Believe it…or not

As an agnostic, I was challenged by a believer to read the New Testament before making pronouncements about and arguments against Christianity.

I did. I was surprised by what I found. In particular, the unexpected honesty about its flawed heroes – Moses a murderer, David an adulterer and murderer, Peter the denier, Thomas the doubter, to name a few. No hint of self-protection, of a cover-up, of an attempt by its various authors to conceal a conspiracy. Since then, I have not stopped reading the OT and the NT. I could no longer sustain my agnosticism.

Being ‘a believer’ is certainly related to the historicity and reliability of scripture: for example, I do believe there was a man called Jesus who was crucified and resurrected, but it is far more than merely having faith in a set of historical facts; it is state of being, of having received a new heart which is tuned to the voice and the words of God.

 We could pick any number of verses in the New Testament to illustrate this, but 2Cor2v14,15 is on my mind.

‘Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of Christ in every place for we are to Him the fragrance of Christ among those who are perishing and those being saved’

 For someone who believes that the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God, the issue is not whether these verses are true but whether he/she believes them in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Its truth is not independent of the person believing. I might, for example, agree intellectually that human beings can float in water and swim, based on the evidence…but it is not until we’re in water that we truly discover how to swim…or not.

Faith is not uncommon; it takes us beyond the limitations of our five senses

 All of us, whether we class ourselves as atheists, agnostics, or whatever world-view, learn faith. We believe, for example, that the Sun, when it is hidden from view either behind a cloud or after sunset, is still there. Or it may take a while for a young child to stop looking behind a mirror to find the person looking back at them. Faith is not uncommon; it takes us beyond the limitations of our five senses.

The above verse has challenged me for the past 18 months. I read it most days and recite it to myself…whatever my mood or circumstances.

 I remind myself of the two critical words ‘in Christ’. I remind myself of what this being ‘led in triumph’ looked like in the life of Jesus: harassed by the Pharisees, rejected by his home synagogue, nowhere to lay his head, considered mad by his brothers and sisters, arrested on false charges, and crucified.

One particular incident, when Jesus met the woman at the well (John ch 4) illustrates the truth of these verses.

‘He came to Samaria…and being weary from the journey, sat by the well…the disciples went to buy food…it was noon’  4v5-8

Whilst they were gone, a woman came to the well; she and Jesus started talking. It was a remarkable conversation; Jesus had a word of knowledge about the woman’s turbulent past – five husbands and living with another man - to which the woman said ‘Sir, I perceive you are a prophet’ v19. It led to ‘many of the Samaritans in that city believing in Him’ v39

But the point is this: Jesus was weary. Physically tired. Weak. So weak that when the disciples returned they ‘urged him to eat’ v31. He was not Superman. Being ‘led in triumph’ is true whether we are weary or strong. Jesus put it this way to the disciples: ‘I have food to eat of which you do not know’ v32.

When I feel dull, or bored, or fearful, or elated, full of energy or knackered, when I’m winning or losing, experiencing prosperity or reverse…in Christ I discover that I have a source of energy that is hidden from the world. The sun may be hidden behind a cloud, and any evidence of ‘triumph’ may be hidden from view, but we learn that this concealment is only temporary…and wait, just as a child waits for the sun to reappear.

Kissing the Feet

Her lips on his feet
His heel cupped in her hands
His flesh damp with her tears
All dust wiped away
With unbound hair

And from his lips
His rebukes fall
Like a river of rose petals
His truth ‘her sins, which are many’
A prelude only to ‘are forgiven’

See the woman who could not
Clear her own regrets
Now a sculpture of alabaster
Remade. Full of fragrant oil,
As she kissed the feet

Let her unbound hair
Her extravagance, her discovery
Speak his words
‘Your faith has saved you
Go in peace’

Luke 7

And God Prepared a Worm

The story of Jonah in the belly of a whale for three days is well known to children but rarely revisited later in life. But it is later in life that the worm becomes a lifesaver.

Last Sunday, chapters 3 & 4 were read out in church, and chapter 4 verse 7 caught my attention.

‘But as morning dawned the next day, God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered.’

If nothing else, the concept of God ‘preparing’ anything, let alone a worm, is challenging to our material understanding of the universe. ‘Preparing a worm’ seems more at home in the surrealist humour of The Goodies or Monty Python’s Flying Circus than verifiable history. Not only does it challenge our sense of rationality (but then the Bible does this from the opening sentence of Genesis to the final words in Revelation), the detail is very specific. The following verse gives us a timeline.

And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a strong east wind: and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint.’

The worm, then, was not only ‘prepared’ during the half an hour or so before sunrise, dawn, but was able to damage a large plant that God had prepared the previous day to shield Jonah from the sun.

The purpose of this post is not to debate whether this story is historically accurate or written to convey truth in a fictional form, but to think about the worm. Somehow, in less than half an hour, it had managed to damage and wither the plant.

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul wrote,

‘God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty’ 1 Cor 1v27

The Bible is replete with David and Goliath stories, the weak oddly victorious in the face of a stronger enemy, but I can’t think of a creature weaker than a worm, living in the dark, feeding on dead and decaying matter. Not much of a life. Not much potential to overcome adversity.

Isaiah the prophet had the dual task - as do all prophets – of announcing disaster if there’s no change of direction, no returning to the source of all goodness, God, but also promising God’s help and restoration if, specifically, Israel repents, returns to God, believing that God will fulfil His promises.

In chapter 41, Isaiah says of Israel,

‘You, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend’ v8

Every so often in the Bible, God shows us something of His love for Israel. Isaiah continues,

‘Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel…I will make you into a threshing sledge with sharp teeth…’ v15

The contrast between a worm and a threshing sledge is stark.

What struck me on Sunday morning was the humour. Surely ‘God prepared a worm’ must rank as one of the funniest verses in the Bible? Perhaps the humour is lost within the story of Jonah, a Jewish prophet, and his calling to preach the message of repentance to the capital city, Nineveh, of their enemies. One individual sent to the enemy stronghold. Can we imagine God calling an Israeli today to take such a message to Tehran, or a Ukrainian believer to the Kremlin?

The point, however, is pretty obvious.

At times, we may not only feel weak and helpless, not much better than a worm, designed for limited tasks, with little ability. Our confidence and joy in life have leaked away, and we are left struggling to put one foot in front of the other. But in our anguish, we read Isaiah 41v15 and Jonah 4v7. A glimmer of hope is born. A tiny seed of faith is sown. A private battle hidden from the external world of other people has, if not been won, then turned a corner. We look in the mirror and find eyes looking back at ourselves with some life in them; the dullness that was there receding.

Another verse we used to know has become fresh food for us, and we’ve found a way not of giving mere intellectual assent to it – ‘it’s in the Bible so it must be true’ - but consuming it, ‘God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty’ 1 Cor 1v27. We start, unbelievably, to actually give thanks for our weakness. We end up chuckling, knowing that somehow, we’re right in the centre of God’s will, even though we are weak and always have been held in His arms of love. For the first time in ages, we look up, not down.

In one sense, nothing has changed. The circumstances may not have changed, but inside, everything has changed. It may be gradual, but it is unstoppable, like a threshing sledge. Things that appeared to be mountains obstructing our path are turned to dust.

‘I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth. You shall thresh the mountains…you shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away…you shall rejoice in the Lord’ Is 41v16

AI Drone Swarms – a parable for the coming church?

In 2019, the film Angel Has Fallen, Morgan Freeman, playing the role of the President of the United States, is fishing in a small boat on a remote lake.

Trouble arrives in the form of a terrifying swarm of black, delta-winged flying drones that lock onto targets and wipe out the Presidential guard stationed around the lake’s perimeter, before moving on to assassinate the President. No spoilers…

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=angel+has+fallen&&mid=56C4F7DD1727EA7EB3D756C4F7DD1727EA7EB3D7&churl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fchannel%2fUCn4TjkLaraasteupSPdhYCw&FORM=VRDGAR

The drone swarm scene cuts away periodically to show a hand operating a ‘kill-no kill’ remote-control device: life and death in his hands.

In the early 2000s I took my A-Level Chemistry students to the annual Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. We were all agog walking past huge portraits of Isaac Newton, Humphrey Day, Michael Faraday and the like, up and down the corridors of the rather beautiful Georgian Royal Society building overlooking St James’ Park. One of the exhibitions was manned by a few postgraduate students researching butterfly flight. They showed us slow-motion video footage of how butterflies use their wings to fly and navigate in small spaces and were quite open about the project’s Ministry of Defence funding and the purpose - to manufacture miniature surveillance drones.

Twenty-five years on, and the technology is in use.

But now, in 2026, the technology has moved on even further: the human operator has been removed. Fully autonomous drone swarms, in which each drone learns from its flying-formation neighbours, locates and attacks a target without human instruction and returns to base, have arrived. AI-Controlled Military Drone Swarms.

_______________________________

How can this chilling technology be a parable for the body of Christ?

One of the surprising aspects of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus, the Pharisee who ‘came by night’ to wrestle over some theological points, is Jesus’s rather cutting comment, ‘How is it that you, a teacher of Israel, do not these things?’ John 3v10

Apart from the infamous statement to Nicodemus that he needed to be ‘born again’, Jesus went on to teach Nicodemus about the Holy Spirit:

‘The wind blows where it will, you hear it, but you can’t say where it comes from or where it’s goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit’ John 3v8

Whilst this was a 1:1 conversation with Nicodemus, in Jesus’s mind was a larger picture ‘everyone’, plural, all believers. Christianity is not a religion in the sense that its followers attempt to adhere to a set of external commands. It’s a mass of people blown here and there not by a written command, papal decree, or denominational headquarters, but by an internal weather system…the Spirit of God.

