Still Quarrying 88 - Oops.

Another set-back.  The ‘bad stuff’ in my blood is proving stubborn.  The current treatment regime has been judged to have done all it can so I am going back to the original regime beginning on Tuesday.   The ‘bad stuff’ has to be brought down as low as possible in order to ensure the best possible result from a future bone marrow transplant.   

It’s disappointing.  I had hoped I would be through the transplant before Christmas and possibly returning to ministry in the New Year.  That’s not now going to happen.  Moreover the VTD regime (Velcade, Thalidomide and Dexamethasone) is more demanding and going by past experience there may be some low days ahead.   But as a friend has commented, this will take as long as it takes and while there have been difficult days since March I am going forward with confidence in the medical staff, friends and family who care for me and pray for me and in God’s loving and good purpose which I believe unfolds through every experience.  And I mean every experience.

Just this morning I came across a verse in Psalm 112.  It means a lot to me because not long ago I texted it to a friend who was going through the cancer experience and had been told that things were not progressing as hoped.  The Psalmist is painting a picture of the ‘righteous man’ and one of his qualities is given in verse 7:

‘He will have no fear of bad news;

 his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.’  

Very often that kind of description that we often find in Scripture can make us wilt.  We feel a long way from realising those standards in our lives.  But I believe they are there to give us an aspirational goal.  We may never make it completely this side of eternity but we see the qualities that God is seeking to make flourish in our lives and we are in no doubt what we are called to aim for.  Always remembering that our failures are seen through the eyes of a loving Heavenly Father.  

That comes through in the verse above.  A ‘steadfast’ heart could bring to mind hardness, stubbornness, intractableness.  But then we are told what a ‘steadfast heart’ is in the life of faith.  If we carry this at the centre of our lives we are ‘trusting in the Lord.‘    

I can’t be sure what lies ahead in the next couple of months but I am in no doubt as to my priority and supreme aspiration, to stay close to the God revealed in the life of Jesus and trust in His ways with me.  

Still Quarrying 87 - The Small Stuff.

Someone once asked me if I was a lark or an owl.   In other words, are you a morning person or do you come alive at 10 pm?   Well, it’s morning for me.  That’s when I do my best thinking.   It was pointed out to me by one of my University tutors that ‘burning the midnight oil’ was ‘unnatural.’  The thing to do is get a good night’s sleep, up early and into the work.  And that has been my general pattern throughout my ministry.    My best hours for prayer,  reflection, preparation for preaching have always been in the morning.

That’s not for everyone of course.  As a friend of mine used to say: ‘We are all beautifully different.’  Many people who heard Martyn Lloyd-Jones have said it was the finest preaching they ever experienced, yet he repeatedly said that morning was not his best time for prayer and reflection.  He was just not made that way.  

I think the message is that we should not get too hung up about the when and where of prayer and reflection.  It’s just that I am better suited physically and mentally for the morning hours and it is helpful to me to think of myself laying a spiritual foundation for the day whatever it may bring.  

The problem with routine is that if anything happens to knock it off you can feel disorientated and ill-fitted for the day ahead.  Since March routine has been difficult for me not least with the side-effects of various drugs.  I just don’t know how I am going to be feeling from day to day.  And even on a ‘good day’ things can get off to a shaky start.  Like the other morning.  I couldn’t find my coffee.  Somebody had tidied it away and I need my Santos and Java first thing.  My rocket-fuel!  Looking for it the door came off a kitchen cabinet.  These things are not meant to happen in a carefully ordered life!   As if I didn’t have enough to contend with!   You know how it goes . . . 

Let’s just leave these two catastrophes for the moment.  What came home to me - again - was how fragile is our inner equilibrium, how easily we can be knocked off balance.   Scripture tells us that we are ‘dust’ and it’s good to be reminded of that from time to time, so easily disturbed by the wind of circumstance.  We like to think of ourselves as strong, at least to be able to ride the waves of lost coffee and dodgy doors, but in the end can we depend on ourselves for the strength that is needed day to day and hour to hour even for the small irritations?  The Psalmist wrote: ‘God is our refuge and our strength.’  

