What is God's grace like?

I went to the farm today - in Henty, NSW, Australia.  The countryside is quite beautiful at the moment.  The seeds Timmy planted have been beguiled by the recent rain, into sending their tender green shoots up above ground. It turns the whole countryside into parkland.

My grandson and I went out for a walk;  he in his paddock-basher pram and me with my trusty gumboots.  I looked out prospective picnic spots under the grand old pepper trees, within sight of the house.  There are lots of low-slung limbs for climbing too.  There are spots to build a fire and burn a snag;  all the better to eat it, with bread and sausage sauce. And then there are the potential cubby-house spots!  Oh!  The whole place is full of them!

We went down by the creek, where there are also copious picnic spots;  we perused the dam and I gave my 18mth-old grandson a gentle reminder never to go there unless a big person was with him.  Dams are dangerous places for kids, but also hold lots of possibilities, later, when he’s bigger, to go yabbying and chuck rocks in the water, and go tadpole gathering.

We meandered on, and the little bloke's chubby  finger pointed out “tactor”, and “shee”…We finally turned down towards the gate and his little head had dropped and he was asleep.  That’s when  I began to pray.  I asked God to be gracious to a lovely man who is waging a terrible battle with a tumour, at the moment. Even as I prayed, I had to leave room for the thought that he may not win the battle in the way we often think, when we pray such a prayer. 

I realized afresh, that God’s grace is not always about our health or comfort or prosperity.  If we think about God in those terms; only believing in Him when we are healthy and comfortable and prosperous, then if calamity strikes, our relationship with God also breaks down and we disconnect ourselves from the very grace and power which can allow us to overcome that which we battle.  If that happens, we are bereft indeed.

God’s grace is always about our spiritual health.  In this day and age, we rarely think about our spiritual health;  we aren’t concerned any more (like medieval people were) about what will happen to us after we die.  But it’s much more than that too;  God’s grace is always about giving us strength and integrity, so we can live our lives here and now, with richness and compassion and dignity.  It even allows us to pass on that grace to others, though we are in the midst of our own fiercest battles. 

A story of a man who was a long way from home, during the Depression in Australia

This is one of my Dad's stories.  He spent most of his life at Eugowra in the Central West of NSW in Australia.   He left school when he was 13 to save the farm from foreclosure during the Depression, so his Education was a bit scant, but he had a flair for stories....

"This epic concerns and American Negro; who appeared in Eugowra out of the blue, as it’s said. He was a big man;  His name was Harry Esperance, and he'd come from the Deep South in America. If you want proof of his name, have a look in the Presbyterian Church in Eugowra. His name is on one of the chairs near the altar.

He was a decided asset to our little village because he set up his living quarters in what had been the picture theatre;  what was the Imperial theatre.  Built in 1927, it was no sooner completed than it was burnt to the ground. Then rebuilt. A supermarket now occupies what was the Imperial theatre. The old open air picture show building ultimately became the shire depot - after black Harry was laid to rest in the local cemetery.

Black Harry got busy to set up a market garden on the block I once owned. On North St. The house on that block was destroyed by a flood on 18^th May 1950. That date I vividly remember. More of that later; it’s a tale all to itself. Harry got going on the open ground between that house and the old open air pictures premises. He had two green thumbs; the vegetables fairly streamed of that land. People went to him to buy. What Harry got up to was to haul his produce around the district in a covered wagonette. Which, same, today are exhibits in rural museums. It is a four wheel conveyance, usually hauled by a half draught horse. In a pair of shanks. Like on a sulky. Sometimes two horses did the haulage. In which case the wagonette was equipped with a pole; with a horse each side if it. The upper part of it was covered by a canopy, made from heavy canvas, held in shape by a frame of wood. The front part had a bench seat on it, that would seat two. The canvas canopy projected out over that seat. I can vividly remember that wagonette coming into Prospect, apparently with no driver in it. Until it got fairly near. Then a bit of white would be visible. Harry’s teeth showing in a grin like a split in a chaff bag. He, at a distance, was totally invisible against the dark interior of that covered-in conveyance. And, to borrow a line from that old southern, when he arrived he was welcomed hearty. He didn’t get chicken and wine; he got tea and cakes. And sold a lot of what he had for sale. Vegetables.

