Come with Me

After his disciples had been out on their own doing some ministry, Jesus listened to the debrief and, seeing the crowd pressing in all around and the exhaustion the disciples were feeling, issued this invitation,

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (recorded in the book of Mark)

They jumped into a boat and headed across to the other side of the lake – by which time the crowd had anticipated their destination and arrived before them. Jesus graciously taught and then fed them.

It’s the kindness and concern evidenced by Jesus for his dear friends which I find so touching. He’d sent them on an errand; they’d done it and come back tired, though elated at the result. He knew they needed some down time – and they did get some, albeit only while on the lake crossing.

He looks at you and me today and notices how we are. He cares about how we are.

He issues the same invitation to us today. Come with me. Alone. Let’s have a little R&R. 

Do you ever do that? Slip away into a quiet room with your Bible? Head out on a walk into a lonely bit of countryside, where you can listen to him without distraction? 

Having a nap can be refreshing. But spending time with Jesus is not just refreshing. It’s restorative, rejuvenating, reviving joy from being in his presence.

I’m off for a walk now.

Confession

I’ve got an article to write on confession and the way sin separates us from God. It’s got me thinking. So often it’s the BIG SINS which we feel are an impenetrable barrier in our relationship with God, but in fact the small things may create a more devastatingly effective barrier. Small things like critical thinking. 

The thing about developing a sinful mindset, quick to criticise or grumble, is that it gradually becomes a characteristic of our personality. If my first response to anything unexpected or contrary to my way of thinking is to criticise or grumble, then my first response does not allow God to give me his response. I automatically exclude him, because he can’t abide sin and isn’t going to be around if I’m critical or grumbling. But I may not even recognise that my thinking is sinful, and so I may not seek forgiveness and open the way for him to transform my thinking so that I have the mind of Christ.

So it seems to me that committing a BIG SIN like, say, murder or adultery, might cause the perpetrator to recognise her guilt and immediately confess and have the relationship restored. The sin is still full of repercussions and consequences, but confessed and repented of, it shouldn’t be repeated nor develop into a habitual failing. Not if it’s truly confessed and repented of. But critical words, grumbling, or gossiping are not always easily identified. We have all sorts of ways of justifying them. Sharing for prayer. Etc. 

Just a few random thoughts. Repentance allows God to bless us with times of refreshing, which most of us are in need of. So we need to be careful to ask the Holy Spirit to highlight those sins which need confession and forgiveness. We need to listen for his answers, and expect them to be particular and not just generic.

Then we can rejoice in the times of refreshing.

Dry and Weary

Everyone needs a place. A place to rest and recover, to ponder and be refreshed. A layby along the way.

I have a prayer alcove. When my husband and sons were rebuilding our living room, with its very thick, old walls, one son suggested creating a prayer seat for me in one of the windows. 

It is my place of retreat. It is right in the living room, but when I sink onto that seat, I turn off from the jobs around me and slip into a more pensive and prayerful mood. One of my Bibles is there, and various notebooks and crosses and prayers. I’ve had a candle there sometimes, and just thought this morning I should keep my MP3 player there so that I can be refreshed sometimes with praise music.

Psalm 63 is one of my favourite pieces of Scripture.  It begins: ‘O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.’

In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

It hasn’t stopped pouring rain here for weeks, maybe months. Don texted me this morning that the roads were flooded.

I am not in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

But it reminds me of a line from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. ‘Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.’

The water flooding our roads and fields does not offer the refreshment I get when I sink onto my seat in my prayer alcove. 

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”  John 7:37.

Jesus is the source of life-giving, refreshing water. When I drink from him, I am renewed, and I can splash out into soggy Scotland with a singing heart.

Where do you go when you are dry and weary?

Times of Refreshment

Our 24 hours of refreshment came at the right moment. Both Don and I, pretty weary from months of activity and various emotional highs and lows, are feeling better for a wee breather courtesy of our fabulous kids.

The Bield offers a perfect place to step out of the rat-race and think of other things. I have been there twice before and had big plans for a deep connection with God and fanning into flames the glowing embers of faith. But I found I was almost too tired to receive. The Labyrinth, an ancient practice involving a simple grass-cut path on which the seeker ‘journeys’ with God, has yielded rewarding results in the past but yesterday, I seemed to be listening to the wind. 

The Spiritual MOT I had planned to work through ‘religiously’ was too daunting and instead we opted for an early night. I confess I felt disappointed, a failure. But as I awoke this morning, God gave me a little picture, clear and comforting. A forearm – His forearm – was washing the glass of a small round window, something like a dormer or velux window at the top of a house, but round. 

Meaningless to some perhaps but to me it communicated reassurance, that Jesus himself is cleaning the dirty glass of my brain and my spirit, so that His light can more fully enter into me. It’s not about me cleaning it. It’s about allowing Him to clean it. 

What a comfort.  What a relief. What a compassionate Lord we have.