Category Archives: the life of faith

Out of the shadows.. into Christ!

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Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

(Colossians 2. 16&17)

One of my favourite images in thinking about the work of Jesus on the cross, is of a timeline, with the cross at the centre, casting a double shadow, back towards Eden, and forwards to the new creation and final judgment. The shape of the backward shadow is the temple, with all its sacrifical systems, rituals of cleansing and rules of life. Those were designed to demonstrate that a holy God, loving and desiring to be with his people, was nonetheless separated from them by their sin.

Until the time was right for Jesus to come, God used the rituals, sacrifices and physical exclusion of people from the holiest place of the temple, to point forward to the day when a single perfect sacrifice would fully accomplish all that the blood of lambs and bulls could not. There would be a spotless lamb one day, who would put an end to, by fulfilling, all the sacrifical system had been designed to do – turning aside the wrath of a holy God against the unspeakable pollution of sin.

One day there would be a priest who could enter the holy place without shedding the blood of lambs, because he had shed his own blood. One day there would be a  great priest who could enter that presence and remain for ever, bearing the people of God upon his heart just as the old priest bore twelve precious stones to represent the people of Israel upon his breastplate. Not only so, but the people themselves, because of the great priest’s sacrifice, would be in God’s presence, no longer waiting outside to know whether their offerings had been accepted. All barriers to fellowship would be removed, and the children welcomed home to their Father’s house.

On Good Friday, that day finally came, the perfect sacrifice was made, and the curtain in the temple ripped itself apart as the power of sin and death to bind us away from God were destroyed. From that day onward, there has been no need for ritual sacrifices or observances. In Christ, all the demands of the Law – for justice and purity – are met. We do not live under a shadowy promise of forgiveness to come, but under the glory of complete cleansing, the bright light of a fresh start in the love of God..

The ‘shadow’ which is cast forward into time by the cross is barely dark at all, except that it is pointing to a brighter and more glorious future than we can possibly imagine! The shape of this shadow is the table around which we – all who love and trust in Christ for salvation – remember and celebrate his death for us, and his resurrection guaranteeing our eternal future with him. This is not a ritual which we observe in order to avert punishment, or earn favour, but the very source of our lives, our true nourishment. If we neglect this, the feeding of our souls upon his body broken and blood shed for us, then we will perish indeed, our faith withering away under the slightest trial or choked by the pressures and pleasures of the world around us; or worse, poisoned by false pride in our own good deeds and upright attitudes!

Let us not neglect to meet together, to feed together upon the truth of the gospel – all must be done, and has been done by Christ – so that we might grow in love for him, for one another, and in courage to share that love with our wounded and wayward world. In Christ, we stand in radiant glory, utterly secure, let us be the means by which God sheds his light into the darkness.

Behold Him there! the risen Lamb! My perfect spotless righteousness, 

The great unchangeable I AM, the King of glory and of grace!

One with Himself, I cannot die, my soul is purchased by His blood;

My life is hid with Christ on high, with Christ my Saviour and my God.

(Charitie Lees De Chenez, 1841-1923)

Love is…. You are!

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This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

(1John 4.9&10)

It would be the easiest thing in the world for me this week to do no more than write out the words of some of the many hymns and songs of praise which have been written over the centuries in an attempt to respond adequately to the love which is revealed to us through Jesus Christ. As I sit, I have line after line running through my head, tunes swelling up in adoration and worship of the God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – who loves me. And perhaps that the best place to start. If I can discipline my thoughts long enough at the start of this new week to deliberately focus on the wonderful love poured out through Christ, then I will have the best possible attitude to whatever the week will bring.

What does this love look like? It is the relentless pursuit of the eternal good of the beloved – even us, even rebellious, stubborn and proud humanity! It is the willingness to pay the ultimate cost of redemption – of putting right that which was so badly damaged – and to fulfill justice by dealing with the need for sin to be punished. And not only are we put right, but we are adopted into the family of God, given a birthright, and a guarantee of eternal life.This love pours out daily in grace upon our lives; it is continually working to transform us so that sin loses every foothold, and we become truly the image of God, reflecting his character, and finding fulness of life and joy as we live in him.