Combine that plural picture with the teaching in 1Cor 12 and elsewhere that the church is the body of Christ. And that Gal 2v20, Romans 6v1-6, Col 3v3, and John 15, and we begin to see the church less and less as an organisation but that its ‘organisation’ is directed, not by decree, but by the Father, the Son, and the Spirit internally abiding in each believer.

Near where I live in North Somerset is one of the gathering locations for starlings who then take to flight in thousands to perform seemingly orchestrated ‘murmurations’. Each starling, surely, is an autonomous bird, and yet there seems to be a submission to a collective consciousness so that the whole mass of birds acts as a coordinated ‘body’ and creates intricate and beautiful 3D patterns in the sky.

‘Consider the ant…they have no captain, overseer or ruler’ Prov 6v6

Like ants, fully automated drone swarms have no leader, and yet the colony survives. Each ant has a particular role, making individual decisions and yet those decisions are coordinated with the overall community, and the community of autonomous ants seem to act as one organism.

So it is with the body of Christ. Each believer is directed by the ‘wind’, by the Spirit, and yet act collectively as a body.

‘But to each one of us grace was given…and Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry and the building up of the body of Christ’ Eph 4v7-12

There are different gifts but the same Spirit, different ministries, but the same Lord…the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for he profit of all: to one a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healings, prophecy, tongues and interpretation of tongues, but one and the same Spirit works all of this, distributing to each one as He wills’ 1Cor12 v 4-11

‘Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation…’ 1 Cor 14v26

The picture here of the church is a dynamic living organism, coordinated by God Himself, living in each believer. Together, then, however its leadership is formed, its leaders are only recognised as leaders because they exhibit this Spirit-led, born-again life, which is not dependent on an external authority.

‘Consider the ant…they have no captain, overseer or ruler’

Note this: not one of the churches in the New Testament, Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, Rome and so on, had one leader. There were pastors, but no single Pastor; there were ministers, but no Minister; there were priests, but no Priest, no Vicar, no Orthodox Archimandrites, no ‘lead’ elders, and so on. Elders were appointed by apostles, and once appointed, were the authority locally. The various ministries of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, and anyone exercising a spiritual gift, all functioned whilst recognising the spiritual authority of the local eldership.

A drone swarm as a metaphor for the body of Christ – the church

Conclusion.

Can you imagine a church with plural elderships, not solitary leaders? A church in which every member is being blown around, or ‘led by’ by the Spirit of God? A church in which every member is discipled by Christ? A church whose elders are appointed for their spiritual maturity, not their worldly expertise e.g. management experience, counselling qualifications, or ability to teach.

This is the body of Christ, whose life is Christ Himself, coordinating His own body just as our brains coordinate the workings of each part, or each cell. Every cell in your body functions in its own way, but it is alive with the same life - yours. Its name, if you like, is your name. My name is John Stevens, so if a cell in my liver were being interviewed and was asked, ‘Whose life are you alive with?’ the cell would answer ‘John Stevens’. The interviewer might then ask, ‘But are you not an autonomous living cell, making your own decision?’ The answer would be ‘Of course. But I am just a small cell of John Stevens, we are one, not two, and so my choices are John Stevens’ choices’.

A drone swarm as a metaphor for the body of Christ – the church? Yes. Separate believers coordinated by a guidance system not of preprogrammed AI software, but the Spirit of God, not to attack and destroy, but to be the embodiment of the love of God to the world.

The Apple on the Other Tree

Grasping a tall
Flat-nibbed fountain pen
Full of Indian ink
And a reservoir of eyes

His hand, married to the barrel,
One nerve away
From a mind trained on
What can’t be seen,

Flexed the pen, tracing somersaults
And stiff arrows along
The smooth bark of a dangling branch
A lacework of longings

I watched as the nib
Approached the limit,
The gnarly edge of tree and wind,
But the words hadn’t read the rules

They sang themselves
Through the air and,
Like a spider’s silk thread
Gliding on a sunlit evening current,

Landed in a dyslexic funk
Unable to speak clearly
Wobbling in unison
With an apple above

What was he trying to say?
But the apple dressed in red
Took hold of the pen
And words fell away.

The Sermon on the Mount – a question?

I suspect many of the verses in the Sermon on the Mount are familiar to us. Even if we haven’t read them in the Bible, they are often quoted in films, on TV, in the press, or by journalists or politicians.

The usual wisdom, that ‘its high ideals may be unattainable, but good to aim for’, might not be the response Jesus was looking for, but we can all agree that if they were lived out as the norm, the world would be better for it.

When I read these verses before my conversion to Christianity, I always viewed Jesus’s teaching as applying to individuals, to free moral agents; how we should choose to live our lives. Now, as a Christian, I see this entirely differently: as Christ in us, living His life in us, toward us, and then through us to the world. That is the essence of the Christian faith. Not a slog to attempt to comply with ever-stricter moral obligations, but faith in the indwelling Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; to live out that divine life through us. Perhaps ‘repentance’ in the Western world is more a call to abandon self-made attempts at being ‘good’, our self-reliance, and to place our faith, not in ourselves as autonomous free moral agents, but in Christ in us.

So far so good. Until this morning.

This morning I saw something new; not in contradiction to the above but a fuller, more expansive vision and meaning that Jesus was carrying than individuals’ behaviour, and specifically, ‘my’ salvation and wholeness.

‘Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’, or, What shall we drink?’, or ‘What shall we wear?’. For, after all these things, the Gentiles seek. For our heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you’ Mt 6v31-3

Why the reference to the Gentiles? Leave that out, and it runs just as smoothly, doesn’t it?

No, it doesn’t. It made sense to Jesus to include the reference to the Gentiles - and to Matthew, who included these words.

If the Sermon on the Mount is all about individuals, whether Jews or Gentiles, then including the reference to Gentiles seems not only superfluous but irrelevant. But we should stop and consider that Jesus, however, is not only speaking as the King of the Jews, but the King of Israel; the one who had every right to claim the throne but who chose to wear a crown of thorns instead.

Quite how God views nations, and the nation of Israel in particular, is beyond our understanding. I think it would be safe to say, God’s viewpoint is richer and inhabits dimensions that we struggle to comprehend. Lines on the map, DNA analysis, or Passports and ID cards must appear to be crude measures of who is a citizen and who is not. Scripture gives us some clues. The language of 'covenant’ or ‘testament’ is rich in meaning but at its heart is a deeply relational term used for marriage; it has less to do with lawyers and more to do with love. The ‘Old Covenant’ (or Old Testament) made with Israel is likened to a marriage that failed. Israel’s failure led the prophets not only to predict the downfall of the nation of Israel and its subsequent exile but also that a day would come when God would make a ‘New Covenant’ with Israel (Jeremiah 31v31).

Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant at the Last Supper, which looked ahead to his death on the cross:

‘This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you’ Luke 22v20

Jesus’s vision included individuals and the nation of Israel with whom He made a new covenant as the King of Israel.

Does this mean that the New Covenant (New Testament) is restricted to the Jews, to Israel? No. Not at all. The calling on Israel was always to be a light to the Gentiles: ‘I will appoint you to be a light to the Gentiles, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth’ Isaiah 49v6.

So, my attention this morning was raised from treating the Sermon on the Mount as great spiritual teaching for individuals, to seeing that Jesus was calling into being an Israel that would fulfil its calling. But this new Israel would only fulfil it ancient calling if it could demonstrate that by ‘Seeking first the kingdom of God’, God supplied all their needs: body, soul, and spirit, and demonstrate that God is God, a heavenly Father who loves his children.

A question, though, remains: did Jesus succeed in calling into being an Israel that is a light to the nations?

A question, though, remains: did Jesus succeed in calling into being an Israel that is a light to the nations?

My answer is, ‘Well, it depends where you look’. If we look at our media and the reporting on Israel as a political entity, you might question that! But look at the immediate after-effects of Jesus’s death, resurrection, ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and you may see a different Israel.

Jesus was a Jew. Peter and all the apostles, including Paul, were Jews. Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen and all the other women mentioned in the gospels were all Jews. The 3000 who were converted on the Day of Pentecost were all Jews. The early church was entirely Jewish. Not until Acts 10, when the Holy Spirit fell on Gentiles listening to Peter’s preaching, are Gentiles included.

The ‘Israel of God’, as Paul puts it in Galatians, or the Israel of the New Covenant, the Jews who believed, had brought the light to the world, just as prophesied, and, within a generation the whole of the Roman Empire had heard of Christ and churches were springing up like mushrooms under the noses of the authorities who had sought to eliminate the faith by crucifying Christ and persecuting the church.

So, when Jesus referred to the Gentiles in the Sermon on the Mount, it was with all this in mind; it was not an afterthought or a sentence with no relevance.

Twenty-one centuries later, when, in the West, we are prone to think of Christianity as a European phenomenon, it is good to remind ourselves that had it not been for Jesus, his teaching, his death and his resurrection, and the willingness of His Jewish disciples to spread the gospel – which means good news - Christianity would never have reached us. Interestingly, there are more churches and Jewish believers in Israel now than at any time since the first century. This ‘Israel of God’, as Paul describes it in Galatians 6v16, in contrast to the political entity in the news, is gaining strength…which can only be further good news for the world.

My Father in Heaven

Tell me, did I learn to hallow
When I scrubbed your back
Or twisted the pipe-cleaners
To scour shank and bowl?

