Dealing with Disappointment

In my Bible reading this week, I was reflecting on different tests and trials that we could face in our Christian walk. One of these is the test of disappointment. What do we do when our prayers seem to go unanswered (like Daniel’s, in Daniel chapter 10: 12 - 14) or when promises are taking a long time to be fulfilled (like Abraham’s situation in Genesis chapter 16: 1 - 3) ? Daniel waited patiently and continued to pray. Abraham took things into his own hands and tried to work out his own solution to the disappointment. Another person might simply have got angry or wallowed in their disappointment with God.

In fact, Daniel’s delay was due to spiritual warfare; God had actually answered his prayer immediately. And Abraham’s delay was presumably because it wasn’t yet God’s perfect timing to fulfill the promise of giving him a son. Other people’s disappointment might even be because what they’re desiring or hoping for isn’t the best or isn’t actually God’s will for them. The test is whether we will keep trusting God despite disappointment or delay.

I was reflecting on that this week because of my struggle with a painful knee injury. It’s been two weeks and there’s been lots of prayer. While it’s no longer swollen and is definitely much better than it was a week ago, it’s still not competely healed - which means that it’s a cause of discomfort and inconvenience during this season of the leadership development course, where we frequently need to go up the three flights of stairs in Villa Rehoboth. People comment that it looks suspiciously “arthriticky” and tell me stories about their own knee surgery or hip replacement.

Yes, it’s disappointing that it has been kind of a handicap at the start of LDC. It’s probably getting better every day, but it's been slightly disappointing that the healing is happening slowly rather than quickly or even instantaneously. But Father, I choose to keep trusting You. I will continue to pray and to receive prayer. I will never doubt your love or your goodness. And I will continue to proclaim that You are a God who heals.

There are different kinds of disappointments in life, some greater than others. Big or small, the real test is whether we’ll continue to love and trust God anyway… because He deserves our love and worship for who He is, and not only for the things He does for us. I want to pass that test; I want to bring joy to God’s heart by trusting Him, even amidst life’s challenges.

Films with friends...

Well, even though our Spanish weather can't quite decide it's it's summer, winter or spring (it's warm and sunny one day, cold and pouring rain the next), the awareness that the leadership development course is just around the corner reminds me that we're already in mid-April and this is supposed to be spring. Time for a less wintery background to this blog.
Even so, yesterday evening was a little chilly and I found myself digging out the firewood again as we settled down to watch a movie together. I thoroughly recommend, "End of the Spear" - a story about how the gospel came to the Waoudani tribe (the Auca Indians) in Ecuador. You may already be familiar with the story of the missionaries who were killed by the Auca in 1956, and this is a very well produced film telling the whole story of that time, and up to the present day.

I have a new housemate for the two month season of the LDC. Or perhaps I should say an old housemate. Sue and I lived together for a year when I first moved to Spain in 2008; we adopted a street cat and raised a litter of kittens together.  Although she then moved back to live in the UK again, she stayed in our home during the 2010 LDC and now is back with me again for the 2015 LDC. The cats seemed to have got used to having her around again, and took turns to sit on our laps while we were watching the film last night. 

The rest of the LDC staff will be arriving in Spain over the next couple of days, and we'll be having a week of prayer and preparation before the delegates arrive the following weekend. Not pictured here are Trudie and Ana, the two wonderful staff who will be cooking for us during the LDC; that is truly an encouraging answer to prayer.

Living with a Russian…. or a Norwegian?

Today in the library, I happened to meet the English woman who, a few years ago, told me that she thought Teddi and Tobi's father might be her neighbour's Siberian Cat, Caballero Oscuro (The Dark Knight, on the left.) She herself now has a Norwegian Forest Cat called Sooty (on the right.) And I continue to have a Malaga Street Cat called Teddi (middle)…. but couldn't resist photoshopping him in with the two pure-bred boys. He looks so similar. Actually if you google images of black Siberian cat or black Norwegian Forest cat, they do look really like Teddi and Tobi. The photos of black Siberian kittens look really like Tobi did as a kitten.
Meanwhile, after Teddi's little brush with fame in mid-March, I continue to get the occasional email from someone who has spotted him on a website in New Zealand or Texas or Hong Kong!!

Living water or cistern water ?

This morning, reading in Jeremiah, I came across a little verse that evoked a lot of memories for me. In this Old Testament prophecy, God was reproaching His people for forsaking Him, the source of living water. They had also “dug their own cisterns” and replaced God with other sources of refreshing, other objects of devotion, other things that they thirsted after and filled their lives with. But God was warning them, through the prophet Jeremiah, that these were cracked and broken cisterns that wouldn’t hold water and ultimately wouldn’t satisfy.

It’s easy for us to judge the Israelites for their idolatry, but I’ve been around church folks and missionaries long enough to know that there are lots of modern ways for believers to do exactly the same thing. Church friends tell me about the many hours they spend watching TV, playing computer games or hanging out with friends, and lament the fact that it’s so difficult to have a regular quiet time.

In the missionary community, it’s sometimes a little more subtle. There the idol is often work. People spend countless hours doing things for God: reaching the lost, going to Christian meetings, working with the poor and needy... They may even spend time in the Bible, but that too is “work” - preparing to lead the next group Bible study or preach the next message. Somewhere along the line, private prayer and personal time with God have got squeezed out. Spritually speaking, they are “running on empty” and in danger of burning out.

I remember one of the first times I was studying Jeremiah, back in the 1980s, being struck by the thought that cistern water was probably fresh and living water in the beginning. No one deliberately fills their cistern with old, stagnant water; it only becomes stale when it lies for a long time without being constantly refreshed. And if the cistern also happens to be cracked, it won’t be very long before it ends up empty. I remember realising that living water is a bit like the story of manna in the desert: it has to be replenished every day, because old manna won’t sustain us.

I’ve always had a passion for the Word of God and have probably filled more than fifty journals over the years, with insights and application from my quiet times alone with God. I guess I’ll never completely be able to explain why I let that journalling slip for a few years near the beginning of this millennium. Maybe because I did know and love the scriptures so much that they felt part of who I am. It was easy to be conscious of God’s presence and to reflect on a scripture while I was walking the dog or doing the ironing.

But I remember my shock, that day in 2005, when God challenged me that I was “grazing,” rather than eating solid meals. “You’re living off cistern water,” He said. I was horrified. How could someone who loved the Lord and loved the Word so much settle for cistern water? But I realised it was true. So often, in my times of reading the Bible, I was meditating on insights that God had spoken in the past, instead of discovering and writing down new words for today.

Ten years later, I look back with such thankfulness that I bought myself a new notebook and got back to my habit of drinking and writing down "fresh water" every day. It has made all the difference. My dozens of journals are an encouraging testimony to the things God has taught me over the past thirty or forty years.... but what keeps those fresh is the fact that they are daily being mixed with new and living water.