My first walk since coming down with Coronavirus symptoms about a fortnight ago. I’ve been building towards this in my head: One day I’ll be symptom free again… One day I’ll get round without a cough, no one will stare, though I’m beyond infectious… One day my legs will be able to take me where my head (and heart) wants to go.

I set off with Fergus the dog just after it’s light, and the three minute stroll from our gate to the fields is a challenge. No coughing (though I clutch a cough sweet in my gloved palm, just in case) but it is exhausting. The dog’s enthusiasm keeps me moving, and the bright sun and transparent blue sky are exactly what I’ve wanted… but this is so hard! We take the lane off the roundabout and Fergus scatters ice from the puddles like broken glass and frightens himself. Woodpeckers drum from the woods, the sound carrying across the fields, declaring their territory and perhaps that they are attracting mates already. Life keeps going, we’re in an endless cycle, and it’s reassuring to be caught in the same frame again.

I stop to look up into a tree and watch the many birds that have just landed in it – has the dog forgotten I do this? For he’s barking and a woman scowls at me from the gate of her field-facing cottage, just one of four properties that are perhaps not used to the intrusion.

I’m conscious already of the need to get back; the usual ‘light’ route to the woods is out of the question, and the dog would be confused (and cross) if we go back the way we’ve come, so we turn right at the bottom and walk the path alongside Churchill’s tree. I let Fergus off the lead and he spots an entire colony of rabbits who’ve surfaced to take the morning air – up and down he runs while they all go to ground, though he’s hopeful of a straggler. I think of the fear in this field that this one soppy, anxious dog has created. I glance at Churchill’s tree while I wait for him to return to me, and imagine the big man addressing the troops there – where were they from? Who had they left behind? There was certainly no going back for them in that moment, just as there’s no going back for us; no rewind and equally no fast-forward.

I said to Rupert during my illness that I’d like to just skip a few days, press a button till I’m feeling better, and in his wisdom he told me that I was meant to live them, that there’s a purpose in them, and I know he’s right. I walk the length of the path – impressed that I’m not breathless, though I am shattered – and as I wait for Fergus, a heart-shaped stone catches my eye in the mud. I stoop to pull it out of the path, wipe the mud from it and place it on the fence post while I pull out the dog’s treat. I’m reminded of how my family have been looking after me during my illness, and of how fond I am of them. I’m also thinking about how God has carried me through this, and how he wants me to keep going, focusing on the small achievements, and his sustaining presence that’s always there for me, no matter how weak I feel.

I soak the stone in a bowl of water when I’m home. I’m feeling glad of this one small triumph and the stone marks for me my first walk, my intention to get back to full strength. I’m thinking of a white stone that’s mentioned in Revelation. There are lots of theories about what it signifies, but one speaks of how white stones were presented to winners in the athletic games, with the victors’ names written on them. These were ‘tickets’ to a banquet, so it is said. I think many of us are struggling right now, and for a variety of different reasons. I think God’s intention is to help us to overcome, if we’ll let him. Perhaps the white stone is figurative, or perhaps one day we really will be in receipt of one. Until then, I’m going to hold onto whatever promises he gives me, and appreciate the reminders of blessing that I stumble on in my path.

 “To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it” (Revelation 2:17).

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Monday 15th February, 2021

Here is a link for any of you hoping to obtain a copy in America. Thank you! https://www.amazon.com/dp/1913181219

16th November, 2020

Please contact my publisher, Faithbuilders, if you would like to order (or reserve) a copy of Gospel Voices in the US. More copies are being printed for US readership, and will be distributed from the Texas office. Faithbuilders hope to send copies to the US next week. (Invoices will be in dollars.)https://www.faithbuilders.org.uk/ Email address for Managing Director, David Powell: editor@faithbuilders.org.uk

Thanks so much for your interest!

Sunday 15th November, 2020

Hello to all you wonderful people visiting my site from America today! My publisher was hoping my book, Gospel Voices, would be available in the US around now. If you are interested, please follow this blog and as soon as there’s news you’ll be the first to know.

