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| A montage from London lockdown, Wednesday 29th April 2020 |
Notes from London Lockdown
For those of you who have not been out on the road for a while - and that includes me until this week - here are some observations. I travelled to London and back for essential medical reasons (a son donating stem cells) and this is what I observed.
Empty roads (except for trucks, lorries, vans and a few cars). Even in rush hour. Deserted Motorway Service Stations - very eerie. Motorway signs used to tell everyone to stay home. Thank you signs for care workers and drivers. No police/ambulance/fireengine sirens in London. Normally-busy Regent's Park was so quiet. Companies re-writing their advertisements to ride the stay-home message. And strangest of all, no-one queuing up for Madam Tussauds! Unheard of!
One day we may look back at notes like these with bemusement....
....but on the other hand I overheard a man in London explain to a friend that the Covid-19 he had just come out of was the worst illness he had ever experienced. He had contracted malaria at some point in his life, but this disease was far worse, and he said that at one moment during his three week illness, he thoght he would not make it.
For some people, I was reminded, life's present situation is serious, whether Covid-19 or some other predicament in their lives.
God called Isaiah, you will remember, to comfort his people. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." (Isaiah 40:1) To comfort them he wanted to strengthen their faith. And to strengthen their faith he points to the love and majesty and power of their God; the God who sits above the circle of the earth, the God who rules over kings, who spread out the heavens and who cares for every sheep-star.
We have just a few more word of chapter 40 to consider, and they start like this, verses 27-28:
"Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel,‘My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth."
" God does not seem to care"
Isaiah now addresses a common complaint of God's people when trouble looms. God does not care. Our cause is not on God's radar. Our way, our plight, is hidden from the Lord. God does not seem to care.
Have you said that? Perhaps just felt it? Wanted to say it? Said it "under your breath?"
I hold my hands up and tell you I have thought/said/prayed as much. There have been moments in my life when it seemed as though God had forgotten all about me. When prayers bounced off the ceiling, when the heavens were "as brass" we say.
Is a reader feeling that way today?
Isaiah's - no God's - answer to this common complaint, at least from the verses for today (there's more tomorrow, DV) is, first...
Remember that God is Everlasting
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God..."
How does that help me in my complaint? Well, here I am in my tiny blip of time, complaining that God doesn't care for me. But suppose - just suppose for a moment - that his time scales are different from ours? He's got a wonderful solution! An amazing resolution. But it's going to happen in his time, not in ours!
God's everlastingness is more than a theoretical attribute of divinit: it is a rebuke to his radically impatient children! (Me included, very much.)
The problem with our "you don't seem to care" complaints is that they are impatient, they are wanting God to answer when we want him to. And when he doesn't, when his time scale is 10 years rather than 1 year, we get all antsy, fretful, restless, irritable - and complaining!
Next time we think God doesn't care, that he hasn't been following our chronolgy script, let us take a deep breath, sit back and remember that he inhabits eternity and his ways are higher, greater and so much better than ours.
Remember that God is the Creator
The second antidote to "God doesn't care for me" complaining is, on the surface of it, unusual.
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is... the Creator of the ends of the earth."
How does God's creatorship still a complaining heart? Well, if God made the ends of the earth, your prayer for help or deliverance, is - forgive the impudence - peanuts to him. He may not be following your calender, but don't confuse his present inaction with impotence. Nothing is impossible with God. Nothing!
What shall we complaining saints do, then?
We should wait upon the Lord. Wait. And then wait some more.
A SONG FOR THE DAY
Our song writer, takes up the complaint of the disciples when their boat was a-sinking, and answers it with: No waters can swallow the ship
where lies The Master of ocean, and earth,
and skies! A song from the good ole US of A.
Master, the tempest is raging!
The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness,
No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest Thou not that we perish?
How canst Thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threatening
A grave in the angry deep?
The winds and the waves shall
obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm
tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it
be
No waters can swallow the ship
where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth,
and skies;
They all shall sweetly obey Thy
will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy
will,
Peace, peace, be still!
Master, with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today;
The depths of my sad heart are troubled
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul;
And I perish! I perish! dear Master
Oh, hasten, and take control.
Master, the terror is over,
The elements sweetly rest;
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast;
Linger, O blessèd Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more;
And with joy I shall make the blest harbour,
And rest on the blissful shore.
Mary Ann Baker
A PRAYER FOR THE DAY
Dear Eternal Father in heaven,
We acknowledge that you are the everlasting God. To you one year is like a thousand years.
There truly is no-one like you. No-one in power, in power, or majesty. We glorify your holy name.
Forgive our impatience and complaining.
Teach us to trust your higher ways.
We pray these things in the Name of the one who loved us and gave himself for us.
Amen.
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