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‘Follow the science’ but let God have the first and last word

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“Humility comes before honour” – Jesus, ultimate example of both humility, wisdom and honour is also called the Lamb of God.
Lamb near The Birches, Sarnesfield Coppice, image credit Ian Greig

Thought for the Day, April 25, 2020

Proverbs 15:33

Wisdom’s instruction is the fear the Lord,
and humility comes before honour.

Before we get successful we have to get humble, especially in terms of who God is and how we defer to Him.

This is teaching about holding God in greater awe than everything else.

  • Greater than ‘following the science’.
  • Greater than public opinion.
  • Greater than the particular political ideology that we follow.
  • Greater, too, than the voice of reason.

Sometimes churches put forward “fear of the Lord” as being beholden to church tradition and its hierarchies. All denominations and even modern streams have them! But that is fear of man, not being in awe of a loving God.

What’s the bad news?

In this epidemic, people are dying, others are very poorly and it could be us, or our friends or neighbours. The anxiety, the uncertainty and the need for isolation and distancing is set to go on and on — and we don’t have the wisdom for a clear way out of it.

In the present pandemic, we hear daily opinions from experts in science, medicine, epidemiology and data interpretation. But as one commentator remarked drily (on BBC Radio 4 Today), “Scientists like to think they are expert at everything.”

And so do we in our unguarded moments.

Education and knowledge is good and helpful. I studied the science streams and then engineering in early life. I know the value of following scientific evidence and then developing the engineer’s ingenuity in thinking outside the familiar ways, to construct a better solution.

Bringing that into the disciplines of Christian philosophy brings thinking skills which are very helpful in finding our own framework. We all need a framework for what we believe. But it is important for that framework to include the values that come from what we believe, because the values we hold are are what really steer what we do, or avoid doing. We might believe that God is all-powerful and all-wise. If we put a high value on finding out what His wisdom is, we’ll be ready to listen and learn.

All of this is really helpful in making a kind of landing pad for what God might be saying to us. We have to bring it down to earth… and we need a way of processing what we discern spiritually. The language of heaven isn’t the language of earth, so we have to translate the whisper of the Holy Spirit and the glimpses of revelation He shows us. We have to do the work of joining them up. The disciplines drummed into us through education and experience help us do this… until they start to take over, and then they don’t help, they hinder. Because then we are putting our faith in the process rather than the source.

“Wisdom’s instruction is to fear the Lord…” and that means learning to listen with an openness to hear, and hear differently. The comfortable religious routines offer their own pre-packaged answers, and the danger is that we find it easier to substitute these for the harder work of us seeking God for Himself.

So this Thought can do no more than encourage you to go back to God with a renewed humility and sense of His majesty and all-knowing perspective, and agreeing with Him that man’s answers are insubstantial and flawed help, compared with His

The Good News is…

… that believing and trusting Jesus is the one simple thing we can all do, which opens the door for His Holy Spirit, to be the light which guides our way and the revelation insight that shows us simply, what we struggle to reason out by ourselves.

“Fearing the Lord” starts out as something that sounds ‘heavy’, but really it is just putting first and foremost God our Father who first loved us, who gave His Son Jesus for us and who loves to honour us as we get to know Him

What do we do?

Consider the question: “Who am I listening to ?” And then, work on ‘tuning in’ to what He is saying and making that our ‘front page news’.

Revival of kindness

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A willingness to learn new habits and behaviours – the stretched-out queue waiting to be admitted to the Tesco, Belmont, Hereford.
Image credit: Ian Greig

Thought of the day

Luke 9:23-24 NIV
Then He said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it.

Ian Greig writes: My thought today is not about the difficulties, anxieties and losses from Covid 19, real though they are. The other side of the coin is the huge outflow of good that is being seen, not just in hospitals and care homes but among neighbours and in goodwill within communities.

There is a growing realisation that we need one another. And at a challenging time, to support one another without condition. It looks like what we read in the Bible is just happening…

Many people are asking, what is God doing in all of this?Let’s be clear, He doesn’t bring sickness and hardship but at many time in history He has allowed it, and used it. What is intended for harm, He can turn to good.

The turning to good is not always seen directly. Much good political reform came out of the damage of two world wars, but the change was more about people gaining a will to live (and take decisions) differently, than a landmark moment.

What can we see God bringing out of the Covid-19 pandemic? What are we seeing that is good, creative, caring – that reflects God’s goodness? You might add to my list…

  • Selfless dedication (as we clap the NHS and carers)
  • Neighbourly kindness, caring and (in certain ways) sharing
  • Exploration: people seeking and finding spiritual insights and answers
  • Self-discipline: the majority sticking to the guideline restrictions
  • Social creativity: people finding new ways to socialise
  • Innovation and development: from ‘Formula 1’ positive air pressure devices to ‘Airbus’ and ‘Dyson’ ventilator machines and apps for group conversations and streaming.
  • Cycling, running, walking: distancing outdoors
  • Learning new habits: from handwashing to the stretched-out queue and maintaining distance in the aisles.
  • Reflection and slower pace: where the practice of mindfulness was bolted on to busy routines, now restrictions make us think about what we are feeling and doing, and learn as we go.

Very few of these will have been motivated by the thought of being Jesus’s disciples, or even if the cost of followership. They are doing what they believe is right, having put personal gain to one side and personal cost to the other side.

Their beliefs might not yet have caught up with who Jesus is, but their values are reflecting HOW Jesus is. And that, to me, looks like the beginnings of a move of God.

