The news that Charlie Kirk had been shot, and the subsequent update that the injury was fatal, cast a gloom over much of the western world on Wednesday night. Like many, I prayed that he would survive, but it was not to be.
So, did the God in whom he so unswervingly believed fail Charlie? That is what the crowing mobs – and, sickeningly, yes, there are such people – would tell you. They are always there, in every disappointment, every terminal diagnosis, every loss, every bereavement, jabbing their fingers and asking, ‘where is your God now’?
He is closer to the broken hearted than any atheist would believe. Indeed, closer than any Christian who has not yet been broken can comprehend. The late Queen, quoting indirectly from Dr Colin Murray Parkes, famously said that ‘grief is the price we pay for love , but I would add – from my own experience, no less – that God’s comfort is the dividend of faith. I have no doubt that the believing family and friends of Charlie Kirk are experiencing that God, and that comfort more viscerally now than ever in their lives before.
‘Pain’, said CS Lewis, ‘is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world’, and so maybe this personal, human tragedy for Charlie’s family should be regarded as a wake-up call to the rest of us. The political responses have been predictable: hunt down the person responsible and deal with him as punitively as the law allows; suppress the far left: in short, meet violence and lack of understanding with more violence and lack of understanding.
This is not the way. Any hopelessness that I feel in the face of this tragedy does not stem from a questioning of God, but of the depressingly unchanging way in which people are responding. Yes, it may be possible to locate the gunman . . . and then what? Does dealing with what may be an act of unwarranted inhumanity from someone ideologically opposed to Charlie Kirk end the problem? Of course it does not. The world’s way, as we are seeing daily, is to meet brutality with brutality. We talk more than ever before about understanding, about kindness, and about walking a mile in the other guy’s shoes – but I don’t think this world has ever contained less comprehension of love than it does at this moment.
There is, of course, a way through; there is always a way through if we are prepared to humble ourselves. Therein lies the rub, however. We have made gods of ourselves, of our desires, of our feelings. Nothing must be allowed to hurt me, or even contradict me. If you doubt my word, or dare to pose a counterargument, you are not merely disagreeing, but hating. In their populist stupidity, successive governments have tried to legislate for petted lips, for offended sensibilities, and now stand amidst the wreckage, wondering who to blame.
Blame us, then, the creatures who have tried in vain to usurp our Creator. We did this. Our relentless pursuit of power and glory has wreaked interminable havoc. Ultimately, we tried to run this world on a rogue operating system, having tried every which way to disable the pre-installed software. And we have catastrophically failed.
That, atheists, is why people die in pointless wars and human conflict, and why every day is peppered with innumerable acts of cruelty and depravity, inflicted on one set of human beings by another. It is the reason why, no matter how well-intentioned we think we are, nothing goes to plan. And when – if – the person whose bullet killed Charlie Kirk is found, we still won’t be satisfied. Don’t look for justice in a world that no longer recognises truth, that no longer cares whether a person or an act is good or evil, as long as it aligns with their own world view. We, each of us, think of ourselves as the plumbline for everything: does it sit true against my ideology? No? Ah well, it must be wrong.
This is no nihilistic assessment of world affairs. It is a call, not to arms, but to peace. I was so moved by the words of Pope Leo (yes, Proddies, him again) earlier in the week in describing the role of tears in situations such as this one. Weeping is not a sign of weakness, but of strength; Christ cried out on the cross to his Father, and that type of anguished plea can be understood, the Pontiff said, ‘as an extreme form of prayer’.
Sometimes, love has no other outlet than to shed tears. I think we have now reached that point as a world. Cry, then, from the depth of your hearts, to the God of all comfort, because he understand us – better, even, I think – without words.
Testing
A Birthday Tribute
Today, had things gone to plan, I would be celebrating my husband’s sixtieth birthday with him. When I say ‘plan’, I mean ours, not the eternal one. And it has, at times, been a bitter pill to swallow that this isn’t a mistake, or an aberration of some kind – this is precisely what was meant to be. Donnie was meant to die five months short of his fifty-second birthday, and I was meant to be a widow at thirty nine.
I accepted this because, well, I accept the sovereignty of God. And, most of the time, I accepted his wisdom and his goodness. Yet, I am human and sometimes it was hard not to dwell on what I had lost, and on what Donnie would miss out on by dying so young. One of the hardest things was a school photo of his that surfaced on social media, shortly after he died – seeing him as a cute, wee boy with all his life ahead of him . . . it was almost unbearably poignant.
