Author: korgrocker

The chimney was belching forth an acrid, pungent, plume of smoke and steam. Polluting the air around me. It was otherwise one of those calm, fresh, crisp, early March mornings. Temperature just above freezing. Overnight rain had stopped and the threat of further inclemency had receded. But back to my neighbour with his wood burning stove (“multi-fuel” he calls it). It wouldn’t be so bad if he was burning the sort of fuel that is supposed to be used, but he tends to pile all sorts of rubbish onto the flames. But society has changed. It wasn’t so long ago that every house had an open fireplace, burning coal mainly. Particularly in the West of Fife where I live, populated as it has been by miners using their weekly allowance of coal. In fact the adjacent village of Oakley, nestling in a hollow adjacent to the main Dunfermline to Stirling road, was nicknamed “Smoakley” because of the pall of smoke gushing from chimneys which, on still days, filled the atmosphere like a dense fog. But the mining days are long gone, and a gas main provides the main source of heating fuel in our village today.

For society to function well, it needs people who put the rights of others before their own. Most people around me are good neighbours but there’s always a few who don’t care for others. But before I extend my “rant” to another neighbour with her loud radio and tuneless vocals,  I have to remember what Jesus said about our neighbours. He was very clear about what being neighbourly meant, with His teachings based on the Good Samaritan parable, and His quotation from Deuteronomy 22 – “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important:‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Paul wrote as well in Philippians 2 – “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too”.

So I won’t go and hammer on Bill’s door. Instead, I’ll pray for him and his wood burning stove, that I will be more tolerant, and that he will find something suitable to burn that doesn’t make us all choke. And we’ll get on fine. But that woman – when I was at school I built an electronics device that jammed radio broadcasts. I wonder what I did with the circuit diagram…

There’s “stour” on the main road between where we live and the county of Clackmannanshire. “Stour” is a great Scottish word, meaning “dust forming a cloud or deposited in a mass”. That aptly describes the mess left on the road by the constant procession of lorries moving the remains of coal mining in the West of Fife to somewhere else, a red dust that quickly coats every car panel and window. Vehicles quickly attract this dust and the process of removal requires rinsing, washing, rinsing again, with perhaps a periodic polish to build up a protective layer that will help remove the dirtiness next time. But it is easy to lose heart, as many do, because the next journey sees the return of “stour”. And those who fail to keep their vehicle clean are easily spotted – usually the number plate has acquired the same ubiquitous coating as that covering the rest of their pride and joy. Some even say that eventually the dirtiness plateaus (or is it plateaux) and doesn’t get any worse.

I think you know where I’m heading – our Christian lives can suffer from “stour”. Not a physical dust or grime, but a negative and sinful accumulation of rubbish picked up as we journey through life. Switch on the TV and watch the news – very little is “good”, most is “bad”. Adverts blast us with invitations to buy more, eat more, watch more; in fact very little of it is necessary. And around us the conversation easily lapses into unwholesome talk about others. And our own sinful lusts and passions add to the mix. So we need to regularly wash and rinse off the sinful “stour” that can so easily cover us. Two Scriptures come to mind. We have Ephesians 5:25b-26, ”Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.” And also 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

But we cannot afford to lose heart and let the “stour” accumulate. We must constantly confess our sins, read the Bible, cleansing ourselves and, by so doing, building up a spiritual “polish” that can help prevent the sin from sticking; thus helping us as we journey towards perfection in a new life to come. Another helpful Scripture is James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” And Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

So, fellow journeymen and women, let’s keep going in our Christian walk, not giving up. One day the coal bing will be gone and the accumulation of dirt will disappear. And so with us, one day we will be in the presence of Jesus, free for ever from the “stour” of human life.

We live in extraordinary times. In all my adult life, I don’t think I have known so much political instability. We seem to be living in a decade of division and disunity. Years of “yah-boo” politics have disenfranchised an increasingly disenchanted Joe Public. Months of mayhem have dominated our news. Journalists ghoulishly pick over the bones of politicians’ one-line interviews, analysing who said what, why and when. Panels of so-called experts pontificate and argue, achieving nothing. The currency markets bounce up and down, seemingly in need of financial diazepam to dampen the fiscal anxieties and worries. Sometimes living in a croft in a far-away, self-sufficient place seems a very attractive proposition!