The Scottish preacher Samuel Rutherford was a man utterly enchanted by his Lord and Saviour. Over and again in his writings, he exhorts his readers to look to Christ, finding there all and more than their heart’s desires. This little extract – although archaic in language – clearly expresses his frustration at his own inability to grasp the fullness of love offered in Jesus, and I am deeply comforted even as I identify with him. “Christ all the seasons of the year, is dropping sweetness; if I had vessels I might fill them but my old riven, holey, and running-out dish, even when I am at the well, can bring little away. Nothing but glory will make tight and fast our leaking and rifty vessels… How little of the sea can a child carry in his hand; as little do I take away of my great sea, my boundless and running-over Christ Jesus.” Praise God, there will be a day – in glory – when I will no longer feel that I catch but a glimpse, and remember but the tiniest fraction, of the wonderful love so freely given! Then I shall receive in full the answer to the wonderful prayer of Paul for the disciples in Ephesus:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3. 17-19)

This love waits patiently by my side as I dither and wander, as I doubt and rebel, drawing me back over and over in repentance and new dependence on God. This love is overflowing with kindness towards me – expressed  through other people, and through the gifts and signs that only I notice and appreciate as coming from my God. This love is never boastful, but always wooing, never forcing itself upon me. This love restrains anger, and has lost any record of my past failures. This love rejoices in every small indication of my true desire to serve and honour my Lord, and every little effort to be faithful and obedient – forgetting the frequent failures and unfulfilled promises. This love is constant in protecting me, faithful in believing that I will be transformed, relentless in seeking the best for me.

And the truth that I need to remember at all times about this love – the truth which sustains the thousands of our brothers and sisters across the world who are suffering for their faith – is that no one, and nothing, can ever take this love away from me! I am going to finish with words from Paul again – Romans 8 – as found in the Scottish Paraphrases, my heart language, where he celebrates and affirms this wonderful truth. May it bring you comfort, strength and joy this week!

The Saviour died, but rose again triumphant from the grave;

And pleads our cause at God’s right hand, omnipotent to save.

Who then can e’er divide us more from Jesus and his love,

Or break the sacred chain that binds the earth to heav’n above?

Let troubles rise and terrors frown, and days of darkness fall; 

Through him all dangers we’ll defy, and  more than conquer all.

Nor death nor life, nor earth nor hell, nor time’s destroying sway,

Can e’er efface us from his heart, or make his love decay.

Each future period that will bless as it has bless’d the past;

He lov’d us from the first of time, He loves us to the last.

The joy of the Lord

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Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. 

(Psalm 146. 1&2)

Do you ever lose sight of glory? Of just how much you are loved by an eternal, almighty, joyous and wonderful God? Of how amazing it is that we should be noticed, let alone delighted in by the Creator of universe upon universe? I do.. and I know it has happened when I begin to take myself terribly seriously, to feel each and every slight like a major offence, and every failure to love like a death wound. I get distracted from the eternal realities, and instead see only the little things that make up daily life – irritations, the failings of others and my own, the bad weather, poor health, the messiness of living in a fallen world. All these are real too, and some are very serious issues which we rightly struggle to live with.

Nonetheless, when I read the following words earlier this week, they rang in my head like a clarion call, a defiant statement of a crucial truth:

“Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul.” (GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

When I can bring my forgetful soul back from wandering among small troubles, and into the presence of my dear Lord, then I know the deepest satisfaction – in spite of what ails me, what irritates and gives me cause for grief. If I could only carry this awareness with me all the time, keeping this true perspective on life at all times, then perhaps I would be a more faithful, joyful and effective witness to Jesus in his love and saving power!

