Signs And Silence

I've been rewatching the first series of 'Jam and Jerusalem' this evening whilst I've been doing some work.

 

It's a comedy set in a small Devonshire town and centres around the Women's Guild.

 

In one episode, the vicar is struggling to hear God's voice.  Whenever he tries to find some space to sit in silence and listen to God, someone interrupts him or he keeps hearing loud announcements on the tannoy from a local event.

 

He is desperate for a sign from God, but he never seems to get what he wants.

 

The episode is full of people looking for different signs from God (including a potato with the face of Jesus - worth a watch if you haven't seen it), and the characters struggle to interpret them.

 

Instead of signs, most of them are met with deafening silence.

 

In the same way, the people of Israel were waiting for a sign from God for hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, but they were met with silence.  They knew that God had promised to rescue them from their exile and life of slavery, but they didn't know when this would happen.

 

What made it harder was that they knew exactly what the sign was and what they were waiting for and they were eagerly expecting it.

 

God had promised them a Saviour through His prophet Isaiah:

 

      "For to us a child is born,
      to us a son is given,
      and the government will be on his shoulders.
      And he will be called
      Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
      Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
      Of the increase of his government and peace
      there will be no end.
      He will reign on David’s throne
      and over his kingdom,
      establishing and upholding it
      with justice and righteousness
      from that time on and forever.
      The zeal of the Lord Almighty
      will accomplish this."

 

      [Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV]

 

They knew that God had promised to send a child - His own Son - who would come to bring peace and restoration to the world.  And that is what they eagerly anticipated.

 

In the same way, as we eagerly look forward to Christmas, let's remind ourselves of the sign that God has already given us through His Son and of the peace and restoration that He offers us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow Never Arrives

I have just read this brilliant, but lengthy passage in a book called 'Cold Tangerines' [by Shauna Niequist], that I wanted to share:

 

I have always, essentially, been waiting.  Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have.  In my head, I was always one step away.  In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly.  In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized.  Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids.  For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.  And through all that waiting, here I am.  My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start.  I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything.  I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me.  I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment.  I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

I can completely empathise with her thoughts.  It is so easy to set things up in our lives as signposts or markers - things which, when reached or achieved, will satisfy us and complete us.

 

But the problem with waiting for tomorrow is that tomorrow never arrives.

 

These are our lives and we're living them right now.

 

Our lives are full of adventures which can be celebrated and experienced - if we choose to look for them and embrace them.  They are made up of lots of tiny 'Big Moments'. 

 

 

"God's Spirit beckons.  There are things to do and places to go!  This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"  God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children."

 

[Romans 8:14-16 MSG]

 

Our lives have begun. We need to live them.

 

 

 

 

 

Pregnant

No, this is not an announcement.

 

I'm not pregnant, but I know a lot of people who are.  I seem to have reached that age where I am surrounded by families who are expecting.

 

And it's got me thinking about 'expecting' in general. 

 

Whilst it's good to look forward to things and to be expectant, sometimes we can end up looking forward to them so much that we forget to live in the moment.  We set up markers in our lives and eagerly anticipate them, imagining that our lives will be so much better when they arrive. 

 

When I graduate, when I get a job, when I get a better job, when I get a promotion, when I have more money, when I buy a house, when I find 'someone special', when I get engaged, when I get married, when I have children ...

 

The problem is, if we're always looking to the next marker, we don't live a full life right now.  We look to the things on the horizon and miss the things at our feet.

 

It's a bit like waiting for something you've ordered to be delivered.  You're told it will arrive between 12 and 6, so you wait in to make sure you don't miss it.  Every time the doorbell goes, you think it will be the delivery; every time a car or van slows down outside, you rush to the window.  You don't want to start anything or settle down to any job or task, because your mind is elsewhere.

 

And of course the delivery never arrives before 6.

 

And so we waste the whole day.  Never fully committing to anything else, never really starting or getting stuck in.

 

But Jesus says that He came to give us a full life, and not just when we die - a full life now:

"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

 

[John 10:10 MSG]

Jesus doesn't want us to wait for something significant to happen before we start embracing this full life.  He wants us to enter into it now.  We can wait for the markers in our lives to arrive, but we can wait actively, preparing ourselves and making the most of the time.  Waiting is essential for growing us and developing us and disciplining us and teaching us.  It is as essential for us as it is for a pregnant mother waiting for her baby to develop.

 

Paul says in Romans, 

"That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy."

 

[Romans 8:25 MSG] 

 

The time we spend waiting is only wasted time if we waste it. 

Queuing

Queuing.

Along with having a stiff upper lip, a fondness for tea and a propensity to talk about the weather at any given opportunity, us Brits are known for queuing.

Regardless of the reason, we are excellent at forming a perfectly neat line and patiently waiting our turn.  In fact, for big events - the release of the 7th Harry Potter book, the Diamond Jubilee, The Royal Wedding, for example - we will make an event of queuing itself by taking tents and picnics and setting ourselves up well in advance of the actual event.

I was lucky enough to be on The Mall on the Saturday of the Jubilee weekend.  Whilst we enjoyed the concert, part of the fun of the day was the hour or so we had beforehand, waiting for it to start.  Everyone was very friendly and chatty and there was a feeling of excitement and anticipation.  There were lots of people who had even camped out over night and lined The Mall with their patriotic tents, picnics and Pimms.  Everyone was having a brilliant time, even waiting for the main event.

We enjoyed waiting.

In the last week, I have been in several queues, mainly in different shops.  I have had to wait no more than three minutes (one as short as fifteen seconds) at any of these different checkouts but, on several occasions, the cashier has apologised for the fact that I have had to wait.

This seems to go against the very thing that the British were made to do.  Obviously no one likes queuing for an unnecessarily long time especially in a shop on a sunny day.  But do we really mind waiting that much?

My first reaction would be to say no, but when it comes to prayer and waiting for God to respond, it is rather a different matter.

I can be patient in a 'real' queue, I can chat to the people around me who are also waiting, I can even enjoy myself waiting in line.  But I never seem to apply the same principles to when I'm waiting for God.  I'm not particularly patient, I don't often talk to people in a similar situation and I certainly don't enjoy myself.

I think part of the difference is that in a real queue you can at least see it moving; no matter how slowly, there is a feeling of progress as you wait.  But when we pray and wait for God, there can sometimes feel as if there is no progress at all.  And that's when we have to stop relying on our own understanding and trust with hope that God is doing something behind the scenes.

"Wait, Israel, for God.  Wait with hope.  Hope now; hope always!"

[Psalm 131:3 MSG]

I think I would do well to make the following verse my mantra when I find myself in a spiritual 'queue':

"God, the one and only - I'll wait as long as he says.  Everything I need comes from him, so why not?"

[Psalm 62:1 MSG]

Why not indeed.