I made a mistake today. Just a little one, and no harm done. For a start, I dithered a little this morning trying to decide what to do; I’ve not been along the famous White Cliffs of Dover so far this week and that seemed a logical choice, especially as the wind is so light. Yes, in places it’s quite a precarious footpath and I often feel a touch of vertigo when I walk along it. But even though the views are quite magnificent I still felt pulled towards Deal, and to be honest, despite my encounter with the Christian guy in a motorhome, I felt there was something more the Lord wanted of me there. Funny how imagination works isn’t it? How about an attractive Christian woman to idle the day away with… I could cope with that! For sure I miss female company. Anyway with said thought at the back of my mind I parked up and walked along the seafront towards the pier. After a couple of hundred yards I began to feel a little cold as I only wore a short sleeved shirt in the glorious sunshine. Naah, I’ll survive a brisk walk for an hour I thought. No need to turn back for a jacket. You’ve guessed it now… that was my little mistake.
So I parked myself on a bench near the pier and started to daydream. Maybe an ice-cream, I wondered. That would suit the sunshine though not really the temperature. I deliberately left space and sat on one end of the seat to wait on the Lord. Last year in exactly the same place I had a very special God encounter when he filled every part of my being with a perfect peace. I began to doze, as best as you can listening to Christian stadium rock at high volume. ‘O Lord what have you got for me’ thinks this emotionally worn out ‘old’ man. ‘How about a beautiful blonde/brunette/red-head with a Phd in grief-counselling?’ That would distract for sure, but truth be told, I’m lonely and just need a friendly face to keep me company. A shadow passed across my half open eyes and I found myself wrenched from Bogota Stadium in Columbia all the way back to Deal Pier. Then I realised a wooden fork with attached chip was being presented with an offer to share a few. Always tempting, though I summoned up my reserves of self-control and accepted only the initial offering out of consideration for the guy’s lunch. Yes, of course it was my new found friend of yesterday. I must have spent the next four or five hours in wonderfully engaging conversation with this fellow widower. I shivered for all that time and continually regretted my laziness in not returning for a jacket earlier.
So then my picture today is of course Deal Pier and from a rather different perspective from normal expectation. And that about sums up our conversation. I love to talk about the Lord and his Word and my new friend was fully qualified and ready to do both. Over the years I’ve found that when you put any two Christians together and get them talking, they’ll always have at least a slightly different position on Bible interpretation. I’m sure we had much in common, but as always there were some areas with rather different understanding. I love it. It’s so important to be challenged to elucidate why we believe what we believe. Rather than just accepting things without thinking them through. That which is truly of the Lord will never be shaken.
Luke 24:45 ‘Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.’ (NLT)
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