Bible narratives, particularly in the Old Testament, described many occasions where God’s people suffered greatly from the excesses of the civilisations of their times. But as they discovered, lifting our eyes off of the tumult of today into the face of God immediately brings a different viewpoint. One of peace and security. Scriptures such as “the LORD is my fortress, protecting me from danger” (Psalm 27:1), and “the nations of the world are worth nothing to him. In his eyes they count for less than nothing—mere emptiness and froth” (Isaiah 40:17), join many others in describing what God thinks of it all.

In times of stress we must remember where our Source and Security is. Remember the chorus of the old hymn? 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Let’s meditate on what the Scriptures say about the Kingdom of God, dimming out the chaotic excesses of the kingdom of this world and looking on from a position of security, “hidden in His sanctuary” (Psalm 27:5).

It was time for harvesting the timber. A forest of coniferous trees, planted a few decades before. Gone are the days of men in check shirts and jeans, wielding an axe with strength and precision. These days amazing machines grab, cut, remove branches and stack the trunks, prior to shipping them off to be used for wood pulp at local paper mills, or whatever.

The fir trees disappeared over a few days, leaving a new vista of scrub and stumps. But the lumberjacks, or whatever they are called these days, had left a deciduous tree on its own, standing tall in the middle of devastation. Its trunk was thin, twisted, spindly, warped, even anaemic, deeply affected by the coniferous thuggery that had crowded out its normal growth patterns. No branches, just a burst of growth at the top, where it managed to find its own supply of life-giving sunlight. I don’t know how it got there. Perhaps a seed carried by the wind. Or deposited by an animal. But it found itself in an environment foreign to what suits it best. And in spite of the obstacles, it survived and flourished as best it could. It could have given up, beaten by the difficulties, but it continued to fight its way regardless of its circumstances.

We go through life, shaped and moulded by our experiences. Sometimes our natural growth patterns prevail. At other times we get stunted by the environment in which we find ourselves. But we have a choice – we either fight our way through, overcoming whatever circumstances life throws at us, or we give up and settle for second best. Easily said I know, but Paul has given us an example in Philippians 1, where he used his incarceration in a Roman prison to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the palace guard. And by so doing, he has encouraged many Christians through the ages since. He could have wallowed in self-pity, riven by depression, but instead he fought his way through the injustice of his imprisonment to spread the message of the Son of God.

I don’t know what will happen to the tree now. It’s probably confused, but once Spring arrives, I’m sure it will shout a burst of thanks and start sprouting the greenery at the top, and perhaps even a shoot or two from its trunk. Nothing to hold it back now. An overcomer.

It’s now early January. But a couple of days before Christmas, I remember a particular cold and frosty morning with clear skies. A Sunday morning. There was no wind, very little traffic, quietness and peacefulness reigned as the sky started to lighten in the East and birds started to wake up. A raucous bleat from the village goats (the local pub has a menagerie of chickens, ducks, geese and several goats) broke the silence, but then stopped. Plumes of steam rose up vertically from central heating flues, lifting and spreading under the street lamps, creating ghostly wraiths emphasising the stillness of the morning, bringing a sense of mystery. But in all the peace and stillness of that morning, I felt a sense of anticipation, as though someone had hit the pause button. Like a suspended chord of music, or a semicolon in a sentence, that morning was awaiting the next stanza, the next verse. On that morning, I was meditating again, but with a new freshness, on the fact that the Creator of the Universe loves me and all mankind so much that He left Heaven and came as a human baby, born out of wedlock to a teenage Jewish girl, in humble circumstances, into the bottom end of society; an inauspicious start, but one that developed into a miraculous ministry culminating in His horrible death at Calvary. His message and life invites everyone to come to Him for the forgiveness of their sins so that they can enjoy eternal life with God Himself. What a wonderful Saviour! What a wonderful future! What a wonderful invitation!

