Category Archives: Comfort

Return to Sender….

Leave a reply

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.

(Matthew 23. 37)

As human beings, the bible tells us that we are made in the image of God, the Three in One, whose existence is a perpetual delight in relationship and loving. We are made to connect with others – ultimately and most wonderfully with God himself! But while we strive all our lives to make and enjoy these relationships, we know that our flawed humanity conspires against us, undermining our ability to love, to receive love, and to delight in one another without a thought of self.

It is an unhappy position, to be made for something, and yet unable to ever truly find it, no wonder our world is filled with dissatisfied people. As Christians, we have the wonderful knowledge that our relationship with God is restored, and nothing can ever come between us again. But even there, the remnants of pride, selfishness and the baggage of broken lives can rob us of the full measure of peace and delight which are ours as children of God. He is always willing and glad to receive our love, but we often fail to give or to recognise as love what he gives.

In human relations both parties are flawed, and we are further compromised both in our giving and receiving of love. While it is true that we need to receive love, we also need to give it, to express affection and care for others in the ways that come naturally to us. Sometimes when my children were younger I recall being overwhelmed by the desire to express my love for them, and hardly knowing where to begin! In those days, they didn’t really mind if their mother hugged and cried over them, or played silly games and read and talked to them – how times change! The same applies to our parents, spouses and close friends. We want to show our love, and yet the gesture or word is firmly rejected – sent back like an unwanted gift.

How do we cope when those whom we love so dearly reject our loving? When our desire to be good for them can barely be expressed, because they have made it clear that our ways of giving love are unwelcome to them? It is this struggle which led me to Jesus’ yearning over the city of Jerusalem – and symbolically over all the nation of Israel, in its long history of rebellion against and rejection of the faithful love of God.

I know that when I do not express the love I want to give, I become sad, and somehow imprisoned – since I cannot express my loving, I cannot be myself. What is my right and proper response, the Christ-like loving response? How do I love people who do not want my love in the way I long to give it?

It seems that I have a choice, either to focus on my own rights – to express myself and be ‘fulfilled’ – or focus on them, their characters and needs, and to love them as far as they will allow me, in the ways that they can receive. Am I willing to trust God to look after my needs in this situation, to believe that I can experience this frustration and yet still go on living and giving joyfully because I am perfectly loved by Him?

What did Jesus do? He loved the world so much, and we would not receive or honour that love in the way he desired to give it. But he loved us well enough to give himself to save us – from all our broken bitterness – and trusted God to ensure that all would be well, that his utterly sacrificial loving would finally be received by his people. He gave what we desperately needed, and did not insist on his rights as Messiah, the Anointed one, the Judge and Ruler of the world. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul encourages the believers to ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ’ – Ephesians 5.21. The word submit can also be read as ‘do not insist on your rights’…

Is this my answer? To acknowledge before God what I desire to do, to offer what I can do to him in love, and do what I may for those whom I love. In the name of Jesus, and only by the power of his spirit within me, I will tailor my loving, and bring the frustration of unexpressed affection and pain of rejected love to God for relief, healing and comfort. He is faithful, will I not trust him?

Mother love…

1 Reply

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

Genesis 1 v27

These words, coming at the outset of God’s revelation of himself to us in the bible, give us an enormous amount of information about ourselves, not least the easily overlooked idea that it takes both masculinity and femininity to fully express the image of God in human form! The human package simply can’t contain all the necessary characteristics in one unit, and so two were created. Their interaction through life, and union in marriage reflect aspects of God’s character too – the delight that God has within the trinity, and the love which is continually expressed there.

In the same way I believe the bible reveals that human love – in all its forms – reflects aspects of divine love for us. No single human love is rich and complex enough to convey the full treasury of love which God has for us, his beloved creation. Through our experiences of relationship and love, we taste a little of the goodness of divine love in all its variety. Although it is sadly true that many people experience a great deal of pain, and are let down badly by those who should love them, yet the principle remains valid. Through our human loves, we learn about God’s love, and in time learn to receive directly from him all that our hearts need, so that no human failure to love can ultimately destroy us.

I was privileged to have a godly and loving father, who was spared to see my children born, and who – through his faithful loving of and genuine delight in me – showed me so much of the heart of my heavenly Father. Even as I mourned him, I knew what kind of fatherly love was being poured out on me from God, full of comfort and steady as a rock.

What of a mother? A mother just wants to be with you, to share in all the ups and downs, to hear all the little details of your life, because it is a delight to her to watch you living. She has yearned over you for years, laboured to care and equip you for life, borne the tantrums and sulks, the laundry and faddy diets, the bizarre fashion and messy rooms – because she loves you, and her love goes so deep that you are part of her. Your joys are hers, your heart is her heart beating, when you weep, she weeps.

