Merry Christmas

An unused nappy lies on the couch. A pair of sheepskin slippers for a baby tumble together with various cars and toy animals on the floor. Family beginning to come ‘home’ to the ‘hillock for the holidays.

The Mighty One has done great things for me, Mary sang. I sing the same song.

For ten days we have struggled to get our central heating fixed. Unfortunately, we had ‘O’Reilly’ (Fawlty Towers fans will understand) out to fix it. Only because he was available, and we didn’t know. Now we know. Yesterday we had a new man come who has got it going, though it isn’t completely fixed yet.

Preparations for the family’s arrival in full swing, last night the element in the main oven broke. At other times of the year, this doesn’t matter. Don and I can get by. But with family, with a rare moment of gathering together, with babies and toddlers, not to mention an outsized turkey thawing for tomorrow, timing is not right.

The temptation is to ask, why us? Why now? We’ve had a challenging year, so why not end 2019 with a challenge?

So, as Don heads to Aberdeen to try to find a new element for an old oven, and we start talking through contingency plans, it is good to read these words and hang with them, and let them hang with me. The Mighty One has done great things for me. And as the angel assured Mary, ‘nothing is impossible with God’.

In a day when folk are flooded and burnt out of their homes, refugees are in peril on the roads and seas fleeing from violence, homeless folk huddle in doorways and others struggle with pain and illness, a broken oven is ‘small potatoes’. Whatever happens, we will manage.

It will be a memorable Christmas. What more does anyone want?

Whatever your Christmas is looking like, it is good to reflect on the great things the Mighty One has done for you this year. It restores perspective.

Grace and peace today and always, and may Immanuel reveal himself in us more fully every day. Merry Christmas.

Kinsman Redeemer

Kinsman Redeemer. The Bible’s Ruth’s (she who ‘stood in tears amid the alien corn’) protector, Boaz, moved forward as an act of kindness. He knew of Ruth’s plight, of the vulnerability of her and her mother-in-law Naomi, and he shielded her from harm and gave her dignity as she gleaned from his fields. And, soon, they lived ‘happily ever after’.

Of course that cliché story-ending never happens in life, because no matter how much in love a couple is, at some point one of them will die and there will be separation and sorrow.

Thanks to Jesus, who is our Kinsman Redeemer, that story-ending does happen when we fall in love and give our allegiance to him as our saviour and Lord. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing.

As Christmas approaches, a time of intense joy for some, intense loneliness and heartbrokenness for others, we can all be grateful – hugely grateful – for the gift of Jesus. With him we are never alone. In him we will live happily ever after. Amen.

An apple tree

I was encouraged by an analogy I read again this morning: an apple tree is always an apple tree. Even when it is immature and produces no fruit, it is still an apple tree. Even in a season of drought when it produces no fruit, it is still an apple tree. Even when sickness prevents it from bearing apples, it is still an apple tree. Denying it is an apple tree would be a lie.

God says I am a child of God. Even when I mess up and do not feel very Godly, I am a child of God. Even when there is no fruit encouraging the faith of anyone else, I am still a child of God. Even when doubts arise, I am still a child of God. A daughter of the King. To deny that is to call God a liar.

Jesus came to live and die for this world he created, so that we could become children of God. ‘To all who believed him and accepted him, Jesus gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn, not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.’ John 1:12-13

Be encouraged today, whatever you are feeling. Who we are does not depend on our feelings. It depends on God’s word.

A tiger loop

A tiger loop.

A tiger loop caused our central heating boiler to pack it in. After three days of shivering, the heating engineer thinks he has fixed it – well, it’s working at the moment, anyway.

Apparently a tiger loop regulates – or maybe removes? – the air from the pipe as oil is drawn into the boiler from the tank. Too much air makes for lukewarm heat, or even none at all.

Too much air. Jesus advised we use our words carefully. James echoed that with his teaching on taming the tongue.

I’m embarking on a negativity fast, again, with a particular awareness towards any tendency to criticise or judge anyone. I’ve a feeling I should do this every year.

Peace and Safety

Still thinking about the broken branch.

Not all shrubs and trees leaf and bloom at the same time, or even in the same season. We can’t look around the church and judge who is still connected to the root of Life and who isn’t. Being fruitful at different times knits us together as a body, so that we can feed our sisters and brothers with the plenty we have when they are in a season of dryness and drought, and so they can feed us.

Dwelling. Abiding. Such words of peace and safety. Jesus is the ultimate home, the true place of peace and safety.

He left the peace and safety of his own glory to enter into the brokenness and stress of this world. To bring us himself as our refuge and home. He opened his arms to us.

Thanks be to God for his incomprehensible sacrifice for me, a sinner.

Just Hang on

The bare branches of the rowan tree toss in the wind, and I notice one which has broken off yet clings still to the larger branches. Without leaves, I almost didn’t notice it had broken off. It will only become apparent that it is no longer connected to the trunk and roots of the tree when spring comes. When the other branches begin to leaf, begin to flourish and bear fruit, this disconnected branch will remain bare, will die.

Sometimes people continue to attend Sunday morning worship, Bible study even, moving in Christian circles, even saying the ‘right’ things. But without remaining connected to the root, Jesus, they will never flourish or bear fruit.

Abide in me, Jesus advises. Dwell in him. Stay connected. Those quiet moments nourishing the relationship between us are so important.

He is our Victory

The detritus of my conscious day emerged in a disturbing, confused and very vivid dream, culminating in a threatening phone call. In the dream, I concluded this call was devilish itself and commanded that the caller ‘Go! In the name of Jesus!’

Not the first time I’ve had such a dream. But this time, after demanding that the caller Go!, I was awoken by the very real sound, I thought, of tinkling glass. Poor Don. Sound asleep, until I shook him urgently saying, ‘Someone’s breaking in! I heard glass breaking!’

We crept about the dark house and found no sign of intruders or, indeed, broken glass. Such is the reality of some dreams.

Sitting in the prayer window on this glorious morning, watching the mist disappear, and the pheasants parade, I suddenly was aware of the fly spots on the dirty pane. Life flicks fly spots on our perspectives, and our inner vision can be drawn to staring at the fly spots rather than seeing beyond to the beauty of Jesus, the beauty of the life we have been given so graciously, so generously. My dream earlier this morning focused on the fly spots, a hodgepodge of stuff that can suck the joy out of the day (or night).

So this morning I am saying to those fly spots, those nasty voices whispering lies and slanders, ‘Go! In the name of Jesus!’

Not hearing any more breaking glass so far, but my aim today is to focus my eyes on Jesus. Yeshua. Another word for Victory, I just read.

He is our Victory.