What Would You Have Me Do?

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I am, more often than not, a failure as a Christian. The ways in which I let Him down, get it wrong and just wilfully disobey are seemingly endless. But the sins which hurt the most are repeat offences. It tells me what kind of material He’s got to work with in me when He needs to give the same lesson over and over.

What was it this time? Forgiveness. Largeness of heart. Grace. Denial of self. These are just a few of the many things I don’t do well.

It’s been a practice of mine for a while now to get involved in online conversations where the cause of Christ is being discussed. Remedial Christian I may be, but I do, of course, realise that I cannot change the atheist heart, nor save the unbelieving soul. Neither, however, do I think that I should let ignorance and misrepresentation go unchallenged. So I don’t. Many Christians probably think I should leave it alone; and I know that many atheists feel that way also.

These things can escalate and a discussion forum on local democracy led to a series of misunderstandings between myself and someone I had considered a friend. We were not on speaking terms by the time it was all over.

I should have climbed down -not on matters of Christian principle, of course not, but on my own ego. What people think of me, or say, or write when I am properly witnessing for Christ, that doesn’t matter. The day I accepted Him, I was meant to die to self. All such brickbats are not meant to matter in the light of His glory and grace.

But I couldn’t let this go. No – correction – I wouldn’t let this go.

It took a Quaker to make this Wee Free penitent. He knew, somehow, of the ill-feeling between me and this other person, and suggested very gently that I should show her a modicum of support in something very brave she did recently.

Well, I’m not going to lie. He floored me with his mild common sense, and his pure motive. I thought about it from every angle and realised that the only thing preventing me from doing as he said was my own pride.

So I swallowed it. Not as graciously as I could, or should, have. But she, I think, felt as I did and all these months of bitterness and rancour swiftly evaporated.

And it felt good. I didn’t know what a weight had been pressing on my conscience until it was lifted. All because of grace. Oh, not mine. No, God’s grace at work in this man who has somehow fallen into step with me along the journey. If it had been dependent upon me letting go of my pride . . . well, I shudder to think what a state my life would be in.

It set me thinking about people, and about the latent power of the online community. All of this reconciliation hinged, as I said, on God’s intervention. But it was made possible through digital, not face-to-face, connections.

Some folk dismiss social media as being a bit of a fantasy land, somewhere Christians should avoid. I disagree. It is a mirror-image of this world with all the wickedness and danger that entails. There are people there, teetering sometimes on the edge of danger.

So, shouldn’t Christians be there too, shining a light into the dark corners? Isn’t the internet a digital mission field?

I am profoundly grateful to God for putting the wise Quaker in my life, and for teaching me so gently that forgiveness and love must not be forsaken, especially in defending the cause of Christ.

When Christ was nailed to the cross, His Iove never wavered. He was still every inch the Saviour. Remember Satan, in the last blog – he knows he’s defeated, and wants to take as many with him as he can.

Jesus Christ knew at Calvary that victory was His. And as He looked down on the soldiers casting lots for His garments, what revenge did He plan?

‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’.

Though we may reject Him and plot against His cause, He still loves and wants to take as many with Him in glory as He can.

And if I want to be like Him in the smallest way, I need to cultivate that love too.

Mercifully, He reminds me of this when I need reminding. Pray for me that I will not forget this lesson in humility and grace. And pray that, when any of us speaks up for Christ, we ask Him first:

‘What would You have me do?’

Learning From The Devil’s Example

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There is at least one respect in which I differ from the devil. When I am frightened, I become paralysed and unable to do anything. Both times my husband underwent lifesaving surgery, I sat in the same spot on the sofa, cold and sick-feeling. My plans of cleaning the fridge, or tidying out the cupboards to distract myself . . . well, they didn’t happen. I couldn’t even move.

But Satan doesn’t let fear stop him in his tracks. Actually, it makes him busier than ever. Really up against it, he has nothing left to lose.

And even although his defeat has already been secured, he does not mean to go down without a fight – and to take as many of us with him as he can. He already has many hostages in his thrall. Here’s the clever bit, though: they don’t know that they’re captive; they believe that they’re free.

He isn’t called the father of lies for nothing. His artistry is such that the people who will follow him anywhere he leads are the very ones who would deny his existence. They don’t believe in him, except as a slightly comical character in fiction, a scorched, cloven-hoofed cartoon demon, jabbing at you with his trident.

But he does exist – and he would never be so unsubtle as to use his weapons in that way. He is as likely to croon as he is to jab.

If you don’t believe in his existence, then you do not believe in God either. This is why the devil does not push his ego, or insist that you acknowledge him. If you did, there is much more chance that his wiles would fail; that you would turn from his eternal ugliness to God’s eternal purity.

He doesn’t want that, though, so he lets you believe your infantile fiction – that all we are, all we have, came from nothing, is governed by nothing, and will return to nothing.

