'very old'

"You are very old."

You can cope with that (just about) when it's a P3 pupil who's saying such a thing. At that age, anyone out of their teens must seem pretty old. Age is always relative.

But how do you feel when it's God who's speaking the words?

I mean, if God, who's been around for all eternity, starts saying you're old, then you're plainly no longer the metaphorical spring chicken.

Not that he's said that to me. Or not exactly.

But I was reading this morning from the book of Joshua and was struck by the way that the Lord spoke to this man Joshua long ago.

"You are very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over."

I shared the sentiment. I sometimes feel my age; and the sense of so much that's unfinished in what I'm seeking to do is sometimes almost overwhelming.

But is my age an excuse for easing off? No way!

In case I'm tempted to think like that, the very next bit of the book of Joshua reminds me of a man called Caleb.

"Here I am today, eighty five years old!"

And then this -

"I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then."

There's a lot that's still to be done. I'm aware of that. And yes, I'm not getting younger.

But that's not, I guess, the point. It's not my age that counts.

It's my strength and my vigour.

It's my faith and resolve.

It's my love for the Lord.

a troubled place

A call came in for me today. A man asking if I, and we, would be able to help.

His call related to a woman who'd been to see him. She was, he said, "in a troubled place."

It's been that sort of day. Engaging with people who know what it is, one way or another, to be in a troubled place.

"You have made me see troubles, many and bitter," wrote the psalmist a long time ago.

And I was thinking today how true that is, in a slightly different sense, for me.

I get to see a lot of troubled people, and many bitter troubles.

Today, as I say, has been full of that.

A sore and grievous bereavement in the death of a young woman in very troubled circumstances.

The untimely death of a middle-aged man, who'd come here with his wife and family convinced of the call of God to them to serve him here: and now his wife and daughter are left on their own, far from home: and the girl herself doesn't keep too well at all.

A woman whose husband has died, and now on top of that there are all sorts of sore and complex issues in relation to her son.

You have made me see troubles, Lord, many and bitter. And I get to see them because all the folk concerned are seeking to cope, and needing the help of the Lord.

As often as not they are seeking to make sense of a thing that perhaps will never make sense. Looking for answers which maybe they never will get.

People "in a troubled place" all right.

And a man was in as well today, aware, as we all are in these days, that we in the church in our land as well - we, too, are in a troubled place.

I always hold on to the second part of that verse in the psalm. "Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again."

That's what I'm holding out to folk. A God who restores and renews.

one thing needful

'One thing is needful,' Jesus once said to a woman who was pretty much tearing her hair out with all she was having to do.

There are times when I know how she felt!

Three funeral services between Monday and Tuesday mean the week is immediately contracted.

Occasions such as this take time. They are sore, but sacred times in the lives of those who grieve, and the grieving can't be rushed.

There's not just the time involved in the service itself (an hour and a half at least by the time all the travel's included - and that's before you add in any 'after-service' event, to which I sometimes go).

Nor just the time involved in thorough preparation for the worship that's involved (which is a good deal longer - quite apart from anything else, I write up in every case a full verbatim manuscript of the address that I will give, and that can take a good few hours of solid preparation).

But on top of that there are visits as well to be made. And they take time and can't be rushed. Both before and after and far beyond.

Every one takes time. And I'm glad to give them the time that they need.

Because, as I say, such times as this are sacred ground for all the different families involved. Ground on which you tread carefully, slowly and with a patient reverence.

But it means, of course, that other things have to get dropped. Or postponed.

There's only a finite amount of time each day. And we simply can't do everything.

This is becoming a bit of a pressing issue. Something I've grown to be more and more keenly conscious of these past few months.

Most of the folk who've died in the last few weeks have all been in their eighties. And back in the summer, reflecting on things, it crossed my mind that the 'weight' of our congregation's life at this time is now up in that eighty-plus bracket.

A large, large number of folk in our midst who are up in their latter years.

A lot of them fit and healthy, of course. But they won't go on for ever. None of us do, in this life.

Their needs increase. They're not so able as once they were to be doing the things they did. It takes them longer to get things done. And they don't get out so much.

The ordinary business of living each day has become that bit more of an effort.

And instead of their being so fully involved themselves, they're now very much in need of encouragement, comfort and help.

Instead of visiting others themselves, they value a visit themselves. Instead of providing their care to their families and friends, they're now more and more in need of that care themselves.

We're talking big numbers here, within our congregation's life. The 80+ people form a sizeable group.

And I'm just not that sure we're all that equipped to minister as we should to this important age-band in our fellowship.

Folk who've given years and years of dedicated service to the Lord.

Folk who've fought the fight and run the race and are simply now looking for help just a bit as they struggle towards the line.

It's one of the things that we're grappling with here at this time. Adjusting ourselves to be able to meet all the needs that there are.

I don't do it well. At least not as I'd like to be doing it.

I'm simply so conscious of areas of need we're not really touching at all. Because we can't do everything. Even though we'd like to, and as often as not are trying to.