I’ve often said: ‘Give me a crisis and I’ll cope.  It’s the wee things that get me down.’  All the more reason to to be aware that God is in the ‘wee things’ as well as the crises.   I’m reading the reflections of Fr. Daniel O’Leary, a Roman Catholic priest, penned during his cancer experience.  Time and again he focusses on the Incarnation, the wonderful and mysterious truth that God became man in Jesus.  One of the implications of this is that God is involved in every aspect of life.  Not just the Big Stuff but also the small, niggly things that knock you off balance.  If the Small Stuff is bringing you down then you need to remember that God is in amongst it!  

Did Jesus always have a perfect start to the day?  Were His tools always ready to hand?  Was there never an irascible customer to deal with?  Did He never bash His shin on His work-bench or thump His thumb with a hammer?  There is a romantic school of thought that would have Him floating through life never touched by the things that exacerbate us.  But it doesn’t make sense.  Perfect in His humanity he may have been but He was not always entirely in control of the world around Him.  Mind you, is that not what it means to be human? 

Have you heard of that book called Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff?  I haven’t read it but I think it’s one of those pop-psychology, self-help books that seem to be so popular.   The title has something going for it though.   The Small Stuff can make us sweat.  It’s where the darkness can get in to make us feel less than what we aspire to be in Christ.  I need to remember that when coffee can’t be found and doors are in need of a Master carpenter.  

Still Quarrying 85 - Knocking Off.

During this latest round of chemotherapy I have to attend a weekly clinic.  This is to check blood levels and to deal with any other issues that may have arisen.  At present things are looking good.  It’s just that my white cells are firing off this ‘bad stuff’ which is causing all the bother.  And the ‘bad stuff’ is being a bit stubborn at present.  The aim of the chemo is to bring this down as low as possible to ensure a better remission after the bone marrow transplant.   Nevertheless, as things stand there is nothing to suggest that the transplant will held back.

There are of course the side-effects of the chemo which are a constant struggle.  There are days when I feel very low physically, mentally and spiritually.  It’s not easy to describe to anyone who is not familiar with the chemo experience.  You seem to be in a kind of bubble that resists every attempt to break out and be more more yourself.   Making a better effort to pierce the bubble just leaves you more exhausted.  

This is where the combative imagery associated with cancer falls down.  We’ve all heard of people who ‘fought it to the end’ and so on but it is interesting that these days cancer charities are playing down this kind of thinking.   The truth is that there are days when the thought of ‘fighting’ is way beyond you.   You have to think carefully before you move; your thoughts are all over the place; you press against the bubble and it just resists all the more.  So what then?  Well from a Christian perspective you need to start with acceptance.  This is happening and it is serious .  The outcome may be uncertain but there is also God and and He is not excluded from the experience.  In fact, He is working in this for a purpose that may not be clear but it is going forward nonetheless.  

To think that God is not involved is to say that there are aspects of human experience into which He will not stray.   Suffering is part of being human.   We are all subject to pain, disturbance, frustration.  Are these areas where we cannot be meeting with our God?  The Incarnation tells a different story.  Jesus knew every shadow that can fall on human experience apart from sin and His decisive blow against the shadows was His prolonged and agonising death upon a cross.   His suffering pushed back the darkness to allow the light of forgiveness and renewal to flood the Universe beginning in the lives of those who trust Him.  The unknown writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that His suffering completed His experience of being human and in that ‘he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.’  (Hebrews 5: 9)  

How does this affect my response to the days of struggle?  I can start with the passivity and surrender of Jesus’ death and that through this God was working to redeem the whole Universe from sin and death.   I may be feeling totally ‘out the game’  but God is still at work to draw me closer to Himself and to deal with those things in my life that threaten to obscure the light of Christ.  That is how the early Christians came to regard their personal suffering and that what was required from them was patient endurance.  Not screwing up your courage, not gritting your teeth and getting on with it, not rising up and fighting it but aspiring to the trusting spirit of the son who believes his father would never cause him a needless tear.

