faithfulness.
We can't all be the most talented, or gifted, or intellectually astute, or charismatically attractive people, but we can all be faithful. Almost as soon as I type those words I can sense the unspoken understanding that when we label someone 'faithful' what we really mean is that they are just average and not really living up to potential. God forgive us.
Both Matthew and Luke record the importance of faithfulness to the work of God in our lives (Matt. 25; Luke 19), Paul reminds us numerous times that God is faithful, and in Revelation 19 the triumphant returning Christ is called Faithful and True! Faithfulness is a great virtue, one of the fruit of the Spirit, and a characteristic to be treasured and aspired to. Faithfulness isn't doing what you've always done hoping one day to be noticed, but is a life lived fulfilling the calling of God on your life with patience and humility.
Thank God for the many faithful people we will never hear of. Men and women who will never grace the stages at our conferences, will never write books, will never be seen on our tv screens or lead our biggest churches. But in an age characterised by a lack of commitment and celebration of style over substance, perhaps we need to hear and learn from and know these nameless and faceless faithful servants who carry forward the Kingdom of God day by day, month by month, and year by year. Perhaps these are the voices who will help us find the simple joy of 'living peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is pleasing to our God and Saviour.' (1 Tim. 2)
We live in a success oriented culture, and I am a great believer in seeking to be successful, but perhaps what needs consideration is our definition of success. The way of Jesus was and is subversively counter-cultural, therefore our understanding of what success means in the Christian context is also counter-cultural. Fame, riches, power, quantifiable achievement all have their place, but none define Biblical success. Each area of life has different measures of success: in business it may be profitability; in sport, runs or goals or gold medals; in music, albums sold; in acting, movies made or Oscars earned; but in the Christian life, in the body of Christ, success is defined by faithfulness to the vocational calling on our lives and diligently outworking that with the help and empowering of the Spirit.
When we measure our lives (or those of others) by the standards of our secular culture we abandon the counter-cultural and freedom bringing standards of the Kingdom of Christ. Where the guiding principles of our lives, our businesses, our organisations and our churches are those of our culture, we no longer express that there is a different way to live, the way of Jesus. But when we celebrate and recognise the faithfulness of each person who humbly and 'successfully' lives each day within the capacities and gifts they have been given for the glory of God, we prophetically declare the Kingdom of God has come and that there is a new way of being human in this world.
As I have been writing this, Daniel Vettori was run out for 96. He didn't fulfil his potential, he didn't get his ton. But he has saved the innings for NZ and done more than any of the more talented and celebrated batters did. Success as defined by our culture is over-rated, it is mostly here today and gone tomorrow. But faithfulness, humbly and diligently imaging the presence of Jesus in our lives, that is the kind of success that will truly echo for eternity.
Last week some friends had a baby. I know this happens all over the world all the time, but this was their first - always special - and she is a miracle baby. Without going into the details or story, baby Grace is a gift of God. Her birth capped off a week for us as our youngest child graduated high school and our daughter was accepted to medical school, all of which caused me to be thankful for the goodness and grace of God.
This isn't to suggest that there haven't been challenging and difficult times through the school years, or that there won't be more to come. Life is full of struggles and battles, joys and celebrations, dark nights of the soul and glorious breaking dawns. Life is what it is, and through it all is the goodness and grace of God.
Paul wrote, 'I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.' (Phil. 4:11-13 NIV) Despite revisionist attempts to make this affirmation of trust in God more triumphalist, it stands as a confident assertion that no matter what life may throw at us, God is sovereignly involved in our lives and is our source of strength and peace.
The biblical picture of God isn't a deist one that depicts him benignly looking down over the balconies of heaven to see what is happening with his creation, but one that portrays his immanence and intimate involvement in every aspect of our lives. Jesus taught that his Father watches over the birds and knows every single hair on our heads, the psalmist writes that God provides the food for the animals and birds, and Psalm 139 is explicit in the engaged presence of God in our lives. God's goodness isn't promised to protect me from the difficulties and tragedies of the human condition, but to sustain me through them.