Thy kingdom come:
It’s true, you ruled
From the armchair
A kind of Arthurian peace

Thy will be done…
…if a capital W, I am pierced
A double-edged sword
I loved the lowercase you

On Earth as in Heaven
That’s the mystery to me
Hoisted on your shoulders in church
One of us was close to heaven

Give us this day…I have no complaints,
Cold lamb, still, on Thursday, besides.
But bread came from the kitchen you walked through to sit at the breakfast room table
Except on Sundays with posh cutlery, when the chilly dining room welcomed Granny

Forgive me? From your perspective
My attempts to sin always backfired
I hope your forgiveness
Is a thunder of laughter

Forgive others? Did I learn how?
We used to play Kan-u-Go?
And Canasta. No sneaking.
‘Hold the cards close to your chest’

Temptation? I know
Perfection, your shiny shoes
And trimmed moustache
Was as external as my skin

From evil – delivered?
I think you might say yes
All’s well that ended well
Under the Stars and Stripes

My father in heaven
Hallowed by thy name.

Chemistry and Christianity? Three Levels of church, after Level 0.

Why isn’t the Presbyterian Church, or the Brethren church, for example, experiencing continuous revival? Or any denomination, stream, apostolic network, group of churches, for that matter.

I’ve picked out the Presbyterians and Brethren because, within their understanding of scripture, they have at least seen that no church in the New Testament had one leader, one priest, one Vicar, one Minister, one Pastor. Instead, there was always, without exception, an eldership, i.e., a group of men (you might want to argue the gender point…but let’s not get distracted) set aside to oversee the congregation.

The other ministries, e.g. apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, fitted in, either locally or as travelling ministries, to that oversight.

And yet, many Presbyterian Churches are as dead, inert, and declining as Episcopal churches.

Melting candle wax: solid to liquid

Boiling water- liquid to gas

An interconnected plasma

As a Chemistry teacher, it’s surprising how useful, even with very intelligent A-Level students, it is to remind them of the three box diagram they drew aged maybe 11 or 12, to describe a Solid, a Liquid, or a Gas with circles representing the particles (atoms, molecules, or ions).

Plasma may be new to you. But it’s where atoms have been stripped bare. All their orbiting electrons have been removed, and the resulting ions and electrons exist in a plasma…like a very hot soup.

To move from a solid through to a liquid and on to a gas, then plasma will serve as our metaphor for the church.

In the solid state, there is order; it’s well organised, regimented, and traditions are honoured to the letter with little or no deviation. For a church, Sunday services run like clockwork, precisely orchestrated and follow a written or unwritten liturgy. One Sunday is more or less an exact copy of the previous Sunday. It is a well-organised, fixed state. Doctrinally faithful to its founders, but death has set in. It is more akin to CS Lewis’s stone statues in the Chronicles of Narnia.

That is, until Aslan breathes on them and they return to life.

In terms of Chemistry, moving from Level 0 (solid) to Level 1 (liquid) requires one thing. Heat. When Aslan (Jesus) breathes on them, I do not doubt that CS Lewis was alluding to the moment when Jesus breathed on His disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. And on the Day of Pentecost, they were baptised with fire and the Spirit.

The church that formed after the resurrection, with its Jewish apostles and deacons and many believers who believed that Jesus was the long-sought Messiah, risen from the dead, was alive with the Spirit.

‘Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and mind…and with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, nor was there anyone among them that lacked’ Acts 2v32-34

Throughout Church history, individuals and whole churches have moved from Level 0 to Level 1. In Britain from the 1970s until today, many thousands of churches have been formed that resemble, or seek to resemble, this description more than CS Lewis’s statues frozen in stone.

New songs are written, art and drama pour out, life has replaced death, and the cemetery has come to life. One Sunday is not like another.

Note: if a church can come alive with the baptism of fire and Spirit, it can cool. Many have. When this happens, the life of the congregation retreats into predictability, tradition, and may retain the outward form, the songs, the governmental structure, or the building, but the glory has long departed.

What about moving from Liquid to Gas, Level 1 to Level 2?

Disaster? Apparently, but this requires a different way of seeing, locked on and into the increasing heat – not from persecutors – but from heaven, from God.

‘At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered (diaspora – ‘spora’ - like seeds blown from a dandelion) throughout the regions of Judea, and Samaria’ Acts 8v1

If you’re familiar with the Creed, the phrase ‘I believe in the holy, catholic, and apostolic church’ is a dynamic statement. ‘Apostolic’ means ‘sent’. The Jerusalem Church was so ‘hot’ that it attracted persecution, but the heat moved the church from Level 1 to Level 2, from liquid to a gas phase.

Does this mean that all ‘charismatic’ churches have to be persecuted and dismantled and sent out, or scattered? No. But, if the heat of the presence of Jesus is among a church, God will propel many in that church out as seeds to ‘die’ elsewhere and in doing so see new churches form, ‘I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it will remain alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain’ John 12v24

And Plasma? Level 3?

It’s quite possible that no one reading this added a fourth box for Plasma in school. I didn’t. So…maybe we’re stepping too far? Stepping into a ‘prophetic imagination’ to use the idea of a plasma phase as an analogy for moving on, as churches, even further – to a third level?

Under certain conditions, a plasma forces particles to act as an interconnected quantum system.

An interconnected system? Isn’t this the truth described in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth concerning the church, the body of Christ?

1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14

‘As the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many are one body, so also Christ, for by one Spirit we were baptised into one body…and all drink of one Spirit’ 1 Cor 12 v 12,13

The distinction between individuals has been redefined, and even more so, the distinction between the church and Christ is indistinguishable, just as in the human body, each cell is filled with only one life, the life of the person.

One way of seeing this is to see the hard edges of one person as distinct from another, or of one church distinct from another, or of believers and Christ, as blurred. Individual faith and independence are no longer the goal or the ultimate expression of spiritual maturity; something altogether greater has arrived. Paul spoke of ‘glory in the church through Jesus Christ throughout all generations’ Eph 3v21.

The whole body knows that all things come from God, the gifts of the Spirit, the ministries from God, and the love of God

This state of matter is analogous to a state of church that cannot be sustained except by God alone. Man cannot produce it or copy it. The love that exists is supernatural in origin. The whole body knows that all things come from God, the gifts of the Spirit, the ministries from God, and the love of God. This is a state of continuous revival, not dependent on particular church governmental structures, but as a result of ‘drinking of the same Spirit’.

The church has become an interconnected quantum body in which ‘when one member suffers all the members suffer, and when one member is honoured, all members rejoice’ 1 Cor 12v26

Overall comment

Moving from one level to another requires letting go of the past and welcoming a new pattern from God. Just like music or love can melt our hearts, so God woos us through the invitation of Jesus, to, like the disciples, leave our nets and follow Him.

All analogies break down. Particles have no choice. If the heat is applied, particles respond: solids melt, liquids boil, and from gases, quantum plasmas can form. But we have choice. In the history of revivals, some churches come alive, but others stay put, unaffected or hostile.

When Jesus opened the scriptures in his home synagogue, the truth was revealed: ‘all those in the synagogue when they heard his words, were enraged and rose up and marched him out of the city and led him to the brow of the hill to throw him down over the cliff’ Luke 4v29

But when Jesus said, ‘Follow me’ the disciples ‘left their nets immediately and followed Him’ Mark 1v17,18.

Lastly, in Jesus’s day, the average Jewish citizen may have been drawn to the Pharisees, or the Sadducees, or the scribes, or tax collectors, or Essenes, or preferred one synagogue to another, or none. It doesn’t matter how we describe ourselves: Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Charismatic, Methodist, Pentecostal, atheist, agnostic, humanist…the real question is whether we are thirsty, or hungry, or searching…for God.

‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink’ John 7v37

A Visit to the Dentist

It’s a rare find, perfection,
But by dint of taut wires,
Springs and endurance
The one surveying my
Higgledy piggledies
Possessed a Steinway
Of Hampstead Heath

My enamelled eruptions,
Ranked in a zig and a zag,
Like a weathered pub piano,
Its ivories locked in conflict,
Frozen into a lifelong truce,
More accustomed to the blues
Than her Beethoven.

The pain she endured
She can pay back
With a smile
Licensed as she is
To inflict agonies
On those that pay

Am I grateful for the relaxing music?
Or the comfortable tilted seat
Or, maybe, the permission to spit?

It’s a grisly job
Trying not to inhale
Issuing commands
To the disobedient
To floss and brush
Brush and floss

So my hat is doffed

I leave with my imperfections retained
My gaps unfilled,
A dinosaur with wonky teeth
‘Yes, Miss, I will buy a toothbrush that whirrs’
A ‘No’ might make her smile crumble
And I couldn’t bear that

The truth is,
I am grateful.
Even old Joannas
Should be tuned
And polished.
In hope of playing
A perfect tune.

Psalm 131 – Psalm for the 21st Century

Recently, I have been luxuriating – maybe too much – in the beautiful Elizabethan language of the King James Version.

How interesting then, to come across Ps131 and find in it a vital message for the 21st Century, where anxiety and a whole range of mental health issues have either been brought to the surface or are taking hold of a greater proportion of the population – particularly the young.

I am not immune.

And the message of this Psalm I take as a piece of life-long learning, which includes the dismantling of one way of living – inherited silently from the surrounding culture – and stepping out in a new, hopefully, healthier direction.

Psalm 131

Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
Surely, I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul even as a weaned child.
Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.

