This morning, D directed our discussion from Proverbs 3:5-6.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

D asked why his path does not always feel straight, and since the alternative translation speaks of God ‘directing’ our paths, the discussion ranged around issues of direction, faith and how far ahead we are able to see in general.

It was at this point that I thought of my satnav.  I have only recently come to satnav.  Not long before Christmas I wondered if I should get one (this was on an occasion when I was lost and ended up an hour late for an appointment!) but thought they are really too expensive for something which only has one use.  Then I got an iphone and discovered a free (once you have paid for the phone and I am doing that anyway) satnav app.  I am ridiculously excited by this.

Anyway, back to the point.  Having now driven around for a bit with my  phone/satnav working even when I know where I’m going, here is what I observe:

• It always points straight ahead.  When I turn a corner, it reorients itself so that I can proceed with confidence in the way intended.  Though there may be twists and turns ahead, the path ahead for as far as I can see it is straight.
• If there is a turn to be made, it warns me about it in advance.  But not too far in advance.  There may be two turns in quick succession, but generally I only have to look out for the next turn
• Sometimes it zooms in on the detail  of the map; other times it gives me the big picture.  A lot depends on how fast I am travelling and how many decisions there are to be made.
• [this last one I have pinched from D] If I make a mistake it can cope; it tells me to turn around, or adjusts the route accordingly.  If I continue to follow I will get there in the end.

Do I have to spell out the application?

The reason I was so challenged is that it brought back to me an occasion only last week when someone asked to speak to me.  This gentleman is a wheelchair user who has many difficulties in life and who wanted to talk about some of them.  I am very aware of the value of listening to people and I know he was grateful to be able to share some of his burden.  However, I felt a sense of inadequacy when I offered at the end to pray for him.  Surely there should be something else one could offer?  But in this case not – it’s being there, listening and praying.

So to the challenge:  I don’t think Peter felt inadequate that he had nothing material to give to his man.  On the contrary.  What he had was better than anything the man was already asking for.  His confidence was high and that confidence was not in his own ability but  in the name of Jesus.  Well, I did pray in that same name, even though my friend found it odd, I think.  And though my friend did not immediately jump up, walk, leap and praise God (like the Acts man) I dare to believe that the grace of God which touched him is having its ongoing effect.  And God says to me, “Try believing more next time.” When all I have is prayer, then all I have is the power of God who made the universe and who demonstrates love to those who reach out for Him.

I know that’s enough.

While I’m on the subject of healing and illness, I encourage you to check out the blog of a friend whose 8-year-old son is seriously ill.  She writes very movingly about her ongoing trust in God and how to pray while fear and uncertainty are still present.  If you have a moment, read it.  You will be moved and I hope you will pray.

Which leads me to wonder if I always live up to the names and titles I have:  Child of God, for example.  When people see me, do they get disappointed that the reality doesn’t live up to the name?  I guess a lot of people do find exactly that with Christians – leading to complaints that the Church is full of hypocrites.  Of course it’s worth investigating further:  maybe Furthermore Hall is really a magical place when you get inside it (well, we can dream!) and maybe that Christian you are disappointed in is going through struggles you can’t imagine and doing amazingly well to survive.  Perhaps the word over their life is:  however…; notwithstanding…; in spite of everything…

And now I think of it, there’s quite a parable here after all.  For all of us who are ordinary believers, Jesus speaks, “Furthermore” over us:  we are not what we will be.  There are promises yet to be  fulfilled, more words to be spoken, more victories to win.  At the end there are new names to be had (read Revelation 2:17 and 3:12 in the Bible) but till then the adventure continues.

Furthermore…

On the  1st, W left the ministry team of our church to take on a full-time academic job again.  He now commutes quite a distance, stays away 3 nights a week and returns tired, but usually fulfilled, often needing to unload burdens.  His excellent teaching ability, interpersonal skills and massive capacity for organisation are standing him in good stead and it’s great to see him  flourish.

On the 10th we had a wedding!  I (son#1) was married to the lovely M.  An utterly wonderful day.  The ceremony was in the spectacular setting of Exeter College Chapel, Oxford University.  Full of family, friends and the Spirit of God witnessing the joining together of two lives into one.  W was delighted to have been asked to preach and very appropriately he took as his text Gen 2:24, which speaks of a man leaving his father and mother and uniting to his wife.  Very emotional – I’m welling up even as I think of it.