I used to comfort myself with the idea that the grief would get easier, which it does, mostly. What I didn’t know was that it would still wash over me in waves that sometimes feel, even now, like they might utterly engulf. It made a friend laugh recently when I told her that, after he died, I used to wish it was five years in the future so that things would be easier, better . . .
That would be 2020, then, year of Covid. I think Donnie himself would laugh at my unfortunate wishful timing.
On what would have been his sixtieth birthday, therefore, I simply want to pay tribute to a quietly wonderful man. He would never have allowed it had he been here, but there’s no one to stop me singing his praises now.
He proposed to me while wearing a Santa suit – fittingly, as being his wife was without doubt the greatest gift he could have given me. The proposal was cemented initially with a locket he’d bought me because he’d lost his nerve in Ernest Jones after going in to buy a ring. ‘I don’t know what an engagement ring looks like’, he said, as though the whole thing would have been a thorough mystery to the jeweller as well.
Usually he didn’t balk at buying me presents other men might consider embarrassing. I think the ring was different because it symbolised something so important. Donnie understood what mattered, and to him, at thirty nine, this was a big step. The day we went to the manse to discuss the service he was nearly delirious with nerves. Somehow, I think he had it in his head that the minister would catechise him or something. These nerves carried on right up to the big day itself, when only a stern ‘don’t you dare’ from his big sister stopped him from being sick!
It’s funny to think back on how he reacted to these small pressures because, when the ultimate test of his mettle came, we all saw the man he was, and none more than me. He faced his initial diagnosis matter-of-factly, endured treatment with stoicism, and looked upon the end of his life with total reconciliation. If he shed a tear he never did so in my presence, and all his worries were for me – would I be financially secure, would I be taken care of. When I told him that I would be alright, that I would not give way to despair, he seemed surprised at the very idea that I might.
His faith, you see, was far ahead of mine. He was only concerned with practical things, things that he could do for me – things he felt he SHOULD do for me, even at the end. The rest, well, he knew he was leaving that in safe hands.
How often I have imagined his wry comments and mischievous smile over the last eight years. He would have had much to say about world events and local politics. A mild-mannered fellow most of the time, he would have erupted into protective fury at some of the situations I have found myself in – but, then, most of these wouldn’t have happened in the first place had he been here. From almost the first moment we were together he made me feel safe, cared for, and like the most precious object in the world. I was first in everything, the apple of his eye.
Of the few regrets I harbour, one is the fact that many special people who have come into my life since then never knew him. He would have loved them as I do, I’m sure. In moments of weakness, I regret that he will never again insist on running me a bath, or pouring me a glass of wine because I’ve had a hard day. Donnie was the sort of man who filled my life with small kindnesses – flowers from the supermarket, my favourite chocolate, compliments and, though I can scarcely remember why, frequent expressions of gratitude.
Known in his own family as ‘Dòmhnall Beag’, and sometimes just ‘Beag’, I never knew a man of greater moral stature. He genuinely never put anyone ahead of himself, and his first instinct in every time of trouble was to ask what he could do. His bravery, for a man of any size, was titanic.
After he died, I read the diary he’d been keeping in his last months. It was entirely filled with reflections of gratitude and love, just as his life had been. He broke me with this entry, however: ‘I hope Catriona meets someone who will be good to her. She deserved so much more than this’.
The thing is, a Dhòmhnaill, you set the bar impossibly high; I don’t believe there could be more than we had. And though there are days I wish God’s plan had aligned a little more closely with ours, I can hardly be surprised at his haste to bring you home.
Whenever I’m cast down by the way his plan unfolded, or am tempted to question providence, I look at all he has given me, and it is well, it is well with my soul.
How can I hand you over?
Christina Rossetti’s poem, ‘Remember’ has a particular resonance for me. It asks that she be remembered after her death, when ‘you can no more hold me by the hand, nor I half turn to go, yet turning, stay’. These lines came back to me when my husband was dying, because they reminded me of a particular weekend when he had to leave home on Sunday instead of Monday, in order to attend some work training. We had been having such a lovely weekend, and both of us were sad that it needed to end that much sooner. I was trying to put a brave face on it, when he suddenly took off his jacket, chucked his bag back into the wardrobe and decided not to go after all till the following morning.
I remembered this so many times as I sat by his bedside in the hospice. And I remembered Rossetti’s sentiment – that death revokes the option to remain. How I wished he could hug me as he had that Sunday, and tell me he was staying.
It came back powerfully to me again this morning in church.
God restrained his own hand many times against the Israelites, never permitting them quite to suffer the fate they deserved. In the prophecy of Hosea, he asked himself, ‘How can I hand you over, Israel’? Yet, in the preceding verses, we see countless reasons for him to do just that, given the unfaithfulness of those who called him ‘God Most High’. Even though their words were not matched by their deeds, still God resisted giving them over to destruction. Such was his love for his own people that he was not willing that any should perish, and he has repeatedly held us away from death since.
