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Genesis 12, 17. But the Lord… What did Sarai and Abram know about the One God? Perhaps at this stage of their great adventure with God they did not know that God is abundant in mercy and that he acts on the behalf of people who trust him. They had been born in Ur were the moon was god, had travelled through a region ruled by clans and come out the other side of the desert into Egypt, where the sun was god. In both of these religions the god was feared, he needed to be placated, and sometimes bribed, but neither religion thought that the object of their worship would continue to care for them if they displeased him. The Bible is the record of God’s self revelation. He intended that humanity should know him and begin to understand what he is like. To do that he entered into alliance with people who would trust him. God caused other people to keep the oral records of what this alliance was like, what the humans did and how God responded. Later he caused other people to collect these records, and pass them on until they reached you and I and will reach our grandchildren. The story of how God responded to ancient people is a demonstration given by God to help us understand what he is like and what his true personality is. Sarai and Abram would be familiar with the notion that the gods must be obeyed and that they must be placated when angry. What they learnt after Sarai left the tent of the nomad and entered into the harem of the king of Egypt, was that God would voluntarily act on their behalf. God did not abandon these two people to the consequnences of a decion reached in extremity. He stayed with them and required no sacrifices to awake his compassion. This is an early example of the faithfulness of God, an older translation calls it the loving-kindness of God . Although they had felt helpless and afraid when they entered the mighty country of Egypt, they learnt (and probably to their surprise) that God would protect them, even in the Pharaoh's house. God did and does rescue his people from every power on earth, he turns our fear and trepidition into relief and gratitude. You and I can confidently call on the name of the Lord knowing that he hears our prayers and that he will bring us out of, or be with us in, every tribulation.

Interlude

Hello, this is just a note to the readers that I hope to continue the blog tomorrow, Friday. One of my young grandchildren had a high fever and breathing problems. I have been watching the baby whilst my son took the sick child to the urgent care. They are not home yet, and it is already almost 10 p.m. Greetings to you all, will try to continue the blog tomorrow. Jessie

Learning the nature of God

Genesis 12, 17. But the Lord…

What did Sarai and Abram know about the One God? Perhaps at this stage of their great adventure with God they did not know that God is abundant in mercy and that he acts on the behalf of people who trust him.

They had been born in Ur were the moon was god, had travelled through a region ruled by clans and come out the other side of the desert into Egypt, where the sun was god. In both of these religions the god was feared, he needed to be placated, and sometimes bribed, but neither religion thought that the object of their worship would continue to care for them if they displeased him.

The Bible is the record of God’s self revelation. He intended that humanity should know him and begin to understand what he is like. To do that he entered into alliance with people who would trust him. God caused other people to keep the oral records of what this alliance was like, what the humans did and how God responded. Later he caused other people to collect these records, and pass them on until they reached you and I and will reach our grandchildren. The story of how God responded to ancient people is a demonstration given by God to help us understand what he is like and what his true personality is.

Sarai and Abram would be familiar with the notion that the gods must be obeyed and that they must be placated when angry. What they learnt after Sarai left the tent of the nomad and entered into the harem of the king of Egypt, was that God would voluntarily act on their behalf.

God did not abandon these two people to the consequnences of a decion reached in extremity. He stayed with them and required no sacrifices to awake his compassion. This is an early example of the faithfulness of God, an older translation calls it the loving-kindness of God . Although they had felt helpless and afraid when they entered the mighty country of Egypt, they learnt (and probably to their surprise) that God would protect them, even in the Pharaoh's house. God did and does rescue his people from every power on earth, he turns our fear and trepidition into relief and gratitude.

You and I can confidently call on the name of the Lord knowing that he hears our prayers and that he will bring us out of, or be with us in, every tribulation.

Selling Sarai

Suddenly we don’t know Abram anymore. He is no longer the adventurous traveler following divine direction. Throughout scripture Abram is commended because he believed the promise God gave him, in spite of the fact that twice scripture says he was willing to sell his wife to save his life. Sarai was his half-sister, daughter of his father by a different mother, and way back when the earth was still young there was no shame in marrying your half-sister. This woman, 10 biblical years younger than himself, strikingly beautiful, had grown up in the same household as Abram. She shared his memories and knew the names of his relatives. He asked her to do him a favor and not tell anyone they were married in case he was killed and his wife treated as the spoils of war.