That is your experience as an atheist. Life is brief and, for some, filled with suffering. The nothing from which we came is neither moral nor immoral, and so looks on suffering and rejoicing unmoved. Yet, from some human hearts, sympathy comes. From themselves, for there is no guiding principle.

But there is still the convenience of having God to blame. When something goes wrong, you can spit at Christians, ‘where is your God now?’

What an unutterably sad state of affairs. This is the real God delusion. Atheists don’t disbelieve in Him – they hate Him. They say he’s a childish fantasy, but they blame Him for everything that is wrong.

They hate Him because they have remade Him in their own image. The object of their ridicule is not the Christian God. And Satan laughs as he looks on from the sidelines.

When that frenzy of God-hating is whipped up to its maximum, those who know He is there and love Him, they can become discouraged. It is easy to look around you at the degraded state of society and feel the power of darkness is about to overwhelm.

Yet we have this truth. The darkness cannot overpower the light. Always, the latter drives out the former.

Those who have been duped, of course, don’t think they’re dwelling in darkness because they haven’t yet seen the great light. They believe in their own triumvirate: gods of tolerance, reason and self-fulfilment.

These false idols are all that is available to a people who came from nothing, live for nothing, and will return to nothing.

I am more than aware of the challenge of telling people whose ears are stopped that there is something beyond what they are pleased to call reason. You can spend many hours faithfully telling them who Christ is, only to have your face slapped. They will tell you that they respect your beliefs, even as they spit on them.

This is the world that crucified our Lord, and would do it again. Not for anything He has done against them, because there is nothing. In truth, He has gone beyond anything they could dream of asking, and though they keep on rejecting Him, still He holds out those broken hands to beckon them to Himself.

They reject Him, they say, because they cannot believe such a fantastical tale. And Satan nods his agreement – much better to stick with him, the arch-liar. He knows they can’t see him and don’t believe he’s there.

And that they won’t know until it’s too late.

Unlike Satan, Christ does not dupe the unwary. His people in this world cannot do that either. Instead, we have to be relentless in holding out the truth. Those who seem unlikely to realise the danger are the ones we owe most to, because we were once just as blind as they. We need to tell them, and tell them, and tell them again. Though they beg us to be quiet, or put their hands over their ears, we need to go on with our witness.

So, I suppose that I have to try to be a bit more like the devil in that one respect. Instead of allowing myself to be rooted to the spot by fear, I have to get busy. The motivation is that incomparable truth: that Christ has already overcome the world, and vanquished its prince. Satan fights tirelessly, knowing he’s been beaten; we should do the same, confident of victory.

And we need, above everything else, to keep the unbelievers in our prayers. That, I think, is the action Satan fears most of all.

 

 

None So Secular As Those Who Will Not See

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I haven’t read one article from within Lewis which supports the plans of An Lanntair to open on Sundays. There have been several ill-informed ‘national’ contributions, of course, but I think we can safely discount those. After all, what do they know of this community, or what shapes it? And, more pertinently, what do they care?

It takes the arrogance of imperialism to say to a minority cultural group that they are wrong about their own identity. This is not me saying to people who have moved into Lewis that they have no right to an opinion, or a voice. Of course they do. But I am saying that they have no right to tell me that they understand my heritage better than I do. They generously permit tweed and Gaelic (by which they mean the language only, not the other stuff that no one can teach you) and music . . . but not God.

God came here on a magic carpet of stories from the Middle East. He’s the only kind of immigrant the Western Isles Secular Society disapproves of. We’re allowed to call Him an ‘incomer’, or anything else we want.

But they’re not anti-religion. They are vehemently denying that accusation all over social media this weekend. Frustrated by our native ignorance, they keep asking why no one understands that secularism is not against Christianity. If only we would read their mission statement, we would know that they are not against the faith of many in this island.

Oh, aren’t they?

Still, if their Facebook page says so, it must be true. It’s not as though they ever have a go at Christians, or mock their beliefs. They expect us to ignore their sometimes defamatory remarks about individuals, the fact that disgraceful profanity and utter disrespect goes unmoderated, their consistent targeting of the Lewis Sabbath, their blatant lies about the behaviour of local church people . . . and just accept their definition of secularism?

I’m sorry, Western Isles Secular Society, but we Christians are going to need more evidence. We can’t just blindly accept this kind of thing.

What I do see, this week in particular, is a group which cannot tolerate the views of others when they fall contrary to their own. Local blogger, Hebrides Writer, was okay when she was vocally supporting their Sunday swimming campaign, but she has suffered a catastrophic fall from grace by coming out against An Lanntair’s arrogant stance on Sunday film showings. Some have tried valiantly to be measured in their response, but in their own discussion group, she has been pilloried in ways that are utterly unwarranted by anything she has written.

She even has the temerity to be related to someone with connections to An Lanntair. In Lewis! Smaoinich!

And, most defamatory of all, she now stands accused of being ‘anti-secular and pro-faith’. Horror of horrors.