The annual visit of the circus duly came around. We missed Harry; until the populace started to take their seats. We soon found Black Harry. At that time, the travelling circus shows had their own brass band. No such thing as “canned” music then. Circus hands were expected to be able to ‘double in brass’,  as well as set up the Big Top. A lot of them could. Harry was going for his life on a big brass band instrument, half his size. Playing the paying guests to their seats. Even now, every time I hear the Destiny waltz, I can see Black Harry putting his very soul into that beautiful old waltz. Likewise, The Missouri waltz brings back memories of that man. He never told us about his ability to play those instruments. What we did find out about that man was that he’d been a seaman in the American merchant marine. Also had been a circus hand who could double in brass. Hence his appearance in that circus band. The reason he settled in our little village was his age. He was too old to be a seaman. And the rough life of a circus hand was then beyond him. Because, then, in the depression, there was no such thing as social service. So Harry got himself 224 miles away from the water front. To become a very useful member of our little bush community. We eventually forgot his coal black skin. He was very much respected. And in due course was buried in our cemetery."

John 16:13-15; thoughts on the Holy Spirit.

There is so much to say about the Holy Spirit, let me just think about 2:   firstly, the Spirit will always point us to the Father and the Son. Also, the Spirit will lead us to the truth about God.

These are the words of Jesus:

16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

16:14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

16:15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The Spirit declares the very heart of the Father to us. As the verses in John say, “all that the father has is mine and I will declare it to you.

The Spirit actually shares God’s very divinity with us.  I’m wondering who is your favourite actor?  I’m a bit of a generation behind my baby boomer peers I think, because I’m a big fan of Jimmy Stewart and Glenn Ford…. Meryl Streep is also a favourite.  Imagine if your favourite actor called you up every week just for a chat;  just to get to know you and vise versa; be a bit hard for Jimmy and Glenn because they are now in that great movie set in the sky…… But the idea of God with us, is us getting to know God;  God sharing his very self with us.  In a nutshell, the Holy Spirit is God’s personality.  He is the means by which we become like God in character.  He’s the essence of holiness. This is sanctification – becoming holy.  We become more and more like God’s character, through the resident, gentle personality of the spirit’. The HS imparts God’s divine persona to us through the fruit of the Spirit – love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

The fruit are all personality and character traits.  When the HS lives in us, all these lovely things become part of our personalities too.  I find this astonishing! These attributes transcend our circumstances and remain with us no matter what happens throughout our lives.

I have a pen pal in England.  She lives in Market Deeping in Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of the UK. She told me once of a visit she made to Ely Cathedral.  This is a huge worship space in Cambridgeshire some 163m long and 21 m wide.  It’s called the “ship of the fens” because it stands so tall in the surrounding flat countryside. 

My friend’s visit occurred on a day when a huge storm hit.  The wind was wild, driving the rain sideways.  She battled her way from the car to the Cathedral as the elements crashed and raged.

But, she said that once she was inside the Cathedral, up in the main part, all was still.  There was a single candle, up on the altar and it burned without a flicker. I want you to imagine now that you are walking into this huge building.  (picture). You are not part of a tourist or worshiping group;  you are alone, and you’ve had a blazing row with someone in your family.

As you approach the Cathedral, it stands like a great monolith; grey and lofty amongst it’s surroundings.

You walk inside, your body has been buffeted by the elements;  the distress of the argument is still fresh and the drive through the terrible weather has left you stressed and frazzled.  But as you walk up the nave, the great sense of space and stillness enclose about you and you feel your anxiety subside a little.   It seems like time itself knows a different, less frantic pace inside this vaulted cavern.  You look up into the roof space and let your eyes adjust to the different light there.  You look up at each stained glass window in turn;  the light is transformed through this aged glass, to a muted, gentle candescence, not so much less significant, as changed and more impressive somehow. Outside, you know the storm is still throwing itself at this ancient place but the candle on the altar burns serene and untroubled by it.

