My last blog post was about entering my 50th year on planet earth and how the Biblical pattern for this is to take a year off and rest. Return to your roots and your family. Don't sow or reap. Live off the overflow. Let the land have a fallow year. Let the Lord provide. Cancel debts and set prisoners free.
Ironically the Corona Virus pandemic has enforced that as a reality. We have been forced to remain with family at home. Many who had a few days warning were able to return to the countries of their roots. Others are where they have chosen to be for this season. My Dad & Sally are in New Zealand. I have friends and family in France.
The land has been forced to rest. Here at Loseley - weddings and the Spring Garden Show are on hold. Glastonbury has been cancelled and the land will lie fallow for this year. Big sporting fixtures have been cancelled.
Church however has not been cancelled, but the gathering of a crowd has, so we will meet in 2's and 3's and join the online community. For many work has been cancelled or is now happening from home. School is cancelled but also continues at home. As my previous boss, Bruce Johnston used to say "Don't ever let school get in the way of your education!" Good advice for this season. We will be doing our education at home and away from the classroom for the foreseeable future. Homeschooling will give us a deeper respect for teachers and expose how difficult their jobs really are.
Hopefully just like in the Jubilee year, there will be a grace for the financial crisis that is unfolding. It would be great to see debts demolished. I suppose in one way they have been - Mortgages might be put on hold for a season. Those who can't pay their rent are allowed 3 months grace. But for many this seems to be a complete financial melt down.
It is rather weird to see this all unfolding and working itself into reality. Is God really is in control? I think He is.
I do trust Him and listen to what He says but sometimes I over spiritualise things. For example He impressed on me the word SUDDENLY many months ago. I just thought it referred to something else, not - suddenly we are living with a viral world pandemic. He also told me a few weeks ago that "2020 would be a year of significant births." Ironically starting from mid December 2020 there will probably be a significant increase in new births. A baby boom. Christmas and New Year babies that will be labelled the 'COROnials' - the isolation kids.' A result of couples spending weeks and weeks together!
But I think there will also be spiritual births. America just held a national day of prayer. Pope Francis asked the world to pray at 9pm on Thursday night. Hopefully Boris will be the Winston Churchill he aspires to be and call for a National Day of prayer like the ones held during WW2. We all know that over quoted scripture : 'If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.' 2 Chronicles 7:14
In the church we were already getting ready for a significant year. We all knew that this was a special new decade unfolding. We just didn't realise it would come through a virus! I sat in a meeting where we talked about the Holy Spirit blowing like a wind, from East to West, South to North.
Oh, I pray that the cold North wind and the soft South wind may blow upon my garden ...
Song of Solomon 4:16
The wind blows, breathes, where it wills; and thou you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going. So it is of everyone who is born of the spirit. John 3:8
We talked about the wind blowing fragrance across the gardens of our lives. The entire planet circled by a wind. And here it is! Blowing across nations and borders. The wind of the Holy Spirit and the fragrance of Christ. The smell of death to those who are rejecting Him and of life to those who are open to Him.
For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ which exhales unto God, discernible among those being saved and those who are perishing:
To the latter it is an aroma wafted from death to death, a fatal odour, the smell of doom; to the former it is an aroma from life to life, a vital fragrance, living and fresh. 2 Corinthians 2:15, 16
I mean really. Who ever saw this unusual season we are in coming?
Actually those with spiritual ears did hear about it but I guess we misinterpreted what we heard.
The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to my voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27
He who has ears to hear let him hear, let him be listening and let him consider and perceive and comprehend by hearing. Matthew 11:15
It is so upside down. Back to front. Not what I imagined. Just like God to do it His way!
I know that God has often told me to stop taking myself so seriously and he always reminds me of this by tripping me up. Literally!! I either trip up or down a step. I walk into a door or fall over an obstacle. It always shocks me and shakes me out of my seriousness. I always end up laughing out loud. I don't know why slapstick humour is Gods design but He built it into our internal working to laugh when someone trips on a banana skin or walks into a lamp post. It is nervous laughter. A pressure release. In the same way He likes to trip me up to stop me taking myself so seriously. I find it a very reassuring aspect of His personality and a clever warning device that I need to stop being so intense.
I was tripped up last week. Fell over and laughed out loud. " Ok you got my attention," I told Him as I stumbled out of the kitchen and into the living room. Very undignified. A real slapstick fall.
I looked up and asked God ...
"Why didn't you tell anyone about the Corona Virus? Why didn't you warn me?"
He laughed and said... "You didn't need to know! You would have panicked and stockpiled. You have seen the damage that has done globally. I knew you were better off not knowing. You would have flown over to Capetown to hang out on a beach when I needed you here with the family that needs you! "
It is true. That is exactly what I would have done if I had been pre- warned.
I thought about the way the Israelites were provided with daily manna when they went through that season in the desert. God said He would give them food every morning and it would be fresh and daily. He asked them to never stockpile. ( Exodus 16: 14 - 21 ) He said the stuff would rot and the trust between people would be strained. Strife and selfish behaviour seep in. Plus the trust with Himself would be broken. He was right!
In the Jubilee year there is no sowing or reaping. You rely on the overflow. A land flowing with milk and honey. Vineyards you didn't plant. Houses you didn't build. It stops being under your control. You trust your creator that He will provide. You inherit stuff you didn't deserve or work for. There is rebalance. Those who are oppressed are freed.
In this shake up it is ironic that the lowest, the servants, are those still working. The most valuable ones who we have given the lowest salaries. Delivery drivers. Supermarket cashiers. Care workers. Hospital cleaners. Maybe after this we will give them all a massive pay rise. Just as in a Jubilee year God seeks to restore and redistribute the balance of wealth.
If you want to be great. Be a servant. So the last shall be first, and the first last ... Matthew 20:16
I thought I was going too far with this Jubilee theme but then I heard that we are possibly going to release short term prisoners to release the strain on the system! Seriously I nearly dropped my cup of tea on the floor. And as the homeless are looked after and hostels are at capacity, we are placing them in hotels! I love that.
God loves justice. Yes, He does. But He is not petty and legalistic. He placed His punishment on His Son. It is grace that interests Him. Does this crazy upside down world we now live in appear to actually be the outworking of grace? Yes indeed. You don't need to do anything. He has done it all.
HOW? - you may ask. Well it is obvious to me. JESUS. By His stripes we are healed. Discern His body. Take communion. It is His medicine. Many are sickly and die when they don't discern the broken body of Christ. ( 1 Corinthians 11: 29-30 )
We all love Psalm 23 but did you ever notice that God warns us that - He will make us lie down to rest. Yes, that is right.
He MAKES me lie down to rest in fresh tender green pastures !!! Psalm 23:2
As the skies empty of air traffic and fall silent, is it possible that we are being challenged to rest and stop resisting? Most of us resent this interruption to our lives. It is a bitter pill to swallow, being made to cancel our plans, to hold tight, sit still, to quarantine and isolate. But could it be possible that actually He is in control and we are in a season of enforced rest?
It would appear to me that it is our fear of death, our disconnection with what happens next that is driving this panic. We fear dying so greatly that we are trying to contain and control what is uncontainable. This virus is not the issue. We all know that we are only guaranteed one thing in life and that is that we will one day die. So why are we focussing so heavily on self preservation?
Because we don't know how good and kind our Creator really is. Because we fear judgement and don't understand His kindness. Because we are so disconnected from His presence that cannot conceive of the immense stretch of eternity that stretches before us and that is filled with good because HE IS GOOD.
As Oswald Chambers so wisely said ...
" The root of sin is doubting that God is good."
Yorumlar