But not his own Son. Jesus was not spared any of our punishment. The guilt was ours, yet the suffering was all on him.
This is love. It is incomprehensible to our small minds but my word, it should leave a colossal mark on our hearts. God couldn’t bear to punish his sinful, disloyal people for their own dark deeds; but he willingly gave up his Son to that death on the cross, to the stark moment when he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’?
We cannot know the mind of God, but it’s incredible to imagine the Father doing to Jesus what he would not do to us. And it is equally astonishing to think of Jesus, walking to Calvary and to death . . . and not turning back from it as any one of us would, given the chance.
Today’s sermon ended with the minister reading some testimony from a Pakistani Christian who – like many of his countrymen – has been disowned by family for converting away from their faith. Yet, he said, the empty home and the silent telephone are not reasons to pity him, because he knows that God has something far better for him, and there is no loneliness in Christ.
I can put my ‘amen’ to that, except in one respect. The awe I feel at this man’s sacrifice, is because it reflects God. Neither God the Father, nor the Son, spared himself in redeeming us. Painful, soul-searing sacrifice was willingly made. Ditto this Christian whose profession made such a moving end to today’s sermon.
Any losses I have sustained were not sacrifices willingly given. I don’t think I would have had the strength, or the faith. But, there again, God’s infinite love didn’t ask me to give what I could not: in the light of Christian understanding, therefore, even his taking away is kindness itself.
That’s the heart of God.
Keep A Thing Seven Years
There’s a Gaelic saying which suggests that if you keep a thing for seven years, a use will be found for it. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t take that long.
This Sunday, I will have kept my grief for seven years. Like many new possessions, I carried it with me everywhere for the first while, moving it around as self-consciously as a child walking in stiff, leather shoes. When it was worn in a little, I started to forget for minutes at a time, only to be assailed by the reality of it when I least expected. In the last few days of Donnie’s life, I had been painfully aware that some time very soon I would no longer be a wife, but a widow.
I didn’t like the word and still less the idea that it represented.
Yet, in seven years, I have been taught to wear the mantle with something approaching acceptance. Instead of being allowed to push the garment from me, God has gently shown me that it IS mine to put on, every day. Traditionally, it also took seven years to train a piper, before they would be allowed to perform in front of an audience. There was no such apprenticeship for me, though – just straight in at the deep end.
I often think how this might all have been, had but one thing been different.
These seven years would have seen me grow bitter, perhaps, or reckless. I might have spent my time in wishing my husband back, or wishing I’d never met him – anything, in short, to remove the excruciating pain. The memory of his suffering could have tormented me to who knows what depths of anguish.
The one thing, though, which saved me from all of that was the hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t simply Christ saying, ‘I’m here, you can lean on me’. That would have been wonderful enough. In fact, his message was subtly different. He was actually telling me, ‘Remember I’m here. You know what to do’. This wasn’t the beginning of a wonderful new relationship, but a life-changing development of one that I hadn’t truly known I was in.
While I have carried – and will carry – Donnie in my heart, it is not loss which dominates my reflections over these seven years without him. It is gratitude. I had such a marriage that I didn’t think I could live without him. But God used that blessing to show me a much deeper and more enduring love. He has fulfilled me in the years of my widowhood, and shown me that, in Christ, all situations are an opportunity to know blessing.
I have profited from his teaching. It goes without saying that I have benefitted in more ways than I can count from his love and mercy. From the very beginning of this journey, though, God has laid it on my heart to share my providence with you. He did that, and then he made it possible.
Most miraculous of all, he took what might have destroyed me and blessed it to the extent that I can say that the Lord gives more than he takes away. Last Sunday, our minister used the sermon time to remind us of the glory and holiness of this God. And, right at the end, that devastatingly beautiful flourish of truth: ‘Remember, though, he is also your Father’.
Glorious, holy, perfect – of course; but tender and loving to the last. Not ‘also in our hard providences’ but especially. If you don’t believe it, I will take you to see a man who told me all things I ever did, and loved me just the same.
Every Breath You Take, Every Tear You Shed
Every move you make, every breath you take, I’ll be watching you. Unsettled? You should be. Imagine me turning up everywhere you go, keeping a weather eye on all your doings. Not anyone’s idea of a good time, least of all mine. Most of you are probably very boring, putting bins out and booking chiropodist appointments, not working for the secret service or dating celebrities on the Q.T.