You walk to a seat on the outside aisle.  You sit there, your heart still pounding, but your agitation powerless and feeble now, defeated by the atmosphere of the place; absorbed and muffled.  You can feel it held at bay, like a raised fist held back by some unseen hand. You sit there, suspended serenely now in the repose of this place.  The candles burn without a flicker;  there is just the silence and the now-calm rhythm of your own breathing.

This is what living with the supremacy of the Holy Spirit is like.

Sometimes our journey takes us through sunny countryside with gentle meanderings and peaceful stopovers;  sometimes we encounter terrible storms where thunder and lightning shatter our senses and driving wind and rain knock us off course.   The HS is like this Cathedral space; it encloses us and it keeps us centred on God;  stilled and grounded in the fiercest of our life’s storms, so that the inner candle of our soul still burns clear and unflinching.  God is the constant in all our changes – an absolutely unbroken, immovable, unquenchable Being.  So, it doesn’t matter what storms we encounter, we can be kept secure in love, joy, peace patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So, if we think of these attributes being with us in our darkest moments, we will still have love even when people treat us badly, and we can respond with love, the way the Bible teaches;  when we face some kind of temptation, we have access, through the Spirit to self-control so we can stay away from those evils which might tempt our appetites. When we suffer terrible loss, we can still have joy, even in the face of tragedy because the divinity of God’s personality can transcend our earthly experiences. We can have peace in the face of worry;  patience in times of illness, etc. Astonishing. We worship an astonishing God, who shares the truth about himself with us.

Windmills and other stuff

I did Pastoral Care at my local hospital recently. There is a team of us, almost exclusively Christian people, from most of the mainstream churches,  who visit people in hospital, from a list compiled by the Hospital Chaplain.  The patients must first have consented to a visit, when they filled out the admission paperwork. I always come away feeling glad to have mingled with all sorts of people.

Some are very ill, like the little girl receiving Chemo;  some are ill from lifestyle choices;  some are in for “repairs”, and some are just sick from various ailments, like the man who said he had gout.  He told me he was going home that day and suggested that I might like to take care of him at home.  Hmmm… the thought of doing what he had in mind, with a 200 kg sleaze was strangely unappealing. And I wanted to say, as Julia Roberts did, sarcastically, to the book thief who tries to chat her up in the movie Notting Hill.  “thanks… but ….. No”.  Instead,  I remained doggedly polite and told him that unfortunately I could only offer pastoral care.

One couple sat by their child’s bedside with a sort of closed detachment and it wasn't because their child was very ill – he was about to be discharged. I got the feeling this was their usual state. They were neither hostile nor pleased. They were absolutely unsmiling and the woman gave one-syllable answers to my polite attempts at conversation. When I said I was part of the Pastoral Care team, I don’t think they knew what that was.  They were, what would be described in the middle class world as “rough”, from a low income area, and the woman in particular, seemed to have a sort of brutish nonchalance about her.

I am still very much learning how to  enter only as far into someone’s personal arena, as they are comfortable with. I never want to intrude or push them to a place they don’t want to go.  I am learning how to gently stand on the barrier of their world and wait to be trusted enough to be allowed a step further.  So I stayed outside their wariness and moved on. I got the impression that this brief encounter with someone whose outlook on life held a large cavern of spiritual awareness, was as close a spiritual encounter as they had ever had. Perhaps for a brief moment the breath of God wafted near;  for them I think it was a completely unknown arena – they lived their lives completely on the physical plane – and it doesn’t do to make them step into that other place, unless invited.

Another old gent told me he had, among other things, mended windmills for a living.  He was, in fact, what’s known as “a jack of all trades” and I always have a sneaking respect for people like this.  I loved the thought of such a practical and wind-powered (yay!) mechanism being expertly repaired, out in the stubbled paddocks with the still, hot breath of the bush all around;  the caw of the crows and the bleat of the sheep, the only sounds.  Sometimes the paddocks would flaunt the exquisite green of newly emerged grain crops , and sometimes the clack and rattle of the giant harvester would be tracking it’s way through wheat and canola. I know I’m romanticising it – it would actually have been very hard work, climbing up and down the windmill and working with metal which would be so cold in winter and so hot in summer.  But I’m sure there were times he would stop and just absorb the stillness;  I know I would.