Pastoring the elderly. Ministering to the middle-aged (weighed down with all the challenges of caring for their children and their ageing parents too). Comforting the grieving. Counselling the troubled and confused. Building up the battered and the bruised.

And all the while engaging with the folk in our community to share with them the good news of our Lord.

Trying to build the bridges that will open up the roads into their hearts.

Building up relationships of trust which bit by bit encourage folk to step out rather gingerly along the path of faith.

We simply can't do everything. Not I myself. Nor all of us together here.

So our Leadership Team is asking some searching questions right now. Like what in particular in these days does the Lord look to us be to doing?

If we can't do everything, what is the 'one thing' that's needful?

funerals

This is a week when I have to hit the ground running.

Two funerals on a Monday, with the first at 9.30am, mean -

1. I have to avoid sleeping in.

Not that I generally do, but some Sunday nights I'm that tired I feel I could sleep for a week, and, sod's law working the way it does, the one time I need to be up and on the go is the one time I'll be out for the count.

I set the alarm to be sure and was up and on the go good and early.

2. I don't have the time to do the preparation on the day of the funeral itself.

Sunday night, after three communion services, is not the best time to get such preparation done, so I'd had to do it well in advance at the end of last week. Which means -

3. I have to be careful to remember the relevant details.

There are three funeral services I have to conduct between today and tomorrow: and that means a huge amount of detail.

Details of the families. Details of their lives and occupations. Details of their interests and their hobbies. Details of the hymns the family wish and where they mean to go once the service is over.

I have to be careful to remember not only all the details, but which details belong with whom.

Friday, when I last went over the details, is a long way away from a Monday morning. And a torrent of details have flowed beneath the bridge of my mind and heart meantime. Getting the details right is easier said than done.

Talking the funerals through with the Lord at the start of the day is a good way of clearing my head and getting the details right. It's tempting to skip the time of prayer, what with the pressure of time and all. But counter-productive.

I live by faith. Which means looking to the Lord. And trusting the Lord.

I make sure that I have such time with the Lord at the start of the day.

The funerals both went well. There weren't large numbers at either. Mainly just the families, and a scattering of a few close friends.

But the Lord was there. And numbers are incidental. He's the only one whose presence I am counting on. He's the one alone who'll bring much comfort and much help to those who're there.

He was there indeed. And he did what no one even starts to do as well as he always does.

There was real comfort and an unexpected peace for those who were grieving.

The husband whose wife had so recently died remarked at the end of the 9.30 service that I might even see him at worship.

Yes, I know folk often speak along those lines. I was hardly born yesterday!

But the fact that he said it, itself is in some ways a really remarkable thing. This from a man who is 'not religious at all'. He and his wife would not have shared in a service of worship, I'd guess for decades.

And a good number of them at that.

It's the little things that struck him, I think. And his family.

The way I'd remembered all the details of his dear wife's life. A woman whom I'd never met, but strangely seemed to know. A sort of pleasantly 'spooky' feeling for the man - like there is in fact a God who knows us in the smallest little details of our lives.

At the end of the second service later on, a man came up and thanked me for the way in which I'd managed to weave together the story of this person's life with the thrust of Holy Scripture.

I think that took him a bit by surprise. Like it was usually one or the other. A stress on the Scriptures: or a stress on the life of a person.

And perhaps not so much 'spooky', as 'scary' and striking that the Scriptures of God impinge so entirely on each of our lives here and now. Like there's a God who actually takes to do with us.

Bit by bit the message begins to get home to folk when you're with them long enough in the community. Days and times like this serve to help people start to see just a little bit more clearly what the good news of Jesus is really all about.

The music of the 'harpist' (check out the previous post) is enthralling as they stop to listen long enough to hear.

And that despite a mobile phone going off repeatedly as I spoke!

I smiled within. That sort of thing doesn't really put me off at all. I've long since learned to live with all manner of tougher distractions.

But I smiled because I was speaking of how so much that was good in village life has been lost in the gradual urbanisation of our modern life.

And I thought as the phone went off - like the way in which we were neither interrupted by, nor ever so dependent on, these mobile phones.

We live too fast. And sometimes the very speed of modern life prevents us all from hearing what the harpist with his music is addressing to our hearts.

Funeral services are sometimes just the one chance that he gets to play the music of eternity before a listening crowd.

And there's all the world of difference between the rich and haunting music of the harpist as he plays, and the shoddy, superficial little ditties of the mobile phone.

And the messages brought are whole worlds different too.

the harpist

If I'm going to preach I have to prepare.

That's not ignoring or down-playing the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is not some magical 'genie' who conjures up wonderful tricks.

The Spirit of God is a person. And we work as a team. I'm not exactly his 'researcher' (he knows it all himself!): but there's a part that I play in my digging around in the Bible with him to come up with the goods that he'll use.

A bit like my working with him day by day to be putting in place the strings on the harp that he'll play.

