From Wendy Gourlay

January – a new beginning?

What are you thinking when you take down Christmas cards and pack up decorations for another year?  Are you rejoicing that a hectic festive period is over and some semblance of order can be ‘restored’ to your life?

Just for a moment, consider the lives of the Shepherds and Wise men after their experience, meeting the Christ child?  Did they simply return to their previous lifestyles, unaffected, unaltered in attitude? 

I’m not sure, I have ever really thought about ‘their spiritual journey’ and whether any lessons learnt impact our lives today.  Such questions may also have been ‘neatly put away’!

The shepherds, (how many, we’re not sure, but enough to be witness to one another of their amazing experience) are shocked when given a revelation of the glory of God.  They’re given direction: told to ‘go’: to look for Jesus (the baby).  They obey and discover truth: as when they seek for themselves they discover exactly what had been promised.

Outcome?  They were changed people and their confidence grew as they shared their knowledge with others.  (See Luke 2:20)

And the Wise Men?  (Matthew 2)  They too had been given a sign, a revelation.  They too, obeyed the request to journey.  They too found what had been promised.  They too were able to discuss and discern their experience amongst themselves.  They received affirmation of what they had witnessed.  They too were overjoyed. 

Outcome?  We’re told they ‘returned to their country by another route’.  (Certainly, danger loomed if they returned to Herod who wanted information for his own devilish plot.) But, could ‘returned to their country by another route’ be considered as a metaphor for their changed attitude and change of heart as they resumed their life in their home territory?  That, having ‘obeyed’ God, sought Christ, and found him, they discovered their inner lives were changed, for ever, despite their initial great trepidation and fear. 

And what of your life? 

Is ‘restoration’ actually something quite different to what you originally thought?

Perhaps we all need a calm period in January to take ‘time out’ to make our own journey, in our own way: a new beginning.

May God bless your thoughts and outcome.

Wendy Gourlay

 

From Gill Lee

As I write this, it is just over a week since my husband Graham and I moved from London to Suffolk, and two days since my Induction as Minister of Earl Soham Baptist Church.  There are still a few unpacked boxes, and the mystery of my missing saucepans continues, but I am so happy to be here!  My thoughts at present are a jumbled mixture of genuine joy and excitement, just tinged with nostalgia as I think of much-loved friends with whom I shall no longer be sharing Christmas celebrations and New Year plans. 

Indeed, this is the time of year when many if not all of us indulge in a little melancholy musing, while we seek to look forward into the New Year with hope and optimism.  TV schedules and newspapers encourage these conflicting emotions, filled as they are with treacly nostalgia alongside ominous mutterings of an impending Armageddon.  Barring some dramatic breaking news story, the media at this time of the year seems to share in an unspoken conspiracy to do all that it can to prevent us from just living in, and enjoying, the present.  We’re either inundated with retrospectives and reviews on everything from sports to news, films to politics, in a general frenzy of self-congratulation and navel-gazing, or we’re subjected to terrifying doom-laden documentaries predicting the fulfilment of our worst nightmares; nuclear attack, global warming and the death of the countryside, health service, education system, postal service - indeed, life as we know it, if we believe the pundits, may well cease before Big Ben strikes midnight to draw this coming year to a close.

In truth none of us knows what the reality of 2007 will be, but as the song says, we know who holds the future.  Perhaps we would do well to take on board the Apostle Paul’s advice as we venture out onto the virgin snows of a new year.  In his letter to the Christians at Ephesus Paul writes: “Be careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15 NIV).

We may not need to be reminded that “the days are evil”, but I know that I do need to learn again and again to “Make the most of every opportunity”.  It always seems that one of the things Satan so often tries to rob us of is time, because it is such a precious possession, and such an unknown quantity.  Time, not necessarily to cram full of ‘doing’ more things, but time to ‘be’, time to enjoy God and his creation and his people, time to share with others, time to read his Word, time to talk to Him; time to get my priorities in line with His. 

That’s surely part of what Paul means when he says “be careful how you live”.  Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase puts it thus: “watch your step.  Use your head”.  Perhaps 2007 will finally be the year for getting my head right?  (Graham lives in hope!)

Wouldn’t it be good if 2007 is the year when we get our value system in line with God’s?  When HE heads our list of priorities.  When our relationship with him is the crucial influence on all our decisions, our relationships, our schedules, our finances, our approach to life?

Someone once said: “life is what happens to you while you’re making plans to do something else”.  A whole New Year stretches before us and I look forward to the privilege of getting to know and to share this year with many of you.  My prayer for all of us is that the Lord will help us to make the most of the opportunities he give us in this often tough and sad world, to make a difference for Him.

“The night is over, dawn is about to break.  Be up and awake to what God is doing!”  (Romans 13:11 Message Version)

Happy New Year!

Gill Lee