Monthly Archives: May 2020

In spring, we love visiting a farm to watch lambs being born. There is
something irresistibly fascinating about seeing a bedraggled tangle of
legs and head emerging wetly from the mother and landing in a heap
on the straw, and then within seconds staggering upright and nosing
its way to the ewe’s teats to feed. Soon it has been licked clean all
over and has changed from a strange yellow creature to a fluffy
white bleating cuddly lamb!

Somehow, the mother recognises the unique voice of her lamb.
There may be literally hundreds of sheep and lambs in a field, all
baaing and bleating, but each mother knows her lamb’s voice, and
vice versa.

Our friend is a shepherd, and they know his voice too. They even
know the sound of his car engine, and run over to him as soon as
they hear it. But when Terry and I drove over to see them, they
weren’t the slightest bit interested and stayed obstinately on the far
side of the field.
Jesus said that his sheep know his voice. How often have we read
that, and maybe felt a tiny bit wistful? How often do I hear a voice
and identify it as the Shepherd calling? I have often prayed, “Please
Lord, help me to hear you!” And yet, he does make himself heard in
many and various ways. Often it is as Elijah experienced, “a voice of
gentle stillness”, or as NIV puts it , “A gentle whisper.” Another friend
of ours, who often gets words of knowledge, says it is like a butterfly
fluttering by, soft, unobtrusive…, there it goes! You have to grab on
to it. Was that you Lord? And as you wait, and listen, he confirms it
and maybe adds to it.

Samuel, a young boy serving in the tabernacle, heard a voice in the
dead of night. Who was calling? Who did it sound like? He only knew
the voice of one who regularly spoke to him, mentoring him. It must
be his! He ran to Eli. “Did you call me?”
“No my son, lie down”. It happened again. And again. Now Eli
discerned that the Lord himself was calling the boy. “Next time, say
‘speak Lord, your servant is listening.’”
I find it interesting that to Samuel, God sounded like his mentor,
(although he was very far from being a good model). Its comforting
to know that we can be as the voice of God to someone however
imperfect our example.

For many of us, these days of lockdown present an opportunity to
stop and listen. That still small voice is so easily drowned out by
everyday sounds, and especially is lost in the melee of rush that most
of us live in. I am discovering that for me, rush had become a habit.
My mother ran everywhere, was always trying to catch up with too
many things to do, and unconsciously I imbibed that mind-set, and

have lived with always trying to do things quickly. Now I am finding
that a lot of things are better done slowly! For example, threading a
sewing machine, cutting out a pattern, inserting a zip, are not things
a novice like me can do fast. I planted my runner beans and lettuces
and tomatoes, and everyday I go eagerly to see how they are doing. I
soon found, you cant hurry them, they come in their own good time.

I am finding that listening for the Shepherd’s voice requires patient
waiting. Just position yourself, be there. Get into the habit. Why
should God be required to comply with our time-table? Ecclesiastes
5v1: “Guard your steps when you go near to the house of God. Go
near to listen….do not be quick with your mouth…God is in Heaven,
you are on Earth, so let your words be few.”

I am wearing a dress and smart shoes, and even a dash of lipstick. It must be Sunday! Every Sunday during lockdown, I have dressed up a bit and cooked a roast dinner after we have “ been to church” , that is, interacted with our church online in our lounge. It gives contour to the week, makes a change and varies the rather monotonous routine.

I am reminded of a little book called “Hinds Feet on High Places”. It is an allegory of a girl called Much Afraid. She meets the Shepherd who begins to change her life as she journeys with Him to the High Places. She encounters many difficulties and dangers, highs and lows, but at one point she comes to a dreary shore alongside a leaden, dull sea. Day after day she trudges along; nothing seems to change, the landscape is grey and featureless, the sky uniformly cloudy. There appears to be nothing to look forward to on the horizon, and every day is dull. She begins to get frustrated and restless. This is worse than facing deadly peril when at least there is excitement, an adrenalin rush, action! But this endless boredom is making her wonder if she has made a mistake! She can’t see the Shepherd: surely he wouldn’t want her to be living in such mindless tedium? Should she go back and look for something more fulfilling?

But she can’t go back, she must keep doggedly walking.

Sometimes our path lies through boring territory. We didn’t choose it, it’s just where life has taken us. Of course, in this strange
lockdown time, some people would give anything for a chance to be bored, to just stop and lie down! They are dealing with the opposite
problem. But others feel like they have been trudging through the wilderness and getting nowhere. Every day is the same! Attempts to
liven things up work for a while, but the novelty wears off. You live for the one day in the week when you make a quick dash to Tesco.
Imagine: that is now an event, not a chore! You torture yourself with memories of visits to the grandkids, days at the beach, picnics…even going out for coffee would be nice.

Where is God in all this? You feel useless, non-productive, sluggish. Surely this can’t be right? We followed the map: but we ended up
here!

Yes. The map takes us through Boredomville. Why? Because everywhere the Shepherd leads us is with purpose. There are things
he wants us to learn while in this season. It would be tragic if later on we realised that we failed to lay hold of the lessons we were
meant to learn.

One is patience. Patience isn’t learnt when you are preoccupied and rushing around. It is learnt when life comes to a standstill, and you don’t know when it will move again. For most of us, we experience this sort of frustration on the M25 when the traffic has ground to a

halt in the rush hour. But we haven’t had to live through days, weeks, months of nothing much happening. We won’t learn just by gritting our teeth: we learn by believing God has a purpose and is working it out, so stay in faith!