And the bright morning star, Venus, was shining a welcome, as it has done for countless millennia. The stability of the natural world reminds me of the message that God brings, that He has world events well under control. Yes, looking at the political and economic fragility of our times, it may be hard to see social stability, if any in fact exists at all, but God is there. He cares enough to have sent His own Son to declare a different order, the Kingdom of God, which overlays and infuses our society with a future and a hope. And God will allow nothing to happen that threatens His order, His Kingdom. And in this post-Christmas period, I still feel a sense of anticipation because the Babe in the manger is still with us, touching us through His Spirit, bringing a message of hope and security to a lost world. Our world is full of suspended chords and semicolons, leading into the next stanza of life. We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that Jesus will be there with us. Thank You Lord!

James 1:17 Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

It’s early, on a late November morning. The heavy rain of an hour ago has ceased and the clouds are parting to expose a pale blue-grey sky, brighter in the East. The brightness of the new LED street lamps is slowly receding in the increasing dawn light. Still, many heavy and menacing clouds are hanging around but two celestial bodies are undimmable in their splendour – Venus to the South East and the Moon to the West. They have been shining out, not just in this dawn, but ever since the dawn of time. Declaring, to all who bother to look up, that all that we see has been created by a wonderful God, a Being unstinting in His love and power. He reminded me this morning that, like these two orbs, He is unchanging, always there. The clouds may come and go, obscuring these lights from time to time. The daylight outshines them. People ignore them. Astronomers take them for granted. But that changes nothing. Like these celestial manifestations, God is always there. I looked up again – the moon had disappeared behind the clouds. But Venus is still shining out, a bright pinprick in the blue-grey dawn, but dimming as the day fast approaches. Faith starts to kick in; we know they will be there again tomorrow, as sure as we know that God is always there for us.

I was walking by some tall, broad-leafed trees. Sycamore, I think. The morning was crisp. Blue sky. Cold but still. Archie was rooting around under the fallen leaves, sampling the odours so interesting to our canine friends. But more leaves were falling, loosened by the overnight frost. They fell, silently, gently, like large multi-hued snowflakes. A variety of colours, from bright greens through yellows and golds, to browns and blacks. There was a sense of sadness, looking at these marvels of nature, each one unique, as they drifted to earth, work done. Making way for a Winter to come, and a Spring to follow. But in their death they were exhibiting an explosion of different, vibrant, colours, as a final demonstration, a final shout of praise to their Creator. But isn’t it wonderful that very soon, out of dead looking twigs and branches, buds will start to grow, swelling with new life, getting ready to explode into a green expression of praise to our wonderful God once again. One season moves into the next as God ordains.

A new pastor is being inducted into our church soon. He’s leading us into a new season. Not to say the old one was bad, far from it! But, like the falling leaves, it had fulfilled and completed its God-ordained purpose. A new season brings new growth, new life. New “leaves” that will not wither until their purpose is completed. Let us be like the Revelation 22 trees, drinking from the river of life that flows from the very throne of God. Producing fruit every month and leaves that heal the nations as we touch those around us with the love of Jesus. Not for me a life winding down to death and decay!

A few weeks ago I spotted a squirrel. Nothing amazing about it, grey with a big bushy tail. It was motionless, gripping a tree trunk about 20 feet away, eying me warily. As I looked, it decided that discretion was in order so it scampered a few feet higher, and
stopped to look at me again. Too close, it thought. So a few more feet, onto a branch. And then onto a thinner one, and again. After another couple of branches it was near the tree top, onto a thin bendy twig, where it seemed to balance with difficulty. But no going back for this bushy acrobat. It stopped, unsure what to do next, looking around. Within reach was a similar appendage from an adjacent tree. So it made a leap, not taking into account the risks of launching from an unstable platform. It made a grab for the next piece of tree, missed, and proceeded to crash its way down through the foliage before hitting the ground where I lost sight of it. I couldn’t find it so I presume it scampered off, hopefully the wiser from the experience.

