centenary

Today I celebrated a rather special centenary. The 100th anniversary of my father's birth.

Although he died many years ago now, his legacy lives on in the lives of many, I'd guess. Certainly in the lives of his family. And today we're glad of the chance which this milestone affords to acknowledge our debt under God to this gentle and most gracious man.

He helped us to see from our earliest years what a wonderful thing it is that the Lord has effected for us in the gospel, our belonging at last to a family, and our knowing this God as our Father. He made the security and dignity of that an easy thing for all of us to grasp.

Something the Lord once declared through the prophet Isaiah has been very much a word which the Lord spoke to me: and I often think of my Dad in this regard as well -

"All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children's peace." [Is.54.13]

That's a fine legacy for any man to leave. And today once again we all salute him.

culturally correct

The Wednesday lunchtime service provides something of an oasis for us all. A chance to draw near to the Lord, take time apart and get our eyes on him.

The Scriptures are central to our worship. Not because they're treated as some idol that we worship: but because the Scriptures are the Word of God, and through them he still speaks.

Generally with alarming clarity and cogency and force. Today was no exception. There was again an immediacy to the preaching of the Bible. A directness.

A "this is that" sort of thing, which means that what we're reading from a whole long time ago is spoken with directness to the very sort of issues which we ourselves are dealing with today.

Sometimes it's almost scary how direct it is. It certainly touched a lot of raw nerves today and reduced not a few to tears.

It was the contrast between David, celebrating the mercy and grace of God as the ark of God was returned to the heart of the life of the people of God - and Michal, the woman to whom he was wedded, disdaining the show of delight which her husband thus had expressed.

David rejoiced in the gospel of grace, the transforming, renewing mercy of God extended at cost to the Lord to men such as him who'd done wrong. I received mercy. The mercy of God through the grace of his Son at the cost of the cross which he bore.

Michal's 'religion' was altogether different. Dressed doubtless in all her ecclesiastical finery as she watched, and looked down, from her window, she was always so culturally correct.

She didn't believe in conversion, she believed in being correct. She had little thought for the heart of God, her only concern was what others would think.

David. Michal. They lived on two different planets. Not the Mars and Venus sort of stuff. This was the difference between heaven and earth, the kingdom of God with its vibrant enjoyment of a righteousness known in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the dominion of darkness with its counterfeit claim to correctness.

David going on to a reign of extraordinary scope. Michal, we're told, was without child until the day she died.

It's the difference between being blessed and being barren, being alive and being dead.

Where do we fit in that story? Out on the streets with David, whose living will impact the world: or up at the window, so very correct, like Michal, who now will be totally fruitless to the day she finally dies.

It's a stark and telling distinction the narrative makes. And, like all of the rest of the Scriptures, it's really very up to date indeed.

tacking

In the far off days of student life, when summer holidays went on and on for months, I sometimes worked on farms in Easter Ross.

The father of one of the guys I knew up there had a sailing boat. Not exactly a full blown yacht, but more than merely a rowing boat - though not by much. It had a mast and a sail, and a rudder.

My friend took us out one night to enjoy the delights of the Cromarty Firth from the sea instead of the shore. A pleasant evening sail.

At least it was to start with. The tide and thew wind were all in our favour as we headed out and down the firth right on out into the vast open spaces of the North Sea. We fairly glided through the water - a wonderful sensation being carried along at such speed by a little boat such as that.

And then it was time to come home. My friend swung the boat around.

The wind by now had got up, and something approaching a gale, I suppose, was blowing us out to sea. I think I inwardly panicked at that particular point. It hadn't quite dawned on my carefree mind that getting back could present a problem.

The wind which had blown us so thrillingly right out to sea was still .. well blowing us out to sea. Only now it was stronger than ever.

"How do we get back?" I casually asked, with as much in the way of a jocular, nonchalant spirit as an ignorant land-lubber like myself could muster. I secretly hoped my friend would have an engine stashed away, unseen and out of sight: because it seemed like an awful long way we'd have to row back home - and I wasn't quite sure that we'd manage against the force of the wind and the tide.

"Same way we got here," my friend replied. "We sail."

I think I muttered a vague "Of course!" but the laugh was more nerves on my part than enjoying the joke I assumed that my friend had been making.

I mean, how do you sail right into the wind, when the wind fills the sail and drives you the way that it's blowing?

Logic was always a strength of mine, I thought. Though I started to feel that either my logic or my sense of humour must be failing pretty fast.

That was the day I learned my 'maritime logic'. A whole new way of living which defies the normal laws and means you can indeed go forward when the wind is blowing right into your face.

