Where is Your God?

 

William Wordsworth wrote:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Wordsworth is lamenting the fast withering connection between people and nature because of the all-embracing industrial society of his time, a great theme of his day. I find people are often aware they are somehow disconnected from something bigger than themselves. I sense their longing for they don’t know what, their frustration at an inexplicable sense of fragmentation.

Believers can experience this frustration, when ‘the world is too much with us, late and soon, getting and spending.’ That sense we have laid waste our powers, given our hearts away while distracted by the demands of life. Like Esau, we can feel we have traded our new-birth-right ‘for a mess of pottage.’ Genesis 25:29-33 ‘The world is too much with us, late and soon,’ and little we see in spiritual things that should be ours but are not.

As I read psalm 42 last evening I discovered David experienced this longing for connection, as he found himself far from Jerusalem in, ‘the land of Jordan and Hermon, from Mount Mizar,’ Psalm 42:6. Although he knows God is never far from him, David feels physically far from God (42:9), the world is too much with him, and it taunts him, ‘where is your God?’ So David cries:

‘As the deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When will I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my food

day and night

while they say to me all the day long,

‘Where is your God?’’

Psalms 42 and 43 stand together as one song and are a great comfort to those who feel as David did, surrounded by, ‘ungodly people...unjust man.’ (43:1) I find myself in this psalm as David cries, ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?’

David prays fervently for vindication and deliverance (43:1) for leading and guidance (43:3). In all this David is open and honest with his God, sharing his thoughts, speaking of his sense of abandonment (42:8,9)

At the same time he is determined to prove faithful to his God. David answers his own plight with two comforting words of encouragement. In the first he remembers those days when he was in communion with God and his people:

‘These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

How I would go with the throng

and I lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise;

a multitude keeping a festival.’ (42:4)

Remembering is a gift and a comfort to the saints. In those times when I feel the world is too much with me I go to his Word, remind myself of his mercies, and recall those countless times of blessing in fellowship. God has been good to this man and I remember his goodness.

David’s second word is encouragement to hope in God. Our present circumstances do not, finally, determine our future, or our eternal place among the saints of God. We have every reason to hope in him, to praise him. He is our salvation, our God. When the world is too much with us, late and soon, we may encourage ourselves with David’s encouragement:

‘Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall praise him,

my salvation, and my God.’ (43:5)

What Mike Tea Learned at Christmas 1975

Back in the 1970’s I worked in a famous gentleman’s outfitter’s in the High Street (I won’t name it because someone is bound to start singing and I don’t want you to do that) Back in the day it was all a woman could do to get her husband to go shopping for clothes once a year. This particular Christmas a young family came in to buy dad some clothes for the festive season before going on to toy shops and goodness knows what altogether.

I don’t recall whether they bought anything but I do remember a desperate wife and mother come rushing back into the shop, followed by her vexed husband and family asking if we had found some money she had dropped..

This was a time when credit cards were not common-place and debit cards hadn’t been invented. It was not uncommon for people to come into town with their money in cash and this is what they had done; a couple of week’s pay, bonuses, holiday money, all in a bundle and now lost at the very beginning of their adventure in the Christmas rush.

Well, we searched high and low but never found that cash and they went on retracing their steps and hoping above hope that some kind soul had found it and “handed it in” somewhere. During the rest of the day we found ourselves periodically going back to the search, looking under coat racks, searching behind counters, even looking in those places out of bounds to customers but nothing turned up.

The look of desperation on her face wrung our hearts that day, moved us to action, and I simply hope they found their money. I learned three lessons from that encounter, the first about life in general, the second about people and the third about me.

About life I learned that some things happen about which we can do nothing no matter how much we might want to do something. The lesson is that we should do what we can and not what we can’t. So often we get in our own way in a futile effort to change the past when the future is ready to meet us with fresh opportunities for growth and redemption.

About people I have learned that everyone, no matter their status in life, can be a moment away from calamity and disaster. An unkind word spoken in haste can be as devastating as a betrayal, job loss is often unexpected and frightening, the loss of all your Christmas money a week before the big day is certainly disastrous when it is all you have. The loss of a loved one…

A sudden turn in fortune can be devastating and people are much more vulnerable than a brave face and a confident step would have you think. We should stop assuming everyone else is alright and show a kindness, be a friend.

Every year when Christmas comes around I think of that family and their unfortunate mother. I learned about myself that I care and think about these things; that’s who I am. Life is too short to go around trying to be someone else. Find out who you are and be that person because that’s who you were made to be.

Have a Happy Christmas and, if you are into that sort of thing, resolve in 2013 to do what you can, not what you can’t, to remember that other people are vulnerable too, and to find and be who you are. You’ll save yourself a lot of time, make some new friends along the way and maybe even make a difference.

