Monthly Archives: November 2020

when the child strays…

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding…A wise child brings joy to their father, but a foolish one brings grief to their mother.

(Prov 9.10&10.1)

“All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations – a people who continually provoke me to my very face…such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.

(Isa 65.2-5)

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me..My people are determined to turn from me…How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man – the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. They will follow the Lord; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west”

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall!…Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously…We will never again say, ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.” “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.”

(Hos 11.1,2,7-10; 14.1-4)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing..

(Matt 23.37)

I have shied away from writing this piece for some time, fully aware that in it I will touch upon a most painful topic for many who might be reading – what happens when a child born to a christian family turns away from following Jesus personally in adulthood. I offer no ready answers, and I hope that I also treat the subject with the delicacy which it deserves, and in no way appear to trivialise it.

We believe that each individual is called to a personal relationship with God through Jesus, and that nothing can take the place of this intimate submission and enthronement of Christ. Our salvation does not depend upon the faith of our parents or anyone else close to us – but on our personal acceptance of the gospel.

As christian parents, we know that the highest good for our children is to follow us into such a relationship. But..we cannot make this happen, any more than by giving our child music lessons we can make them a world class performer! Our duty lies in modelling faith, in teaching what we have learnt, and in seeking to commend the gospel to our children at all times….and we know perfectly well that we fail in this, because we are not perfect. Be comforted dear friend, and remember that the perfect Father of all, our great loving God, also watches his children turn away from him all the time – and that not because he has failed in his loving of them, but because of the sin which is our birthright.

What then? What does our Father do? He calls, he waits, he allows his children to reap the consequences of their rebellions, waiting until they come to their senses and recognise that they are astray in a foreign land, starving, when back home in their father’s house, there is food, security and hope. And when they finally turn and call to him, they find him right there, with his arms wide open in welcome and his love to lavish upon them. God never forces himself upon the unwilling; but the mystery lies in the ways that he creates that willingness – by His spirit working through the very circumstances of the rebellion.

As we wait and love, pray and hope, watching our unbelieving children make their way in the world, we remember and take comfort from God’s understanding of our sorrows. Our own grief gives us a glimpse of the heartbreak which our Father experiences all the time, as his children reject and despise his love,  trying to find compassion and salvation anywhere else but in him.

Our heavenly Father wants our children to trust him, even more than we want it – do we believe this? We must, because the bible makes it very clear. The whole eternal scheme of redemption is designed to draw an unbelieving world into the arms of the One who yearns over them with the tenderness which we read in Hosea. Our own straying offspring matter so much that Jesus died for them, and rose to secure their inheritance, with ours, in eternity.

Let us therefore not lose hope, but cling to our Father in our prayers for the wanderers, knowing that his great heart recognises our grief and takes it up into his own. We are carried by the great Shepherd, who searches diligently, calling for his lost sheep, and does not give up.

In the breakers

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But I pray to you, O Lord, in the time of your favour; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me..do not let me sink; deliver me…from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up..Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble.

(Ps 69.13-17)

I cannot keep my footing, the waves come with such force that I am tumbled over and left breathless. I can barely stand, as the churning waters have stripped the sand off the shore and all is stone, bruising my feet and leaving me off balance. The wind sweeps my breath away, and the hailstones sting my skin like bullets. I am vulnerable and nearly in danger, but not quite, as I stumble out of the sea back to my clothes and head for home.

The sea this morning matched what was happening in my heart and mind – wave after wave rolling in, before which I have no defence, leaving me weary from the conflict, and longing for a place of security and peace.

What is the right response of a follower of Jesus in these circumstances? As I scramble to find my footing again, what restores my balance?

I follow the example of the psalmists, and all God’s people down the ages, as they cry out to God. I turn in all my bewilderment to my heavenly father, and like a small child, ask for his comforting presence, for his loving arms to be my shelter. I bring my grieving questions to him, knowing that there may be no direct answers but also that he understands my pain and I do right to speak first to him.

But in the same way that a chilled swimmer cannot feel the rope around their body to bring them to safety, I cannot feel the comfort. I know that God who promises to work through all my trials for my blessing and his glory will do what is right. But when the breakers have been over me, I cannot feel the security that this should give me.  I am chilled by hopelessness, by a sense that these waves will keep coming because I have caused them and cannot make them stop. I am wearied by the prospect which they present, year upon year of this pain and aridity.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves..I am confined and can not escape; my eyes are dim with grief..