That was the day I learned about 'tacking'.

Sailing downwind is easy to understand. Sailing upwind, directly into the wind, is also easy to understand - it's impossible. The sail just flaps limply and the boat simply drifts downwind.

Tacking's the stuff of which heroes are made. It's the boldness which dares the impossible, the courage to go where all logic dictates you simply will never arrive.

Tacking's the skill which we're now going to have to acquire in the grave new world of our day, when we dare to fly (or sail) in the face of the powerful winds of a godless, defiant rebelliousness now sweeping right over our land.

If we don't learn this skill then we'll all be completely at sea.

We have to learn just how it is that we defy these gales and resolutely dare to press on forward back to solid ground again, against the wind.

Tacking's the skill of standing for truth when the winds of culture's godlessness are blowing in your face.

Tacking's the strategy of faithfulness when living in a society of godlessness.

Tacking's the maritime logic adherents of Scriptural truth must adopt when the winds of political correctness start blowing the church from her moorings and leave her adrift, all at sea .

Tacking is all about angles and getting those angles all right.

Tacking is all about patience and learning to think now long-term.

Tacking is all about boldness and daring to trust in a logic which reason suggests shouldn't work.

Tacking is faith in the raw.

I learned it first in the Cromarty Firth. And I'm learning it fast once again.

weather

Having been there all day, I walked back home from big church here in town tonight.

Transport had been disrupted. The country had been at a standstill. The travelling public was static.

No one was journeying anywhere.

The country had been hit by chaos.

A new and unusual 'low' had come.

It's been that sort of day.

The walk back home was long and hard. Against the wind all the way: a strong, gusting wind which sometimes drove me backwards and made the walking hard and very wearisome.

I'm only 58 years old, so my 'going home' is, potentially anyway, a good, long hike.

But that long walk home is going to be a thoroughly uphill struggle, going right in the face of a powerful secular wind.

That's what ministry now is going to be like.

Sometimes the weather itself provides a very graphic commentary on what's going on.

Indeed, I'll not be surprised if we wake up tomorrow to a Sodom and Gomorrah sort of landscape and find the land covered in a layer of thick volcanic ash!

suddenly I see

K T Tunstall may not be everyone's cup of tea, I appreciate. No matter.

She's a Scottish singer/song-writer. And among the songs she sings is one called "Suddenly I see".

I'm not entirely sure exactly what the song is about (though I've got a pretty good idea): but the powerful statement right at the heart of the song is crystal clear. Suddenly I see.

We had the song played on Sunday night by one of the girls in the crowd of young folk who meet here Sunday by Sunday.

They're a lovely, lively bunch: and part of each evening is given to one of these folk where they get the chance to play a bit of music which they like and draw out something of the spiritual significance of the song for them.

K T Tunstall's "Suddenly I see" was the choice of one of the girls this Sunday past. It's a catchy sort of tune, and the singer's voice is attractive.

So we listened until the song was done - and then the girl spoke: to explain why it meant so much to her.

Reason - that was her experience in three short words. Last year it had been. At a Powerpoint evening here in town (Powerpoint is a regular get-together from right across the town of Christian youngsters).

During the course of that evening it was like she 'suddenly saw': she suddenly saw that following Jesus was how she wanted to live the rest of her life.

It was powerful stuff. It reduced her to tears at the time - and the tears weren't all that far away from any of us the way she shared the thing.

Suddenly I see. That's how it sometimes is. Blind, or not really seeing the thing at all for long enough: then, suddenly, it all becomes clear: it all falls into place. And it's like how did I never see that before?

I knew a man whose experience was just like that back in the days when I was in Cumbernauld. Suddenly, he would narrate - suddenly one day, while he was right at the top of a ladder, cleaning someone's windows, suddenly he got it, the whole Jesus thing became clear.

Suddenly I see!

I knew another man back in those far-off Cumbernauld days, who'd been coming to worship for 25 years - largely for what he termed the aesthetic experience. And then one morning, sharing in worship, listening to Scripture being read and then expounded, suddenly it was like a veil was removed from his eyes, and it all became clear.

Suddenly I see!

That's not always how it is. But more often than maybe we dare to think it could be, it is. The Lord opens eyes and people suddenly see.

There's a man in the Bible like that. In fact there are loads of folk in the Bible like that. But I was thinking about a pretty important and high up man, religious through and through, who went into the temple one day and - well, suddenly he saw.

He saw the Lord as he really is, and was driven to his knees - Woe is me, he declared.

He saw glory. And in that very same moment he also saw sin. It's the sight of the awesomenenss of the glory of God which enables us to see the awfulness of the sin in our lives.

