Some
years ago, on a summer evening, I watched a car pull up outside my house. It was a fairly old Datsun or Mitsubishi or
something of that ilk. A gentleman got out and began to search the area of my
nature strip. He was obviously looking
for something. I’d found a small dog’s collar the week before when I was mowing
and had put it on top of the fence in case someone came for it. I went out to speak to him and tell him where
it was
He was about 15 years older than me, with fairish hair, thin build and a beard; tidily dressed with clean shirt and pressed dark trousers. He looked up when, across the fence I asked him if he was looking for his little dog’s collar, so I was able to retrieve it from the fence top and hand it to him.
What
struck me most about him was his ordinariness; an inhabitant of the planet who
was, essentially, of the same stuff as me – probably not famous, no status, high
school education, driving an old car. I thought it curious that he would bother
to come back to look for the collar at all;
it was, after all, a flimsy thing, inexpensively replaced. Perhaps it was of sentimental value, but I suspected
that, like me, he would rather find the lost item, than have to buy another.
He looked like a nice man; his face, as do our own faces, showed the outward evidence of the journey his life and his thoughts had taken him.
I
only spoke to him for a few minutes, but in those brief moments, I felt God’s
spirit reach out to him through me, and I prayed that joy and blessing would
alight from God’s heart and rest on his head.
As he drove away, I asked God to follow him through his life. Maybe it sounds big-headed of me to think
that God’s love should pass through me to him, but that’s what happens
sometimes. It’s something I experience,
not as an emotional high, or an extroverted, visible, exciting experience. I can’t recall a single time this has
happened, when I have even said anything to the other person about God. It is like God’s love passes from Him,
through my presence with the person, to them. It is a gentle, unobtrusive
thing. I think they experience it too, but perhaps are not always sure what it
is or how it happens.
I went inside and started the washing up. The Saturday night programme on ABC Classic fm was just beginning and music by an American/German composer was on offer. His name was Franz Waxman and I’d never heard of him, though he wrote a lot of music for films, including the theme music from the 1957 film “Peyton Place” This music is quiet and calming. It has a gentle melody which keeps returning as the theme through the whole piece. The link at the bottom of this blog only goes for a few minutes and holds the main tune/theme but the whole piece goes for about half an hour.
I
finished the washing up, pulled a chair to the back door and sat there in the fading
light, the better to watch the flaming sky and the cooling dusk settle on my
garden. I listened and pondered. This was a time when my life was a bit of a lonely,
unrelenting grind. There was always a
waiting weariness; always too much call on my inadequate and depleted
resources. The tank was always full of
care, frugal living and hard work, and sometimes a tiny leaf of bad luck or the
sting of unkind words would fall on the lapping cistern and I would spill over
into self-pity or depression. I
sometimes doubted God’s provision for me and felt disillusioned about my faith
in Him to guide, protect and help me.
But as I sat there, for a few moments letting the music wash over me with its gentle cadence, I thought about the ordinary, un-wealthy man and of the way God’s spirit had risen in me and flowed to him. It’s witness spoke to my trudging faith and I knew afresh that God is love and that God is good. I know this because His Spirit is an active, living thing in me. It is experiential, not intellectual; it is, as described in Romans 8:10 & 11, a result of inviting Christ to be part of my life; allowing His spirit to dwell in me.
This
calling down of blessing is not like some emotional outpouring of prayer about someone
I care about, because I didn’t know the man.
I had no connection to him; no
reason to feel anything at all for him..
I could not possibly, from the scant reserves of my own storehouse, invoke
joy and goodness to another’s life. Such
things come only from God. They are his
gifts to us. Every day, they flow from
the great ocean of God’s character through us, to the streams of our lives and
society, refilling the rock pools of our sorrows with His living, healing
stream.
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