At this time of year I have snowdrops and hellebores in my garden, producing exquisite blooms which hang their heads down, as if hiding their glory from casual gaze. When I bring them into the house, and can get up close, I am astonished by the detail and beauty they reveal. An unobtrusive rendering of glory to their Creator, not held up for all to see but shyly suspended, a private delight. Like the rest of the natural world, their glorifying of the maker is not a willed thing, it is part of how they grow and flourish. Perhaps, if I could cultivate the attitude of continual praise – of being conscious that I am always in my Lord’s presence, adoring him and being loved – then my life too would become a thing of natural beauty, because at the heart would be this steady pulse of joy.

When I take myself too seriously, I miss the joy of knowing that I am forgiven, that every minute of every day of my life is a gift, and that there is a continual outpouring of goodness and grace into my life from God. When I take myself too seriously, I begin to act and feel as though I have to be perfect in order to be loved and accepted. This is a wicked and dangerous lie, it creeps up on me so subtly, and I long to become more alert to it. It robs me of joy in receiving each new day; in each person whom God has brought into my life; in the outrageous beauty all around me; and above all in the transforming truth of forgiveness in Christ, union with him, and the promise of eternal life.

Here for a little while, we walk in shadows, our ears deaf to the great hymn of joy and mirth which rolls continually through creation, as God rejoices in his making, and pours love out upon us. Just occasionally, we seem to catch glimpses of glory, hear snatches of the eternal ‘Alleluias!’, and we catch our breath, caught up into wonder and awe. When I deliberately cultivate a spirit of praise, counting every grace gift as I find it, then these moments come more often, and my life is more joyful, my strength renewed, as I lose myself in the Lord. When I am more caught up with him than myself, I can laugh at myself, accept my failures with the compassion God shows me, and live in the freedom which is my birthright as the daughter of the King.

May God help us in the coming days to remember that we are but dust, that He requires of us praise, not perfection, and in that joyful awareness to grow strong.

The quiet days

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Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

(1 Thessalonians, 4 v 11 & 12)

 Ambition? Those who have known me long and well will assure you that I never had any, and they will be right. This little verse from Thessalonians might have been written for me, as Paul encourages the believers in that church to be diligent, to be content with what they have and to let their quiet daily faithfulness speak of their faith and the God whom they trust. I love days when there are tasks to be done, but no pressing deadlines, so that I can be fully conscious of what occupies my mind and hands, not thinking ahead all the time to the next job and wishing it was all over! I can take no credit for this desire for quietness, it is natural to me, a gift for which I am deeply grateful to my maker. But Paul is advising the Thessalonians to adopt this attitude even if it does not come naturally to them, why?

I wonder if there is a connection to the teaching of Jesus here, to the many times when the disciples grieved his spirit by their competition for the place of honour, whether on earth or in his coming kingdom. In every account of Jesus life, we find him turning their understanding of status and honour upside down. Time and again, they are told that in God’s eyes, greatness is nothing to do with social standing, wealth, race, gender or age. Jesus welcomed the children, honoured the disregarded women, engaged with the foreigners, commended and comforted the repentant sinners and infuriated the elite of the religious establishment by denying that they had any authority or special status. Towards the end of the gospels, each one in turn makes a clear statement about this issue, these words are from Matthew 23 v 11&12.

The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

A servant, one who seeks only the pleasure and approval of the master, and is content to do any appointed task for no other reward. That attitude requires the death of pride, of self- regard, of the spirit which claims authority over my own life and rejects God’s claim on me. If I am to be such a servant, to be ambitious to live a quiet life, then I must die to that self which seeks the approval of my peers in order to be satisfied, which looks for material prosperity, or security as a sign of my personal worth.

We have the example of Christ in this, as Paul reminds us in his words to the Philippian church :-

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! (Philippians 2 v 5-7)

Perhaps this is why Paul stresses the ambition for a quiet life, because it indicates that pride has been conquered in a believer’s life, that they are growing more and more like Christ, and His life in them is shining more clearly. This work of being made Christ-like is one which lasts all our lives, and which will not be complete until He returns in glory and raises us to new life. But we can take courage and hope that the work continues, and can rejoice when we are able to see signs that it is progressing. For me, the quiet days are such opportunities, when I find myself content with small and private service of others, prayers and works of love which only God sees, domestic chores which will need done again very soon, noticing of small tokens of grace and goodness and rendering thanks to the giver.