(Ps 88.6-9)

Oh Lord, God of heaven, you are just and holy, pure beyond my conceiving and mighty in creation. What am I that you should consider me? Yet, you have laid your hand on me and called me to be your daughter, beloved and delighted in. How ashamed I am to confess the many ways that I have failed you, hurting others, myself, and setting up consequences which I must live with for as long as it may please you to sustain my life.

Lord, you promise not to leave your children in their troubles, but to sustain them and bring them through somehow purified and made more like Jesus. I want to believe this, but am so weary of the turmoil, and of seeing so little change! How long, O Lord, how long, before you say “Enough” and let me come home, away from the battle and the sin, the wearisome burden of years living with my sinfulness and that of other people?

You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them… Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord. They rejoice in your name all day long; they exult in your righteousness. For you are their glory and strength..

(Ps 89.9,14-17)

I will praise your name, my God and my Salvation. Eternal hope is mine, regardless of what you permit for my temporal days, and that hope grows ever brighter in the darkness of the here and now. Only give me the ability to live day by day in that hope, and let me know your presence through the chillling cold of weariness, so that I might not disgrace my calling and bring your name into dishonour by despairing of life itself. Lord, have mercy, that I may know how to glorify you in these breakers, how to shout your name in praise over the winds, and to exult in the God who is sovereign and will do all things well – even in me!

On being confused…

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The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple…Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me.

(Ps 119.130&133)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God..

(Matt 5.9)

Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men I will disown him before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth I did not come to bring peace, but a sword..Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;…and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

(Matt 10.32-38)

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye-witnesses and servants of the word..Therefore ..it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you..so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

(Luke 1.1-4)

..these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

(Jn 20.31)

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to come to the gospel without any background understanding or knowledge; no preconceptions or expectations, no ingrained bias or barriers to understanding..perhaps no one comes this way, since everyone has consciously or unconsciously made some deductions about how life works and what – if anything it means. But still I wonder, struggling to read the four accounts of Jesus life and ministry without hearing again the interpretations of past teachers, and trying desperately to learn for myself from the written record.

As a christian, Jesus is not only my role model for life, but also the one who by his Spirit lives in me to make that new life possible and desirable. I know, because the bible tells me so, that as I dwell on him, worship and love him, so I am being transformed into his likeness, and that this is for my highest good. But if this is so, then why do I find his teaching so puzzling? So much seems obscure, depending on years of study and intimate knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures (OT) to be understood. Is it really meant to be so hard? Why do we hear of non-believers reading the gospel accounts and coming to faith, when I frequently come away bewildered and wondering what I ought to have learnt?

Perhaps I am simply intellectually too lazy to do the necessary work; perhaps my heritage does truly hinder me, as I am so accustomed to learning from the preacher, and not from personal bible study. But the fact remains that while I can read much of the scriptures to great personal benefit, finding encouragement and direction, when I come to the gospels, I am often baffled.

But I persevere, trusting that even what seem like superficial observations are worth making, and that in my own confusion, I might identify with Jesus’ disciples, who must often have wondered..Who is this man who first commends peacemakers, and then claims to have brought a sword to divide the closest families? Who is this man who shows love to the outcasts, and shockingly rebukes the religious leaders?

One thing is becoming very clear as I read in Matthew….Jesus polarises opinion, leaving no middle ground when it comes to our response. It is not possible to say, “Oh he was a good man, a great teacher”. His teachings are puzzling, challenging and disturbing. He speaks more about judgement and hell than anyone else in the bible. He claimed to be the Son of God, equally divine, with full authority over creation and the spirit world.

If I will not accept Jesus on his terms – as God; as the physical manifestation of the Almighty and Eternal Judge as well as the loving and redeeming Saviour; as the only true Lord of my life, before whom every other human tie or principal must submit; as the Sovereign whose ways are utterly beyond my finding out, and who must be trusted, not understood – then, I am rejecting him utterly, and in so doing, I am putting myself beyond the reach of God’s mercy. This was the tragedy of the Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ day, that the Messiah whom they longed for stood before them, but because he didn’t fit their theology and expectations, they rejected him with merciless fury, and stood thus condemned before God.

Jesus says, “Take me, and you find God. Reject me, and God will not know you.” He will not force anyone to accept him, but if – as he claims – he is the only true way by which I may find hope, home and healing in God, then I must and will persevere in my quest to know and love him as he is. May God grant us humility and understanding as we feed upon his word, and are transformed by the Word into His likeness.

His rules, and rule…

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And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years…and it was so.

