Hard-bitten

The frost bites hard. Minus ten this morning. Denuded trees stand frozen and bare. Birds hop over the icy earth, sharp beaks pecking, searching for food.

Winter is here, but thankfully not forever. The shortest day has passed and we are on the trajectory towards warmth, growth and renewal.

Events in life can plunge us into winter. They can freeze our ability to relate to others, to communicate, to share and be transparent, to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. It’s important to allow the love of God to massage the hurts and sorrows, restoring a normal blood flow and strengthening our faith in him. However hard it is, we can make the choice to let God thaw the core of our beings where the hurt has taken up residence. Otherwise, there is a danger that we move forward outwardly, apparently moving into a springtime after a winter event, while inwardly we remain frozen in fear. 

There is no fruit for others if winter prevails in our core.

Fear is our greatest enemy, driving out faith and hope and trust in the God who is love. Fear cripples relationships and destroys lives.  

Do not be afraid, God says. I have come to give you life in all its fullness, Jesus promises. The joy of the Lord is your strength, not a joy we can work up in ourselves but a joy which he gives as we ask and wait.

May the winter of our sorrows give way to the spring of hope and promise, restoring life and light and reviving relationships.

The Big Bad Wolf

‘And he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house down!’

My granddaughter’s favourite story at the moment involves the Big Bad Wolf and his vicious attacks on the Three Little Pigs. There is a fascination with the ferocity of the evil wolf, a flirting with the fear that his attack raises in her.

I’m sitting at a table in the wee hours, listening to the wild wind howl round our home. I can feel secure inside the granite walls, protected from the piercing cold air. Yet I hear that wind as it moans through the cracks of ill-fitting windows, and I sense the cold penetrating despite the granite.

I can feel safe in my faith. I can presume that I am safe from the onslaught of the enemy. But I know that he prowls round like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He is the real Big Bad Wolf, seeking always to destroy relationships, disrupt families, devour our faith and leave us desolate.

He huffs doubt into someone’s mind; he puffs rejection in someone’s heart; he seeks to bring down all that would glorify and celebrate our Saviour. 

We are safe in Jesus, but we are still vulnerable to attack, and far too frequently our complacency renders us powerless when an onslaught comes. Put on the armour, Paul says. Know your enemy, Peter writes. Don’t let the house come down because the fire of faith has burned low. 

The first little pig’s house of straw came down in the wind, and he sought shelter in his brother’s house. That little pig’s house of sticks likewise fell prey to the Big Bad Wolf’s powerful, offensive breath. The brothers streaked to the brick house of the prudent brother, who had spent time carefully constructing a house that could resist the wolf’s huffs and his puffs. 

So when that Big Bad Wolf finally, in fury, slid down the chimney seeking to reach the heart of the home, he was defeated by a hot fire and boiling water. Our enemy’s tactics aren’t any more sophisticated. He, too, seeks to invade my space by sliding down the chimney of my heart, but I am stoking the fires so that he may be consumed in the hot fires of my faith, built up with the Word of God, the presence of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

That enemy may huff, and he may puff, but he can’t blow such a house down.

In a room of crying babies ...

In a room of crying babies...

...a mother can always distinguish her baby’s cry. She spends hours on her own with her baby, nursing and caring for him/her, and recognises the timbre of her baby’s voice. Not only that, there is a physical response to a nursing baby’s cry; the mother’s body reacts to a cry of hunger by immediately providing the right nourishment.

In a world of crying humanity, Jesus can always distinguish your voice. Paul writes in his first letter to the people in Corinth that ‘you are the Anointed One’s, and the Anointed One is God’s.’ The Anointed One is, of course, Jesus, and you are his, as am I, as is everyone who calls on his Name. 

He will never leave you nor forsake you, he promises. He is always with you. Even as you raise your voice to call out to him, to petition and beseech him for yourself or someone else, he knows your voice. He recognises your cry, and like a nursing mother, he responds. 

Unlike a nursing mother, though, he always knows what the problem is and why you are crying out. And he always has just the right answer. It is a good answer, an answer to meet your needs, because his plans are always to give you hope and a future.

He always recognises our voices, but we don’t always recognise his. Why is that? We need to get to know him in the quiet, on our own, reading his written word so that we get to know the voice we hear coming through it. We get to know his thoughts, his ways, and become absolutely assured of his love and goodness towards us. We learn to trust his guidance, knowing that it is always designed to bring the best for us. 

Like a person wearing a hearing aid who goes into a crowded and noisy gathering of people, if we go out into the world without being properly tuned to Jesus’ voice, we will be distracted by the cacophony of competing ideas and values. If we haven’t spent time in the quiet with Jesus, in peaceful contemplation and focus, then when the competition comes for our attention we may be diverted from his way. The enemy raises a ruckus, creating a noise of conflicting advice and temptations which may have just enough good in them to masquerade as God’s ideas. 

Unless we are prepared and our hearing is honed so we recognise our Saviour’s voice, we might easily be confused and fall victim to deception. Like the email I received this morning, ostensibly from a friend, relating a sad story of a plight of loss at the hands of thieves and the need for me to send her money. If I didn’t know that friend so well – if I didn’t know where she is right now – if I didn’t know where she might be – if I didn’t know her voice – I might fall prey to this scam and send money to the fraudster.

It happens. It happens everyday, in ordinary worldly situations and in our communion with God. We think we know his voice; we dash off in pursuit of something which has not come from him, because we haven’t taken the time to fully acquaint ourselves with the timbre of his voice and the nature of his communication.

We are the Anointed’s, and the Anointed is God’s.

Downwardly Mobile Swans

Dusty and I circled round the back of the woods and began to head towards the road. Behind me, in the air, I heard a beating sound, like the sound of bellows blowing wind into a stubborn fire. I looked back.

Two swans descended in tandem, tracing a gracious circle in the air before disappearing from my view. I knew where they went.

The local laird dredged out a ‘duck pond’ – complete with shooting ‘hides’ – several years ago for his own private use. I’ve not seen him or the game keeper there for a long time but that’s not to say they don’t still come and shoot wild ducks in season. 

My swans floated on the surface of the pond, nibbling at pond weed, graceful necks twisting and turning. There is a pair of breeding swans at a garden centre pond a few miles away, and I wondered if these two were having a day out from there. 

In the UK, only royalty can eat swans, by law. I would imagine that confers a certain protection on them, so that they can land on duck ponds with impunity, without fear of being shot. By extension, perhaps their very presence on the pond affords a protection to any ducks which might otherwise be the target for the laird’s table.

Graceful, royal birds protecting ugly ducklings just by their presence.

It reminds me of Jesus, who left behind his glory in heaven to take on the ugly duckling garb of humanity, only to rise to everlasting life. His identification with us gives us a protection from the enemy whose aim it is to destroy us. Staying near to Jesus is similar to a duck staying near to a swan. 

And the other thing about Jesus which I see in this rather goofy analogy, is that though we are all ugly ducklings now, because of his sacrifice for us, we shall one day be swans, full of grace and beauty. 

All because of Jesus.