Tactical Training in Tough Times

The Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, once said: 'To fold one’s hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world'. And don't we have some disorder now? As the pandemic rumbles on like a receding thunder storm, the rising sound of distant shellfire comes from a Europe where we were assured there would never again be a major war. The cost of living is going into inflationary orbit causing children to be hungry in one of the world's most developed nations. And leaders in the world either appear weak, elderly, divided or compromised, or else look like sinister replicas of Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot!

The writer of Psalm 11 asked the question that seems so appropriate today - 'When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?’ Well, they can pray. Prayer still moves the hand that moves the world. Jesus challenged his followers to pray bold prayers, and to pray them with faith. 'Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’ (Matthew 17:20). 

So, why is it so hard to pray? Possibly because we need to relearn the value of silence. Mother Teresa wrote: 'We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence'. Our lives are constantly punctuated by pings and rings, notifications and noises off. Maybe we need to switch off those devices and find a quiet place to fold our hands and pray.

And then - could it be that we have forgotten the prayer skills that previous generations took for granted? Seduced by the empty promises of much doing, we have neglected the graces of simply being - climbing up onto our Father's knee and whispering 'Abba, Daddy, I need you'.

On Sundays through May and June our church is doing the Prayer Course. We will gather in groups to simply watch, learn and pray. You might want to check it out online as a useful and helpful resource and a way of relearning the simple art of folded hands. 

The world is waiting.

 

A Fearful Possibility? - or a Place of Shelter?

With news of a new variant named 'Omicron' by the WHO that may possibly dodge the effects of the vaccine on our immune systems, as well as being even more transmissible than the Delta version, it is clear that the pandemic is far from over. The fear of new variants has been acknowledged for some time, but now seems to have been realised due to the low take-up of vaccination in the global south. As one scientist said on the radio recently, 'none of us are safe until we are all safe', urging the fairer spread of vaccine into the poorer nations, now that rates of protection are fairly high in the developed world.

Our own island community has seen infection rates soar since the borders were re-opened in July. The freedom from 'non-pharmaceutical interventions' that we knew - mask wearing, social distancing etc - is now a distant memory as we are tasting what the rest of the British Isles and elsewhere have been going through in the last couple of years. Covid came even closer home to me recently when Diane, my wife, caught Covid and went through a couple of weeks of the symptoms of a really heavy cold, though thankfully nothing more. At the time of writing I am grateful to be still free of the infection.

But some of he stuff I learned during my long battle with life-threatening illness is helping me now. I realise, for instance, that I must make a decision not to let fear dominate here. Why should I be afraid if I know that my life is held in God's hands? Illness and death have always stalked the Earth since the earliest days of mankind, as have wars and famines, but God has always shown himself to be faithful. Christmas is the announcement of God breaking into our fallen humanity with the presence of the one who is described as 'Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace and Everlasting Father'. None of the horrors of the pandemic have taken him by surprise and his hand is still on the tiller of history.

A prayer from the book of Psalms says; 'when my heart is overwhelmed within me, lead me to the rock that is higher than I'. (Psalm 61:2). If you are starting to feel fear's icy grip on your heart, you probably need to pray that too. The new variant may be coming, like another wave of evil, but God's rock is still strong enough for you and me to shelter by. That rock is Christ!