overdue an overhaul!

God said "Let there be light!" And it was so.

I guess we tend to think that that's an easy thing for God to do. Little more demanding than a gentle snap of his fingers.

But I don't suppose it works like that at all. The rest of the story reveals the way it works. He spoke and worked and did a bit. And then he stopped and paused and rested for a while. Reflected on the progress of his work thus far. Drew breath. And then get down to doing some more.

The word he spoke was never something random, chance or simply sort of off-the-cuff. Its great creative power was bound up with the concentrated focus of his mind and heart.

He knew (because he'd taken time to pause, reflect and think it through) - he knew that this was now the word he had to speak.

That's something which I'm conscious of when Fridays come around! If I'm to bring a word this coming Sunday - and if that word I bring is to be truly his, invested with his own creative power - then it needs the sort of focus that a concentrated time of quiet reflection alone can bring.

I'm listening through each day, of course. Mingling with the multitudes and tackling many tasks, it's not as though there's not a sense of God himself being present in it all. And God speaking through it all as well.

It's just I need some time and space to get alone with him and put the thing together, discern the word he's eager to be saying to us all. Fridays are often like that.

I'm out and about as well. Today I was down in the village at different points; and calling on a man who'd been in recent weeks bereaved; and, later, going up to see my good friend, Ian, still stuck there in the hospital but slowly making progress in his health.

But the bulk of the day was spent on my own with the Lord, simply trying to learn from him the word I am to speak.

He gave me a picture!

The picture of a boat I'd seen on holiday in Harris through the summer months. Not quite a wreck, but long since past its sailing days and now no longer up to that for which it had been built.

A picture, he seemed to say, of what his church has become.

A picture to impress upon my heart the pressing need for something of the total, long-term re-fit which I've sensed he plans to give us through these coming months. In a strange sort of way, a picture which encouraged me no end.

Like the Lord was saying, yeah, stick in with what you're doing there. It's needing done. The boat is long since overdue an overhaul like that.

Like his word for us is really pretty simple - and invested with that same creative power!

Let there be an overhaul! And there was (or will be!)