tom and jerry

"Tom - this is Jerry!"

I never know whether to laugh or to run when folk say things like that.

The Tom and Jerry thing. I run across it quite a bit. As a student I shared a flat with a guy called Tom for a while. Tom and Jerry.

For maybe as much as fifteen years, until the last few years, I lived beside a guy whose name was Tom. Next door neighbours. Tom and Jerry again.

And tonight my good friend David was welcoming folk to a meeting that he was holding here. And this was a man called Tom, whom David had only met himself the night before, but had invited along to the meeting.

"Tom - this is Jerry!"

I was glad to be introduced to the man. Tom Lennie.

He's recently written a book. A learned and lengthy and well-researched tome, called 'Glory in the Glen'.

It's an account of remarkable revivals there have been across the years in Scotland.

As the blurb says - "No nation on earth has a richer, more colourful, and more long-standing heritage of evangelical awakenings than Scotland". And most of us don't know the half of it.

Which is a pity. Because it's really a record of just what can happen when people begin to pray. And that's what the meeting was all about last night. Trypraying.

It's the Tom and Jerry thing really.

Tom, of course, is the cat. The big, bad cat, who holds all the cards as it were.

And Jerry is just a mouse. The odds are stacked against him. Left to the laws of nature there's only one result. Not a good one for Jerry.

But the Tom and Jerry sagas are all about the way in which the odds get turned on their heads. This mouse gets the better of cats.

It's David and Goliath, giant-slaying stuff.

A reminder of how great God is and just what he effects when we lay hold of him by prayer.

Which is basically just what David did when he took on the big man Goliath.

His line to the cowering people of God was simply this - trypraying!

I often feel daunted by all of the challenges that are facing Christ's people today. I often feel wholly inadequate for all of the tasks I must do. I often am fearful, I often am worried, I often am quite overwhelmed by the size of the task that we face in changing the face of our land.

I often feel like the good bard's famous creature - "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie. O, what a panic's in thy breastie!"

I often seem just like a mouse in the face of the cats of our secular world.

And then I remember just who in fact I am. My name is Jerry!

And when Jerry meets Tom, the under-mouse comes out on top. (Yes, I was going to write 'underdog', but that was starting to confuse even me!)

Try praying. Lay hold of God. Bring his hand to bear on the needs that there presently are.

He can turn the tables and effect a revolution in a nation's life. It's happened before, any number of times.

Take a read of Tom's book and see for yourself!

If you don't pray much already it might just give you the urge to ... well, try praying!