Link to prayer

A suggested prayer on this theme

How weeping can become refreshing

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“A place of refreshing springs…” Willows growing by the side of the Newbridge Brook between Weobley and Dilwyn.
Image credit: Ian Greig

Thought for the day

Psalm 84:5-6
What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs.

On a walk, what we see in the distance can be quite different when we get close. Similarly in life, our reaction to what we see can change dramatically, when we get a different perspective. This is a story of how what appears one way, can turn out differently.

At certain times of year, groups would set out to Jerusalem to celebrate a festival at the Temple. They would walk on bad roads with hills, valleys and dangerous ravines, and they probably gave them nick-names, like we do.The psalm writer’s Valley of Weeping (Hebrew baka) could also be called the Valley of Poplars, a double meaning not lost on the original hearers.

  • Poplars grow close to water — so travellers in a dry, dusty country who saw poplars on the horizon would anticipate being able to drink.

  • There’s a deeper meaning here. The ones “walking through the Valley of Weeping” , are “on a pilgrimage“. So this is a picture of believers on a journey of faith, who (like all of us at times) have hit difficulties. Sometimes difficult times can be dry times — a sense of abandonment, nothing coming from the Lord, no fresh direction. The Valley of Weeping is the right name.
  • But the Valley of Weeping can be turned into the Valley of Poplars, and there’s running water in that valley. There’s a place to drink and be refreshed.

  • The place of “refreshing springs” is where the “times of refreshing” start, Acts 3:19. The psalm points to God’s greater purpose, which is always to bring spiritual renewal.

“Those whose strength comes from the Lord” are the ones “on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem” — walking with the Lord and knowing their destiny with Him. “For you,” the psalmist says, “the valley of tears will become the place of refreshing. Why? Because when we come to the end of ourselves with the Lord, we can find Him in a new way. He’ll let us struggle on for a time, but only so we find the place of refreshing — which we always do if we turn to Him.

The psalm holds out that exact promise.

“Be quiet!”

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A picture of hope or a chilling warning? Image credit: Newsquest

A thought for a challenging day

1 Peter 5:8-9 NIV

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

‘Red zone’ staff in the Covid areas at over 1,000 acute hospitals around the UK are well aware of people being ‘devoured’. On present statistics, most will have the experience of losing patients every day or even, every shift.

The suffering through illness, and for some, an untimely end of life, is hard for us to hear about. It sits a lot heavier for those with friends and relatives affected, or on the front line caring for them under difficult circumstances in care homes or hospitals.

But the ‘roaring lion’ is a not a picture of devouring (real though that is) but is more picture of fear and intimidation. It’s what happens in our thought life – that’s where “your enemy the devil” gets to all of us. If we let him.

The devil and his army of ‘dark angels’ is no myth or metaphor but a real threat and a real attacker. Jesus had His close encounter in the desert at the start of His ministry.

Jesus later told Pharisee antagonists that far from belonging to God, they were under the sway of the devil. The teaching of the letters to the Early Church is forthright about recognising the devil’s schemes and avoiding the trap of the devil, and the need for believers to actively resist. Following the well-known parable of the sower and soils, Jesus explains the three common strategies of the devil to attack the seed, or faith-producing word of God, as the devil “takes away the word from the hearts” of those on the unreceptive, uncultivated ‘path’, causes faith to wither through testing of those on ‘rocky ground’, and chokes the word with worries and pleasures in those inhabiting the ‘thorny ground’. The battleground is in our mind – our thoughts and perceptions. Whose thoughts are we choosing to hold on to?

How we view setbacks — the perspective we adopt — has a huge effect on how we respond to them. Ask Andy Murray how he responds to a missed shot or losing a set.

Christians have a two or three not-exactly-secret weapons.

  1. We face an enemy who makes a lot of noise but is defeated. More to thj point, this enemy knows that WE KNOW this. Our identification and relationship with the One who has been the sacrifice on the Cross, now resurrected, living and reigning, gives us a confidence in how we pray.
  2. We know how the story ends, and through that relationship with the Lord, how our own story ends — or rather, doesn’t end but continues in eternal life and fellowship.
  3. We know God. And if we know Him, we hardly need reminding that He is good, and His plans and purposes, if not always easy to understand, will work out for good. We are saved and also being saved, because He loves us.

So what do we say to the noisy ‘lion’ now? Be quiet, take off your lion outfit and go and play elsewhere! Meanwhile, having dealt with the intimidation, we have work to do, in praying down the peace and healing presence of God on those who are crying out to Him.

Luke 8:4-15; John 8:44; Ephesians 4:27; 2 Timothy 2:26; James 4:7

How HOPE prepares you to hear from God

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This is an anxious uncertain time. The scare of sickness and possible death. A very difficult time for business – some cannot operate. People cut off from friends and family. Living a locked-down, restricted life. And perhaps the worst part is the absence of positive anticipation, a sense of how this might end, which is what keep us going. We watch the daily updates, and we revere Professor Chris Whitty, a lovable boffin with his tie and collar never quite in agreement, and listen carefully to he sepulchral tones of Sir Patrick Vallance and his charts — silently asking “What hope do you have for us today?”

But that’s not where real hope is found. And the “word” we crave is going to come in a different way – if we are in the right place to discern it. This short thought from the Bible (4 1/2 mins) will help us to hear. –Ian Greig

Rev Ian Greig