A lot of things have changed lately. A new MP, new government, new Wimbledon champions, new European football cup winners…
In my life I have endured COVID – again - our son graduated, a dearly beloved aunt died. I could quote the hymn ‘Change and decay in all around I see….’ or the writer of Biblical wisdom ‘There is nothing new under the sun’, or my granny who used to say ‘All good things come to an end’… Thanks gran.
Change is inevitable. We age, science discovers, history uncovers, perception and experience mould us. The people we interact with come and go leaving marks, sometimes scars or kisses. To throw in another cliché ‘no man is an island’ … sorry that should be ‘person’… change for the better other times not.
Another Biblical text coming….. St Paul wrote ‘All things work together for good…. for those who live lives of love for God’ (the Message version)… How ‘life’ has treated us over time will, I guess, challenge how we read those words… If we have experienced only good things we may say a simple Amen. However I think I am safe in saying those carefree readers are very few. We all know pain, loss, separation, seemingly unanswered prayer, disappointment… do those things work together for good?
A gardening metaphor… Fruiting trees or bushes need to be pruned, roses trained, old wood removed, fading flowers deadheaded… painful (?) but for the plant’s long-term flourishing necessary. This is a good picture for some of the problems we encounter through life… I sense a but…. war, greedy landlords/ banks/ shareholders/ people, dementia, cancer, even covid… the fault in our genes… work for good?
The difference when read with a faith lens is God who is with us in the mess. Not remote in a gilded cathedral but kneeling beside us in the mud, weeping with us. The world is seeing a mental health crisis as we forget who we are in the eternal plan. Yet today thousands are remembering or discovering faith in a present, timeless God. Jesus, Immanuel.
Rev Paul Benney
Superintendent, St Austell Methodist Circuit