R.I.P.

One of our elders died last week and a service of thanksgiving was held today.

A fair bit of time this morning was spent in preparing for that. Not so much the content of the service, since I'd attended to that last night: more the practicalities of getting the orders of service produced.

Plus I had a man coming in to see me mid-morning. And the last of the lunch time services meanwhile.

The man who was in to see me is someone whose friendship I've learned to value across the years.

These last few years I've seen him a whole lot more than I used to do. He's lived a long, long way away. But he's moving here, so I should get to see him some more.

He's a guy who knows about prayer. And there's a lot of prayer that's needed right now. So it's good to have him in the loop and informed. He knows how to press the buttons and get others to pray as well.

By the time we were done (well, we weren't really done at all, but the clock had put in an hour and a half of ticks, and the service was due to start!), it was straight on into the 'end-of-term' lunchtime service.

Bread and wine included. Rounding the whole year off.

We've been with the story of Joseph now for the whole of the year. It was kind of fitting that our thoughts today were on Joseph's Dad and the way, as he came to his end, he prayed God's blessing on his grandsons.

Which gets me back to the service of thanksgiving for Eddie.

His daughter read some tributes from his four American grandchildren. And his son gave a well-worded tribute to his father's life. Not an easy thing to do, but he did it well, and he kept his emotions pretty much in hand.

Until he got to his final lines when he quoted the prophet Micah. The famous bit. Well, one of the famous bits from the book of Micah.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you

but to act justly, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with your God.

It's that famous I can quote it here without even looking it up.

That, said his son, was as good a description as any of his father's life.

It puts it all in a nutshell.

Relationship with God - issuing then in a certain sort of character and a certain sort of conduct. Which somehow strangely breathes God's gracious blessing right on down through all succeeding generations.

It's not that complicated really.

You just start walking with your God.

And the rest follows. In both senses!