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.