Famine behind him, danger before him, who can blame Abram for arriving at a deception that afforded both of them relative safety. The romantically inclined among us would prefer Abram to have declared that he would die rather than loose his wife, but a woman without male protection would be at the mercy of everybody, whereas a woman whose brother was a cattle herder traveling with his household staff was in a much safer position.

It happened as Abram had expected, perhaps he had not expected the future husband of his half-sister to be the Pharaoh, but it was to Pharaoh’s harem that Sarai was taken. Pharaoh bought Sarai by paying Abram with much livestock and many servants.

God intervened. He plagued Pharaoh’s household with great plagues and Pharaoh learned that the woman Sarai was actually the wife of Abram. Pharaoh believed himself badly treated and lied to. He sent Sarai and Abram away; Abram left, taking with him the payment he had received. In Pharaoh’s eyes Abram must have appeared as a scheming liar.

The action detracted from God’s reputation because although he rescued Sarai the two people who had obeyed and trusted God left the palace in disgrace.

It would be (and actually was, I am editing this page) to moralize about the half-lie and to moralize about Abram acting out of his own wisdom and not waiting to be directed by God. That's what I did yesterday.

Now I'm editing those remarks out. Why? Because teaching morals is not why the Bible was written. The Bible was rehearsed and written that we might know God. As a person grows in their knowledge of God they are able to consider what was moral and what was immoral about the actions of the people God associated with. As they are impressed with the kindness of God so their moral courage and self declared standards emerge.

Most Christians hold the same standards that were taught by their Christian parents and confirmed by reading of the Bible. But do all Christians know why they accept certain standards and morals? Can they explain those morals to their rebel grandchildren in an understandable way? Usually our initial shock and concern blocks out all efforts to talk reasonably with our children and grandchildren who are considering doing something we totally disagree with. Our job as witnesses on behalf of God is to passs on the stories in the scriptures and use those stories as the basis for choosing morals, preferably before the time for decision arrives. For instance if someone wonders aloud if a half truth is a lie, we can re-tell the story of Abram's half-truth and ask the person to reach their own decision about the difference between the whole truth and suppression of half of the truth. Hopefully then, their morals will not be what they were taught but what they adopted.

The Spirit of Jesus dwells in everyone who calls him Lord and Savior, it is by shaping our actions to be like his actions that we become people with standards of conduct. Therefore let us leave the moralizing for people like myself who, yesterday, came to the task of exposition late at night and chose the easiest way of explaining it.

Disappointment

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. (Genesis 12.2)

Abram had done what God directed him to do, he had left his family and his father’s house and gone to the place God showed him. And what happened? Nothing! Sarai did not get pregnant, he didn’t own any land, and after a time the very land itself stopped producing and there was famine in the land he had come to.

So Abram left the land he’d been told to go to. He went traveling on to Egypt,

We know the end of the story but Abram didn’t. What did Abram think as he journeyed away from the place he had journeyed to? We know Abram believed God; scripture emphasizes this. Was his faith mixed with disappointment that day, as he left the land behind and journeyed towards Egypt? We are told that he was apprehensive as he entered yet another strange country. He was afraid he would be killed and was thinking he would perhaps give away this woman who was his unproductive wife.

How does this apply to us? It certainly applies to me because for many years I was bewildered and disappointed.

Let me tell you about the disappointment, it is part of the reason I have chosen to think and write about Abram, to encourage myself. The best sermon a pastor can preach is the one he/she preaches to himself so don’t think it selfish of me to write for my own sake.

There has been a purpose in my life since the time I was six and half, it became a passion that possessed me, and it has been moderately fulfilled but not wonderfully fulfilled – hence the disappointment.

When I was six and a half I returned home from the service where I had become aware of Christ’s friendship. While my parents bustled about seeing to fires and food I went into the dining room alone and addressed the presence I had felt in church. “What a lot of happiness,” I said, talking about myself. A thought came into my mind with a clarity that caused me to know God had spoken to me. “There are a lot of unhappy people in this world, you must tell them about me so they can have the same happiness you have.” From that day on I talked of Jesus, and began preaching when I was 13 years old. In my teen years a picture was always in my mind, it was of the father of the prodigal son standing by his house looking down the road longing for his absent son to return. I began to understand that God suffers, I began to feel his pain and I became passionate and driven by my desire to tell people about Jesus.