Anyway, it’s just a quote from the song, ‘Every Breath You Take’, which has been jokingly renamed ‘the stalker’s anthem’ – and it popped into my head while sitting in church on Sunday morning. Now, before you all start fidgeting in your pews and eyeing one another nervously, don’t bother – it wasn’t any of you who prompted the thought; it was the minister. And, no, he needn’t be rushing out to get a bigger padlock for the manse gate either. It was actually something in the sermon that brought the song to mind:
God has a record of all our woes. The beautiful psalm 56 tells us that he stores up our tears in a flask.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some big sorrows in my life, the kind that feel as though they’re carved into my very heart. But every droplet that fell from my mourning eyes is numbered and bottled by God. He knows the depth and breadth of my grief in a way that even I do not.
Still more extraordinary, though, is the fact that he also has an exact record of the hurts that I’ve forgotten. I mean, I have cried over a lot of situations and a lot of people that long since passed into oblivion. There were emotional storms that seemed seismic at the time, but that I have certainly no word of now.
Yet my Heavenly Father remembers. Those tears are counted too. God is more tender towards me than I am towards myself.
And that is why, masked up and a metre from all my nearest neighbours, I added a couple more droplets to that eternal flask. These were not tears of pain, however. Relentlessly, psalm 56 unfolded in beauty, and I glimpsed – if only for a brief moment – the inexpressible heart of God.
You see, he not only collects the tangible record of our sorrow. In order to do this fully, he also follows us in all our wanderings. That is, he not only accompanies us on the journey we ought to take, but watches us when we stray from the path.
Well, of course he does. A parent may smile at their child, safely sleeping in his own bed; but how much more watchful is that gaze when the little one is in danger? It was this that wrung the tears from my Sunday morning eyes – remembering all the foolish times I had tried to do things without him, never knowing that he was coming with me anyway, whether I acknowledged his presence or not.
The context for all of this is a familiar theme in the psalms – strength in the presence of the enemy. It asks the oft-repeated question, ‘what can man do to me’?
I have been afraid at times. Undoubtedly the most frightened I have ever been was when my husband fell ill with cancer. A few days ago, I overheard a television character being asked if he was afraid of something or other and he replied, ‘No. After my wife died, the worst had happened and so nothing else frightens me’.
That is not how it is for me. When my husband died, before that, even, God caught me in his arms. He was more than sufficient in the worst fear I have ever endured. So, because of THAT- because of HIM – I cannot be properly afraid of anything else. I may get upset, I may be angry at the enemy, but I cannot fear him.
Sometimes in dealing with the onslaught against my faith, whatever form it takes, I forget to leave it with God. I get caught up with trying to tackle the situation myself, and I do so on my own (nonexistent) strength.
It goes without saying that I make a hash of it. My repetitious tendencies in this regard have been a worry to myself.
Yet, there in church on Sunday morning in Stornoway, I felt a new surge of love and humble gratitude. One metre removed I may have been from my fellow worshippers, but my Father and I are never more than a hair’s breadth apart. Thanks entirely to him. He doesn’t permit that the stubbornness of my heart should lead me anywhere that he does not also go.
So, why should I fear? Until the stopper is finally placed in the flask, and I reach the place of no more weeping, every move I make, every breath I take, he’ll be watching me.
The Persistent Widow
It’s taken eighteen days, but I have finally met the character I most identify with in all of Luke. Perhaps at other times it would be someone different, but today it is definitely the persistent widow who couldn’t get any justice.
Yes, that speaks to me right now. I have lately met with staggering selfishness and disregard of my rights, and having failed to be heard by the perpetrators, I have been forced to appeal to authority in order to persuade them to behave like . . . well, adults.
Authority in many cases is just like the judge in this parable: they don’t want to get involved, they don’t really see why they should, but if you wear away at them, sooner or later, someone has to hear you. It isn’t really about right and wrong – it’s simply that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Even ungodly rulers, like the judge in Luke 18, will sometimes dispense justice, even if it is simply to silence a persistent widow.
Widows feel especially vulnerable. Yes, even ones like me. You’ve lost your helpmeet, your partner in life and it’s difficult not to feel alone when hard pressed by either circumstances or by people. As I have said before, it’s a status that draws more kindness from those who are kind, but cruelty and exploitation from those who are not.
The point of this parable is to show how much more we can expect from God who IS justice than even the cold assistance of the courts. It would be contrary to his nature to act unjustly. We, in our sinful brokenness, struggle to comprehend this – and so Jesus explains it in terms we can understand. If even fallible and godless rulers can offer justice, imagine how much more you will receive from God.