I’ve just had a request for a signed copy from an American reader and I’ll be sending that tomorrow. If you’d prefer this option, please let me know!

Thank you for all your kind comments on my Upper Room devotional. I look forward to getting to know you all!

Every blessing.

Picture in your mind dozens of caterpillars squirming inside cobwebbed sacks.  Add these grey balls of entangled creatures down the length of a country path, drape them over the hedges and trees, so that you have the makings of a screen set for something a little sinister.  Not exactly a go-to image for the glory of God in creation.  Yet discovering this phenomenon has been as meaningful as a God-breathed sunset or a clear blue sea (though the realization did take time).

It all started well enough.

The family were in a good mood, and at 8.00 p.m. with the sun still shining, set out with me for another evening walk.  There was skipping – no Mum, you skip like this – laughter that causes belly ache – and happy banter, with mock accents from the girls for most of the walk.

A perfect summer evening out in the woods, when the sunlight comes in lower through the trees.  As it filters through the new-green leaves, the space feels more enclosed and intimate, as do our spaces at home when lit by side-lamps, rather than bright bulbs from the ceiling.

It was half-way round on our usual circuit we spotted them, for we notice different things as the sun hits them.

‘Why are there so many cobwebs along here?  What’s going on?’

Maddy took a stick to one to try to let the creatures escape, as we thought an industrious spider had trapped a nest of caterpillars.  But soon we discovered these cobwebbed parcels right the way along the hedge, at eye level in the blackthorn and up higher in the taller hawthorn trees.

I couldn’t answer Maddy’s question, and had to look it up when we were home.  ‘A hedge covered with cobwebs at the start of June’ I googled.  Up popped pictures of trees and shrubs that are stripped bare beneath the cobwebs, apparently decimated.  Like many things unexplained, people are describing the overall effect as ‘eerie’ and ‘ghostly’.   Yet as I read, I discovered they are simply webs spun by the larvae of ermine moths.  And the trees usually recover.

Ermine moths then.  I looked these up too and discovered they are quite beautiful.  They are, in fact, striking, with white bodies speckled like close, ermine fur, and a white, overly-fluffed head, with a furry hood in the same fabric.  A bizarre dressing-up outfit for a humble moth.

So what do I take from this image?  How does it point me to the Creator and bring hope and reassurance?

At first there was the shock of finding something so unattractive when we were having such a happy time.  A bit like the dawning of lockdown for some, as we were stopped in our tracks, downing tools of that which felt purposeful and worthwhile.  The caterpillars look trapped rather than preserved as they were, and isn’t that often our reaction, to see the worst in things?

As we walked on and before I’d understood what was happening, the first thing that occurred to me was that the lockdown has caused unhelpful fears in many of us.  Perhaps we carry our own squirming bundles.  We may wonder what will break out from our time under wraps – what the outcome will be for this situation or that.  What exactly will emerge, in us or society at large?

The reality is those sacks in the hedgerows are works in progress, and so are we.  Ermine is a symbol of purity – and perhaps we are going through a time of purification.  Surely, with God’s help, this can be a positive time.  As Christians, we can expect to emerge transformed, having grown in ways we wouldn’t have looked for, but will one day appreciate.  If we are serious about our faith, we will be developing as we are hidden away like this, for we’re not hidden from God, and are now able to focus on what really matters.  For some, it’s a deliberate time of preparation for flight, for others it’s just the daily faithful, devotional routine of prayer, Bible reading and drawing close.

The moths will take flight in July or August, and what else will be launched by then, in us, in society and in the church?  He wants us to keep on doing what we’re doing if we’re seeking and trying to honour him.

And the blessing is coming.

 

Lyrics from Michael W Smith’s version of Waymaker, a song that’s constantly on my mind these days:

‘Even when I don’t see it, You’re working

Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working

You never stop, you never stop working

You never stop, you never stop working

 

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. ¹⁷ For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! ¹⁸ So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Accepting help from the divine gardener?