There is a fight going on but not against the cancer.  In fact, from the perspective of eternity that is the least of my troubles.  The fight is against everything in my life that resists the call to obedience and faithful service.  In his book When Heaven Is Silent Ron Dunn tells this story:

‘A man visited the studio of a sculptor, and in the middle of the room sat a huge slab of marble.

‘What are you going to sculpt out of that marble?’ the man asked.

‘A horse,’ answered the sculptor.

‘How will you do that?’ the visitor asked.

‘I will take the hammer and a chisel and knock off everything that doesn’t look like a horse.’

Ron comments: 

‘I think it’s fair to say that God’s purpose is to knock off us everything that doesn’t look like Jesus.’

I don’t have any problem believing that this worst of times could actually be the best of times if I emerge more fully in Christ, more established in His ways, more reflective of His being.  What I have always wanted and yet perhaps not fully realising the cost.

Still Quarrying 84 - To Sleep Perchance To Dream?

The present drug regimen I am following requires me to take 40mg of steroids once a week on a Friday.  I can then expect to have no sleep that night.  Strangely the following day passes quite well.   I can’t say that I am abnormally tired and can usually even manage a short walk into the village to buy a newspaper.  (I take the long way round.) 

Sunday is different however.  That’s when I have the ‘crash’.   It’s hard to get out of bed, the brain is fuzzy and I have to really push myself to do anything.   That continues to a lesser extent in the following days with some improvement towards the end of the week.  Just in time for my next steroid day.  

I like to think I cope with it not too badly since I know what’s causing it and it’s only going to last for a certain time.  ‘All things must pass,’ sang George Harrison, although he was probably thinking about other matters. 

To get back to the sleeplessness, one caring friend was concerned that I might be lying awake fretting, paralysed  with anxiety, smothered by waves of despair.  It’s not like that.  You might say I would say that wouldn’t I.  But it’s true.  I’ve come to enjoy the silence.  I’m writing this at 5. 30 am after a totally sleepless night that has not seemed too long with the only disturbance being birdsong and now a faint traffic noise in the distance.  

I’ve been reading of course.  Night Boat by the Glasgow writer Alan Spence has kept me going recently.  Born in Govan he writes so well about working-class life in the sixties and seventies.  He became a Buddhist in his teens.  How does that happen in Govan?  Well in an RE lesson at school he heard a Church of Scotland Minister describe Buddhism as ‘religion without God’ and thought ‘That’s for me!‘  Discuss.  

The long night is also a good time to pray and the wireless will be on before long to keep that going! This present political climate has done wonders for my prayer life.  So honestly it has not been a bad night.  That can’t go on of course.  In Scripture sleep is described as a gift from God.   The Psalmist writes:

‘I will lie down and sleep in peace, 

 for you alone, O Lord,

 make me dwell in sleep.‘  (Psalm 4: 8)

‘In vain you rise early 

 and stay up late,

 toiling for food to eat  - 

 for he grants sleep to those he loves.‘  (Psalm 127: 2) 

It’s part of the essential nature of being human that we renew ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually in sleep.  Even Jesus needed a kip.  And He could take it in the midst of a storm at sea.  Read Mark 4: 35-41.   That shows how important it is for us if the Son Of God couldn’t function without it in His humanity.   But what I am experiencing now I can cope with.

I’ve always been a sound sleeper but not much of a dreamer.  At least I don’t seem to remember many dreams I have had.  I have heard it said that you always dream in sleep.  It’s a kind of mental effluent that keeps you healthy.  You only think you have had a dreamless night.  In fact you have just forgotten.   Well, maybe.  But it makes me feel a bit inadequate when I listen to a colleague who has quite vivid dreams that bring him powerful  truths to reflect upon.   Like the late Rev Murdoch Campbell, a Free Church Minister, whose writings have had a deserved revival in recent days.  He cherished dreams when Bible verses came to him in times of suffering when he needed comfort and when he mourned for the spiritual health of Scotland.   I read somewhere that C.H. Spurgeon having struggled with sermon preparation on a Saturday  woke on Sunday morning with his three headings!  And then there is John Newton who had a vivid dream in his teens which he was to reflect upon through the rest of his life. 