Discussing my situation with a friend this week, he asked if I ever question God’s motives in permitting these situations. Yes, of course I do – I meditate on that very thing often. And there is one conclusion I’ve come to. I believe that in our trials God may well be reminding us of our privilege in belonging to him:
‘He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever’.
The justice of this world is like the peace or the joy of the world: transient and fractured at best. If you are a disciple of Christ, though, and experiencing painful trial, aren’t you resting on his justice? And, if you are – as we all should be – he knows he’s got you, and that you will not, ultimately, be put to shame.
That being the case, then, perhaps Christians sometimes need to shift their perspective a little. God knows you will not ultimately be put to shame; he will not permit that. In the midst of battle, so equipped, then, isn’t it just possible that you are not the one who is being tested?
Getting married?
Now admit it: you read the title and you thought, ‘once was unbelievable, but if Catriona has duped a second poor man, I’ll eat my hat’. Well, no, it’s not about me. I am hosting a guest blogger – the one, the only (thank goodness!) Ali Moley. However, I reckon Helena deserves a mention as being at least part of the inspiration for this too.
“It’ll never happen,” they said. “You aren’t being realistic,” they said. “It’s very naive of you,” . . . “Maybe you’re mistaken?” they said
We began to have doubts.
Our wedding date was booked for Friday 26th June 2020 and all the arrangements had been made.
Many couples find the process of organising a wedding stressful, but we were actually, really enjoying it. It felt very satisfying to look for and find the best deals, to arrange the smallest detail to make our day as perfect as it could be, to be working as a team, sharing the duties and helping each other according to our strengths and weaknesses. It is something we both very much enjoyed.
And then Covid-19 hit us square in the face like a manky, coughing bat from the blue, turning the world as we knew it upside down.
The tears filled our eyes, and our hands clasped in prayer as the shocking media coverage began of China,and then Italy – over crowded wards, doctors crying, patients on beds, ventilated and dying, unreal because of the distance but gradually all too real with the insistence that the Coronavirus was spreading from nation to nation, getting ever closer to our own.
Day after day, images of poor souls gasping on ventilators were repeatedly shown while the TV Presenter read the rising death toll figures………..and unsurprisingly, the terror took hold.
No-one could have guessed how restrictions would impact our lives in the UK. Before lockdown, we hoped it might have a small impact for a short period of time. ‘Ach, it won’t last long!’ we said to console ourselves.
But then lockdown came.
At first the restrictions were novel, and we faced the virus with Churchillian fortitude and steely eyed determination. But then after a few weeks it became unsettling, disorientating, mood-alteringly normal. The unknown played havoc with people’s minds: the myriad questions and doubts and the growing incredulity of a society that had for so long tried to sanitise or even erase the thought of death from their everyday lives but was now forced to hear the wailing siren of their own predicted impending doom!
Helena, my darling fiancé, caught the virus and began self-isolating in Airdrie, but thankfully after two weeks and a very persistent dry cough she was fine. Her brother Stephen also became infected and after some worrying tightness in his chest, he thankfully recovered too.
By the grace of God, miraculously even, our little island of Lewis was relatively untouched by the Virus – Covid-19 left the Coves alone – but we were on standby, vigilant, “It could come at any time!”
It was getting closer to our planned wedding date and I prayed, “Lord, what about the wedding? Will we need to reschedule it? Will it go ahead as we planned?”
And the Lord spoke – the next day, Sunday 22nd of March.
Both sermons we listened to that day had the following verses from Jeremiah 33:10-11 read –
“Thus says the LORD: In this place of which you say, ‘It is a waste without man or beast,’ in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man or inhabitant or beast, there shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring thank offerings to the house of the LORD:
‘Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!’
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the LORD.”
God had spoken and we rejoiced!
We took it to mean that the wedding would be going ahead at some point just as God had planned it – a day of thanksgiving, rejoicing and praise in the house of God with our family and friends, when the streets were full again and the lockdown had eased.
And God repeated either these verses from Jeremiah 33:10&11 or the lone verse ‘Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!’, (which is the verse on our wedding invites) every Sunday in a sermon we listened to for the next three weeks in a row!
What an assurance from our beloved Father in Heaven!
We decided to reschedule the wedding to Thursday 27 August 2020, but after receiving those verses from the Lord we were assured that God is in control and that our wedding would go ahead according to His perfect plan, hopefully, possibly on that date.
We told others about the verses and some rejoiced and Praised the Lord and some out of politeness said, ‘I hope so.’
But many others said, ‘Maybe you’re reading into it?’, ‘no way is your wedding going ahead this year!’, ‘You are being naive’, ‘you are probably mistaken.’
