Where should we go?

It felt very different as I last week was driving to the weekly football match with the guys from Fitton Hill. It was the day we had gone to summer time, so I was not driving in the dark, it wasn't even close to being dark. Not only that, the display on my control panel showed the temperature in double digits, which definitely was a first. I still remember the Sunday evening as I was driving in pitch darkness to the game and the display told me the temperature outside was 0.5 degrees Celcius!

It was light, it was warm (well 11 degrees felt like warm), but there was more to suggest this was going to be the perfect evening for a football match. It was the first match of the new season and we had been relegated last season. This mean that instead of playing against teams, where we would need small miracles to win, we should now be competing against teams on our own level – it could feel in my bones a victory was coming.

We ended up losing 2-1, but we could, and should, have won. Usually I have gone home after losing without caring about it, we did not stand a chance anyway, but this time I drove home irritated. I play to win, and when we actually had the chance, but through our own bad play did not grab it, then it is frustrating. The frustration disappeared quickly though, but not the memory of playing football in nice conditions with good friends. I have been looking forward to the next match all week. Friday, as I was cycling home from the office, it was just so nice weather and I could not help thinking of how it would be to play football with the sun shining and in almost perfect conditions.

Today is the day. We are of course going to the service this morning and I probably will have to do some serious reading afterwards, trying to catch up on my essays, but then it is all about football. It wasn't my first thought when I woke up this morning, but it probably was the second. As I got out of bed and looked out the window I thought of the game tonight, not because of sheer joy and excitement, but because everything was white. It had snowed during the night! Very quickly my mind was working out how I could get out of the game tonight, what excuse I could put forward. One thing is playing football when the sun is shining and the temperature pleasant, it is not quite as enjoyable when it is cold and icy. It was a disappointment. I had been looking forward to the game all week, but now I quiet evening in front of the telly seemed so much more appealing. I was ready to give it up.

This is only about football, but the pattern is often the same when you work with people in ministry. After a long winter, the sun begins to shine. You begin to see God breaking through, lives begin to change and you experience His manifested presence when you gather for worship or prayer. You not only understand, but experience what Jesus meant when he said "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you". There is excitement in the air and you begin to dream of where this is taking you. This is what church is supposed to be, this is what life in the Spirit means. And then one day, as you full of faith draw the curtain, it has snowed. Maybe it is someone, who has experienced the transforming power of Jesus Christ in their life, who has fallen back. Maybe it is a disagreement between the leaders, probably about something less than important. Maybe some of your leaders, or potential leaders, decide to move on. Maybe you lose your worship leader. It can be a hundred different things, or maybe more likely several different things, which on their own could be overcome, but added together they seriously impact life in and around you. The excitement doesn't reach the same level, nor the experience of God's presence. You think back to the sunny day, just last week, but as you look out the imaginary window, your wonder whether you should just pack it in. Whether it is time to give up and live on the memories of what has been.

This experience can be a corporate one, as in the life of a church, or it can be a very personal one, as our experience of Jesus and His Spirit somehow is not as it used to be. What do we do?

We don't really have a choice, do we? At a time when many disciples were leaving, even deserting, Jesus, he asks the twelve "You do not want to leave too, do you?" and Peter answers "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life". What Peter is saying is "We don't have a choice. There is no one else we can go to, no one who has what you have". Isn't it the same for us? We have seen the Kingdom, we have tasted the fruit of the promised land and we realise nothing else, or rather no one else, can ever satisfy us? We have seen the Kingdom and yet we have to live with the fact that the Kingdom is the already and the not yet. That we will not fully experience and live in His Kingdom before God restores all things in a new heaven and a new earth. Equally we see that God's eternal life, life in the dimension of the Spirit, has broken into our time and lives. The Kingdom is here now and we can but pray "Your Kingdom Come" and pray and do our part for it to become true to an ever greater extent.

If we stop up to think we probably will recognize that while we might have experienced a setback, that circumstances have affected our faith and enthusiasm, then we actually have not fallen back to where we were before. We are still on a much higher level than we used to be. When we look around we see people, who are not what they used to be. When we look inside, we realise we are not what we used to be. We should rejoice over this and give God thanks. At the same time we should not lower our faith or expectancy, we should not settle for the ordinary and plain in the Spirit. Jesus made it very clear "I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full". This is the promise, this is what God want us to experience and live in. When our present reality does not match the promises of God, we should not try to lower the promises to the level of our reality, but seek to raise our experience to the level of the promises.

So what do we do? We thank God for all his blessings. We thank him for the transformation in and around us that has taken place. And then we confess we are not satisfied as things are now, we pray for more. More of what only God can give us. More of his Spirit, more of his presence revealed among us, more of his power, more of Him! We pray with the prophet "Lord, I have heard of our fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known" We lift our eyes to him and then we wait for the Lord, knowing that no one, who sets their hope on the Lord will be let down. We wait, not in a passive sense, hanging around to see if God turns up, but in an active way, expecting it to happen as we do what we can do, so God can do what only he can.

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you"!

Would love to write more, but do not have time. Have to get ready to play football tonight!