Two years ago this weekend, my mother died, and there is no one now to do these things for me. No one to whom I can safely pour out my mother pride in my own children, or share the little frustrations of life. I cannot get a picture of her life into words, cannot find a way to close the chapter yet, but this I know, that her loving of me was faithful, costly, and a great joy and pride of her life – and that I never said thank you enough!

The bible has very few explicit references to mothering as a quality of God, but when we explore what it actually involves, it is clear that when he made mothers, God put an enormous amount of himself into them! My God delights in my company, in sharing my thoughts and all my activities; remember those lovely words in Psalm 139 v 2& 3

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

He wipes my tears away, and numbers the very hairs on my head; my name is engraved on his hands and he will never forget me. The gift of Christ his son, to be my saviour and lord, to be my very life, means that my heart is his heart, and all that grieves and wounds me, is felt by him. I am and will always be a daughter, even though my mother is dead, because my God mothers me, and I am comforted, nourished and affirmed by that faithful, costly and joyful love, which always puts my needs first.

How can we rightly praise and thank our God for such love? Nothing will ever suffice, but a delighted awareness of our debt, and continuing thankfulness for all that we receive is surely a fitting way to use the gift of life which we have been given. May God enable us more and more to receive and share this love, to his glory and the blessing of the world.

 

Rejoice! And again I say rejoice!

Leave a reply

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God..

Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! for the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.

(Isaiah 40 v 1;49 v 13;52 v 9)

This Christmas season has brought with it many reasons to weep, to despair of peace and hope in this land, let alone the wide world where so many suffer in ways that I cannot bear to imagine. If all I have to celebrate is the birth of a baby, time with family and a respite from the routine of work, then what defence do I have against the dark? If my celebrations depend upon my ability to shut out reality for a few hours or days, and to pretend that life is wonderful; what hope do I have to offer the world, or to give me a foundation for the new year ?

In the last two years, I have become an orphan, and my parent’s church where I was born and raised in faith has split apart, so that although I have not been a regular part of that ‘family’ for a long time, I feel that I am  additionally bereaved. Major foundations of my world are gone, and the popular myth of Christmas gives me no consolation, because it centres on recreating family, on gathering all our significant people around us, and celebrating them.

What of those with no family? or those who for various reasons are widely separated from their loved ones? What about the terminally ill, those facing war and homelessness, those under persecution, the unemployed and the abused? I find it quite heart-breaking to see the effort folk will go to in finding some way to celebrate at Christmas, when they are building on merely human foundations. Yes, of course it is good to appreciate our families and friends, to take time to enjoy the many good things we have and to build loving relationships. But…is there not more?

I was asked recently if I was getting excited about Christmas, and had to answer honestly that I was not. But I am deep down glad about Christmas, more glad with every year that passes, and every new experience of living in an imperfect world. I can be glad because the bible tells me that something real happened at Christmas time, that eternity exploded into this world of ours, and that truly good news was broadcast to the unlikeliest of heralds. That first Christmas was so much more than the birth of a boy to a carpenter and his wife, it was the enfolding of God in embryo and his delivery into the messy, broken, beautiful world where we need him so desperately.

The words at the top of this article come from Isaiah’s prophecies, and I chose them because each one uses the word ‘comfort’, with its sense of strengthening, consoling and supporting all at once. This is what I need when I look around me, to be strengthened for loving and giving, for helping others in their need, and thus in turn showing God’s loving face to his needy world. I need to be consoled for my human losses, and supported in finding new ways to live without these significant people in my life. And this is what God wants to do; all these prophetic words are associated with the coming of the promised one, God’s rescue plan for his broken world! So that in the coming of Jesus, I see the comforter arriving, the one who will completely understand my pain and need because he will feel it too in his humanity.

It is here that I find reason to rejoice at Christmas time, and each year more deeply. The best carols we sing are meditations on the reality which lies behind the story of shepherds and journeys, angels and stars – of light coming into the world, of God taking human form, of a journey of redemption and salvation now fully begun which can transform lives. This is a foundation on which to build into the new year, whatever it may bring. God is with us, and things will never be the same again.

On Christmas night all Christians sing, to hear the news the angels bring (x2) News of great joy, news of great mirth, news of our merciful King’s birth.

Then why should men on earth be so sad, since our Redeemer made us glad ?(x2) When from our sin he set us free, all for to gain our liberty!

When sin departs before his grace, then life and health come in its place (x2), Angels and men with joy may sing, all for to see the newborn King.

All out of darkness we have light, which made the angels sing this night (x2),Glory to God and peace to men, now and for evermore, Amen!

(the Sussex carol, Traditional)