Another thing to learn is persistence in prayer. God is giving us time to remind him of his promises for revival and to pray into them. It is encouraging to hear of the sale of Bibles rising exponentially; of increased numbers watching church videos, of small groups multiplying online. These are not revival, but they are indications of a stirring taking place: pray on!

Linked to this is the exhortation in Psalm 46 to “Be still and know that I am God”. We have lost the art of being still in his presence and cultivating hearing his voice. Now is the time to rediscover it! Wouldn’t it be great if we emerged from this humbler, closer and more full of love for him, and faith in his promises?

What are you waiting for? Perhaps you are in a queue outside the supermarket, with a trolley, two metres apart from the persons in front and behind, waiting for the slowly shuffling line to bring you to the door. Perhaps you are waiting for a book from Amazon to bedelivered; or seeds you planted to germinate; or like us, for another grandchild to be born. (Two in fact!)

We are all waiting for lockdown to be eased, for the coronavirus to cease its violent assault on our society, for vaccine to be developed. Some are eagerly awaiting re-entry into normal life; others are waiting with trepidation.

David the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 130v5 : “ I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

How do watchmen wait for the morning? Habakkuk the prophet imagined it: “I will stand at my watch and station myself upon the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me.” (2v4)

The watch from 3 am. until dawn is the hardest. The soldier wakes and gropes in the dark for his boots and cloak. Everyone else is asleep and snoring around him. He goes quietly up the stone stairs to the ramparts and briefly acknowledges the man he is relieving, and takes up his station. He can’t see much because it is so dark, the darkest hour. The thought flits across his mind, “Isn’t it a bit pointless trying to “watch” in the dark? It’s black! Why not just stay in bed?”
But he is under orders; he must stand guard!

There are some things he can see: vague shapes and silhouettes of trees. On a clear night he can see the skies full of stars, and if the moon is full, he can see a lot more, not as clear as day, but clear enough to discern movement, such as animals scurrying about, owls flying, or even the stealthy movement of marauders lying in wait. But if it’s a cloudy night, what then? Or foggy? If he cant see a hand in front of his face, is it a waste of time? But he has learned, you don’t only watch with your eyes, you have to train your senses. He stands very still and listens intently, slows down his breathing, every sinew alert, tense. He waits.
Every rustle of leaves, a twig snapping could be suspicious. Every flutter of a bird could indicate it was disturbed… by what?
Its dark; its cold; it may be wet. Its lonely. He is tired. He yawns thinking wistfully of his warm bed. He begins to drift, to loose concentration, his eyelids lower…No! He must not sleep! Disaster could come while his eyes are closed and his hearing dulled. He shakes himself, re-aligns his position, changes his stance slightly. Looks toward the east: will morning never come? Is there a glimmer of light on the horizon?
He waits. He watches. It will be morning soon.

Daylight brings relief that night is ended. Are we simply waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to come to an end? For these “unprecedented” days to finish and allow us to get back to normal, whatever “normal” will look like? Many Christians are expectant for more, waiting with eager longing for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for the Good News of the Gospel to be proclaimed with power and vigour, for myriads to lift up their eyes, once blind, now opened, and shout, “Now I see!” Salvation to be poured out accompanied by signs and wonders, the manifest works of God when he comes in power as he did at the first Pentecost. We are waiting for such a sweeping move of God that can only be described as ‘unprecedented”!

Sometimes we get fed up with waiting and walk away. But waiting for the empowering presence of God is waiting for a certainty.
Morning always comes, he has decreed it. “His going forth is as sure as the dawn”.

This morning Terry saw a fox in our garden. He looked up momentarily from his book and thought, “That squirrel looks unusually big,” took a closer look and realised he was looking at a fox: or rather , it was looking at him with haughty indifference. Having stared him out, it strolled casually across the lawn and lay down on the grass in a patch of sunlight.

In a rural setting we can appreciate foxes….unless you have lambs or chickens of course. We live on the edge of a small country town and foxes can be seen from time to time in the fields and woods. This one was beautiful with a rich tawny, glossy coat and a luxuriant fluffy tail which it coiled around itself as it lay in the grass. It looked strong and healthy and was a pleasure to see.

A few years ago we lived in west London and scraggy feral foxes were a pest. They roamed the streets arrogantly, scavenging and leaving their droppings on our doorstep. They loped around in broad daylight, investigating rubbish bins and generally behaving with insolence and defiance. Somehow, seeing them skulking around in city streets seemed unnatural and was unpleasant.

Foxes are not meant to be in cities. They adapt; but they loose something in the process. They don’t thrive, they look thin and scraggy and their coats are not luxuriant red, but brown and boring. They don’t behave like rural foxes, they have lost their natural dignity, and are a poor imitation of what a real fox should be.

I was going somewhere with this: ruminating on “little foxes spoiling the vines” , and “foxes have holes…” etc. But I keep coming back to this theme of not being in the right place. This is a picture of some people who are reading this. You are not in the right place. You are in alien territory, adapting, existing, but not thriving. You have lost a sense of destiny, and with that, a sense of self esteem. You were born again, liberated, made to run freely in meadows and woods, metaphorically speaking, but instead you are slinking around city streets looking for anything that is edible but not necessarily nourishing, ashamed, dissatisfied. Not living like a real fox.

The message is this: this is not you! Don’t be content with just existing, get back to being who you really are. Take responsibility for your life. Rediscover the dignity of what God intended and made you to be. This is not about external details, where you live, what you do, covid 19, : it is about knowing your identity .

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”