bearing fruit

The lunch-time service marks the mid-point in the week.

It's good to be able to stop and to join with other people for a half hour act of worship.

A chance to pause amidst the countless different tasks there are to do and be still in the presence of God. Allowing him to speak to our hearts again.

We need that always. All of us.

There weren't so many there today. There's a fair amount of illness and a good few folk in hospital as well. Health, as well as life itself, is a pretty fragile thing.

I had some preparing to do, of course, before conducting the service. Though that was a little bit stop and start. The jobs around the halls to be done. People coming in and out. Appointments that I had. And others that just sort of 'happened'.

But the chance to reflect on the word of God is always a boon. A breath of fresh air in the face of all else that's going on.

We were thinking of how God's blessing was resting on Joseph. Despite his circumstances. The poor guy being stuck in a foreign land as a slave, and all that.

Our circumstances are often hard. Not what we'd choose. And frustrating so often as well.

But the blessing of God is always set over against all that. It's not about material prosperity at all. The man on whom the blessing of God has rested most fully of all - well, he ended up on a cross. With nothing to his name.

Which is hardly material prosperity.

Things went well for others on account of Joseph being there in Egypt. As a slave.

That's what the blessing of God entails. And I found it quite striking as we thought on that again.

God's blessing makes us fruitful. That's how it was from the start.

And Joseph was certainly 'fruitful'. Full of the fruit of the Spirit.

At least, it seems that that was the case.

He could have been resentful. But instead, he just got on with life. He rose above resentment. And he evidenced a different sort of spirit from what Potiphar (his boss) had ever known.

The Spirit of God.

I was challenged by that today. It's too easy to simply succumb to feelings of lingering resentment.

Here was a guy who rose above all that. And ... well, see what happened!

A lot of the time that's what I'm having to do. Rise above things.

In the sense, not least, of getting a better perspective. Seeing the overview.

And a fair bit of time today has been spent in doing just that. In one way and another.

The meetings that I've had with different folk have mainly been along those lines today. Pre-arranged meetings, some of them, with other leaders here. To try and think strategically.

And some more random meetings, too. Like the lady I met at the shop, late afternoon. She's a member here and I've known her for years - since the days we both were students in fact.

She was telling me how her afternoon had been spent with an elderly lady. Three hours in all, which was not what she'd planned at all. And left her rushed and hassled in its aftermath.

But it's people that matter, I said. And the time that is spent with people is always the critical thing.

That's the kind of 'overview' we sometimes need. Getting things in perspective.

Who knows just what those three long hours this afternoon will have meant to the elderly lady. Maybe the world.

And then there was prayer at night. That's always good. The prayer just flows. And it's like the Lord himself is physically there. Directing the 'conversation' which our praying effectively is.

It's not in any sense a 'shopping list'. It's more a time that's spent with him. Listening to him and learning from him the things which are lying on his heart.

Getting things in perspective. Seeing things afresh.

Which is what Joseph, of course, had to do.

And that's how I see things here.

There's a work of God going on. But I'm beginning to think it's bigger by far than what I had imagined.

And that's probably the reason why the way it all works out is often not the sort of situation we'd envisaged or desired.