Your own song to sing

I took cello lessons for 10 years, most of those years with Glaswegian Mr MacKenzie, who had jumped off a cruise ship in Long Beach and put his roots down there. I think he was a great teacher, though his soft Glasgow accent rendered much of his instruction incomprehensible! I always played with sheet music, though, and as I grow older I have an inner urge to play with my soul instead, but I don’t quite know how.

So today I have tried accompanying various songs on YouTube, feeling my way through what might work, trying to ‘sing’ to God from my heart rather than from the written page. Sometimes it was cringingly wrong, but other times I felt I was on the edge of letting go and making my own sound. Not sure if my confidence is going to take me off the written page on Sunday, but I hope to try.

It’s easier to blend in and play what is written on the page. But God invites us to sing to him a new song. He wants us to sing from our hearts. Not just on Sunday in a music group, but every day, in every way. We don’t have to follow the crowd. We each have our own song to sing.

Going forward

Driving back from Glasgow after dark last night, I became scarily aware that my low beams didn’t seem to throw their light as far forward as usual. That left me, especially when overtaking lorries, feeling as if I were speeding into the darkness without sufficient vision. I found the button which raises the light and though its scope is still more limited than high beams, it felt much safer.

God’s word is a lamp to my feet (and tires), but I have to invest some time in reading it if it’s going to give me any security going forward. He doesn’t tell me the end from the beginning, though he knows it, but he does give me enough light for safe navigation. Too much self-absorption can lower the beam and limit the vision.

Just out of the prayer window, where I was raising the beam. Hope to move forward with confidence today.

Footprints on the Path

No drought up here in the northeast of Scotland. Out walking Dusty this morning, my attention was drawn to the number and variety of prints in the soft muddy path. Hoof prints from cows and deer. Paw prints from rabbits and dogs. Three-toed pheasant prints. And wellies or walking shoes of varying sizes and sole-shapes.

Dusty and I were the only ones out walking, but obviously this has been a busy track over the last several hours. 

About two miles from our house, the Battle of Corrichie was fought in the sixteenth century. Mary Queen of Scots was present at this battle, so it’s not fanciful to imagine that her footprints may have once marked this very path. Not so far back as that, former inhabitants of Barehillock no doubt walked this path, driving their flocks or herds in front of them. 

History could be told from the footprints along the path.

There is a history of folk who have walked this way before me, and perhaps when God looks from his position of eternal timelessness he sees the whole lot of us at once, crowding along that path, leaving our footprints.

Yesterday in church the preacher remembered the contributions of now-deceased members of the congregation to the life of this particular church. He thought not only of their financial legacies, but also of their spiritual legacies in terms of the prayers they prayed over long years, behind closed doors and without anyone really knowing.

Also yesterday in church we were blessed by the presence of at least three young people who spent time with us in significant ways. They were visiting from Seattle, Hong Kong and Glasgow. They once contributed to the life of our congregation, and yesterday, for a moment or two, we rejoiced in seeing the wonderful young women they’ve grown into, and hearing about the meaningful ministries in which they are involved. 

They have left footprints on the path. Older, passed on into glory, and younger, moved on into ministries across the world, all have left a legacy at the West Church. They have left imprints on the spiritual soul of the place. To us it may look like a confusion of footprints stepping in various directions and at various times, but to God there is a cohesion and a continuity. 

May the footprints that you and I leave today lead others to a closer walk with God.