The real trick with reading the Psalms is not to read them as pieces of ancient wisdom, or instructions about how to live, or simply a collection of songs, most of which David wrote expressing his feelings or his faith.

So much better is to read the Psalms from what we might call an Incarnational perspective. Jesus was ‘the Word made flesh’ – that’s incarnation. In terms of Ps 131, that means that Jesus embodied the words of this Psalm in the way he lived. These words became flesh in Him. He didn’t strive to live like this in some kind of religious zeal; these words were him, and so he lived them quite naturally…for him.

The relevance for us, we will come to soon.

The man described in this Psalm has a ‘quiet soul’ in contrast with someone with a ‘loud soul’.

The soul is the essential ‘you’ that people meet, your individual essence, what makes you different to the next person

What does this mean?

The soul is the essential ‘you’ that people meet, your individual essence, what makes you different to the next person. We can think of it as made up of our ability to think and the ways we think, our intellect, and our emotional make-up, how we react in various settings, and our will, or motivations. Stir those together, and we create a never-ending variety of individuals. The permutations are infinite.

Each of these elements, our minds, emotions, and our wills, is quite remarkable. Some, of course, are brilliant thinkers, but emotionally deficient. Others are exceptionally motivated and never give up, have drive and wit, but maybe not a degree in Astrophysics. Others, still, are experts in empathy and fluent in interpreting the world of emotions and interpersonal relationships. And our soul largely dictates what our bodies do. (There is, of course, an interaction between body and soul; it’s a dual carriageway).

The point of this Psalm is not to deny the endless doorways that our souls open, our potential, but to say this: our souls are good servants but lousy masters. Our souls can become too dominant, too loud, and we need to be thankful for our souls, but look elsewhere for government.

Jesus modelled, pioneered if you will, a new humanity and invites us to discover it for ourselves

Addressing Israel, the Psalmist speaks about living in a new way; the way of ‘hoping in the Lord’. This is what Jesus did, and therefore, if we want to follow Christ, we will learn to do the same.

But not by attempting to copy.

There’s a well-known (to some) verse in the Old Testament that will serve as a key to understanding the gulf between ‘copying’ and ‘living’.

‘Not by might, nor by strength, but by My Spirit,’says the Lord’ Zechariah 4v6

Soulish ability: our understanding, our determination, or our emotional intelligence is our strength and might. Relying on these attributes, or the attributes of our bodies – athleticism, physical strength, good looks – is to rely on oneself.

Leaving behind our dependence on parents and other support agencies and relying on oneself, as an independent, autonomous individual, is heralded as the pinnacle of maturity. It is seen as synonymous with adulthood: ‘standing on our own two feet’ and ‘taking responsibility’ are two strong markers.

Alluring though this message appears, its track record in the real world isn’t a great advert for its meritocratic philosophy.

The message of the Bible, and the example of Jesus, could not be more different.

He modelled, pioneered if you will, a new humanity and invites us to discover it for ourselves.

He gave us clues. For example:

‘Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does’.
John 5v19

The impulse in his life was not himself! He did not strive for autonomy or advocate it for us. His approach challenges all our notions of independence. He did not ‘stand on his own two feet’, but neither did he teach dependence on parents, or others; he lived a life whose source was not himself, but God.

In the famous ‘born again’ encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus registers surprise, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not know these things?’ John 3v10

He had previously said to Nicodemus, ‘The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit’

When Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost to preach the first post-resurrection-ascension sermon, he ended by telling the fellow Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the feast:

‘Repent, and let everyone of you be baptised in the Name of Jesus Messiah for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Spirit’ Acts 2v38

The era of living life via the gift of the Holy Spirit of God had arrived.

Not a gift to be received, unwrapped, and left to one side as we get on with our life, but the gift that enables us to have the same ‘communion’ with the Father as Jesus had as the Son, and to live life from this impulse…not using the soul’s resources as the starting point: my ideas, feelings, or urges.

Back to Psalm 131 and its description of Jesus’s own life. His soul was not in charge. A beautiful soul by all accounts, but the servant, not the master. He didn’t involve himself in ‘great matters’, international politics, the overthrow of the Roman oppressors; he lived a simple life, in communion with his heavenly Father, by the Holy Spirit. Everything flowed from there.

To close.

‘If anyone is thirsty. Let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. This Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given’
John 7v37-39

He’s not speaking about physical thirst, but spiritual. That is why Ps 131 is medicine for the 21st Century. Meeting demands from others or being weighed down with our own sense of obligation causes us, if we’re not careful, to rely more and more on our souls, which become noisier and noisier. Never designed to carry the weight of a person’s life, it often fails – with real physical and mental consequences, not least of which is anxiety and stress.

Jesus offers us a different way of living.

Not to swap soulish effort with manic religious observance e.g. church attendance, strict prayer schedules, or reading the bible, but to receive the gift of the Spirit and shed a lifetime of dependence on our own abilities, of self-reliance (‘repentance’ to use a biblical term) and become dependent on the Spirit. And to start a new adventure, being moved around like the wind!

Here’s a prayer you can pray, if this fits with you.

‘God, I’ve tried to live standing on my own two feet, bearing the weight of my own life as best I can. You’ve seen it all. I’ve often failed but got up again and tried harder. But now I see you are saying something very different. I’m thirsty, Lord. I open my heart to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Teach me to live from your Spirit, not my soul, and like you, only do what the Father is doing. Amen.’

Walking The Two Moors Way Coast to Coast Wembury to Lynmouth Days 7,8, and the last day, Day 9

Two Moors: Day 7, Yeo Mill (Partridge Arms Farm) to Withypool

Official route: 15.8km (9.8miles) in 5 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 12.58km in 2hr35min; elapsed time 3hr13mins.

Ps 92v9 ‘But mine horn shall be exalted like the horn of a unicorn, for I am anointed with fresh oil’

I was 17 when a friend challenged me to read the New Testament. As an agnostic, my arguments, she said correctly, against Christianity lacked the same degree of scrutiny, that I gave unhesitatingly to scientific theories.

One of my principal objections about the Bible was ‘it’s full of contradictions’ – not that I really knew any. And that it was all ‘thees’ and ‘thous’, written in inaccessible old-style English, and therefore, like the church, out of date, out of touch, and irrelevant.

Now, I have come full circle and am revelling in old-English references to unicorns, horns, and oil. And, in case you’re wondering, yes, I did take up my friend’s challenge and started reading the New Testament in a newer translation, the Good News Bible. At the time, I didn’t know there were newer translations. I couldn’t put it down. Honestly. It was captivating.

Anyway, back to verse 9 and the unicorns. I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but unicorns are now translated as wild oxen, but it’s the reference to fresh oil that really caught my eye. In the same way that a car regularly needs an oil change, so do we. Negative thinking, worries, rabbit holes, resistance, and frustrations can all cause a weariness that erodes our normal joyful disposition, which exists quite independent of our circumstances. If so, we need fresh oil. Oil in the bible refers to the Holy Spirit. So I set out today with that ‘Fresh oil, Lord!’ prayer circulating my system.

10.10am

The penultimate day, and after yesterday’s re-routing in the wet and rain forecast for today, I was glad that today’s walk was a mere 15.8km (9.8 miles). I took road routes and cut the distance to 12.58km in 2h35min walking and 3 hours 13 mins elapsed time.

After a relaxed breakfast at 9, I left at 10.10, arriving in Withypool tea rooms at 1.30. Note the wonderfully preserved Shell filling station.

Not long after I arrived, draping my wet jacket and over-trousers over some chairs, the couple I’d met in the tea rooms in Witheridge walked in, and we shared a table and swapped news of navigation, weather, and some personal details, the most significant of which was that they were married only last week, and this walk was their honeymoon! Congratulations shared, we mooted a drink later in the pub.

Withypool Bridge

I met my hosts in the local shop opposite the tea rooms. Having phoned as I had arrived earlier than expected, they, plus four dogs, had made their way down from the house to the local shop to meet me. We walked up to their grand house overlooking the valley leading down to Withypool. I had seen the house whilst walking down the steep hill from Withypool Post.

A flock of sheep were being herded down Withypool hill past Westwater farm by two collies, two shepherds on buggies.

I’d elected to use the roads rather than get soaked feet again; any waterproofing of the boots had been breached. So it was more endurance than enjoyment, a ‘get it done’ attitude.

At the house, I was shown to my room. Minutes later, I was soaking in a hot bath. Perfect.

For supper, a beef casserole followed by strawberries and cream, after which I retreated to my room quite early, suddenly weary and tired. Maybe the penultimate day and anticipation of the final push had taken its toll? Thoughts of walking to and from the pub with uncertain weather receded; I stayed put.

Beautiful view over the moor. I was asleep before 9. Long final day tomorrow.

Two Moors: Day 8, Withypool to Lynmouth

Official route: 28km (17.5miles) in 7 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 28.62km in 5hr27min; elapsed time 7hr 16mins.

The final day.

Awake at 5am and down to DIY breakfast, having packed the extra combat jacket to keep warm and dry.

Mizzle at 5am, clear by 6, rain by 7. Heavy rain intermittently and high gusting wind over the high moor.

6.28am

Again, I took to the roads, ignoring the official route.

Any disappointment at not taking the Two Moors route, billed as the prettiest along the Tarka Trail, was offset by thoughts of reaching Lynmouth and the finishing tape later on.

Due to the even road surface and the weather conditions, this last section proved to be my fastest, averaging 11.27 min/km, with a split of 9.16min/km at some point during the day. This is not a boast: I needed to keep going to stay warm, and my feet suffered from two days of hard road walking. But I think it was a good decision to keep to the roads. I might return in the future to do the final two days’ walks of the official Coast to Coast path when the weather forecast is favourable.