May we learn more and more to be content with the tasks appointed, seeking only our Lord’s approval, and rejoicing in the quiet riches of a life free from fretting ambition and the need to impress others.

Fasting and Feasting

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For in Christ all the fulness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fulness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.

(Colossians 2 v 9&10)

The first weeks of a new year are often associated with diets, new exercise regimes, and  rigorous attempts to cleanse our systems after a period of too much food and too little physical activity. There is an uncomfortable tightness about our clothes, and sluggishness about our energy levels, and we hope to deal with these by self-denial and the imposition of new disciplines… and that can be a very necessary thing to do!

But there is another, more significant aspect of our lives which need never diet, or deny itself the object it craves in order to flourish – our relationship with our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ. The passage quoted above is delightful in its use of the word ‘fulness’, stressing one of the foundational beliefs of Christians, that Jesus was and is fully God, as well as fully man! It is easy to skim read a passage like this, and only vaguely to register the notion of Christ’s deity, without  benefitting from the treasure trove of truth which it represents. Yes, indeed, Christ is as completely God as the Father himself, but that is only one sense of ‘fulness’. There is also the sense of being filled to overflowing, packed with goodness – and Christ is filled with all the attributes of deity.

The bible narrative reveals a God who desires to be all in all to his people, that they might realise that only through intimate relationship with him can they find true satisfaction and fullest life. Our folly has lain in stubbornly refusing to believe that such a relationship can fill our needs, and trusting our own judgement and inclinations instead. The desperate state of our world today reveals only too clearly the results of such folly. But what if God were right? What if we can truly find in him all the things we need? The security, the sense of self-worth, of significance and adequacy which we crave and chase through endless mazes of material goods, human relationships and activities. Listen to the words of the ancient prophet, Isaiah

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

(Isaiah 55 v 1 & 2)

And then to these words from Jesus, as he addressed the sincere, seeking religious people of his own time;

‘For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ Sir,’ they said, ‘from now on give us this bread’. Then Jesus declared, ‘ I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.’

(John 6 v 33-35)

The words in Colossians convey a stunning truth, if we will slow down reading long enough to recognise it.. When a believer confesses that Jesus is Lord, that their salvation depends entirely on Jesus, not themselves, they receive Christ himself – and all the glories of his divine character! When do I ever take enough time to really let this sink in and change how I live? Everything in the treasury of God is made over to us as believers, to equip, support, encourage and transform our lives, and enable us to fulfill our roles in God’s new creation. How often do we take that transaction seriously and claim those riches? We are summoned to a feast, and all too often make do with meagre rations!

This blog is part of my personal response to this question, an attempt to focus my thoughts for a sustained period of time and thereby to engrave another small aspect of the truth on my heart so that it might change my thinking and living. A recent gathering of friends saw us take time to meditate on the different titles and names given to Jesus in the bible – we found at least 35, and I am sure there are more – through which we began to catch a glimpse of the overwhelming adequacy of our Lord to satisfy our deepest longings and fill us with good things.

For myself, my experience has been that the more I feast on Christ, the more I hunger to receive and make my own. I close this week with the words of a great writer and preacher of the Scottish church from the 1600’s, Samuel Rutherford, whose language may sometimes seem archaic, but whose sentiments remain an inspiring expression of what it means to live for Christ alone.

Christ is as full as feast as ye can have to hunger.

I think I see more of Christ than I ever saw; and yet I see but little of what may be seen.

May God stir us up to desire ever deeper, fuller fellowship with Christ, as He has already provided all that is needed to satisfy that desire!

 

Dead or alive?

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I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even  more fruitful….I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

(John 15 v 1,2 & 5)

It may seem an unnecessary point for Jesus to be making here – who ever heard of a branch bearing bunches of grapes unless it was a living, growing part of the parent vine?! The image is one which would have been familiar to his hearers, and they would immediately have got the message – either we are so intimately connected with and dependent on Jesus that his very life flows through us (as the sap of the vine flows to the branches), or else we are as good as dead wood.

