Spiritual Moods

Funny how moods change. Today I look out on a miserable wet Sunday, with no desire to drip my way into any church meeting. The attempt at praise and worship was proving to hard, and apathy and sloth took over. I picked up the good book but found it proved to heavy to open, those pages weighed a ton. I decided the football was more my kind of thing and settled down to watch that, but even this is proving unsatisfactory. A few days ago all was different! The book was light and easy, the chain references I was following interesting and enlightening, prayer came naturally. What happened? The sun shone on me then, now faith is hard, God does not exist, and nothing matters.

Life is a nuisance. Moods change all the time, one day you have eaten well, circumstances are good and God is in his heaven. The next, poor diet, sickness, bad football result and the world is at an end, God has gone and reality is unwanted. In fact this is everyday life for us all. While one is up and down from day to day others vary over weeks or even months, but mood swings are with us always! Pity really. It is difficult to worship when there is no joy, or worries intrude, or the mood is flat, but this is normal. God, like bad weather in the UK, is always there, and an ever present reality! Just because I am flat does not mean he is hiding. Paul must have been flattened many times, no friends, no food, in jail, slapped about, opposed, unwanted, life threatened, yet he continued in faith. Real faith, not the nominal stuff we often live out, but believing God is there and Jesus would never leave him. He was right!

I tell myself this, and attempt to praise, worship, and adore, bringing to mind the good times, but in reality I just want to fall asleep again! I did however dream I was in a big church last night, does this count as worship I wonder?

‘Having Food and Clothes We are Content’

Somewhere, I can’t be bothered looking it up, Paul talks about being content with having food and clothes, but he does not mention shelter, a car, TV or a football team to support. This shows something, it shows he had nothing all to often and had ‘learned the secret of being content, Christ Jesus, his Lord.’ We are not like this.

After the second world war the UK was bankrupt, Europe was devastated and all was poverty. In the end the US Marshall plan (Marshall was one of America’s better men in my opinion) fed and reinstated Europe. His main aim may well have been to re-establish markets for American goods, but it was the only way to avoid disaster in Europe. During the fifties the world changed for the better as far as the continent was concerned. The Cold War may have hung over our heads but prosperity increased and so did the desire to forget wars and build a decent life. This reached a peak in the sixties when wealth in the UK grew so much that car use became quite common and luxury goods, running water and decent housing were accepted as par for the course. However during the seventies old attitudes, an abundance of wealth, and personal greed led to many conflicts in what was a rich nation. The eighties allowed wealth to develop under Thatcher’s love of the god Mammon, but society died. care for others was forgotten, the ’service element’ was removed from utilities and now we pay the price. Price indeed! Higher prices, less public services, and many redundancies ‘revitalised’ badly run organisations. Some of the millions unemployed by her never worked again!

Wealth made us take riches for granted. We expected, and claimed to ‘deserve’ houses, hospitals, good pay, cars, foreign holidays and cheap abundance of food. A few coins into a charity box eased our conscience regarding the million starving to death world wide, ‘but hey, what could we do?’  Now we find life hard when debts rise and we can no longer fill the house with goods we never use, food we waste, (about a third of what is bought is thrown away!) yet we are never happy! Overweight, overdressed people, many of them Christians, complain about the price of fuel for their over large cars, whine that they cannot find the goods they ‘need’ cheap enough, and replace casually objects that are still working but merely ‘out of fashion.’ TV are adverts tell us how to be happy with what is in front of us. Often things we neither need or like, but if the stars have one, we ‘need’ one. Kids, especially at secondary school level, do this honestly and openly – they cannot afford to be different from the rest. Adults live like this, but by stealth, always justifying our Mammon worship and idolatry.

However this attitude is not found only in the west, it is in all societies. Achan took a robe and gold and silver dedicated to God, and suffered the consequences. One tribe in a mud hut will steal vessels and goods from another group of mud huts. It is of course not the goods nor the dwellings, it is not the lifestyles that produce such attitudes, it is the heart. Your heart and mine.