Jesus participated fully in being human. We are to grieve with those who grieve, as did he; to rejoice with those who rejoice, as did he; to embrace and engage in this life we have been given trusting in the goodness of God, dependent on the grace of God, confident that one day he will redeem and transform this world completely at the coming of Christ.
Many would consider the Christian confidence in God's goodness and grace and ask, 'What about....' and then list tragedy, suffering, pain, injustice and disaster. They ask how a God who allows such things can be good and gracious. In reply we might expound our theological and philosophical reasoning, and yet, in the face of human suffering, they often fall on deaf ears. 'Where was God when.....?'
This isn't a place for me to try to interact with these difficult questions, even assuming I could. All I can do is reflect on my own experience, an experience that has known deep, deep hurt and struggles, and also incredible joys and celebrations. My experience has been that when life has done it's worst, God wasn't in heaven looking down to see how I'd go, I couldn't love a God like that, rather, he was with me, walking with me, suffering with me, giving me that glimmer of hope that whatever happened, he wouldn't abandon me. The God who suffered for his creation on a cross suffers with his creation even as he works to redeem it. Romans 8 teaches that the Spirit groans with us even as he helps us in our weakness.
Last week was a great week, some weeks won't be so great, but no matter what, God is good and gracious and for that I am eternally thankful.
It's been a few weeks since last I blogged thanks to the busy-ness of life, so as I come to this new post my thoughts are occupied with Jesus. That's probably a good thing for a Christian, particularly if you're a pastor, but I guess my point is that in the many things that vie for my attention and the many facets of church and faith I study, I always come back to Jesus. He is the centre of my faith.
Again, that may seem obvious, and yet as I live my life and talk to so many people it's amazing how easy it can be to get caught up with things and forget that Christians are simply called to follow Jesus. Christianity is that simple, and that difficult. Whole industries have evolved and keys and steps and principles appeared to teach us how to follow him. It occurs to me that Christ himself didn't feel the need to complicate this call to discipleship because he knew the complexity that was hidden in that call. To follow Jesus is to embrace the mission to image God in this world and represent the presence of his kingdom, this new way of living as a redeemed human being. This isn't easy.
Jesus himself said that in this world we would have difficulties (John 16:33), and we often - rightly - take this to mean opposition from the powers and the fallen nature of our world. I think that he also knew that negotiating life as a renewed-yet-still-flawed human being means making choices and decisions that are often less than clear, even with the guidance of the Bible and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Some would tell me that we can clearly hear the voice of the Spirit leading us in every decision if we just listen carefully enough. Yet my observation is that they struggle just as much as anyone else. So if you think that either you're hard of spiritual hearing or that the Spirit shouldn't play Chinese whispers and should communicate with more volume - take heart, you're normal! A study of the scriptures indicates that God expects his children to navigate life wisely and in submission to his Word and their renewed, Spirit coached conscience. God doesn't desire puppets or robots, but children who grow, triumph, fall, get up, and actively and lovingly follow their Lord. This mixed up, sometimes confusing, always surprising wrestling to work out our faith is what it means to follow Jesus.
And so it comes back to him in his humanity and deity, God and man, demonstrating how to live well and be the soon to be revealed kingdom: to be salt and light and a window into what could be and will be when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. The life and words of Christ challenge and fascinate me, his suffering and death redeems me, his resurrection liberates me and assures me his promises are true. I am rarely able to determine 'what would Jesus do,' but I can seek to comprehend all that he has done and how I can therefore express the reality of his kingdom, this new age he has inaugurated, in my time and culture.
It is so easy to get caught up with programs and styles and goals and success and buildings and all the other aspects of modern life. But in the midst of it all is Jesus. Our wonderfully, gloriously, incomparable Saviour. The call to follow him is to humbly and joyfully journey through life in community with a bunch of other disciples, learning together what it means to be 'the body of Christ.'
I don't think Jesus is particularly bothered about the size of our churches or bank accounts or houses or share portfolios (he probably is actually, but not for the reasons we expect - see Luke 6:20-26), I think Jesus is interested in whether we are seeking to follow, whether we are doing it in loving company with others, and whether we are different today than we were yesterday. I am constantly challenged as to whether my life is a Jesus shaped life. It's not, but I pray that I'm on the way - that I'm following him.