No WISS moderator has stepped in to remove this comment, nor have any of the other members pointed out the obvious. Well, I mean, it contradicts their claim that secularism and faith are not at odds, doesn’t it?

But we don’t need them to tell us what secularism is. We know what it is. God knows what it is.

Actually, the only people who don’t know, are the secularists themselves.

They have long pitied the likes of me in my blind ignorance. Now, they fear for the safety and the sanity of Hebrides Writer because she has deviated from what the cult expects.

I wish they would try to understand, not Christians, but Christ. How I wish they would open their Bibles and read, and find there a man who will tell them everything they ever did.
Just this week, I saw their likeness in His book. On Wednesday evening in church, we read the account of the Israelites and the golden calf they made to worship. When they had built an altar to it, they declared the next day a feast day for the Lord.

They thought, you see, that they could have everything. Their idea was to give themselves over to doing what they wanted, and offer a sop to God to appease Him. It was their way of pretending that there is room for following Him, and for pleasing yourself.

Or, like one of the anti-Sabbatarians put it, ‘before long it will be the new norm and the culture of the quiet Sunday will continue as usual’.

No, I’m afraid that just isn’t how it works. You have to pick a side. And it has to be the right side.

Forget your movies, people, I know how this ends.

I’ve read the Book.

Sunday Is Not About Religion At All

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There have been one or two articles in the last week, written in defence of the Lewis Sabbath from a non-church perspective. At their heart, they say basically the same thing – Sunday is not just for religion.  While I welcome their input to the debate which has hitherto consisted mainly of secularist blackening of the church through the medium of stereotype and ignorance, I cannot entirely subscribe to the sentiment. As far as I am concerned, Sunday is not about religion at all.

Of course, centuries of tradition have created this situation where Lewis continues to observe a commercial shutdown on Sundays. It does indeed date back to times gone by when the norm throughout Scotland would have been that the population rested and worshipped on the Lord’s Day. While other influences have reshaped and changed other parts of the country, Lewis continued to plough its own furrow as far as Sabbath observance was concerned, partly because churchgoing continued here at much the same level as it always had. Elsewhere it has been dwindling at an alarming rate, though 44% of islanders still maintain the practice of regular worship.

That is roughly the same percentage of regular worshippers as there are Gaelic-speakers in Stornoway, and it would take a very ignorant person indeed to suggest that the language is culturally irrelevant.

It is part of that tendency among those of an unbelieving bent to wish to rubbish and revise anything which interferes with their agenda. They do not wish it to be the case that the Christian church has had an influence on shaping the local heritage here in Lewis, and so they simply deny that it is so.

Worse, they imply that the people have been too stupid to resist the wiles of sinister ministers and elders who, on some non-specific power trip, have had things all their own way these three centuries or so.

But I’m tired of that argument. It isn’t up for debate anyway – the facts speak for themselves. Much of what we can all regard as precious about life in Lewis has been shaped, one way or the other, by the influence of the Presbyterian church.

I’m more concerned by the turn that this whole tired issue is taking, that we ought to preserve the Lord’s Day because ‘it isn’t just about religion’. This is a standpoint that should shock Christians into speaking up for their Lord’s Day.

Or are we honestly going to remain silent, and leave it to our non-Christian friends and neighbours to argue for the preservation of the Lewis Sabbath based only on tradition?

Well, shame on us.

The importance of keeping the Lord’s Day is not, for me, a matter of tradition, ritual, or even religion. I would imagine I also speak for my brothers and sisters in Christ when I say that it is about my relationship with Him. He it was who said that Sabbath was made for man, not the other way around.  Of course, like many more of His words, these have often been used by people to suit their own ends. However, I think that He meant the day as a gift to His believing people, when they could expect to put aside work for one day, and have the time for spiritual rest and refreshing.

Last Sunday, I slept a little later than I can during the week. I walked the dog a little further. My coffee was finished at home, instead of being decanted into a travel mug. The time I had for devotional reading and prayer was more relaxed. I drove for twenty minutes to get to church, through some of His best work – turbulent seas to my left and the green sward of machair to my right. It was a leisurely preparation for the hour of worship.

At the door of the church, there was a mixture of warm welcome and downright cheek from the two elders on duty. I approve of that Lewis brand of cheek – the gentle mockery that is very much a family thing.

And inside, contentment. Catching up with news. The silent subtle passing of the mint imperials. Psalms in Gaelic. Prayer. Preaching.

The sermon was about a man I can identify very much with. We both started out the same way, Nicodemus and I: secret disciples, the pair of us. He hid his interest in Christ, but eventually came out on His side.

We, both of us, finally came out for Him because of His death. For Nicodemus, it was right there and then, after the Lord had been crucified by the very people that he himself had feared. He had feared them and hidden his allegiance from them; and then he had faced their derision when he identified publicly with Christ.
For me, it was at a time of commemorating His death that I too finally felt the last shred of resistance falling away.