On 17th I took S (son#2) and a carful of his possessions and left them at university.  I thought I might get away without crying this time, and all was well until I decided I would pray for him before I left.  There’s something about prayer which brings emotions to the surface and I cried not because I didn’t want him to go, but because of a mixture of love and pride in the confident young man he has become.  We both laughed and I cried some more.  Good times.

So there it is.  People now keep asking me  if I’m missing either W (because he doesn’t come home every evening) or S (because he’s left home – I has been gone for a while!) and I usually say no, not really.  I actually quite enjoy a fair amount of solitude.  I like reading and thinking and sometimes just being, so when they’re not here, I rarely wish they were, though I do have to admit that there’s a longer term kind of missing in which I realise that W’s and my relationship requires extra input and a bit more work than it’s needed for the past few years. We are developing new routines:   we go out for meals or just for a drink and to talk more often than we used to; we arrange such evenings in advance and look forward to them.

I love the fact that S is revelling in university life, both studies and friendships.  He’s found a church where he is able to give as well as receive and seems happy.  Last night he came home just for the one night:  it’s wonderful to hug him and to hear some more of his stories, but also good to send him off again into what is now his life.

W was right at the wedding to preach on the leaving verse – in actual fact it is the job of parents to prepare their children to leave them.  Every stage of development brings increased independence and it’s the parent who tries to hang on to their child or to control them who often suffers most when the child rebels.  If we let them go they will keep coming back and the ties which should remain will.

And even in marriage, that relationship which does persist (thank God) throughout our lifetime, there has to be a degree of letting go.  W and I have consciously released each other in various ways over the years, with the desire to do all we can to help the other one to fulfil the call of God on their life.  You have to hold on to things and people with open hands – and in truth it’s not only other people that you have to let go:  Jesus said “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life  for me will find it.”  So the principle is that if we are willing for God to mould things, people we love and even our own lives the way he wants, that is the way to the greatest fulfilment.

W’s theme was ‘labels,’ especially those negative ones we give ourselves, or others give us, and which hold us back.  Happily, Jesus is in the business of relabelling people, giving us, if we let him, new names, new purposes and new futures.

I reflected on this later when another friend sent me the link to her blog.  It’s called ‘Halstead Hermit.’  There’s a link to it now on the right and if you read it you’ll see that she is someone who has accumulated labels throughout her life.  You’ll also find an excellent writer.  She may be shy and retiring (hence the blog title) but on screen she is raw, honest and moving.  In real life she is also funny and intelligent.   I am privileged to know her and to have been able to see God at work in her life over the last couple of years.

What I love most about pastoral ministry is watching God move in people.  In the cases of A, W and HH, I see people who, in their different ways, are allowing God to change them from glory into glory.  I’m grateful to them and to God for letting me into that process; I talk, pray and reflect with them all, but really I just watch from the sidelines as God does what he does best.

I wonder what the future holds?

What happened to being not under Law but under grace?  Come on, Christians, stop being so precious about supposed religious discrimination, and let’s get in the papers for saying what’s really important, which is that God loves all people and has sent His Son to save them from their own stupidity and sin.

I’m glad to say this midwife has lost her case.

K is definitely hearing from God at the moment.  It was at his initiative that we opened the church building on Saturday when the town carnival was passing, served cream teas and gave away Bibles (the carnival theme was  books).  He was also in his element last night distributing tissues to people who needed them and catching people who fell down when we  prayed.  God has taught me some very significant lessons through K.

At the end of the service K served me with the ‘double portion’ he had promised me:  of leftover strawberries and cream from the Saturday cafe!  I think I may have heard an angel giggle.

I suppose I understand what the song means, and I certainly won’t stop singing it – it’s a fabulous one (I especially love its chorus).  The writer, I imagine, was reflecting how infinite God’s grace is, how it goes beyond anything we can imagine.  A great thought.  (S)he certainly didn’t intend us to think that we only need a little bit of grace so that there is plenty left over.  Actually, though, I think I am reflecting that I use up the whole of God’s infinite grace every day; that when the Son of God gave himself for me he gave his whole self.  All the grace.  All for me.  Yes for you, too, but all for me – none left over.

Sorry, I’m rambling.  2Corinthians 12:9, which the song quotes, concerns Paul reflecting that God’s grace is enough in the sense that there is nothing else that he requires.  Specifically, he does not need deliverance from the particular ‘thorn’ he has complained about:  grace will see him through.  Grace is not more than enough, but is exactly what we need.  Nothing else.  Now that is certainly worth praising God for.