It's the Spirit of God who makes and plays the music. But we work together to see that the strings are all there in their place and all precisely tuned.

More like a harp than a violin. That's only got the four strings. A harp - well, a harp has an awful lot more.

I looked it up to see. That well-known fount of all knowledge (not!), Wikipedia, informs me that a typical concert harp has some 46 or 47 strings: I checked it out some other places too, to see if that was right.

46 or 47 strings. Quite a lot to get your head around - not to mention your fingers.

And it doesn't do if some of them aren't quite properly tuned (the strings, I mean, not your fingers). It rather spoils the whole thing.

The instrument has to be well 'prepared' in advance for the harpist to do his thing, for the music to flow.

(Or for the harpist to do 'her' thing, since most of the pictures you see of a harpist are pictures of a lady playing the harp. Are there no male harpists? Or is it just that the women are more photogenic?)

The Spirit of God is the harpist when preaching is what it's meant to be. The music of heaven which melts the heart and moves the soul and somehow makes sense of all of life - that music of heaven is heard when the Spirit of God is playing.

And that's what I'm keen should always be the case.

So I have to make sure that the strings are all tuned and the instrument's ready for action. Ready for God by his Spirit to play his heavenly music.

That's what I mean by saying there's always preparation to be done. I'm getting the harp all ready.

And over these next coming days there's a lot of music being played!

There are three different services of worship this coming Sunday, for a start - morning, afternoon, and evening.

There's barely time for a good night's sleep in between before there are two more funerals on Monday. And if I've picked up the gist of a message there was on the answer machine, then there'll be another funeral too, probably the very next day.

Music. All of them times when the Spirit of God is scheduled to play.

His harp's going to take a hammering! Except, of course, he doesn't really play it like that!

Preparation, they say, is everything. Well, prayerful preparation. Working with him to get his harp in order.

There was the service at lunch-time today as well, of course. The music of heaven for all sorts of folk who are needing to hear those dulcet tones the Spirit alone can produce.

Psalm 124 today. A song about those who are coping with something like 'free-fall' in their lives. Who feel like they're soon to go under.

I don't mean six feet under in a coffin, I should add. Though for some, indeed, for us all, who knows?

A word in season for some who were there, of that I have no doubt. ' Music' again to their ears, as the Spirit of God played his harp.

But, like I said at the start, it doesn't happen magically.

Miracle, more like. But not any 'abracadabra' magic.

reversing the flow

'Cultural Connections' is one of the 'blogs' I follow.

Nigel Pollock posts some pretty interesting stuff on this blog. And today I was doing some 'catch-up' on his two most recent posts.

The one he posted on Sunday past is worth a look (well, they're all worth a look, of course: but this one's short and striking, and a pretty good place to start if you've not already checked this blogger out).

It's a clip from Youtube called 'Lost Generation' and it argues in a striking way for a thorough-going reversal which brings hope to the world in which we live.

It's that sort of thing that I'm involved in too. Changing the whole direction of people's outlook on life. Changing the way folk think and see and live.

The Bible calls it repentance. A total change of mind and heart. A complete change of direction.

A refusal to accept any longer the values and attitudes everyone else has assumed. A resolve to embrace the values and outlook of God. To enter his kingdom. To go against the flow.

It's this that I see the Lord always doing in people's lives. Reversing the flow.

We were praying last night at our 'group of 8' (the one that grew from 3) that the person who's found life tough would know God's presence in a singular way today and would really enjoy a total reversal of what yesterday's experience had been.

Here's the text I got tonight in relation to this person whom we'd prayed for - "she wants you to know she had the best day ever!"

Reversing the flow.

God's good at that. That's what is kingdom is all about. That's what Jesus does.

And that's what we're involved in, therefore, too. Exhorting, cajoling and summoning those we meet to change the whole direction of their lives and enter this kingdom of God.

This kingdom of God where God is at work restoring, renewing, remaking.

My day's been really full of that in one way or another.

I had a man in early on. A man who'd 'chanced' to be there at our worship Sunday past. And for whom God's word had been a powerfully personal thing. It spoke to him directly.

We chatted a while. I suggested to him that it felt like his life was in 'free-fall'. Which is a very scary feeling.

Out of control and spiralling always downwards. Very scary.

That's a man who needs to know the restoring power of God. Reversing the flow of his life.

There is hope. There is hope.

And it starts when we choose to change the direction we live.

Check out the clip and see for yourself.

twins?

"Your twin moved it."

I was helping at the end of the AGM which Handicabs were holding here today. The piano and tables and chairs were all needing shifted around. Returned to the store, and then set up for the evening meeting here.

The folk who were running the meeting had hired in a sound system crew. So all of that was needing dismantled as well. And in among it all the piano stool went missing. I couldn't find it at all.

Which was when the sound system guy came out with those words.

"Your twin moved it."

Pardon me? I was a wee bit puzzled. Let me explain by giving you some useful things you might like to know about me.