Some days we listened to the doubting voices, lookingworryingly at the world around us, and we began to doubt.
Other days we looked upwards to heaven and clung to the promise of our God.
As our marriage date draws ever nearer, and restrictions begin to be eased, our hopes of everything going ahead as planned grow daily…….and you know what?
It makes us think of the OTHER marriage we are going to.
You know the one.
It has been arranged and ALL the Lord’s people are invited and will be going soon.
We are so excited that we tell others about the weddingand about the promises that God has made, in the hope that they might come too –
‘In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.’ John 14:2-3
or maybe we say to them,
‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride had made herself ready;….’ Revelation 19:6-7
or maybe we tell them,
‘….Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ Revelation 19:9
And some by God’s grace hear and rejoice and believe. And we rejoice and believe anew.
But others say, “It’ll never happen,” “You aren’t being realistic.” “It’s very naive of you,”….“Maybe your mistaken?”
And occasionally we listen to their doubting voices, and look around at this sinful, fallen world, and we begin to doubt as the virus of unbelief infects our hearts and minds.
But Jesus comes to us with His word of truth anew, the solid gold verses of assurance that we can rely on………and He whispers to us,
‘Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.’ John 14:1
and He calls to our Father in heaven so that we can hear,
‘Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you have loved me before the foundation of the world.’ John 17:24
And together we shout with joy,
‘For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Romans 8:38-39
And as the time draws nearer to that great and glorious day, we by faith rejoice, that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will take place just as we have been told………..and not one of us will be missing
Will I see you there? I really, really hope so.
But if not . . .
I was set a challenge this week, by one of the overbearing blokes of Stornoway Free Church. ‘Shut up, woman’, he ordered, ‘your blog titles are too long-winded – and who permitted you to have ideas, anyway?’ Or words to that effect; no doubt I am paraphrasing somewhat. ‘Write about this, and stay out of trouble’, he said finally, firing a Biblical reference at me and departing.
He had quoted Daniel 3: 18 and, specifically, these seemingly negative, doubting words: ‘but if not’, uttered by Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, when King Nebuchadnezzar is telling them of their imminent punishment in the fiery furnace. Their answer is along the lines that we always expect from believing people: do what you will, our God will protect us, and pluck us out of the flames.
‘ . . . but if not . . .’
So well-versed in Scripture was the wartime generation that a naval officer at Dunkirk telegraphed only these three words home and had the Allied plight immediately understood. The situation was desperate. Indeed, in the ordinary sense, the situation was hopeless.
Was that officer telling his loved ones to prepare themselves for German invasion, then, for the loss of all Allied hopes of success? Not any more than Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were preparing for the possibility that God might leave them to a fiery death. He was, in fact, telling the people at home that whatever happened, God would be with them.
We have our own ideas about how we would like the Lord to salvage a situation. It may be that we pray for a desperately ill loved one to be cured; it may be that we want him to stop our enemy’s mouths; it may be that we beg him to not send us into a particular situation. These are all prayers I have uttered, some of them many times. And in every significant example I can recall, God gently shook his head, ‘no’.
At this point, the unbeliever scoffs. The book of psalms brims over with examples of the enemy mocking and asking, ‘where is your God now?’ In the world, they see our relationship with the Lord as being similar to that between a small child and Santa Claus, or perhaps Aladdin’s genie. He is not, though, a capricious granter of wishes. God hears my prayers before they leave my heart, before I know them myself. But he is wiser than to let me direct him in how these should be answered.
When I prayed for my husband to be cured, and was comforted by the verse, ‘this sickness is not unto death’, I was hearing only what I wanted. I was stopping short of the next clause ‘but to the glory of God’. In my understandable human pain, I wanted God to make everything all right, to make it stop hurting there and then. In his infinite goodness and wisdom, though, he took my request and granted it more fully and completely than I would ever have the grace or courage to ask for myself.
In times of sore oppression – verbal, rather than physical, lest anyone feel the need to accuse me of exaggeration – and slander, I prayed that God would silence those who lifted their voices against me in hatred. The chorus only intensified and became nastier and more vitriolic. Far from stopping their mouths, God seemed only to lengthen the lead to give them more latitude. And, in the end, the freedom of that leash became the rope from which their unkindness swung, for all to see. He caused them to stop their own mouths.
There have been situations I wanted no part of and asked God to let me go around. These requests he has also denied. I have lived through confrontations, through spiritual and emotional difficulties that I would have just as soon avoided. More times than I like to admit, I would ask God, ‘why have you put me through this’, and concluding over and over that my soul seems to require an inordinate amount of honing! But hone me he does. Every trial, every mistake, every misunderstanding between me and my brethren, every word I say out of turn, every relationship that I enter into, every partiality I show, every decision I make for good or ill, God is there.