It was pretty foul all day. Driving rain in bursts; huge dark clouds racing over the high moor towards me. Mentally, I divided the walk into two halves: the first half to Simonsbath, the second to Lynmouth.

By the time I reached Simonsbath my t-shirt was damp. A well-placed WC sign coming into Simonsbath meant I could change my shirt and add the large combat fatigue jacket. I decided to put the other, wet jacket over the top. That being shorter, the longer fatigues poked out below, looking like a skirt, but I was past the point of caring about appearance and pushed on.

Boeveys Tea Room, Simonsbath

Exiting Simonsbath, I encountered one last act of kindness before the finish. Boeveys Tearoom welcomed me in, despite being dripping wet, before opening hours. Maybe 8am. Wet jackets over chairs again. A cappuccino and a piping-hot pasty restored my soul.

So, to the final leg.

Remote. Wet. Windy. Exmoor saved its best worst weather for the end.

Pollution here? No!

Seeing the ‘Welcome to Lynmouth’ road sign was a great moment, but the descent from the moor down to the harbour took ages. However, the sun broke through, so I can say that I started the Coast to Coast challenge a week ago with AS in sunshine and ended it in sunshine as well.

My feet were blocks of pain, but the extra jacket had kept me dry; the body might be sore, but the soul was happy.

River Lyn emptying into Lynmouth

I wandered about aimlessly, enjoying the sound of waves crashing against the rocks, and more people than I’d seen for a week before finding the guest house, having a shower and heading out for chicken and mushroom pie, chips and a celebratory pint and brandy (sadly, no cognac available).

Two Moors: Day 9, home

Waking up to the sound of the sea and a broad view over to the bay was a treat.

Next to me at breakfast was an Aussie celebrating his recent retirement by coming over here to do the SW Coastal path – all 650 miles. It’s always good to have one’s own achievements put into perspective. My paltry 7-day hike felt like child’s play!

The journey home was wonderfully uneventful. All public transport connections worked.

A couple of socio/theological podcasts from Joel passed the time and challenged the little grey cells.

9 a.m. us to Barnstable. Train to Exeter St David’s. Train from Exeter to Weston-Super-Mare, and the 125 bus to the bus stop outside my house.

Home by 2.30.

Le finis.

Supplementary Notes and Thanks.

1. WhatsApp texts – thank you to all those who sent texts, it’s always good to hear from friends and family when you’re tackling something solo.

2. Chess – thank you, Jon, for a long-running chess match on Chess.com

3. Encounter Holidays & Luggage Transfer – thank you for organising everything on my behalf. All worked very smoothly. All the hosts and the accommodation were excellent.

4. Strava and Garmin Forerunner watch. I left the charging cable for the watch in Chagford, but my iPhone 7 kept a record using Strava directly, so no data was lost!

5. BBC weather forecasts were pretty well on the money: temp, wind direction, rain. Vital when planning what to include in each day’s rucksack and best route variations from the official Two Moors route.

6. Cicerone 1:25000 map booklet – invaluable, and the Sue Viccars guidebook.

7. My trusty compass – now 40 years old and good as new. Rescued me on a few occasions.

8. Boots – not sure what to say. With Scholl insoles, I suffered no blisters and was comfortable walking. But waterproof they were not. Overall, though, I’d rather be comfortable with no blisters than bone dry and rubbed raw.

9. Satellites and t’internet. The age we live in. True remoteness is unknown unless one leaves one’s mobile at home. Of the above 8 thank yous, 4 required the Internet.

10. Socks, or sox as my sister insists on calling them. I had 4 pairs of thick Merino wool walking socks. By the end, they honked. Perhaps I could have washed two pairs in Chagford and attached them to the rucksack to dry the following day?

11. Navigation – my steep learning curve. I thank God for at least one angelic rescue mission on Day 2.

12. Highlight? Dartmoor, and, in particular, looking down from Hameldown Tor on the impressive Grimspound stone circle, almost 200m in diameter. And the road sign to Lynmouth at the end.

Walking The Two Moors Way Coast to Coast Wembury to Lynmouth Days 5&6

Two Moors : Day 5, Chagford to Morchard Road

Official route: 29km (18miles) in 7-8 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 33.5km in 7hr; elapsed time 9hr30min.

Ps 86-88

‘Preserve my soul, for I am holy’ Ps86v2

Disturbing to think of oneself as ‘holy’. Made me think. Perhaps it’s off-putting due to the risk of confusing ‘holy’ with ‘holier than thou’ and offends our British sense of over-developed modesty? Rather than enjoy the biblical view of holiness that God created us as precious in His sight, and set us apart (the true meaning of ‘holy’) for communion, or relationship with God as our loving heavenly Father, we recoil somewhat from the word holy. I found myself exploring this tension during today’s walk. Jesus’s version of holiness in Himself is almost irresistible - think of the crowds that followed him - and compares favourably with the straitlaced version of holiness we’ve come to associate with Puritans, or the Pharisees.

9.38

I left Chagford armed with a Pepperoni, sandwiches, and orange juice from Spar, and headed off on what should have been a 29km (18 miles) walk, but due to navigational errors, it became 33.5km (21 miles) and took 7 hours walking and 9 hours 30 minutes once stops for lunch etc had been accounted for; another long day.

The weather was perfect: warm, 15C in the shade, maybe 20C in the sun or higher, with a slight cooling breeze in more exposed places from the north.

The first section, to Drewsteignton, was relatively even with the winding path around the Castle Drogo estate providing some elevation.

I listened to Rachel’s latest podcast interview Believing In Young Faith, Series 4 episode 4, (Spotify) with Ellie, a very eloquent 13-year-old member of Youth at Saint’s, Rachel’s church in Hackney, East London. Excellent.

Walking through a wood, with distant church bells calling the faithful, I reached a T-junction with the amusing but unhelpful dual sign pointing east and west labelled as ‘Footpath’. Went along one for about 100m before feeling it wasn’t curving in the right direction and chose the other path, which eventually headed more or less north and eventually picked up a sign to Drew.

A pause in the bus stop in Drew before heading uphill towards Hittisleigh. Above Hittisleigh, a runaway cow sprinted up and down the lane, wild-eyed, and bothered by cars hooting from behind, urging the poor beast to keep moving. I was enjoying my pepperoni and sandwiches on the verge at the time, until the cow decided to run towards me. I stood up to greet my guest. Maybe it was the smell of the pepperoni, but I was very glad not to have to run up the lane with the cow and the hooting cars giving chase. All’s well that ends well.

7pm. Finally, I reached Morchard Road. Car park opposite The Devonshire Dumpling. Phoned for the prearranged lift from Morchard Road to The Old Malt Scoop Inn, Lapford a few miles away and a comfortable upper room up a metal fire escape on the outside of a barn conversion.

In the pub, three old men played pool, a dog wandered around looking for scraps, the owner’s son and girlfriend sat at a table chomping their way through pizzas whilst the owner, mum, flew around from job to job before sitting down for a chat for a few minutes in the armchair by a wood burner.

Steak and ale pie followed by chocolate tart and double cream. What can one say? I expected to lose weight walking long distances; the opposite has been the case.

Mental note: the room is ideally set up for a writer, with a good-sized desk, chair, and power sockets nearby.

Two Moors: Day 6, Morchard Road to Yeo Mill

Official route: 34.5km (21.5miles) in 8-9 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 35.64km in 7hr17min; elapsed time 10hr 10mins.

Generosity, going the extra mile, being helpful, and having time…were all evident from the staff at The Old Malt. I mentioned my craving for fruit during the afternoon: their response was to drive to the local shop and return with apples, satsumas and two duly named ‘thundernuts’, plums of the harder variety. Then, anticipating the long walk to Yeo Mill, the proprietor was up at 6am to prepare sausage and bacon sandwiches for breakfast, and ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch, along with the fruit.

All that enabled me to get walking by 6.44 am according to Strava.

A long walk ahead, 35.64km (22 miles), started with faint drizzle and ended in heavy rain.

The pocket-sized map booklet Two Moors Way, Cicerone, is invaluable for someone like me whose iPhone is too old to download the OS Two Moors app. Nevertheless, it’s easy to be beguiled by footpaths cutting across fields without checking the bearing and lose direction. See below. The official distance is 34.5km, and I know where I lost the extra kilometre, more in fact, as I took a shorter road to Black Dog.

In extremis, needing the loo, I knocked on the front door of a house, to be met again with kindness. I was invited in by a couple renovating their home. Treading over unfinished underfloor heating, I made my way to the loo; a T.O.B. (thing of beauty) with its overhead tank and old-fashioned pull chain. Offered a cup of coffee or tea and toast, I accepted a coffee and sat down with them to put the world to rights and be on my way after a life-saving kind act. Life-saving may be an exaggeration, but the alternative isn’t worth considering.

On to Washford Pine and on up to the small town of Witheridge with its pleasant open town square. Pub not open, but the drop-in centre opposite was open. £1 for a hot chocolate. The centre was fairly basic with a few older folk and me sat around chatting about the new housing changing the village into a town and other local issues. A couple also doing the Two Moors, Coast to Coast, then came looking very professional, with rucksack covers on, walking poles, jackets and hats.

We ended up criss-crossing over the next couple of days.

Off again. The early morning drizzle had ceased. I enjoyed the gentle descent through a tree-lined drive after Toll House Farm, south of Knowlstone.

