truth and freedom

The summer term is always slightly different along at the primary school.

There are all the Monday holidays, trips and outings, and even election days (there's one coming up on June 4th in case you hadn't noticed!). And as a result it's sometimes a week or two between my visits.

So it was good to be back today. A couple of times.

The assemblies last week had both been called off (something else going on in the halls). But today we were back with a P1-3 assembly.

'Freedom' is the theme this month. The value that the head is keen to teach.

He stressed that the rights we enjoy can only be had when we recognise too the real responsibilities we have as well. Fail to deliver the latter and everyone's rights are affected.

Fairly basic stuff. Freedom isn't anarchy. (He didn't put it like that, of course!)

Being free to do as we like in an absolute sense, being free to do as we feel inclined or as our instincts tell us we must ... well, that just doesn't work. There are - and have to be - constraints.

It isn't the jungle we live in, where it's every one for themselves.

I'm always glad of the chance to sit in there with the children, I have to say. The time for reflection is good.

I was speaking to one of the girls in P2 as both they and I arrived.

"Why do you come to our assembly?" she asked.

"I don't want to miss the fun!" I replied. "And I always want to learn."

Which is true. Most of the time what the head has to say on the theme of the month is a message it's helpful to hear.

I was speaking about truth in yesterday's blog. Today it's freedom.

There's a connection, of course.

Jesus spelled it out. "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples: then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

The truth will set you free.

I spend my life teaching the truth. For that reason. Anarchy isn't freedom. Discipleship is.

The SU group were meeting along at the school today again. The usual lunch-time thing.

There weren't that many there, but the three or four who'd come had brought along a friend. A Moslem girl.

The teacher with whom I lead the group was anxious about her being there since she hadn't really asked her parents about coming along. He was ready to turn her away.

I suggested not. We were reading the story of the prophet Elijah. In the Old Testament Scriptures which Islam treats as one of its holy books.

And we weren't really pushing a 'party' line at all. Just reading the Scriptures and learning the lessons it taught.

Elijah was one who was truly 'free'.

But his right to be free from the tyranny Ahab, the king at the time, was imposing was bound up entirely with his gladly submitting to God.

He did what God said. And insisted that others did too, declaring what God had revealed in the Scriptures they long since had had.

It was hard, for sure. A risky way to live his life you might have thought. A costly course to follow day by day.

But the man was free. He did what God said. He lived the life of the kingdom. Discipleship.

And the birds which came and fed him day by day - they too were 'free'. But the birds themselves were following holy orders. God commanded the birds to feed his prophet Elijah. And they did.

"You've a right to be free. But, hey, you birds, you've got a responsibility here as well: go feed my man Elijah!"

They followed the teaching. They 'knew the truth'. And the truth set them free.

Freedom.

It's been an interesting day, when one way and another God's been answering prayer and on all sorts of fronts progressing his purposes here.

It's involved for me a whole load of varied telephone calls, and e-mail correspondence, and trips to the local hospital, and visits to folk at night, and some fairly in-depth discussion about some very pressing issues here.

And bit by bit the way ahead has slowly opened up.

The Lord is on the move, these days.

Much as he was in the days of Elijah as well, perhaps.

And when God's on the move you don't want to get in his way.

You don't want to be a hindrance to the forward march of God. You don't want to step out of line. You don't want to be trying to be doing your own thing.

You march in time or you don't get to go. You get on board or you miss the boat.

"Hold to my teaching .. the truth will set you free."