Six-thirty a.m. and peace and quiet is mine!  I’m having my prayer time early in the morning before the rest of the family surfaces, sitting in my favourite red armchair, with a view onto a tree at the side of the house.  As I read a Psalm and glance out of the window, I can see its first white bloom of the year.  This tree[1] always brings me joy – it’s easily overlooked, situated where it is on a path from the front of the house to the back, but it produces a mass of white, pop-pom like flowers with a heady, vanilla scent.  I’m so glad it’s flowering this year, because on Good Friday I discovered it was being swamped by ivy, so much so that its lower branches were lost underneath and I wondered if it would ever recover.  The tree looked dead, and I didn’t know if it was, or if it simply hadn’t sprung back to life after the winter months.  Strangles of ivy were all you could see in places, thicker than my thumb, wound so tightly around the trunk and branches that it looked like it was the tree in its own right.  I pulled off what I could, yanking at the sections I could lift before, frustrated, having to call for help.  My husband came to my rescue, and once we’d traced it down the trunk and discerned its roots amongst the tree’s own, he sawed it off from the bottom of the tree.

This is how our garden rolls – it’s hard to keep track of every plant and tree, and there’s a certain rambling quality where we discover what’s growing, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes not.  Beneath the tree as I look out at it now, I see a jumble of wild, everlasting sweet peas and hollyhocks competing for light and space, periwinkles that have been left to rove, valerian in different shades of pink and wild geranium… It’s all managed with a light touch, and often only when it gets out of hand.  Yet the sight of that first white bloom really cheers me.  Spotting the flower in my quiet time, its metaphorical quality is all the more obvious.  It makes me think of how the Lord feels when he sees in us the first flush of faith, tentative at first, before an explosion of belief takes hold after those ‘If you’re there, God’ prayers.  We read that “there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”[2] Whose joy?  The Father’s surely, in the context of the Bible passage, for Jesus goes on to talk about the prodigal son and the way his father welcomes him home.

Isn’t so much of the beauty we enjoy outside simply part of God’s generosity towards us, as a new parent prepares their child-to-be’s bedroom, hanging a mobile above the cot, choosing the colour scheme, wondering how they will enjoy this thing and that?  God didn’t have to give us all this but he knew we’d enjoy it, and when something he’s made gives us pleasure, that gives him pleasure too.  This tree and its recent story remind me of another lesson: God doesn’t give up on us. Certain things may overtake us, not that we’d consciously allowed them to (or perhaps we had), but God is there, just like the gardener, wanting to pull away that which, when given long enough, may begin to strangle our faith.  We sometimes fear how God will deal with us; even allow sin to cling because we expect the process of release will be painful.  (We can all look back on at least one of those episodes if we are honest enough — times of clinging to old hurts, bitterness, unhelpful habits?)  Yet he is gentle, with the hands of the good shepherd himself, or the prodigal’s father, whose fingers perhaps tingled with excitement when he had the opportunity to drape the best cloak over his son.  (I know that story was metaphorical too, but I think we’re meant to be able to picture them, and their redeemed relationship.)

I can see, now that I study the tree hard, three more blooms, and a few waxy buds, preparing to unfold.  They might not be there if the gardener was forbidden from doing his work.

 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. ² We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.

Hebrews 12:1-2

[1] I think it’s the Philadelphus ‘Virginal’ (Mock Orange) tree, ‘Philadelphus’ meaning ‘extreme’ because of its overpowering scent.

[2] Luke 15:10

A new discovery on bumblebee behaviour has got me thinking…

I think sometimes that as Christians we grow so familiar with a passage of scripture that it can lose its impact on us. We enjoy hearing a well-known verse in a different translation, as the meaning catches us again, like a joking friend who’ll pounce on us from around a corner.  We need that vibrancy so that the truth settles in as it did the first or second time we heard it.  That’s one of the reasons I love looking at nature for new metaphors on what are heads know, but our hearts need reminding.