David and I gave our possessions our time and energy to help affect reconciliation between God’s absent children and the Father who longs to make them happy. We had many moderate successes, but the numbers we reached were not the numbers we longed to reach, and for that reason we both experienced disappointment. We were so disappointed, that often we thought of ourselves as failures. That is why I wonder if Abram ever felt disappointment. I think of the promise God made to Abram that he would have descendants as innumerable as the stars, and I contrast that with the facts that when Abram was a hundred his wife gave birth to one son. Just one.
Philip, our second son, has been a great help in reminding me of the things David and I did together; the churches we served, the people we encouraged, the integrity and honesty with which David served. The disappointment is lessened and I begin to entertain a lot of hope. Because although the results of our labors (and I mean labors) were small compared to what some other pastors have had; perhaps in the same way that God gave Abram millions of descendants from only one son maybe the results of our labors will be more than we realize. David was content to do his best and leave the rest to God. I never was, I prayed and prayed to be made more effective and wept with disappointment because I wasn’t.

There may be other people out there who feel a similar disappointment about their own lives, hopes that weren’t realized, and dreams that didn’t come true. So I encourage myself and I encourage them. God kept on keeping his promise to Abram through Abram’s descendants, and through their descendants. God hears and answers our prayers and is faithful to the promises he makes. We haven’t seen the end of the story yet.

Getting better acquainted with The Divine.

It was dusk in the St. Louis ghetto; I was alone with my 5 year old in the old mansion that was being used for a Teen Challenge Center. David phoned to say that a young man was on his way to join the program and would I please admit him. Only 2 weeks in America and brand new to Teen Challenge, I didn’t know what was expected of me and the hasty explanation was that I had to help the young man recognize his own helplessness and God’s willingness to help him. All the Teen Challenge staff including both Brent the director and David the new director were at a church somewhere leading a service and would be home very late.

The young man came: over a cup of coffee he made it fairly easy for me to ‘admit’ him, by telling me that he was addicted and had been trying to kick the habit without any success. Someone had told him that if he came to Teen Challenge he could get off the habit. He concluded by asking me how we got people off. I explained that we didn’t but God did. “He helps people who call on him for help. Would you like to ask God to help you get off drugs now?” I asked in my still strong English accent and refined manner of speech. “Just talk to God in your own words.”

“Hey Man, I’ve got this habit and I want to kick it, and I’ve tried but it’s got a hold of me. This woman, she says, you can do something for me, so please, get me off if you can.”

I was shocked: calling God ‘Man’ was denying his deity: that was blasphemy!
The whole prayer lacked any sort of reverence. In Japan I’d heard God called Kami sama; in England we addressed God with many respectful adjectives before his name. I hastily ‘backed up’ the young man’s prayer by appealing to God by name and addressing him with reverence.

When the staff of Teen Challenge returned from the meeting they’d been leading they explained to me that ‘The Man’ was the name for an authority figure and that actually the title was quite respectful, for someone who didn’t know any other name for God.

Abram built at alter when he reached the place he was called to go to. Later he built another alter, further South, this time the record says that he called on the name of the Lord. He wasn’t the first man to do so, after Cain killed Abel there appears to have been a great silence on earth, until Enosh was born, “Then, says the Bible, men began to call on the name of the Lord.” ‘Call’ meant as many things in Hebrew as it does in English, but calling out to address someone, praise them or request help were some of the meanings.
So the inclusion of ‘called upon the name of the Lord,’ at the second altar but not the first may indicate progress in the relationship between Abram and the Lord. We older people know about that. Over many years we’ve proved that God is kind to all who call upon him and so we call more often now, and with more confidence. Like Abram circumstances threaten us, he was threatened by famine and hostility; we know that we are invited to call upon God for help. Lastly, was Abram ever lonely? He belonged to no local tribe, the language was different where he was to where he came from, and he had no sons to make plans with. Many older people are lonely; their family is far away, they do not live where they grew up, they miss old friends. Abram called upon the name of the Lord, and God watched over him and protected him. He will do the same for us

Making Connections With God

It is a long time since I read the book written by Svetlana, Stalin’s daughter, but I remember that while she was being raised in a country where all knowledge of God was suppressed she privately believed that the moon was God, and would gaze at this moon god out of her window. The people in the towns where Abram had come from believed the same thing. They built huge temples to the god Sin and worshiped the stars in the sky. Their gods were visible; they did not have to argue about their existence, Abram’s God was invisible.

