Tempest-tossed?

Sunday lunch was over, and the washing-up done.  James and Moira were sitting quietly in the lounge.  Moira was knitting; James … just sat.  Moira was used to this regular weekly scene.  It was a pattern that had developed gradually over thirty years of happy married life.  She asked James what he was thinking as he relaxed in the late spring sunshine streaming through the window.  Although not at all dissatisfied, she wondered whether there were something else they might do with their afternoon.

“Thinking?” he replied, drawing thoughtfully at his pipe.  “Yes, I suppose I was.  Do you know, that hadn’t occurred to me.”  He paused, as if the idea of actually doing something – even so simple as thinking – were quite alien to his frame of mind at that moment.  “I was just taking in the wonder of life: the garden planted, the children settled at last, we’ve no money worries ... there’s just the two of us, happy here together.” 

*  *  *

God was in His heaven, and all seemed right with the world.  That word picture might have been penned forty or fifty years ago; somehow it seems less likely that it’s a 21st-century situation.  Look with me at the ‘prologue’ to the story of Job in the Old Testament (Job 1:1-5).  Here is a word picture from another, distant, age but one that bears comparison to James and Moira. Like theirs, it couldn’t happen in Britain today.  A family of ten is rare in the first place, and what rich man today would count his wealth in terms of the number of animals he owned?  However, in his own time and culture, clearly Job had ‘made it’.  Little did he know what was to come.

Sitting in his lounge on a Sunday afternoon, James, too, was clearly mesmerised by the very successful tranquillity of their life.  But we know only too well what dreadful illnesses, what financial catastrophes, what human disasters can lie just around the corner from a peaceful life today.

In the hurly burly of modern life, we rarely have time to step back from life like James and Moira, and just take in its magnificence.  Like them, you might feel that some past trouble is now overcome and you can look forward to a time of ‘plain sailing’.  Or are you like Job, well aware of God’s part in your life.  He was fearful that his sons might have been sinful in their celebrations, and was anxious to make reparation to God on their behalf (v.5).

In the light of the New Testament, we know that we don’t have to pacify God.  That debt has been paid – once, for all – by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  But it is good to give God the credit for all that He has done in our lives.  Try, if you can, to sit quietly for a few moments, turn aside from those worries and pressing matters, and think instead of the many ways – ways we often taken for granted – in which God has blessed your life.

The name Johnson Oatman Jr. may not be known to you.  Born in New Jersey, USA in 1856, he was a Methodist minister and, like the famous Charles Wesley before him, he was a great hymn writer.  Before he died in 1922, he had given some 5,000 hymns and songs to the church.  Perhaps one of his best known is “When upon life’s billows”.  You can find it on the internet at www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/o/countyou.htm).  Look it up now, and ‘count your blessings’ this summertime.

Licensed

I grew up suffering from low self-esteem, a lack of confidence that could easily turn to frustration.  Uncertainty about self-expression could lead me to say something incomplete or offensive and not at all what I sought to convey.  

When I became a Reader, these frustrations were relieved ... almost overnight.  Suddenly, I was able to stand in front of a congregation, many of whom were much older than me, to lead and teach them.  I had been given ‘permission’; I felt I had authority to do and say these things ... I had the Bishop’s licence.  As I look back, I’m still amazed at the way that single sheet of grey paper had changed my behaviour.

In his letter to the early Christians, the apostle James wrote about the power of little things.  He used the example of a small piece of metal placed in a horse’s mouth to control it.  He referred to the rudder steering a great ship and a tiny spark setting a forest on fire (James 3:3-5).  As the song says, “Little things mean a lot!”  James went on to talk about the tongue, another very powerful little thing!  He described it as a restless evil, full of deadly poison (v.8).  I certainly couldn’t tame mine in those younger days!

Later, when I was no longer in ministry as a Reader, confidence left me to some extent.  I could stand, apparently chatting in a group, but spend the whole time listening, contributing nothing at all for ages.  I was hesitant and found it difficult to put the right words together; by the time I did, the conversation had moved on.  

And when it came to action, ... !  I remember with shame sitting in my parked car in the street after seeing an old man fall down on the pavement.  I waited and watched as someone else came and helped him to his feet.  It was as if I was paralysed by the thought of doing something caring and practical.

I’ve recently noticed a change in my behaviour.  Not suddenly, as if the result of therapy or the side-effect of new medication, but gradually over a period of some months.  For the second time in my life, I’ve become more open, more willing to engage with other people.  Take, for example, an incident  when I was shopping the other week.  I noticed a woman trying to balance her basket of groceries on the handles of a pushchair.  The basket fell, spilling the contents on the ground.  Without thinking, I sprang forward to help her gather them up.  Only a few months ago, I would have retreated into an adjacent aisle in ‘mind-your-own-business’ mode.

In the church hall, while chatting over coffee earlier this year, my eye caught some young children playing on the edge of the stage (somewhere that children shouldn’t go).  I went over to encourage them to stay off the stage, and engaged a nearby teenager to keep an eye on them.  A year ago, such a quasi-parental move wouldn’t have crossed my mind.

What’s caused this change in me?  A word comes from the past in a new guise:  licence. 

Last autumn, I was invited to take on the role of the church's Health & Safety Officer.  I realised that, with retirement already partially upon me, it would be a worthwhile use of some of my ‘spare’ time.  Although having no past experience, I accepted and began to ‘learn on the job’.

When the annual ‘gifts and skills’ form came round, I repeated my usual commitments to lesson-reading, leading prayers and so on, but then wondered what else I could help with.  I noticed the rota for giving lifts to church to those in need.  I could tick that one.  There was also a box for helping with special events; I could move chairs, set up tables ... another tick.

It’s as though a simple ‘Yes’ and a couple of ticked boxes have moved a mountain.   Through the ‘authority’ they have given me, new doors have opened up and  I’ve engaged with many people who had previously been beyond the limit of my conversational ambit, bringing fulfilment to their needs, and a new level of involvement and fellowship for me.

A little further in James’s letter comes the statement, “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).  Maybe someone noticed my dormant state and prayed for me.

Is there some little thing in your life that needs a tweak to release your potential?