God's presence

I'm tempted to say, 'another day, another death.' (I succumbed!)

It feels like that, at any rate.

The week's been full already of the fragrances of grief, those services of worship when we've given thanks to God for people now departed from this life. And just when I thought that I'd maybe move on and be free for a while from the pain and the sorrow which death always brings in its wake, I had a call this afternoon informing me of yet another death.

I suppose it serves to underline that all I seek to do is done against the backdrop of that final, sore reality. We all must die one day.

When I came back to the halls today, a man was there for lunch. He calls in with his wife from time to time to have a bite to eat. I've known him over quite a while, I guess, though not that well.

"Aye," he said with an air of resignation, as I went across to have a word with him, "the grim reaper!"

I thought the man was meaning me, at first. And I thought to myself, I surely don't look all that bad!

He was talking, of course, in more general terms. The grim reaper. The starkest fact of life is simply death, I guess.

And that's the sombre backcloth of the work I seek to do each day. Imparting life, when all around is death.

I've known the woman who's died for quite some years. She's worshipped with us here throughout my time. And some years back I conducted the funeral service when her husband died.

Such sharing in a family's grief like that creates a certain bond, I guess, which serves to build relationships. And those quite close relationships are very much the building blocks through which God builds his kingdom here on earth.

Relationships matter so much. Always.

The service of thanksgiving which we held today was another case in point. Again, I've known the lady all the time that I've been here. And, again, I'd shared with her and all her family some ten years back or more when she had been bereaved.

Quite similar, the two of these bereavements that there've been.

For a woman well on in her nineties there was really quite a crowd at the simple chapel service at the crematorium. A simple life, well lived. A woman who'd invested all her living into making for her husband and her family a home.

It seems so bland and stark to summarise a person's whole long life like that. But that's the simple truth of it. That's what she did. That's how she lived her life.

And few things are more crucial to the welfare of society at large. I spoke a bit about that. How building a home takes time and hard work. How it isn't some little afterthought being squeezed into the bookends of our time. It's a life. A vocation. A calling from God.

And she'd honoured that calling well.

Her family asked if I'd go back with them. I don't always go as a matter of course to these post-service meals. I play it by ear. Trying to listen to the Lord and figuring out what he desires.

Relationships. It seemed like he was pointing me to go there and to be there with the family for a while. A token of the presence of the Lord, continuing on beyond the formal service that we'd had.

Short moments when the love of God can gently be imparted to a family in their need.

The lady who'd died had two surviving sisters, so I went and sat with them. Just chatting a bit and taking the chance to talk about the sister whom they'd loved. And now had lost.

They were warm and bright like their sister had been. But the pain of bereavement is sore. And I felt for them both.

I was thinking today how just sitting with folk is a lot of what I do! But then I thought that that's in fact what Jesus did as well. A lot of the time anyway.

I'd been along at the school again at coffee break. And that was really just a sitting with the teachers there. Listening, talking, relating.

And then, on coming back, I was sitting again with a crowd of folk here. A lady was in, a regular here, and Donna, the cleaner, had stopped for her coffee as well. So there were, I suppose, about five of us there, drinking coffee and talking away.

About life. So many different facets to our lives. So many different issues to address. So many different burdens to be shared.

But the sitting and talking - and I guess the simply being there - there is somehow a therapy in that: a comfort and assurance in the sense somehow that God himself is there.

That's always the key. The presence of God.

I always remember the pleading of Moses of old. How he said to God, don't ask me to go unless I'm assured of your presence.

(I think the Bible even gives the word a capital, the Presence of the Lord, it's that important, that foundational a thing).

Nothing's more important than the presence of the Lord in what we do. I want to know his presence. I want to bring his presence.

There was a meeting at night I attended. About The Lot. It's a venue up in the centre of town. More a ministry, really, than anything else.

We were meeting about the future. The way ahead. Exciting. And scary as well. A bit like Abram stepping out. Or Moses, for that matter.

And above all else, the need to know the presence of the Lord. We couldn't even contemplate such stepping out, unless we had assurances that God himself goes with us all the way.

And it seemed to me we had that sort of guarantee from God. Which means, I guess, we shift the gears and go!