The first recorded act of Abram after he arrived in the place he’d been told to go to, was to build an altar. The temples to the moon god Sin, were huge and impressive but Abram never built a temple. He built altars; four of them that we know about. The altars were low platforms of gathered stones. The platform needed to be quite big; big enough to lead a large animal unto it and then slaughter it and build a large fire so that the animal could be burnt and the smoke go up into the sky as a signal to God that someone on earth was worshiping him. It’s unlikely that this was a private ceremony, much more likely that the platform had to be big enough so that all Abram’s household could stand round and watch the offering being made. The altars would be considered sacred by other travelers and not dismantled. It’s possible that travelers would ask which god the altar was built for and would be told by anyone who knew that it was built to the One God, a surprising reply. How irritated other people would be at the suggestion that if Abram’s God was the only God then their god was not a god.

We who are Abram’s spiritual descendants, no longer offer burnt offerings, because Jesus has made one offering for all time, but we worship the same One God. Worship is our way of making contact with God. Like Abram, worship is our first priority and we mark all the stages of our life’s journey with acts of worship. We travel, says the writer of Hebrews, towards a city: the City Of God where he will be both light and environment, and all his desires for his dearly loved children will have become reality. Even when we arrive at the City of God we will still be offering worship. Then worship will be even more natural because we shall truly understand who God is, and what he has accomplished. Abraham will be there and all the generations will have become one generation. It seems a long journey, and we travel through some dry places but God who called us to begin the journey will be watching our progress.

Seeing God

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” ( Genesis 12.7)

There was a member of one of my churches who was blind. Blindness had come upon her late in life and so she hadn’t learnt Braille and was too old to risk falling and breaking a bone, so she stayed in her home, listening to the radio. She had a live-in housekeeper, and members of our church visited her often. She had been an active member before she lost her sight. The friends kept her up to date with news of the events in the congregation and she was mentally very bright. I used to take communion to her once a month. We always invited the housekeeper who I’m going to call Violet to take communion; she always refused, but said she would like to listen to the prayers.

Since Mrs. Grey didn’t need someone with her continually, I suggested that Violet might like to come to a Sunday morning service at our church. Violet replied, “Oh no, I could never do that.”
“Why not?” I asked.
In a matter of fact way Violet replied that she was a wicked woman.
“Makes no difference,” I replied, “Church is for sinners.” Violet looked at me strangely, and paused for emphasis. “Pastor, I mean wicked.” Now that was an opportunity to get all theological about the fact that we are all sinners, but I sensed Violet was trying to tell me something so I just kept quiet.
“I used to be young, and beautiful; that kind of wicked.” Said Violet.
“Well there’s a few of that kind of wicked in the Bible, I said, so why not come to church.”
“I can’t, said Violet, “most of the women in that church wouldn’t sit at a table with me, least of all share a church pew.” I knew that was true, the church I was serving at that time was an old well established congregation, most of the people attending were the widows of professional men. One of the problems with that kind of congregation is that they tend to confuse respectability with righteousness, most of them just can’t tell the difference. “But she’s good now, said Mrs. Grey, she’s been good to me, so I’m sure God’s forgiven her.’ My friends from the Assemblies of God would wonder why I didn’t start preaching that minute and put them both right, but I have kind of noticed that when a person is making their way towards God, it’s not always helpful to rush them. Besides I needed to do some converting of Christians.

It did cross my mind that if Mrs. Grey died Violet would be left without friends and perhaps no money. But unexpectedly it was Violet who died first, the cancer was advanced and she was no longer able to bear the pain when she finally went to see the doctor. I visited her in hospital and prayed for her, she thanked me. I went three days later, and she couldn’t wait till the greetings where over before she said, “Sit down, I’ve something I want you to know. Last night I couldn’t sleep for pain but I looked up from my pillow and there was Jesus standing at the foot of my bed, he was smiling at me.” Of course I believed her, didn’t Jesus speak to me when I was just a six and half year old child? Hadn’t I listened to story after story about Jesus speaking to people and people seeing the Holy City on the night before they died? It was just so scriptural that Jesus appeared to her. “Do you think you’ll see Jesus again?” I asked and she knew what I meant, “Oh yes, I’ll see him in heaven.” she said. Now it was time to help her get through the door, , now that she’d been welcomed. So I asked her, “Violet are you going to heaven because you’ve been good to Mrs. Grey?” She looked at me and replied, “I’m going to heaven because Jesus died for my sins.” She was through the door, safe home. If I’d been an emotional person I’d have cried for joy, but I’m English and have one of those stiff upper lips that gets in the way.

Why did God appear to Abraham? Was it because he’d been good and obeyed God by making the journey from Haran to Canaan? Or was it because God gives favors to people simply because he is good and it’s his nature to bless everyone who will let him get near them?