     We have all heard Jesus’s words on the sparrows and his Father’s provision for us:

²⁹ What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin^[a]? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. ³⁰ And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31

     Today in the news I’ve heard something that reminds me of that old truth.  Scientists have discovered that hungry bumblebees can cause a flower to bloom early, even up to 30 days, simply by biting a ‘half-moon’ shaped hole in its leaf.  These scientists have tried to recreate the effect but have so far failed.  It could be down to a special ingredient in bee saliva, but no one is sure.  Speculation is around the idea that this bee behaviour is ‘instinctive’.

     Lars Chittka, behavioral ecologist at the Queen Mary University of London says ‘It’s certainly surprising’ and states ‘it’s hard to imagine how it would have started’ – hmm.  As believers I think we have an answer for that one.  To me, it suggests yet one more incredible example of the Lord’s brilliance and thoughtfulness.

     The Bible speaks often about God’s provision.  He is Jehovah Jireh, our provider, and he knows exactly what we need.  If he can provide so wonderfully for the humble bumblebee, how much more can we trust that he has our future in his hands, and has a plan all worked out?

Source: sciencemag.org ‘Hungry bumble bees make plants flower early by cutting holes in their leaves’ By Erik Stokstad May. 21, 2020 , 2:05 PM

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/hungry-bumblebees-make-plants-flower-early-cutting-holes-their-leaves

A member of one my adult education classes is in the high-risk category during this lockdown and has been told in a letter that she can have her window open a short way – the extent of her freedom (though if she owned a very spacious garden I believe she could use it at her discretion).  These restrictions would drive me insane!  Yet even with the window open just a crack, God’s reassurance comes flooding in.  How exactly?  It’s a rare place that has no birdsong at close proximity right now, and even in the normal run of things in the U.K. we can usually hear a bird if we stop and pause; a minute is long enough in the depth of winter, a few seconds in the summer, if that. Birdsong was the most quoted element from Rebecca Arendell Frank’s now famous testimony that came out of Wuhan as the pandemic took hold:

“Right now I hear birds outside my window (on the 25th floor). I used to think there weren’t really birds in Wuhan, because you rarely saw them and never heard them. I now know they were just muted and crowded out by the traffic and people. All day long now I hear birds singing. It stops me in my tracks to hear the sound of their wings.”

Hearing birdsong always lifts us.  There is something about the constancy of nature here; the birds are still singing – oblivious to the virus – it’s an irrelevance to them.  Today the birds sound like they’re really celebrating, which is appropriate on another level: it’s 75 years since the original V.E. day, and the village, decorated in red, white and blue bunting, is basking in a mini heatwave.  Seeing the birds swoop and dive seems to instruct us that this is the right way to behave.  The Lord has brought our country through worse and we don’t need to despair.

During lockdown the absence of traffic means all I can hear outside for most of the day is the birdsong. The harmonies, though unintentional, are stunning – the melodious blackbirds fluting in alto, the sparrows’ slow repetitive chirping, like an infant trying out new sounds, and on our walk today, the chiffchaff, with an even more exaggerated I’m trying to learn this sound as it tries out its name, over and over: ‘chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff’, and on.  The woodpigeons refrain always sounds like they are staking their claim with ‘I live here, don’t you know’, and these familiar voices go a long way to making this alien world still feel like home.

There is a complexity to much birdsong though, too; Olivier Messiaen called birds ‘God’s own musicians’, and from Handel through to Mozart (who owned a starling for musical purposes), to Wagner, to Messiaen himself and more recently Jonathan Harvey, composers have long recognized birds’ innate musical brilliance and sought to imitate it.  It’s as if their ability is better than ours, and more importantly, birdsong always makes me think of praise; this isn’t such an outlandish suggestion when you read from the Psalms.  That the birds ‘sing among the branches of the trees’ (v.12) is one aspect of life that makes the writer declare ‘I will sing to the LORD as long as I live.  I will praise my God to my last breath!’ (v.33) Psalm 148 takes it one step further and instructs the natural world to praise God, including, of course, the birds:

Praise the LORD from the earth,

you creatures of the ocean depths,

8 fire and hail, snow and clouds,

wind and weather that obey him,

9 mountains and all hills,

fruit trees and all cedars,

10 wild animals and all livestock,

small scurrying animals and birds,

11 kings of the earth and all people,

rulers and judges of the earth,

12 young men and young women,

old men and children.