I have faced what all Christians in this part of the world do – being mocked and derided for my beliefs, sometimes from people who should certainly know better. It is not violence, of course – not yet – but it can be very trying just the same.

Sunday is a day of rest for me. I do not go ‘ religiously’ to church, nor do I read my Bible ‘religiously’. Sadly, I am monumentally selfish, and could never keep up such a religion.

Christians need this day. It offers the peace that St Augustine summed up so well – ‘ our heart is unquiet until it rests in you’. It is a different kind of rest because it is in Him.

He gave and gives and will give. Sunday was His precious gift to us. If we have identified with Him once, I would say now is the time to show that forth once again.

And again.

Sunday is not precious in Lewis because of religion, that much is true. It is precious because of Christ. And because of Him, we surely have the courage to say so.

You Can’t Make Them Drink – But You Can Lead Atheists To The Well

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I was advised by the minister a while ago to take my needle and thread with me wherever I might go. Yes, I thought, typical of the patriarchy, remind the wee woman of her domestic responsibility. He wanted me to be ready, I supposed, for the moment one of the brethren might lose a cuff button in the course of wagging an admonishing finger at a flighty, hatless lady.

But I realised afterwards that he was speaking metaphorically. In recommending I leave my scissors at home, he was simply reminding me that the role of anyone who is going to faithfully witness for their Saviour must surely be that of peacemaker.

It was apposite advice for me, whether he knew it or not. Far too prone to sarcasm, I do need to keep a guard on the things that I say.

Recently, however, I  have come to the realisation that there are certain things which will offend, no matter how you couch them. It is a valuable lesson in humility that, no matter how well we express ourselves, or how carefully, not everyone will receive our message with gratitude.

And so it was that I reached a point in the week where I decided just to shut up. You may not have noticed, of course, because it was really just that . . . a moment.
It has been an exhausting time, this almost-year since starting the blog. I have had a little anonymous hassle, some upfront vitriol, and more than a few broad hints that I’m getting on people’s wicks. When things rile me, or trouble me, things that are happening locally, I sometimes wonder if it’s just me that’s bothered. Am I giving the secularists the oxygen of attention they so obviously crave? Would I be better advised to simply ignore them and let them carry on as they are doing?

During my brief, slightly dusk hour of the soul, I genuinely posed these questions to myself. Was I taking to do with things that are nothing to do with me? Am I stirring the pot unnecessarily? In short, was I taking a great big pair of scissors to a tiny tear, instead of quickly stitching it together?

The best advice I can give myself now is not to fall into the trap that the secularists have: not to keep looking outwards and blaming other people. Look inward to check whether I am guilty, and look upward for everything else.

People like to mock and taunt Christians by asking them, ‘what would Jesus do?’ We do have to put this question to ourselves, though, in a serious manner. He it is we are imitating, after all; His is the perfect nature we would love to emulate as far as possible.

When he met the woman at the well, he did not throw her adulterous and immoral lifestyle at her, he didn’t rail against her for it, or try to make her feel ashamed. But he didn’t avoid the subject either. In fact, he simply said it as it was.

If he met those people who think Stornoway needs a secular lifestyle, I don’t think he would waste valuable time on telling them where they had gone wrong, or on debating the finer points of human rights to spend Sunday in a manner of their choosing. He would, as he did with the Samaritan woman, simply tell them what he offers and, in the light of that offer, their demands would fall away. His word is power and is capable of taking the most unrepentant unbeliever from the jaws of death.

But how are they going to meet him? Will they find him in letters condemning their behaviour? Or in blogs critical of their attitude to a Sabbath they don’t understand?
I am in no position to second-guess what he might be doing in their lives right now, or how directly he may be speaking to them. That said, I am in a position to know that his own people are called on to witness so that unbelievers may at least meet him in them.

And so, whether I am working with the needle and thread, or applying the scissors, he is the pattern I should be following. He is truth and wisdom and love.

Ultimately, those who meet with him will always feel their wrongness without being told. Perhaps the fault is mine if I don’t introduce more people to him. It is just possible that I have been looking at this whole sorry mess the wrong way.

I cannot save people’s souls. The church cannot save people’s souls. But we could work harder at introducing them to a man who can. Instead of wasting everyone’s time reasoning, imploring, or worse – hectoring- we would be better employed living as we should so that the blindest of the blind might see Christ in us.

Then, like the Samaritan woman, they might go about relating their own experience of him. Instead of talking about how narrow and bitter and strict Christ’s followers are, as they do now, they might see past us and our failings, to that man who will tell them everything they ever did.

Lewis Sundays: A Love Song (Not a Lament)

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Traditionally, this island has marked itself out from other places by continuing to maintain a six-day culture. On Sunday, everything winds down and the pace of life slows to something a little closer to the ticking of nature’s clock.

People rise later, eat a leisurely breakfast, walk the dog a little further. And yes, for some, it affords better quality time with their family. Children don’t have to be bundled into clothes and hurried off to school; parents’ heads are not already half-filled with the cares of the working day before they even leave home.

