The Suddenlys of Life
My friend Peter died just a few days before Christmas. It was sudden.
A few months previously we had all celebrated his 60th
birthday; a very happy occasion. A year previously Peter had come through a
major heart operation with flying colours. He and Deborah, the love of his life
and his best friend, had just settled into their new "downsize" house
for their final years, they were also first-time grandparents and new
parents-in-law for the second time.
Peter was driving, visiting a young man he mentored; they
think something happened with his heart, his foot went down on the accelerator
and his car crashed into a tree. Suddenly. So unexpected.
Trish and I were camping down South when we received an SMS
message from Deb. I went into shock at the news; a very heavy sense of loss overcame
me, this stayed with me for many days and still fills me from time to time.
When I'd visited Peter a few days previously he was so full of life and was
busy working out priorities for the year to come. Peter and Deb's Christmas
newsletter had not long been mailed out, it was full of thankfulness and glory
to God for the richness, abundance and hope in their lives; most of this was in
everyday things like family and friends .. relationships .. and having
worth-while things to do, including things to do for Jesus.
It was the suddenness of Peter's passing which has brought
me to see that we have many "suddenlys" in our lives. No matter how
carefully we plan, or how hard we work, or how carefully we save and invest our
resources, we can never guarantee any
outcome. Surprising things impact us and can change everything in a heartbeat!
Two weeks after Peter's passing, just a few days after
Christmas, Western Australia had a terrible
"suddenly" about 120 kilometres, about 75 miles, south of Perth , our capital. Lightening started a
bushfire which spread rapidly; the country town of Yarloop was in one of the paths of the fire
and was very badly hit. Two people were killed and others injured. More than
160 homes were destroyed and many properties too, but more than that, because
the damage was so widespread the whole community was shattered .. many people
lost their place-in-the-world as well
as their home and possessions. There is possibly not enough left there for the
remaining people to carry on as a town.
All around me people were shocked by this event so
close to home .. just think how it is for the Parisians and others whose cities
have seen Islamic terror. We cannot prepare .. it is all so sudden ..
In The Beginning Was
The Word
Thinking about all this got me to focus again on
"faith, hope, and love", a theme of the New Testament, (1 Corinthians 13:13, Colossians 1:5, 1
Thessalonians 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:8).
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction or the reality of things not yet seen" (Hebrews 11:1).
So long as we have hope, faith
can fill our heart and bring us peace: "Now
faith is the assurance, the confirmation, the certain knowledge, of the things
we hope for, it is the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of
their reality; faith perceiving as real what is presently only revealed to our
spirit".
Scripture testifies that we
can hang onto faith, hope and love when everything else seems to be stripped;
faith and hope and love are on our insides, part of that essence of who we are,
beyond the dictates of our society, or "trending", or the lies of
"political correctness" or what our shallow "news" people
say.
As the practical realities of
our lives change, our faith and hope and love can be diminished; I know that
this is true for me. Yet there's always something, a remnant, hanging on,
clinging to hope, certain in it's rightness and true belonging. To me this is
ultimate faith, and ultimately we can rest on the "faith, hope, and
love" Jesus has built up in us. After a very trying event when I've been
stretched to the limit, I can look back in gratitude that Jesus never let me
go, that He was there right through this "suddenly" event, ready to
help me pick up the pieces when it was over, and carry on with life in all it's
beauty and variety and learning and success and failure.
Bless Jesus! He stands firm! My friend Peter was a mature man when he found
Jesus, as was I, (really, Jesus found us)! In each case our coming to Him was a
series of "suddenly" events, revelations and leaps forward. A decade
earlier we would probably have thought that our becoming a "born
again" committed Christian was a very silly idea, impossible.
"The lines of purpose in
your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven,
kept taut by hope. The Gospel message is as true among you today as when you first
heard it. It doesn't diminish or weaken over time" (Colossians 1:5 Message).
I began to make a list of
"suddenlys" in my life, starting in my childhood. I wrote down many
events that were setbacks, embarrassments, mistakes - you know, negatives. Then I
reminded myself that there have also been many positive "suddenlys";
and these were mostly to do with relationships .. Sure coming second in a national rowing race
was wonderful, as was climbing a very high mountain or being able to attend a
whole season of the London Proms concerts. But it's the people moments in my life which
add the colour, the great significant times with loved ones are
"suddenlys" which bring a lasting glow.