All of these men could point to the number of times in Scripture  when God revealed himself to men and women as they slept.   Jacob dreamt of a stairway reaching to heaven with angels ascending and descending and God at the top.  His son Joseph interpreted dreams.   God appeared to Solomon in a dream.   Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth was guided by God in a dream.  Even the Magi were warned by God in a dream of Herod’s intentions towards the baby Christ.  

I stand before all these examples amazed because my dreams when I remember them tend to be just plain daft.  However, there have been times in these recent months of cancer treatment and the ups and downs that come with it that some images have come of a different order.  Nothing spectacular you understand.  But I have recognised myself preaching to a gathering of people.  On one occasion I was celebrating the Lord’s Supper.   Just a couple of nights ago I  was leading a Bible Study with young people.  Nothing bizarre was happening.  Just me and the things I have been blessed in doing in the past.  

It would be good to have Joseph’s take on this.  But with all due respect do we really need him?  

Still Quarrying 83 - Refined Gold.

Years ago someone said to me: ‘The trouble with being a biblio-junkie is that you accumulate a lot of junk.’  There’s no doubt about that.  The number of times I have bought books not knowing when I would actually read them but convinced that the time would come.  And anyway who knows when they might go out of print?   The result is a pile of stuff unread for years and the scary thing is probably will remain unread after my days are done!  

I have made some inroads into that pile recently.  I came across an unread book by Martin Israel entitled The Pain That Heals: The Place Of Suffering In The Growth Of The Person.   The date of publication is given as 1983 and it is probably around that time that I bought it.    Even my dodgy arithmetic tells me that this was 36 years ago.  Just waiting for this moment to be read?  Possibly but this was a time when I was reading a lot about the place of suffering in the Christian life.  I suppose I still had a notion of the Christian life being if not problem free then certainly free  enough to enable an effective Christian witness.  I was surprised therefore to find a large body of Christian writing that testified to a challenging truth that brokenness in body, mind and spirit undergirded with faith in Christ actually enhanced Christian witness.  

A book by Harry Blamires, a friend of C.S. Lewis, was especially challenging and ultimately comforting.   It was called A God Who Acts and was promoted as an exploration of ‘the hand of God in suffering and failure.‘   At the heart of the book is the conviction that the pattern of Jesus’ earthly life could never be considered to be pain-free or ‘successful’ by human standards.  Only by seeing things through to the bitter end did He know the sweetness of triumph over sin and death.  

My copy is heavily underlined and I’m pleased to say my scribbled comments in the margins are not uncritical.  ‘Your opinion!’ appears more than once and at one point ‘I think you are going too far.‘   Nevertheless, I had never read anything quite like it and it would always appear in my top five of influential books.  

The trouble with this line of thought is that it could lead to an unreasonable glorification of suffering.  Blamires is aware of this:

‘ . . . I fear the complaint will be raised that we are making Christianity a religion of tragedy, perhaps even of despair.  But we are not.  Our immediate aim is to put suffering where it belongs, near to the human heart, because it is near to the Divine Heart; at the centre of man’s realizations, because it is there at the centre of God’s.  And suffering is not all sadness: still less is it despair.  Are the invalids amongst our friends the least inclined to smile?  Have we not sensed a deeper peace, even a deeper joy, on the bed of pain than on the bed of sloth or the bed of lust?  This alone is sufficient to prove that a faith which embraces suffering is not necessarily a religion of sadness or tragedy.’  