Impossibly small beginnings

Abram arrived in Canaan, and he was one man accompanied by his wife, his nephew and what we would call his household staff. He had probably lived in houses before, but now he lived in tents. He may have been a merchant in the past but now he is just a cattle breeder. From that one man was going to come two nations, both innumerable, plus all the spiritual descendants who were not Jews by birth but born of God by the will of God. You would have thought, wouldn’t you, that if God intended to do something that big, then he would at least have started with a group of people.

There’s a story that one man and his companions came to England to bring the good news of Jesus. They disembarked at Glastonbury in Somerset, and began the steep climb up the cliff. They rested on the way, at a place called Weary-all Hill. From the spot where they are believed to have rested you can see the land stretching far out into the distance. What an impossible task, just a few people trying to bring the good news to a whole country. But Christianity flourished in England, reviving again and again after successive invasions by people with no knowledge of God. Every town in Britain has a church and several Christian meeting houses and chapels.

We, the older Christians, have reason to be optimistic about our lives. The results of God’s blessing on Abraham were effective long after Abraham died. We do not know what consequences have come from acts of kindness or self sacrifice done because we believed God called us to do so.

Abraham was only one person when I called him, says God through the prophet Isaiah, but when I blessed him, he became a great nation.” Then Isaiah adds, “The Lord will bless Israel again, and make her deserts blossom” What you and I have to consider is not how to try and make Christianity powerful and popular, the only thing we have to ask ourselves is are we believing the promises of God and are we living faithfully so that God may bless us, and our descendants after us, and their descendants also. We have much to think about and a lot of people born and unborn to pray about.

No welcome, no cutting of tape, just getting there.

Abram took his wife and his nephew and all the people who were connected with him and set out for Canaan, and so he came to the land of Canaan (Genesis 12.1)

When David and I loaded our little boys, age just 4 and almost 2 and drove away from that little chapel building in the back streets of Leeds, we and all our family and friends were mindful of Abraham leaving behind the place where he had lived, and his relatives. We were eager to go because we wanted to spread the news of blessing. We wanted to tell people living in Japan that God’s intention for humanity was to bless them, and bless them again and again. Abram received the promise; we were among a long line of carriers of the promise.

My Father had prayed that there would be no bad thing happen to us on our journey to London. On the way (on the old A1) the car stopped suddenly and violently, the motor cyclists behind us had no time to stop and pitched into the car at speed. No one was hurt, I forget all the details about getting the car serviced on a Sunday, but I remember the explanation: The brakes had simply seized up because the car was brand new, and new cars sometimes did seize up until all the parts had settled down. (This was 1954, and our car was the least expensive kind that Ford made.) When we spoke by phone to my Father he was bewildered. “But I prayed that nothing would happen to you,” he said. Father knew very well that bad things happen to people who are trying to serve God. He said no more but I think (to use biblical language) that he was being warned by God. God was; in fact saying “Don’t expect this journey of theirs to be easy, glorious, or even successful.” Father never got ashamed or exasperated because we did not write home about mighty miracles and earth changing successes. Everyone else did, here they were spending ‘all that money’ (Actually it was ridiculously little) to re-experience the success that missionaries in the heart of Africa were having and we only wrote home with apologetic stories about little groups, and small beginnings.

So, I wonder, did Abram have difficulties when his band of people set out to go to a place that God had told them to go to? Or was it all simple. He traveled a route that bordered the Mediterranean Sea; .there was other families also making the emigration journey from Haran and from Ur. The route was fairly simple, traveled by merchants carrying imported goods. About 17 miles each day from one small settlement to another. No visible angels attended his way, and no celestial lights lit up when he reached Shecham and knew that he had arrived. There is a comfort in being able to say, “I did what God wanted me to do.” But there is also often a sense of anti-climax. What do I do next? Abram was to live in that country of Canaan, traveling from pasture land to pasture land, still trusting the God who spoke to him, and to become a blessing to all those around him. He was to continue the spiritual journey that had started with a geographical journey. His spiritual journey was to experience God in ways new to Abram. You and I are called to that same journey, Because we all have the opportunity of a spiritual journey, because for many of us our life is a spiritual pilgrimage even if we never leave the town where we were born: for this reason I write about Abram’s journey and hope you will write about yours. God had promised to give him the land, but it did not become his, God had promised to make his name great, but he was just a rich nomad, his wife was still barren, famines, and kings continued to threaten his existence. Abrams journey to Canaan had been made, did he sometimes look up to the sky in bewilderment and ask, “Is this all you want me to do, God?” He lived his life traveling around the place he had gone to, feeding his flocks and serving the One God and waiting, waiting, waiting, for God to keep the promise he had made to him. .