1. I am not a twin. I have an older and a younger sister, and a younger brother too. But not a twin. (Unless my parents withheld some important information from us all)

2. My older sister has twins, but I don't. I have three sons, but there's a healthy gap between them all which precludes any chance of their being twins (far less triplets).

3. The person presumably mistaken for my twin would not appreciate being referred to as such. He is about 40 years younger than I am, has no grey hair, and does not look remotely like me. The only points of resemblance between us are (a) our height, (b) our clothing [we were both wearing zip-up tops], and (c) our gender.

4. The young lad who'd been helping me earlier on to set the place up, he and I are both believers. As followers of Jesus we belong to the family of God, and our 'birth' into that family has its origin in the same momentous day (the day when Jesus was crucified for our sins). That, in a way, might make us sort of twins (we were 'born again' on the same day): but I can't believe the sound system guy was indulging in such theological niceties. He didn't exactly look the type.

5. The lady who'd also been helping out at the start of the day as we sought to set the place up - she, also, would not, I think, appreciate being thought of as my twin. It didn't for a very long time even cross my mind that he might've been referring to her. She is tall for a lady, certainly. And yes, she was wearing a zip-up top as well. But that is pure coincidence. And I can't really think there are other ways in which we look alike at all. (She's older than me as well, but please don't quote me on that)

Nonetheless, I found it rather striking that the man should have spoken like that.

As if he had that sense that we belonged to one another. That there was that sort of 'closeness' in us all.

We work very much as a team. The young lad here who was helping out - this was his first day on the job (it's the local school's half term). And it didn't turn out as he'd been led to believe it would.

Things rarely do with us here! We long since learned to adapt.

And that's what this morning involved. A large-scale re-arrangement of the furniture to get things right for this group who were using our halls.

All of us work as a team. We help each other out. And, as I say, we long since recognised the need to be adaptable.

Life very rarely works out quite as we anticipate.

But we work as part of a team. Like oxen yoked together. 'Twinned' with each other. And together all 'twinned' with the Lord.

He takes the strain. He sets the course. He farms the land.

And we're glad to be a part of that today. What he, the Lord, is doing in and to our land.

Which seems to be involving some re-arranging of the 'furniture'.

We found the piano stool, by the way.

A helpful little token of the fact that the Lord knows what he's doing.

And that nothing of any value will be lost in all the furniture re-arrangements going on.

Alpha

In between seeing a range of different (very different) folk, there's been a lot of preparation I've been trying to do.

Some of it rather urgent.

The Alpha course we're running here is into its fourth week now: tonight I was the speaker.

Why and How should we Pray? Another of the 'questions of life' which the course is seeking to address.

Well, I'm not an expert on this, of course. Who is? But maybe that's why they asked me to speak on this one. Maybe they needed a guy who's simply learning. Someone on the level with enquirers.

The speaker is meant to go by the book.

I don't mean the Bible. Well, I do mean the Bible as well, of course, because, sure it's all got to do with what the Scriptures teach. But there's a course book, and when the folk all break into groups to have their group discussions it helps if the speaker has covered the ground in the book.

So there was a fair bit of preparation today in respect of that. And even at that, there were bits that I had to miss out. It's a big, big subject, of course, and a lifetime's worth of learning on the theme is hard to pack into half an hour.

There are loads of folk who are taking the course. Something over twenty I'd have thought. It's brilliant to see all the people there, from all sorts of different backgrounds and with all sorts of different hang-ups, as well, I guess.

The course isn't meant to resolve all the questions of life that people have. It's meant, I imagine, to help them make some progress as they work these issues through, and to help them venture out on the life of faith.

Following Jesus Christ. Discovering that the Lord is for real. And that life is there to be lived, in ways they maybe never realised before.

I've prayed that tonight's half-hour talk will have helped folk on that way. Illumined their minds just a bit. Got rid of some misguided notions. Made 'prayer' a bit more real.

And fired their hearts with the longing to give this a go and to find out more and to get to know the Lord.

When I pray, all sorts of things happen!

harvest

The local school was here for a service this morning.

Not all of them - just the Nursery and the P1-3s. It was their 'Harvest' service and it's always a bright and happy occasion.

The children are always great. Big beaming smiles, full of enthusiasm, and doing their thing (songs, poems and the like) with a serious dose of commitment, as though the fate of the world depended on their performance.

I'd arranged for a couple of folk to come along and speak.

Tom Kisitu is the guy who heads up the West Pilton Christian Centre (part of the Edinburgh City Mission) to whom we direct all the gifts of food the school had brought.

We have a close association with the centre, sending food along there week by week, and are glad to support the work they do. People come to know the Lord through the ministry they exercise. And find their lives being changed.

Tom does a super work there as he heads it up. And it's great having him along at times like this: and May from the centre was also along. The whole team there are terrific.

And then there was another May as well.