That is what those three little words mean: ‘but if not’. They are immediately followed by an affirmation that, even if God does not deal with them as they have proclaimed, still they won’t turn from him. It is the same submission to his will that caused Christ to ask for the cup to pass from him, and then to add ‘not my will but yours’.
‘But if not’, however it sounds in the mouth of an unbeliever, is the very opposite of doubt. It is faith, born of an intimate knowledge of this God, who does everything perfectly. It is the confident proclamation of the believer who knows that he may not always take them out of the fiery furnace, but neither will he leave them to suffer it alone.
I hope this blog encourages you to believe, or to remember that God is with us always – but, if not, he is, just the same.
And the prisoners heard
Sunday afternoon sunshine lured me outside to sit on my recently-painted decking to read, write and contemplate. There were birds singing in the trees and lambs bleating in the croft beyond, but not a sound other than that to pierce the stillness. I had recently risen from morning worship with my congregation, and was in exactly the right frame of mind for a bit of contemplation.
I was also filled with an enormous sense of wellbeing. These are days filled with uncertainty, trepidation and, for many, grief. None of us knows when it may be our turn to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Yet, we know that God is with us, and that ,while a shadow may well encroach, it can never devour.
So, while the world’s media is talking in terms of a global crisis, of catastrophe and lockdown, God is enabling me – and many more besides, I think – to experience this as the day of small things which we are warned not to despise. As I sat in the warmth of this early spring day, I thought about the week just gone by, and the ways in which I have met with Christ in the long hours of solitude.
There is his word, of course, and prayer. These are constants. Normally, though, they are the launchpad for what Lady Bracknell disparagingly referred to as ‘a life crowded with incident’.
I am rediscovering my inner introvert, however. This week, I have delivered a number of lectures and tutorials, spoken on the radio about my favourite Scottish novels, attended a meeting of the Stornoway Trust, and participated in a whisky tasting – all without budging from my dining table. In between, I walk, cook, clean, read and write. In the evenings, I chat to friends and family, listen to music, and catch up on television programmes, films and podcasts that I’ve missed.
Friday was glorious. I finished classes, and took the dog for a long ramble on the machair. Confusedly dressed in wellies, linen trousers and a cashmere hoody (I like to acknowledge all seasons in one outfit), I got spectacularly rained on. Showered and pyjama-clad, I lit the wood burner and laid out my various samples of Jura whisky and wild water from the Stornoway Trust Estate in time for the Instagram tasting event.
It was not, I am quite certain, the 46.7% ABV 21-year-old malt that gave me the feeling of complete serenity, but the sense that this was a day of privileges, dispensed by the hand of a gracious God. He has enabled me to continue doing my job, and fulfill other obligations while remaining safe and not feeling isolated in the least.
Discussing this with a Christian friend on Sunday evening, she said that she was concerned by the number of people – believing people – who are not doing so well. She hears from folk who say that lockdown is beginning to pall on them, who say they miss the human interaction of church. These are by no means all people who live alone either.
All of which set me wondering what’s wrong with me that, six weekends in, I am still only able to see the positives.
I have come to a number of conclusions. Ultimately, I don’t go to church for the social aspect. In fact, quietly and without anyone else noticing, I ceased attending organised fellowships of any kind more than a year ago. Church has been a place of worship for me, and that continues to be possible by God’s grace through the technology which it is our privilege to access and enjoy. Yes, there are people whose society I miss, and I will be glad to see them when we are once more able to share a pew. Until then, however, I am getting the essential parts of the church experience at home.
Like many others, I am gratified by the way in which being a church quite literally without walls has enabled new people to join us for worship. An open door may theoretically be welcoming, but there is still a threshold to cross which can seem like a journey of a thousand miles to the stranger. Online worship presents no such barrier.
A lot of Christians are invoking the image of Israel’s captivity to describe where we are at. I don’t disparage other people’s feelings or experiences, however, when I say that this is not my view of things at all.
Christ has freed his people, and we do him no justice if we consider ourselves captive still. We ought to be like Paul and Silas who sang and prayed in their cell at midnight. The walls could not contain them because their hearts were fixed upon worshipping God. He was there with them, he is here in my house too; and he is with all his people wherever they are. Ask the suffering and persecuted church if you can’t believe a Wee Free woman.
My favourite part of that account, though, is the following four words: ‘and the prisoners heard’.
