abseiling down

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord: O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy."

So begins the psalm we were looking at today in our lunch-time service.

The Message translates the opening line like this - "Help me God - the bottom has fallen out of my life!"

Which expresses it well. And underlines the honesty with which the Bible speaks.

No hiding away from the fact that even for the Christian bad things happen.

We plumb the depths. Of despair, of sorrow, of pain, of grief. You name it. It's all there, all part of the package we have to learn to cope with in our lives.

The Spirit of God is at work in our lives, for sure, cultivating carefully his fruit. But sometimes life goes pear-shaped.

Most of my pastoral work derives from that fact. There's an element of mid-wifery, as I share with the Lord in the miracle of new life being imparted to folk. But mostly it's the far less dramatic, basic GP stuff that occupies my time.

That's what pastors are for. Time was they were known as 'physicians of the soul'. A slightly antiquated way of putting it. But on the button.

Life is hard. There are all sorts of pitfalls, all sorts of dangers, all sorts of toxic spiritual chemicals in the air of our current, me-first culture, to which we're all exposed.

Pastors are there to help folk through these 'troughs' in the undulating contours of experience.

Like a good old-fashioned doctor in his surgery, listening, observing, discerning, probing. Wisely diagnosing. If need be, carefully prescribing.

Encouraging, re-assuring, comforting, and sometimes, too, rebuking. Kindly, graciously, patiently. 'Bedside manner' counts.

In the 'good old days' your GP knew you well. His work was built round relationship. He was a family friend.

Pastoral work is really little different. And much of the work I'm involved in day by day is really of this sort.

Building those relationships which form the very bedrock of the pastoral work I do.

Jesus was the friend of sinners. He got to know the folk. Diagnosis is always a whole load easier when you've got to know a person first.

Psalm 130 is a useful summary guide to pastoral work.

Bad things happen. We live in that sort of world. People get ill. The bottom falls out of their worlds.

God is as much a reality in this world as any sort of struggles that we have. We forget that at our peril.

And we forget at our peril what sort of God he is. 'Mercy' is his middle name. Everything he does, everything he says, everything about the way he works, is shot through with mercy. Extravagant, generous, over-the-top mercy. Always.

So, given there's this God around, how do you handle the bad things when they come?

Number one, you pray. Not in the sense of saying your prayers. But crying out to God. Crying. Bawling your head off, getting it all off your chest. Letting him know in no uncertain terms where you're at and why it's tough and how you cannot cope.

Pour out your hearts to him, the psalmist elsewhere exhorts.

Number two, you wait. That's hard. We'd like an instant solution. We'd like things sorted now.

God takes his time and won't be rushed. There will be light at the end of the tunnel. Even when the tunnel seems long.

Waiting is a very basic part of the life that we're called on to live in following Jesus.

Pastors don't have a magic want to wave which brings an instant healing. It doesn't work like that.

Number three, you hope. Not hoping for the best, but basing your confidence firmly on what God has said in his word. In his word I put my hope.

Because that word underlines two important things about God: he's loving and strong. Always. Able and willing to meet us in our needs.

You can be sure of that. You can bank on that. You can base your hope on that.

The psalm is a sort of crash course on pastoral work. It gives you an insight into much of what I'm doing each day. Without going into the details!

There was a story today on the news about a man who had fallen some 80 feet on the mountains near Glencoe (I think). He'd fallen into a river - the volume of water cushioning the impact of his falling on all of the boulders a bit. He'd ended up unconscious, head beneath the water.

Deep trouble.

His friend had seen it happen and went abseiling down the cliff to reach him there and pull him out of the water and prevent the man from drowning.

That's a good picture of pastoral work. The pastor can't just shout out his instructions from the cliff top. He has to abseil down. Into the depths himself. To be by the side of his friend in danger of drowning.

And help him make it through.

The man who had fallen will be flat on his back for a good six weeks, we were told. No quick fix. No magic wand.

But healing, and help, and hope.