grazing ground

In comparison with last week, and all of the buzz of the Holiday Club, today has been really quiet!

It's been a day for taking stock, for catching up, for beginning to plan for the future.

The time after Easter is always a little bit 'bitty'. It's difficult sometimes to get much momentum going. There are a lot of Monday holidays, a lot of 'long weekends', with people away at different times, and a sense of any continuity is sometimes hard to retain.

There's been the chance today to give some thought to the content of coming services. A chance to be still, to reflect before God and to learn from the Lord what it is that he's meaning to say. Which field on the farmland of Scripture he'd have us be grazing in through the coming weeks.

You maybe wonder what's involved in my choosing the next bit of Scripture to be preaching on.

Well, it's not an exact science by any means.

Prayer

The first thing to say is this, I suppose: there's a very real sense in which it isn't me at all who does the choosing! I'm really intent on discerning the choice of the Lord - where it is that the Lord, as our wise and far-seeing shepherd, is directing this flock at this time.

So I'm making the question a matter for prayer: that's the first thing. And I'll generally have been seeking to do so for quite a time. Talking the matter through with the Lord in prayer, and seeking, in prayer, to be listening, too, to the Lord. Where it is he's pointing me: what are the Scriptures he seems to be bringing before me again and again.

Prayer isn't magic, of course. There aren't any magical answers, no signs in the sky. It doesn't work like that.

Reflection

So alongside prayer, and as part of that prayer, I engage in some careful reflection. I'm trying to stand back and assess before God just where it is we're at.

I think of the range of different needs that there are, or are likely to be, in the lives of the people here. Older folk, younger folk: seekers (those who are keen to be knowing the Lord), and 'sulkers' (those who've got problems and 'issues' with either the church or the Lord): strugglers and stragglers: those on the crest of a wave, and those right down in the depths.

I think of the things that these coming weeks will bring. Exams, holidays, surgery: sharing communion, marking the first full year since the leadership team (known as the Kirk Session) was first commissioned by the congregation, celebrating the end of a season of work with our youth.

I think of the landmark events that are coming up in the life of the church at large. Our own church meeting in General Assembly again. Pentecost Sunday, when the church at large celebrates the gift and the coming of the Spirit of God. The Global Day of Prayer.

I try and stand back and get a feel for the overall 'contours' of these coming days. How the land lies, as it were; and what sort of 'map' we'll be needing.

Listening

And all the while that I'm engaged in those activities of prayerful re-assessment of our present situation, I'm doing some listening too.

I'm listening out for what the Lord has gently been directing me towards in terms of Scripture passages.

What has he been bringing up before me as I've waited in his presence as I've prayed?

What are the bits of the Scriptures that his Spirit has been laying on my heart these days and drawing to my attention? In the books that I've been reading. In the countless conversations I've been having. In the issues I've been having to address. In the questions which are presently being aired.

The praying, reflecting and listening serve to narrow things down. I begin to get some clarity as to where the Lord is pointing us and what the Lord is saying to us.

I'm able then to match prospective passages with Sundays in the diary. I begin to see how the Scriptures will fit: and I'm always impressed by the way that the Lord brings the two of these things so together - his Scriptures and our situation.

So for the coming weeks I'm now clear. I've been working at this for some time and today's been a chance to bring the thing into focus. I know where the Lord is now leading us here. The so-called 'letters to the churches', recorded in the book of Revelation (chapters 2 & 3).

There are things that the Lord has to say to his church in these days. Things that we, all of us, urgently need now to hear.

May we all have 'ears to hear' and be able to hear.