So how does this apply to us today? We have made the spiritual journey we felt called to make and arrived at a state of commitment and obedience to the One God, but nothing else seems to have happened, our lives continue changed from before but no wonderful climax presents itself to us. We are inheritors of the promise made to Abram but it seems that for a while all that is required of us is to stay faithful.
While we are moving around in geography another kind of journey is happening inside us: a spiritual journey. As we share our life with God that life becomes a pilgrimage, an inner journey, with land marks and characteristics that we remember but are not visible to anyone else. We journey in faith towards a promised future and the journey becomes a fantastic adventure of conversation with God, decisions made with him, actions done in his name and eventually praise that comes naturally and is happily directed toward the God of Promise. In a small way we are being Abram.

Go!

“Go!” Did you ever feel those words? I use the word feel because that is often how we hear God’s voice to us. We do sometimes hear in our minds, but more often we feel in our selves. We become aware of a deep unrest or an intense desire or a conviction that there is something we should do. After some time of enduring this awareness we stop and ask ourselves, “Is God telling me something?”

For David and me, “Go!’ meant go to Japan and live there, preaching Christ to anyone who will listen. For my son Dave, “Go!” meant go to New Orleans for a week and join a group of people who are repairing flood damaged houses. For the Christians in South Africa “Go” means joining a reconciliation group and praying and talking until forgiveness takes the place of hatred. “Go” has brought Christians from their lands to ours to tell us how we can be better neighbors to them.

It is an intensely exciting time when we first become aware of the command to ‘go’ and prepare to obey. Did Abram check with anyone to confirm that he was truly being divinely led and not following impulses? We are not told that he did, but his wife and nephew went with him, perhaps they had been told and had agreed that God was speaking to him.

Abram’s father: what happened to him? His father, who was named Nahor had once set out on the same journey to go from Ur in Mesopotamia to Palestine, but he had gone the long way round, presumably to avoid a desert crossing, and stopped half way. The travelers reached Haran in modern Turkey and stayed there. Abram’s father died in a place that was neither his homeland nor his destination. Why did he stop halfway? We do not know. But one thing I do notice is that not all the people who start out on a great adventure with God continue that adventure. Some who seemed most promising have now become most half-hearted in their involvement with God.

I remember her well, but not her name. She was living next door to a friend of mine and asked her how she could become a Christian. It was such a surprising change, this rather difficult young woman had suddenly become mature, (Yes she even irritated us all by doing a bit of preaching to us, who had been Christians for years) I remember her coming to my house to tell me that God had called her to care for orphaned children. I was a bit skeptical, she had only been a Christian a few months, and she had no training and no money to do the job. But with a few months there she was a Methodist deaconess living and working in a home for orphaned children. She stayed there, feeling fulfilled. , She had obeyed the command to ‘Go’ and from that day forward life became a great adventure.

How can anyone be satisfied with a life that is not entrusted to and involved with God? A life that is not tied into God must surely be empty. To never hear The Voice, or if it is heard to be afraid to obey; how sorry I am for those people. I so urgently long that they could stop and listen and not be afraid of God or of other people’s derision. So hard for those people who must depend solely upon themselves and their own good personality and wonderful skills - but all alone far from the Divine Being who longs to bless and prosper them.

Wynifred's journey

My Aunt Wynifred was the last of three (including the step-dad) parents and four siblings. Osteomylitis had devoured her bones and she told me that the doctor had described her back bone as ‘turning into chalk.’ The last five years of her life she was unable to walk. She sat up in her bed and watched television and read the newspaper and talked on the phone. This was her life and she felt useless. She lived in England where the local doctor made house visits, one day when the doctor visited her, Aunt Wyn asked him if there was any way she could hasten her death because she was a burden to her country. The visiting doctor sat down on her bed and explained something to her. He said,” I come from India, I and my parents worked very hard so I could get through medical school. My parents gave me everything they had and when I finished medical school they had no money left. I came to England to work because now I have to support my parents and I need more money than I can get in India. Whenever I come to visit you the National Health Office pays me a little money, I send a much as I can to my parents to care for them in their old age. To me you are not a burden but a blessing.