A slower day. Time to listen. The opportunity to talk, and to take pleasure in one another’s company.

It is an oasis in the midst of a world which increasingly lives at breakneck speed. My late husband and I used to enjoy our Sundays to the maximum. We would save the Saturday papers and enjoy a lazy wallow in the supplements with a breakfast of croissants and toasted muffins. Then, we would head out for a long walk or a drive somewhere, before coming home to prepare a roast dinner and watch a film.

In my last post, which I thought was about my sadness at the vandalism of the Lewis Sabbath, and my pity for the architects of its demise, I was accused of being self-righteous. I can only assume that those making this accusation thought I was saying that I was somehow better than them because I don’t want An Lanntair to open on Sundays and they do.

If that’s what people think I’m saying, then I am really not being clear enough, and for that I apologise.

How could I possibly think myself better than them when I was once as they are now? I used to think that it was okay for myself and Donnie to spend Sundays the way we wanted because we only had the weekend together. He worked away from home all week and we felt this entitled us to be a little selfish with the time we did have with one another. We felt this, even though neither of us knew just how short our time together would be.

I understand better than the secularists think because, like them, I was comfortable in my rebellion. It suited me; I was happy. If someone had said to me then that what we were doing was wrong, I would not have understood. Perhaps I would even have been offended.

But all of that changed when my eyes were opened to the truth. Living as you please, spending time with the people you love, doing the things you enjoy – yes, that all feels wonderful. What, though, are we made for? Are we really just here for endless days of doing what feels good in the moment? At the end of a long life, would I be content to look back on all the Saturday supplements I’d read, and all the potatoes I’d roasted, and say, ‘that was a life well lived’?

The change in me is not the thing of which I boast either. If I am self-righteous, my conversion cannot possibly be the source of it. Any Christian will tell you that they are not chosen by God for His mercy because they deserve it, because there is anything in them which causes Him to think, ‘this is promising – I can do something with her’.

After all, if I deserved it, we would hardly call it mercy.

A friend of mine – an atheist – said of my new-found faith, ‘I’m not surprised – you were always a believer’. It was a low point for me because her words caused me to realise afresh the huge gulf of understanding that exists between the Christian and the atheist. She was referring to the fact that I had always believed in the existence of God.

As any Christian will tell you, though, that is not believing. The kind of belief we mean is not something you do with your mind, or your imagination – it is something that consumes and occupies your whole being. It is not a lifestyle, it is not a choice, it is not a philosophy.

When I read the comments on social media from the people who think that they have struck a blow for freedom by opening a cinema on the Lord’s day, I feel sorry. It is sad that they think so little of their community that they would triumph over their friends and neighbours in such a way.

I am not sorry, however, because they have spoilt things for me; they haven’t and they can’t. My source of joy is immutable and unshakeable. Nor do my feelings stem from thinking I am superior to them; for I know I am not.

In truth, I know better than them, because one of the things that separates us is the fact that, while I have been in their position, they have not experienced mine. Not yet, that is. For now, I have the advantage, but no desire to preserve it.

Meantime, perhaps their little victory with the film is not so pyrrhic after all. It has moved more people than ever before to pray for the unbelievers in our midst.

And the Christians here in Lewis have no desire to impose, or prevent, or bully. If Sunday consumerism is what people think they want, so be it: no one can stop us praying for a change of heart.

May The Force Be With Us (The Real One, That Is)

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So, the newshounds  have finally caught up with An Lanntair’s plans to open one Sunday each month. It is a big deal for them, and for those people living in Lewis who don’t like the island very much the way it is. For the media, it is an excuse to point the quaint, wee island out to mainland sophisticates, so they can laugh at our eccentric ways. Somewhere, right now, I guarantee you, a ‘journalist’ is writing copy that contains the words, ‘they’ve only recently been allowed to hang their washing out on Sunday’.

People outside of Lewis love this. To them, we are hilarious anachronisms in black clothes. The only modern thing about us is the microchip implanted in our heads, controlled by the minister from his study computer. Him and his big, fluffy, white cat.

We are other. And we always have been. It makes us fair game.

Here, I’ll empty out the sack of cliches, and you can write the headlines yourselves – just pick and mix. Strictly Sabbatarian. Narrowly Presbyterian. Deeply Religious. Chained-up swings. Swimming prohibited. Wee Frees. Disapproval. Opposition. Planes. Ferries.

You know, the usual sort of thing. Journalists are after a couple of hundred easy words, so I suppose it’s no wonder they resort to rummaging in the stereotype bin. Tomorrow, they will be casually ripping into someone else’s community.

The people I really don’t understand are the ones who live here in the island. I get that they want to make it like everywhere else; no one can punish them for the fact that they apparently lack any feeling for the uniqueness of the place. We have a saying in Gaelic, ‘an rud nach d’ fhuair Niall, chan iarrar air e’. Similar, I suppose to the English: what would you expect from a horse, but a kick?