Those who are still enslaved, not by government lockdown, but the bonds of sin – what is our witness to them? Perhaps he has brought us out of our comfortable churches into the information super-highway so that they will hear us, not weeping and complaining, but lifting up our voices in praise of the Christ who will never leave nor forsake us.
Empty pews & the fellowship of the Spirit
I feel like a child in a fairytale. It feels as though, just by wishing hard enough, I have made the thing happen. ‘Which thing?’ you ask, fearing that I’m going to say I’ve met a handsome prince, and that you’ll have to send someone to show me that really it IS only a frog. No, not that thing. The thing I needed, the thing I secretly longed for has happened.
The world has stopped. And I have been able to stop with it.
For the few (I’ve lost track of how many) weeks of lockdown, I have been harbouring a secret. It has made me feel out of step with everybody else, but at the same time absolutely wonderful. And, if this really is just an enchantment from which we will all soon wake up, it’s safe to tell my secret, however it may shock.
In fact, I know it WILL shock, because right from the beginning of this, the Christian church has been chided for its readiness to embrace online worship. ‘You should be weeping for what you have lost’, we were told, the very first week, ‘you should grieve the loss of fellowship and count electronic services a poor substitute’.
It has been said before, of course. In the book of Numbers:
‘And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat!
We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”’
Am I being harsh? No, I don’t think I am. We are shown repeatedly in Scripture the danger and folly of looking back to halcyon days that were less than the perfection in our minds. God took the Israelites out of Egypt for a good reason: it was not their home, of course, and it was a corrupting influence, teaching the cults of paganism and idolatry. Their longing for the varied diet of the oppressor as opposed to the wholesome manna provided by God needs no interpretation.
It is this which makes us all repeat the mantra, ‘when we get back to normal’. We are human and we want what is easy and familiar. That’s hardly surprising.
Surely, though, the church cannot want to go back to what it was before. I cringe at the repeated requests that we not get too comfortable with live-streaming our worship. Why? What is ‘too comfortable’? It’s the provision God has made and there is no better application for man’s creative ingenuity than tribute to the Creator himself, who made it possible. Of course, I’m being deliberately obtuse; I know very well the point that’s being made.
What about fellowship?
Well, I’m here to tell you that occupying the same physical space does not add up to that. Fellowship is spiritual, not geographical. It is literally ‘of the Spirit’: we are united in him, wherever we are, and have the concern and care of one another, regardless of proximity or distance. How else can we have brotherhood with the global church or a heart for mission?
Is there not a very real danger that, when life is too easy and the pews too – figuratively speaking, obviously- comfortable, we mistake merely being in the same place twice-weekly for the deeper spiritual bonds of Christian fellowship?
Perhaps, then, God has removed that privilege for a season, so that we would understand its illusory effects.
As for the exhortation to weep, I don’t have much time for that either. Grief can paralyse in ways that do nothing to aid spiritual growth. Witness psalm 137:
‘By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” ‘
They sat down. They hung up their lyres. Grief and looking back rooted them to the spot and dried up their praise.
WE are in a strange land and never more so than now. This, though, is all in God’s providence and we must – surely – be called on to be like Paul and to worship him in all circumstances.
Which brings me to my secret. I know it is fated to be misunderstood, but still I think it’s worth airing.
I am glad the churches are closed.
On a personal level, it’s a relief. Life for me was so out of hand busy that, frankly, Sunday had ceased to be a day of rest. It was frequently one more day on which I had to drag myself out of the house and follow a timetable. More often than not in recent months I went to save face and to avoid answering awkward questions.
I was exhausted and verging on burnout.
Please don’t misunderstand me: this was never about coldness towards the Lord, his word, or his people. It was the cumulative effect of too much everything.
Now, I have the joy of worshiping without the tiredness. I can pare it all back to essentials and focus on the word and the praise.
This is not about one person’s convenience, of course, though I do wonder how many others feel as I do right now. It is about what the Lord is saying to his own people. We still have the privilege of corporate worship; he has not taken that from us.
I take two things from the current situation. First, he has demonstrated that fellowship is not a closed shop. We have been forced to go public and it is a real joy to know that the unchurched are finding comfort in acts of online worship. It is, as far as I am concerned, the ‘go’ of the Great Commission being partly fulfilled.
Second, he is chipping away at our complacency. To be together means much more than haphazardly sitting under one roof. It is love, care, gladness to be a people, concern for one another, sharing one another’s joys and woes.
If I survive to see the end of this pandemic, I will be glad to go to church. I pray that I will be doing it – that we will all be doing it – with a new heart and a new vigour. This is not a make-do and mend situation; God is giving us a blessing by keeping us apart, so that we might better learn what it really means to be together.
Post tenebras lux 