I mused on the sequence of events for a while, and concluded that the Christian life can and should involve taking risks. Peter took a risk when he stepped out of the boat and walked towards Jesus. Peter and John took a risk when they said to the beggar, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk”. Peter could have stayed in the boat, safe and dry. Peter and John could have walked past the beggar, safe from potential ridicule. The squirrel could have hidden on the opposite side of the tree trunk, safe from prying eyes. How many of us, in things spiritual, have a propensity to stay safe? Not wanting to risk the experience of leaping into the unknown and coming back to earth with a bump. But the kingdom of God is full of risk taking. It’s the way we develop our spiritual muscle, faith. Peter didn’t wake up one morning and decide that he was going to walk across the Sea of Galilee. He had observed the miracles Jesus had performed. Even participated in them. And, briefly at least, he walked by faith, faith in the Master whom he could trust. We looked at Ephesians 3:20 last Sunday, the verse where it suggests God can do immeasurably more than we can imagine through the power He has put to work within us. The challenge for all of us is to tap into that power and make it work in the situations we come across every day. Yes, we might come crashing down a few times, but by building our faith through small steps, one day we will find we can take a big leap.

According to an old Rob Bell video, we live between two trees. In Genesis 2:9 there’s a tree of life, and it was referred to again in Revelation 22:2. And in between, the Bible mentions thirty-seven different varieties of tree in fifty-five separate verses (isn’t Google wonderful!). So trees have a special role in the Bible. I love the Psalm 1 tree, comparing a person who loves God’s ways being like a tree planted by water, firmly rooted and yielding fruit. And there’s the wonderful verses in Isaiah 61 about God’s favour leading to people being comforted and called “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord”.

A few years ago I took a photo of two trees in Cumbria. They were large trees, quite mature, located in the middle of a field being grazed by sheep. I wasn’t close enough to see what they were, but I was struck by the contrast. You see, one of the trees was very much alive, but the other was completely dead. The dead tree must have started life as a seed, growing to maturity, but then some calamity struck. But, spiritually, it is the other way round for us. Psalm 51 says we were sinful (dead in our sins) from the moment of conception. But then we were made alive when Jesus was raised from the dead (Ephesians 2:5). Transformed from death to life. There are other analogies that can be drawn, I’m sure. All I know is that I would rather be the tree full of life. There’s something sad-looking and terminal about the other.

Two seagulls, adolescent, still displaying some of their early brown plumage. They were having a ball. If seagulls could smile, they would have been grinning from ear to ear.

I was standing at the top of the cliffs at Old Hartley Bay, just North of Whitley Bay. There was a lively breeze coming onshore from the North East. Steady but cold, bringing with it a damp foggy but bracing atmosphere. Below me, the sea was lapping at the small beach, waves driven by the wind, surf crashing over the rocks still visible, as they poked their weathered heads up through the spray and foam yet again, through another high tide and weather system.

But back to the juvenile gulls. They had worked out that by simply setting their wings optimally, they could use the force and direction of the breeze to propel them through a figure of eight course, that took them out to sea and then back skimming the waves before the updraught at the cliff face lifted them up and over the fence at the top. There a simple adjustment of their wings turned them along the cliff top and then back out to sea again. I stood spell bound for over five minutes until Archie decided there were no more smells to explore and it was time to move on. But the amazing thing about the gulls was that they did not need to flap their wings at all. They just seemed to be enjoying the moment and their God-designed and given aerodynamics.

In Isaiah 40 we read, “But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” The gulls certainly “soared high like eagles” and never seemed to grow weary of, or faint in, their activity. But did they find new strength by trusting in the Lord? The didn’t consciously have to – they just instinctively accepted what God had supplied for them. But for us humans, God has blessed us with a thinking mind and we have the ability to choose. So am I going to be weary and faint today, or gain new strength by trusting in the Lord? But the answer should be a “no-brainer”. Let’s choose today (and every day!) to be strengthened in the provision that God has made available to us, setting our spiritual wings to soar on the updraughts of His Spirit, trusting Him for all the strength we need. And stop flapping our metaphorical wings frantically trying to reach cliff tops in our own strength.