I gave a talk at Ashley on Sunday triggered by what I considered an unexpected blessing on the M25. Not my favourite place in the world!
The road was clear and the 20 mile drive to Heathrow to meet our family was easy on a Friday morning at 8.30. It made me again think about this whole area of meeting God through life events and how important that is for me. I looked at Jesus mother’s life and the way she dealt with the announcement that she was to be blessed by a child. Was it a blessing or not? Did she make it a blessing by the way she received it? The acceptance and the trust of Mary’s song in Luke is worth revisiting (Luke 1: 46-55).
I always struggled with these types of blessing when others talk about them with such questions as “Why you and not someone more deserving”, “Hasn’t God got more important things to do than sort out the M25 just for you?”, “What does it mean when bad things happen?”, etc.
I decided in spite of those questions that a blessing is there to be received and celebrated. I was reminded of the importance of remembering all the times God has blessed me as a way forward and a source of courage and faith for the future. An Ebenenzer time or book or conversation can be such an encouraging thing, modeling the story in the Bible of a stone being placed to remember a famous victory.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." [1 Sam 7:12].
Any Ebenezer stories?
2 comments:
I experienced a blessing today. It was someone else's really, but it made an impression on me because I was involved.
Despite all the factors lining up against it, something that seemed impossible happened. Someone else (with more faith than me) said 'we do what we have to do, despite our confusion about it, and we just pray.' Despite being quite happy to say the prayer about giving it to God, I can't say I really believed it, but as it turned out God had an opinion of his own!
I have quite a few Ebeneezer stories, but the one that was the most special happened soon after I became a Christian in 1982.
I was living in York, just outside the city centre, and was working in the centre. Parking was difficult and expensive, so I had been cycling in to work. I am not a very confident cyclist, and as the streets in York are quite narrow, the gap between the pavement and the cars was usually very narrow. I would wobble along, worried about knocking the cars as I crept up the inside.
I prayed about this, asking God to make me a bit more confident or I would not be a Christian in this earth for very long, being dispatched to heaven sooner than planned!
The next day, as I cycled to school, the gap between each car and the pavement was enormous, so that I could cycle through with ease. I never expected God to answer my prayer in this way; actually I didn't really expect Him to answer it at all! When life gets tricky, I remind myself that God doesn't just care for us; when the time is right He can overwhelm us with the depth and the detail of his care. After 26 years, the memory of that day gives me the courage to be braver in the difficulties I face in my life now.
If lots of us share our Ebeneezer stories, I am sure that God can use them to bless us all. Maybe we could collect them and put them into a little book. first we need the stories.
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