Martin Israel takes this further in his conviction that suffering is essential in the growth of an individual towards Christ-likeness.  Does this mean that the only life that is truly blessed is that which is obviously in pain?  I think Israel would argue that despite appearances we all know what he calls ‘the dark side of reality’ if not outwardly then certainly inwardly.  When we recognise this and seek the strength of God to overcome then we are led to greater Christian maturity.  

This rubs us up against the thinking in the Letter To The Hebrews where we are told that suffering is in fact God’s ‘discipline’ designed to lead  us into a deeper relationship with Him and a greater motivation to serve others in need.  It’s there in Hebrews 12: 7-12.   It might sound a jarring note to some but it makes sense of those times when we are most aware of our weakness as times when we appreciate and rely on the strength that only God can provide.   The Apostle Paul saw it that way:  

‘ . . .  I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.‘    (2 Corinthians 12: 9-10)

This is something that we need to use more in our pastoral care of one another.  The notion that if we are going through times of pain and disturbance then in some way we must have deserved it is still alive in the minds of many.   But as Wayne Grudem points out in his Systematic Theology if Jesus died so that we might be forgiven our sins God cannot be punishing us by sickness and suffering.  We should rather view the dark shadow times in our lives as God’s opportunities to draw us closer to Himself and to make available His resources so that we emerge more fit to be the witnesses He wants us to be.  

That is certainly the way the Apostle Peter looked upon the persecutions that fell upon the Church in her early days:

‘These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.’  (1 Peter 1: 7)

Their suffering was an opportunity to grow as Christian believers and activists as they learned to trust more fully in God and His strength.  So when days of sickness and disturbance fall upon us the question is not ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ so much as ‘How can I use this time to walk closer with Christ and to serve those He loves?’  When Paul was preparing himself for a difficult visit to the Christians in Corinth many of whom had negative feelings towards him he took encouragement from the pattern of Jesus’ life:

‘For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power.  Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.’  (2 Corinthians 13: 4).  

Paul’s faith is a call to us to accept the pattern of Jesus’ life in ours so that we might experience the power of God that is our strength to reach out to those in need.

Still Quarrying 82 - Darkness Not Dark In Christ.

It’s been a long haul and inevitable that I should be interested in the cancer stories of others.  I have written about some of them in the past eight months.  Obviously people of faith have featured most prominently but there have been others not believers but not to be ignored. Men and women who have coped with inspiring inner strength.  The best of those stories are those in which you connect with a ‘voice’, a sense of the person behind the words, a person willing to be honest, open and vulnerable.  The very best are those in which the person shares things they have learned about themselves and about God even while acknowledging the pain, disorientation, weakness and despair. 

What have I learned about myself?  Well, that might be the subject of future blogs.  Maybe.  What is most important is what I am learning about God.  Even as I write this I want to correct that.  Really it’s what I am experiencing about God that is most important.  I’ve always known about God.  It was in my head.  And it would be wrong to say that I have never had profound experiences of God and the love He has shown for humankind in Jesus.  (How I miss that experience in the preaching event that by the grace of God I have made a connection with His eternal truth and through His Spirit is enabling me to share that truth with His people!)  It’s just that some things I feel I have discovered about God on a personal level in the past I have been reluctant to share and to preach.  And these things have become more important, no vital to me in these cancer days.  Yes I have sometimes preached and written about ‘the dark side of God’, His judgement, His mysterious providence, His discipline.  (Discipline!? Careful boy.)   But when you get down to it, I have been nervous, reluctant to go there.  

So unlike Paul who in the face of breathtaking revelations from the Eternal World wrote :

‘To  keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’

(2 Corinthians 12: 7-10)

So unlike Peter who writes of all the blessings we receive in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus:

‘In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,  for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.’  (1 Peter 1: 6-9)

So unlike the unknown writer of the Letter to the Hebrews who without asking us to fasten tight our safety helmets and without a tremour of apology writes:

‘Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?  If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.  Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!  They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.  Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.  “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”  (Hebrews 12: 7-13)  