Being unemployed I can see how easily I wasted cash before, and how I now regret it. However, once employed, and money is filling my pockets, will I care for the hungry, be content with what I have? No, I doubt it. Needs arise, and soon greed overtakes need. The only answer is to be close to Jesus, who had no place to lay his head, and expect him to provide. Paul was rich, and sometimes poor. he worked at his mission and with his hands. He was content simply to rely on his God’s provision, a God who promised never to leave him. That way brings contentment, peace and all requirements to us. How funny that we read it daily, know it in our minds and hearts, and forget this when some glittering object is placed in front of us. The world, the flesh and the devil are a real pain!

The Congregational Church

Once again I made my way to the Congregational Church this morning.  I say, ‘once again,’ as I occasionally pop in there but would not consider it ‘home.’  However it has a marvelous Scotsman as minister and is so sparsely populated I find it relaxing and in a sense, comforting.  The ‘hymn sandwich’  style reminds me of my early Church of Scotland days, and the minister knows his God.

However there are some things which some may find less than appetising.  They are all old!  I mean old!  Since his arrival the minister has buried over half his congregation, not because of what he says, (in fact he rarely speaks for more than twenty minutes, just in case another pops her clogs while he speaks), but through what you could call, natural wastage.  The church has been established for several hundred years in this town and as such many families connected with the town worshiped here for generations.  Those elderly folk often represent people who first came through the doors when John Bunyan was around.  In fact Spurgeon, the famous Victorian preacher, was born in a town not far from here and a relative (Great nephew ?) was a member here until his death recently.  This age problem I think hinders newcomers, although two families with young were present today, and several children left for the ‘Sunday School,’ however if more than two of us were under sixty I would be surprised.  Another problem I find is the use of the ‘Authorised Version’ of the bible.  I can cope with this as it was what I first used but younger folks do find its arcane language difficult.  N.I.V’s are on offer at the door however, which is good. Also, to continue the bad bits, the music is slower than it ought to be as the ministers wife has to play the organ, no-one else being available.  She makes a real hearty attempt but a seven verse song sometimes takes longer than waiting for a bus!

However, that really is the main difficulty here.  This is not a charismatic assembly, just a decent honest minister and wife, with a good hearted congregation, attempting to worship God and live their lives.  The short sermons are biblical and his voice authoritative, encouraging and knowing.  This is indeed a ‘canny man’ who has known many troubles and understands others also.  Today he spoke regarding the ‘Lord’s Table,’ and then we broke bread in the slow old fashioned way.  My old church, once Baptist and now after a renewal on the ‘lunatic fringe’ of Christianity, would somewhat surprise him in the way ‘Communion’ is taken.  There folks gather around the table and share bread and wine in a free and relaxed manner, not slack you understand, but going from one to another and attempting to build one another up in Christ.  Such behaviour would cause a few heart attacks here!  That is also why there are no arms raised in this small crowd, not only would it cause a stir it would cause a seizure for the one taking it! Which reminds me, during intercessory prayer for the sick, over a dozen names were mentioned.  I imagine none of them to be less than seventy years of age.

Now you must not get the impression that this is a dying group of Christians.  It may be small but Jesus is sought by these folks.  The minister and his wife, also from Glasgow, have a decent crowd, and while it does not suit me in many ways in others I, as I have said, find it strangely comforting.  I like it!  I have no idea of the stories of the folks, as I do not have much to do with them, by the time I have reached the door most are still looking for their zimmer frames!  But I do know the minister and trust him.  I wonder how Jesus sees the folks here?  They appear to want him, and too many churches are social clubs these days, and I think he may well be happy with what he sees before him here.  With a twinkle in his eye the minister shook hands at the end and said to me, “Remember, if you think things cannot get worse pop in – and I’ll show you how wrong you can be!” What a man!