But perhaps the disciples shared our human weaknesses in this area too, falling into the trap of thinking that somehow only part of their lives needed to be consciously lived in God’s presence – the ‘sacred’ bits, when they worshipped and prayed and shared the teaching they received. For the remainder – their day jobs of fishing, tax-collecting or whatever, could continue to be a separate activity, where God was not involved.

The picture of the branches remaining in the vine, as their very source of life, simply blows away such disconnected thinking about our own lives. We may not plug in to the vine when it suits us, for a top-up of energy or spirituality; either we are living in it, or we are not. In spite of the remaining faults, sins and weaknesses which we battle, and in spite of the troubles of the world which afflict us, the bible is clear that everyone who believes in Jesus as their saviour now lives with his life.

There is a power available to us, every minute of every day that remains to us, to live in a way that reflects Jesus to the world around us. As we live and grow as believers, the holy spirit works to transform us, so that our lives bear fruit – in godly character, love, perseverance, all the wonderful qualities listed in Galatians 5. It is not that we are to screw ourselves up to a great effort to make it happen, rather that just like the branches, we allow the life of the true vine, Jesus to flow to every area of our lives. I think we spend most of our lives learning this, struggling to believe it, applying the truth of it to each new situation in which we find ourselves. That’s ok, because our heavenly gardener knows that it takes time for the vine to mature, and he is so much better at patience than we are!

But I love this picture for another reason too.. It reminds me that every area of my life can potentially be fruitful. In his letter to the little church in Colossae, Paul wrote these encouraging words:

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him…..It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

(Colossians 3 v 17 & 24)

So when I am doing housework, organising meetings, catering for events, interacting with friends and strangers, loving my husband and children… all these things I can do in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to God, and seeking always to glorify him. All my living and labouring is a fitting offering of praise to my God, and he makes no false divisions between sacred and secular activities. As a branch of the true vine, with the life of Christ flowing through me, I am constantly in the presence of God and everything I do is an integrated part of a single whole.

I hope that this will help you as it does me, to rejoice in the work you have, in the people around you; trusting that a humble and quiet life is as valuable and fruitful in God’s eyes as the most high-powered or influential.  In all things, I serve Christ, and rest in his love for me.

Mine to spend?

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I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.

May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation – the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ – for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

And I trust that my life will bring honour to Christ, whether I live or die. For to me, living, means living for Christ, and dying is even better. (Philippians 1, 9-12 & 20-21)

There is an insidious habit of thought which can take me down unhelpful paths if I am not careful, a clever synthesis of Christian teaching with cultural assumptions, that will lead me to deep unhappiness. We live in an age, here in the UK in the 21st century, where the cult of self-fulfillment is at unprecedented heights, and the urge to ‘be all you can be’ is constantly sounded in our ears.

Our children are encouraged to dream of doing great things with their lives, and to believe that putting themselves first in terms of their money and activities is right because they are ‘worth it’. And of course, in one sense as a Christian, I understand the priceless worth of every individual under the sun – each unique, and fashioned to reveal God’s glory in a particular way in the world.

But in another sense, I am deeply troubled by this emphasis, failing completely as it does, to recognise the flawed realities of our world, and in particular the sin which skews all our thinking and feeling. The root of human sin is the denial of God as rightful sovereign of our lives, and our determination to put ourselves in God’s place – to trust no one else with our lives, and to believe that we alone know what is best for us.

If I think that God’s plan for my life as a christian is my complete self-fulfillment (in so far as I define it) , then I am going to be deeply frustrated with the world, my fellow-believers, and with God! This was certainly not the apostle Paul’s understanding of his purpose in living. Yes, we can argue that God is glorified when his creatures are most fully being what he made them to be, and we know that in the new earth and heaven, this will be our destiny – and what a glorious one too! But… we are not there yet, we are not in our perfected, resurrected bodies yet, and our world is still broken.

