75 years ago

We have just been silent for two minutes' during which television film showed the worst of war with scenes of battle, the blitz and so many graves, focusing on a plain wooden cross to an unknown soldier.  The sacrifice and bitterness of loss brings such sadness.  And grief will be felt by many today. I remember my first Remembrance Sunday in Blackburn when many men turned up in uniform and after the silence there was weeping among them. As a young minister I came of age as I saw raw grief.

Today is bitter-sweet because the memories are also focused on celebration. Our neighbour is 79 today and he came round to thank us for his birthday card. 'I was only four but I remember this day so clearly. Our whole street went mad.  They scrubbed kitchen tables and brought them out into the street with those wooden chairs we used to have. And hung garlands, with so much noise and merriment.  All the women in their pinafores and headscarves making a feast for us. Oh, how I remember'.  Then he went quiet. 'My father was in the RAF.  He came home but within 3 months he had left my mum and me'.

Today we should be realists about the costs of conflict and suffering and the world we live in.  Living in a fallen world where the Bible speaks of spiritual warfare, of the need to be strong and put on God's complete armour, we are told to keep alert.  'We are up against...spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil...Take your stand then with truth..righteousness, peace...salvation....the Word of God....faith....Pray at all times with every kind of spiritual prayer, keeping alert and persistent (From Eph 6. Phillips).

A lock-down prayer Part 2

The prayer began GOD BE IN MY HEAD and in my understanding. The consequence of brains being filled with spiritual intelligence is that understanding God's will leads to GOD BE IN MY BEHAVIOUR.  Godly thinking leads to godly living - lives worthy of the Lord (v.10).

Two behaviour words jump out that are particularly appropriate for lock-down:
GREAT ENDURANCE - this word is frequently found in the NT. It's about how we face events with God's strength, not by sitting down, gritting our teeth and letting troubles flow over us. But by overcoming because God's spirit within strengthens us to endure with heads held high. Phillips Brooks once said:'I do not pray for a lighter load, but for a stronger back'.  That's quite a challenge.

PATIENCE - rather than applied to events this is primarily about coping with people with God's strength. It's the quality of mind and heart that enables someone to bear with others who hurt, irritate, deeply annoy and worse.  So easily in lock down frustrations can build with those close by. This is God's challenge that we respond to hurts, irritations, annoyances with grace. Yes, grace under pressure.

One commentator says: The Christian's fortitude in events and patience with people must be indestructible.  This prison prayer of Paul's was expressed under great personal  pressure and is not theoretical wishful thinking.  It's for real.  For us, today.

8 year old Amy, grand daughter of a friend, wrote this prayer.  Simply it captures much, doesn't it?

Stay safe
Be kind
Have faith
Calm your mind
Be brave Be strong
it won't be long
Keep praying
God's above
And never forget
God's love

                                                                    

A lock-down prayer - Part 1

I led our church zoom prayer time this morning with some verses that seem especially appropriate. Partly because they are written by Paul in Lock down.  Probably in prison in Rome, certainly in chains, with the threat of death.  But also for us because of the way that he prays.  It is extraordinary in imprisonment that he is so keen to pray so positively, and for others too. It's Colossians 1: 9-14.

Look at the way he begins.  When we pray for others that they may have endurance and patience we likely dive straight into it.  But Paul begins by: asking God to fill you will all the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding v.9).  He's praying first that GOD IS IN YOUR HEAD.  This filling is a strong word about the whole of our minds - right brain (the imaginative) and left brain (the logical).  Every bit of our thinking.  The specifics are dramatically different from how we often think.

Spiritual wisdom is the knowledge of God's first principles.  It's intelligence of a completely different order. Elsewhere Paul speaks of the wisdom of this age and the rulers of this age (1 Cor 2.6) - the wisdom of university, law, media, conventional wisdom which accumulates facts from the world around.  Spiritual wisdom  is about receiving facts and knowledge from God himself - he has revealed the truths about us in Jesus, in Scripture...how we are to live.  What life is all about.  What is his will for creation, for you and me. Now.

Understanding comes from applying this spiritual wisdom - it's the practical application of living God's way.  For Paul, what matters is that we are thinking aright.  Someone said: The brain is no stronger than its weakest think. And it's very easy to become weary, anxious, depressed which can so easily lose sight of God's will for us.

You know those words from the Sarum Primer 1538;
      God be in my head, and in my understanding;
      God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;
      God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
      God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
      God be at mine end, and at my departing.

Golden rules

Yesterday I led a session on how to prepare and give a devotional talk to a group of students. In preparation myself I wondered what golden rules about communication in general I might begin with. I came up with four.  I know many of my readers also speak publicly.  Would you agree with this selection?

