Mail from the Manse – August

Dear Friends,

These are certainly strange times to be living in. I saw someone coming out of the bank the other day wearing a mask! In days not too long ago, that would have been considered, at the least, as some cause for concern. Today however, we have what is being called THE NEW NORMAL where, thanks to COVID 19, hair length has gone back to the 1970’s, parents are trying to remember how to multiply fractions (no I can’t either!), highly paid sports stars are being watched by so few, and we all need to make sure we are looking our best just to answer the phone.

I do not know about you, but I wish this Coronavirus was as tired of me, as I am of it.

I sometimes feel that I have got so paranoid about what I can and cannot do at present, that I am almost afraid to sneeze in front of my computer, for fear of it immediately starting to scan for antivirus!

These certainly are strange times, and much has changed in them including all of us. The Bible makes clear however that even in changing times, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) This means we can be sure in all that is changing around us, nothing changes with regards to His ability to handle it for us, love us in it, and make us more like Him through it.

We can get a test to see if we do have the Coronavirus, but is it ever possible to test for whether we have changed for the better during these Coronavirus days? I have been asking myself some questions that you might like to ask yourselves, and I promise you if done honestly, the results do not need waiting for.

Am I a Thermostat or a Thermometer? Thermostats set the temperature whilst Thermometers reflect the temperature around it. Am I bringing the hope of the Lord into these changing times and helping to settle anxious hearts, or are these changing times having me doubt the Lord and adding to the uncertainty of them? 

Am I more for me or for others? Consumed entirely with my own needs at the complete expense of the needs of others? “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” (1 John 3:16) Too hard? Then take heart, for as Proverbs 11:25 tells us, “Those that refresh others will themselves be refreshed”

Is it more about the ‘WHAT IFS’ than the ‘WHAT IS’? More about WHAT might happen to me than WHO it is with me? Remember, God wired us for one day at a time which is why Jesus said, “Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:34). Getting ahead of our divine supply line, as Corrie ten Boom said, “does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows. It empties today of its strength.” Even in changing times God’s strength will be there on the day we need it, so that our strength as He promised will be equal to our day”

I know I have asked some of these questions before, but as we plan for change and press forward into a NEW NORMAL, we don’t ever need to fear the future when our faith is fixed on Jesus, our unchanging Lord and Saviour. Let us allow Him in the changes around us to bring about the kind of change within us that will make even in these strange times to us, the best of times for us.

You friend and Pastor

Shaun