pantomimes

Sometimes it's only years on down the line before the fruit of what you're doing can be seen.

That line of thinking was triggered by reflecting more today on how the book of Ruth concludes. With one of those routine genealogies. X was the father of Y sort of thing. Except the names are usually a good deal harder to write (and then pronounce!).

It was only really years and generations down the line that the significance of all Naomi's life of topsy turvy faith was fully seen. Only really in the days in which her grandson's grandson lived. Only then did the fruit of her faith begin in a way to be seen.

And only maybe centuries beyond, a full millennium indeed, only maybe then could any proper estimate of her precise significance in God's eternal purpose be declared.

Which is quite a long time to have to wait to see how much you really matter to the Lord!

Most of the time, in other words, we have to take that all on trust. We can't begin to prove it. Half the time we can barely even see it for ourselves.

But we take it on trust. We accept it by faith. We believe it.

We believe the daily, routine, humdrum sort of lives we mostly live - we believe they are significant in terms of what the Lord is always doing in our world.

And sometimes he opens the curtain, as it were, and lets us catch a glimpse of what's going on.

Today was a case in point. There was the school again. A couple of times.

The first of which was brief and pretty fruitless in that all I did was check in at the entrance and then, moments later, check myself back out.

No one was around. They were all in the Hall at a pantomime.

I felt like part of the pantomime myself. Coming in and going out like that. Oh yes I'm here! Oh no I'm not!

Significant? It doesn't really seem like that. A pointless, brief appearance at the school. No lines of any consequence to speak. No acts of any magnitude to do. A greeting and welcome. A smile and a laugh. But not much more than that.

Another bit of pantomime! Which I guess is how a lot of our lives so often seem to be.

I was back at the school later on, of course. Thursday's SU day.

I'd asked Chris when I saw him back a couple of days ago - I asked him if he'd e-mail me the content of the time we'd have this week. But it must have been a busy week for him.

No e-mail was forthcoming. And when I met him on my way up to his room I learned he hadn't even had the time himself to look at the material at all! It was that sort of week for the guy.

But it turned out fine. We played a game and the game tied in exactly with a bookmark that we gave to all the children. And we chatted through the privilege of prayer. Speaking to God, asking God: and doing so in the confidence he hears and will respond.

One of the children's been praying hard about the world. It was humbling to hear. Global warming and all that sort of thing. The dangers of the days in which we live. The need for action now. And the slowness and refusal of so many to be doing what is needed.

So this young lad is praying hard to God and asking him to work a minor miracle and get things done. Nothing like asking big!

And it crossed my mind as he spoke that here were Chris and myself engaging with these eager little children - and the fruit of that perhaps being only really seen as much as two or three long generations on.

Before I'd gone back to the school for that, I'd had another illustration of this thing.

A lady came in to see me, out of the blue. I know her well. She works as 'Practice Manager' in the surgery across the lane and we see her quite a bit. She and a crowd of others from the surgery come in for their lunch quite often here.

So we've got to know them all a bit. We chat a bit. And sometimes have a laugh. Nothing very serious, nothing that profound. But it's contact. And the contact when persisted in begins to build relationship.

And because there's that relationship - the hours and hours of 'pantomime' spread out aross the years - it meant that she felt free to come and ask if I'd be willing to conduct a burial service for the family next week.

Her uncle had died. And his body cremated today. Down south. I think perhaps just her mother and sister alone had been able to be there to mark this conclusion to life.

A tiny congregation of just two. Far away from the family home. And much in the detail of death that was hard and unfair and a waste.

So they wanted something else. And she turned to me.

Why? I guess because since none of them I think have much to do with 'church' of any sort, I am the only minister that any of them knows.

I was humbled and pleased that she turned to me. It's out at Newbattle next week. But do I care how far it is I have to travel to be beside this mourning family in their grief? Silly question.

Jesus travelled miles across eternity to be here at our side. As one of us.

And I thought that's really all we seek to be and do ourselves. However many miles it may involve. However many lunches it may mean. However many 'pantomime' performances it takes.

A moment comes when all those lunches, all those miles and all those countless, insignificant chats - at last they start to issue in a day of some significance.

A day when God, who's been there in the background all the time - when God draws near and turns the sudden spotlight on himself. And starts to work afresh.

It's thrilling when it happens. And it's happening all the time!

I called by on a lady later on. The lady whom I've got to know in recent weeks since her husband died. It's a week or two on since the service we held and I thought I'd call on her now. See how she's doing. Make contact again.

For her as well this time of death and sorrow has been one in which I'm sure there's been a powerful sense of God's own presence with her. And his being gently working in her life.

I mean, the lady must be well up in her seventies now. That's years and years of patient, hidden 'sowing' by the Lord by who knows just how many little means. And then the moment comes. His moment.

I sometimes think my life involves me simply trying to recognise 'his moments' when they're happening, then watching him at work!

There's a lot going on! 'His moments' seem to happen all the time!