ENDURANCE

The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood;

the dearest of His children must bear the cross.

C.H.Spurgeon

Something happens in the spring.   As the flowers open and the birds sing I thaw out and my old friend pain gathers momentum determined to blight my day and remind me that I have to struggle on regardless.   Perhaps its the chill winds that suddenly bite when the sun goes behind a cloud and you've mistakenly stepped out in a tee shirt.     Thanks to the vagaries of our present weather systems you can get a heat wave in February then suddenly biting winds and a cold snap, the last defiant gesture in an otherwise mild winter. 

Back to the G.P. for a top-up prescription of the tablets that have wrecked my digestive system for over forty years and act like concrete on my elementary canal as the degenerative disease slowly increases it grip.

Sorrowful brown eyes meet mine.   Lovely boy!!!!!  He hands me a card which informs me there is  a "healing ministry" at a sister practice in another town.   Now did he have faith or what?   Incredulously I enquire "can this condition be healed" he replies "yes" his brown eyes still firmly focused on the doubting Thomas.   Lord knows I am a member of the 'missing parts club' and would have preferred healing any time rather than surgery given a choice, but having finally reached the stage when the remaining bits are essential to life it is very much a question of 'Thy Will be done' and I'm going home.  

Now the stress and strain of daily activity pushes me to an afternoon nap which is quite refreshing and then a 'sleepless in the city' night or is it just that I am waiting for the 'thief in the night' and don't want to be caught napping when my Lord turns up.

Back comes the usual condemnation.   "Your faith isn't strong enough"  I reply "Oh yes it is" perhaps my prayer would be "forget about me Lord save that little child with cancer or the young mother with leukaemia after all what is the point of keeping an old duck alive.  I have christian friends who have been through open heart surgery and then found they had cancer.   Please don't tell me they don't have faith, they work tirelessly to reach lost souls.     

Some are healed and they don't believe in anything other than their consultant who tells them "we are going to beat this"   How does the Lord choose between one child and another?     Looking on the bright side I would have to consider He is taking them home, saving them from something much worse down the line,  that seriously challenges the faith of a desperate mother.        

My faith gets stronger by the second as I see bible prophecy playing out knowing that I am rapidly approaching the summit and need more than an oil change.   Of course a touch of luxury might help.   The odd cruise or a couple of weeks on the Costa del Sol but if it comes to sin or poverty, I'll take poverty.   I just couldn't live with a guilty conscience or grab the lion's share in a world where there is so much injustice and many are starving.   I am certainly not a prosperity christian.   Yes, you can bless me Lord,  I'll just give it away.   The Lord said "blessed are the poor in spirit"  Well I am poor and am blessed with His Spirit, and certainly don't want the embarrassment of trying to get my camel through the eye of a needle.

I'll pop a few pain killers and take it easy for a few days after all it can't be long until I hear those blessed words "Time's up" or "come yea blessed of My Father"   The battle will be over and my little boat will finally beach on heaven's shore and the real adventure begins.

Meanwhile sickness will continue because the global powers are polluting the very air we breath,    the food and water we drink.   Our love affair with the car continues and pesticides are still sprayed on the land.   

Liza McKenzie (she of the pink hair) commented on "Going Underground" R.T.  apparently it is considered 'if you are not valued - you need to go'  suggesting that the film 'I Daniel Blake' is just the  tip of the iceberg.   With an ageing population how long before euthanasia creeps in the back door disguised as just another flu jab. 

We are called to carry our cross whatever that may be to the finish line.   We know without a shadow of doubt that when our eyes close on this world we open them in His Kingdom.

We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith,

to tear off the rotten branch of self-dependence,

and to root us more firmly in Christ.

The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.

C.H. Spurgeon