(Gen 1.14)

The Lord..said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures…As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

(Gen 8.21&22)

Praise the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendour and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants….The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down…How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures..May the glory of the Lord endure for ever; may the Lord rejoice in his works – he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

(Ps 104)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created..He is before all things, and in him all things hold together..he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

(Col 1.15-20)

A friend recently observed that while we believe and trust in the Saviour who has made us members of his kingdom – an eternal and unshakeable one – yet we are still also time-bound human creatures, and therefore live with a strong tension between the ‘now and the not yet’. We know the truth of our hope for life after death, and of our Lord’s sovereignty, but the circumstances of our planet, our nation, our immediate condition, press so inevitably and strongly on our consciousness that we must pay attention to them too.

In this tension which runs through our lives as believers, I find great comfort in observing the unmistakeable hand of God in sustaining the laws and rhythms which govern the created things. The same God who established his kingdom through Jesus, is the one who called into being the galaxies and who rules the motion of every star and planet by his own immutable law. I can see the latter, while I cannot begin to understand them, and I am reassured  in my citizenship of the former!

I consider the moon and the sun, which between them exert such incredible power over our planet – power designed and instituted by God to sustain our lives as they drive our climate, our seasons, our very days and nights. Without his intimate and mind-boggling control over the details of physics, and his faithful upholding of the underpinning laws, we would be without hope. And as I consider that through all the millenia of known history, God has chosen to sustain those patterns and rules – in the face of the rebellion of his creatures – I am humbled and awed into profound thankfulness for his sustaining mercies.

As we continue to live through days of restriction and with levels of uncertainty not known in the prosperous and peaceful UK for over 50 years – though sadly too familiar to millions around the world – I put my confidence and trust in the God who says each day to the sun, ‘Shine!’, and to the mighty oceans, ‘Rise and fall’. He has upheld his creation through untold years, and has promised that until all his children are gathered in, the rules will be kept. His grace is truly designed to lead us to repent and depend on him, he desires that none should perish. The rule-maker is also the Rule keeper – the Lord above all, in whom all things are held together and for whose glory they exist. I rejoice to know and be known by one who is so utterly dependable, and so full of compassion towards his creatures that he holds back his just judgement, and sustains their lives, in order that they might come to know and love him. 

One story..in many chapters

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Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me.

(Ps 119.129-133)

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”…. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom..

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

(Matt 4.17&23,5.17&18)

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

(Luke 24.25-27)

“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life….do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

(Jn 4.39&40,45-47)

One of the – admittedly few – disadvantages of growing up in a christian home, under a ministry of faithful biblical preaching, is that so much is familiar and absorbed unthinkingly. It can be a challenge to read and listen to God’s word without hearing and understanding through the lens of those who taught me, and I suffer from a real lack of confidence in handling the word responsibly for myself. For example, it is only recently that I have realised how significant Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 are for my own understanding of the bible! 

It can be tempting to dismiss or discount those parts of what we call the Old Testament which are dull, hard to understand, or difficult to reconcile with our own ideas of God’s character and purposes. We might want to pretend some of it was never said, or has nothing to do with the ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ of the gospel narratives. In fact, Jesus himself makes this impossible by his words to the disciples in the Sermon on the Mount. 

Jesus own ministry is explicitly placed in the context of the Hebrew scriptures – Law and Prophets – and he claims not to be replacing, but fulfilling them. In other words, everything which had been written, was part of God’s revelation towards this point when the Son of God would inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth. I find this a great encouragement to me – both in my appreciation of the many places where I find comfort and instruction; and also in my wrestling with the places where the message is painful, and even apparently contradictory. Jesus refuses to rub out anything. The God revealed in the Law and Prophets is his Father; there is no inconsistency between what has gone before, and what he will reveal through his life and ministry. Rather, he comes to wrap it all into a coherent and cosmos-shaking mission, by which the future of the world and its people is forever changed.

The God of the Hebrew Scriptures (the OT), is loving, passionate, slow to anger and intimately concerned in his children’s lives. The Son of God revealed in the gospels is loving, passionate, denouncing unbelief, exhorting with tears but unflinching in his proclamation of the eternal separation and judgement which will come on those who insist on having their own way. One God, in three persons, telling a unified story of redemption, transformation and new creation.

I have – in our combined scriptures – God’s good gift to me of revelation, of faith-food for life, all that I need in order to live with and for him. Let me grow in hunger for and reliance on that word, rejoicing that I can trust it to be nourishing and sustaining, even if – and maybe especially when – I have had to really search and wrestle to understand!