But do they never stop, in their endless, whining, ‘but I waaaaant’, to think about why Lewis has not ‘caught-up’ with the rest of the country? Could it possibly be because Lewis did not need to be like other places, having enough of its own character to stand apart?

However, the decision is made. The cinema will open one Sunday a month. To begin with. And then the gallery, the cafe, the shop. Will that be enough for our restless secularists who apparently can’t be alone with their families even one day a week? Of course not. Already they are talking about the swimming pool. Then it will be buses, shops, supermarkets . . .

Then, though? Then, they will be satisfied?

Not even then. Discontentment like theirs knows no end. That’s why they are building themselves this house of cards – they think, ‘one more blow against the Lord’s Day and we will be happy; one more victory over Christ and we will have Him beaten’.

They expect opposition from the church. No – correction – they want opposition from the church. It entitles them to rail against religious privilege, if anyone representing an island church raises even one objection to this latest ‘development’.

Well, they won’t get it. The time for that is long past. They are using their God-given free will to spend their time as they choose. Nothing I or anyone else can say will change that. Already, they know that it’s wrong to keep none of it back in tribute to Him. Oh, they’ll deny it. But they know.

It is called the Lord’s Day, not because He commands us to spend it in chains, bored, and reading the Bible without understanding.
He wants us to fulfil our purpose, which is twofold: to glorify Him, and to enjoy Him.

This is not the language of bondage, but of freedom. God wants us to choose to spend time in His presence – He doesn’t compel, or command; and He will not drag you to Himself kicking and screaming.

Though, one day, you may wish He had.

And, even though this step has been taken, it does not mean the atheists have won. They are not victorious in any sense that I can envy. I can say that even though the auditorium will be full on the first open Sunday, because every ticket has already been sold.

It was calculated that way. Some savvy person knew that these superior beings who will not allow their children to be duped by fairytales from the Middle East, would like nothing better than a Sunday afternoon watching aliens and spaceships.

Harmless escapism? I suppose that all depends on what you’re fleeing from.

Meantime, we Christians will be invoking that much talked-about religious privilege. We only have the one, but it really is all we need. ‘The force’, you might call it.

It is our privilege to pray for those who will not pray for themselves. We pray that their eyes will be opened to the folly of what they’re doing; we pray that they will get a heart of wisdom.

Closed minds and deaf ears will not hear our protests; but God is waiting for our petitions. Not – lest they wilfully misunderstand and take offence – petitions that He should smite them, nor anything of that nature. This isn’t Star Wars, you know.

No. Prayers that they will see Him as He really is. And that they will take hold of that for themselves. This is not about power, or imposing a Sabbatarian lifestyle on others.

For the Christian, this is much more important than lifestyle – it is about life. We would have everyone choose that themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

Who Can See That We Love One Another?

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The social media intelligentsia of Lewis has been airing again its conviction that the Free Church has kept the island back. They speak with one voice – the only point of diversion being disagreement as to which century the Wee Frees have tied us to. Some extremists say the 19th and, I must say, it would be understandable. The Victorian era was something of a golden age for our denomination and it would be tempting to linger there. Still, the 20th wasn’t too bad either. With it came swings to chain up on a Sunday and disco dancing to disapprove of, so we would probably be happy to stay in the 1900s too. Well, not happy obviously. . .

Despite our denomination’s apparently famous resistance to change, I found myself recently at two gatherings in our church hall which were . . . novel

They were different to what we have done for the last 174 years and, as far as I could see, no one had a nosebleed. But then I’m not very tall – there might have been one or two swooners at the back. Nonetheless, house policy remains fixed as regards giving them no latitude, and both occasions passed without visible drama.

The first was a Christmas Eve fellowship with carols, mince pies and a Bible quiz. Our lovely hall looked suitably festive, and the general mood was lighthearted. No, we hadn’t bussed people in from another church – this was actual Wee Free laughter.

Less than a fortnight later, we gathered for an entirely new sort of Wednesday meeting. Instead of the traditional format, we sat in groups, and discussed the first of a series of Bible studies on the Epistle of James. It’s a practical book, containing something over one hundred imperatives, and talking about the things of God from a personal perspective can only serve to bring His people closer together.

As I glanced around at these people on Christmas Eve, I saw something on their countenances. There was mutual respect, genuine enjoyment of each other’s company. And when we gathered again, at the start of a new year, there was something even more apparent. Formed into small groups, meditating upon how Christ has revealed Himself to us in trial, we were growing towards one another.

You cannot meditate upon Christ’s love for you personally, or hear how He has likewise dealt with other Christians, without an increase in that love. Towards Him, yes; and towards them.

Love is one of His defining qualities. Greater love had no one. And He has imputed that to each of us to hold in common, to enjoy personally, and to give back. That’s why loving the brethren is easy: it does not come from anything within ourselves.

