WHY This? WHY NOW?

So, I just get back home from the car wash.  

My filthy car now looks as bright as a new pin, all is well, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, but then…SP-LATT!  The bird, that was previously singing, makes a poo deposit on my now pristine car bonnet worthy of that of a pterodactyl with a tummy problem! 

WHY? Why this? Why now? Why not when I could have handled it better (not literally of course!).

It’s how life sometimes is, isn’t it? 

All seems well and bobbing along nicely, but then, life, in the form of ill health, redundancy, rejection by a partner, or bereavement, rears up out of nowhere and does a number on us.

In the Bible we read of Jesus one day telling his is disciples to go with him in a boat to the opposite side of the lake (Matt. 8: 23-27, Mark. 4: 35-41 and Luke.8: 22-25). 

They follow his instruction to the letter, Jesus, physically exhausted, falls asleep on a pillow, all is well.  But then…high winds, big stormy waves, danger, peril, fear, panic!  Despairing cries from the disciples, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He did care, they didn’t drown. Having him with them in the boat changed everything, eventually.

I’ve been a Christian forty-seven years nearly, and have felt, more times than I’d care to mention, that Jesus was not doing what he REALLY should be doing at a particular moment in my life;  back surgery at 25; loss of our first child in infancy; bouts of depression; the pressures of eventually trying to bring up a child with ADHD under an education system that just thinks it’s down to you being rubbish parents, I could go on.  But, in all the confusion of the Mad Mouse rollercoaster of life’s many twists and turns, Jesus was there with me (and my wife, Lesley), and eventually, we recognised and experienced the reality of what he brings and got through to the other side.  

Peace always, eventually, overcame turmoil because Jesus is, as we hear every Christmas, the Prince of Peace. 

He can calm storms, no matter how overwhelmed by them we feel at times.

Are you facing a storm today? Confused, weary, fearful? 

You’re normal.  That feeling, and that experience, is normal.  Life does this to all of us at one time or another. 

Do you know the peace of Jesus in your life? 

Maybe come and give us a listen at One church sometime or pick us up on Spotify. 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ssjTQutB4T8qqx9pHmhJa...

It’s worth listening to. 

by Fred Wright 14th Dec 2022