26 Nov “If you try to sleep through life, God will give you nightmares.”
26 November 2021
In a few minutes (1:00 p.m.) I’ll be on our LWF Zoom Bible Study Catch-up & you can still jump in!
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89477281917 Meeting ID: 894 7728 1917
But what I really wanted to share was something I read over the weekend that really set my brain in motion.
Some background…Dr. Bruce Charlton is a retired British Medical Doctor & university professor in fields of medicine & psychiatry about which I know nothing.
Suffice to say, he possess a powerful insightful intellect & writes as a Christian: I think Roman Catholic…being British he might be Anglican. He never says as far as I can tell.
He writes/publishes his “Notions” on line at his own website: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/ If you like a challenge…read a few.
His Saturday, 20th November post started like this: “If you try to sleep through life, God will give you nightmares.”
Now…that bit of proverbial (not from the book of Proverbs, but the same kind of thinking) wisdom has a point for Christians; and it is this: “this mortal life is for serious reasons of eternal importance – it is not just an arbitrary gap between birth and death to be whiled-away with the minimum unpleasantness.”
Dr. Charlton is spot on!
God grants our “three-score years and ten,” or more for many of us & has called us to occupy those years, months, weeks, days, hours & minutes for his eternal purposes as we live them out in the here & now. If we spend heaps of our time pretending “she’ll be right,” thinking “I’ll get around to it later,” maximizing pleasure minimizing pain, ignoring the spiritual realities we encounter every day, God will intervene sometimes in ways that are disruptive or distressing; or as Dr Charlton writes, “The harder you try not to care about spiritually-important matters; the more they will be forced upon you, sooner or later…” God will just give you nightmares…or worse. My father used to say to me when I was being particularly rebellious, “If you can’t listen you sometimes have to feel.” We used to explain “natural & logical” consequences to our children. God is the potter we are the clay & he will shape our lives for his purposes…whether we enjoy that process or not.
It’s never too late to adopt the urgency of the apostles & early church in knowing the truth that “…this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” (1 Jn 2:1-18) and living such that you & those around you in your circle of influence live now to live forever.
I’m going to be spending a heap of 2022 helping each of us toward that goal…the last thing I want is God to start giving us nightmares! Or any more than we already have.
See you in a bit…and in the Guide Hall Sunday.
Remember…as we move into Advent & then Christmas we won’t have a pre-recorded video option for worship BUT we WILL HAVE an enhanced audio & powerpoint option available on our website as soon as we can get it there.
God bless you all!
John
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