And at the end of my visiting, I got a coffee at a nearby coffee place;  it's well frequented by all the surrounding medical community, and I was bemused by the variety of people jostling for space in the tiny café – the young nurse in navy pants and top getting coffees for a few others on the ward;  the huddle of Very Important Young Doctors, their stethoscope badges of recognition slung casually around their necks.

And the group of about 6 young tradies from the new hospital work-site, all getting their smoko food.  As I walked out they had adjourned to a table outside where they joked and jostled like school kids – well… they were, after all, not much more than that.  It would never have happened even a few years ago – this mixing of so very different work groups – tradies and doctors sharing the same eatery.  Love that.

As I took my coffee away, I ran into a lady from my church, and her husband, who were seated outside.  She is a very regular attender but he never comes and I hadn't met him before.  After a few minutes my friend mentioned that she wouldn't be at church on Sunday because she had was having a health issue.  He quipped “I’m sure God won’t mind”. I’m also sure He won’t mind. Her husband added that some people who go to church are not very nice people.  I had to agree with him there too. (And I couldn't help noticing how quickly the conversation took a spiritual turn, even though I’d not initiated it;  so different from the other couple who had looked at me with such a blank and disengaged stare).

Some of the nastiest, most cowardly people I've ever met have been regular churchgoers. It could be the reason that most people don’t go anymore – because some time in the past they have been bruised by just such a person. Shame, that.

I try and focus on the nice ones – and they are by far and away still in the majority – the ones who have allowed the indwelling Christ to sweeten their souls and give them a love which shows itself in how they treat others.

I leave the other kind to God, hoping one day the penny will drop and they will realize Christianity is never so lifeless as when it’s just a set of rules and “bible-based head knowledge”. People who live like that can never have their characters refined and sweetened because they have never connected their souls to the living Christ. It’s about releasing all we are to the mercy and grace of God, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, so we grow more and more like him;  rich with the same love and grace.

Lamentations 3:22

I talked recently with a woman I’d worked with previously, but whom I hadn't seen for years since I’d left the Institution we both worked for.  She still worked there and was interested in what I’d been doing since leaving (as was I interested to hear from her).

She knew I’d been bullied at this place, and she knew my son had died in the middle of it all.

She was very compassionate and really listened to my sad tale of how I’d had to resign because 

I couldn't go back to such a workplace, with the added burden of grief I was carrying.

Still, she entreated me “But you should have fought back Susan;  you should have stood up for yourself”.

But I knew I couldn't. I knew it at the time, and I know it now. 

As we talked though, I became conscious of really wanting to leave the angst of the bullying, behind.  There was so much anxiety at the time;  so much resentment of the injustice of it.

But I really felt that, not only did I not want to go back there now, in my head, but that my heart (at least as far as the bullying was concerned) was healed and I could no longer “feel” the anger, helplessness anxiety and betrayal which I’d faced, alone, back then. 

I was conscious of wanting to leave it where it rested – in the past. There was no grudge carefully nursed;  no path of bitterness wreaking havoc through my peace of mind.

I think God has healed me.  He truly does enable us to overcome our circumstances.

God can really transform us with His love and compassion – as long as we keep giving over the rubbish stuff to Him. ‘Consumed” is a terrible word when it’s applied to those negative reactions which threaten our spiritual and emotional well-being – you can’t be close to God when you are consumed by anger or bitterness or self-pity.  When these things hold power over you, God presence is subsumed by them.

But having said that, if you've been hurt or wronged very badly by someone, you can’t just put it away, without working through what happened and what you feel.  Those powerfully tenacious emotions like anger and rancour don’t give up without a fight! 

But they have to be dealt with or they fester and grow.  Pretending you don’t feel them doesn't disable them either.

But God, through His transforming presence and mercy, can take them from our struggling, burdened souls and we are not consumed by them. We keep giving them up to His redemptive power and He keeps tempering them, dissolving them until their power over us is gone.

Rather, the negative destructive forces are themselves transformed in us, by God’s astonishing power to work evil things to our good, and the very circumstances and hurts which threaten to consume us, give us empathy for others who have been similarly hurt and diminished. Not only that, but this grace enables us to pray for those who have hurt us, and when this point is reached, God’s power is set to work to redeem and heal the other also.

