Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, December 2016]

It’s that time of the year when before we know it, we’re so busy, we’ve forgotten what really matters.

David Jeremiah on Premier Christian Radio on Monday morning this week, was speaking about his early years in Christian Ministry. He said that he was so busy with getting his Ministry started and that his primary motivation was a raging desire to avoid failure. He visited homes every night of the week, made appointments to visit people daily, spent practically all his time at work, while his wife was raising their two young children. He described himself as the classic absentee father.

He was busy trying to shepherd his sheep scattered across two counties of Indiana and was too pre-occupied to notice the two little lambs under his own roof and his wife who needed his concern. His wife had a dilemma – he was doing God’s work. How could she fight against the Lord? He told her he was all that the ministry had and didn’t she understand that if he didn’t do the tasks he was doing, they wouldn’t get done?

He said his wife later asked if they could talk. She said “I want you to know that I will never again ask you about how you spend your time. I don’t know how to do that in the light of what you do. I’ve been praying about it and the Lord just told me this – You are the priest in this family David and someday you’ll have to give an account to God as to what you’ve done as the leader of our home. These children are your responsibility and I’m going to hold you responsible to make the right decisions, but I’m going to leave it up to you and God”.

For David Jeremiah, that was a wake-up call. He said he later dropped to his knees and said “God, you didn’t call me to this place to destroy my family for the sake of building a Church. There is no conflict in your will. I am a father first and if you will help me, by your grace, I’ll make my children a priority from this day on”.

This Christmas, I pray we all get wake-up calls that help us put things in perspective and prioritise correctly. We need to remember that spending our time with those who need us may be more important than the money we spend on them.

Importantly, we also need to remember that it does not make much sense to celebrate the season without remembering the reason for the season. Christmas doesn’t really make sense without Christ. Make time over Christmas to get to know him.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 22/Nov/2016]

Last Sunday as I parked the car at church I looked through a window of the church and for some reason I saw Brian Gawn and Mark Zivilik dancing. Later when Elizabeth Bellingham was leading the service we sang “God is good” and she emphasised the line “I feel like dancing”. As we were singing a number of the congregation began dancing in time to the music.

This reminded me of a time when I spoke in a previous church about Peter receiving a vision of a sheet containing unclean animals coming down out of heaven from God when He wanted Peter to do something he felt unable to do. I jokingly suggested that if I saw a sheet containing a church congregation dancing in praise to God I would find it impossible to jump in and join them, as dancing is something I do not do. Some weeks later I was near the front of the church and as we were singing in praise of God I was filled with a deep worship of Him and began dancing. I was told afterwards by one of the music group that the faces of the people there were a picture as they watched me dancing.

There are times when the Lord challenges us to serve him in ways that we consider unable to do. Perhaps we feel that we do not have the ability, the time or the right gifts to serve Him in a particular way, whether helping regularly with young people, or with catering for a church meal, or providing lifts to those who need transport. If we don’t realise that God wants us to get involved in such ways then we miss out on the blessings that He has prepared for us. I remember a time when an appeal went out in that other church for help with Boys Brigade and I said to myself that was something I could not do. However, the captain made a personal request for me to join them as a leader, and I found myself doing things I had never done before that later led to me being involved with Girls Brigade as their Chaplain.

Is God challenging you to serve Him in a new way even though you feel unable to do it? If that is truly His will for you then by His Spirit He will give you the power to do it. Even Paul had to say, “It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God.” (2Cor 3:5 NLT)

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, October 2016]

There is, at least on my part, a gentle panic that sets in as the deadline to submit the article for ‘Yours’ approaches. It is even less gentle when you realise that you don’t appear to have received inspiration for what to write!

God is faithful and in Church this last Sunday, inspiration came when we were asked to turn to each other and find out from the person next to us how the past week had been and whether there were moments when God had seemed particularly close, or perhaps distant.

One of the people in our little huddle talked about how it had been a rather difficult week and he found that he kept tripping over his feet. He then said he was sure things wouldn’t be so bad if he would just listen to God and wear slim fit jeans rather than flares. He might trip over them less often. It would also help, he said, if he would wear the spectacles God provided rather than his own sunglasses – at least he might see his feet and avoid tripping!

Isaiah 53 verse 6 in the New Living Translation states that “All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own”. How often do we decide to pay heed to Frank Sinatra’s words do things our own way and then wonder why things aren’t going right?

Jesus says that he is the way, the truth and the light. He asks us to come to him, to lay down our burdens, to take the load which he gives us, for it is easy and light and we will find rest for our souls. Are you struggling, stumbling around, tripping up? Then, perhaps it’s time for God’s spectacles and skinny jeans, rather than sunshades and flares. As was said in our little huddle last Sunday, if God is your tailor, trust that he knows what will fit you.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 20/Jun/2016]

No it’s not a typing error but it was a great relief to many people when Major Tim Peake returned safely to earth after 6 months in space. During that time he carried out over 250 experiments, completed a dangerous walk in space, ran a marathon in zero gravity and enthused countless children and adults as he interacted with them from space.