13 Let them all praise the name of the LORD.

For his name is very great;

his glory towers over the earth and heaven!

14 He has made his people strong,

honoring his faithful ones—

the people of Israel who are close to him.

Yet even if birds are not deliberately singing praise (and we know that, at least in part, they are defending territory and attracting a mate), the fact that they are there at all, singing away, points us to God.  He didn’t have to add this backing track of joy to our world, yet he chose to.  How dull the world would seem without it!  And I wonder how many birds are singing the world over at any one time?  In our garden, even?  The American Museum of Natural History estimates that there are between 40 and 60 birds per head for the world population[1], which is still astonishing, even despite the decline of many species over the years.  That’s an awful lot of birds, and yet God hears each one, individually as well as corporately, just as he does our prayers and praise (though he listens to us all the more intently, hanging on our every word).  I love to think about how God can hear all of our communication with him simultaneously.  He sees his collective body worshipping without the walls in place.  At this current time – and perhaps at other points in the future, as is sadly the case for many believers worldwide – we can’t see or hear the output of each other, but there’s something comforting in the thought that we’re never doing this alone.  The cry of the persecuted or isolated believer mingles with those in a more happy, euphoric place, and of a vast angelic throng.  Yet perhaps the greater the sacrifice on our part, the greater the meaning to him.  In Revelation we read of ‘gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.’ (Revelation 5:8)

My own church is operating a twenty-four-hour prayer marathon every Sunday this month and it’s wonderful to dwell on how the baton is being passed invisibly, seamlessly, and how for God this is a constant stream of prayer and praise.  Does this sound strange, considering the challenges we face?  I think that, like the birds, we are meant to be joyful – designed to be, and we need it all the more right now.  To be joyful isn’t to be happy.  It is a decision based on who God is, not a feeling based on our current circumstances.  When we utter truth about God, whether in speech or in song, we declare his goodness.  Something happens inside of us when we praise.  The birds, in their incessant chirping, remind us to keep going.  Their song is constant and so is God’s love.  So is his worthiness and reliability, that will never falter.  His devotion to us is never muted.  Let’s keep speaking and singing our love back to him – for somehow it renews us when we take our eyes off our troubles and look into the heart of our loving God.  We know we can go on.  What’s more, ours is a God of lavish celebration and he sings songs over us.  Here is an astounding verse to meditate on today.  Bear in mind that the Hebrew for ‘singing’ is said to refer to a joyful ‘ringing cry’… that’s the Lord Jesus’s celebration of you and me:

“He will take delight in you with gladness.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

Zephaniah 3:17(NLT)

[1] https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/earth/ask-a-scientist-about-our-environment/how-big-is-the-bird-population

 

I’m rethinking my perfect surroundings for worship – what’s needed, what’s desirable, and what we can manage without, for a time.  Perhaps what I love most about my church (One Church, Dover) is our times of worship, when up to around 200 people are drawing close to God together, and singing out heartfelt praise.  These are tender moments, when God draws close, and we expect to encounter him.  His presence is tangible. It’s one of the main highlights in my usual week.  But while it’s my heart’s wish to be worshipping in church this morning, I’m reminded that the most exciting moments in my journey with God haven’t happened in a church building.  I’ve known his direction when I’ve dug into his presence at home, and even when I’m praying and singing in my Mini as I do in the usual run of things.  When I worship at church it’s from the overspill of my heart, because I’ve been walking with him through the week.

There have been times, though, when I’ve been in church and thought how amazing it would be if we could move the whole thing to an outdoor setting – not permanently, but just sometimes.  There are many songs that speak of how God touches us and communicates with us when we’re outside, perhaps my favourite being ‘How Great Thou Art’.  ‘When through the woods and forest glades I wander’ is a line I’ve long identified with, and the words continue ‘Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee, how great thou art…’. We take inspiration from walking through his creation, knowing that the One who made all that we’re enjoying is alongside us, even within us, if we’ve invited him.