After Knowlstone, the rain made a comeback, and I made a navigational error trying to cross Owlaborough Moor. A simple error. I followed the dent in the grass rather than checking the bearing and ended up half a mile to the west in long grass. My shoes proved no match for the wet grass, and the squelching from my feet competed with the sound of the rain battering my jacket hood for attention.

Eventually, I resorted to the compass and saw that I was heading west, not north. I turned through the 90 degrees and the map suddenly made more sense! The New Moor Plantation, a wood, was in the correct position!

An old roundhouse used as a cider press

By this time, the paper pages of the map booklet were stuck together, so opening them carefully whilst sheltering under dripping branches was difficult. A mile later, and wetter, I made it to the B3227 and found the eroded sign to the Permissive Path to Two Moors walkers and walked up to the next B-road and a road sign ‘Yeo Mill ½ Mile’. Happiness flooded my soul, and I sang my way for the final half mile to Partridge Arms Farm, to find a welcoming note sellotaped to the front door.

‘John, welcome. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to a drink from the bar and make a note. Your room is…I’ll be back at 7.30. Banger.’

Old furniture, hunting pictures and heads of kills on the wall, shiny brass and beautiful copper articles throughout, all adorn this wonderful house cum bar cum guest house.

‘Banger’ duly appeared. This is a lady with the energy of five men. Tasty veg soup followed by a cold meat salad and cheesecake with cream, all washed down with an Italian red, was a perfect end to a tricky day.

Banger swooped on my saturated boots and took them away to be dried overnight, and I retired to my room. Out like a light, I woke up the following morning.

Walking The Two Moors Way Coast to Coast Wembury to Lynmouth Days 3&4

Two Moors : Day 3, Scorriton to Chagford

Official route: 29km (18miles) in 7-8 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 33.16km in 6hr 48min; elapsed time 10hr 40mins.

‘Hear my Law, O my people…’ Ps 78v1

This has been very much on my mind. When arch-atheist Richard Dawkins is referring to himself as a cultural Christian, the universe seems to have taken a lurch to the left! I think what he means by this is that it has dawned on him that his sense of right and wrong, values, morals and the like, are due to the Christian heritage that has shaped Western, and specifically, English society over centuries into which he was born.

Over breakfast, and later, walking, I wonder about the value of enforced biblical literacy that my generation inherited either at church or via daily scripture readings in school assemblies, or the carols and hymns we sung. We had Christian names, of course. And it was AD and BC, not BCE.

The removal of such structures has ramifications; whether good or bad, I’m not sure. To ponder. And there’s plenty of time to ponder.

Full English breakfast, then exit at 9.02.

Less than 100m down the road after Tradesman’s is the disused Methodist chapel with its foundation stones dating to 1904. It struck me that many of the names adorning the stones were also on the WW1 memorial in the pub. How tragic that just over a decade after opening the church, so many of the young men were not to return. A body blow from which the shattered emotions of the returning injured and those unharmed barely recovered, leaving such an often unspoken wound, scarring the life and faith of many? I haven’t had a moment to write a poem, but this might be a good place to start. To try to catch the witness.

Lovely Holne, a small village, was next and the site of my first navigational error, ending up by Chasegate Farm. Thankfully, a footpath allowed me to rejoin the path. ‘Use your compass’ to check direction was a voice I needed to heed a few times today, including the next stretch after a riverside walk, up to Ash Tor. I caught up with a group of four 70+ on a circular walk, but another error saw them forge ahead as I did two sides of their triangle! Reaching pretty Ponsworthy with its gentle ford, I’m aware that, apart from the salutary experience of these errors, they add time and distance.

A runway horse at Jordan together with another minor map error, drew me up to the high moor above Widecombe in the Moor and a decent lunch break to cool off, remove shoes and socks, and take on water and food. And to text Joel to say that, despite the lower route through Widecombe being appealing due to tiredness and time, the high moor is calling.

Ten minutes later, I set off on the wrong path and find myself descending rapidly down to Widecombe, not on the high moor after all!

…an iced coffee in Widecombe…another moment of bliss

Ah well, at least I’ll see Widecombe, which I had wanted to. I had also been dreaming of a coffee earlier and, sitting outside the art shop having bought an iced coffee at the pub, I mused about the unexpected theme that it’s often the things that go wrong that lead to something better. In this case, an iced coffee in Widecombe. Another moment of bliss.

I decided to follow the lower road beside the East Webburn river instead of climbing back to the moor onto Hamel Down, but, on reaching Natsworthy Manor, the sunshine and the beautiful moor started calling again, so I climbed up to what I thought was Grimspound but turned out to be some way south; the rocks at Broad Barrow…another error.

Walking north along the correct path, I reached a ridge overlooking the huge stone circle I later realised was Grimspound, the site of my fourth or maybe fifth error of the day, then down to the road marked yellow on the map, at Firth Bridge. (It’s now dawning on me to look at the map more frequently, refer to the compass, take in the surroundings, and count steps). Nevertheless, I overshot the unmarked west turn on the road, but quickly turned back to enjoy the sweeping route across the moors until the descent towards Meldon Hill at Chagford.

It was now quite late, so I took a minor road to Chagford Inn to close the day rather than hobble round the official northern loop to Chagford Bridge. It would have been a hobble - my left foot was complaining again.

Weary limbs arrived at Chagford Inn at 7.30pm.

Room, shower, beer, perfectly cooked duck steak, good conversations with other guests in a delightful small beer garden, cognac, and an interesting conversation with a waitress about the origins of cognac from Armenia (!), then bed, and instantly to sleep.

Two Moors : Day 4, Chagford – a rest day

Suitably a Sabbath rest…on a Saturday. The Christian notion of Sunday being the Sabbath is incorrect. Any argument that links the day of resurrection with ‘The Lord’s Day’ reference in the Book of Revelation, thus shifting the Jewish Sabbath from Saturday (strictly speaking sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday), to Sunday, is pretty thin.

Coming back to the day off in Chagford, this was planned in advance. I felt, correctly it seems, that the body could do with a rest after three days walking, also, to provide time to write up the first three days, and do some washing!

Putting up a washing line across the small bathroom worked well, and various t-shirts were left to dry overnight Friday and through Saturday.

Saturday.

Some writing in the morning, then a wander round Chagford’s shops. A wine shop, called Jaded Palates, beckoned…I wanted to see if they had any Armenian Cognac. No, but the shopkeeper said, ‘Was that a Christian thing?’ - a strange comment I took to mean a reference to monks and brewing. That led on to an extraordinary discussion about ‘Organised religion v Jesus’.

To the Summer Fete

Perfect day for a summer fete!

In the morning, I had written a mini essay about the spiritual state of the nation following on from Ps78v1. All of a sudden we seem to be stretched between Islamist and far left demonstrations calling for a Palestinian State ‘From the River to the Sea’ ie the destruction of Israel, on the one hand, and Tommy Robinson’s flag-waving anti-Islamic, ‘Return to our Christian identity’ marches, on the other.

Into the gap has poured all kinds of beliefs, such as the ones expounded by the shopkeeper who somehow has retained a personal practice of blessing everyone who enters the shop. Her beliefs include the memory of water, astrology, and the Universe.

And next to Jaded Palates, the bakery serving coffee. I settled into some further writing there, sinking a couple of coffees and munching on a couple of cakes before heading to the very traditional Chagford Summer fete. So good to see Splat the Rat and other well-known stalls, a brass band, old cars and so on.

Back for a doze/power-nap/forty winks before a veg pie and red wine for supper, bed, and sleep.

Walking The Two Moors Way Coast to Coast: Wembury to Lynmouth, 117miles Days 0, 1, and 2

Two Moors: Day 0, travelling to Ivybridge

AS and I depart midafternoon on Wednesday, 27th May 2026, bound for a B&B in Ermington for me, and a shepherd’s hut in Ivybridge for AS.

In the evening, we headed out to The Ship Inn, Ugborough, only to find AS had booked Thursday, not Wednesday – a feature of this travelogue: mistakes, failures, and the like, paving the way for something better.

The ‘something better’ on this occasion was Turtley Corn Mill, Avonwick. Pulling into the car park, we were greeted by a peacock in full display. Two more peacocks and other large birds circulated amongst the guests as we sat down in the evening sunshine outside, with maybe fifty others enjoying good food and wine.

Conversation between two old duffers who’ve known each other for 37 years ebbed and flowed in accordance with a hidden rhythm developed over time, but deepened to include issues of the day, including charitable housing projects in Bristol, due simply to the extra time spent throughout the day.

Two Moors: Day 1, Wembury to Ivybridge

Official route: 26km (16.5miles) in 6 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 21.75km in 4hr 43min; elapsed time 7hr 3mins.

My B&B in Ermington, a few km short of Ivybridge, is a gorgeous detached family home with mature gardens front and back. Idyllic. I’m the sole guest. He golfs, she doesn’t. Amused me that early on in conversation, they passed to me Beryl Cook’s 30 Cakes to Eat Naked, with five nude cartoon figures eating tea and cake around an outdoor table.

AS and I are taxied to Wembury beach and set off at 9.53 on the first leg to Ivybridge, according to Strava. I walked the route two months ago, so map reading wasn’t required, though we did refer to it at times.

The forecast was 100% sun. This would have been true had it not been for one thunderstorm cloud travelling north at speed from the English Channel towards us, despite a ground-level breeze from the north. It took about an hour to reach us and dump its load. The sunshine soon dried our clothes as the storm passed by.