In those days Israel had no king, so the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

A king, then, would solve the problem, right?  But the prophet and judge, Samuel, warns that monarchy per se is not the answer; a king would introduce a feudal system which would be to the detriment of the nation (1 Sam 8).  Still, Saul gets appointed, and all seems well for a while:  not only does he lead them to some military victories, but he also proves humble and restrained (1 Sam 11:12-13).  But that first part of Saul’s reign  is not the major concern of the Bible writer:  the story moves quickly from his ascension to the throne aged 30 to the point at which he has a son who is old enough to command an army (1 Sam 13:1-2), and now we find an insecure, autocratic ruler.  Saul is not rejected as king in 1Sam 13 for offering sacrifices wrongly, but for failing to be “a man after [God's] own heart.” 

Saul’s departure from the ‘heart’ relationship with God is further shown in the next episode (1 Sam 14), in which his son, Jonathan, initiates a great victory.  Saul swears a stupid oath, one which is not only self-centred, but also abusive to his exhausted troops, that anyone who eats that day, before the final victory is secured, must die.  Jonathan unwittingly eats some honey found in the woods:  would God expect that oath to be kept, (parallels here with Jephthah and his daughter in earlier days)?  The army intervenes, refusing to sacrifice the hero of the day, and Saul is shown to have been foolish. 

The last episode, sealing Saul’s rejection as king, is his duplicity when, after a defeat of the Amalekites, he does not destroy everything as commanded, but keeps good quality livestock and  spares the king’s life.  When  caught out, he pleads that the animals were going to be sacrificed (honest, really they were!!), to which Samuel’s (and God’s) response is that “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” (1 Sam  15:22)

It strikes me that each of these episodes is included not only to justify Saul’s rejection as king, but also to convey some very important truths about God.  It’s easy to see God, as portrayed in the Old Testament, as severe, very concerned for the letter of the Law and ready to punish anyone who steps out of line.  On the contrary, says 1Samuel:  God is looking for heart obedience rather than formal toeing of the line.  Each of the times Saul slips up, he has been more concerned to retain or enhance his own glory and success than to consider others, in particular to keep the spirit rather than the letter of the law. 

We next see Samuel anointing David as king (significantly, the Lord looked at his heart when choosing – 1Sam 16:7) and though it takes some time for Saul’s reign to end, the ongoing saga shows him as an increasingly weak, capricious and jealous man.

To which I respond:  Lord, have mercy.  Reading this over the past few weeks I’ve also been reading and watching news of rebellions in the Middle East and North Africa, and following our domestic politics.  How many people suffer because of the follies of a few!  Those who are out to build an empire for themselves must surely be ripe for judgement, and who would not pray for people with  God’s own heart, those for whom obedience is better than sacrifice, to be leading our nations?

And also, let me not ignore the plank in my own eye.  God save me from sticking to convention instead of being merciful; from justifying my sin instead of repenting of it; from being so wrapped up with the many things I think I have to do that I fail to spend the time to properly understand God’s ways.

It’s common for Christians to talk about living in the last days and to interpret world events as being harbingers of the second coming of Jesus.  I’m not sure  how much we are allowed to do that, bearing in mind that the Bible is specifically unclear about times, and that these things are not new – is it just that this is the first generation which has been so able to be aware of events on a global scale? 

Nevertheless, it seems at the moment that the conjunction of economic collapse, revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East and natural disasters is remarkable.  Will future historians look at this time and see it as a hinge point in world civilisation?  Or does this in fact actually herald the end of this phase of history and the coming of the King?

It’s my suspicion that Christians are always meant to live with the expectation of the return of the Saviour in our own life time.  Certainly Paul and the first century believers had that expectation.  So did Pentecostals in the early and mid-20th century, and even in the 80s when I first came into this tradition.  I think in recent years there has been less focus on the return of Christ.  But I find in my own heart a rising anticipation:  maybe we are indeed the last generation?

On the other hand, maybe Gadaffi will retain the upper hand in Libya and repressive regimes will continue to flourish in the Middle East.  Maybe the affairs of world politics will continue to be dominated by the economic interests of the powerful.  Maybe the world is not yet ready to melt down its weapons to make agricultural instruments.  If so, it’s still the responsibility of the people of God to preach a gospel of love for all people; of power which resides not in human might but in faithful following of a crucified saviour; of the ultimate judgement of God on rulers who seek only their own prosperity; and of the weakness and foolishness of a God who will eventually be proved in the eyes of all to be ultimate strength and wisdom.

We preach Christ crucified