Maybe that's how it always is.

So I'm praying in these days for that suddenly I see sort of thing: praying that in God's grace and mercy he would give us eyes to see the beauty of his holiness, that we might see as well the folly of our sin and our presumption in ignoring what God says.

May there be many who find themselves saying - suddenly I see.

excited

I love what I do.

I love engaging with the Scriptures. And I love engaging with people (which you may find quite surprising since I'm essentially a bit of a 'loner', and more than content with my own company).

Few things are more rewarding, therefore, for someone like myself than the opportunities to teach and apply the Bible: bringing the Scriptures to bear on the lives of ordinary people. And seeing the difference that makes.

But all of that involves hard graft. Getting to grips with the Scriptures. Getting alongside people. And figuring out how best to build the bridges between the two.

There's a lot of such preparation required this week. The midweek service tomorrow. A teaching session with a grooup of people tomorrow evening. The chance to speak at the ladies' weekly meeting at a church in town on Thursday morning. The Scripture Union group at school that same day over lunch. The morning and evening services this coming Sunday. And the young folk's meeting on Sunday night.

Seven separate bits of preparation. An average kind of week!

As I say, it doesn't magically happen. The Lord gives us his Spirit, for sure. And without him we'd be lost (in every sense!). But the promised work of his Spirit is no excuse for lack of preparation, and no reason to shirk the rigorous disciplines involved in handling the Word of God.

A fair bit of time today has been spent in that work.

Not all of my time, certainly. I've had meetings with folk - over coffee, at lunch, and again up town this evening. I've had some fairly lengthy telephone conversations with a number of different folk (e-mails are great in their way, but they're never the same as speaking with folk). And there have been people I've been out to see as well.

That engaging with people goes hand in hand with my engaging with the Scriptures. The two belong together.

I had a note the other day from a couple who've recently come to the point of radical faith in the Lord. "We have taken these vows very seriously and are excited by the future as our relationship with the Lord grows and deepens. .. New beginnings - we can't wait!"

And, yes, although it's the end of that process of bringing the Scriptures to bear on the lives of such people, they're quite right - it's actually just the beginning! And it is, as they say, so exciting.

You can see why I love what I do!

the how question

I was AOL rather than AWOL.

Absent on leave. I took some holiday after Easter and vacated the realm of cyberspace.

There's a wonderful freedom in doing so: but a price to be paid when you re-enter that realm, and find a mountain of (e-)mail piled up behind the metaphorical letter-box on your cyberspace front door.

Someone asled me Do you manage to switch right off? And when I replied that I do, they then went on to ask How? I was interested by that, because a number of other people had also been asking me questions - on all sorts of different themes - but alwasy the question was how?

They know what they ought to be doing. They just don't know how to be doing it.

I remember being warmly accosted, a long time back, after a Sunday service, by a good and godly young man, always full of encouragement, who said - You know, I really appreciate what you said today, and I know that's what I must do: but I need you to tell me not just what it is that I'm meant to be doing - I need you to tell me how to do it as well.

Practical application.

Remind me, yes, that I need to switch off: but tell me how to as well - because I'm not really sure how to do it: and therefore often don't.

Remind me, yes, that I need to forgive: but tell me how to as well.

It was C S Lewis who once remarked - “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” The theory's fine. It's the practice with which we struggle.

And, yes, it's the practice which is the key. None of these things comes naturally. We have to practise. And practise hard and long.

So you learn to play music by practising hard. You work at certain disciplines (called 'scales' I believe). They may not seem much fun at first. But you work at these irksome disciplines, and bit by painful bit you find that the music is slowly beginning to flow. It starts to come quite naturally.

It's the same with driving a car. All that reversing round corners. All those 3-point turns. A multitude of vehicular exercises, until driving the car is something you do more naturally.

The so-called 'spiritual disciplines' are that sort of thing. They're not an end in themselves. They're not a set of rules you keep to earn yourself some brownie points.

They're a set of practical steps you can take to help you start living the life of the kingdom of God: until your living that life like that comes altogether 'naturally'.

You remember the song There's a hole in my bucket?

The inept Henry pesters the saintly Liza (well, she must have been a saint to cope with the incessant demands of this man). With what shall I mend it? he asks. With what shall I cut it? And so on.

It's the How? question dear Henry is always asking.

I guess there's a Henry in most of us as well. We know what we're meant to be doing. We just aren't sure how to do it.

And a large part of learning to live out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ is getting to grips with the how? question.

'Til we start to live the new life in an easy and natural way.