If I demand that all the gifts and talents which I think I possess be given ample opportunity to flourish and be exercised, before I can accept that I am in the place where God wants me to be, then I will never be satisfied, but always seeking to change my circumstances. In effect, I am dictating to God about the ways in which he may work in and through me. When I put it into words like that, I can see clearly why this is wrong!

If, as I believe, I am surrendered to God in loving submission, in response to his overwhelming love for me, then I must also resign any right to dictate how and where I am to be used by God. The bible narratives demonstrate over and over that it is in allowing God to work according to his plans which sees blessing and glory coming to his name, and that when human beings demand their own ways, the results are painful and sometimes disastrous – look at Abraham and Sarah’s misguided efforts to get an heir, and the suffering which came about  as a result.

All that I have – health, wealth, family, intelligence, talents and experience – is a gift of grace from God. I must hold them on open hands, and continually offer them to God to be used – or not to be used at any given time in my life – as He sees fit. So often we are reminded that it is in our weaknesses that God displays his strength – how could that be if we decline ever to act unless we feel strong and gifted in a particular area of service? And will I not trust my heavenly Father to keep safe, for my resurrected future delight, all the things which he doesn’t need me to use just now?

There is an old hymn ( of course, I find some of my strongest theology there!!) which beautifully expresses this complete offering up of myself into God’s hands for his glory:

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my will, and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart – it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure-store. Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for thee.

Frances Ridley Havergal, 1836-79

May God grant us humility to serve him, and be spent by him, wherever he has placed us just now, especially if – in the world’s opinion – it makes no sense!!

Just hanging on!

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P1020103Jesus draw me ever nearer as I labour through the storm.                          You have called me to this passage, and I’ll follow, though I’m worn.

(Margaret Becker)

The stormy weather we have experienced in Scotland this week has to an extent mirrored my inner life, a time of weeping and weariness, of uncertainty and fear. Faith in my experience is not some kind of external armour that protects me from these storms, which are part of the human experience and arise from our frail bodies, the darkness which lies in every heart, and the brokenness at the heart of creation.

While I confess to being shaken, to being weary and filled with melancholy, I can also testify to the continual reminders of my heavenly father’s love and provision for me. I have sung songs of praise with tears in my eyes, contemplated beauty and been filled with adoration for the Creator who is endlessly inspired and so generous in sharing his bounty with us. I have been reminded again of the cross, of the empty tomb, and the soul-salving grace which is offered to me in Jesus Christ. I have rested in the truth of God’s firm hold on me, regardless of how feeble I am in my own eyes.

But in the stormy days, these things do not always change my feelings. And this is where faith comes in, where wordless prayer comes in. I do not know how to diagnose my own weaknesses for my heavenly healer – he can see my heart and spirit and knows my need. He takes the merest breath, the wordless longing, and knits it into effective prayer which he already is moving to answer.

What good will it do  me to sit and nurse my melancholy alone? None, and faith tells me to bring it to my beloved Lord, as the only thing I can offer at this time. Time and again, the psalmist comes to worship with words of woe and lament, so surely I may do the same? When I  hold back from sharing the sadness and difficulty of life with my Saviour, what am I saying? Do I think He is not interested in me except when I am happy and content? Perhaps there are people in my life like that, imperfect and frail as we all are, who can’t cope with my moods and lowness of spirit. But the Lord and lover of my soul is perfect, never out of patience, full of grace, and He delights to receive me even when I am more of a wet blanket than a ray of sunshine!!

So whether I feel the benefit of it or not, my safest course in the storms is straight for the arms of Jesus, and every time I feel myself drifting, to turn back and cling on again. In faith, we lean on him, and so through these storms we find that our faith is tested, and strengthened, and in turn we may encourage others to lean and find him trustworthy.

What joy, to know that in the midst of storms, we may find rest here, and that even our very small personal troubles can be something we offer in worship to God. The opening quote this week is from a particularly helpful song which expresses this desire to let every experience of life be used by God to his glory, and I will close with the chorus, which is a beautiful prayer in itself.

May this journey bring a blessing, May I rise on wings of faith;

And at the end of my heart’s testing, with your likeness let me wake.