God’s power knows no bounds when it is released by our obedient application of His precepts in our lives, even in the face of pain and suffering.

This promise of grace holds us in dignified and ever-renewing strength – that of allowing God to heal and transform us, so that we are never consumed by anything which happens to us in this life.

Amazing.

a sermon on Isaiah 58:9b-14

The book of Isaiah is a fascinating text. Like the view from the top of The Rock, it’s best taken as a whole vista, not just little snippets of verses out of context.  The basic theme of Isaiah is one of falling away from God and taking up idols; of threat of judgement, of offered redemption, and of the blessings which will flow from acceptance of God’s mercy. It’s a picture of God never turning his back on his people even though they grieve his heart with their sin. The whole book is a pointer to the coming of Jesus and his offer of redemption for us at the cross.  There’s this pattern of demolition and reconstruction;  of judgment and salvation.   Then in the last chapters of the book, there’s a hopeful picture of the new Jerusalem which has resonance with heaven for us.

Now, when I said that the book is best taken whole, I was just showing off, so you’d know that I did actually have a scant knowledge of the book, and I want to actually just speak on a one verse which jumped out at me when I read it. Verse 11 says this:  “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail”.  

I watched a documentary recently about a young Canadian man, Robert Bogucki who went on a journey into the Great Sandy Desert to try and find God.  (Incidentally, the Great Sandy Desert is the one in north west  Western Australia, inland from Broome.  It’s roughly the same size as Japan, and it’s surrounded by other deserts). He wanted to fast in the wilderness, like Jesus. He set out on a bicycle with a few belongings and a bible.  But as he got further and further into the desert, the bike was useless in the unrelenting landscape and he discarded it and continued on foot.  Eventually, of courses, he became lost and in grave peril. When his bike and belongings were found, a search was launched using police and aboriginal trackers.  But he wasn’t found. His father eventually came over here with his own search team and found his son, alive, but only just. He’d been 6 weeks without food and 12 days without water and had lost 30 kilos.  The documentary describes how he kept finding water in the most inhospitable of places;  he would dig into the sand to find water seeping up, or he would follow birds which led to waterholes, and he was able to survive.

Most of us would not seek God in such an extreme manner. But all of us encounter times of adversity when we seem to be in a spiritual desert. We’ve all had times when God seems far away and nothing we do seems to bring Him closer. We’ve all had times when the circumstances of our lives are difficult and hard to live through.  But take heart, these times are essential to us finding God, in a way we never could, if all our time was spent in watered and fertile comfort.  Just as Robert  found water in the driest place on earth, not only can we find God, but we can be as these verses in Isaiah describe;  like a watered garden;  strong, resilient, satisfied, contented, a spring whose waters do not fail.  We can be like this, because this is what Jesus becomes to us in times of adversity.

How can this be?  Let’s look at the preceding verses.  There’s a kind of spiritual physics here;  when you do this, there is a certain outcome.  The whole chapter is a discourse on what true fasting is.  It’s not just going without food;  it’s looking after those less fortunate;  it’s relieving those who are oppressed;  it’s giving food to the hungry.  When we do these things, we are promised God’s favour.  Listen to these lovely verses again;  “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;  when you see the naked, to cover him … Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily;  your righteousness shall go before you;  the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.  Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. If you pour yourself out for the hungry then shall your light rise in the darkness”.  This is not just a set of rules though.  You do this, and you get what you want;  you follow the rules and God blesses you.  These things are not just a set of rules and regulations;  they are God’s precepts.  So I think this says that even in the midst of our own trouble, when we continue to live according to God’s precepts, we find God.  Our living this way, becomes a seeking of God and he will never let us go unsatisfied.  Rather, he uses these difficult times, to weed out the dross of our lives;  There is a saying from Arabia;  “too much sun makes a desert”.  It’s true.  If our lives were all comfort and ease, our souls would become cluttered with worldly stuff.   As life still thrives against the odds in desert places, so God’s life becomes a source of refreshment and vitality and streams in dry places, when we continue to trust him.  He becomes a lifeline, like water found in a dry creek bed.  In the natural world, creatures adapt to living in the desert.  One of the inhabitants of the desert, is a tiny lizard, which can survive when the temperature on the sand reaches well over 50 degrees C.  It does so by lifting it’s body up away from the burning sand so that it’s vital organs are kept cooler.  So, in parched difficult times, the stuff we don’t need (like resentment anger and selfishness) are dropped (with God’s help).  In times of difficulty, for example, when someone faces a life threatening illness or loses a loved one, the importance of say, getting back at someone for some slight, seems less important than it did before;  we simply don’t have the energy for it anymore because we see how petty it is.  We can move past it more easily, because in the face of our own, or a loved one’s impending death, it simply isn’t important any more. The harsh light of desert experience can shine a refining light into our hearts.