I'd arranged for Eddie May to say a few words. He's from West Pilton originally himself and he'd asked on Sunday morning when he heard about the service that the school were having here (he and his wife and family worship here) - he'd asked if he could come along as well, and maybe say a word or two.

Eddie (for the thoroughly uninitiated) is manager of Falkirk FC, and he's a lovely guy. Gentle and very genuine, a guy who's made mistakes and learned from them, and who's as much of a pastor, I think, as he is as well the manager of the club.

For what it's worth I think he does a brilliant job at the club, and is plainly really deeply concerned to help the different individuals in his charge. A man who understands the role that values have and seeks to stand by his principles.

It was great to hear him speak to the girls and boys and tell them always to value the advice they got from teachers and from parents, the people who really care for them.

And it was great as well to hear him speak of the way that God's become so much a part of his life these past few years.

He and Tom were in for a coffee afterwards. And Eddie was booked by Tom to speak along at the centre as well. Which I thought was wonderful.

Eddie's not a public speaker really. I mean, he said that his first game of the SPL season was at Ibrox in front of 52,000 spectators - but he was more nervous about speaking to the children today than he was at Ibrox.

But he speaks from the heart. And his heart has been touched by the Lord.

It's a lovely thing to see.

Days like this it feels like I'm just a spectator, watching the Lord at work.

Mordor

A friend was in to see me today.

He's not a Church of Scotland man. It was interesting to hear him speak.

"There's a pall across the whole of the church in this land," he declared.

The sequel to the things going on in big church back in May. He said it felt oppressive. Like a dark and heavy cloud was sort of sitting across the church throughout the land.

Sometimes that pall is a thing I feel acutely. Today was one of those days. A great, heavy weight, pressing down on my soul, and almost impossible to lift.

I do what needs to be done, but it's all of it quite an effort. There are people to see and letters to write and a lot of preparation to be done. All the usual things I guess.

But all of it's a struggle. The pall is always there. 'Lord of the Rings' sort of stuff in a way. The oppressive weight of Mordor.

I'm not alone in feeling this. My friend has the same sort of sense.

And my guess is that all of God's people are feeling this, too.

For many of them it's a new sort of thing, this pall of Mordor's darkness which has crept across our land: and I'm not sure that they always know just how to cope with it.

I detect a growing spirit of complaint within the church and I think that it's this pall of Mordor's darkness which explains it all. The sense that something's wrong. It's just they're not sure what. And 'complaint' is the language that's used to express that sense.

There's no doubt at all in my mind the powers of darkness are well and truly abroad these days. Something's going on across the land. The Lord's at work. And hell, I think, has started to show its hand.

On days like this, not least, we find ourselves coming together to pray at point after point through the day.

The fellowship of the Spirit, strengthening one another in the Lord. Protecting each other, sustaining each other, enabling each other to live and fight another day.

small letters

I seemed to have a mountain of mail to attend to today. Well, mail and all sorts of admin stuff that required some urgent attention.

The backlog there is from a couple of weeks like the last two there've been when there's been barely a moment to breathe. It all mounts up quite quickly: and it needs to be done.

I don't know how many letters I had to post by the end of the day. A lot. And they all take time. And a load of phone calls as well. The e-mails, too. And some forms to be filled in by me.

And a trip to the school to collect from there a memory stick with a stack of photos to be put on a powerpoint file for the service the school is having here on Wednesday. There must have been close on 50 photos, I think, each to be put on a separate slide.

It's worth it, of course: the families all love it when, coming in to the service, they can see these varied pictures of their children hard at work (and having fun) at school.

But, again, it all takes time.

People ask me what I do - and there isn't a single answer. 'Making up powerpoint files' sounds no more impressive than 'doing a load of admin' as the way I've spent my day.

And yet that's how it often is whole big pile of little tasks that must be done. The tiny wee strokes of the pen which help create the picture that's being drawn.

And all of that before I get down to preparing the material for the services this week. Wednesday's 'double whammy' (the school are first and then the lunchtime service): and the two upcoming Sunday worship services as well.

I remember someone saying once it's the little things that count. Small, inconsequential little things that in themselves are nothing much at all. But integral to something much, much bigger.

I'm reminded of something that C S Lewis once wrote.

"Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see."

Sometimes people just can't see the big picture. Sometimes it's the tiny, little courtesies, for instance, which help folk see the massive, great good news of Jesus Christ.

None of the smallest tasks we do is ever insignificant.

on earth

I have a friend called David whom I've mentioned here before.

He's a good guy. In every sense. I mean, a good guy to have around: a good guy to have on your side: a good guy to spend time with: a guy who's on the side of all that's good.

He's a follower of Jesus. And he's like Jesus. Who was anointed by the Spirit of God and went around doing good.

He used to be here in Edinburgh (David, that is), but these last many years he's been down in Hull. And now he's moving back.

It's a complicated story, but he's about 2/3 of the way returned right now. And today he was in for a quick bite of lunch and an even quicker time of touching base with one another, him and me.

There's something about the man to which I relate straight off. Jesus, basically.

