ancient paths

I'm never short of things to do. Every week is busy and full. But exactly what fills them is ever so varied, and changes from week to week.

This week, as I planned things out, I realised there were 8 separate occasions within the space of 5 short days when I'd be speaking and opening the Scriptures. Which itself serves to cut back the time that there is to prepare.

Each of these occasions is unique. A particular setting, particular people, particular needs. Trotting out some standard text I've used before just will not do. I can't and won't and don't do that at all.

It would make life a whole load easier, that's for sure. But it would totally miss the point.

The point, of course, being that the living Lord, who loves us all in a very personal way, has a very specific word for the people who gather at each of these very specific places.

Today it was a funeral. (That was after the couple of school assemblies through the morning)

At services such as this, of course, there's a very particular focus. A person has died. A very unique individual whom those who gather, from all walks of life, are keen to remember with thanks.

It's not a time or place for platitudes. It doesn't do to speak in simply general terms. The whole thing's wholly personal.

And into that, the Lord's intent on speaking with the folk who're there. Who they are, and what they are, and where they're at in terms of their relationship with Christ - well, the Lord alone knows. I don't have to know. My task is to hear what it is that the Lord is intent on saying to these folk, and then to deliver that word.

Every one is different. And today was no exception.

The man who'd died was a well-known man in the local community here. He used to come out in the evenings to our weekly Sunday worship. And, since the death of his wife a few years back, I'd got to know him quite well.

He hailed from Coupar, Angus, and a while ago he'd loaned me a couple of books about the old Cistercian Abbey there. He took pride in his roots, and took pride in his birth-place's past. In a lot of ways he had seemed to prefer the values of an older world to those of our present contemporary world.

The Lord laid his word on my heart for today.

"This is what the Lord says: 'Stand at the crossroads and look: ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.'"

This man had sort of gravitated back to those ancient paths. He'd sought in his life to walk in that way - and in a real and wonderful way he'd found a certain rest as well.

He ended his life, this last year or so, at The Tor, a lovely Christian Nursing Home. And there, in the care of a dedicated staff, he was certainly truly at rest.

There were folk there today who needed, I think, to hear that word from the Lord. I don't know who they were or why this was important. That's between them and him.

But I'm sure that was a word they needed to hear. And I pray that the Lord by his Spirit will lodge that word in their hearts and make it take root and then grow from that virulent seed into something which bursts into life.

There's a lot of prayer involved. Prayer as I seek to discern the Lord's word. Prayer as I seek to explain the Lord's word. Prayer as I seek to deliver his word. Prayer when it's done that the Lord would continue his work through that word in the hearts and the lives of the hearers.

And that's a sort of praying which we all can share.

Things happen when people pray.