These are difficult days for those who pastor God’s people. In many parts of the world, especially in the West, culture and society have turned away from their Christian past. It’s almost as if Christianity is passé, or even repulsive. Churches are profoundly divided over how to cope with this disorientating situation, and there is much unseemly confrontation in public debates.
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Are there what you might call normal moments from your childhood that you remember vividly? I expect we all have some. But, here’s a question: why do we remember those particular moments?
One thing these memories remind me is that there is a lot of life that is very normal, ordinary, repetitive, and seemingly insignificant. And yet it’s those forgotten, lived moments that shape us to be the people we are now.
Jesus, Strong and Kind seeks to sing these truths into our forgotten moments.
When was the last time you were at a ministry conference (or any sort of conference) and the speaker at the front was someone who had failed. That is, their plans, dreams and hopes for their project had decidedly dive–bombed? And if that kind of person was given the opportunity to speak, would we even be willing to listen, or is it just the ‘experts’ who have a track–record of ‘success’ that we care about?
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The death of someone you care about, whom you don’t think was saved, is surely one of the most heartbreaking of circumstances. It can haunt for a lifetime. Yet the eternal loss of unbelievers is something most believers experience several times over. Four times in Scripture, God condemns false prophets for ‘healing the wound of His people lightly’ and ‘saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.’[1]
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Everybody loves a good story. And there’s plenty of good stories to be found in the famed Lewis revival of 1949–52. Such as the seven men who prayed together in a cold barn through long winter’s nights, two or three times a week. Or the story of the two elderly Smith sisters – aged 84 and 82 years respectively; one completely blind, the other bent double with arthritis – who received premonitions from God that revival was coming, and prayed the movement into being.
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I’ve been charged with writing a blog about my recently published book on Psalms 38–51 called ‘My Exceeding Joy’. Actually, I don’t write blogs; I rarely read blogs. I remember theologian Addison Leitch saying that magazines were the enemies of books. I think blogs are the enemies of books. We’d be better off if far fewer bloggers wrote blogs. So my writing a blog to commend my book is clearly hypocritical. But it’s only temporary.
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Among eminent Victorians, few were more widely known, or greatly appreciated, than C.H. Spurgeon—a pre–eminent philanthropist, college founder, and patron of orphanages—and the pastor of London’s great Metropolitan Tabernacle.
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Throughout my childhood, from ages 5 to 18, I dreaded the day that my parents received my annual school report card. I think my mother has kept some of these dull but disappointing publications on the off chance that her oldest daughter blindsides the family with a moment of brilliance. She may then wave these foolscap pieces of paper in the faces of various educational professionals and say – So there! But she won’t as she is far too gracious for that…
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During the 1980s my family did some mammoth car journeys. My parents seemed to think nothing of attaching a caravan to the back of their Citroen estate and heading off to a tiny little village in the South of France, or a soaking wet caravan site on the banks of the Rhine. The car was one of those unusual vehicles you don’t see anymore, as they’ve been replaced by minivans.
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The fall of man altered every atom of creation. From manhood to motherhood to matrimony, nothing is as it should be. Some after–effects of the fall are mere annoyances, like the fear of spiders, or indigestion, or having to wear uncomfortable clothing. But most by–products of the fall take the breath from your lungs, wrench your heart from your chest, and are counted in tears. Childhood mental illness is one of those by–products.
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