past put behind us

Those guys who manage to get and keep a load of plates all spinning on sticks at once - I have nothing but admiration for them.

I'd have problems enough with just one. And here they are, able to keep any number of plates on the go all at once. Amazing.

That was a picture which crossed my mind today. I've been asked to take on the role of providing a ministerial lead at a congregation just out of town. Kirkliston. As if I didn't have enough to be doing here!

Spinning plates sort of stuff.

Not that I have to do it all myself. A lot of the time it's a case of simply making sure it's done. But there's a fair amount of organisation involved. A fair amount of extra evening meetings. A fair amount of services to take.

I met with a man from the church out there today. We had a good long time together going over things. A chance to get a feel for the place and the people and the purpose God has for them all.

Another sort of setting for me somehow to be getting my head around. Another changing context where God's new thing will be done.

He's good at spinning plates. Getting a people truly up and running in one place after another. And keeping them going too.

That's what he's doing here. There's a new thing on the go. A new set of plates getting spun around.

I had lunch again with Douglas for the church just down the road. The place was pretty busy once again (it usually is these days, which is great to see). And today there were as well five girls whom I knew from the Royal High, the local secondary school.

They don't usually call in here for lunch. So this was a bit of a first.

Five of them. Five girls.

I found that rather striking since I'd spoken just last Sunday night about the way it was the faith of just five women that had set about the change there was in Israel's situation when they'd been enslaved in Egypt for those years.

Five girls here for lunch. God's future opening up.

But the past must be put behind us.

I was down at the Hospice again tonight to share the patient vigil at the bedside of old Ina who's still hanging quietly on. Her daughter and son-in-law both were there.

It was good to have moments with them. Reading the Scripture. Leading in prayer. Giving thanks to the Lord for a life so well lived.

And then on out to see the sister of another man who'd died. She's well on in years herself and needed time. I was glad to be there and to give her the time and I trust she found solace in that.

She seemed to be helped, for it's not been that easy for her. But in speaking with her it impressed me again how God's new thing requires that the old leaves first drop off the twigs. The beech hedge stuff again.

She was a lovely, gracious lady. Edinburgh through and through. Full of a gentle, humble faith in Christ. But I don't think in a million years she'd ever see her way beyond .. well, the way it's always been.

A long time back I recall being struck, when I looked at the roll of members here, that there'd come a day when loads of them all would die.

I think that time is maybe coming now. A generation dies. And maybe only then can that new thing that God's been surely planning for so long begin to flourish and to thrive.