He has vision and passion, and he comes up with some of the most unexpected and wonderful things.

Like booking 'Dynamic Earth' for a Jesus-centred celebration do. On All Saints Evening. (Commonly known as Halloween).

Brilliant!

All Saints Evening. The blurb says. This is our night.

The saints of God celebrating what God is doing.

'Dynamic Earth' is a pretty big place. One of Edinburgh's icons. And here's this guy, who's still only 2/3 here, and he's booked the place and got this whole thing organsed for about 300 people, from all over town.

David's a 'Nike' guy. That's not a miss-print, by the way. I mean, he is a nice guy too, but I did mean to write he's a Nike guy. Just do it. And he does.

Maybe I'm about to die, he said. Or I'm getting old. Or something. But I don't really feel I've got the time to build up all these 'networks' with the Christian church, before getting down to doing things here.

My heart warms to the guy. He just goes out and does it. By-passes loads of committee meetings. Doesn't spend hours of everyone's time.

He just has a huge big burden on his heart, a vision for what might be.

And goes out and does it. On earth. As it is in heaven.

Mark it in your diary. And book your ticket now. Through me, if you wish.

Halloweeen like you won't have often known it.

chasing the shepherd

Today's my day for making soup.

And even though it's a busy week, I don't ever mind this task. Apart from anything else, I'm in before the others are here and I use the time while I'm making the soups to listen (by means of CDs) to the spoken ministry of some of today's finest preachers.

It does my soul good! An hour or so of manna for the spirit. It's wonderful and fairly sets me up for the day.

A call came in about 9am from one of the ladies who runs the Ladies' Meeting at Charlotte Chapel. She was looking for a reading from Scripture for this coming Thursday's meeting at which I'm due to be speaking.

I smiled. My week's not really running like that at all. I mean this is only Tuesday. Thursday might as well be another millennium, the amount of things I've still to attend to between now and then!

However, I knew she'd ring and I had at least got as far as having a reading prepared for her. I know the passage I'm preaching on. I've prepared that much.

Most days, at present, turn out a bit like that. They call it 'chasing your tail', but I don't think that's really fair. I'm not going round and round in circles.

It's more like the greyhounds racing, with the 'rabbit' way out there in front. Always just keeping that little bit further ahead.

But if the greyhounds keep up the pace they'll get there in the end.

It's more like that with me these days. If you can liken the Lord to a rabbit!

Because it's him I'm seeking to keep up with these days. He's hard at work and there's lots going on. And I'm glad to be out on the hoof with him.

It's just that my 'walk with the Lord' these days has become a bit of a 'power-walk'. It's a job keeping up.

You can see why these soup-making moments are actually bliss. 'Still waters' beside which he leads me: time to drink deeply from the pools of the Spirit's refreshing.

There was another service of thanksgiving today. The man who'd died was ninety five. And his wife had died almost exactly a year before, to the very day just about.

The two of them had always been close. I picked up on that in the service itself and made use of David's lament when Jonathan died the same day as his father.

"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided."

That, I suppose, was the text the Lord gave. And for those of us who are Christians, we're not in truth divided, neither in death nor by death.

Much of the afternoon was spent along (and alone) with my mother-in-law, taking time to work through with her all that these coming days will involve. Such times can never be rushed.

If I spread myself more thinly, and rushed through times like that and rushed through preparation and rushed through all the meetings that I have - well I guess I could doubtless do loads more.

Quantity-wise, at any rate. But quality? There wouldn't be much at all.

Most of the things I do need time and can't be rushed. Which means I'm always having to choose between all sorts of possible things.

Which is why, before the day begins, even before I get down to the soup on a day like today, I take time out to be with the Lord, to listen and learn and speak with him and to see where my priorities should lie.

It's his day after all. His work. And his story.

prophet and loss

A long day to start a new week.

(Yes, I know it started yesterday. But you know what I mean).

Most Monday mornings I wake up tired. Even after a good night's sleep.

I revel in Sundays, but they leave me fairly exhausted. Mondays, ideally, are a day of a slightly lighter pace as I ease myself back into all that needs to be done.

Not today, though.

My father-in-law died on Saturday morning. A lot of this morning was therefore spent in attending to all the arrangements that need to be seen to.

It helps when I know the funeral directors. They're always good, this lot, and the man who was here was the man who was also involved with us all when my own mother died, a couple of years back now.

A quick trip up to Crieff in the afternoon for a meeting there. I'd missed the morning, of course - a pity, since everyone said that the ministry there in the morning had been very, very special indeed.

Back late afternoon, and a quick turn-around before getting out to the Guild where I was the speaker on their theme for the year - the 'call to act justly'.

I spoke about Elijah the prophet, and how he had challenged the king in respect of Naboth's vineyard.

The third of the three great episodes for which most folk remember the guy (if they remember, or have heard of, him at all).