There is so much imagery in the Bible about trees.  I won’t mention them all, but one of one of my favourites is from Psalm 1, vse 3…. Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord;  he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it’s fruit in its season and it’s leaf does not wither.  There is a season for everything going well; but there comes a time to most people when things perplex and trouble us.  Whatever our circumstances, when we keep our lives anchored in God’s word and in seeking him, then we are like the image of this tree.  We won’t wither and we’ll bear fruit when it’s time.  When I first moved into my present house, there was a lovely standard weeping cherry in the amongst a garden with other plants, but over the ensuing years of drought, it didn’t really do well.  As each season passed, more and more of it died off.  Thinking I would do it a favour, I installed the polypipe dripper system in the whole garden.  It seemed to make no difference and I finally decided I’d pull it out and plant another one. 

The older I get, the more I think that adversity and suffering are God’s hand as much as when everything is going well, and as much as the physical and fiscal things he gives us.  He is the Lord God, and he doesn’t just go around mopping up after the evil one’s schemes.  He is always sovereign. 

It’s in the desert where our true relationship with God is formed.   And Like Robert in the Great Sandy, we become focussed on the really important things which ensure our spiritual survival.  I think this is the answer to the great “why” of bad stuff happening to us.  Have you been through a hard rocky experience lately?  Take heart, God is at the centre of adversity;  he may not have brought it, but he has allowed it;  God made the great Sandy Desert as well as the mighty Murrumbidgee and he has promised us his presence whether we are in the drought of the one, or the watered places of the other (I must say here how lovely it is to see the Bidgee with lots of water between it’s banks at the moment;  haven’t seen that for a while).

We can become so strong spiritually when we endure the desert of adversity or pain, or uncertainty or suffering.  We can become spiritually “well watered”, even though our outward circumstances seem to be the opposite.  Be aware though, that this may not become evident at the time.  When we are stuck in the parched places, the watered garden seems a long way off.   

And the lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places.

Let’s just get back to the book of Isaiah for a moment. It’s set in the time of the exile of the Israelites from their promised land;  God warns them to stop rebelling and repent; he uses their enemies Assyria to chastise them;  then He uses Babylon to take them out of their land;  they are refugees. Then God uses Cyrus of Persia to set them free and take them home. We can see how God uses their adverse circumstances and their rebellion to bring about their eventual spiritual good;  he brings them back into the fold of his favour.  He never lets them stay in their desert of disobedience but always has their spiritual well-being in mind.  And so it is with us.  He uses all the times of our lives to bring us closer to him.  And that’s a good thing, even if at the time, it seems so difficult to live through.

  Amen

I hate it when the car breaks down

The car still isn’t fixed.  It broke down on Monday on the way to work and I had to get towed.  Last week it was the engine housing;  this week it’s the computer.

I got stressed when it broke down.  I think my blood pressure went way up – my heart pounded and I had a sort of pain in my chest.  It’s a throwback to breakdowns passed, especially the one when I broke down 3 times in the one journey, with the same problem, on lonely roads, with the kids, night descending, and costing hundreds and hundreds of dollars, which I didn’t really have.  It was a time in my life, year after year, when everything, big and small, went wrong.

Any wonder that when I break down, the anguish of it comes back a bit. I still carry a sort of resentment towards God for all those dark years, when nobody helped; nobody understood, nobody helped me fight my corner.  All God seemed to do was allow more bad things. 