Dear Saints - A Message of Hope

A Message of Hope for a Church under Siege (Rev.1:9-20)

As we look forward, with increasing trepidation, to a New Year it is well to remember the message of assurance and encouragement Jesus has given in his letters to the seven churches in John's Revelation. Finanical empires are falling in the city and bombs are falling in the Middle East. There is, and has been for some time, a growing disquiet among Evangelical believers that the church is under increasing attack from the forces of secularism, liberalism and opposing spiritual powers. We are aware, I hope, of the daily and shocking persecution suffered by Christians in the developing world. Daily bulletins from missions such as Barnabus Fund deliver shocking tales of brutality against people whose only crime is to trust the name of Jesus.

In the developed world, as men's hearts fail them, Christians are coming under increasing pressure to bow the knee to liberal ideologies that insist all faiths are equal and equally wrong. Freedom of speech is being attacked in the name of multiculturalism and multi-faith ideology, led by people who think the greatest virtues are niceness and getting along (see here). Christians are being taken to court and successfully prosecuted for simply evangelising and outreach ministry is being curtailed to avoid causing some imagined offence that cannot be tolerated by liberals who insist it is wrong to teach that Christians alone have it right. Ironically, in this the liberals are convinced that they alone are right. One case highlights the growing problem. MacGregor Ministries have been told that they cannot minister as they have been because it is no longer politically correct. In a statement on their new web site http://www.macgregorministries.org/ they explained:

“The Canadian Government has made it impossible for us to continue as a Christian Charity and not compromise our faith. They have shut down some 2,500 charities already over the past year for various reasons.

The government no longer allows critiques of other faiths, even if done fairly and documented thoroughly. Freedom of speech guaranteed under our Charter in Canada does not extend to charities I was bluntly told.”

I hear concerned voices and understand those concerns. There is much speculation about the times but one thing is for sure; every time is a good time if we know what to do with it and every time is a good time to turn to the Bible. That is where we find comfort, encouragement and guidance to face the times in which we live.

Towards the end of the first century Christians were entering a time of persecution. We are told that Christian worship stood in stark opposition to the cult of emperor worship; churches were being warned of coming trials; Christians had already given their lives for the faith (Rev.2:13) and John had been banished to the penal colony of Patmos – a sort of Roman Guantanamo Bay – for his missionary activity. It was there that he received his great vision of Jesus, of what is and of what was later to come to pass (Rev.1:19).

In this vision we learn three things about Jesus:

“Jesus is Lord of Glory” (Rev.1:13-17a)

In his vision John sees “one like a son of man”, Jesus’ term for himself (Mk.8:31), reflecting his humanity. But this vision showed Jesus in all his glory and divinity, wearing “a robe reaching down to his feet and a gold sash”, symbolic of his role as our high priest (Heb.4:14); having hair “white like wool” symbolic of his infinite wisdom; eyes “like blazing fire”, symbolising penetrating insight. “Out of his mouth,” we are told, “came a sharp double-edged sword”, symbolising his judgement (c.f. Heb.4:12). The one who came and shared fully in our humanity was now glorified, “with the glory I had with you before the world began.” (Jn.17:5) Is it any wonder that John “fell at his feet as though dead”?

“Jesus is Lord of Life and Death” (Rev.1:17b-18)

In a statement that is a comfort and encouragement to every Christian and the heart of the Gospel message Jesus declared:

“Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

Jesus has defeated our great enemy and now holds the keys to death, from which he will release us, and life, which he gives all those who trust in the One who sent him (Jn.5:24).

“Jesus is Lord of His Church” (Rev.1:19-20)

The seven stars he holds are probably the spirits of the churches and the lamp stands are the churches to which John is writing. Jesus holds each in his hands and, significantly, he is described as “among the lamp stands” (Rev.1:13). It is Jesus’ church and he is intimately involved with his church and all things are in his control, even though now, on Patmos, John does not see it. So with us; we see the difficulties facing the church and can lose sight of who is Lord of Glory, of Life and Death and of the Church.

John tells us that all this happened when, “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit” (Rev.1:10). It is said that “In Patmos we suffer; in the Spirit we reign” and we need to take away from this that wonderful truth. Twice Jesus told John to “Write what you see” (Rev.1:11, 19) and I am reminded of the words of Jesus to Thomas:

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Jn.20:29)

Do we believe the report of those who have seen? Do we appreciate the care with which Jesus told them to “write what you have seen” and then preserved that report for us? Do we look at these things and remember that “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn.16:33)?

These are increasingly difficult times but - Jesus is Lord!