The first - feeding and helping the widow of Zarephath. The second - Mount Carmel and confronting the prophets of Baal and affirming the Lord as God. And then this, the third - the king's next door neighbour, Naboth, who gets unceremonially turfed out of his property (and the land of the living) by Ahab's singularly unpleasant wife, Jezebel.

Quite striking these three different pictures we get of prophetic life. Because in some ways they seem to mirror exactly the call of God through Micah in regard to what it is he looks for from us all.

"To act justly [Naboth], to love mercy [Zarephath], and to walk humbly with your God [Carmel]."

Albeit not quite in that order.

Those present were struck (at least I gather so from what they said in conversation with me afterwards) by the 'immediacy' of the word of God.

I was bringing it up to date. Translating it into the context of today.

One lady said when the Scripture passage was read she didn't really see what it was on about at all. But half an hour later it was clear as day.

Since then I've been doing some work on the service there is tomorrow. There's a lot of extra services and things this week.

So the candle will burn quite late, I suspect, throughout the course of the week.

Ian Duncan

I won't do this often but I'm posting here the address that was given today.

Ian Duncan was one of our older members, a lovely man in all sorts of ways. He died last week and the service of thanksgiving today was a rich celebration of a life that was lived to the full.

It gives an idea of just the sort of calibre of men and women here who down the years have served the cause of Christ. And an idea, too, of just how much we miss them when they're gone.

It's quite long - so get yourself a cup of coffee, settle down, and let the Lord speak to your heart.

When the notice appeared in The Herald this week, announcing that Ian had died, the whole unusual layout of the page seemed somehow to have had Ian himself in mind.

Up to the right, a simple little poem had been printed, whose title with its big bold letters was the thing that caught the eye – I love my Jean.

Such a very fitting, providential tribute to the gift that Jean has been to him for close on sixty years (yesterday being the 59th anniversary of their marriage).

Beneath the poem, and alongside the regular notices, there was a large and colourful advert for the Earl Haig Fund, a cause which Ian had been glad to support, not least as one who’d served himself through the war.
And right underneath the notice that Ian had died, a notice which stood alone in its own very central column, was this Scripture text from Philippians chapter 4 –

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

The words are so very apt, underlining so clearly that the heart of our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ is a rich and enduring relationship with God as our Father on high. Not only the One who speaks through his word, but the One to whom we also may pour out our hearts.

We, all of us, face our own trials. And Ian was not short on the troubles and worries, the burdens and cares, the sorrows and griefs, that can cloud our horizons and darken our spirits and vex us beyond what our words could ever declare.

It was worry which triggered the illness with which Ian has struggled these last many years.

And it was sorrow with which he was more than a little familiar across all the long years of his life. The sudden and tragic death of his younger brother, Malcolm: the devastating loss of his youngest daughter, Christine, in her infancy, and then, long years later on, the grief that there was in the death of his older son, Alasdair – these were griefs that only those who’ve walked that path themselves can truly know.

The pain of such grief is deep and profound: and it’s there in these times of such hardship and hurt – it’s there that we learn what a blessing it is to be able to pour out our hearts to a God so familiar himself with such grief.

Ian grew up in a home where such truths were most surely impressed on the hearts of himself and his five younger siblings. His father, the Rev Robert Duncan, was the United Free Church minister at Law in Airdrie and then at Kilmarnock Grange Church. And the nurture that he, and Ian’s mother Winnie, afforded their family of six was the sort that ingrained in the souls of their children a heritage rich in the virtues of faith, hope and love.

Ian himself has been an elder here since 1962: his daughters were both married here in this church and among the next generation again there were several baptised here.

Such a grounding in all of the tenets of faith went some way to ensuring that when troubles came – as troubles surely do – Ian would know where to turn and in whom he could finally trust. For Paul goes on, in the text of Philippians 4, to insist that when once we learn to unburden our cares on the Lord, then

"the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

And thus it was so often here on a Sunday at worship that Ian would be found. Bedecked in his kilt, with a gleam in those stunning blue eyes, with a warm, gentle smile on his face, and reflecting – whatever the turmoil within – reflecting that peace of the Lord.

That note of peace runs through this letter the apostle wrote. Himself a man well on in years, acquainted with the pressures and the hardships of a life of dedicated service as he followed Jesus Christ, the man was now in prison as he wrote: but eager, always eager that those to whom he wrote should nonetheless themselves enjoy this peace that he had come to know.

"Finally," he writes (but the man is a preacher and he’s not really quite at the end!), "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

There’s a lifetime’s worth of living there in Ian which Paul’s great exhortation comprehends. So much that is true and noble and right and altogether worthy of our praise and admiration here today.

He was an extremely able man. Schooled in Airdrie first and then at Kilmarnock Academy, where he excelled indeed above all others as dux; he went on to attain a first class honours degree in Classics at Glasgow University.

All through his life his mind remained sharp, as those with whom he played in later life, in both the Chess and the Scrabble Clubs, would all be the first to acknowledge. He was glad to be able to use his mind; and keen to encourage others too, as his very ready willingness to teach the game of chess in local schools revealed.