1. All communicators can improve.  I know there are inspiring exceptions but most of us need to keep learning how to do it better.  It's a matter of fact that those attending conferences on communication are the better communicators; others say they do not need any help because they've got it down pat are not the better communicators!
2. Christians are promised the help of the Holy Spirit (and that's the biggest deal) but it does not allow us to flout basic communication rules. 
3. Feedback is essential for the effective communicator.  To receive honest, loving, critique is the greatest gift for any communicator - and that's the way to learn.
4. Your God-given personality means you have a personal speaking style.  You will not sound like anyone else.  You are not like anyone else. Some are serious, others more humourous; formal/informal, teacher-oriented/story-telling, logical/emotional, slow-paced/ fast paced. We need to develop our unique speaking voice.

I asked the group which of these is the most difficult to follow. Immediately 3. was flagged up. Said a student 'When I've done, I'm done.  I don't want to hear myself, see myself or think about it!'  Others agreed.  Yes, this is probably the most difficult of all, though someone else highlighted 4 because of the need genuinely to find your own style.  And to be willing to be adaptable to many other listening styles!

Would you agree?  Add? Change?

A first

This morning I preached at Arbury Rd. Baptist Church, Cambridge.  I was asked to record my sermon earlier in the week.  So, in the quiet back bedroom I preached to the little screen with Carol giving the reading. Today we shared in the Sunday event as the minister opened the service from his front room and we were led into some songs and prayers (really helpful and to the point).

When it came to my bit it was a very odd experience.  Never before have I shared in a worship service when I have been pre-recorded.  Yes, sometimes I have seen events once they have happened but this was a first.  Decidedly odd.

Marvellously, my London family tuned in via You Tube and later they called to tell me how odd it was for them too!  Happily odd, I add! And  later in the day owing to the time difference our family in New York State also worshipped with us.  Doubly happily odd. Technology has enabled so much good as well as all the other stuff!

Back to front

Yesterday I was working in my study on a teaching seminar scheduled for Monday. It's titled: Preparing and Giving a Devotional Message.  Not a small theme!   I have fleshed out a framework for the two hour session and had the brainwave of asking Carol to write out the nine steps of preparation on a big board for my Zoom session. I want to be able to write on it. I positioned the board on my easel behind my chair and then checked how big the lettering should be.....and discovered that it zoomed an image which was back to front.  It showed a mirror image.  I was utterly flummoxed.

Shortly, in the afternoon it was time for our regular Zoom church prayer time.  When I joined others commented that my bookcases background looked different from normal. (Isn't it interesting how many TV interviews are given with books behind?) I explained I was in my study in the middle of preparing this session and that I had just encountered this mirror problem with my visual aid..

'Oh,' said our pastor, ' You have the mirror option on your Zoom, you can change that!'  'Really', I replied with astonishment.  With the group listening in he told me where to go on the screen and which buttons to hit and hey presto the mirror imaging had gone.  Everything was the right way round!  I laughed and said how helpful joining the prayer group was!  Actually it was helpful in more significant ways too.

Carol has now written the steps up in poster size.  How easy it was, when I knew how, to get things the right way. That was on Zoom....it's much more demanding process in life, isn't it?

Nothing irredeemable

I read an interesting interview with the author Philip Yancey yesterday.  He was asked how his view of pain and suffering had changed.  He explained that as a young man he thought suffering was God's one big mistake but that he began to see how differently the Bible presents things:

I began to see the Bible presents things in a bit of a different way. The Bible doesn't promise that we're going to have a pain-free existence. Nowhere does it say that. I learned a new paradigm.  You asked about how I've changed, and increasingly I've looked at that paradigm, that God isn't in the pain-removal business so much as God is in the pain-recycling business, or as Christians would say, the redeeming business.

The best expression of that that I know of is Romans 8 where Paul talks about how the whole planet is groaning as if in the pains of childbirth,...then he describes his own personal biography which included a lot of bad things.... Yet, as he looked back on those things, he said, "All of these things were used for my good.

When I was studying Romans 8 I came across this beautiful phrase from Dallas Willard, who said, For those who love God, nothing irredeemable can happen to you and that's the promise we can hold out to others.  As I got to know people and written articles about them, especially those who go through very hard times, frankly pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed. Miracles are great - I love miracles - but they are miracles. They're pretty rare! You can't count on those! On the other hand redemption is something we can count on; it's the hope we all can cling to.

Those words: For those who love God, nothing irredeemable can happen to you really lit me up. Perhaps they do for you!