So unlike Jesus who knew that heavy almost soul-destroying darkness in Gethsemene such that His whole constitution - body, mind and spirit - threatened to come apart completely.  And yet Luke tells us that an angel was sent, an emissary from the Eternal World, to strengthen Him, to assure Him that the ‘cup‘ was worth the tasting for herein lay the salvation of the whole Universe.   Who sent the angel?  His Heavenly Father, who loved Him.  It’s what the Psalmist says:   

‘If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”  even the darkness is not dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.’  (Psalm 139: 11-12)

It may not be a perfect application for a man with cancer but it’s a truth that needs to be grasped.  The Psalmist is celebrating the eternal presence of God in every circumstance.    The darkness is not dark to Him.  He is present in the darkness working out His perfect and  loving will.  

Even Gethsemene did not see the end of  testing for Jesus.  Many have been the attempts to soften the moment of Jesus’ dereliction, His anguish at the abandonment of God while He died on the Cross.  He had read the Psalm.  He had probably memorised it as a boy in the synagogue.  God help us to understand, He even inspired it from all eternity as the second person of the Trinity.  But now He experienced it, as one us, God in the flesh but still he cries out the most gut-wrenching words in the whole of human history:

‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  (Psalm 22: 1)

In a preaching I heard from Professor Donald Macleod he once referred to the humanity of Jesus and how He identified with us completely even to the extent of knowing the loss of God.  ‘Tis mystery all!  The immortal dies,’ wrote Wesley in one of the greatest of all hymns.  And although some people don’t like to sing it Stuart Townend is right to invite us to sing: 

‘How deep the Father’s love for us,

How vast beyond all measure,

That He should give His only Son

To make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss –

The Father turns His face away,

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory.’

‘The Father turns His face away.’  He saw this moment from all eternity, the moment of redemption for the whole Universe, the moment of redemption for me, through the suffering of the Son He loved. And Father take away my nervous reluctance to go there, You not only saw it You willed it for the humanity You loved.   A more courageous man than I, the Apostle John, said: ‘God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.‘ (John 3: 16)

 Another one,  Paul:

 ‘He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’  (Romans 8: 32-39)

Out of his love for us he did not spare His Son and from this we can sing:

Nor death nor life, nor earth nor hell,

nor time's destroying sway,

can e'er efface us from his heart,

or make his love decay.

I understand the difficulty in going down this road but please stay with it.  A minister made the headlines not too long ago when he said that believing that Jesus died for our sins on the cross is ‘ghastly theology’.  In stating this he struck at the core of my faith.  What sustains me at present  is the assurance that God has loved me so much that He did not spare His only Son to deal with the darkness of sin that separates me from Him and assures me of a place in his Eternal Kingdom.  So whatever darkness falls has not pushed God out or His love.  The darkness is not dark to Him.  The light of His loving purpose is at the core moving my life according to His pace towards the completion.  

I don’t know ‘the reasons why’.  Neither did that man I dare to call my brother, the Apostle Paul.  He looked forward to the Day when all that was unclear would be made clear.   It’s there in 1Corinthians 13.  Read it.  And not just the bit they read at weddings. 

 ‘Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’  (verse 12).

I’m amazed that I’ve written so much recently and not mentioned Ron Dunn, an American pastor, who experienced much darkness in his life but was a powerful witness for his God revealed in Jesus.  In his book When Heaven Is Silent he speaks about living with the question ‘why?’  He says something quite astonishing.  With all he has gone through and it is more than most of us will ever be called upon to endure he believes that at the end of all things when he comes into God’s presence in all the wonder and the glory the questions will not matter.  I’m with him.

The question for me and Patient Reader for you too is for this moment.  How deeply do we really know this God revealed through Jesus?  Oh and there is another question, how far do we trust Him?  This God whose darkness is not dark, whose love will never efface us from His heart, whose love will never decay, whose good purpose is moving on through the worst.  Ron wrote:

‘I confess I’m still trying to get an answer to my ‘why?’.  And I’m still getting the silent treatment.  But it’s all right.  I trust Him.’

I’m with Ron.