I know His purpose was to make me rely on Him. He let the devil trick and savage me all through those years.  It was like a trek off into the wilds;  so much darkness; so much despair;  so much conflict in every arena of my life. All to a backdrop of grinding hard work frugal living.

Now, here I am still holding the banner of the risen Christ;  still living by the precepts of the  Suffering One.  I’m still on the treadmill of low income and frugal living, with loneliness as my companion.  It’s just how it is.

I guess I know the nature of Christ and what it means to be a Christian, which is a little more founded in reality than those cardboard cut-outs who cry into my puzzled face “I’m off to Paris!  Isn’t God wonderful!”.  (pukeness-making I reckon).

I know what it is to live in the Spirit and soar with the Eagle (spiritually), with the light of God on my back.  I understand that the light and the soaring are perhaps as tangible and real, when I’m trudging through mud, as it is when I’m in a sunny meadow.  The Spirit and the light are the same whatever my circumstances.

The only thing that stops me soaring is that I’m still a frail human being and have become used to the easier path, when I’m not struggling with the pain of divorce or the loss of a son, or even the car breaking down.  I’m like everyone else – I don’t want to have my faith tested with suffering and loss.  It’s easy-peasy being a banner-bearer when nothing much goes wrong. The fact that it has been tested with these things, only makes me more susceptible to little things going wrong. 

To be honest, I don’t know why I’m still on the treadmill of working when I’d rather give up, and the alone-ness gets to me at times.  So when the car broke down the second time, it triggers the puzzled bewilderment which is still a part of me, and I wonder again, just what on earth was the purpose of all the designed and designated suffering?

But I don’t have the energy to rail against it anymore. I’ve resigned myself that this is God’s lot for me now until I reach “Aslan’s country”;  heaven;  the real Life for which this life has been a preparation.

I just hope God hasn’t got any more bloody awful surprised in store.  If He can’t allow good things (and when I’m in my right mind, I know I have many of those), I wish He’d keep the bad to himself.  I do SO get sick of being changed from glory to bloody glory!

I do get angry with God sometimes. But I SO don’t want to “do” anger either, and being thankful is a way to counter anger.  Anger is exhausting, futile, defeating of joy, hard going, depressing and affects no-one except me.

Sometimes too, God seems silent.  He never answers prayers I ask for myself – even when I was at my wit’s end (many times).  It’s the cost of being an Intercessor for others.

Sometimes He seems silent;  the great Silence from Him who supposedly craves our fellowship. Sometimes, I feel like I’m slowly falling out of love with God. I am tired of making the effort, when I so obviously, so fully misunderstand His ways and purposes.  Or, rather, I keep reverting back, like a blueprint I can’t erase, of a Providential, caring Father-figure God.  I expect Him to look out for me;  to be on my side, stick up for me, provide a little help when life robs me of the good crop I’ve sowed.  But that never seems to happen (or when I’m …. Admitting it now…. Depressed…. That’s how it seems)

Instead, when I am thankful to Him for all the positives of some loss He’s allowed, He allows more loss; just to be sure I have been tested enough.  And really, even though I have this idea in my head of a Providential God, what’s actually in my emotional, spiritual self is this silent, testing, hard-hearted God who looks away at my distress, who looked away at the struggle and suffering of Christ on the cross.

So I’m left with this suffering Jesus who must understand what it’s like to be rejected and un-helped by Father God.  I know too, that if I turn away and leave God out of my life, I am unhappy and left exposed, without shields or protection, to the demons of depression, self-pity, anger and despair. (shudder).

So, up I go again, to turn to the light of the “looking-away God” and the unearthly, unfathomable, joyous song of the Sprit, and to the suffering, bewildered, anguished figure on the cross, who said “why have you forsaken me God?”.

And I understand that. And I think “this is the narrow door”

And I go through it again.

After all, God doesn't really promise that nothing bad will happen.

He just promises an unending supply of hope, strength, courage and even joy, to cope with it all.

He will never leave us, or forsake us, actually  The forsaking is not an earthly, tangible, riches, comfort arena. 

It’s a spiritual arena;  He will never leave us to battle our demons;  our struggles;  our doubts, alone. He will never throw us into a spiritual arena which we cannot win over and emerge triumphant and whole.

I just wish I could get that bit through my head.