all over the place

These have been unusual days, so far as I'm concerned. Sufficiently unusual to make me wonder if there's somehow some sort of a message for myself.

I 'travel' very little. Most of the time, almost all of my time in fact, I'm here in the small patch of Scotland which in church-speak gets called a 'parish'.

It's here that the Lord has called me. And it's here that I'm glad to serve.

This is my 'garden of Eden', the place where the Lord has set me with the charge to 'work it and take care of it' (using the phraseology of Gen.2.15). It's more than enough to keep me occupied, happy, and fulfilled.

These, then, as I say are unusual days - for I'm on the road a lot.

Wednesday evening last week it was down to Stow, in the Borders. Victoria had done a placement here as part of her training as a Church of Scotland minister: Wednesday evening saw her installed as the new minister at Stow and Heriot. A super occasion, marked by a sense of God's presence and filled with an air of expectancy.

Back from there to Edinburgh, in time to hop onto the night train to London. Thursday and Friday in London. Back Friday evening to Edinburgh.

Sunday morning back down to the Borders, 'preaching in' Victoria, first at Heriot Kirk and then (a quick dash down the ten mile road at a rate that would have made a rally driver feel pretty good!) at Stow once again. Warm services, marking the start of her ministry there, in both these country places.

Yesterday, it was through to Glasgow, for a meeting there. Then on Saturday coming it's up to the northern climes of Melness and Tongue, right on the northern coast of Scotland.

Stewart and his family have been members with us here for a good number of years: he's being 'inducted' on Friday as minister of the church up there (I can't be at the induction as I have a wedding here that day), and I'm to 'preach him' in on the Sunday morning.

North (Melness and Tongue), south (London), east (Edinburgh) and west (Glasgow). The four points of the compass. Encompassing the whole of the land.

Out of the blue, and all packed close together, the Lord takes me out 'on the road'. A whistle-stop tour of the four corners of the land.

I can't help but feel there's a message in that for myself. No longer am I to be thinking in purely parochial terms. What we do here is part of a much bigger picture. We're involved in these days in something of nation-wide significance.

We must learn to think in those terms.

Something rather big is going on. And we're called to be a part of it.

The coming days are going to be very different.