The National Health Service provided a home care giver who visited Aunt Win every day; gave her breakfast, made her bed, cleaned her room and cooked two more meals which were left on a tray by her bedside. When I visited Aunt Win the care giver told me. “I have two other patients, they grumble and weep and think I am their slave. Whenever I visit your Aunt she welcomes me, and speaks kindly. She has asked that my children sometimes visit her and is as proud of them as if they were her own children. My life is difficult just now and I feel that no one really cares about me, except your aunt, she takes a personal interest and prays for me at night. I don’t know what I would do without her.

I think my Aunt Wyn regarded her invalid years as a kind of pilgrimage, she had been walking with God when her spine deteriorated. She faced a journey into helplessness that was frightening. Like Abraham, she journeed in faith. Like Abraham she had a promise to sustain her; the end of her journey would bring her to God himself, and the realization of every good hope. In her own time and place she was being Abraham.

God bless you!

God bless you ! If you want to hear those words just give two quarters to the next person standing on the side walk, asking for money. That homeless penniless person has just prayed for you the most comprehensive prayer known to humanity. The Almighty has been asked to do you a favor, and it is very likely he will. This does not mean that you can buy the favor of Almighty; it only means that God answers prayers – especially unselfish ones.

With me in the elevator one day, was a woman and small child. We were in a hospital riding up to the children’s ward on the fourth floor. The child was wearing pajamas and was obviously a patient who had been allowed the only great adventure that patients can have – a trip to the gift shop. I was wearing a clerical collar. Suddenly the little girl was pushed towards me and the woman demanded in an urgent way, “Bless her, Sister, bless her now before she goes back into that room.” I didn’t stop to explain the mistaken identity but did what any sister friend of mine would have done; I put my hand on the child’s head, asked God to bless her with good health and salvation. The woman thanked me so heartily that her faith in God was evident and I’m quite sure he heard and answered that hasty prayer in an elevator.

What did it mean to Abram when God said he would bless him and make him a blessing? What does it mean to you and I that God is eager to bless us and make us a blessing? Well, because we are old it means much more to us than it would have done when we were confident young people. Now that we are older our friends and relatives are fewer and we meet only a few new people. We fear being a burden and rarely think of ourselves as a blessing. But God wants to bless all people, and he wants everyone to be a blessing to somebody else.

God blessed Abram in unexpected ways, even in the disappointment and trials of life God granted him favors. When he downright failed to talk things over with God and tried to sell his wife to save his life, God was around and his blessing took the shape of stopping what Abram tried to do.

Blessing means much more than ‘Long life, health and wealth’ because that narrows down the many ways in which God plans to show us favor. That is what blessing is – it is God giving us favors. Not because we deserve them but because this is what he intends to do.

Since showing favors is the very nature of God who can stop him. We can of course, by getting in his way, by distrusting him, by insulting him. When we have a right attitude towards him, as Abram did, when we are so trustful of him that we seek to bring our conduct into line with his instructions, then we have made our selves available to all the favors God grants. They are many. God had no age limit for blessing In Abram’s time and he does not in your time.

Can any good thing happen to the aged?

Can any good thing happen to the elderly? Being Abram means that we don’t give up hoping when we are too old to hope.

For years my passionate desire was to introduce people to Jesus in such a way that they would trust him with their whole lives. I lived with this desire daily, worked towards it and dreamed nightly of the joy I would have when people who did not know Jesus would learn of him and enter into the profound happiness he causes. It didn’t happen! My congregations were always full of believers and only rarely did someone unconnected with the faith come to the service, or even to the pastor's office. When all hopes of continuing my ministerial career had disappeared I gave up the hope. I found comfort in the fact that I had cared well for the people who already believed, giving them spiritual food from the scriptures. I told myself that I was a feeder of sheep not a fisher of men. Relinquishing my heart’s desire brought weariness into my life; sorrow and detachment became my daily companions. A very sick person, someone who had been called to the ministry and studied for the ministry but who was too sick to follow her calling, spoke to me unexpectedly. “Dreams are renewable she said.” With some relief I reflected that is easier to live with a dream that doesn’t have time to come true than to live in bitter disappointment. So I allowed myself to dream again. In that way I am being Abram, I am hoping, and praying and believing. It is true that the disappointment I felt on finally leaving the ministry without the fulfillment of my spiritual desire still hurts my heart but I would rather have a hurting heart than a broken heart.