Lunch, at Nelli’s café in Yealmpton, nearly didn’t happen. In attempting to get out of his chair, A’s back locked. A curious sight seeing an old friend, folded over at right angles, like a book, stuck. Fortunately, he recovered quickly and straightened up, but a nasty moment.

A fellow Two Moors traveller, Damian from Leeds, coincided with us at the café. He, of the younger, stronger version of humanity, was carrying his clothes, work-related iPad and camping gear in a rucksack.

The walk across rolling countryside has many scenic spots, looking north to Dartmoor on the horizon as is the white scar of the China Clay excavations – also important for tungsten extraction (thank you, AS, for that piece of info!)

My favourite stretch, though, as before, is the gentle descent from Hollowcombe Cross to Ermington, passing through fields of llamas on a restricted path. They are curious creatures, slightly superior one feels, contemptuous of those with shorter necks.

Evening meal at The Ship, as booked.

SAUSAGES! In THIS weather?

Across the square was a van, John Stevens Decorator and Plumber; my alter ego evidently. The meal was spoilt slightly by a bustling waitress with a fog horn for a voice – an ex-librarian? She did give us something to laugh at with her apparent shock over A’s order of sausages: ‘SAUSAGES! In THIS weather?’ she barked before turning tail and scurrying off to the kitchen.

Two Moors: Day 2, Ivybridge (Ermington) to Scorriton

Official route: 26km (16.5miles) in 6 hours walking plus breaks. My route: 25.97km in 5hr 14min; elapsed time 7hr 50mins.

Each morning I have a set of physical exercises designed to ease up neck, shoulder, back, leg muscles, and I’m reading the Psalms set in the Book of Common Prayer in the old, Authorised, Elizabethan English. If physical exercises are designed to reduce physical stiffness, the Psalms and a set of prayers are limbering-up spiritual exercises for the heart. Occasionally, a verse seems to stand out: today’s morning Psalms: 71 &72

8.04.

On my own for the rest of the expedition.

The uphill slog through Ivybridge up to Dartmoor nearly started poorly. Having reached Ivybridge from Emington, I spotted a path I thought was the continuation of the ErmePlym trail. Something made me hesitate and ask a man out walking his dog. ‘No. That’s the wrong way. I’ve walked the Two Moors, follow me and I’ll direct you to where the Dartmoor begins’. Not for the last time, someone was in the right place at the right time to keep me on the straight and narrow!

The left foot had started to complain, so I took a break just after leaving Ivybridge at the sign for Dartmoor National Park. After a short break, removing my left boot, and drinking some water, it was time to carry on.

Up onto the moor.

There was a tangible sense of leaving one normality behind and joining the sheep, lambs, Dartmoor horses and their foals, cow pats, rabbit droppings, birdsong, and the general scenery of Tors and clouds scudding across the blue sky.

The long walk across miles of moorland on the uneven Erne-Plym trail irritated my Morton’s neuroma, forcing me to stop to remove my left boot more frequently than I expected, but it was a minor hindrance really.

The little, a disused pit, broke the monotony at 647 634, then on to lunch at the foundation stones of buildings at 650 657 before heading East to a point overlooking a beautiful valley with a ribbon of blue water running east to the Avon Dam Reservoir.

Descending sharply to the clapper bridge, I crossed over and found a good place to sink my weary feet in the cold, gurgling stream: bliss.

After that, a second navigational error.

The map showed the path heading NE. I failed to check the bearing along the path I followed and quickly ended up a kilometre or so to the south of my route. But the mistake did give me excellent views of the dam at the far end of the reservoir.

Lesson number one: check direction using a compass! One I would go on to relearn a few times.

I headed north, using the compass to find the path. But failed. Or maybe I didn’t! Later that evening talking to my next host he nodded sagely and said ‘I’ve often rescued walkers from that point; there’s no path there’. Then I made an error born from a befuddled brain and took the only decent path, even though I knew it was in the wrong direction thinking, ‘it must lead somewhere from where I can make a better decision’. I reached a junction of paths and felt quite lost and disoriented.

How you judge the following depends on your faith perspective

I prayed for help.

How you judge the following depends on your faith perspective. I hadn’t met anyone since the man with the dog in Ivybridge. Now, a man with a spotless white t-shirt, carrying a substantial rucksack appeared as if from nowhere, walking towards me from one of the paths. He knew where he was on the map and therefore was able to direct me. If that’s not an answer to prayer, I don’t know what is.

From that point on I followed the Abbotts Way, a bridle path, winding its way down from the moor to the ford near Cross Furges 657 665 and on to Scorriton.

Reaching Scorriton, I was very weary and sat on a shaded bench to cool off before reaching the Tradesman’s Arms at 4pm.

A pint of Dartmoor IPA in the garden chased the blues away. Also sitting in the garden was the chef, whose recommendation of the battered chicken I followed. Normally not a fan of batter, this was a thin version and didn’t dominate the flavour of the chicken.

And a cognac at 9 to finish the day following in the tradition started last year on the Camino with PS and a minor contribution to the pub quiz running at the time.

Evening Psalms: 73,74

St Peter – the final three rounds in the ring with Jesus, before the knockout punch

Probably the title should be And Then? But I wanted the title to give some clues.

The essence of this post is to say that what happened to Peter will, in some very different shape or form, happen to us…if we’re even half-serious about following Christ.

We like Peter because of his spontaneity, bravery, commitment, and his faith, but why do we also warm to him through his failures? He is the flawed hero. Even after Pentecost, he strayed and had to be called back into line by the Apostle Paul.

Round 1. The denial of Christ
Round 2. His view of the women
Round 3. The beach…and knockout

Round 1.

Peter, from love and devotion, said ‘Even if everyone is made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble. Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you’ Mt26v33,35. Jesus replied, I suggest, calmly and without rancour, ‘Truly, I say to you that this night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times’ v34

Jesus had exposed to Peter his fear, self-deception, and self-delusion.

Round 2.

Mary Magdalene and the other women with her returned to the disciples to report that they had seen the resurrected Jesus.

‘Their words seemed to the disciples as old wives’ tales, and they did not believe them’ Luke 24v11

Of course, Peter, despite his initial lack of belief, ran to the tomb to find it empty.

In Mark’s gospel, we read about the repercussions of this lack of respect from the men towards the women: ‘Later Jesus appeared to the eleven…and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe the women who had seen him after He had risen’ Mark 16v14

In Round 2, Jesus had exposed Peter’s (and the other male disciples’) lack of respect towards the women who had sacrificed a great deal, including their collective act of devotion to Christ, by talking spices to anoint the body of Christ, before dawn…whilst the men, no doubt, slept.

No wonder, Jesus’ opening word into the room after His appearance was, ‘Peace’

No wonder, Jesus’ opening word into the room after His appearance was, ‘Peace.’ The tension between the men and the women had just been disclosed and was out in the open. It would not be unreasonable, I suggest, to assume that after Jesus’s rebuke, Peter, and the other male disciples went over to the women and apologised. Sheepishly. (In another post, we might look at this same humbling process happening amongst the women followers of Jesus).

Round 3.

Peter, recognising Jesus, leaps out of the boat shouting, ‘It is the Lord!’ and they enjoy the breakfast that Jesus had prepared.

‘When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?’ John 20v15

As many have noted before me, Jesus asks him the same question three times to counter the three times Peter denied knowing Him. The final time that Jesus asked Peter was the knockout punch. ‘Do you love Me?’ Peter answers, if I may be permitted to use the old English, as it is so succinct, ‘Thou knowest’.

As I see it, Peter knew that his whole life and the future would now be wrapped up, not relying upon his own ability to love, or any deluded sense of his superiority to over women, or the other disciples, but on these two words ‘Thou knowest’.

The other apostle, Apostle Paul, would write a few decades later to the Galatians ‘…but now, after you have known God, or rather are known by God…’ Gal 4v9

Jesus had exposed the ultimate truth, that Peter could not rely on himself; in fact, he had not been created to rely on himself, or his faith, love, or knowledge of God as an autonomous individual, but flooded and sustained by Christ Himself ‘Thou knowest’ is all he was left with.

Barriers had come down. There was a sweetness amongst them.

The knockout blow was delivered with love, in a conversation about love for Christ, not a fierce rebuke or an emotional meltdown. Knowing everything that had happened since meeting Peter, Jesus’s final words are as it was at the beginning: ‘Follow Me’ John 20v19

I wrote at the beginning, the title for this perhaps should have been ‘And Then?’

My hunch.

After the ascension, the disciples were instructed by Jesus to return to Jerusalem and to wait for the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

We know that this period of waiting in Jerusalem lasted 10 days. There were 40 days after the resurrection before the ascension, and 50 days between the crucifixion at Passover and Pentecost.

My contention is this. Peter was unusually quiet. At peace with himself and with his fellow disciples and the women. In the opening verses of chapter two of Acts, we read: ‘When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all in one place in one accord’

Barriers had come down. There was a sweetness amongst them. And amazement looking back over the recent events since Passover, the resurrection appearances, but also the previous three years. Many recollections. All this was circulating among them, but their love for Christ, and obedience to His word is writ large in the following words: ‘The (eleven) all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women’ Acts 1v14

Peter is recorded as functioning in his calling to ‘feed My sheep’, but it was a very different Peter that stood up and initiated the election of Matthias to take Judas’s place.

We read that the number of the disciples, the women, and other followers was about 120 (Acts 1v15.

What happened next, happened amongst a group of disciples, men and women, numbering about 120, sitting and waiting in prayer:

‘And suddenly, there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then, there appeared to them different divided tongues as of fire, sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and started speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance’ Acts 2 v 2-4

What can we learn from this?