My Best
"Suddenly"
On my first trip to New York
I saved up Greenwich village and the jazz bars
until Saturday night. The first place I went had great music. Soon after I got
there I saw a tall, slim, beauty come in the door with a tall, handsome, young
man. Wow. A long story .. we got talking, the guy was her brother, and she was Trish! I fell in love with her
across the room. "Suddenly!" I still feel the same al these years later; we
have six gorgeous children and such vibrant grand-kids! And also such lovely
daughters-in-law and special ones. Trish and I found Jesus together, I'm sure
that without that "suddenly" with her, Jesus may not have found my
heart softened enough that He could approach me ..
And A Long Tough "Suddenly"
When we had just four children I worked on a ground-breaking
IT project in New York .
I used to visit the IT labs in the city where these unbelievably smart people were stretching technology. My project was one of the first in the world to use
CDs; they weren't even called CDs yet, the international committees were still
deciding on names, formats and protocols, and each shiny disk came in its own
plastic case (like a floppy disk) and held more than 700 megabytes of data;
(the biggest PC hard drives at that time held 100 megabytes and cost $US 7000!)
It was the most exciting work I had ever done; I was successful and highly
regarded and in New York !
"Suddenly" I went from this heady, very well paid
work to long term unemployment when we came back to Australia . We had savings .. and
then suddenly they were gone! It was very hard. Four children under 9 years ..
then 6 under 11!
"Now you're the
one trapped in terror, paralysed by fear. Suddenly the tables have turned! How do you like living in the dark,
sightless, and up to your neck in flood waters?
"You agree, don't you, that God is in charge? He runs the universe
- just look at the stars" (Job 22:10-12 Message).
Ever Blessed In Jesus
But, although that time was very hard, we were also so very blessed. Jesus had drawn
both Trish and me to Himself. We learned how to be very "other". Without a job Western men are quite out of step with normal life. Besides
having to make do with very little family income, men without a job feel
inadequate, impotent and adrift. I grieved that my wife and family suddenly
could not do all the things the families around us were doing. I became very
frustrated at the apparent uselessness of my existence, at my inability to
achieve anything of significance in life or work or fortune.
Jesus The Anchor
Faith, hope and love are gifts from a loving Father and a
very sacrificial Saviour by their Holy Spirit. They are spiritual gifts! This is not to say that my relationship with God
was all sweetness and light; I was often angry, I felt rejected and that I had
been made a second class citizen of His Kingdom, and I could see no reason for
it. It felt to me that God's hand towards me was closed; Scripture makes it
clear that He is joyfully generous towards His people, but I believed that this
did not apply to me, and my family was paying a big price. (This is still a mystery
to me). But I believe Trish and I grew in character during those tough years and
that our family is now very close, because we needed to be then to survive
that long time.
"You, Lord, keep
my lamp burning". My God turns my darkness into light. "With your help I can advance against a
troop; with my God I can scale a wall" (Psalm 18:28-29).
Jesus tells us that we'll have trouble in this world, and we
do (John 16:33). I try to remind myself to be kind to others, and to remember
all my blessings (Psalm 103:1-5), and to give thanks in all things (1
Thessalonians 5:18).
So I thank you Jesus that you gave me Peter as a friend, and
gave him to Deb too as a husband and life companion. Thank you that you gave
Trish and I to each other and blessed us so wonderfully with our children and
now with their growing families. Thank you for my great love for the Creation,
which you made for us, and for my love of cooking and food, and music, and
fellowship with your people. Most of all, thank you for coming to Trish and I
and bringing faith, hope and love into our lives. And thank you for today.
Amen.
Favourite Bible Verses
And now these three
remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1
Corinthians 13:13).
.. the faith and love
that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have
already heard in the true message of the gospel (Colossians 1:5) .
We remember before our
God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and
your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians
1:3) .
But since we belong to
the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the
hope of salvation as a helmet (1 Thessalonians 5:8) .
Simon
Peter answered him, "Lord, who else can we go to? You have the words of
eternal life" (John 6:68).
"And
there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that
has been given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's (Psalm 103:1-5 of David).
Amen.
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Praise Jesus.
