Open to God's serendipities

I’m not sure if I should be writing this, but here goes anyway…….

Why is it that while some things once learned, are so deeply ingrained in my mind that I never forget them, while I find that other lessons need to be re-learned time and time again? Or at best, while the things learned may remain in my mind, they have been lost at the level of experience.

Things have been really busy at work over the last few weeks, so I was delighted to have a day’s leave yesterday. I’ve had a lovely time, chilling, and not doing too much. And I have been blessed as I have experienced again things  my mind knew, but my heart had forgotten.

Four lessons, in fact, all of them inter-related, and all connected with my personality as a person who tends to seek security through wanting to be in control:

There I was typing away yesterday morning, when a thought came to mind (it was the kind of thought which I have learned to attribute to God.) ‘Excuse me! Why don’t you spend more time simply chilling with me? You spend time hanging out with your family – because you love them and like them. I know you love me, but you seem too busy to simply be with me. I don’t just love you, I like you. I like your company. I like dropping ideas into your heart, and hearing you respond.’

And the second thing I’ve been reminded of in the last couple of days is that I don’t need always to be doing. I don’t need to prove anything, or earn anything from God. Simply being me, approximating how ever feebly to the me of God’s dreams gives the Father pleasure. I sometimes wonder what it will be like to be really old, or seriously ill, and unable to do anymore. But then too, it will be enough to be. And then too I can trust that God will drop into the storm of my troubles the calm whisper of a Father’s delight.

The third thing is the joy of serendipity (which means a ‘fortunate happenstance’ or ‘pleasant surprise’) Too often our lives, mine at least, are driven by schedules and to-do lists. We like to be in control, to master our use of time. But in so doing, we shut out the serendipitous, the spontaneous, the unexpected joy – the things we make room for when we hold less tightly to our schedules. We make it hard for God to reach us when we insist on micromanaging our lives. Last night I was in the garden under a grey sky in the balmy evening, and there was no agenda, and there was peace, and the God from whom we so often choose to hide from in the garden of our lives, was present.

And this morning in Tesco I was walking towards the books and magazines and stationery, and the thought came ‘Excuse me! Have you forgotten? You’re looking for books and magazines and paper because you don’t want to miss anything. You’re wanting to be in control, again. And you’re looking for subjects you can write about because you feel fragile, and writing is your way of asserting yourself. But have you forgotten, John, that I am all you need. That my love is sufficient. That secure in my love you are free, free from agendas, free from the need to control, free from the need to big yourself up.’  And thus I was reminded of what I had forgotten for some time.

The things we hear from God are not facts like the principles of arithmetic. For although we express them in words, they are not predominently truths of the mind, but of the heart. And the heart’s best memories, if not irrigated moment by moment by the spring-water of God’s presence will quickly fade.

The challenge we all face is not so much experiencing these truths (that God invites us to spent time in God’s presence; that being is more fundamental than doing; that our lives are blessed by God’s serendipities; that in God we have all we will ever need) on fairly leisurely days. The challenge is to both experience, and live out these truths in all life’s busyness when God has been pushed to the perimeter, or has disappeared in one of the Father’s strange games of hide-and-seek.

I began by saying I wasn’t sure if I should be writing this because, d’you see what I have done? I have taken precious things which may have come from God, and have shared them with you. And in so doing, haven’t I been guilty of using these lessons rather than simply enjoying them? Am I not guilty again of hoovering up material and using it to build my word-count while making myself out to be someone rather holy?

Our best motives are so imperfect, aren’t they? But the ministry I have been given is the ministry of words, and as I share these words the better part of me trusts that the voice of the Father will speak in them to your hearts. May you know today many of the blessed serendipities of God, and that greatest of all serendipities, the gospel of Christ