Stuff You Dread

I used to have a cartoon, by the great Larry I think, which showed a vicar praying in his car parked around the corner from a house that one could only charitably describe as a slum property with disreputable and possibly criminal tendencies. The caption (unusual for Larry) read, "Please God, let them be out!"

I can think of a number of times when I've absolutely dreaded something - a pastoral visit, quite possibly, or a difficult interview, or a demanding service that would need careful and sensitive leadership - anyway, a situation to inspire a good deal of fear before the event. I've hoped against hope to find a reason why I don't have to be there, don't have to do that, only to find that the reality was nothing like as scary as I'd thought. "Why on earth was I so worried?" I've come away thinking.

Anyway, I'm inspired to write this by an occasion the other day that was in fact a good thing, and in the end a reassuring and encouraging (and happy) experience. It was a meeting I had worried about a lot, and my first instinct was to hide away from it or come up with any excuse not to be there . . . anyway, things didn't work out that way, and now I'm glad they didn't. Often the message God gives us at such times is simple and straightforward - "Just do it!"

The simple lesson so often not learned (by me, anyway) is - the stuff we can't face on our own, we can face with God. The stuff we can't do on our own, God lifts us up so that we can do. What we run away from, we never really escape. But, as I recall a poster saying, "You and me together, Lord, there's nothing going to happen this week that we can't face!"

So here's part of the problem, I think, for many a believer. We find it so easy to ring-fence the God stuff, so that it's all to do with churchy things, the hour on a Sunday, the contents of our stewardship envelopes, the hymns and anthems and prayers. We keep God in that place, and then behave as though the other stuff - real life, you might call it - is stuff we have to deal with on our own.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever we go in life, God is there already. We don't have to be fearful, for we are loved with a love that is more than enough for life's scary moments. The things we find it so hard to face or to psyche ourselves up for - God knows about them already, he's measured them and he's ready to face them with us. And as we learn to trust in him more, perhaps we'll manage to trust in ourselves more as well.