Most of us who are older adults have hurting hearts. Some of the pain, like the sorrow that follows the death of our spouse will never go away; instead it accompanies us on our journey. The other kind of pain; disappointment about what we didn’t do and what we didn’t become – that hurt could turn into joy. Indeed many people have told me about such a thing happening in their lives. Write to this blog and tell us about it, we will publish your story in the blog.

Why is it possible that the grief of old age can turn into joy? It is possible because God always does the unexpected. Another reason is that God is still answering the prayers that other people prayed about us. A major reason is that God’s goodness is demonstrated when we are made happy. So I live like Abram and call Sarai my mother, and wait for my desire to be granted.

My four year old grandson likes to imitate adults; He overheard a conversation which he quickly repeated to me. “My whole life, said this four year old, I’ve wanted a silent dishwasher, and now I’ve finally got one.” Our whole lives are a lot longer than his, but ‘finally getting one.” That could happen.

Why did, why do, I so desperately long to introduce people to Jesus, because I want them to be as happy as I am, I know that when people know Jesus they do a lot of good and not a lot of evil. Leading one person to Jesus will not only make one person happy but will make that person’s community happier too.

When did God speak to you?

‘God had said’ that’s what it says in Genesis chapter 12.verse 1 – those of us who call ourselves Children of Abraham understand well what this means. Because the whole of scripture is about God speaking. He is always speaking, and in many ways; beginning with Adam, including Cain, continuing with Noah and Abraham. God spoke through the prophets, but firstly to the prophets, he speaks today through scripture, and Jesus is God’s word in a person.

Think back now, because you need to leave a record for your own descendants. How often have you known that God spoke to you? Through what medium did the word of God come to you? Through the scriptures? Yes. Through your spiritual leader whose words were addressed to a crowd, but you felt he/she was speaking directly to your needs and questions? Yes. Through the words or actions of a family member who drew your attention to valid needs and dreams and drew out the goodness of your human nature in service to them? Perhaps. Through a series of circumstances so unexpectedly arranged that you had to stop and ask yourself: ‘Is God telling me something?’ Perhaps.
Begin to write what happened. Write sketchily if you wish, like terse memos. Your grandchildren and great grandchildren need to know that you were not alone when you made the journey that they have to make. They need to know that you had a guide and that you were cared for and cared about by God himself. They need to know; because one day they may feel alone and have no map or guide to help them make the journey of life. They may wonder what is at the end of the journey and it is from you that they can learn that the destination will be worth the journey. Because, you know, they may be living in a jungle of city streets, or a desert of arid reason without faith.
Psalms talks about us hanging our shields on the walls of heaven – and that perhaps means that we will remember and tell and re-tell the way God was always for us and with us. So start now, write it down, I want to make a guess-work prediction that, as you write you will remember more and recognize more, you will be amazed because God has been with you like he was with Abraham and you were so harried and so busy that you scarcely noticed. Now that you have time begin to notice how often God guided you, spoke to you.
The good news is that you could live to be a 100 and it will help you to live well if you are mindful of how God has been good to you.
Tell us about God speaking to you on this blog site if you wish.

Being Abraham - a book for the aged.

This world is full of people who are journeying. All of them have a calling to be blessed and become a blessing. Like Abraham we live in hope and like Abraham we see only a partial fulfillment of that hope. Abraham’s life is already lived and his story well told. There are parts of his story that we can identify with, and in those parts we find an ancestor and a hope. Hope is what we need when there is no time left to start over again, and when our estimation of who we are and what we have done begins to be tarnished and chipped as we view it through the eyes of a new generation.

Abraham gave gifts to his other children but only one child received an inheritance. When David and I were very young, we were part of a group of young parents, who talked together after church. We all hoped our children wouldn’t inherit our weaknesses along with our talents. I remember how hard we tried to eliminate the inherited weaknesses, and how useless our efforts were. The absent minded father had produced absent minded children and the woman who was always late produced children who were always late. For better or worse our children, even the adopted ones, copied our weaknesses as well as inherited our talents.

The true inheritance was faith. But note this: it was not Abraham's faith they inherited, because everyone must believe for himself, but it was God's faith-keeping that was gifted to them, the faithfulness of God. God who continued to fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham in the lives of Abraham's children and great grandchildren. God is faithful, that phrase becomes a mantra as we look back at our lives: lives which will have an end but sometimes feel incomplete. The inheritance is sure and will not be eroded. God is great and God is good, he keeps his promises and will watch our grandchildren as they journey through the wide complexities of this world and a future we know nothing of.