A Word to The Weary

 

(Inspecting damage in Gaza - Ahmed Hasaballah/Getty images)

I mean: where do I start?

With all the war, murder, mayhem and malevolence – from Maine in the USA to Gaza in Palestine, passing Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen on the way – we are all just getting war-weary as well as suffering from PDST. You read it right; it’s not a typo! I do mean Post-Disaster-Stressful-Trauma.

Even so, we also have many personal traumas and, shall we say, challenges, on a daily basis.

I do have my own struggles – and resting in the overwhelming love of God the Father, Mother and Son takes getting used to, after all the guilt and shame of the sinful-and-separated lies I have been choked with, one way or another. The toughest part of my recent experience, though, is trusting – really trusting – that I am hearing the Holy Spirit and not deluding myself with “name-it-and-claim-it,” so-called “Word-of-Faith” self-assurance, which is mostly whistling in the dark, as far as I can make out.

The thing is, though: our Father – who is Love – is always communicating with all of us, all the time. We, and our spirits, which are indwelt and inbreathed by Holy Spirit, are, as Jacob discovered in his “Stairway to Heaven” dream, never out of touch with God! The issue, then, lies in whether we live as aligned to that reality; whether, in a phrase I coined (as far as I know), we have “activated our subscription”.

This being true, I have, nevertheless, had a hard time trusting my inner witness, and stepping out in Christ’s faith – the one He has given me.  Do you know what I’m talking about? I’m pretty sure you do.

So, there I am sitting in a prayer and Bible study meeting ahead of mid-week Eucharist, and the leader invites us to discuss what’s going on in Exodus 33: 7-23, (especially verses 7-16). He then summarises our various contributions and suggests we take a few moments of silence to ask the Holy Spirit to show us in what way we, individually, might be distinct (v.16) and how that distinctiveness might function as part of the Body of Christ and in the world. The strong intuition I had was of hearing God’s word and proclaiming (“preaching”) it in the context of my life and those I interacted with.

My first conclusion was that I was fanaticising about becoming “someone,” who can teach and preach the Word of God – especially the true Gospel, which has been in short supply these past 1700 years. This couldn’t be God’s actual thought about me then, could it?

In breakout groups we were encouraged to share what we had “heard” and pray with and for one another in that context. A quite spiritually animated (shall I say?) sister focused her – and the group’s - attention on me (who had not shared anything at that point!) and told me/us that she believed the Lord was revealing my distinction as described in a scripture (Isaiah 50:4 as it turned out): The LORD has given me the tongue of the discipled [“one who is taught”], that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

I was “gobsmacked,” as the saying goes! I said “Wow! What is going on?” – and then shared what I had “heard” in our time of silence. Everyone was excited, gracious, and truly pleased for me. I, like Mary, went home after Eucharist “pondering these things in [my] heart.”

What I didn’t share was my “morning by morning” experience, though. For quite some while now (years, rather than months) I have been cultivating a contemplative approach to my waiting before the Lord, morning, and evening. The method is also known as “Centring Prayer,” and we are advised that about 20 minutes of silence is needed to “align” us spirit-to-Spirit, as it were. I have found that, rather than setting some sort of alarm – however restful in tone! – I would be encouraged if I heard the Holy Spirit say when the “time” was up. It doesn’t actually matter of course – not to One for whom 1,000 years is a day, and a day 1,000 years – if we sit for five, ten or 50 minutes. The point is how I feel, and our God will always meet us in our need – even to knowing when 20 minutes of silence is up!

In the days prior to the meeting which I describe above, my signal prompt to come out of my silence came, to the exact minute, 20 minutes after I began! So, for example, if I began at 06.16 on my bedside clock, I would ‘hear’ my prompt at 06.36! This, gently and day after day, had been reassuring me (how infantile, I know!) that I was/am hearing the Lord, even in such a trivial matter. It overwhelms me, how God’s love, care, concern, and kindness are always for us, and ready to meet us in the simplest of places.

You can imagine my emotions, driving home!

As I continue on my most unlikely path of consideration and discernment about lay ministry – or even ordination – in the Church of England, this whole combination of God’s touching kindness and attention to my needs, as well as the extraordinary “word of knowledge” - as some circles describe the kind of intervention my sister-in-Christ made on my account – have come at an important time for me. Because, if I do have the ear of one who is taught; and I am being prepared to give God’s word to the weary (as a Lay minister, ordained minister, or other distinction) this is both serious and scary, yet also quite awesomely humbling.

We are all, without question, weary, at this time, and for a number of internal and external reasons. I can’t tell you how passionately I have prayed, daily, the words of Psalm 51:12-13: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.” (NRSV) or, as the Passion Translation renders these lines:

Let my passion for life be restored,

tasting joy in every breakthrough

You bring to me.

Hold me close to You with a willing

Spirit

that obeys whatever You say.

Then I can show other guilty ones

how loving and merciful You are.

They will find their way back home

to You,

knowing that You will forgive them.

 

In fact, in the glorious grace of the Gospel, the Good News is: Oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! (Psalm 32:1, NLT). This is the same Lord, Father, and Mother who "pardon all our iniquities," and for whom "as far as East is from West, so far have [they] removed out transgressions from us..." (Psalm 103: 3,12 NRSV). Indeed, one translation has it as: "Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven; whose guilt is removed." We are already forgiven, even before we realise our disobedience and ignorance. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father is already running towards his returning son before he even arrived and made his "repentance" speech. Indeed, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Themselves," Paul reminds us - "and given to us the ministry of reconciliation."  So, a word to the weary: Christ in you, your hope of glory. All of us!

 *Extra! Extra! I have made a new friend on Facebook, from Canada, jess Boudreaux, who is preparing for ordination. See her beautiful blog is on Substack