Which is why we have absolutely no right to keep it to ourselves. Tertullian, a Roman theologian of the early church wrote that the unbelievers looking on at Christians would say, ‘See how they love one another’. It was, he said, how they were marked out and set apart. I have heard ministers pose that question from the pulpit more than once – is that what the world would say of us today?

I think the world just might if it saw us at our best. But when does our community get to see the transforming love of Christ at work in us? Yes, of course we too are of the community – living and working and having our place there. At times of worship and fellowship, however, we come apart from the unbelieving world. It is on these occassions that Christian love for one another is probably most evident.

Only, there is no one there to witness it but ourselves.

I recently heard a sermon on God’s expectation that Christians would be a leaven to society. That means being part of your community, and letting your neighbours see Christ in the way that you live your life.

But one of the most attractive things of all, we hide from view. And I am beginning to think that might be wrong.

Unbelievers parade their sin in open view. They are most assuredly not ashamed of defying God. The word ‘pride’ gets applied to some of the most unlikely motives these days. Shame has left town indefinitely.

So, do we display our love in open view? I hope that our lives are a witness of our love for Christ, of course. But I think we deny an important part of our witness by not allowing those living outside of Him to see how He transforms our relationships with one another.

We are a peculiar people, as Peter said, but that does not allow us to hold ourselves aloof. Retreating to the margins and letting sin hold the floor is not what God intended. Yes, this is a time of undoubted conflict and it is unerstandable that a family should seek comfort and safety in togetherness.

It’s just that there are some of our own still out there, beyond the city walls. But how will they know that their place is with us if we remain in hiding. We have to go to them and let them see what cannot be put into words

Then, surely, they will say, ‘See how they love one another’. And they will recognise, not just that we are family, but that we are their family.

 

 

 

 

Always Darkest Just Before Dawn

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There is something about a brand new year that is like a clean sheet of paper, waiting to be written on. For some, there is the irresistible lure of the resolution, the resolve to be a better version of themselves in the next twelve months than they were in the previous. Few of these outlast January.

It is a time of renewal, of hope; a time when whatever mistakes were made in the old year can be crossed out in the new. But it is also a time for evaluating how those aspirations that were so fresh last New Year have fared.

I was asked this week which of my prayers have gone unanswered. The question really unsettled me. It has always been my belief that God does not let sincere prayer go unanswered. Sometimes He might say, ‘wait a while’, or ‘no, that’s not best for you’, but I don’t think He ever ignores our petitions. For one thing, they are too precious to Him.

But I do have things which I bring before Him continually, as we all do. For most Christians, the first thing on that list would be for their loved ones to know Jesus as their Saviour. And for many, spiritual revival will also be a priority. Most Ch

ristians pray for those things . . . but I wonder whether we have artificially separated them in our hearts, as well as in our supplication to God.

What I’m saying is that when we pray for our family to be saved, we don’t mean them exclusively; we probably just mean them particularly. In reality, a general spiritual awakening which would include those we know and care for, well, that would be better still, surely. How much more generous are prayers which are expansive in their concern? What largeness of heart it takes to pray for salvation in those we do not know, or perhaps especially those with whom we are acquainted, but do not yet love.

The Rev John Morrison of Petty, a man reputed to possess the gift of second sight, once caught up with a member of his congregation, a young woman, on a stormy night. She was concealing her newborn – and illegitimate – infant beneath her cloak, and was making her way to a nearby loch to drown the child. Instead of remonstrating with her, he simply told her that before letting the baby go she should kiss it and ask a blessing on it. This she did, and – as the wise old minister knew would happen – she could not go through with her desperate plan.

Once you have prayed for someone, there is a bond created. I think that is how the Lord strengthens the love His people have, one for the other. He moves us to pray for each other and, once we have, that kind concern is marked indelibly on our hearts.

Revival for our community, for our country, for our world, has to be willed by God. But we surely have a part to play in readying ourselves for it. It is not a small thing we are asking for, and so we should not behave as though it is. God has shown us, I believe, that He is listening. The waiting is not a divine refusal, but evidence that He hears, and wants to hear more.
Words are easily spent. I have prayed for revival, really meaning it, but more often than not I have prayed the words to fill a silence. That isn’t what God wants; and it shames me to admit that’s what I give Him. He wants the earnestness of heart I bring to supplication which directly affects me.

How I prayed when I feared my husband might die is how I should be petitioning the Lord for our community.

It’s exhausting being concerned for people who have no thought of their own spiritual welfare. A few months ago, I heard this mentioned in a sermon as one of the things which can wear the Christian down in their own walk. And it’s true. I can testify to the frustration and even heartbreak of trying to bring Christ before people who still want to spit in His face.
They pretend it’s all part of this relentless march towards freedom and tolerance; but it’s really their own bigotry got up in fancy clothes. That’s why they’re so delighted about going to see a critically-panned ‘Star Wars’ film at An Lanntair on a Sunday afternoon; that’s why the deck of the first ferry to cross the Minch on the Lord’s Day was thronged with people: ugly triumphalism.