Tuning into God while we walk is something most of us have the opportunity to do, whether living in or out of lockdown.  Perhaps what’s especially significant about this song is that soon after it was written, believers were needing to find new ways to worship, and their usual Sunday routine had been taken away from them.  Bud Boberg, great-nephew of Carl Boberg who wrote the song says, “My dad’s story of its origin was that it was a paraphrase of Psalm 8 and was used in the ‘underground church’ in Sweden in the late 1800s when the Baptists and Mission Friends were persecuted.”[1]  The song takes on a whole new relevance here for anyone who is living during a lockdown, or in an environment where church is forbidden, for whatever reason.  When believers worshipped outdoors regularly in the past, it was often because of persecution; Bunyan’s dell in Wain’s Wood, Hertfordshire, was a place of clandestine fellowship, where he preached at night to his ‘gathered church’, a congregation sometimes of over a thousand, praising God under the stars.

In 1931 Boberg’s song was heard by Stuart Hine as a Russian translation.  He wrote his own paraphrase, which is what most of us in the UK are familiar with now.   Before completing the project he added a couple of verses of his own, including this one, which is new to me:

“When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to Him I lift my face;
And then in love He brings me sweet assurance:
‘My child! for thee sufficient is my grace’.”

Like everyone else, I’ve been thinking about how church will be different as we move forwards, and wondering when it will ever seem ‘normal’ again – when we will have our old, cherished routines back.  It occurred to me this week that small groups will no doubt be allowed to resume first (confirmed a couple of days later by a message from a church leader raising the same thought), and pictures of the scattered early church are filling my mind.  We’ll be in good company, when we think of those who have gone before.  My imagination has got carried away as usual: So German churches are allowed to meet, but with facemasks and no singing.  Imagine if our small group could congregate outside to worship and pray.  Surely that would be allowed, when lockdown starts to ease?  Several members of our group shared the vision this week – ‘I have the space for about 40 or so socially distant worshippers’ said one.

Of course, it never was about the building but meeting the Lord and having fellowship with the people of God.  The current lockdown must be forcing Christians worldwide to push new boundaries, and here we’re no exception.  To stretch my understanding of ‘normal’ worship further, yesterday evening I enjoyed what will be the first of many worship times at home as a family – it felt spontaneous, leading on from the practice of a song Maddy and Eliott had been preparing to sing to grandparents on Zoom.  The whole household congregated, and I settled in with the cajun while the rest of the family strummed along on guitars and ukuleles. It was an opportunity to really worship, and while we got a few words (and notes) wrong, God’s presence was strong and it felt like a significant milestone.  Would this have happened without the lockdown constraints?  Possibly not.  So while I miss seeing my church fellowship, we are all growing and hopefully becoming more resilient and self-sufficient as believers.  As we know, ‘In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.[2]’

1973 version of ‘How Great Thou Art’. (Less familiar):

O mighty God, when I behold the wonder
Of nature’s beauty, wrought by words of thine,
And how thou leadest all from realms up yonder,
Sustaining earthly life with love benign,

Refrain:
With rapture filled, my soul thy name would laud,
O mighty God! O mighty God! (repeat)

When I behold the heavens in their vastness,
Where golden ships in azure issue forth,
Where sun and moon keep watch upon the fastness
Of changing seasons and of time on earth.

When crushed by guilt of sin before thee kneeling,
I plead for mercy and for grace and peace,
I feel thy balm and, all my bruises healing,
My soul is filled, my heart is set at ease.

And when at last the mists of time have vanished
And I in truth my faith confirmed shall see,
Upon the shores where earthly ills are banished
I’ll enter Lord, to dwell in peace with thee

 

[1] Ireland, Michael (7 October 2007). “Veleky Bog: How Great is Our God”. ASSIST News Service.

[2] Romans 8:28