I have always been interested in astronomy and space from when I was a child, and like many others I well remember the excitement of the first moon landing by the crew of Apollo 11 in July, 1969. But in some ways it was the flight of Apollo 8 several months earlier that had a greater impact on me. For the first time ever astronauts left earth’s orbit to fly out towards the moon and travel round it without landing. While they were behind the moon radio contact was lost with the crew, Borman, Lovell and Anders. Coming out from behind the moon radio contact was regained and Anders announced the following dramatic message to the world which the three men took in turn to read.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ”Let there be light,” And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good.”

Then they continued up to

“And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.” (Gen 1:1-10).

These men were witnesses to the fact that, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hand.” (Psalm 19:1). How different from an earlier Russian cosmonaut who proudly declared from space that he could not see God. As we look up into the skies may we see the hand of God and praise Him, but at the same time remember the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 v18:

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 30/Aug/2015]

Dreams are very significant in the Bible and were often used by God to show his will to whoever had the dream. There are many examples and ones that spring to mind are, for instance, those of Joseph, Pharaoh’s butler and baker, Pharaoh himself, Nebuchadnezzar, the wise men and Joseph, the husband of Mary. I am sure that your dreams are like mine. If we do remember them then they are often confused and meaningless.

But there have been some occasions when I have had a very clear and memorable dream. One such time was quite a short dream in the style of a period drama that we see on television. In the dream, I saw an elderly servant who was working as a clerk at a large, highly polished, wooden desk. He had an In-tray that was piled high with parchment documents which he was working through. In between the documents were decoratively wrapped gifts that encouraged and helped the servant in his work.

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open, and there stood a tall and very powerful man. The servant was surprised, but he said to the man, “Sire, it is true. You are alive. You have returned.” The man was obviously a king because “sire” was used to address a king. The king strode into the room, but instead of the servant bowing down to him they threw their arms round one another. The king gave his servant a great hug, but the servant found it difficult to get his arms round the wide and powerful shoulders of his master. The king picked up the in-tray which was now empty, and asked, “Who has completed this work of mine?” The servant replied,” I have, sire, together with your friend and brother. Look, here they come now.” They were joined by two others. The king turned to all three and said, “I shall reward you, my servant, friend and brother.” At that point the dream ended, but the memory of it has always stayed with me.

I recently read a lesser known parable of Jesus in Luke 12:35-39, which reminded me of the dream. Verses 37 and 38 say,

“The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron, and serve them as they sit and eat! He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn. But whenever he comes, he will reward the servants who are ready.” (NLT)

As we look round our church we see many who are faithfully serving our King in working for His kingdom here on earth. There are others too who are quietly serving Him in their lives by giving comfort to those in need, by praying for healing and strength to those who are struggling, and giving help to those who feel weak.

We do not know when Jesus will return, nor serve Him to gain a reward when it happens, but we do serve Him out of gratitude because He gave everything to save us and give us eternal life. We also serve Him because He is our example – the Servant King.

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[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 22/Feb/2015]

I will praise the Lord all my days, make music to my God while I live. (Psalm 146:2 Grail Translation)

During the inspiring service a couple of weeks ago when we focused on the wonderful happenings at Link Club and Praise Club, Jon Norman expressed how uplifting he found our singing that morning. I’m glad he said that because I too could feel the depth of the worship that we were giving to our Lord and Saviour, and I am sure you could too. Also last week with Russell’s son-in-law the music worship lifted our hearts to praise God. Music certainly has a great effect on how we feel and express ourselves

A few weeks ago at our Thursday Morning Group instead of our usual Bible study we had what we called “A Musical Interlude”. Dennis Hickman visited us to play a number of songs, from “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Body and Soul” to “Summertime” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, all played in his inimitable jazz style. In between the music we looked at a few of the many references in the Bible about music – including celebratory music and dancing in the community, praising God with music and singing, the healing qualities of music, the descriptions of musical instruments and even of King David using a full orchestra and chorus to praise God for the safe arrival of the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem.

As I prepared for that, I was reminded of a time that I visited a church where they set aside a few days when you could go quietly to the church to spend time praying. Various areas were set up to suggest different ways to pray to God, similar to what we did in our old church and will hopefully start again in our new church. There was one area in the church where they had prepared bookmarks with different Bible verses on them. The idea was that you found a verse that spoke to you and after meditation prayed about what it said. This is the verse on the bookmark which I chose for myself.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zeph. 3:17 ESV)

As I thought about what it said to me I was able to reaffirm my faith that God had saved me through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and those words also spoke to me again of His gracious love for me. But I had never thought of God rejoicing over me with gladness, or especially of Him expressing His rejoicing by singing to me, and therefore to each one of us too. I had always thought of us singing to God in praise and gratitude to Him, but I had not noticed before His promise that there will be a time when God Himself will sing to us of all that we mean to Him. When that day comes, to hear God singing to us will surely be the most beautiful and uplifting music we will ever hear.

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