You see, they’ve lost any sense of community they may once have had. It’s all become lost in the morass of selfishness and hatred born of fear.

You can become so acquainted with that mindset as to despair that revival is even possible when no one will have this Jesus to be king over them. But that’s no attitude for a Christian. He wants us to be community-minded, and to pray and pray and pray for these people until all hope is gone.

Jesus is the ultimate lesson in hoping against hope. When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were filled with despair because the man they thought would be the Redeemer had died a common criminal’s death, what happened? He himself appeared and reminded them how essential all those hardships had been to the fulfilment of His plan.

And His resurrection surely reminds us that He is hope in a hopeless situation.

My resolution for 2018 is to find that fear for others, that comes so easily where I’m concerned myself; and to give it all to God in prayer. He understands loss of hope. And He restores it like no one else can.

 

 

 

 

A Woman’s Place is Wherever God Wants Her

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Ever since Coinneach Mòr reminded me that I’m a woman, I’ve been thinking about whether it matters very much. In past blogs I have made myself subject to misunderstanding because I have played down the importance of my gender, especially where my faith life is concerned. But I wouldn’t want anyone to run away with the idea that I don’t care about that category of things loosely termed ‘women’s issues’.

Nor, for the record, do I think we’re getting it absolutely right. If I said we were, people might suspect me of being manipulated by men . . .

There are two contexts here which must be considered – my relationship with God as an individual Christian, and my relationship with His church as part of the believing family.

My personal interactions with God consist of conventional prayer, continuous prayer, and the reading of His word. In all these cases, I come to Him as myself, whether I want to or not. He knows who and what I am, regardless of the veils I may – even unconsciously- assume. Part of that self surely consists of my womanhood: it is who He made me to be.

But I don’t believe that He hears me differently simply because I’m a woman; rather, he hears me differently because I am uniquely myself.

Christ,for example, did not favour Mary over Martha, or vice-versa, but He did take cognisance of their different personalities and respond to them accordingly.

He lets us be who we are; any obstacles in the way are of our own making.

Our relationship with the Lord is untrammelled by worries about gender. I do not doubt that He loves the supplication of women as much as the petitions of men. We are all His beloved children and the blood ransom He paid had the same value for every last one.

It is really only when you take that relationship into the church visible that problems arise. I have never gone to God in prayer and wondered whether what was on my heart was alright to mention, what with me being a woman. But I have been conscious of my gender in – amongst other things – writing this blog.

Let me be clear: no one from within the church has ever said to me that I should keep my opinions to myself. For all my joking, none of the men has yet suggested I stick to teaching Sunday school and leave the thinking to them. That is not the root of the problem.

I am the root of the problem.

In my own treacherous heart, there is a constant battle with doubt. Every time I go to publish an article, I worry that this will be the one where I really offend someone. Each new blog post fills me with trepidation that I have gone too far and will be castigated for a meddling ignoramus.

And underlying all these nagging fears is the sense that I am a woman in a man’s world. Who has told me this? Well, no one, but it has been the way things have happened over the years. Men are the office bearers, therefore you have to be a man to have a voice in the likes of the Free Church.

Is that true, though? No, I actually don’t think it is. Recently, I was talking to someone about it, and the notion that Free Church women are kept down. He made me laugh when he said, ‘I’d like to meet the man who could oppress _____________’ The lady he named is just one of legions of island women who could never be kept in their boxes by even the most determined misogynist. They have opinions and they have influence just as the men do.

These are praying women, women who have mentored younger Christians. They have participated fully in the spiritual life and nothing God intends for them can be denied by mere men.

But another recent conversation has forced me to think about the role of women in the church as an institution. We were discussing the way in which complementarianism has been interpreted by the Presbyterian churches in Scotland. My friend pointed out that there is a simple enough way to ensure that we are being Biblical in our division of duties. If a role requires spiritual authority then it should properly be restricted to men. Otherwise, it should be fulfilled by whoever is best suited to it.

This isn’t radical thinking. It isn’t even feminist thinking. What we’re called on to have as a church is a spirit of service, of corporate service. Our collective gifts should be deployed in order to maximise their potential to glorify God. That is what we’re about.

Those outside of our walls often speak about power- any objection to attacks on Christianity are countered with derisive yells of, ‘you just don’t want to lose control ’. The relationship between the church and the world is not about that, however, and neither should our relationships with one another be.

Properly speaking, I am a Christian before I am a woman. What gifts I have to offer in the service of Christ have nothing to do with my gender. He has not made women less gifted than their brothers.

However, I do believe that there is progress to be made in bringing those abilities to fruition in the church. Not, I hasten to add, because of some attempt to create equality between the genders; God has already done that.

Authority is His; spiritual authority He vests in men of His own choosing.

But the freedom to love Him through active service, exercising those gifts which He has bestowed   – that privilege belongs to every man and woman who loves the Lord.