Just as Jesus exposed the truth about Peter, to Peter, He will do the same for each of us until any thought of reliance on our own powers or abilities, even our ability to love, as if we are an autonomous soul, is extinguished. We will lose every argument with Jesus…I hope. God is about maturing in each of us another Jesus, a photocopy. The New Testament put it like this, God is ‘bringing many sons to glory’ Heb 1v10 and, later in the same book, it says ‘let us go on to maturity’ 6v1. CT Studd, the missionary to Africa, put it this way: ‘I want to see Jesus running around in many black bodies.’

Also, that every generation, every believer, needs to receive what Jesus promised, ‘the baptism in the Holy Spirit’. True Christianity is not a man-made religion, propped up by good organisation and planning, but a spirit-Spirit operation, a true communion between God and man.

The two are linked, and the timetable for how these lessons dovetail is in God’s hands. Many years ago, I sought the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I had believed but seemed to lack the power that Jesus promised, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you’ Acts 1v8. I asked a trusted friend to pray with me. As he prayed, I heard the Lord in an inaudible voice tell me ‘Until you hand over these two areas in your life, I cannot use you in power’. It took months, maybe two years, to obey and go on to experience greater power.

Going to Church this morning?Religious Landscape in England

Source: Google AI

• 270,000 Jews live in England, of which 56% are members of synagogues. Weekly attendance figures of all synagogues are not available

• 3.8 million Muslims live in England, of which 25% attend the mosque regularly i.e. 950,000

• 46.3% of the whole population of England identify as Christian, but approximately 6% attend church services each week i.e. 4 million

• 36% of the population of England identify as having no faith

(in comparison: 1.5 million attend a live football match each week)

A question: if someone wanted to become a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Christian – what steps would have to be taken?

My hunch: most answers would concentrate on outward ceremonies - such as baptism, to become a Christian, and attendance at services.

My second hunch: the vast majority of English individuals, despite the long history of Christianity in England, the number of church buildings, and RE lessons in school, have no idea how to answer the question What is a Christian?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart…

With all my invisibles?
Even to love Marmite
Or Christmas
Or the curve of a breast
Or the thud of a rugby ball
Or, well…an endless list

It is what we do:
All things subside into
Quicksand
When love bangs on the door
Money drains away
Mental fortitude is breached

Nations abandoned
The fridge is cleaned
We are flung so far
From normal
To find ourselves
Floundering in a river of love

Without questioning
Its mystery source.
I once left all, and
Followed a stream to its
Unstoppable spring
Its subterranean invisibles

The carved-out cause
Of a riverbed
Of its carps and lillies,
Bends and gushings,
Quietness and dragonflies
All this life, not of itself

Just Beyond

Just beyond my flesh
And its fine hairs
Lies an atmosphere,
The scents of me,
And then?

And then there’s you
Empty of God, maybe
Or removing your shoes
Or metronome praying
Or altar kneeling

Can I touch you
My neighbour?
Is your door open?
Your food, my food?
Your air, my air?

If your nerves edge
So do mine
If you’re too bold
Or too loud
I shall wait

Until you turn for home
And smell the oregano
And taste the peppers
Filled with a light
Born from above

And just beyond my flesh
Lies an invisible person
The one you can’t see
The one I know partially
The me in me

And this me in me
Who knows God, rather is
Known by God, cannot hide
Behind flesh, but smells
All those breathing me

Be Worshipped in Heaven and on Earth

This week’s poem is a song. Not mine. But from Christian believers, survivors of persecution, living in Mozambique. But, of course, it IS a poem borne out of suffering. Cannot fail to touch our hearts.

Click the link below to listen.

Inamona

Inamona (Testimony ) - Music from the village of Mieze

Be worshipped in Heaven and on Earth
Be worshipped, Jesus
Be worshipped in the rolling hills
And the plains
Be worshipped in the bush and the bustling town

Worshipped, yes, worshipped, Jesus

He has saved me
My heart rests in you secure
He has saved me
I give thanks for the love of Jesus

I call upon you Yahweh
Come and soothe my longing heart
Holy Spirit come
Come flood my heart with light

I call upon you, Yahweh…

A Sermon for the then Prince Charles…and us

A sermon preached by Colin Urqhart almost forty years ago about the then-Prince Charles has come back to speak to me in 2026.

 To summarise: ‘Ever since his birth, every part of Prince Charles’ life has been a series of circumstances that have prepared his to reign. What he learnt, how he reacted, and acted has formed a character that he will bring to the throne when he reigns as King Charles. In the same way, everything we pass through in life prepares us to ‘reign in life’ as Paul puts it and that day, when, by His grace, we kneel before Jesus confessing He is Lord, to receive the crown of life’

A few days ago, I watched a YouTube reel of a Zambian brain surgery team. They had just performed a ten-hour operation on a 12-year-old girl, were exhausted…and yet…they burst out praising and singing, arms raised, clapping, rejoicing in the Lord…right there in the operating theatre with the girl, still anaesthetised, awaiting recovery.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1443186300782418

I reposted it on my FB page with the phrase ‘THAT’S church’ written above the video. It reminded me of Colin’s sermon - and a series of familiar bible stories

To see brothers and sisters in Christ rejoicing so freely, spontaneously praising and enjoying the Lord was moving, of course, but that’s not all. What struck me was that all these skilful men and women had spent years training, learning, maybe with a string of successes and failures, of strengths and weaknesses, of setbacks and flourishing…whole lives. Everything they had experienced in life had led them to be in that operating theatre performing life-saving surgery.

I only saw the hands lifted, the voices raised, the evident joy, but God saw the whole picture. God sees the heart; when the bible says ‘God SO loved the world’, it is not joking.

From there the following well-known bible incidents came to mind.

‘Get out of your country and from your father’s house and go to a land that I will show you, I will make you a great nation’

Abram, maybe as a child, heard God speak to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your father’s house and go to a land that I will show you, I will make you a great nation’. He had to wait many years, almost a whole lifetime, before the moment arrived and, ready or not, he left all that was familiar, all those years spent in his father’s house. That phase was over. He would never go back. Just like now, King Charles III cannot return to being Prince Charles.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, ‘I see four men loose; walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt, and the fourth man is like the Son of God’ Dan3v25. This is a true picture of the Christian life. Whatever circumstance we are in, there is the fourth man…and fire. I imagine these three being interviewed years later on a chat show, reminiscing about the greatest time in their lives; the audience eager to hear about the fiery furnace. But they look at each other. ‘It is the time we spent with the Son of God, what He said to us, things we cannot even begin to explain, but those moments prepared us to reign.’ Nebuchadnezzar promoted all three men; it was their lives after their time with the Son of God, reigning in Babylon, that they were full of.

Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars from his position on the hill overlooking the lake. He had told them to row over to Bethsaida. ‘Now about the fourth watch of the night, He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by’ Mark 6v48. Peter cried out, ‘If it is you, Lord, bid me come’, and we know what happened next. Sometimes, like the disciples, our worlds shrink when the wind is against us. You can sense the disciples, wet, weary, weak…all thoughts of the excitement of the kingdom, the adventure with Jesus, the baptisms, the miracles, the radical teaching, reduced to the perimeter of the boat and the waves, the sound of the wind, the struggle. And then they see a ghost! Terror grips them. Fear. The truth of their circumstances was undeniable. But it wasn’t the whole truth. Jesus had seen them straining at the oars and had come to where they were struggling. Not just their new friend, Jesus of Nazareth, the man whom they had followed, but the same man who had spent time in a fiery furnace. It is the Lord.

I was reminded that everything in my life had led to this point… true also for you reading this.

Whether we are facing a new call to leave the familiar and push into something new, or in a fiery furnace, or exhausted, can we learn from the Zambian surgeons? It is time to rejoice. It is time to sing.

(Watchman Nee once said, ‘the Christian life is wiping one's tears whilst holding onto the plough’. I want to add one thing: the plough is made of music and dancing and singing. Jesus once said, ‘the stones would cry out’, so ploughs and material objects, the sun, moon, and stars can all praise God.

Lastly, I thought of Paul and Silas. ‘But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening’ Acts 16v25. So much in life had led to this point, just like the Zambian surgical team, yet Paul and Silas in prison for preaching the gospel and causing an economic collapse (read Acts 16) and exhausted, prayed and sang hymns to God at midnight. It means the ‘middle of the night’, those hours where we can so easily be prey to fear, anxiety, unpleasant dreams, and thoughts…they praised God and a miracle followed on. But they would have praised whether or not a miracle was around the corner.

The sight of the Zambian believers singing from the heart in an operating theatre has encouraged me, in far-off North Somerset, reminded me of a sermon almost forty years ago, and a string of biblical passages that prepared others to reign in life…whatever story the outward circumstances might tell, the truth is that everything in our lives and what God has taught us, has prepared us for this moment. The fourth man is with us in the fiery furnace of life. He sees us when we’re exhausted, or in some form of prison.

Why not stand and repeat Psalm 148 with a loud voice? Please forgive my indulgence, quoting the old King James Version with its rich Elizabethan English. Enjoy the reference to dragons!

Psalm 148

Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights.

Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.

Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.

Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.

Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created.

He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.

Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:

Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word:

Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:

Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:

Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:

Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:

Let them praise the name of the Lord: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.

He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the Lord.

p.s. On my FB page, I wrote ‘THAT is church’. In this post, I am emphasising our response as individuals. In another post, I’ll explain why this is such a good picture of ‘church’.