He was, moreover, an extremely kind and generous man as well, not least within his family. For myself when I first came here I was struck by the quiet and self-effacing manner with which he cared for his brother’s widow, Isabel. And I know that such care and such kindness in Ian was replicated time and time again amongst his family and friends. Folk almost always warmed to him: and it was easy to see just why.

He was, of course, a man who was full of fun. Very often, indeed, in a mischievous, boyish way, with a twinkle that lit up his eyes and a laugh that was rich and infectious. He knew deep down, whatever the struggles he had – he knew deep down that life was there to be lived and its pleasures there to be known. He loved to be out on the hills, and enjoyed being able to climb Ben Lomond the day he was sixty five. And his children, in turn, dragged out with their Daddy from almost the day they could walk, discovered in time they were all of them fitter than most.

He was at heart a family man. Growing up as the eldest of six, I think he knew and understood just how special and important are the bonds of family love.

He’d first met Jean when, training for his service in Nigeria, he’d been on different courses in both London learning Ibo and at Oxford, too.

He’d joined the Scottish Dance Society and it was there that the two of them met. It was, I’m told, his lilting Ayrshire accent which attracted her, not least (if I recall aright) at some Burns’ Supper do where Ian was giving out the toast: and so potent was Ian’s speaking that Jean volunteered right there and then “I’m going to marry a man like that!”

Which, of course, she did. In fact, they married each other twice, I understand. On the same day. They would have been married in the St Columba’s Pont Street Church of Scotland: but the place had been bombed through the war and instead the marriage took place in St Saviours Church of England – though only after they were married first in a room which had been consecrated in St Columba’s Church house; because Ian’s mother, with presumably a rigorous Presbyterian zeal, insisted absolutely on a Church of Scotland service.

Whether that’s noble or right or pure or lovely or even remotely admirable I will not say: but it is true. And thinking on that brings a smile – and even a measure of peace – to both Jean and her children today.

For his children here today, for Elspeth and Judy (his far-travelled daughters), and his son-on-the doorstep Andy – for them and the in-laws and grandchildren too, for them he was more than a father: he was, I suspect, their hero, a wise, astute, and patriarchal figure who, defying all convention, was their counsellor and champion.

For he was, like all true characters, very much his own man. And he went about things his own way.

He had served in the war with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers out in India. And he was known to have stayed up all night as he stripped down equipment to sort out a problem himself and get the thing working again – for all that it earned him rebuke more than thanks, since he’d basically stepped out of line. But as I say, he was his own man and was happy to do things his way.

His way or not, though, Ian’s life was a lifetime of service. The eleven years that he and Jean spent early on in married life out in Nigeria, with Ian’s work in the Colonial Service as a local government officer [through a period which saw that country become independent in 1960] – those eleven years of service saw him honoured with an OBE.

Precisely for what in his time out there he was honoured is clothed to this day in a mist of some uncertainty. He built a bridge: he sorted out an ugly-looking villagers’ dispute: he quelled a local riot single-handedly, a riot that had all the likely makings of some major loss of life (including his): he taught the natives Scottish Country Dancing: and he fathered all his children there as well.

All of them major achievements – and no one’s entirely certain for just which of these the OBE honour was given!

Service lay at the heart of it all, whatever it was that he did. For returning home he joined the Scottish Office and served there, too, in the finance, housing and development departments.

A life-time full of service, to country, church and family.

And it comes as no surprise to me, as I hold in one hand the life that Ian lived and hold in the other the words of this letter of Paul – it comes as no surprise to me to find this servant of the risen Lord proceeds to underline –

"I can do all things through him who gives me strength."

And I want to conclude by exhorting you all, as together we think on Ian’s life – I want to conclude by exhorting you all to aspire to that sort of life. I want to insist that we settle, each one of us here, for nothing that’s short of the highest and best that God offers us all in his Son.

My God, wrote Paul, will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Jesus Christ.

Never settle for anything less than the best that is there for us all in the Lord Jesus Christ. Never opt for the path of a safe and a bland mediocrity.

You were made for a life of service. You were made for a life of adventure. You were made to aspire for the heights.

And whatever the struggles, whatever the problems, whatever the sorrows that path to the heights will entail, be certain of this all your days – my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Jesus Christ.

All your needs. Forgiveness when you fall and fail. Renewal when you falter and grow weary on life’s path. Comfort when you sorrow. Courage when you tremble. Guidance all the way.

And at the last, in face of death itself, the promise of a resurrection day.
My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Jesus Christ.

It is altogether fitting that Ian was laid to rest clothed in his pyjamas, with his much-loved golden dressing-gown on top.

For Christians merely sleep. And one day we shall wake with all the saints, and rise, with crowns as well as gowns of gold, to gather round the throne of our great Saviour God, and enter into that unending life that is at last the freedom and the fulness for which we all have longed.

"To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen"